I am interested in the people who lived in the St. Lawrence Valley in the 18^th and 19^th centuries, particularly under the British Regime. I want to determine the rules by which they lived, the images that shaped the way they perceived the world, and the power structures they created or suffered under. This curiosity has made me a historian of pre-industrial Quebec society. I began by studying how religious precepts legitimized certain conceptions of order. In the past few years, using documents left by other institutions, tribunals and educational institutions, I have tried to understand how social identities were formed, negotiated and mobilized.