The Fighting Governor Part 2

The governor of Montreal, attended by his troops and the leading citizens, stood at the landing-place to offer full military honours to the governor of Canada. Frontenac's arrival was then signalized by a civic reception and a _Te Deum_. The round of civilities ended, the governor lost no time in unfolding the real purpose of his visit, which was less to confer with the priests of St Sulpice than to recruit forces for his expedition, in order that he might make a profound impression on the Iroquois. The proposal to hold a conference with the Iroquois at Cataraqui (where Kingston now stands) met with some opposition; but Frontenac's energy and determination were not to be denied, and by the close of June four hundred French and Indians were mustered at Lachine in readiness to launch their canoes and barges upon Lake St Louis.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ROBERT CAVELIER DE LA SALLE. From an engraving by Waltner, Paris]

If Montreal was the outpost of the colony, Lachine was the outpost of Montreal. Between these two points lay the great rapid, the Sault St Louis, which from the days of Jacques Cartier had blocked the ascent of the St Lawrence to seafaring boats. At Lachine La Salle had formed his seigneury in 1667, {41} the year after his arrival in Canada; and it had been the starting-point for the expedition which resulted in the discovery of the Ohio in 1671. La Salle, however, was not with Frontenac's party, for the governor had sent him to the Iroquois early in May, to tell them that Onontio would meet his children and to make arrangements for the great a.s.sembly at Cataraqui.

The Five Nations, remembering the chastis.e.m.e.nt they had received from Tracy in 1666,[3] accepted the invitation, but in dread and distrust.

Their envoys accordingly proceeded to the mouth of the Cataraqui; and on the 12th of July the vessels of the French were seen approaching on the smooth surface of Lake Ontario. Frontenac had omitted from his equipage nothing which could awe or interest the savage. He had furnished his troops with the best possible equipment and had with him all who could be spared safely from the colony. He had even managed to drag up the rapids and launch on Lake Ontario two large barges armed with small cannon and brilliantly painted. The whole flotilla, including a mult.i.tude of canoes arranged by squadron, was now put in battle {42} array. First came four squadrons of canoes; then the two barges; next Frontenac himself, surrounded by his personal attendants and the regulars; after that the Canadian militia, with a squadron from Three Rivers on the left flank, and on the right a great gathering of Hurons and Algonquins. The rearguard was composed of two more squadrons. Never before had such a display been seen on the Great Lakes.

Having disclosed his strength to the Iroquois chiefs, Frontenac proceeded to hold solemn and stately conference with them. But he did not do this on the day of the great naval procession. He wished to let this spectacle take effect before he approached the business which had brought him there. It was not until next day that the meeting opened.

At seven o'clock the French troops, accoutred at their best, were all on parade, drawn up in files before the governor's tent, where the conference was to take place. Outside the tent itself large canopies of canvas had been erected to shelter the Iroquois from the sun, while Frontenac, in his most brilliant military costume, a.s.sumed all the state he could. In treating with Indians haste was impossible, nor did Frontenac desire that the {43} speech-making should begin at once. His fort was hardly more than begun, and he wished the Iroquois to see how swiftly and how well the French could build defences.

When the proceedings opened there were the usual long harangues, followed by daily negotiations between the governor and the chiefs. It was a leading feature of Frontenac's diplomacy to reward the friendly, and to win over malcontents by presents or personal attention. Each day some of the chiefs dined with the governor, who gave them the food they liked, adapted his style of speech to their ornate and metaphorical language, played with their children, and regretted, through the interpreter Le Moyne, that he was as yet unable to speak their tongue. Never had such pleasant flattery been applied to the vanity of an Indian. At the same time Frontenac did not fail to insist upon his power; indeed, upon his supremacy. As a matter of fact it had involved a great effort to make all this display at Cataraqui. In his discourses, however, he laid stress upon the ease with which he had mounted the rapids and launched barges upon Lake Ontario. The sum and substance of all his harangues was this: 'I am your good, kind father, loving {44} peace and shrinking from war. But you can see my power and I give you fair warning. If you choose war, you are guilty of self-destruction; your fate is in your own hands.'

Apart from his immediate success in building under the eyes of the Iroquois a fort at the outlet of Lake Ontario, Frontenac profited greatly by entering the heart of the Indian world in person. He was able, for a time at least, to check those tribal wars which had hampered trade and threatened to involve the colony. He gained much information at first hand about the _pays d'en haut_. And throughout he proved himself to have just the qualities which were needed in dealing with a North American Indian--firmness, good-humour, and dramatic talent.

On returning from Lake Ontario to Quebec Frontenac had good reason to be pleased with his summer's work. It still remained to convince Colbert that the construction of the fort at Cataraqui was not an undue expense and waste of energy. But as the initial outlay had already been made, he had ground for hope that he would not receive a positive order to undo what had been accomplished. At Quebec he received Colbert's disparaging comments upon the a.s.sembly of the Three Estates {45} and the subst.i.tution of aldermen for the syndic who had formerly represented the inhabitants. These comments, however, were not so couched as to make the governor feel that he had lost the minister's confidence. On the whole, the first year of office had gone very well.

A stormier season was now to follow. The battle-royal between Frontenac and Perrot, the governor of Montreal, began in the autumn of 1673 and was waged actively throughout the greater part of 1674.

Enough has been said of Frontenac's tastes to show that he was a spendthrift; and there can be no doubt that as governor of Canada he hoped to supplement his salary by private trading. Soon after his arrival at Quebec in the preceding year he had formed an alliance with La Salle. The decision to erect a fort at Cataraqui was made for the double reason that while safeguarding the colony Frontenac and La Salle could both draw profit from the trade at this point in the interior.

La Salle was not alone in knowing that those who first met the Indians in the spring secured the best furs at the best bargains. This information was shared by many, including Francois Perrot. Just above the island of Montreal is another island, which {46} lies between Lake St Louis and the Lake of Two Mountains. Perrot, appreciating the advantage of a strategic position, had fixed there his own trading-post, and to this day the island bears his name. Now, with Frontenac as a sleeping partner of La Salle there were all the elements of trouble, for Perrot and Frontenac were rival traders. Both were wrathful men and each had a selfish interest to fight for, quite apart from any dispute as to the jurisdiction of Quebec over Montreal.

Under such circ.u.mstances the one thing lacking was a ground of action.

This Frontenac found in the existing edict against the coureurs de bois--those wild spirits who roamed the woods in the hope of making great profits through the fur trade, from which by law they were excluded, and provoked the special disfavour of the missionary by the scandals of their lives, which gave the Indians a low idea of French morality. Thus in the eyes of both Church and State the coureur de bois was a _mauvais sujet_, and the offence of taking to the forest without a licence became punishable by death or the galleys.

Though Frontenac was not the author of this severe measure, duty required him to enforce it. Perrot was a friend and {47} defender of the coureurs de bois, whom he used as employees in the collection of peltries. Under his regime Montreal formed their headquarters. The edict gave them no concern, since they knew that between them and trouble stood their patron and confederate.

Thus Frontenac found an excellent occasion to put Perrot in the wrong and to hit him through his henchmen. The only difficulty was that Frontenac did not possess adequate means to enforce the law. Obviously it was undesirable that he should invade Perrot's bailiwick in person.

He therefore instructed the judge at Montreal to arrest all the coureurs de bois who were there. A loyal attempt was made to execute this command, with the result that Perrot at once intervened and threatened to imprison the judge if he repeated his effort.

Frontenac's counterblast was the dispatch of a lieutenant and three soldiers to arrest a retainer of Perrot named Carton, who had shown contempt of court by a.s.sisting the accused woodsmen to escape. Perrot then proclaimed that this const.i.tuted an unlawful attack on his rights as governor of Montreal, to defend which he promptly imprisoned Bizard, the lieutenant sent by Frontenac, together with Jacques Le Ber, the leading {48} merchant of the settlement. Though Perrot released them shortly afterwards, his tone toward Frontenac remained impudent and the issue was squarely joined.

But a hundred and eighty miles of wilderness separated the governor of Canada from the governor of Montreal. In short, before Perrot could be disciplined he must be seized, and this was a task which if attempted by frontal attack might provoke bloodshed in the colony, with heavy censure from the king. Frontenac therefore entered upon a correspondence, not only with Perrot, but with one of the leading Sulpicians in Montreal, the Abbe Fenelon. This procedure yielded quicker results than could have been expected. Frontenac's letter which summoned Perrot to Quebec for an explanation was free from threats and moderate in tone. It found Perrot somewhat alarmed at what he had done and ready to settle the matter without further trouble. At the same time Fenelon, acting on Frontenac's suggestion, urged Perrot to make peace. The consequence was that in January 1674 Perrot acceded and set out for Quebec with Fenelon as his companion.

Whatever Perrot's hopes or expectations of leniency, they were quickly dispelled. The {49} very first conference between him and Frontenac became a violent altercation (January 29, 1674). Perrot was forthwith committed to prison, where he remained ten months. Not content with this success, Frontenac proceeded vigorously against the coureurs de bois, one of whom as an example was hanged in front of Perrot's prison.

The trouble did not stop here, nor with the imprisonment of Brucy, who was Perrot's chief agent and the custodian of the storehouse at He Perrot. Fenelon, whose temper was ardent and emotional, felt that he had been made the innocent victim of a detestable plot to lure Perrot from Montreal. Having upbraided Frontenac to his face, he returned to Montreal and preached a sermon against him, using language which the Sulpicians hastened to repudiate. But Fenelon, undaunted, continued to espouse Perrot's cause without concealment and brought down upon himself a charge of sedition.

In its final stage this _cause celebre_ runs into still further intricacies, involving the rights of the clergy when accused by the civil power. The contest begun by Perrot and taken up by Fenelon ran an active course throughout the greater part of a year (1674), and finally the {50} king himself was called in as judge. This involved the sending of Perrot and Fenelon to France, along with a voluminous written statement from Frontenac and a great number of doc.u.ments. At court Talon took the side of Perrot, as did the Abbe d'Urfe, whose cousin, the Marquise d'Allegre, was about to marry Colbert's son.

Nevertheless the king declined to uphold Frontenac's enemies. Perrot was given three weeks in the Bastille, not so much for personal chastis.e.m.e.nt as to show that the governor's authority must be respected. On the whole, Frontenac issued from the affair without suffering loss of prestige in the eyes of the colony. The king declined to reprimand him, though in a personal letter from his sovereign Frontenac was told that henceforth he must avoid invading a local government without giving the governor preliminary notice. The hint was also conveyed that he should not harry the clergy.

Frontenac's position, of course, was that he only interfered with the clergy when they were encroaching upon the rights of the crown.

Upon this basis, then, the quarrel with Perrot was settled. But at that very moment a larger and more serious contest was about to begin.

[1] In the minutes of this first meeting of the Sovereign Council at which Frontenac presided the high-sounding words 'haut et puissant'

stand prefixed to his name and t.i.tles.

[2] The power of the States-General reached its height after the disastrous battle of Poitiers (1356). For a short period, under the leadership of etienne Marcel, it virtually supplanted the power of the crown.

[3] See _The Great Intendant_, chap. iii.

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CHAPTER IV

GOVERNOR, BISHOP, AND INTENDANT

At the beginning of September 1675 Frontenac was confronted with an event which could have given him little pleasure. This was the arrival, by the same ship, of the bishop Laval, who had been absent from Canada four years, and Jacques d.u.c.h.esneau, who after a long interval had been appointed to succeed Talon as intendant. Laval returned in triumph. He was now bishop of Quebec, directly dependent upon the Holy See[1] and not upon the king of France. d.u.c.h.esneau came to Canada with the reputation of having proved a capable official at Tours.

By temper and training Frontenac was ill-disposed to share authority with any one. In the absence of bishop and intendant he had filled the centre of the stage. Now he must become reconciled to the presence at Quebec {52} of others who held high rank and had claims to be considered in the conduct of public affairs. Even at the moment of formal welcome he must have felt that trouble was in store. For sixteen years Laval had been a great person in Canada, and d.u.c.h.esneau had come to occupy the post which Talon had made almost more important than that of governor.

Partly through a clash of dignities and partly through a clash of ideas, there soon arose at Quebec a conflict which rendered personal friendship among the leaders impossible, and caused itself to be felt in every part of the administration. Since this antagonism lasted for seven years and had large consequences, it becomes important to examine its deeper causes as well as the forms which under varying circ.u.mstances it came to a.s.sume.

In the triangular relations of Frontenac, Laval, and d.u.c.h.esneau the bishop and the intendant were ranged against the governor. The simplest form of stating the case is to say that Frontenac clashed with Laval over one set of interests and with d.u.c.h.esneau over another; over ecclesiastical issues with the bishop and over civil interests with the intendant. In the Sovereign Council these {53} three dignitaries sat together, and so close was the connection of Church with State that not a month could pa.s.s without bringing to light some fresh matter which concerned them all. Broadly speaking, the differences between Frontenac and Laval were of more lasting moment than those between Frontenac and d.u.c.h.esneau. In the end governor and intendant quarrelled over everything simply because they had come to be irreconcilable enemies. At the outset, however, their theoretical grounds of opposition were much less grave than the matters in debate between Frontenac and Laval. To appreciate these duly we must consider certain things which were none the less important because they lay in the background.

When Frontenac came to Canada he found that the ecclesiastical field was largely occupied by the Jesuits, the Sulpicians, and the Recollets.

Laval had, indeed, begun his task of organizing a diocese at Quebec and preparing to educate a local priesthood. Four years after his arrival in Canada he had founded the Quebec Seminary (1663) and had added (1668) a preparatory school, called the Little Seminary. But the three missionary orders were still the mainstay of the Canadian {54} Church.

It is evident that Colbert not only considered the Jesuits the most powerful, but also thought them powerful enough to need a check.

Hence, when Frontenac received his commission, he received also written instructions to balance the Jesuit power by supporting the Sulpicians and the Recollets.

Through his dispute with Perrot, Frontenac had strained the good relations which Colbert wished him to maintain with the Sulpicians.

But the friction thus caused was in no way due to Frontenac's dislike of the Sulpicians as an order. Towards the Jesuits, on the other hand, he cherished a distinct antagonism which led him to carry out with vigour the command that he should keep their power within bounds. This can be seen from the earliest dispatches which he sent to France.

Before he had been in Quebec three months he reported to Colbert that it was the practice of the Jesuits to stir up strife in families, to resort to espionage, to abuse the confessional, to make the Seminary priests their puppets, and to deny the king's right to license the brandy trade. What seemed to the Jesuits an unforgivable affront was Frontenac's charge that they cared more for beaver skins than for the conversion of the savages. This {55} they interpreted as an insult to the memory of their martyrs, and their resentment must have been the greater because the accusation was not made publicly in Canada, but formed part of a letter to Colbert in France. The information that such an attack had been made reached them through Laval, who was then in France and found means to acquaint himself with the nature of Frontenac's correspondence.

Having displeased the Sulpicians and attacked the Jesuits, Frontenac made amends to the Church by cultivating the most friendly relations with the Recollets. No one ever accused him of being a bad Catholic.

He was exact in the performance of his religious duties, and such trouble as he had with the ecclesiastical authorities proceeded from political aims rather than from heresy or irreligion.

Like so much else in the life of Canada, the strife between Frontenac and Laval may be traced back to France. During the early years of Louis XIV the French Church was distracted by the disputes of Gallican and Ultramontane. The Gallicans were faithful Catholics who nevertheless held that the king and the national clergy had rights which the Pope must respect. The Ultramontanes {56} defined papal power more widely and sought to minimize, disregard, or deny the privileges of the national Church.

Between these parties no point of doctrine was involved,[2] but in the sphere of government there exists a frontier between Church and State along which many wars of argument can be waged--at times with some display of force. The Ma.s.s, Purgatory, the Saints, Confession, and the celibacy of the priest, all meant as much to the Gallican as to the Ultramontane. Nor did the Pope's headship prove a stumbling-block in so far as it was limited to things spiritual. The Gallican did, indeed, a.s.sert the subjection of the Pope to a General Council, quoting in his support the decrees of Constance and Basel. But in the seventeenth century this was a theoretical contention. What Louis XIV and Bossuet strove for was the limitation of papal power in matters affecting property and political rights. The real questions upon which Gallican and Ultramontane differed were the {57} appointment of bishops and abbots, the contribution of the Church to the needs of the State, and the priest's standing as a subject of the king.

Frontenac was no theorist, and probably would have written a poor treatise on the relations of Church and State. At the same time, he knew that the king claimed certain rights over the Church, and he was the king's lieutenant. Herein lies the deeper cause of his troubles with the Jesuits and Laval. The Jesuits had been in the colony for fifty years and felt that they knew the spiritual requirements of both French and Indians. Their missions had been illuminated by the supreme heroism of Brebeuf, Jogues, Lalemant, and many more. Their house at Quebec stood half-way between Versailles and the wilderness. They were in close alliance with Laval and supported the ideal and divine rights of the Church. They had found strong friends in Champlain and Montmagny. Frontenac, however, was a layman of another type. However orthodox his religious ideas may have been, his heart was not lowly and his temper was not devout. Intensely autocratic by disposition, he found it easy to identify his own will to power with a defence {58} of royal prerogative against the encroachments of the Church. It was an att.i.tude that could not fail to beget trouble, for the Ultramontanes had weapons of defence which they well knew how to use.

Having in view these ulterior motives, the acrimony of Frontenac's quarrel with Laval is not surprising. Rightly or wrongly, the governor held that the bishop was subservient to the Jesuits, while Colbert's plain instructions required the governor to keep the Jesuits in check.

From such a starting-point the further developments were almost automatic. Laval found on his return that Frontenac had exacted from the clergy unusual and excessive honours during church services. This furnished a subject of heated debate and an appeal by both parties to the king. After full consideration Frontenac received orders to rest content with the same honours which were by custom accorded the governor of Picardy in the cathedral of Amiens.

More important by far than this argument over precedence was the dispute concerning the organization of parishes. Here the issue hinged on questions of fact rather than of theory. Beyond question the habitants were ent.i.tled to have priests living permanently in {59} their midst, as soon as conditions should warrant it. But had the time come when a parish system could be created? Laval's opinion may be inferred from the fact that in 1675, sixteen years after his arrival in Canada, only one priest lived throughout the year among his own people.

This was the Abbe de Bernieres, cure of Notre Dame at Quebec. In 1678 two more parishes received permanent inc.u.mbents--Port Royal and La Durantaye. Even so, it was a small number for the whole colony.

Frontenac maintained that Laval was unwilling to create a normal system of parishes because thereby his personal power would be reduced. As long as the cures were not permanently stationed they remained in complete dependence on the bishop. All the funds provided for the secular clergy pa.s.sed through his hands. If he wished to keep for the Seminary money which ought to go to the parishes, the habitants were helpless. It was ridiculous to pamper the Seminary at the expense of the colonists. It was worse than ridiculous that the French themselves should go without religious care because the Jesuits chose to give prior attention to the souls of the savage.

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