According to a book I read recently, Cardinal Richelieu looked on French colonisation of North America favourably, but on certain conditions. He envisaged a Nouvelle-France sprinkled with provincial towns dominated by monasteries and nunneries, fed and fuelled by a peasant class. New France would become dominated by a French cleric class dominating a peasant class, with possibly a fluid class of trappers and Metis-type halfbloods sloshing around in between. What if Richelieu's dream for New France had succeeded, even if only partially?