Four years before, Louis Racine, when spasmodically practising law in Quebec, had been approached by two poor Frenchmen, who laid claim to thousands of acres of land which a Land Company, whereof George Fournel was president, was publicly exploiting for the woods and valuable minerals discovered on it.

The Land Company had been composed of Englishmen only.

Louis Racine, reactionary and imaginative, brilliant and free from sordidness, and openly hating the English, had taken up the case, and for two years fought it tooth and nail without pay or reward.

The matter had become a cause celebre, the Land Company engaging the greatest lawyers in both the English and French province.

In the Supreme Court the case was lost to Louis' clients.