Since the day of Champlain's death New France had been wofully misgoverned. Men who, like him, would be willing to give their best efforts and best years to building up the colony, in singleness of purpose, were not forthcoming. Champlain left no successor. Speaking generally, the post of governor was calculated at what it would be worth to the holder. Sometimes it was sold outright, sometimes given in payment of services, or again to some needy favorite as a means to repair his ruined fortunes. Hence most governors looked upon Canada as a place to get rich in, just as the better sort of merchants looked to making fortunes, and then going home to France as quickly as possible to enjoy them. Where everybody thought about the country only as a place of temporary sojourn and nobody as a home, it is evident there could be no feeling of permanence.
Meanwhile, the short-sighted policy of continually drawing upon the natural resources of Canada, without making the loss good, may be compared with stripping mountains of their forests. Under this policy the colony was like a man who is slowly bleeding to death.
But it was now the age of Louis XIV., who, if sometimes a hard master, possessed the rare gift of bringing round him men of superior abilities.
Once more let us glance at the two leading monarchies of Europe, and see if their relative attitude, one to the other, has been in any wise altered since Pavia.
Under Charles V., Spain menaced Europe with universal dominion; under Philip II. and Philip III., she had lost the Low Countries; under Philip IV., Portugal; under Charles II., Burgundy and Flanders. History offers few examples of such rapid decline.
The characters of these sovereigns may be summed up as follows: Charles V. was a great general and great king. Philip II. was a king only. Philip III. and Philip IV. were not even kings. Charles II. could hardly be called a man. This dotard, at thirty-nine, passed his time in making and destroying his will. Choosing rather to ally his house with France than Germany, Charles made a French prince his heir. It was to this prince that Louis XIV., in embracing him, made use of the memorable words, "There are no longer any Pyrenees."
It was then, as we have said, the age of Louis XIV. and of French supremacy in continental affairs.
In our continent Spain was already playing a secondary part. A more vigorous hand had seized the standard of discovery, and was now bearing it onward to victory.
It had gone all the way from the humble Jesuit mission at the foot of Lake Superior to France, that the greatest river of America was as good as found,—the greatest, because all admitted that only its head streams could have been touched, while it was seen that its course must of necessity lie on one or the other side of the mountains of New Mexico,—toward the Gulf of Mexico or the Vermilion Sea. But on which side they could not tell.
Of course there were two opinions. Some favored one, some the other, but either belief announced the river of the continent. Whoever should first plant themselves at its mouth, would inevitably control its whole course. And so the idea took root in the minds of the statesmen and geographers of the time, who set about trying to map out the destiny of the future empire.
The shrewdest among the French explorers did not believe that the Mississippi and Colorado could be the same, or that the great river flowed into the South Sea. Father Allouez, as we have seen, thought otherwise. In any case an incentive had been found for more earnest effort, with more definite aims. There began to be, in America, a really national question.
So it was that step by step that great mysterious river which had so long flowed through men's brains, grew at last into definiteness, though still waiting for the veil of centuries to be lifted.
So far America had been the orange to be squeezed by whoever should possess it. Louis, like the rest, no doubt looked more to the revenue he hoped to get from New France, than to the mere glory of extending his dominions in that quarter, though he was also ambitious of doing this. Yet for either purpose he must have suitable agents, while his political aims in Europe would be furthered by crippling the English and Spanish colonies in America. The English were to be hemmed in on the seaboard, while the Spaniards would find themselves checked from advancing beyond the limits they already occupied.
When the royal arms of France were raised at Sault St. Marie, New England was pushing out toward the east, not the west. No English could be found west of the Hudson. No word of English had been heard beyond Lake Ontario. There was not yet a Pennsylvania. Virginia lay east of the Blue Ridge; the Carolinas were but recently settled; Florida was hardly more than a Spanish military post.
In all times large views demand large men for their execution. In looking about him for a governor who ought to be more of a soldier than politician, less a courtier than a man of action, though something of both, the king's eye fell upon Count Frontenac, whose rule somewhat resembled that of his august master, in the attempted concentration of all power in himself.
In 1672 Colbert, the prime minister, wrote to the intendant of Canada that his majesty wished him to give his attention to the discovery of the South Sea. The wish being the same as a command, the intendant sought for a fitting agent to carry it into effect.