The French language established itself permanently in North America with the foundation of Quebec City by Samuel de Champlain in 1608.
The migrants came from Normandy, Picardy, Aunis, Aquitaine, Perche, Brittany, Paris and Île-de-France, Poitou, Maine, Saintonge, and Anjou, most of those being regions where French was seldom spoken at the time (see article Languages of France).
According to Philippe Barbaud (1984), the first colonists were therefore mostly non-francophone except for the immigrants from the Paris area, who most likely spoke a popular form of French; and the following dialect clash (choc des patois) brought about the linguistic unification of Quebec.
According to Henri Wittmann (1997) (based on earlier work of his), the overwhelming similarities between the different varieties of Colonial French clearly show that the linguistic unity triggering dialect clash occurred before the colonists exported their French into the colonies of the 17th and 18th centuries; and that the koiné-forming dialect clash must have occurred in Paris and other related urban centers of France.
In any event, according to contemporary sources, the Canadians were all speaking French natively by the end of the 17th century, long before France itself outside its large urban centers.
Ordinary people, the Roman Catholic clergy, lesser merchants, and some members of the civil administration, the majority having been born in Canada, stayed in the country.
Rapidly, the new ruling elite planned its future for the French-speaking colonists, who were to be absorbed into the English-speaking society of British North America, but they were to be allowed the right of Catholic worship under the terms of the treaty.
The Quebec Act of 1774 granted many of the requests of the Canadians, who had been petitioning the British crown for the restoration of French civil laws and guarantees as to the usage of their language and faith.