Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV Part 14

In 1854, in demolishing a part of the old wall between the fort of Quebec and the adjacent "Governor's Garden," a plate of copper was found with a Latin inscription, of which the following is a translation:--

"In the year of Grace, 1693, under the reign of the Most August, Most Invincible, and Most Christian King, Louis the Great, Fourteenth of that name, the Most Excellent and Most Ill.u.s.trious Lord, Louis de Buade, Count of Frontenac, twice Viceroy of all New France, after having three years before repulsed, routed, and completely conquered the rebellious inhabitants of New England, who besieged this town of Quebec, and who threatened to renew their attack this year, constructed, at the charge of the king, this citadel, with the fortifications therewith connected, for the defence of the country and the safety of the people, and for confounding yet again a people perfidious towards G.o.d and towards its lawful king. And he has laid this first stone."

[3] _Recit de Mlle. Magdelaine de Vercheres, agee de 14 ans_ (Collection de l'Abbe Ferland). It appears from Tanguay, _Dictionnaire Genealogique_, that Marie-Madeleine Jarret de Vercheres was born in April, 1678, which corresponds to the age given in the _Recit_. She married Thomas Tarleu de la Naudiere in 1706, and M. de la Perrade, or Prade, in 1722. Her brother Louis was born in 1680, and was therefore, as stated in the Recit, twelve years old in 1692. The birthday of the other, Alexander, is not given. His baptism was registered in 1682.

One of the brothers was killed at the attack of Haverhill, in 1708.

Madame de Ponchartrain, wife of the minister, procured a pension for life to Madeleine de Vercheres. Two versions of her narrative are before me. There are slight variations between them, but in all essential points they are the same. The following note is appended to one of them: "Ce recit fut fait par ordre de Mr. de Beauharnois, gouverneur du Canada."

[4] On this expedition, _Narrative of Military Operations in Canada_, in _N. Y. Col. Docs_., IX. 550; _Relation de ce qui s'est pa.s.se de plus remarquable en Canada_, 1692, 1693; _Callieres au Ministre_, 1 _Sept_., 1693; La Potherie, III. 169; _Relation de_ 1682-1712; Faillon, _Vie de Mlle. Le Bar_, 313; Belmont, _Hist. du Canada_; Beyard and Lodowick, _Journal of the Late Actions of the French at Canada_; _Report of Major Peter Schuyler_, in _N. Y. Col. Docs_., IV.

16; Colden, 142.

The minister wrote to Callieres, finding great fault with the conduct of the mission Indians. _Ponchartrain a Callieres_, 8 _Mai_, 1694.

CHAPTER XV

1691-1695.

AN INTERLUDE.

APPEAL OF FRONTENAC.--HIS OPPONENTS.--HIS SERVICES.--RIVALRY AND STRIFE.--BISHOP SAINT-VALLIER.--SOCIETY AT THE CHATEAU.--PRIVATE THEATRICALS.--ALARM OF THE CLERGY.--TARTUFFE.--A SINGULAR BARGAIN.--MAREUIL AND THE BISHOP.--MAREUIL ON TRIAL.--ZEAL OF SAINT-VALLIER.--SCANDALS AT MONTREAL.--APPEAL TO THE KING.--THE STRIFE COMPOSED.--LIBEL AGAINST FRONTENAC.

While the Canadians hailed Frontenac as a father, he found also some recognition of his services from his masters at the court. The king wrote him a letter with his own hand, to express satisfaction at the defence of Quebec, and sent him a gift of two thousand crowns. He greatly needed the money, but prized the letter still more, and wrote to his relative, the minister Ponchartrain: "The gift you procured for me, this year, has helped me very much towards paying the great expenses which the crisis of our affairs and the excessive cost of living here have caused me; but, though I receive this mark of his Majesty's goodness with the utmost respect and grat.i.tude, I confess that I feel far more deeply the satisfaction that he has been pleased to express with my services. The raising of the siege of Quebec did not deserve all the attention that I hear he has given it in the midst of so many important events, and therefore I must needs ascribe it to your kindness in commending it to his notice. This leads me to hope that whenever some office, or permanent employment, or some mark of dignity or distinction, may offer itself, you will put me on the list as well as others who have the honor to be as closely connected with you as I am; for it would be very hard to find myself forgotten because I am in a remote country, where it is more difficult and dangerous to serve the king than elsewhere. I have consumed all my property. Nothing is left but what the king gives me; and I have reached an age where, though neither strength nor goodwill fail me as yet, and though the latter will last as long as I live, I see myself on the eve of losing the former: so that a post a little more secure and tranquil than the government of Canada will soon suit my time of life; and, if I can be a.s.sured of your support, I shall not despair of getting such a one. Please then to permit my wife and my friends to refresh your memory now and then on this point." [Footnote: _Frontenac au Ministre_, 20 _Oct_., 1691.] Again, in the following year: "I have been encouraged to believe that the gift of two thousand crowns, which his Majesty made me last year, would be continued; but apparently you have not been able to obtain it, for I think that you know the difficulty I have in living here on my salary. I hope that, when you find a better opportunity, you will try to procure me this favor. My only trust is in your support; and I am persuaded that, having the honor to be so closely connected with you, you would reproach yourself, if you saw me sink into decrepitude, without resources and without honors." [Footnote: _Frontenac au Ministre_, 15 _Sept_., 1692.] And still again he appeals to the minister for "some permanent and honorable place attended with the marks of distinction, which are more grateful than all the rest to a heart shaped after the right pattern." [Footnote: _Ibid_., 25 _Oct_., 1693.] In return for these st.u.r.dy applications, he got nothing for the present but a continuance of the king's gift of two thousand crowns.

Not every voice in the colony sounded the governor's praise. Now, as always, he had enemies in state and Church. It is true that the quarrels and the bursts of pa.s.sion that marked his first term of government now rarely occurred, but this was not so much due to a change in Frontenac himself as to a change in the conditions around him. The war made him indispensable. He had gained what he wanted, the consciousness of mastery; and under its soothing influence he was less irritable and exacting. He lived with the bishop on terms of mutual courtesy, while his relations with his colleague, the intendant, were commonly smooth enough on the surface; for Champigny, warned by the court not to offend him, treated him with studied deference, and was usually treated in return with urbane condescension. During all this time, the intendant was complaining of him to the minister. "He is spending a great deal of money; but he is master, and does what he pleases. I can only keep the peace by yielding every thing."

[Footnote: _Champigny au Ministre_, 12 _Oct_., 1691.] "He wants to reduce me to a n.o.body." And, among other similar charges, he says that the governor receives pay for garrisons that do not exist, and keeps it for himself. "Do not tell that I said so," adds the prudent Champigny, "for it would make great trouble, if he knew it."

[Footnote: _Ibid_.,4 _Nov_., 1693.] Frontenac, perfectly aware of these covert attacks, desires the minister not to heed "the falsehoods and impostures uttered against me by persons who meddle with what does not concern them." [Footnote: _Frontenac au Ministre_, 15 _Sept_., 1692.] He alludes to Champigny's allies, the Jesuits, who, as he thought, had also maligned him. "Since I have been here, I have spared no pains to gain the goodwill of Monsieur the intendant, and may G.o.d grant that the counsels which he is too ready to receive from certain persons who have never been friends of peace and harmony do not some time make division between us. But I close my eyes to all that, and shall still persevere." [Footnote: _Ibid_., 20 _Oct_., 1691.] In another letter to Ponchartrain, he says: "I write you this in private, because I have been informed by my wife that charges have been made to you against my conduct since my return to this country. I promise you, Monseigneur, that, whatever my accusers do, they will not make me change conduct towards them, and that I shall still treat them with consideration. I merely ask your leave most humbly to represent that, having maintained this colony in full prosperity during the ten years when I formerly held the government of it, I nevertheless fell a sacrifice to the artifice and fury of those whose encroachments, and whose excessive and unauthorized power, my duty and my pa.s.sionate affection for the service of the king obliged me in conscience to repress. My recall, which made them masters in the conduct of the government, was followed by all the disasters which overwhelmed this unhappy colony. The millions that the king spent here, the troops that he sent out, and the Canadians that he took into pay, all went for nothing. Most of the soldiers, and no small number of brave Canadians, perished in enterprises ill devised and ruinous to the country, which I found on my arrival ravaged with unheard-of cruelty by the Iroquois, without resistance, and in sight of the troops and of the forts. The inhabitants were discouraged, and unnerved by want of confidence in their chiefs; while the friendly Indians, seeing our weakness, were ready to join our enemies. I was fortunate enough and diligent enough to change this deplorable state of things, and drive away the English, whom my predecessors did not have on their hands, and this too with only half as many troops as they had. I am far from wishing to blame their conduct. I leave you to judge it. But I cannot have the tranquillity and freedom of mind which I need for the work I have to do here, without feeling entire confidence that the cabal which is again forming against me cannot produce impressions which may prevent you from doing me justice. For the rest, if it is thought fit that I should leave the priests to do as they like, I shall be delivered from an infinity of troubles and cares, in which I can have no other interest than the good of the colony, the trade of the kingdom, and the peace of the king's subjects, and of which I alone bear the burden, as well as the jealousy of sundry persons, and the iniquity of the ecclesiastics, who begin to call impious those who are obliged to oppose their pa.s.sions and their interests." [Footnote: "L'iniquite des ecclesiastiques qui commencent a traiter d'impies ceux qui sont obliges de resister a leurs pa.s.sions et a leurs interets." _Frontenac au Ministre_, 20 _Oct_., 1691.]

As Champigny always sided with the Jesuits, his relations with Frontenac grew daily more critical. Open rupture at length seemed imminent, and the king interposed to keep the peace. "There has been discord between you under a show of harmony," he wrote to the disputants. [Footnote: _Memoire du Roy pour Frontenac et Champigny_, 1694.] Frontenac was exhorted to forbearance and calmness; while the intendant was told that he allowed himself to be made an instrument of others, and that his charges against the governor proved nothing but his own ill-temper. [Footnote: _Le Ministre a Frontenac_, 8 _May_, 1694; _Le Ministre a Champigny, meme date_.] The minister wrote in vain. The bickerings that he reproved were but premonitions of a greater strife.

Bishop Saint-Vallier was a rigid, austere, and contentious prelate, who loved power as much as Frontenac himself, and thought that, as the deputy of Christ, it was his duty to exercise it to the utmost. The governor watched him with a jealous eye, well aware that, though the pretensions of the Church to supremacy over the civil power had suffered a check, Saint-Vallier would revive them the moment he thought he could do so with success. I have shown elsewhere the severity of the ecclesiastical rule at Quebec, where the zealous pastors watched their flock with unrelenting vigilance, and a.s.sociations of pious women helped them in the work. [Footnote: Old Regime, chap. xix.] This naturally produced revolt, and tended to divide the town into two parties, the worldly and the devout. The love of pleasure was not extinguished, and various influences helped to keep it alive. Perhaps none of these was so potent as the presence in winter of a considerable number of officers from France, whose piety was often less conspicuous than their love of enjoyment. At the Chateau St. Louis a circle of young men, more or less brilliant and accomplished, surrounded the governor, and formed a centre of social attraction. Frontenac was not without religion, and he held it becoming a man of his station not to fail in its observances; but he would not have a Jesuit confessor, and placed his conscience in the keeping of the Recollet friars, who were not politically aggressive, and who had been sent to Canada expressly as a foil to the rival order. They found no favor in the eyes of the bishop and his adherents, and the governor found none for the support he lent them.

The winter that followed the arrival of the furs from the upper lakes was a season of gayety without precedent since the war began. All was harmony at Quebec till the carnival approached, when Frontenac, whose youthful instincts survived his seventy-four years, introduced a startling novelty which proved the signal of discord. One of his military circle, the sharp-witted La Motte-Cadillac, thus relates this untoward event in a letter to a friend: "The winter pa.s.sed very pleasantly, especially to the officers, who lived together like comrades; and, to contribute to their honest enjoyment, the count caused two plays to be acted, 'Nicomede' and 'Mithridate.'" It was an amateur performance, in which the officers took part along with some of the ladies of Quebec. The success was prodigious, and so was the storm that followed. Half a century before, the Jesuits had grieved over the first ball in Canada. Private theatricals were still more baneful. "The clergy," continues La Motte, "beat their alarm drums, armed cap-a-pie, and s.n.a.t.c.hed their bows and arrows. The Sieur Glandelet was first to begin, and preached two sermons, in which he tried to prove that n.o.body could go to a play without mortal sin. The bishop issued a mandate, and had it read from the pulpits, in which he speaks of certain impious, impure, and noxious comedies, insinuating that those which had been acted were such. The credulous and infatuated people, seduced by the sermons and the mandate, began already to regard the count as a corrupter of morals and a destroyer of religion. The numerous party of the pretended devotees mustered in the streets and public places, and presently made their way into the houses, to confirm the weak-minded in their illusion, and tried to make the stronger share it; but, as they failed in this almost completely, they resolved at last to conquer or die, and persuaded the bishop to use a strange device, which was to publish a mandate in the church, whereby the Sieur de Mareuil, a half-pay lieutenant, was interdicted the use of the sacraments." [Footnote: _La Motte-Cadillac a_ -----, 28 _Sept_., 1694.]

This story needs explanation. Not only had the amateur actors at the chateau played two pieces inoffensive enough in themselves, but a report had been spread that they meant next to perform the famous "Tartuffe" of Moliere, a satire which, while purporting to be levelled against falsehood, l.u.s.t, greed, and ambition, covered with a mask of religion, was rightly thought by a portion of the clergy to be levelled against themselves. The friends of Frontenac say that the report was a hoax. Be this as it may, the bishop believed it. "This worthy prelate," continues the irreverent La Motte, "was afraid of 'Tartuffe,' and had got it into his head that the count meant to have it played, though he had never thought of such a thing. Monsieur de Saint-Vallier sweated blood and water to stop a torrent which existed only in his imagination." It was now that he launched his two mandates, both on the same day; one denouncing comedies in general and "Tartuffe" in particular, and the other smiting Mareuil, who, he says, "uses language capable of making Heaven blush," and whom he elsewhere stigmatizes as "worse than a Protestant." [Footnote: _Mandement au Sujet des Comedies_, 16 _Jan_., 1694; _Mandement au Sujet de certaines Personnes qui tenoient des Discours impies, meme date; Registre du Conseil Souverain_.] It was Mareuil who, as reported, was to play the part of Tartuffe; and on him, therefore, the brunt of episcopal indignation fell. He was not a wholly exemplary person. "I mean," says La Motte, "to show you the truth in all its nakedness. The fact is that, about two years ago, when the Sieur de Mareuil first came to Canada, and was carousing with his friends, he sang some indecent song or other. The count was told of it, and gave him a severe reprimand.

This is the charge against him. After a two years' silence, the pastoral zeal has wakened, because a play is to be acted which the clergy mean to stop at any cost."

The bishop found another way of stopping it. He met Frontenac, with the intendant, near the Jesuit chapel, accosted him on the subject which filled his thoughts, and offered him a hundred pistoles if he would prevent the playing of "Tartuffe." Frontenac laughed, and closed the bargain. Saint-Vallier wrote his note on the spot; and the governor took it, apparently well pleased to have made the bishop disburse. "I thought," writes the intendant, "that Monsieur de Frontenac would have given him back the paper." He did no such thing, but drew the money on the next day and gave it to the hospitals.

[Footnote: This incident is mentioned by La Motte-Cadillac; by the intendant, who reports it to the minister; by the minister Ponchartrain, who asks Frontenac for an explanation; by Frontenac, who pa.s.ses it off as a jest; and by several other contemporary writers.]

Mareuil, deprived of the sacraments, and held up to reprobation, went to see the bishop, who refused to receive him; and it is said that he was taken by the shoulders and put out of doors. He now resolved to bring his case before the council; but the bishop was informed of his purpose, and antic.i.p.ated it. La Motte says "he went before the council on the first of February, and denounced the Sieur de Mareuil, whom he declared guilty of impiety towards G.o.d, the Virgin, and the Saints, and made a fine speech in the absence of the count, interrupted by the effusions of a heart which seemed filled with a profound and infinite charity, but which, as he said, was pushed to extremity by the rebellion of an indocile child, who had neglected all his warnings.

This was, nevertheless, a.s.sumed; I will not say entirely false."

The bishop did, in fact, make a vehement speech against Mareuil before the council on the day in question; Mareuil stoutly defending himself, and entering his appeal against the episcopal mandate. [Footnote: _Registre du Conseil Souverain_, 1 _et_ 8 _Fev_., 1694.] The battle was now fairly joined. Frontenac stood alone for the accused. The intendant tacitly favored his opponents. Auteuil, the attorney-general, and Villeray, the first councillor, owed the governor an old grudge; and they and their colleagues sided with the bishop, with the outside support of all the clergy, except the Recollets, who, as usual, ranged themselves with their patron. At first, Frontenac showed great moderation, but grew vehement, and then violent, as the dispute proceeded; as did also the attorney-general, who seems to have done his best to exasperate him. Frontenac affirmed that, in depriving Mareuil and others of the sacraments, with no proof of guilt and no previous warning, and on allegations which, even if true, could not justify the act, the bishop exceeded his powers, and trenched on those of the king. The point was delicate. The attorney-general avoided the issue, tried to raise others, and revived the old quarrel about Frontenac's place in the council, which had been settled fourteen years before. Other questions were brought up, and angrily debated.

The governor demanded that the debates, along with the papers which introduced them, should be entered on the record, that the king might be informed of every thing; but the demand was refused. The discords of the council chamber spread into the town. Quebec was divided against itself. Mareuil insulted the bishop; and some of his scapegrace sympathizers broke the prelate's windows at night, and smashed his chamber-door. [Footnote: _Champigny au Ministre,_ 27 _Oct_., 1694.] Mareuil was at last ordered to prison, and the whole affair was referred to the king. [Footnote: _Registre du Conseil Souverain; Requeste du Sieur de Mareuil, Nov_., 1694.]

These proceedings consumed the spring, the summer, and a part of the autumn. Meanwhile, an access of zeal appeared to seize the bishop; and he launched interdictions to the right and left. Even Champigny was startled when he refused the sacraments to all but four or five of the military officers for alleged tampering with the pay of their soldiers, a matter wholly within the province of the temporal authorities. [Footnote: _Champigny au Ministre,_ 24 _Oct.,_ 1694.

Trouble on this matter had begun some time before. _Memoire du Roy pour Frontenac et Champigny,_ 1694; _Le Ministre a l'Eveque,_ 8 _Mai,_ 1694.] During a recess of the council, he set out on a pastoral tour, and, arriving at Three Rivers, excommunicated an officer named Desjordis for a reputed intrigue with the wife of another officer. He next repaired to Sorel, and, being there on a Sunday, was told that two officers had neglected to go to ma.s.s. He wrote to Frontenac, complaining of the offence. Frontenac sent for the culprits, and rebuked them; but retracted his words when they proved by several witnesses that they had been duly present at the rite. [Footnote: _La Motte-Cadillac a_ ----, 28 _Sept.,_ 1694; _Champigny au Ministre,_ 27 _Oct.,_ 1694.] The bishop then went up to Montreal, and discord went with him.

Except Frontenac alone, Callieres, the local governor, was the man in all Canada to whom the country owed most; but, like his chief, he was a friend of the Recollets, and this did not commend him to the bishop.

The friars were about to receive two novices into their order, and they invited the bishop to officiate at the ceremony. Callieres was also present, kneeling at a _prie-dieu_, or prayer-desk, near the middle of the church. Saint-Vallier, having just said ma.s.s, was seating himself in his arm-chair, close to the altar, when he saw Callieres at the _prie-dieu_, with the position of which he had already found fault as being too honorable for a subordinate governor.

He now rose, approached the object of his disapproval, and said, "Monsieur, you are taking a place which belongs only to Monsieur de Frontenac." Callieres replied that the place was that which properly belonged to him. The bishop rejoined that, if he did not leave it, he himself would leave the church. "You can do as you please," said Callieres; and the prelate withdrew abruptly through the sacristy, refusing any farther part in the ceremony. [Footnote: _Proces-verbal du Pere Hyacinthe Perrault, Commissaire Provincial des Recollets (Archives Nationales); Memoire touchant le Demesle entre M. l'Evesque de Quebec et le Chevalier de Callieres (Ibid.)_.] When the services were over, he ordered the friars to remove the obnoxious _prie-dieu_.

They obeyed; but an officer of Callieres replaced it, and, unwilling to offend him, they allowed it to remain. On this, the bishop laid their church under an interdict; that is, he closed it against the celebration of all the rites of religion. [Footnote: _Mandement ordonnant de fermer l'Eglise des Recollets_, 13 _Mai_, 1694.] He then issued a pastoral mandate, in which he charged Father Joseph Denys, their superior, with offences which he "dared not name for fear of making the paper blush." [Footnote: "Le Superieur du dit Couvent estant lie avec le Gouverneur de la dite ville par des interests que tout le monde scait et qu'on n'oscroit exprimer de peur de faire rougir le papier." _Extrait du Mandement de l'Evesque de Quebec (Archives Nationales)_. He had before charged Mareuil with language "capable de faire rougir le ciel."] His tongue was less bashful than his pen; and he gave out publicly that the father superior had acted as go-between in an intrigue of his sister with the Chevalier de Callieres. [1] It is said that the accusation was groundless, and the character of the woman wholly irreproachable. The Recollets submitted for two months to the bishop's interdict, then refused to obey longer, and opened their church again.

Quebec, Three Rivers, Sorel, and Montreal had all been ruffled by the breeze of these dissensions, and the farthest outposts of the wilderness were not too remote to feel it. La Motte-Cadillac had been sent to replace Louvigny in the command of Michillimackinac, where he had scarcely arrived, when trouble fell upon him. "Poor Monsieur de la Motte-Cadillac," says Frontenac, "would have sent you a journal to show you the persecutions he has suffered at the post where I placed him, and where he does wonders, having great influence over the Indians, who both love and fear him, but he has had no time to copy it. Means have been found to excite against him three or four officers of the posts dependent on his, who have put upon him such strange and unheard of affronts, that I was obliged to send them to prison when they came down to the colony. A certain Father Carheil, the Jesuit who wrote me such insolent letters a few years ago, has played an amazing part in this affair. I shall write about it to Father La Chaise, that he may set it right. Some remedy must be found; for, if it continues, none of the officers who were sent to Michillimackinac, the Miamis, the Illinois, and other places, can stay there on account of the persecutions to which they are subjected, and the refusal of absolution as soon as they fail to do what is wanted of them. Joined to all this is a shameful traffic in influence and money. Monsieur de Tonty could have written to you about it, if he had not been obliged to go off to the a.s.sinneboins, to rid himself of all these torments."

[Footnote: _Frontenac a M. de Lagny_, 2 _Nov_., 1695.] In fact, there was a chronic dispute at the forest outposts between the officers and the Jesuits, concerning which matter much might be said on both sides.

The bishop sailed for France. "He has gone," writes Callieres, "after quarrelling with everybody." The various points in dispute were set before the king. An avalanche of memorials, letters, and _proces-verbaux_, descended upon the unfortunate monarch; some concerning Mareuil and the quarrels in the council, others on the excommunication of Desjordis, and others on the troubles at Montreal.

They were all referred to the king's privy council. [Footnote: _Arrest qui ordonne que les Procedures faites entre le Sieur Evesque de Quebec et les Sieurs Mareuil, Desjordis, etc., seront evoquez au Conseil Prive de Sa Majeste_, 3 _Juillet_, 1695.] An adjustment was effected: order, if not harmony, was restored; and the usual distribution of advice, exhortation, reproof, and menace, was made to the parties in the strife. Frontenac was commended for defending the royal prerogative, censured for violence, and admonished to avoid future quarrels. [Footnote: _Le Ministre a Frontenac_, 4 _Juin_, 1695; _Ibid_., 8 _Juin_, 1695.] Champigny was reproved for not supporting the governor, and told that "his Majesty sees with great pain that, while he is making extraordinary efforts to sustain Canada at a time so critical, all his cares and all his outlays are made useless by your misunderstanding with Monsieur de Frontenac." [Footnote: _Le Ministre a Champigny_, 4 _Juin_, 1695; _Ibid_., 8 _Juin_, 1695.] The attorney-general was sharply reprimanded, told that he must mend his ways or lose his place, and ordered to make an apology to the governor. [Footnote: _Le Ministre a d'Auteuil_, 8 _Juin_, 1695.]

Villeray was not honored by a letter, but the intendant was directed to tell him that his behavior had greatly displeased the king.

Callieres was mildly advised not to take part in the disputes of the bishop and the Recollets. [Footnote: _Le Ministre a Callieres_, 8 _Juin_, 1695.] Thus was conjured down one of the most bitter as well as the most needless, trivial, and untimely, of the quarrels that enliven the annals of New France.

A generation later, when its incidents had faded from memory, a pa.s.sionate and reckless partisan, Abbe La Tour, published, and probably invented, a story which later writers have copied, till it now forms an accepted episode of Canadian history. According to him, Frontenac, in order to ridicule the clergy, formed an amateur company of comedians expressly to play "Tartuffe;" and, after rehearsing at the chateau during three or four months, they acted the piece before a large audience. "He was not satisfied with having it played at the chateau, but wanted the actors and actresses and the dancers, male and female, to go in full costume, with violins, to play it in all the religious communities, except the Recollets. He took them first to the house of the Jesuits, where the crowd entered with him; then to the Hospital, to the hall of the paupers, whither the nuns were ordered to repair; then he went to the Ursuline Convent, a.s.sembled the sisterhood, and had the piece played before them. To crown the insult, he wanted next to go to the seminary, and repeat the spectacle there; but, warning having been given, he was met on the way, and begged to refrain. He dared not persist, and withdrew in very ill-humor."

[Footnote: La Tour, _Vie de Laval, liv._ xii.]

Not one of numerous contemporary papers, both official and private, and written in great part by enemies of Frontenac, contains the slightest allusion to any such story, and many of them are wholly inconsistent with it. It may safely be set down as a fabrication to blacken the memory of the governor, and exhibit the bishop and his adherents as victims of persecution. [2]

[1] "Mr. l'Evesque accuse publiquement le Rev. Pere Joseph, superieur des Recollets de Montreal, d'etre l'entremetteur d'une galanterie entre sa soeur et le Gouverneur. Cependant Mr. l'Evesque sait certainement que le Pere Joseph est l'un des meilleurs et des plus saints religieux de son ordre. Ce qu'il allegue du pretendu commerce entre le Gouverneur et la Dame de la Naudiere (_soeur du Pere Joseph_) est entierement faux, et il l'a publie avec scandale, sans preuve et contre toute apparence, la ditte Dame ayant toujours eu une conduite irreprochable." _Memoire touchant le Demesle, etc._ Champigny also says that the bishop has brought this charge, and that Callieres declares that he has told a falsehood. _Champigny au Ministre,_ 27 _Oct_., 1694.

[2] Had an outrage, like that with which Frontenac is here charged, actually taken place, the registers of the council, the letters of the intendant and the attorney-general, and the records of the bishopric of Quebec would not have failed to show it. They show nothing beyond a report that "Tartuffe" was to be played, and a payment of money by the bishop in order to prevent it. We are left to infer that it was prevented accordingly. I have the best authority--that of the superior of the convent (1871), herself a diligent investigator into the history of her community--for stating that neither record nor tradition of the occurrence exists among the Ursulines of Quebec; and I have been unable to learn that any such exists among the nuns of the Hospital (Hotel-Dieu). The contemporary _Recit d'une Religieuse Ursuline_ speaks of Frontenac with grat.i.tude, as a friend and benefactor, as does also Mother Juchereau, superior of the Hotel-Dieu.

CHAPTER XVI.

1690-1694.

THE WAR IN ACADIA.

STATE OF THAT COLONY.--THE ABENAKIS.--ACADIA AND NEW ENGLAND.-- PIRATES.--BARON DE SAINT-CASTIN.--PENTEGOET.--THE ENGLISH FRONTIER.--THE FRENCH AND THE ABENAKIS.--PLAN OF THE WAR.--CAPTURE OF YORK.--VILLEBON.--GRAND WAR-PARTY.--ATTACK OF WELLS.--PEMAQUID REBUILT.--JOHN NELSON.--A BROKEN TREATY.--VILLIEU AND THURY.--ANOTHER WAR-PARTY.--Ma.s.sACRE AT OYSTER RIVER.

Amid domestic strife, the war with England and the Iroquois still went on. The contest for territorial mastery was fourfold: first, for the control of the west; secondly, for that of Hudson's Bay; thirdly, for that of Newfoundland; and, lastly, for that of Acadia. All these vast and widely sundered regions were included in the government of Frontenac. Each division of the war was distinct from the rest, and each had a character of its own. As the contest for the west was wholly with New York and her Iroquois allies, so the contest for Acadia was wholly with the "Bostonnais," or people of New England.

Acadia, as the French at this time understood the name, included Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and the greater part of Maine. Sometimes they placed its western boundary at the little River St. George, and sometimes at the Kennebec. Since the wars of D'Aulnay and La Tour, this wilderness had been a scene of unceasing strife; for the English drew their eastern boundary at the St. Croix, and the claims of the rival nationalities overlapped each other. In the time of Cromwell, Sedgwick, a New England officer, had seized the whole country. The peace of Breda restored it to France: the Chevalier de Grandfontaine was ordered to reoccupy it, and the king sent out a few soldiers, a few settlers, and a few women as their wives. [Footnote: In 1671, 30 _garcons_ and 30 _filles_ were sent by the king to Acadia, at the cost of 6,000 livres. _Etat. de Depenses_, 1671.] Grandfontaine held the nominal command for a time, followed by a succession of military chiefs, Chambly, Marson, and La Valliere. Then Perrot, whose malpractices had cost him the government of Montreal, was made governor of Acadia; and, as he did not mend his ways, he was replaced by Meneval. [Footnote: Grandfontaine, 1670; Chambly, 1673; Marson, 1678; La Valliere, the same year, Marson having died; Perrot, 1684; Meneval, 1687. The last three were commissioned as local governors, in subordination to the governor-general. The others were merely military commandants.]

One might have sailed for days along these lonely coasts, and seen no human form. At Canseau, or Chedabucto, at the eastern end of Nova Scotia, there was a fishing station and a fort; Chibuctou, now Halifax, was a solitude; at La Heve there were a few fishermen; and thence, as you doubled the rocks of Cape Sable, the ancient haunt of La Tour, you would have seen four French settlers, and an unlimited number of seals and seafowl. Ranging the sh.o.r.e by St. Mary's Bay, and entering the Strait of Annapolis Basin, you would have found the fort of Port Royal, the chief place of all Acadia. It stood at the head of the basin, where De Monts had planted his settlement nearly a century before. Around the fort and along the neighboring river were about ninety-five small houses; and at the head of the Bay of Fundy were two other settlements, Beauba.s.sin and Les Mines, comparatively stable and populous. At the mouth of the St. John were the abandoned ruins of La Tour's old fort; and on a spot less exposed, at some distance up the river, stood the small wooden fort of Jemsec, with a few intervening clearings. Still sailing westward, pa.s.sing Mount Desert, another scene of ancient settlement, and entering Pen.o.bscot Bay, you would have found the Baron de Saint-Castin with his Indian harem at Pentegoet, where the town of Castine now stands. All Acadia was comprised in these various stations, more or less permanent, together with one or two small posts on the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and the huts of an errant population of fishermen and fur traders. In the time of Denonville, the colonists numbered less than a thousand souls. The king, busied with nursing Canada, had neglected its less important dependency.

[Footnote: The census taken by order of Meules in 1686 gives a total of 885 persons, of whom 592 were at Port Royal, and 127 at Beauba.s.sin.

By the census of 1693, the number had reached 1,009.]

Rude as it was, Acadia had charms, and it has them still: in its wilderness of woods and its wilderness of waves; the rocky ramparts that guard its coasts; its deep, still bays and foaming headlands; the towering cliffs of the Grand Menan; the innumerable islands that cl.u.s.ter about Pen.o.bscot Bay; and the romantic highlands of Mount Desert, down whose gorges the sea-fog rolls like an invading host, while the spires of fir-trees pierce the surging vapors like lances in the smoke of battle.

Leaving Pentegoet, and sailing westward all day along a solitude of woods, one might reach the English outpost of Pemaquid, and thence, still sailing on, might anchor at evening off Cas...o...b..y, and see in the glowing west the distant peaks of the White Mountains, spectral and dim amid the weird and fiery sunset.