"Being necessary to create and establish a captain of militia in the Town and Island of Montreal, under the authority of its local governor, to exercise and manœuvre with army, and to put it in a better state of defence, in the event of an attack from enemies. We have appointed and do establish, the Sieur Le Moyne in the said position of captain, under the authority of its local governor, commandant of the militia of the said town and island. To whom we ordain, that he must be careful that he drills the said inhabitants of the said place as often as he can, and at least once or twice a month; to take care that they keep their arms in good condition; to prevent as much as in his power, that they trade or do away with their arms, and to execute all orders that we may give to him, being assured of his fidelity to the service of the king, of which he has given many proofs in numerous engagements, as well as of his bravery and experience in drill. This warrant is given to Sieur de la Nougère, present commandant in the said Town and Island of Montreal, that he may make the appointment known to the inhabitants of the said island, to whom we commend that they must obey in all duties appertaining to his functions, on penalty of disobedience, and we give him full power and authority to command the same, in virtue of powers confided to us by His Majesty. On proof of which we have signed these presents and have appended the seal of our arms and have further signed by one of our secretaries.

"Given at Quebec, the 24th day of April, 1674.

Frontenac.
"By His Lordship's orders,
B. Chasseur."

The Sieur de la Nougère, above mentioned, is M. Th. X. Tarieu de Lanaudière. The spelling of the period was not as hidebound as today. Frontenac's secretary spelled phonetically like so many of his contemporaries—a source of embarrassment to historians.

The difficult equipoise of neutrality, aimed at by the Seigneurs in the Frontenac-Perrot dispute, was rudely jolted on Easter Day, little more than a month later, in a most dramatic manner. The scene was the crowded Hôtel-Dieu chapel, then being used as a parish church, while the new parish church higher up the street was being slowly raised, and all the notables of Montreal were present at the High Mass. The celebrant was M. Perrot, the curé, in the absence of the superior of the seminary, Dollier de Casson, who was confined to his bed in the hospital from the effects of fever, after an accident on the St. Lawrence, when the ice having broken he had almost lost his life through cold from the long immersion in the water, before rescue came. The deacon was M. de Cavelier, La Salle's brother, and the subdeacon M. Rémy, the lawyer Sulpician. After the gospel, M. de Fénelon, the same who had preached the eulogium of Frontenac the year previously, mounted the pulpit. The preacher announced that he would speak on the Christian's double necessity, of dying with Christ, and of rising with him. Following the scholastic divisions of St. Thomas Acquinas he divided the life of man into the vegetative, sensitive and rational states. The sinful vices, destroying the vitality of this threefold life, must die in Christ and the new man must arise with Christ, purified and reestablished in his threefold life. In pursuing this second point the preacher entered into the details of the various dispositions that risen Christians of different conditions should manifest as a sign of the new Easter life in them. Turning to those vested with temporal authority, he said, "that the magistrate, animated with the spirit of the risen Christ, should have as much diligence in punishing those faults committed against the person of the prince, as he had of readiness in pardoning those against his own person...."

La Salle, who had been sitting towards the back of the chapel, near the door, and had listened with approbation to the familiar doctrine of St. Thomas, which as a Jesuit he had studied in his philosophical course, began now to show unusual interest in the preacher's application. In order to get a better view of the speaker, he rose from his seat. He saw that M. de Fénelon, a man who was known to have been in sympathy with Perrot and to have had trouble with his own patron, Frontenac, was treading on delicate ground and might commit himself. La Salle had, what journalists call, the reportorial instinct for "news." Besides, since the famous expedition of 1669, his relations with the Sulpicians were cold. As the preacher proceeded, La Salle's face flushed with anger, and casting his eyes around, he drew the special attention of several to what the preacher was saying. Among these was Jean Baptiste Montgaudon de Bellefontaine, the brigadier of de Frontenac's guard. Soon La Salle's gestures attracted the attention of the celebrant, seated in the sanctuary, to what was being said; but he shrugged his shoulders in return, as though to convey that no personal allusions were being made. The preacher had also noticed La Salle, "and changed colour," said Bellefontaine later in giving his procès verbal. The preacher went on: "The Christian magistrate should be full of respect for the ministers of the altar, and should not maltreat them, when in the exercise of their duty, they strove to reconcile enemies and to establish peace everywhere; that he should not make creatures to praise him, nor oppress under specious pretexts persons also vested with authority and who, serving the same prince, were opposed to his enterprises; that he should make use of his power to maintain the authority of the monarch and not to further his own interests; that looking upon his subjects as his own children and treating them as a father, he should be content with the rewards which he received from the prince, without troubling the commerce of the country and without ill using those who did not share their profits with him; and, that in fine, he should not harass the people with extraordinary and unjust corvées for his own interests, under cover of the king's name, who was unaware of their extent and that they bore so heavily on them."

These phrases were shortly afterwards attested to, in the official declarations of MM. de la Salle, Jean Baptiste Montgaudon de Bellefontaine, Jacques LeBer, de la Nouguère, commandant of Montreal, Rémy, and Jean Baptiste Migeon de Branssat, procurator fiscal of the seigneury of Montreal and others, before Commissioners Legardeur de Tilly and Dupont, sent from Quebec as the court of investigation which opened on May 2d and lasted for a fortnight.

To La Salle, every phrase appeared leveled at the conduct of the governor general, especially as the preacher was M. de Fénelon. Jacques LeBer testified that the curé, who came to visit him the same day, declared that the words of the preacher appeared to him so imprudent and out of place that he was very near intoning the Credo to cut the sermon short. Others saw in them only generalities within the legitimate sphere of a preacher. The Sulpicians took immediate steps to disclaim to M. de la Nouguère all responsibility for the utterance of one of its members. It was in no way authorized or foreseen, and Dollier de Casson left his sick bed to confirm this and to assure the commandant that M. de Fénelon should never preach again. They also wrote immediately to Frontenac a similar disclaimer. That afternoon M. de Fénelon, before his fellow clergy, gave his word of honour as a man and a priest, that he had meant no conscious personal allusion, but had spoken in general terms of all bearing authority. There is no doubt, however, that M. de Fénelon, though a virtuous and zealous missionary, had been "blazingly indiscreet." In his want of prudence, he had also but recently personally canvassed the householders of the Island of Montreal for signatures to a petition to be sent to court, on behalf of Madame Perrot, in which the subscribers stated that they had no complaint to make against her husband. The memorial was signed by many prominent men, such as Louis Chevalier, the syndic, Zacharie Dupuis, Sieur de Verdun and Mayor of the Isle of Montreal, Philippe de Hautmesnil, Picoté de Bélestre and others. Madame Perrot had previously approached d'Ailleboust to make the canvass, but the judge, already in hot water, was too wary. M. de Fénelon fell an easier victim, and his action was not calculated to prejudice M. de Frontenac in favour of his pretentious of absence of malice prepense, in his Easter sermon. La Salle communicated the details of the latter to Frontenac. On April 23d, in his anger, the governor wrote, ordering the Sulpicians to expel the offending preacher from their community. This they could not do, without a formal conviction of rebellion, as required by canon and civil law. M. de Fénelon, however, resigned from the "congregation," using his right to do so, as the Sulpicians was not a "religious order," and thus saved the situation. In this way, there was no acquiescence to any claim of jurisdiction of the governor general over ecclesiastics. M. de Fénelon retired to Lachine as a secular priest, and is reckoned one of the first curés of this place.

With the above letter M. de Frontenac sent out a set of questions to be answered by each of the Sulpicians. This was equivalent to giving evidence against M. de Fénelon in a civil court, whereas they claimed the right of trying such a case in a prior ecclesiastical court, according to precedent. They, therefore, refused, but later consented when assured that their information would not be used juridically. Commissioners Legardeur de Tilly and Dupont accordingly arrived at Montreal, and opened a court of investigation, beginning on May 2d.

On August 21st M. de Fénelon appeared by command before the Sovereign Council at Quebec. He came determined to protest against the competency of the civil court to try him, relying on the privileges granted by the kings of France. "Clericus, si cogatur ad forum laici, debet protestari," was an axiom of many jurisconsults of the period, such as Aufrerius, president of the parliament of Rouen. [123]

Among other privileges, a cleric summoned before the lay court, unless sent there for misdemeanour by his bishop, could reply seated and uncovered. On entering the hall of justice, M. de Fénelon, uncovered, made for a seat. The governor reproved him, and Fénelon quoted his canonical privilege. The heated head of the council then told him, he might walk out if he would not take the attitude ordered. M. de Fénelon demanded rather that M. de Frontenac should leave the council, as he was acting not as his judge and the head of the council, but as his opponent. The council, however, sustained the governor and M. de Fénelon was taken as prisoner to the brewery under the conduct of an usher.

On August 23d M. de Fénelon again appeared, presenting his protest in writing, and refusing to be tried till sent by his bishop, when he would give his reasons for alleging that the governor was his opposing party and was not acting as the president of the council. Again the recalcitrant de Fénelon went back to his prison. The council, however, began to doubt their power to try the case, and it sent to the king the judgment on M. de Fénelon, with the statement that there remained only three judges whom he did not refuse. Similar action was taken in M. Perrot's case. The unfortunate governor of Montreal had been kept a close prisoner since January 26th and had not ceased sending to the council protest upon protest, [124] refusing to accept his judges, and demanding, without avail, to have his case concluded and sent to be tried before the king in France.

In the month of September some of the council wavered and M. de Villeray refused to act against either, alleging that there was such a natural connection between the affairs of M. de Fénelon and M. Perrot that having refused to act in the case of M. Perrot, fearing to displease the late Intendant Talon, the uncle of Madame Perrot, who had given him his own nomination to the council, he could do not less for M. de Fénelon, and his reasons were accepted by the council. (Archives de la Marine, October 22, 1674.) Thus it was that Frontenac had to allow M. Perrot and M. de Fénelon to go for a time to France by the last vessels sailing in November. With them went Dollier de Casson, now broken in health and suffering from the loss of sight in one of his eyes since his fall on the ice, and M. l'Abbé d'Urfé, on important business to the country. The latter intended to complain at court of the vexatious conduct of M. de Frontenac in regard to the missionaries, whose letters to France he opened and to whom he handed, among those arriving for them, only such as he pleased. Perhaps it was knowledge of his intention, added to his displeasure at M. d'Urfé's friendship for Fénelon, that made the governor refuse to allow M. d'Urfé's servant to accompany him on the voyage. Thus the Montreal party sailed, hoping for redress in France.

At the same time M. de Frontenac, scenting recrimination, wrote, on November 14, 1674, to Colbert: "I am sending M. Perrot to France and with him M. l'Abbé Fénelon, so that you may judge of their conduct. On my part, I submit mine to everything that it shall please His Majesty to impose on me; if I have been found wanting, I am ready to accept the correction pleasing to him. A governor would be very much to be pitied, if he was not sustained, having no one in whom he can trust, and being ever obliged to distrust everybody; and when he should commit any fault, it should assuredly be very pardonable, since there are not wanting snares stretched for him, so that having to avoid a hundred of them, it would be difficult not to fall into one. The distance, too, from the court and the impossibility of receiving new orders, except after a long interval, make his faults necessarily no short ones. Thus, Monseigneur, if it shall have happened that I have made any false step, which may displease His Majesty, he will have the goodness to pass it over and to believe that it has occurred rather by an excess of zeal to do my duty and to carry out His intentions, than from any other motive."

But Colbert was likely to be sympathetic to the Montrealers. When M. d'Urfé arrived he was warmly welcomed by the minister, for on the 8th of February following, his son, the Marquis de Seignelay contracted a marriage with M. d'Urfé's cousin-germain, the rich and youthful heiress, the Marquise Marie-Marguerite d'Allègre, only daughter of Claude-Ives d'Allègre. The chosen intermediary in the marriage was also M. de Bretonvilliers, the superior general of the Sulpicians at Paris. Hence M. d'Urfé's mémoire on the conduct of M. de Frontenac, received by Colbert and communicated to the king, on April 22, 1675, brought from the latter the following series of counsels to guide the governor in his future conduct: "I have noted with attention," wrote the king, "all that is contained in your dispatches of February 16th and November 14th last, and to explain to you my designs and all they contain, I will tell you that in a feeble colony, such as yours, your principal and almost sole employment ought to be, to maintain and conserve all the inhabitants there and to induce others to come thither. You ought then to use the power I give you, only with the greatest moderation and gentleness, more particularly with regard to the ecclesiastics whom it is your duty to uphold in their functions, in peace and concord, without giving them any trouble: being assured, as I am, that they will never be wanting in the obedience due me, nor in their readiness to inspire my people with the same sentiments. [125] Although I do not attach importance to all that has been told me of many petty annoyances, given by you to the ecclesiastics, I deem it necessary all the same for the good of my government, to warn you of them, so that you correct what is amiss, if they are true. But my present order is, that you make known to no one, that I have written to you about them; and that even when the bishop or the ecclesiastics speak of them, you will not cherish any resentment against them.... They say, then here, that you are not willing to allow the ecclesiastics power to attend to their missions and their other functions, or to leave their stations without passports, even to go from Montreal to Quebec; that you cause them to journey to you often for very slight reasons; that you intercept their letters and do not allow the liberty of writing; that you have not been willing to allow M. d'Urfé's valet to cross over to France with his master; nor permitted the grand vicar of the bishop of Petrea to take his place at the Sovereign Council, in accordance with the regulation of the month of April, 1673. If any part of the things is true, or even the whole, you must make amends."

In a similar delicate strain Colbert wrote on May 13, 1675, adding that he wished Frontenac to pay some mark of consideration to M. d'Urfé, now that he had become allied to him as his daughter-in-law's first cousin.

The conduct of M. de Fénelon at Montreal, both for his sermon and his support of M. Perrot, was blamed, and caused a letter dated May 7, 1675, to be written by M. de Bretonvilliers to the Sulpicians at Montreal: "I exhort you all to profit by the example of M. de Fénelon. For being too much mixed up with the world, and with affairs which did not concern him, he has mismanaged his own affairs, and has done wrong to those of his friends, while wishing to serve them. In these kinds of affairs, which have regard only to personal quarrels, neutrality is to always be approved...."

The upshot was that M. de Fénelon was not allowed to return to Canada by the king, on recommendation of M. de Bretonvilliers. The criminal procedure instituted by de Frontenac was not allowed to proceed. A letter from the king to Frontenac, dated April 22, 1675, explains this: "I have blamed the action of M. de Fénelon and I have ordered him not to return to Canada. But I must tell you that it was difficult to institute criminal procedure against this cleric and also to oblige the priests of the Seminary of Montreal to testify against him; at least, he should have been left in the hands of the bishop or the grand vicar. Besides, the differences between you and the priests of the Seminary of Montreal are entirely settled and can have no consequences. As, moreover, the superior of the Seminary of St. Sulpice (M. de Bretonvilliers) has assured me that all the priests of his community, who are at Montreal, live in the respect and obedience due to me, and to your dignity, I desire that you forget all that has passed. Strive then, assiduously to reunite to yourself all minds, that these differences may have divided."

On the 14th of May a characteristic letter of Colbert followed this up: "It is to the good estate and good government of the king and the colony, that you show particular consideration for the community of the Seminary of St. Sulpice at Montreal, of which M. de Bretonvilliers, the superior, is one of my best friends."

M. Perrot did not escape as easily as did M. de Fénelon, at the hands of the king, being sent to the Bastille Prison for three weeks. On the same April 22d as above, the king writing to Frontenac said: "I have seen, and examined with care, all that you have sent me concerning the Sieur Perrot; and after having also seen the memoirs, which he has put in for his defense, I have condemned his action in having imprisoned the officer of the guards sent to Montreal. To punish him, I have put him for some time in the bastille, in order that this punishment may not only render him more circumspect in the future regarding his duty but will serve moreover as an example to restrain others. But having given this satisfaction to my authority, which has been violated in your person, I must tell you, to direct you in my views, that you ought not, without absolute necessity, carry out an order in the territory of a local governor, without having apprised him of it, and also that the punishment of ten months, accorded him, has appeared to me too great in proportion to the fault committed. This is why I have made him undergo the punishment in the bastille only long enough to repair publicly the violation of my authority. Another time, I direct that in a like fault, you must be content with the satisfaction offered you, or with some months in prison, or to transfer the case for decision to me, sending over to France the defaulting officer; imprisonment for ten months being a little too rigorous."

But thanks doubtlessly to M. Talon's interest in his relative, M. Perrot was confirmed by the king in the government of Montreal, as the above letter continues: "After having left M. Perrot some days in the bastille I will send him back to his government and I will order him to call on you and to offer you his apologies for all that has passed. After which I desire that you will not retain any resentment against him, but that you will treat him in accordance with the power I have given him. Finally you ought to punish the habitants only for capital faults, avoiding lengthy punishments, because minds are thus divided, and embittered and are diverted from their principal work, which is to provide for the surety and subsistence of the family."

Colbert's letter of May 13th begged Frontenac to live in good harmony with M. Perrot, urging his family alliance "with persons for whom I have great consideration," of whom, no doubt, Talon was one.

THE GOVERNOR, THE INTENDANT AND THE SOVEREIGN COUNCIL

One of the gravest charges alleged against Frontenac, by the Montrealers now in France, was that he had usurped the powers of the council and that he had rendered himself absolute and all powerful. This brought about that, at Colbert's instigation, the king himself named the councillors and fixed the rank they should hold in the Sovereign Council. In consequence, on April 25th of this year, Louis XIV named M. Denis-Joseph Ruette d'Auteuil as his procureur général; on May 10th following, the seven councillors in order of rank: Louis Rouer de Villeray, first councillor, Charles Legardeur de Tilly, Mathieu d'Amours, Nicholas Dupont, René-Louis Chartier de Lothbinière, Jean Baptiste de Peyras and Charles Denys. To render them the more independent of the governor, the king named on June 5th M. Jacques Duchesneau, then treasurer of France at Tours, as the intendant, making him the real president of the council and reserving for the governor general only a simple presidency of honour. He arrived on September 25th. He further endowed the new intendant [126] with full powers concerning the administration of justice, police and finance, with the order, to see to it that all the inferior judges and other officers of justice should be upheld in the exercise of their functions without any interference—a privilege often demanded by the Montrealers. He arranged that the intendant should judge conjointly with the Sovereign Council all civic and criminal cases, in conformity with the coutume de Paris and that the council should make all police regulations; with this clause, however, that the intendant could, if he deemed it opportune, act alone as supreme judge in civil matters, and could make all police regulations and ordinances. [127]

At this time the remuneration of the governor general was 3,000 livres, of the local governors of Montreal and Three Rivers 1,200, and the members of the Sovereign Council 300 each. This was small, but there were not many inhabitants as yet. A letter of the minister to Duchesneau, dated April 15, 1675, showing surprise that there are only 7,832 persons in Canada, 1,120 guns and 5,117 horned cattle helps us to understand the situation. The smallness of salaries would certainly tempt the governors to engage in commerce.

Finally the king, on June 5th, by a new declaration confirmed the establishment of the Sovereign Council, reserving the right to name the councillors after a place fell vacant. The council was to be composed as before, of the governor general, the bishop of Quebec or in case of his absence in France, of his representative, the grand vicar, the intendant and seven councillors. To take away from the governor general every pretext of mixing himself in the transactions of the council, the king ordered that in conformity with the custom of the sovereign or supreme courts of the kingdom of France, the intendant, although only holding the third place of honour, should, however, as president of the council, consult the opinions of the councillors, count their votes, pronounce their resolutions and enjoy the same advantages as the first presidents of the courts of the kingdom. (Edits et Ordonnances, Quebec, 1854, pp. 83, 84.)

Still, four years later, bitter animosities continued in the council for some months to the exclusion of all other business, as to the exact position of the governor and the intendant. In spite of the ordinance of 1675, Frontenac claimed to be entered in the minutes as the chief and president of the council, in that the intendant was only the acting president. Thus was the governor general "cribbed, cabined and confined." His wings were cut and his powers more closely defined and limited than ever. Moreover, a rival was placed by his side, to be a thorn in it for many a long day. He was no longer absolute in the council chamber. Thence began the long series of vexatious complaints of Frontenac and Duchesneau of encroachment on one another's authority,—this intolerable bickering eventually ending in the recall of both, by the instructions of the king on May 10, 1682. The new form of legislation, however, was a marked improvement, and since it was the outcome of Montreal agitation for clearly defined and responsible government, hence, the length of treatment that has been accorded to its constitutional history of this picturesque period may be not out of place.

Letters went to and fro; one from the minister to Duchesneau on April 25th severely blames him, that in relying on the great power given him and by his title of president, he was wrong in thinking himself nearly equal to the governor, and that the latter can do nothing without consulting him. The reverse should be the position. When the governor interdicts any affair at the council, he had only to submit. The council can only make representations and if the governor does not listen to them, let the matter be submitted to the king. Even then the governor should be shown the complaints, so that he may be in a position to make his reply. This would seem to show that Frontenac's position was upheld. Still the trouble went on and finally produced on May 20, 1679, a decision of the Council of State, that in the minutes of the Sovereign Council M. de Frontenac shall be solely intitled, the governor and lieutenant general of His Majesty in New France and M. Duchesneau as the intendant of justice, police and finance, but that he should also exercise the functions of the first president of the council—a re-affirmation of the declaration of His Majesty of June 5, 1675,—a victory for the Intendant Duchesneau.

In a letter from the king to Frontenac this latter had been styled, "Chief and President of the Council," and relying on this, Frontenac wished to force the recording clerk to inscribe this intitulation. On the other side it was argued, that a private letter giving incidentally this title to the governor, could not prevail against the formal ordinance of June 5, 1675, not revoked. The quarrel became so envenomed that all the business of the council was paralyzed during many months. For as surely as the time came for the minutes to be read and the titles of those present to be enumerated, the pother began anew. The clerk received contrary orders, and nothing was done. Finally he was sent to prison by M. de Frontenac. Some of the councillors, opposing this, came also under his condemnation, and M. de Villeray, M. de Tilly and M. d'Auteuil were sent to "rusticate" with their friends while awaiting the order to go to France to answer for their conduct. Rival factions were also created in the colony, and Montreal was divided.

Even with this new restatement of the position, the spheres of authority of the governor and of the intendant were still ill-defined. There were apparently two independent heads, yet overlapping; still one was supposedly subordinate to the other. Consequently harmony was impossible and the history of the French régime up to the final fall is one continual attempt to harmonize contradictions. Had the French government been less paternal, less desirous of centralization and less jealous of delegating its powers; had it given a measure of home rule or representative government, the rulers in Canada would have found a way to solve their difficulties, even those of church and state, without having to recur, like children in every trivial dispute, to the jealously guarded center of authority at headquarters, thousands of miles away. "L'état c'est moi," said Louis XIV, Le Soleil, in his brilliant court at Versailles, while Canada was a big growing boy confined to petticoats. If the French Government had even given the governor and intendant some real initiative power, instead of expecting them to be the mere executive arm of a not too well informed directing mind, far away, the sense of responsibility would have kept things in order, with less friction and with more progress. If only it had trusted its own appointed official advisers, instead of encouraging every subordinate Jack-in-office to write to His Majesty criticizing, misrepresenting, and offering suggestions on the administration of colonial affairs, there might have been some unity. The policy of espionage of the departments, on one another, encouraged by the mother country, only provoked tale bearing, tittle-tattle, suspicion, jealousy, cabals, intrigues, discord and infringement on one another's privileges, and was one of the chief causes leading to the slow development of colonization, the paralyzation of the trade and the delay of the progress of New France.

It must not be imagined that M. Perrot was entirely free from further trade arrangements and scandals at Montreal. A document, believed to have been written by Duchesneau in 1681 to the king, speaks of the ill-treatment meted out by him or his employés to many persons. He is accused of ruining the country, of trading publicly, of having a store on the "Common" and holding open market there, of trading himself and through his representatives and soldiers, in the camp of the Indians, and of monopolizing the market by having a guard at the end of the bridge leading to it which allowed only his friends to pass. Thus the habitants had only the fringes of the trade with the Indians. He still encouraged the coureurs de bois and had fitted out a great number of them. His avidity is thus described: "He has been seen filling barrels of brandy with his own hands and mixing it with water to sell to the Indians. He bartered with one of them his hat, sword, coat, ribbons, shoes and stockings and boasted that he had made thirty pistoles by the bargain, while the Indian walked about town equipped as 'governor.'" It is further stated that last year his commerce was valued at 40,000 livres. In his reply in March, 1682, to the above mémoire, he states that he has made little trade since, the result of his business transactions reaching only 13,325 livres. The money of the country being the beaver, trading in peltry was one of the necessities of life. He continued to have troubles with the seminary and in August, 1682, he was removed during the first year of M. de La Barre's governorship and given the government of Acadia!

CHAPTER XXVII

"To induce the Indians to come to the colonists, in order that the fur trade might be controlled by the government, a great annual fair was established, by order of the king, at Montreal. Thither every summer a host of savages came down from the lakes in their bark canoes. A place was assigned them a little distance from the town. They landed, and drew up their canoes in a line up the bank, took out their packs of beaver skins, set up their wigwams, slung their kettles and encamped for the night.

"On the next day there was a grand council on the common, between St. Paul street and the river. Speeches were made amid a solemn smoking of pipes. The governor was usually present, seated in an armchair, while the visitors formed a ring about him, ranged in the order of their tribe. On the next day the trade began in the same place. Merchants of high and low degree brought up their goods from Quebec, and every inhabitant of Montreal of any substance, sought a share in the profits. Their booths were set up along the palisades of the town and each had an interpreter to whom he usually promised a certain portion of his gains. The scene abounded in those contrasts, which mark the whole course of French Canadian history. Here was a throng of Indians, armed with bows and arrows, war clubs, and the cheap guns of the trade, some of them, completely naked, except for the feathers on their heads and the paint on their faces; French bush rangers, tricked out with savage finery; merchants and habitants in their coarse and plain attire, and the grave priests of St. Sulpice robed in black."

In June, 1676, Monseigneur Laval, on his return from France as bishop of Quebec, visited Montreal to receive postulants into the new religious communicants of the "Congregation," which approved by him in 1669 and later confirmed by royal letters, was now confirmed by him in an authentic act, shortly after his arrival at Quebec—but whose rules were still to be examined and approved, which did not occur until January 24, 1698. Historians date from the above epoch the adoption of the religious habit, worn by the Sisters of the Congregation of Notre Dame to this day. In order to prepare her rules wisely Marguerite Bourgeoys determined to go to France for advice and experience, having been previously elected as the first superior. The opportunity was offered her in November as a companion to the wife of the governor, Madame Perrot, who had been advised to go to France for the good of her health. On her return she was followed to Montreal by Louis Frins, the servant of M. de Maisonneuve, who had died in Paris on September 9, 1676, as well as by several young girls, who were sent out to the colony at the expense of the seminary.

In 1676 the Mountain Mission was commenced. [128] To encourage the Indians to settle with the Europeans, various attempts had already been made. This nomadic people could not be civilized as long as the trail, by the lakes and rivers and through the forest, called them to the pursuit of the chase or the lust of battle. Thus we have seen the Jesuits had already formed their Christian Indian settlements at Madeleine la Prairie on the south shore across the St. Lawrence. But now the Sulpicians would do the same on the island, on the slope of Mount Royal, and today the site of Montreal College, on Sherbrooke Street, with its old-time Martello towers, marks the scene of the Mountain Mission. Quarrels had arisen among the chiefs at La Prairie and thus the dissentients joined the Christian band at the mountain, while the La Prairie Mission was transferred to the Sault St. Louis, known as the Caughnawaga Reservation. By 1681, it was determined to conduct schools for the children of redskins, and M. François Vachon de Belmont, who came as a deacon to Canada in this year, was named director of the boys' school. That for the girls was to be under the care of the Sisters of the Congregation. Marguerite Bourgeoys says that the Mountain Mission was the first place on the island where the Indians came for instruction. On arriving, M. de Belmont began to build a little chapel, dedicated to Notre Dame des Neiges, and a straggling village of a few irregularly built bark huts clustered round it. In these lived the missionaries and the sisters, and round them were the wigwams of their neophytes, Huron and Iroquois. Fearing attack from the non-Christian tribes, M. de Belmont, a priest since September 14, 1681, had built by 1685 a palisade surrounding his settlement which boasted of four bastions. These fortifications were gradually strengthened. The schools were soon in operation. "In the Mountain Mission and that of the Sault de la Prairie de la Madeleine (Sault St. Louis); in those of Sillery and Lorette, the only Indian villages we have, boys are now being taught to read and write. In the Mountain Mission of Montreal the Congregation nuns apply themselves to the instruction of the little girls and make them do needle work," is the description of M. Duchesneau in a letter to the minister of finance, dated November 13, 1681. Later on these children were taught to knit, spin and do lace work, the government providing grants of money for women to instruct them. In 1685 Monseigneur de St. Vallier, Laval's successor, visited the Mountain Mission and gave this account of its success: "The daughters of the Congregation, now spread over the different parts of Canada, have in the Mountain Mission a school of about forty Indian girls, whom they clothe and bring up 'à la Française.' They are also taught the mysteries of faith, manual labour, the hymns and prayers of the church, not only in their own tongue, but also in ours, that they may be brought little by little to our manners and customs."

The chapel at Caughnawaga preserves the bones of the holy Mohawk maiden, Catherine Tekakwitha, born in 1656 of an Iroquois father, a pagan, and an Algonquin mother, a Christian, who both died in her infancy. On Holy Wednesday, 1678, she died, leaving behind her the reputation of sanctity. The anniversary of "La bonne Catherine" is kept each year with great devotion by the Caughnawaga Indians. Charlevoix, the historian, speaking of the appearance of the face of this holy maiden, says: "Nothing could be more beautiful, but with that beauty, which the love of virtue inspires. The people were never weary of gazing at her." The latter's grandfather, the warrior, François Thoronhiongo, who had been baptized by the Martyr Jesuit, Père de Brébeuf, lived at the Mountain Mission. In 1824 the east Martello tower, now standing on Sherbrooke Street, wherein the Sisters of the Congregation had lived while teaching, was transferred into a chapel and the bodies of the grandfather and grandchild, which had rested there since 1796, were allowed to remain. The tower on the west was a school for the Indian girls. These towers, still remaining, are all that is left to mark the site of the Priests' Fort and Jacques Viger's manuscripts tell us that this fort was so called to distinguish it from the enclosure next to it and which, being surrounded by a palisade, was known as "The Indian's Fort." Both structures formed part of the same outwork and are mentioned under the common title of "The Mountain Fort." The Priests' Fort was built in 1694 by the Sulpician, François Vachon de Belmont, at his own expense. It was, first a square enclosed by a stone wall with portholes and flanked by a tower at each angle; secondly, the fort proper or manor, in the middle of the enclosure where the missionaries lived; thirdly, the chapel which was opposite the manor and between the two towers. In 1844 the erection of the vast edifice now used as a college and as a seminary was begun on this very site. The two towers still standing and the wall connecting them are over two hundred years old and are after the Seminary of St. Sulpice on Notre Dame Street the oldest building in Montreal. Long may the towers stand as sentinels guarding the traditions of the past!... The Sulpicians accompanied the Indians when the mission was transplanted to Sault-au-Récollet and thence later to the Lake of the Two Mountains.

Leaving the Mountain Mission whose commencement we have placed in 1676 and traversing the streets down town, we notice the unpaved state of the streets. In this year, 1676, an ordinance stipulated that proprietors should pave to the middle of the roadway every street passing in front of their dwellings. But it seems that up to the cession, these regulations had fallen into desuetude.

The year of 1678 saw great preparations at Montreal for new ventures on the part of La Salle and Duluth, in which the governor general was reported by Intendant Duchesneau to be commercially interested. In July, 1678, La Salle left France armed with a royal patent allowing him "to build forts through which it would seem that a passage to Mexico can be found." He had made good friends in France since his previous visit in 1674 and found financial supporters, "bringing with him about thirty artisans and labourers, with much of the gearing and equipment necessary for rigging a vessel, including anchors, with the usual assortment of the articles required for his intercourse with the Indians." With him was Henri de Tonti, an Italian officer, who was to prove a most devoted and loyal lieutenant to La Salle. At the siege of Gaëta, de Tonti had had a hand blown off and it was now replaced with a metal substitute, which, though covered with a glove, could deal a heavy blow, as the surprised Indians afterwards learned. A third was with them, the Sieur de la Motte. Arriving at Quebec on September 15th, La Salle was shortly afterwards joined by the Recollect Father, Hennepin, eager to explore the Mississippi.

While at Quebec, La Salle was named one of the twenty commissioners, then sitting to investigate the murders and other crimes reported to have arisen during the past six years from the use of liquors. In consequence, the old dispute was arising again as to the propriety of preventing liquors being taken to the Indians, to encourage traffic with the French instead of the Dutch. It was urged that the fur trade would leave Montreal for Albany, as beaver skins, if they got there, would fetch a higher price. For prohibition, were Laval and the Intendant Duchesneau, whilst against it was Frontenac backed up by Colbert, who supported Talon, one of whose last actions in Canada had been to permit the use of spirits as an article of commerce. The report of the commission to France was in favour of the traffic in spirits as necessary for the support of the fur trade, which was the one source of wealth for the country. M. Laval started for France with a counter memorial. Finally a compromise was arranged to the effect that strong liquors might not be taken to the woods openly, and if clandestinely, punishment was to follow. But as liquor was permitted in the houses of the French and those houses could be built anywhere, the law was easily evaded, so that in reality liquor became to be recognized currency in the trade for fur.

Shortly after the above event La Salle left Montreal, doubtless with a good supply of "eau de vie," for his fief, Mount Cataracqui, and in the second week of November he started thence to make his way to the Mississippi, returning at intervals to Montreal for supplies. At last after thrilling and hazardous adventures La Salle and his men reached the mouth of the Mississippi, where he declared the basin of the river to be the territory of Louis the Great and named it Louisiana. All honour to Montreal, the fruitful home of discoverers!

David Greysolon du Luth left Montreal on the 1st of September, 1678, with seven Frenchmen on a similar adventure. It was he who built the fort at the entrance of the Kaministiquia, Lake Superior, known under Hudson Bay rule as Fort William, and who strove persistently to foil the rival English traders of this company. He was a man equally at home in camp, in society, or in the Indian wigwams—a type of the many roving adventurers, fighters, traders and explorers, whom Canada was then alluring and who were little removed from the coureurs de bois, at whom so many ordinances were leveled, but whose number was steadily increasing. [129]

Meanwhile relations had become more and more strained between Frontenac and Duchesneau. As early as 1676 the troubles began with the questions of precedence and of the degrees of courtesy that should be paid to the governor and the intendant. On May 1, 1677, Colbert wrote to the intendant warning him not to take sides against the governor and on May 18th he wrote to the governor exhorting him to live amicably with the intendant. On April 30, 1681, the king wrote to Frontenac complaining of his arbitrary conduct and threatening to recall him unless he mended his ways. He was accused of being too lenient with the coureurs de bois and in consequence the king ordered that whoever went to the woods without a license should be branded and whipped for the first offence, and sent to the galleys for life, for the second.

Every ship to France carried complaints from Duchesneau and Frontenac against one another. The rivalry was intense. The last official act of Frontenac in the Registre du Conseil Supérieur is a formal declaration that his rank in that body is superior to the intendant's. Finally the untenable position was relieved by the king, who recalled them by an act of May 1st. Before leaving and early in the August of this year Frontenac was at Montreal to meet the Ottawas and the Hurons on their yearly descent from the lakes and there he met the famous Huron Iroquois chief, the Rat, and at a solemn council succeeded in averting, for the time, the war then brewing about Michillimackinac, when the Illinois and some of the tribes of the lakes were in likely danger of speedy and complete destruction at the hands of the Iroquois. This would have been fatal to the trade of Canada.

Shortly afterwards, Frontenac sailed for France, leaving Canada when he was most needed. When he sailed, "it was a day of rejoicing to more than half of the merchants of Canada" (who were not in his ring), says Parkman ("Frontenac," p. 71), "and excepting the Recollects, to all the priests; but he left behind him an impression, very general among the people, that if danger threatened the colony, Count Frontenac was the man for the hour."

Montreal was no little concerned with this division between the disputants, for whereas the merchants, traders and habitants over the country took sides with either party, those of Montreal, such as Le Moyne and his sons, Jacques LeBer, and left many more of the leading men sided with Duchesneau, while Perrot, the local governor, seems to have come to a mutual understanding with Frontenac and carried on illicit trade as before. "Frontenac had," as the intendant wrote to the minister on November 16, 1679, "gradually made himself master of the trade of Montreal; as soon as the Indians arrived, he sets guard in his camp, which would be very well, if these soldiers did their duty and protected the savages from being annoyed and plundered by the French, instead of being employed to discover how many furs they have brought with a view to future operations. Monsieur, the governor, then compels the Indians to pay his guards for protecting them; and he has never allowed them to trade with the inhabitants till they have first given him a certain number of packs of beaver skins, which he calls his presents. His guards trade with them openly at the fair, with their bandoliers on their shoulders." Moreover, Duchesneau in the same communication accused Frontenac of sending up goods to Montreal to be traded in his behalf, so that with the presents exacted and his trading, only little ever reached the people of the colony of what the Indians brought to market. It is only fair to add that Frontenac made similar charges against the intendant for engaging in trade. Meanwhile partisan spirit ran high and the streets of Quebec and Montreal witnessed brawls such as those between the Capulets and Montagues of Romeo and Juliet. "A plague on both your houses!" The Count de Frontenac and the Intendant Duchesneau were respectively replaced on May 1, 1680, by M. de La Barre and M. de Meulles, although they did not enter upon their functions until Friday, October 9th, of the same year.

NOTE

A writer who visited Quebec in 1683 in his "Memoirs of North America" tells us that the merchant who had carried on the greatest trade in Canada was the Sieur Samuel Bernon of Rochel, who had great warehouses at Quebec, from which the inhabitants of the other towns were supplied with such commodities as they wanted.

"There is no difference," he says, "between the pirates that scour the seas and the Canada merchants, unless it be this, that the former sometimes enrich themselves all of a sudden by a good prize; and the latter cannot make their fortune without trading for five or six years, and that, without running the hazard of their lives. I have known twenty little peddlers that had not above a thousand crowns stock when I arrived at Quebec in the year 1683, and when I left that place, had got to the tune of 12,000 crowns. It is an unquestioned truth that they get 50 per cent upon all goods they deal in, whether they buy them up, upon the arrival of the ships at Quebec, or have them from France by way of commissions: but over and above that, there are some gaudy trinkets, such as ribbands, laces, embroideries, tobacco-boxes, watches, and an infinity of other baubles of iron ware, upon which they get 150 per cent, all costs clear.

"As soon as the French ships arrive at Quebec the merchants of that city, who have their factors in other towns, load their barks with goods in order to transport them to these other towns. Such merchants as act for themselves at Trois Rivières, or Montreal, come down in person to Quebec to market for themselves, and then put their effects on board of barks to be conveyed home. If they pay for their goods in skins, they buy cheaper than if they made their payments in money or letters of exchange; by reason that the seller gets considerably by the skins, when he returns to France. Now you must take notice, that all these skins are bought up from the inhabitants, or from the savages, upon which the merchants are considerable gainers. To give you an instance of this matter, a person that lives in the neighbourhood of Quebec, carries a dozen of marten skins, five or six fox skins, and as many skins of wild cats, to a merchant's house, in order to sell them for woolen cloth, linen, arms, ammunition, etc. In the trade of those skins, the merchant draws a double profit, one upon the score of his paying no more for these skins than one-half of what he afterwards sells them for, in the lump, to the factors, for the Rochel ships; and the other, by the exorbitant rate he puts upon the goods which the poor planter takes in exchange for his skins. If this be duly weighed, we will not think it strange that these merchants have a more beneficial trade than a great many tradesmen in the world."—Canadian Antiquarian and Numismatic Journal, 1872, p. 130.