"Women played an unusually prominent role in the history of New France. Aborignal women made essential contributions, including the powerful ones of the Iroquois culture, for strong wills to ruling the longhouse. The names of the French founders such as Jeanne Mance, Marguerite Bourgeoys, and Marie de l'Incarnation have come down even in history books which otherwise ignore the actions of women. Those dévotes dared too much, wrote too much, established too many lasting institutions, and were remembered too respectfully, to be shoved aside. As for the filles du roi, they wrote not a word. Yet they founded their own, living institutions in the little families that cut their clearings in the vast forests, then grew and roamed. They intermarried with others and produced, in time, a great part of the population of more than twenty million people of French Canadian background in North America today. The footsteps of all these women—bold or terrified, pious or lovelorn, as they embarked from their ships onto city streets or riverside paths—have echoed through the centuries. Their legacy is with us still. It is part of your history and mine."

  Women in New France, Canadian Historical Association Booklet No. 59. Ottawa: Canadian Historical Association, 1998