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Farming methods were crude, but the soil was rich and the habitant hard-working. Save in a rare famine year, he had in his fields abundance of wheat and oats, of corn and rye and the indispensable peas, and of fish and game and wild fruits in the river and forest at his door. Home-brewed ale and, later, home-grown and home-cured tabac canadien helped to pass the long winter nights. Every household was self-sufficient and self-contained. The habitant picked up something of many a trade, and developed a versatility which marks his descendants to this day. From the iron-tipped wooden plough, the wooden harrow and shovel and rake, to the spinning-wheel that stood beside the great open fire-place, the many-colored rug, the homespun linens and étoffe du pays, the wooden dishes, the deerskin moccasin, the knitted tasselled toque and the gay sash, all were his own and his family's handiwork.

The habitant had found comfort. He had not yet found full freedom, though the independent strain in his blood and the democracy of the frontier ensured him much greater liberty than is usually recognized, and there was always the safety-valve of escape to the lawless life of the coureur de bois. In the wider affairs of the colony he had little voice. King and governor and intendant made his laws, with some slight aid from a nominated council; yet his taxes were light, and if he did not make the laws, neither did they greatly circumscribe his daily life. The seigneur counted for more in his eyes than the king, but had only a shadow of the authority wielded by feudal lords in France: the farmer proudly insisted that he was habitant, not censitaire. The Church came closest. The missionary aims of the founders of the colony, the unwearied devotion of the Church's servants, the outstanding ability of some of its servants, notably Bishop Laval—America's first prohibitionist—and the barring of heretics, gave the Church sweeping and for a time unquestioned and ungrudged authority. After Colbert came to office, and throughout the French régime, the State increasingly asserted its power, controlling the Church in matters of tithes, the founding of new orders or communities, appeals from ecclesiastical courts, and many issues of policy, but the Church remained the dominant social influence in the colony.