2 8 IV. B. Miairo have tlie attorney-general call a case before the council and have it there adjudicated ; but the attorney-general did not always hold him- self at the beck and call of the intendant in such matters. Meulles on one occasion complained bitterly that this official had become " bold to insolence ", and that there was need of teaching him his proper place and duties.^ At the same time, there were a good many re- movals of cases from the lower courts to the higher in order to pre- vent delays or denials of justice. More definite were the special judicial powers of the intendant. He took cognizance, in the first instance, of all criminal cases of a serious nature, especially of treason, sedition, or counterfeiting, and of those in which the crown was supposed to have a special concern. He had charge of all contestations relating to trade and commerce, ex- ercising in this sphere the powers of the jugcs consuls in France.^ Disputes between seigniors and their dependents as to the nature and extent of seigniorial rights came, either directly or from the seigniorial courts, before the intendant or his subdelegates {suh- dclcgucs) ; and of such controversies there was assuredly no dearth, as the recorded judgments of the intendants show.^ In dealing with these cases the intendant was supposed to follow the terms of the continue de Paris, which had been prescribed as the " common law " of the colony in 1664; but some of the intendants allowed themselves a good deal of latitude in adjudicating cases.^ Talon, Raudot, Hocquart, and others strove earnestly to discourage litigation but without any striking degree of success, for the Norman habitant was usually combative in disposition.' The rather loose manner in which property rights were defined, moreover, often invited disputes.'^ No fees were charged in the intendant's court ; the suitors pleaded their own causes without the intervention 'of attorneys, and 'Meulles to Minister. November 12, 1684, Corr. Generale, 273. = " L'intendant exercjait la juridiction consulaire par lui-meme at probable- ment aussi par ses subdelegues ". P. J. O. Chauveau, Notice sur la Publication des Registres du Conseil Souverain (Quebec, 1885), p. liv, note. ^ These judgments are printed in Edits et Ordonnances, II. 423 et scqq. ' See ibid., I. 46, § xxxiii. See also the " Commission d'Intendant . . . pour M. Bigot", January i, 1748, ibid.. III. 75-76. The wording is, " juger toutes matieres . . . conformement a nos edits et ordonnances, et a la coutume de notre bonne ville. prevote et vicomte de Paris ". 5 As one writer has aptly put it, the habitant had " beaucoup de chaleur dans la discussion des interets prives, et de calme dans celle des interets publics ". Joseph Bouchette, British Dominions in North America (London, 1832I, I. 414, note. « Raudot in one of his despatches declared that " if all those who might avail themselves of their litigious spirit were allowed to bring lawsuits, there would soon be more suits in this country than there are persons ". Raudot to Pont- chartrain, November 10, 1707, Correspondance Generale, XXVI. 9-10.
