CHAPTER IV
THE COMMENCEMENT OF TROUBLES
It is difficult in the present advanced condition of all the arts and sciences which converge on the perfecting of our means of transport and communication to form an adequate idea of the toils, inconveniences, and perils encountered by those who in the seventeenth century attempted the task of colonizing this continent. To say nothing of the difficulties of land travel, the colonist, by the mere fact of crossing the ocean, placed a barrier of two or three months of perilous navigation between himself and the land that had been his home. To the dangers of the sea were added the yet more serious danger of infection on ill-ventilated and pest-breeding vessels. A ship coming to the St. Lawrence could in those days make but one trip to and fro in the year. It is easy to see, therefore, in how critical a position a colony would be that depended in any large measure on supplies brought from the other side. The wreck or capture of one or two vessels might bring it to the verge of starvation. Success in agriculture, again, can only be looked for where there is peaceable and secure possession of the land. If all the results of laborious tillage are liable to be carried off or destroyed at any moment by marauding foes, there is little encouragement to engage in that kind of industry. The population will, by preference, turn to the search for metals, or seek to trade in articles easily marketed. Thus it was that, in the early days, the Canadian settlers gave themselves up almost wholly to hunting and fur-trading. Later, when the French government began to interest itself directly in the settlement of the country, strong efforts were made to induce the colonists to apply themselves to agriculture. Lands were conceded on condition that they should be cleared and cultivated within a specified time, failing which, they should revert to the Crown. The same condition applied to any portion of a grant remaining unimproved after the stipulated period. Under these inducements agriculture began to make a little headway, particularly, as we have seen, after the lesson given to the Iroquois by Tracy.
Still, there was too much hunting and too much trading with the Indians in the woods, as distinguished from legitimate trading in the settlements. Mention has already been made of the coureurs de bois. These were men who, instead of awaiting the arrival of the Indians at the posts of Montreal, Three Rivers, or Quebec, went out to meet them, in order that they might get the pick of the skins they possessed, and perhaps also get the better of them in a trade by first making them drunk. Two classes of coureurs de bois have been distinguished: on the one hand, the men who merely traded in the woods in the way described, and, on the other, those who attached themselves to different Indian bands, and lived the common life of their savage companions. This reversion to savagery had a great fascination for many of the Canadian youths; and, as it led to great moral disorder, the clergy were quite as much opposed to it as the civil governors. As a convert is generally more zealous than one born in the faith, so these converts from civilization to barbarism seemed bent on outdoing the original sons of the forest in all that was wild and unseemly. Like their bronzed associates they would sometimes spurn clothing altogether, even when visiting settlements, and would make both day and night hideous with their carousing and yelling.[13]
Frontenac had received from the king strict instructions to repress the coureurs de bois by all means in his power. The law against them was severe, for the punishment was death. One of the first things Frontenac learnt on arriving in the colony was that Montreal was the headquarters of these lawless men, and that not only did the local governor, Perrot, make no effort to reduce them to order, but that he was commonly understood to be a sharer in their illicit gains. It was further stated that he had an establishment of his own on an island, which still bears his name, at the confluence of the Ottawa and St. Lawrence, where his agents regularly intercepted the Indians on the way to Montreal, and took the cream of the trade. The king's instructions, it was well known, forbade any trading on the part of officials; but Perrot, whose family, as already mentioned, was influential, and whose wife was a niece of the late Intendant Talon, did not think that such a regulation was made for him. In passing through Montreal at the time of his expedition to Cataraqui, Frontenac had requested Perrot to see that the king's instructions respecting the coureurs de bois were obeyed. The latter promised compliance, but the promise was not redeemed. Frontenac at first thought he could get round the difficulty by appointing M. de Chambly as local governor for the district surrounding the Island of Montreal—Perrot's jurisdiction being limited strictly to the island—and thus establishing a kind of cordon by which the comings and goings of the coureurs de bois might be controlled. This arrangement was never put into operation, for the reason that, just about the same time, M. de Chambly received from the king the appointment of governor of Acadia. Perrot, however, accompanied him as far as Quebec, and this gave Frontenac the opportunity of placing under the eyes of the Montreal governor the orders he had received from the court, and urging him to co-operate in giving them effect. Again Perrot promised to do his duty in the matter, but with what degree of sincerity events quickly showed. He had hardly returned to Montreal when the local judge, Ailleboust, who had received personal instructions from Frontenac in regard to carrying out the law, tried to effect the arrest of two offenders who were lodging in the house of one Carion, an officer. Carion refused to permit the arrest, and was upheld therein by Perrot, whereupon the judge took the only course open to him, namely, to notify the governor-general. It was now mid-winter; but, without a moment's hesitation, Frontenac deputed one Bizard, a lieutenant of his guard, to go to Montreal with three men, effect the arrest of Carion, and bring him to Quebec. He gave Bizard at the same time a letter to Perrot, but instructed him not to deliver it till he had first made sure of his prisoner. The lieutenant carried out his instructions, so far as the arrest of Carion was concerned; but, before he could leave Montreal, Perrot pounced down upon him and made him prisoner in turn, asking him how he dared to make an arrest in the limits of the government of Montreal without first notifying him. The scene was witnessed by two prominent residents of Montreal, Lebert, the merchant, and La Salle, of whom we have already heard; and a report of the matter, attested by them, was despatched to Quebec. The choleric Perrot, hearing of this piece of officiousness, as he regarded it, put Lebert also into prison. La Salle, thinking the same treatment might be meted out to him, lost no time in taking the road to Quebec.
The rage of Frontenac at this open defiance of his authority may be imagined. Was it for this that he had come to Canada, to be flouted and set at nought by a subordinate officer? The worst of it was that there was no immediate remedy. The only thing to do at the moment was to summon the culprit to appear before the Sovereign Council at Quebec. But would he come? If he refused, Frontenac had no force to compel him. The force was all on the other side; the governor-general had but his body guard, whereas Montreal was full of men accustomed to Indian warfare, who would probably obey Perrot's orders, especially as there was a standing jealousy between Montreal and Quebec. At this point in his reflections, the count bethought him of writing a letter to the Abbé de Fénelon, Sulpician, of Montreal, who had accompanied him to Cataraqui, and with whom he was on very friendly terms, asking him to represent to Perrot what a serious thing it would be if he aggravated his former misconduct by refusing to go to Quebec. Rightly or wrongly, M. de Fénelon understood this letter as signifying that the governor, while desirous of vindicating his authority, was prepared to compromise the difficulty to some extent, and consequently gave Perrot to understand that, if he would obey the order to go to Quebec, the matter would in all probability be amicably adjusted. He offered to accompany him; and the two set out towards the close of January on a snowshoe tramp to Quebec over the frozen St. Lawrence. They arrived at the capital on the 29th of the month. Perrot at once sought an interview with the governor; but the discussion, far from taking a friendly turn, soon became extremely violent; and the result was that Perrot found himself in an hour's time placed under arrest.
The surprise and chagrin of the Montreal official may be imagined. As for the abbé, his indignation at what he regarded as a breach of faith knew no bounds.[14] Sharp words passed between him and the governor, and he returned to Montreal in a most agitated and rebellious state of mind. A few weeks later, having to preach on Easter Sunday in the parish church, he slipped into his sermon some observations which could only be construed as an attack on the king's representative. Speaking of those who are invested with temporal authority, he said—according to a summary of his discourse given by the Abbé Faillon—that the magistrate who was animated by the spirit of the risen Christ would be strict, on the one hand, to punish offences against the service of his Prince, and prompt, on the other, to overlook those against his own dignity; would be full of respect for the ministers of the altar, and would not treat them harshly when, in the discharge of their duty, they strove to reconcile enemies and establish general good-will; would not surround himself with servile creatures to fill his ears with adulation, nor oppress under specious pretexts persons also invested with authority who happened to oppose his projects; further that such a ruler would use his power to maintain the authority of the monarch, and not to promote his own advantage, and would content himself with the salary allowed him without disturbing the commerce of the country or ill-using those who would not give him a share of their gains; finally, that he would not vex the people by unjustly exacting forced labour for ends of his own, nor falsely invoke the name of the monarch in support of such proceedings.
In every sentence there was a sting. The last words referred to the expedition to Lake Ontario, and the unpaid labour of the men by whom the fort at Cataraqui had been constructed. The preacher, in fact, may be said to have summed up the charges which certain Montrealers were at the time making against the governor, and which the Abbé Faillon, swayed perhaps in some measure by sympathy with a fellow Sulpician, does not hesitate to say were well founded.
The church on that Easter Sunday was filled to its utmost capacity, over six hundred persons being present. Amongst these was the watchful La Salle, who, not only took it all in himself, but by his gestures and movements called the attention of as many persons as possible to what was being said, and its obvious import. It was not only the friends of Frontenac, however, who recognized the drift of the sermon, for the curé of the parish, the Rev. M. Perrot, said to M. de Fénelon as he came down from the pulpit: "Really, sir, you have entered into details which have caused me a great deal of trouble." Other ecclesiastics were affected in the same manner, amongst them La Salle's own brother, an ecclesiastic of the Seminary, who went at once to the Superior, the excellent M. Dollier de Casson, to tell him what had happened. The latter, in turn, foreseeing trouble, sent to tell La Salle that the Seminary had no responsibility whatever for M. de Fénelon's sermon, as it had not been submitted beforehand for approval, and no one had the least notion what he intended to say. The same communication was made in the most earnest terms to M. de la Nauguère, who was temporarily filling the place of governor of Montreal by Frontenac's nomination, with a request that he would convey the assurance to the governor-general.
The extraordinary thing is that the reverend gentleman who had caused all this trouble, when spoken to on the subject by the Superior, gave his word as a man of honour and a priest, that he had no intention whatever of alluding to the governor-general, adding that those who so applied his remarks were doing much dishonour to that high officer. The Abbé Faillon does not like to call M. de Fénelon's word in question, but he says that he manifestly lacked "one quality very important in a missionary, the prudence which directs the exercise of zeal, and keeps it within the bounds that circumstances require."
It was not only by this sermon that the Abbé Fénelon showed his lack of prudence. Madame Perrot had come out from France with her husband when he was appointed to the governorship of Montreal in 1669, and now that he was in trouble, and his case was likely to come before the king, she was anxious to get some testimonial from the people of Montreal in his favour. As to the kind of a governor Perrot had really been, we may safely rely on the judgment pronounced by the industrious author of the Histoire de la Colonie Française en Canada, who says[15]: "This governor contributed more than any one else to that fatal revolution which changed entirely the moral aspect of this colony [Montreal]. . . . The whole course of his conduct in Canada justifies us in thinking that when, in 1669, he decided to come here, it was in the hope of making a great fortune through the influence of M. de Talon, whose niece, Madeleine Laguide, he had married." The abbé goes on to explain that the Seminary (as seigneurs of the Island of Montreal) would never have nominated Perrot had they known his true character, and would certainly not have retained him in office after his character became known, if they had been free to act in the matter. What stood in the way was that, through Talon's influence, his commission as governor had been confirmed by the king, and that he had thus, in a manner, been rendered independent of the Seminary authorities. "From that moment," the writer continues, "he considered himself free from all control in the matter of the traffic in drink which he was already carrying on with the savages to the great scandal of all the respectable inhabitants. . . . It is certain that he himself gave open protection to the coureurs de bois, not only in his own island through M. Bruey, his agent, but also throughout the whole extent of the Island of Montreal. . . . In order to have, without much expense, coureurs de bois under his orders, he allowed nearly all the soldiers in the island to desert and take to the woods, without either pursuing them, or notifying the governor-general of their desertion." It may be added that, when some of the most respectable inhabitants of Montreal ventured on a timid remonstrance respecting the irregularities that were taking place, he assailed them in the lowest and most ruffianly language, and put their principal spokesman, who at the time was the acting judge of Montreal, into prison.
This was the man, then, in whose interest, when Madame Perrot could not get any one else to do it, M. de Fénelon undertook to go round the Island of Montreal, and get the inhabitants to sign a petition. The petition, it is true, only stated that the signers had no complaints to make against M. Perrot; but its object was to throw dust in the eyes of the court, and it is impossible to think highly of the candour of the man—elder brother, though he was, of the great Archbishop of Cambrai—who was the chief agent in procuring it.
It is not surprising, in view of these proceedings, that M. de Fénelon received an order to repair to Quebec. Before summoning him, Frontenac had carried on a prolonged correspondence with the Seminary at Montreal. He first of all required them to banish Fénelon from their house as being a factious and rebellious person. To save his brethren trouble, Fénelon retired of his own accord, and took up parish work at Lachine. Frontenac then asked for signed declarations as to what had been said in the sermon. These the Sulpicians declined to give, saying they could not be called upon to testify against a brother. "Then send down a copy of the sermon," the governor said. The reply to this was that they had no copy of it. For form's sake they consented to ask the vicar-general at Quebec, the highest ecclesiastical authority in the absence of the bishop, to request M. de Fénelon to furnish the original. The vicar-general did so, and the abbé promptly replied that he would do nothing of the kind; he did not acknowledge himself to be guilty of any misdemeanour, but, if he were, he could not be required to furnish evidence against himself.
These pourparlers consumed considerable time, as letters were not exchanged in those days with modern rapidity between Quebec and Montreal. Moreover, Frontenac took a slice out of the summer in order to pay a visit to Montreal at the height of the trading season, not impossibly with some thrifty design, though it is known that he attended to the king's business to the extent of capturing, through his officer M. de Verchères, no less than twelve coureurs de bois. It was not till some time in the month of August that M. de Fénelon appeared to answer for himself at Quebec.
To follow in detail the incidents of the abortive inquiry into Perrot's insubordination, and the equally unsatisfactory proceedings in the case of the refractory abbé, would be tedious and unprofitable. Two of the councillors, Tilly and Dupont, were appointed a commission to examine Perrot. The latter made no objection at first to answering their questions, but a few days later he took it into his head to protest the competency of the council to try the charges against him. The governor, he said, was his personal enemy, and the members of the council, holding office during his good pleasure, could only be considered as his creatures. The council disregarded the protest, and continued the inquiry; but on each subsequent occasion Perrot refused to answer any question till his protest had been duly entered in the minutes. One of his answers almost betrays a sense of humour. He was asked why he had not arrested the coureurs de bois who made his private island their headquarters. "Because," he said, "I had no jurisdiction; my government does not extend beyond the Island of Montreal." In other words, he had chosen a spot for his illegal operations where, in his private capacity, he could, so to speak, snap his lingers in his own face in his official capacity. Possibly it was an attempt on Frontenac's part to repay humour with humour, when he caused one of these very coureurs de bois, a man whom Perrot probably knew very well, to be hanged directly in front of his prison window.
During the summer a despatch was received from the minister for the colonies which somewhat disquieted Frontenac, and doubtless had some effect also on the minds of the councillors. In order to lay an account of Perrot's rebellious conduct at the earliest possible moment before the king, Frontenac had taken the unusual course of sending a letter by way of Boston in February, hoping that it might reach the minister's hands in time to be answered by the ship leaving in the spring or early summer. Colbert wrote under date the 17th May 1674, evidently without having received the letter, for he terminated his despatch with these words: "His Majesty instructs me to recommend to you particularly the person and interests of M. Perrot, governor of Montreal, and nephew of M. Talon, his principal valet de chambre." Nothing could well have been more awkward, considering that the person so warmly recommended was at that moment, and had been for months, in durance vile, as a rebel against the governor's authority, and indirectly against his Majesty's.
The Abbé Fénelon, when he appeared before the council, was more defiant by far than Perrot. He was told to stand up. He said, No, he would sit down, as he was not a criminal; and, if he were, he could only be tried by an ecclesiastical court. He was asked to remove his hat; to which he replied by jamming it harder on his head, saying that ecclesiastics had a right to keep their heads covered. In the end the council began to fear that the governor was getting them into trouble; and they consequently determined, in both cases, that they would confine themselves to taking evidence, and leave the court to pronounce judgment. This conclusion was not pleasing to Frontenac, who wished to have a distinct decision of the council in his favour. He, too, was "weakening," however, as we may see by his letter to the minister, dated 14th November 1674, and despatched by the same vessel by which the governor of Montreal—released at last after ten months' confinement—and the fiery abbé sailed for France. "I am sending," he says, "M. Perrot and M. de Fénelon to France, in order that you may judge their conduct. For myself, if I have failed in any point of duty, I am ready to submit to his Majesty's corrections. A governor in this country would be much to be pitied if he were not sustained, seeing there is no one here on whom he can depend; and should he commit any fault he might assuredly be excused, seeing that all kinds of nets are spread for him, and that, after avoiding a hundred, he is liable to be caught in the end. So, My Lord, I hope that, should I have had the misfortune to take any false step, his Majesty will be kind enough to sympathize with me, and to believe that the error was due to an excess of zeal for his service, and not to any other motive."
The tone of this communication, it must be confessed, is not quite what one would expect from a man of Frontenac's character and antecedents. It shows what influence at court counted for in that day. The letter was accompanied by a docket of enormous proportions containing the charges against Perrot and the abbé, and all the evidence taken in the course of the prolonged investigation at Quebec. He received replies both from the king and the minister. In regard to Perrot the king wrote: "I have seen and examined all you have sent me concerning M. Perrot; and, after having seen all that he has put forward in his defence, I have condemned his action in imprisoning the officer you sent to Montreal. To punish him I have sent him for some time to the Bastille, in order that this discipline may not only render him more circumspect for the future, but may serve as an example to others. But, in order that you may thoroughly understand my views, I must tell you that, except in a case of absolute necessity, you should not execute any order within the sphere of a local government without having first notified the governor of the locality. The punishment of ten months' imprisonment you inflicted on him seems to me sufficient; and that is why I am sending him to the Bastille for a short term only, in order to vindicate in a public manner my violated authority." His Majesty added that he was sending Perrot back to his government, but that he would instruct him to call on the governor-general at Quebec and apologize for all his past offences; after which Frontenac was to dismiss all resentment, and treat him with the consideration due to his office.
As regards Fénelon, he was not allowed to return to Canada; and he was censured by the Superior of his order for having busied himself with things with which he had no concern. At the same time Frontenac was informed that he was wrong in instituting a criminal process against that ecclesiastic, as well as in calling upon his brethren of the Seminary to give evidence against him. The king made it clear that he thought Frontenac had been unduly harsh and autocratic in his proceedings generally. It would have been well for that dignitary if he could have taken the admonition more deeply to heart.
CHAPTER V
DIVIDED POWER
If the king read carefully, as he says he did, the cruel mass of correspondence which Frontenac forwarded to him in connection with the Perrot-Fénelon imbroglio, he could hardly have failed to come to the conclusion that something was amiss in the state of Canada. Frontenac had begged, somewhat piteously, that he might be "sustained," and sustained he was in a manner, as we have just seen; but the king and the minister had their own opinion on the subject, which they only partly expressed in words, the rest they translated into action. Frontenac, from the date of his arrival in Canada, had been the only visible source of authority. Laval was in France, looking after the long delayed bull which was to raise him from the doubtful rank of a bishop in partibus to the full legal status of bishop of Quebec. Talon, too, had left the country a few weeks after the governor's arrival, and no one had been sent to replace him. The old warrior had, therefore, had things entirely his own way, and his own way had not proved to be the way of peace. To place matters on a better footing, the court decided on two measures: to reorganize the Sovereign Council, and to revive the office of intendant. The council, it will be remembered, consisted of four members and an attorney-general, nominated by the governor and the bishop jointly, and holding office during their good pleasure. Henceforth it was to consist of seven members, each holding office by direct commission from the king. The main object of the change was to enable it to act with more independence in the performance of its proper functions, which were essentially of a judicial character. A secondary effect, probably neither foreseen nor intended, was to augment the influence of the bishop, at the expense of that of the governor, through the operation of the natural law which inclines men to side rather with permanent than with transient forces. Frontenac was jealous from the first of the increased prestige of the council, and soon became disagreeably aware of the advantage it afforded to his ecclesiastical rival.
The council, as reconstituted, consisted of the four old members, Louis Rouer de Villeray, who received the designation of first councillor, Le Gardeur de Tilly, Mathieu Damours, and Nicolas Dupont, with three new ones, Réné Charlier de Lotbinière, Jean Baptiste de Peyras, and Charles Denis de Vitre. The attorney-general, Denis Joseph Ruette d'Auteuil, a man described by Frontenac a couple of years later as "very ignorant, and having such imperfect sight that he can neither read nor write," was by name reappointed to his office, with one Gilles Rageot as clerk. All these, holding their appointments directly from the king, were secure from removal by any lesser authority. The utmost the governor could do would be to suspend one or more of them for grave misconduct, subject to confirmation of his action by the sovereign. Another change in the judiciary of the colony was made a couple of years later. The king had, in the year 1674, abolished a court called the Prévôté (Provost's Court) of Quebec, which had been established by the West India Company for the purpose of exercising a kind of police jurisdiction, and making preliminary inquiries in certain cases. The royal idea at the time had been that it would be simpler to intrust the whole administration of justice to one court, the Sovereign Council. The enlargement and strengthening of the council, however, and the appearance upon the scene of an intendant whose views did not always harmonize, to speak very moderately, with those of the governor, somewhat altered the situation. There was a balance of powers; but justice itself would sometimes hang in the balance longer than was desirable. In order, therefore, to get as many cases as possible disposed of without troubling that important tribunal, his Majesty, in the month of May 1677, determined to re-establish the Prévôté, with power to judge, as a court of first instance, all cases civil and criminal, subject to appeal to the Sovereign Council. The court was to consist of a lieutenant-general as judge, a public prosecutor and a clerk. To these was added, by an edict of the same month, a special officer having the title of prévôt, with judicial functions in criminal cases only. It probably was not foreseen that the governor might play off the Prévôté against the Sovereign Council. That, however, is what happened, and as the lower court had at its service six "archers" or constables, it was able, when acting in concert with the governor, to accomplish an occasional tour de force.
The new intendant, M. Jacques Duchesneau, arrived at Quebec in the month of September 1675 by the same vessel which bore back Laval, in all the glory and power of full episcopal authority, to a flock from which he had been absent three long years. His letter of instructions mentions the fact that he had filled a somewhat similar office at Tours in France, and had acquitted himself therein to the great satisfaction of his Majesty. Research has been made without success to find out what the office was; we have only, therefore, to take his Majesty's word for it. Whatever M. Duchesneau's previous history may have been, he seems to have come to Canada with the determination to keep a very watchful, and not too benevolent, eye on the proceedings of his official superior, the governor. There was the strongest possible contrast between the characters of the two men. Frontenac was haughty, headstrong, and aggressive; Duchesneau, cautious, crafty, and persistent. When two such men come into conflict, it is not the cool calculator who suffers most, however he may whine (as Duchesneau did) at the high-handed proceedings of the other. Under the best of circumstances a governor and an intendant were not likely to work very harmoniously together. Courcelles and Talon did not, though both were well-meaning men. M. Lorin hints that Colbert sent out Duchesneau to act as a spy upon Frontenac.[16] The supposition seems to be a needless one. Duchesneau was sent out as Talon had been before him, to see that the intentions of the court in the government of the country were duly carried into effect, and in particular that the considerable sums of money which the king appropriated to the uses of the colony were rightly expended. It is possible that, had Frontenac acted with more judgment and moderation during the first two years of his administration, the appointment of an intendant would not have been considered necessary; but, in any case, the court in giving him a colleague, and thus relieving him of part of his responsibilities, was simply applying to Canada a system of administration long established in France, where, as a rule, every province had its intendant as well as its governor.
Duchesneau's instructions were certainly very clear as to the attitude he was to maintain towards the governor. He was enjoined "to be careful to live with Comte de Frontenac in relations of great deference, not only on account of the honour he had of representing the king's person, but also on account of his personal merit, and not to do anything in the whole range of his duties without his consent and participation." To secure concordant conduct on the governor's part, he was instructed in a despatch of even date to allow the intendant to act "with entire liberty in everything relating to justice, police, and finance, without meddling at all in these matters, except when they are discussed in the Sovereign Council." It is significant that in this same letter a hint is dropped about trading: not only was Frontenac not to trade himself, or allow trading on his behalf, but he was not to permit any one belonging to his household to trade. It thus appears that, before Duchesneau had even arrived in the country, the court had had its suspicions aroused as to the course the king's personal representative might be tempted to pursue in this matter. We may be certain that anything Perrot and Fénelon knew on the subject would be poured into the minister's ear, nor were they the only ones whose representations regarding the governor would not be of a friendly character. Villeray, the senior member of the Sovereign Council and the Abbé d'Urfé, a relative of Fénelon's, were in France at the same time. The former had been denounced by Frontenac in one of his earliest despatches as a busybody and a close ally of the Jesuit order; while the latter had been very haughtily treated by him in connection with the Fénelon matter, and had left Canada in high indignation by the same vessel which bore Fénelon and Perrot. It happened that, just about this time, Urfé's cousin, a Mademoiselle d'Allegre, was being contracted in marriage to Colbert's son and destined successor in office, the Marquis de Seignelay, so that altogether the influences which were operating against Frontenac at this juncture were of a somewhat formidable character. That his position should have been so little affected speaks well for his claim to personal consideration. It speaks well also for the spirit of equity which actuated the king in his relations with his officers.
A meeting of the reorganized Sovereign Council was held at Quebec on the 16th September 1675. It is this meeting which fixes for us as nearly as it can be done the date of the arrival of the bishop and intendant, for the minutes show that the former was present, and that part of the business transacted was the registration of the commission of the latter. M. de Laval lost no time in making his influence felt. The Abbé Fénelon, when arraigned before the Sovereign Council the year before, had demanded to be tried by an ecclesiastical tribunal, and reply had been made that there was no such tribunal in Canada. The bishop's first act was to supply this lack by establishing a court consisting of his two grand-vicars, Bernières and Dudouyt, and a clerk or registrar. The new court soon found work to do. A man was cited before it, upon information of the curé of Montreal, for having failed to perform his Easter duties. He appealed to the Sovereign Council, which at first showed a disposition to assume jurisdiction in the case, but in the end left it in the hands of the ecclesiastics. The bishop wished it to be understood that Canada was not France. Some encroachments of the civil on the spiritual power had, he said, taken place in that country, but "these were things to be guarded against in a country in which a Church is in course of establishment." Manifestly Laval understood the word "Church" in a very absolute sense, and meant to enforce his understanding of it if possible.
During his absence from the country the clergy had got into the way, either of their own accord, or at Frontenac's suggestion, of paying the governor certain honours in church which the bishop considered—correctly it appears—unsanctioned by precedent or usage. He ordered that they should be discontinued. A wrangle with the governor ensued, and the matter had to be referred to the king, who must sometimes have wondered whether the colonial game was worth the candles consumed in reading the colonial despatches; for his Majesty, no less than his minister, had often to prolong the work far into the night. The patient monarch replied that the governor had been claiming more than was his due, and more than was accorded to men of his rank in the provinces of the kingdom; he must, therefore, make up his little difference with the bishop of Quebec, by gracefully moderating his pretensions. Three years later there were still some differences of the same nature pending, for we find the king sending directions to the bishop to pay the same honours to the governor of Canada as were paid to the governor of Picardy in the cathedral of Amiens. Frontenac, on his part, was not to claim more.
The document which throws most light on Frontenac's attitude towards the dominant ecclesiastical powers—the bishop and the Jesuits—and on his estimate of their work and general policy, is a letter which he wrote to Colbert in 1677, and which must have been of a confidential nature.[17] "Nearly all the disorders existing in New France," he therein declares, "have their origin in the ambition of the ecclesiastics, who wish to add to their spiritual authority an absolute power over temporal matters." Their aim from the first, he goes on to say, was to amass wealth as a means of influence; and in this they have been extraordinarily successful. They have had subsidies from the king and charitable donations from individuals in France; they have obtained concessions of large tracts of the best and most valuable lands in the country; finally, in spite of the king's prohibitions, they have been driving an active and most profitable trade. In support of the latter statement he cites the names of a number of persons who have given him positive and detailed evidence on the point. He estimates the bishop's revenue from all sources at not less than forty thousand livres; and refers to the fact that he is erecting vast and superb buildings at Quebec at a cost of four hundred thousand livres, although he and his ecclesiastics are already lodged much better than the governor-general. He complains of the espionage they exercise through the country and in his own household; and says there would be no end to the story if he were to attempt to tell all that they have done to augment their influence through the confessional and by threats of excommunication. Instances are given of what the writer claims to have been their undue severity towards persons who had incurred their censure. If the bishop chose, he could do what he has always hitherto refused to do: provide the country with a reasonable number of parish priests having fixed positions. He has ample means for the purpose if he would employ them in a less ambitious manner; his main objection to doing so is that the erection of parishes served by priests not removable at pleasure would diminish his power and throw patronage into the hands of the king. So far the governor. It is probable that his impeachment of his ecclesiastical rivals did not fall on altogether unsympathetic ears; but Colbert, as a statesman, recognized power wherever it existed; and his only advice to the civil administrators was to hold their own as well as they could. In a despatch, written some years before, he had told Courcelles that be looked forward to the time when, with an increase of population, things would get into better shape, and the secular power assume its just preponderance.
Duchesneau himself, shortly after his arrival in the country, had a passing difficulty with the bishop, arising out of an idea he entertained, that, as intendant, he ought to rank next to the governor; and this wretched matter had also to be referred to the court, which promptly decided in the bishop's favour. From that time forward there was perfect harmony between the two, so much so that, on more than one occasion, the intendant drew down upon himself the censure of the court for what was regarded as his undue subservience to the bishop's views. One of the first matters regarding which he and the bishop joined forces was the policy of the governor in connection with the issue of hunting and trading licences. The law under which Frontenac had previously taken severe measures against the coureurs de bois was still in force; but the governor had felt himself justified in issuing a limited number of permits to responsible persons, authorizing them to carry goods to the Indians and trade in the Indian settlements. These persons became, in a certain sense, coureurs de bois; but as they went out by authority, and could be held to the terms of their licences, and as, moreover, they could be used for the purpose of obtaining information as to the movements and disposition of the native tribes, the governor thought, or professed to think, that he was acting for the best in relaxing to this extent the strict letter of the law. The bishop, on the other hand, objected to the system; in the first place, because the persons licensed carried liquor as part of their stock-in-trade, and, in the second, because it threw impediments in the way of the effective ecclesiastical control of the population. It was agreed that he and the intendant should both write to the minister, the one dwelling on the evils of the liquor traffic with the Indians, and the other on the infringement of the law. Duchesneau, we have seen, had been warned in his instructions to keep in close touch with the governor in all that he did; but he had not been three months in the country before, in a matter of the first importance, and one affecting the governor's own actions, he sent home recommendations of which his superior officer knew nothing.
The answer came back the following year. It was dated 15th April 1676, but seems only to have reached Quebec in September. The governor, by royal edict, was forbidden to issue permits under any pretext whatsoever. The punishment of contumacious coureurs de bois was placed in the hands of the intendant exclusively, as it was he alone—such was the reason given—who had official knowledge of the conditions under which the fur trade was being farmed out. Quebec, Montreal, and Three Rivers were at the same time indicated as the only places where the trade with the Indians might lawfully be carried on.
Frontenac was not at Quebec when this document arrived; he was at Fort Frontenac (Cataraqui), which was now in the hands of his friend La Salle under a concession from the king. Doubtless he was enjoying, not only his temporary freedom from the worries and vexations of office, but also the congenial society of a man, who, though much his junior, had, in common with himself, a large knowledge of the world, a keen and aspiring spirit, and a strong love of adventure. At Quebec the councillors were somewhat at a loss what to do in the matter of the despatch. Some were indisposed to register, in the absence of the governor, an edict which so directly condemned the policy he was pursuing. Duchesneau, however, did not approve of delay, and on the 5th of October the document was registered, and thus became the law of the land. When Frontenac returned to Quebec and found what had been done—that one of the first acts of the intendant had been to hand him over to the censure of the court, and that its censure had practically been pronounced—he was indignant beyond measure. He saw at a glance that, if the situation were not in some way retrieved, his authority and prestige in the colony he had been sent out to govern would be gravely compromised. The fall vessels were to leave in a week or two, so he sat down and wrote a despatch to Colbert which gave that able minister something to think about. The bishop, dreading lest the governor's reasons—he probably knew that Frontenac wielded a vigorous pen—might lead to a countermanding of the instructions, thought it well to send an envoy of his own to France in the person of the Abbé Dudouyt. Frontenac meantime so far complied with the edict as to publish an order requiring all coureurs de bois, licensed and unlicensed, to return at once to the settlements; though, according to Duchesneau, he nullified this to a great extent by issuing a number of hunting permits which were only trading permits in disguise.
So far as the sale of liquor to the Indians was in question, it is impossible not to approve, theoretically at least, the stand taken by the bishop. He would have suppressed it absolutely, if he had had the power. The thing, however, was practically impossible. We see the effect probably of Frontenac's representations on the subject in a despatch which the intendant received dated in the spring of 1677. He is told that he had yielded too easily to the extreme views of the bishop in regard to this matter. The bishop had spoken of the fearful effects caused by drink amongst the Indians, who maimed and murdered one another, and committed all kinds of abominations, when under its influence. Colbert is not content with such a general statement; he wants particulars; and instructs Duchesneau to find out how many such crimes can be proved to have been committed since he (the intendant) had arrived in Canada. Here was a very suitable piece of work cut out for M. Jacques Duchesneau, who was nothing if not a man of facts and figures; but there is nothing to show that he ever prepared the desired statement. The minister goes on to say: "The general policy of the state is necessarily opposed to the views of a bishop who, in order to prevent the abuse made by a few individuals of a thing good in itself, is prepared to abolish entirely the trade in an article of consumption which serves greatly to promote commerce, and to bring the savages into contact with orthodox Christians like the French. We should run the risk, if we yielded to his opinion, not only of losing this commerce, but of forcing the savages to do business with the English and Dutch, who are heretics; and it would thus become impossible for us to keep them favourably disposed towards the one pure and true religion." Colbert, it will be seen, had that judicious blending of the missionary with the commercial spirit which has been so efficacious in our own day in promoting great colonial enterprises. One or two other allusions to the bishop may be quoted: "It is easy to see that, though the bishop is a very good man, and most faithful in the performance of his duty, he nevertheless is aiming at a degree of power which goes far beyond what is exercised by bishops in any other part of Christendom, and particularly in France." Then, with reference to his attendance at meetings of the Sovereign Council: "You ought to try and put him out of love with going there; but in doing so you must act with the greatest prudence and secrecy, and take care that no person whatsoever knows what I am writing to you on this point."
The minister, it is evident, had hard work to keep his representatives in Canada to their respective spheres of duty. He opens his despatch to Duchesneau by begging him to mind his own business, and not in future recommend any military appointments, as he had done in a late communication. He wrote to Frontenac a few days later, cautioning him to keep aloof from questions of justice, police, and finance, observing that men in military command "are too apt to let flatterers persuade them that they ought to take cognizance of everything and look after everything." Touching on the drink question, he said that "if the disorders complained of are limited in number, and if the Indians are only a little more subject to getting intoxicated than the Germans for example, or, among the French, the Bretons," there was no need for drastic prohibitive measures; the irregularities happening from time to time could be dealt with by the courts. He was not to take ground openly against the bishop; but he was to see that the latter did not go beyond his proper prerogative "in a matter that was purely one of police." The Abbé Dudouyt had evidently not succeeded in winning over the minister to the bishop's extreme views. He must, however, have had more success with the king, for on the 12th May 1678 a royal edict was issued, dealing in a very uncompromising fashion with the coureur de bois question as well as with that of the liquor traffic. As regards the former, the previous prohibition, which, it was complained, had been rendered nugatory by the system of special permits, was renewed in all its force. The liquor traffic was equally condemned: no liquor was to be sold to the Indians under any circumstances. Colbert thereupon presented a memoir to his Majesty setting forth his reasons for considering a prohibition of the liquor traffic inexpedient, these being much the same as he had embodied in his despatch to Duchesneau of the preceding year. The result was that the king, without recalling his edict, ordered that the whole matter should be fully discussed in a meeting of the principal inhabitants of Canada, including the administrators and magistrates, and that a report of the proceedings should be sent to him for his information and further consideration.
Thus was the question referred back to Canada, and an appeal actually made, after a fashion, to public opinion. The meeting ordered by the king was held at Quebec on the 26th October. The persons composing it were chosen by Frontenac and Duchesneau jointly, and were beyond doubt as influential men as could be found in the country—nineteen in all, exclusive of those who attended in an official capacity. The sense of the meeting was overwhelmingly against the suppression of the traffic, and against the stand taken by the bishop in making a "reserved case" of the selling of liquor to the Indians, or, in other words, excluding from the sacraments all who were guilty of that act. Two of the delegates, the seigneurs of Berthier and Sorel, said that the prohibition which was then nominally, and to a considerable degree practically, in force worked injury, not only to trade, but to the Indians themselves. They could get all the liquor they wanted from the Dutch of Orange (Albany); and the Dutch rum was not nearly so good as the French brandy. The last time the Indians came to trade at Cataraqui, they had forty barrels of Dutch spirits with them, having laid in a supply owing to their apprehension that they might not be able to obtain any from the French. But of course they would cease coming to Cataraqui or trading with the French at all, if they could not get liquor. They denied that the drinking of brandy prevented the Indians from becoming Christians. Did not the Christian Indians in the missions near Montreal drink brandy? Yet they remained docile to their teachers, and were not often seen drunk—a statement which certainly might have been challenged. Others urged the argument with which we are already familiar that, if the Indians had to get their liquor from the Dutch and English, they would either imbibe heresy at the same time, or be left in their heathenism. Others again said that the disorders caused by drink amongst the savages had been greatly exaggerated, and moreover things of the same nature occurred among Indians who made no use of spirituous liquors. The "reserved case" was doing no good; on the contrary it was troubling consciences, and had possibly already caused the damnation of some inhabitants. Drunkenness, another delegate remarked, was not confined to the Indians. In the most civilized countries, where all were Christians, it was a common vice; yet no one thought of making a "reserved case" for the liquor sellers. One speaker went so far as to say that the Indians would never become Christians unless they were allowed the same liberties as the French, and that the clandestine sale of liquor promoted immoderate drinking. Robert Cavelier de la Salle was strongly in favour of the trade being left open. It was for laymen, he said, to decide what was good or bad in relation to commerce, and not for ecclesiastics. There had been but little disorder, upon the whole, amongst the savages as the result of drink. He thought they were less given to intoxication than the French, and much less than the English of New York. Two delegates were entirely opposed to the trade as being hurtful to religion, and the source of moral disorders. Two others thought it should be restricted to the settlements, and that no liquor should be sold in the woods.[18]