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THE
great trouble in Canada was that it was an over-governed country.
The whole population when Frontenac arrived was but little over six
thousand souls, scattered over a territory stretching from Matane
and Tadousac in the east, to the western limit of the Island of
Montreal. What these people needed in the first place was freedom to
seek their living in their own way, and secondly, an extremely
simple form of government. Instead of this they were hampered in
their trade, and made continually to feel their dependence on the
central power; while, in the matter of political organization, they
were placed under the precise system which prevailed in the
provinces of the French kingdom. In the Sovereign Council they had
the equivalent of a parliament in the French—by no means in the
English—sense; that is to say, a body for registering, and so
bestowing a final character of validity upon, the decrees of the
sovereign, and for administering justice. The executive power was
divided between governor and intendant with very doubtful results.
Below the Sovereign Council, as a judicial body, was the court of
the Prdvote. The one thing the people were not allowed to have was
anything in the way of representative institutions. Colbert, perhaps
by immediate royal direction, gave the keynote of monarchical
absolutism when he said, in words already quoted: " Let every man
speak for himself; let no one presume to speak for all." Thus was
the king in his strength and majesty placed over against the
solitary protesting individual. Doubtless self-government in the
full sense would not have been possible at the time, seeing that
self-government implies, as its first condition, pecuniary
independence, and the country was not in a position to provide all
the money required for its civil and military expenditure. However,
possible or impossible, the thing was not thought of, or to be
thought of, at the time. The result of the elaborate organization
actually established was that administrators and councillors, having
far too little to do, fell to quarrelling with one another in the
manner already seen and.yet to be seen. The Canadian colony was not
really peculiar in this respect. Any one who reads in Clement's
great work the voluminous correspondence of Colbert will see that
strife and jealousy was the rule throughout the whole colonial
service. The same spirit, in fact, prevailed which was exhibited in
the daily life of the court, where every one was desperately
struggling for the sunshine of royal favour, and where,
consequently, questions of precedence and etiquette were regarded as
of surpassing importance. And now a most serious question of this
nature was to blaze forth in Canada.
In various despatches from the court, Frontenac
had been spoken of as " President of the Sovereign Council," though
that office had never in any-formal way been attached to the
governorship. Shortly after Duchesneau's appointment as intendant, a
ro^al ordinance was issued conferring the title in question upon
him. In this there was no intention whatever to diminish the rank or
prestige of the governor. The idea was rather to relieve him from
the drudgery of presiding at meetings of the council, by giving to
the latter a permanent working head in the person of the intendant,
a man assumed to be accustomed to routine business and to have the
trained official's capacity for details. Any other man than
Frontenac would have seen the matter in this light, and rejoiced
that a substitute had been found for him in a most uninteresting
duty. He still had access to the council, and whenever he chose to
attend, he occupied the seat of honour as the king's immediate
representative, while a lower functionary would act as chairman, put
questions to the vote, and sign the minutes. To the mind of
Frontenac, unfortunately, the thing presented itself in a very
different light; he saw his prerogative attacked, his dignity
impaired. If he was not president of the council, why was he ever so
addressed in official despatches ? M. Duchesneau, on the other hand,
took his stand on the stronger ground of a special ordinance
appointing him to the office. Behold the elements of a mighty
quarrel
In the early days of Frontenac's governorship
the preamble of the proceedings in council used to read: " The
council having assembled, at which presided the high and mighty
lord, Messire Louis de Buade Frontenac, chevalier, Comte de Palluau,"
etc. Later it was simplified so as to read: "At which presided his
Lordship, the governor-general." After the arrival of Duchesneau a
new formula was adopted. In the minutes of the 23rd
September 1675, the intendant is
mentioned as " having taken his seat as president" ; and in those of
30th September we find the words " acting as president according to
the declaration of the king." The bickering began almost from the
date of Duches-neau's arrival; but it was not till the winter of
1678-9 that it developed into actual strife. The minister received
many tiresome communications on the subject, and in April 1679 he
seems to think that the chief fault is on the side of the intendant,
for he writes to him sharply: "You continually speak as if M. de
Frontenac was always in the wrong. . . . You seem to put yourself in
a kind of parallel with him. The only reply I can make to all these
despatches of yours is that you must strive to know your place, and
get a proper idea into your head of the difference between a
governor and lieutenant-general representing the person of the
sovereign, and an intendant." This was hard enough, but what follows
is a shade worse: he is told that in making his reports,
particularly when they contain accusations,
he " should be very careful not to advance anything that is not
true." Finally, he is warned that until he learns the difference
between the king's representative and himself, he will be in danger,
not only of being rebuked, but of being dismissed. Frontenac's turn
came a few months later. Colbert writes in December of the same
year, and tells him that the king is getting very tired of all this
squabbling, and has come to the conclusion that he (Frontenac) " is
not capable of that spirit of union and conciliation which is
necessary to prevent the troubles that are continually arising, and
which are so fraught with ruin to a new colony." The king had heard
of the trouble that was being made over this petty question, and
Colbert expresses his Majesty's surprise that Frontenac should
bother his head about such a thing.
When this despatch reached Canada, Frontenac had
gone much further in the matter than either the king or the minister
suspected. Peuvret, clerk of the council, had been imprisoned
because he would not disobey the orders of the council, in the
matter of his minutes, in order to obey those of the governor.
During four months the routine business of the council had been
suspended while this wretched business was being fought over. Three
of the councillors had been banished from Quebec, being ordered to
remain in their country-houses till permitted to return. A more
discreditable state of things could not well be imagined, nor one of
worse example for the country. At last a compromise was proposed by
d'Auteuil, the attorney-general, which was that the minutes should
mention the presence of the governor and intendant at the meetings
of the council, without speaking of either as presiding or as
president. Frontenac at first would not have anything to do with
such an arrangement, but finally he consented to it till the king's
pleasure could be known.
The king this time lost patience. When an answer
came back, it was his ^pleasure that was known, and displeasure with
his " high and mighty Lordship, the governor." The king told him
plainly that he had on various occasions advanced claims that had
very little foundation, and that in this matter his pretensions were
directly opposed to a royal ordinance. His Majesty added : "lam sure
you are the only man in my kingdom who, being honoured with the
titles of governor and lieutenant-general, would care to be styled
chief and president of a council such as that at Quebec." Colbert
dealt with the matter officially, and quoted this opinion of the
king's almost in the same words. He also observed that, if Frontenac
had any wish to give satisfaction to his Majesty, he would have to
change entirely the line of conduct he had hitherto pursued. It
seemed, however, as if the court could not afford to give a clear
victory to Duchesneau, for, as a practical settlement of the point
at issue, it was ordered that the
modus vivendi suggested by the
attorney-general and actually in force should be adopted as a
permanent rule—a classical example of political trimming.
It is difficult to understand how any man in
Frontenac's position could fail to feel profoundly humbled and
chastened by so emphatic a reproof emanating direct from his
sovereign master, and echoed in an official despatch from the
minister in charge of colonies. We look in vain, however, for
evidence that any such effect was produced on the spirit of the
governor. He doubtless felt that he had achieved at least half a
victory. The title had been depreciated in the despatches from the
court; it was not worth
his having, and Duchesneau was not to
have it. For a time there was what looked like a truce between the
two heads of the state, and shortly afterwards we find Duchesneau
writing to say that he and the governor are now on excellent terms;
that he is omitting nothing on his side that can give satisfaction
to the latter; that he communicates the very smallest things to him,
and that he hopes, by sheer force of amiability, to secure a little
show of kindness in return. Seeing, however, that in the same
despatch in which these excellent sentiments occur, he enters into
lengthy accusations against Frontenac on the trading question, and
that the latter was engaged about the same time in working up
similar charges against him, as appears by a document bearing date
the following year, we may reasonably doubt whether very amicable or
charitable feelings prevailed on either side.
D'Auteuil, the attorney-general, who had been
for some time in a failing condition, and whose health had probably
not been improved by his occasional stormy interviews with the
governor, by whom he was cordially detested, died in the early
winter of 1679-80. Duchesneau, in anticipation of this event, had
obtained the king's permission to name a successor, and had secured
a signed commission which, to be complete, only required to have a
name filled in. Auteuil's son, Francis Madeleine, had been assisting
him for a couple of years in his office, and as he was a very
assuming youth—he was not yet twenty-one—and bitterly hostile to the
governor, he was naturally the intendant's choice. Young d'Auteuil
had hardly entered on his duties before he picked a quarrel with
Boulduc, prosecutor of the lower court, known as a firm ally of
Frontenac, whom he ordered to wait upon him at his office every
Saturday to prepare cases for the court under his (d'Auteuil's)
supervision. Boulduc refused. The council took the matter up, but
found it hard to decide, and the squabble dragged during most of the
year 1680. In the following year facts came to light which caused
Boulduc to be charged with embezzlement, and d'Auteuil pushed the
matter with great zeal. Frontenac, anxious to save his friend, tried
to represent the accusation as the outcome of private vengeance;
unfortunately the facts were against the
procureur, who was condemned, and
dismissed from office.
Some of the side issues that were raised on this
occasion brought out strikingly the spirit of Canadian official
society. Villeray, first councillor, a man more obnoxious to
Frontenac on account of his extreme devotion to the ecclesiastical
authorities perhaps than by reason of his dubious antecedents,1
gave himself, in certain pleadings, the title of " esquire."
Frontenac denied that he had any right to it, and held the pleadings
invalid. Frontenac's secretary, Le Chasseur, appeared on a summons
before the council, but refused to answer because he had been
described in the summons as "secretary of Monsieur, the Governor,"
instead of "Monseigneur the Governor." Thus were the king's
instructions to all and sundry to practise peace and concord being
observed! A worse affair was that of the councillor, Damours, who,
in the summer of 1681, obtained a
cong6 from Frontenac to go as far as
Matane where he had a property, and who was arrested by order of the
governor on his return a few weeks later for having in some way
exceeded the terms of his permit. Damours' wife appealed to the
council, but Frontenac objected to having her letter read.
Duchesneau urged the council to take cognizance of the case, but
some of the members did not feel it safe to do so, and finally the
papers were referred to the king—another quarrel for his Majesty to
adjust! Meantime Damours remains in confinement for about six weeks.
His Majesty of course disapproves of such harshness. In a letter
dated 30th April 1681, after giving his representative various other
cautions, he begs him to divest his mind of all those private
animosities which up to the present have been almost the sole motive
of his actions. "It is hard," he adds, "for me to give you my full
confidence when I see that everything gives way to your personal
enmities."
A question reserved for consideration in this
chapter was as to how far there was foundation for the charges of
illegitimate trading brought so continually by the intendant against
the governor, and retorted by the latter .against the intendant.
What may be noticed in the first place is the slight amount of
attention apparently paid by the court to these charges and
counter-charges. The king could not openly approve of trading on the
part of his high officers; he was obliged to condemn it in strong
and precise terms ; but he knew at the same time that they had
starvation salaries, and it is possible that he was not wholly
unwilling that they should, in a quiet way, make a little money out
of the traffic in furs. Frontenac and Duchesneau were both recalled
in the end ; but it was not for trading; it was for quarrelling,
playing at cross-purposes, and sacrificing the welfare of the
country to their mutual jealousies. M. Lorin, whose sympathy with
Frontenac is conspicuous, is disposed to admit that he did not
wholly abstain from trading; but he thinks he did it in a more
respectable and less rapacious manner than Duchesneau. He observes
that Frontenac's partners, if partners he had, were chiefly the
great explorers, La Salle, Du Lhut and others; while the associates
of Duchesneau were traders pure and simple, men like Lebert, Le
Moyne and La Chesnaye. On the other hand the court does not seem to
have taken Frontenac's accusations against the intendant seriously.
The king indeed informs him that he regards his charges as "mere
recriminations." Duchesneau, it will be remembered, had been warned
not to put into his despatches things that were not true; possibly
he was worrying the minister and the king with information they
would rather not receive. The correspondence of 1679 shows clearly
the hostile relations of the two administrators.
In the summer and fall of that year the governor
spent nearly three months at Montreal. On the 6th November, having
returned to Quebec, he writes to the king: " I have received diverse
advices from the Jesuit fathers and other missionaries that General
Andros (Governor of New York) was lately soliciting the Iroquois in
an underhand way to break with us, and that he was about convening a
meeting of the Five Nations, in order to propose matters of a nature
to disturb our trade with them." Four days later the intendant takes
up his parable and informs the minister
that the governor " had
made
the news he pretended to have received regarding the plans of the
English general, Andros, to debauch the Iroquois," the whole thing
being a mere pretext for making a prolonged stay at Montreal at the
height of the trading season. He charges the governor with exacting
presents from the Indians in return for the protection afforded them
by his guards, and with having taken seven packages of beaver skins
from the Ottawas in consideration of his having settled a dispute
into which they had got with some Frenchmen at Montreal. It will be
remembered, and the fact certainly has an air of significance, that,
when it was a question of granting amnesty to the
coureurs de bois, it was Duchesneau who
suggested that each man should be required to give the fullest
information as to what trade he had been carrying on, and
on whose account.
The amnesty was granted without this condition. Evidently the court
did not want an embarrassment of information. Duchesneau's trouble
was an excess of not* wholly disinterested zeal.
The case is not overstated by Frontenac's latest
and fullest biographer, M. Lorin, when he says that " the lack of a
good understanding between the two administrators had divided
Canadian society, or at least that portion of it which came into
contact with the king's officers, into two camps." Street brawls
arising out of the embitter-ment of feeling were not infrequent. An
illustrative incident was the
imprisonment of young Duchesneau, son of the intendant, for singing
in the streets some snatches of a song disrespectful to the
governor. The patience of the court was at last exhausted, and in
the summer of 1682, Frontenac and Duchesneau were simultaneously
recalled; and thus was brought to a close the count's first term of
office as governor of Canada.
Some larger questions relating to this period
may now profitably occupy our attention. One of the earliest acts of
Frontenac, it will be remembered, was to summon the Iroquois to meet
him in conference at Cataraqui, where, by his happy manner of
dealing with them, he established a remarkable personal ascendency
over their minds, and succeeded, for the time at least, in placing
the relations between them and the French upon an excellent footing.
The frequent visits which he subsequently paid to his favourite fort
gave him opportunities of improving his acquaintance with his dusky
lieges and of strengthening the good understanding that had been
brought about. For some years things worked smoothly, and the colony
enjoyed a comfortable sense of security. From the first, however,
the influence of Onontio was more felt by the eastern and nearer
members of the confederacy than by the western and more remote; and,
as time wore on, the latter, particularly the Senecas, began to show
a quarrelsome and insolent temper. They did not venture to attack
the French, but they committed various acts of aggression on native
tribes allied with - them and under their protection. Several years
before they had waged war with the Illinois and driven them from
their habitations. Then they turned southwards and engaged in a
prolonged conflict with a tribe known as the Andostagnds, during
which time the Illinois, having recovered in a measure from their
losses, ventured to return to their former abodes. The explorations
of La Salle had brought these people into alliance with the French;
but when the Senecas had successfully concluded their war with the
Andos-tagnds they were not disposed to refrain from attacking them
anew on that account. After various preliminary raids, they sent, in
the spring of 1680, an army of five or six hundred men into the
Illinois territory and committed great havoc. It was on this
occasion that Tonty, La Salle's lieutenant, nearly lost his life at
Fort Crevecoeur. The question now was whether the French would stand
idly by and see their allies destroyed. If they did, not only would
their influence over the tribes trusting in their protection be
annihilated, but they might soon have to fight for their own
preservation without any native assistance. Frontenac sent messages
to the Iroquois enjoining them to keep the peace; but the voice that
once had charmed and overawed sounded now a very ineffectual note.
Father Lamberville, Jesuit missionary to the Iroquois, wrote to say
that the upper tribes had lost all fear of the French, and that a
slight provocation would cause them to make war on Canada.
Frontenac and Duchesneau both discuss the matter
in their despatches of the year 1681, the latter as usual blaming
the former, hinting that he shirked his duty in not going up to
Cataraqui in the previous summer in order to meet the tribes and use
his personal influence in favour of peace. Frontenac writes as if he
had not much confidence in that method ; he asks for five or six
hundred soldiers to quell the rebellious tribes. He thinks it would
be quite enough to patrol Lake Ontario with a respectable force in
order to bring them to submission. After this despatch had gone,
news arrived of a most regrettable incident which threatened to
precipitate war. This was the murder of a Seneca chief by an
Illinois on the territory of the Kiskakons, one of the Ottawa tribes
in alliance with the French. According to Indian usage the Kiskakons
were responsible for the crime, and the Senecas were hot for
revenge. Appreciating the gravity of the situation, Frontenac sends
a special message to request the offended tribe to stay their hands,
promising to hold himself responsible for seeing that full atonement
is made for the wrong done. They consent, but ask that he will meet
them somewhere in or near Iroquois territory on the 15th June of the
following year. No pledge is given on this point, but messengers are
sent to the Ottawas to tell them that they must be prepared to make
full amends, and that, if they will send delegates to Montreal, the
matter will be discussed and arranged there.
The winter of 1681-2 was clearly an anxious one
for the colony. Frontenac thought it well to summon the wisest heads
in the country to meet in the Jesuit Seminary at Quebec in order to
discuss the Indian question in all its bearings. Those taking part
in the conference, in addition to himself, were the intendant, the
provost, and three Jesuit fathers, who had had long experience in
mission work and knew the savage tribes thoroughly. The general
opinion of the meeting was that Frontenac should go to Fort
Frontenac to meet the Iroquois, as they had requested, in the
following month of June. Frontenac, for some reason or other, did
not like the idea. He did not want to go further than Montreal.
Moreover, there was no use, he said, in meeting the Iroquois till he
knew what the Ottawas were going to do; and they would not reach
Montreal till late in the summer. The governor had his way. The
Ottawas, including the Kiskakons, came in August. Only with great
difficulty were they persuaded to give the necessary satisfaction to
the Iroquois, who, they said, no doubt with truth, were much keener
in seeking satisfaction for wrongs than in giving it when wrong was
done by themselves. The Iroquois sent delegates to Montreal in the
following month ; and by dint of presents and promises a somewhat
doubtful arrangement was patched up for the temporary maintenance of
peace. Frontenac took advantage of his visit to Montreal to survey
the fortifications and give instructions for strengthening them at
several points. These were virtually the final acts of his
administration, for in the last week of September his successor
landed at Quebec.
What at this time were the resources of the
colony in population ? In 1668, under the administration of
Courcelles, Talon, the intendant, had reported the population at
6282. In 1673, a year after his arrival, Frontenac made a return
showing a total of 6705 souls. The king, Colbert said, was much
disappointed at these figures and thought they could not be correct,
as there were more people in the country ten years before. Where his
Majesty got this information we do not know, but probably from some
agent of the West India Company interested in exaggerating the
prosperity of the country. He seems to have completely overlooked
Talon's figures for 1668, not to mention two previous returns made
by the same careful officer in 1666 and 1667; the first showing a
population of 3418 only, and the second one of 4312. It seems
probable, however, that Frontenac's figures were somewhat short, as
the increase they showed was less than seven per cent over Talon's
for 1668, five years earlier; while a return which he made two years
later gave a population of 7832, indicating a gain of nearly
seventeen per cent, in that comparatively brief period. Even these
figures did not satisfy the king, who insisted that he had sent over
more people himself in the fifteen years or so that the country had
been under his direct control.
It is to be remarked that for some years after
Frontenac's arrival in Canada immigration received a serious check.
His commission as governor was nearly even in date with the
commencement of Louis XIV's buccaneering war against Holland, in
which he was joined by his English cousin Charles II. The heroic
stand made by the Dutch against the united power of the French and
English monarchies is one of the glories of their history. It was
not a good time for French immigrant ships to be abroad; moreover,
all available Frenchmen were wanted for military service, over
200,000 having been drafted into the land forces alone, and the
losses by war continually calling for recruits. A natural increase,
however, was gding on in the colony all the time ; and in 1679
Duchesneau reported the population of Canada at 9400, and that of
Acadia at 515. Three years later, at the end of Frontenac's first
administration, the number had increased to over 10,000.
Trade, however, was not prosperous. Duchesneau,
in November 1681, speaks of it as declining; though he tries to show
that the West India trade in particular had increased in his time.
The reason why trade was not prosperous is not far to seek: it was
hampered and strangled by various forms of political control. The
West India Company, called into existence by Colbert in 1663, had
not fared much better than the Company of New France organized by
Richelieu. The reflections which Clement makes on this subject in
his life of Colbert are much to the point. " If ever a company," he
says, "was placed in circumstances where everything seemed to
promise success, assuredly it was the West India Company as
reconstituted by Colbert. Monopolizing the commerce of a large part
of the West Indies and of the settlements on the west coast of
Africa, absolute and sovereign proprietor of all the territory in
which its privilege was exercised, receiving large premiums on all
that it exported or imported, one would naturally expect it to
surpass the expectations of its founders. The contrary, however, was
what happened, and new mortifications were added to all. that had
gone before. . . . By the year 1672 the company was bankrupt."1
The chief cause of the failure M. Clement believes to have been the
prohibition of trade with foreigners. Certainly what Canada most
wanted was an outlet for its productions ; and, could foreign
vessels have freely visited the country to buy fish, lumber, potash,
and skins, not to mention their own supplies, Canada would have had
an open and really unlimited market during nearly the whole season
of navigation. This restriction of foreign trading continued
unfortunately after the king had bought out the rights of the
bankrupt company in the year 1674. Having only the market of France
to depend on, the trade of the colony was subject to all the
vicissitudes by which that market was affected. It thus suffered
severely through the war with Holland, which brought an enormous
strain to bear, for a period of six years (1672-8), on the finances
of the kingdom. In the years 1675 and 1676 starvation was stalking
through the land; the courtiers, in driving from Paris to
Versailles, would frequently see the corpses of the wretched victims
of famine strewing the highway; while in Brittany and one or two
other provinces the hangman was doing a merry business in swinging
off the unfortunates whose misery had driven them to theft or other
acts of disorder. " Gallows and instruments of torture were to be
seen at all the crossways," says Henri Martin. Madame de Sevignd
gives the most horrible details in regard to the severities
exercised, but with very little show of sympathy for the unhappy
people whom she speaks of as a
" canaille revoltee
"—rebellious riff-raff. " This province" [Brittany], she says, "will
be a fine example for the rest and will teach the lower orders to
respect the higher powers." To the same fluent and graceful pen we
owe the almost Tacitean utterance : " The punishments are easing
off: by dint of vigorous hanging, there will be no more hanging to
do." " They make a desert," says Tacitus, " and they call it peace."
Such was the industrial stagnation prevalent
about this time throughout the kingdom that very often vessels
arriving at certain ports could not find return freights ; there was
nothing to export. Colbert's efforts to build up great industries by
means of bounties and restrictive tariffs had, after a temporary
flash of success, resulted in dismal failure; and when peace was
made with Holland in 1678, one of the conditions agreed upon was
that "reciprocal liberty of trade between France and the United
Provinces was not to be forbidden, limited, or restrained by any
privilege, customs duty, or concession, and that neither country
should give any immunities, benefits, premiums, or other advantages
not conceded equally to subjects of the other." Thus was Colbert's
leading principle of commercial policy completely overthrown, and
that after a war, which had brought him to the verge of despair to
provide the means for carrying it on.
Those were the days, however, of " imperialism "
in a very real sense. Whatever the state of commerce might be in the
Mother Country, Canada still had to trade with her alone; and, even
so, all mercantile operations were hampered by an arbitrary fixing
of prices. This was so under the sway of the company, and continued
to be so to a large extent after its privileges had been swept away.
Very imperial was the rule of Louis XIV. In his youth he had seen an
attempt by the parliament of Paris to assert its prerogatives. In
January 1649, just about the time when the scaffold was being
prepared for Charles I of England, he and the court hardly knew
where to turn for shelter; and he never forgot one night which they
had to spend in fireless rooms without any attendance. The royal
power, astutely guided by Mazarin, asserted itself eventually over
parliaments and princes alike; and Louis XIV, arrived at manhood,
determined that no such trouble should occur again in his time.
Gaillardin, in his history of the reign of Louis XIV, fixes upon the
year 1672—the year in which Frontenac was sent to Canada—as the
epoch of the most complete enslavement of the parliaments. The
historic function which those bodies were supposed to exercise,
apart from their judicial powers, was that of registering the royal
edicts ; and in theory such registration was necessary in order to
give any edict the full force of law. Manifestly this privilege
might, like the control over money votes exercised by the English
House of Commons, have developed into an effective check upon
monarchical absolutism. The possibility was not overlooked, and
marvellously clear and precise is the declaration by which Louis
XIV, in the year 1673, put all the parliaments of his kingdom into
the precise position he meant them to occupy. " First of all," the
decree reads, " silent obedience : the courts [parliaments] are
strictly forbidden to listen to any opposition to the registration
of the letters of the king; clerks are forbidden to enter such
oppositions on the records; bailiffs are forbidden to give
notification of them. . . . The courts are ordered
to register the letters of the king without any
modification, restriction, or condition which might cause delay or
impediment to their execution." When this duty has been submissively
performed, then, if the parliaments have any observations to make,
they may make them; but, when once the king has replied, there is to
be no further discussion of any kind, simply prompt obedience. The
registration of the royal edicts became henceforth a mere matter of
form ; and remonstrances of any kind, even such as the king
graciously permitted
after registration, ceased to be made.
The Chancellor dAguesseau1 says that none were made
during the remaining forty-two years of the king's lifetime.
It may be objected, perhaps, that this is French
and not Canadian history; if so the answer must be that it is
impossible to understand the history of Canada in this period unless
we have a sufficient comprehension of the political system to which
Canada was bound by the most vital of ties. We get a strong light
upon the character of Frontenac when we rightly grasp that of his
master, the Roi-Soleil, as he allowed himself to be called, the man
who, daring the fate of Herod or Nebuchadnezzar, once said, " It
seems to me as if any glory won by another was robbed from myself."
Some years before he had put on record the sentiment: " It is God's
will that whoever is born a subject should not reason but obey."
To return, however, to Canada, when the king
bought out the rights of the bankrupt company, monopoly was not at
an end, for he proceeded to put up the trade of the country, under
limited leases, to the highest bidders. Those who obtained leases
were called the " farmers," and were entitled to ten per cent, of
the value of all furs taken in the country. The Sovereign Council at
Quebec undertook to fix the prices of goods except as regards
dealings with the Indians; and non-resident merchants, while they
might establish warehouses, and there sell to the French
inhabitants, were not allowed to deal directly with the Indians,
these being left to the mercy of local traders who made a practice
of charging them excessive prices for all that they sold. Frontenac
and Duchesneau both report to the home government that the Indians
get twice as much from the English and Dutch in exchange for their
furs as they do from the French; and yet the aim of both is to force
all the Indians in their jurisdiction to sell their furs exclusively
in Canada. Canadians who went to the English settlements, either in
New England or in what is now New York, were amazed at the cheapness
of goods. Duchesneau, in one of his later despatches, speaks of the
commercial prosperity of Boston and the large fortunes accumulated
by some of its citizens. Nothing similar was to be seen in Canada,
where there was a settled belief on the part of the governing powers
in whatever was most restrictive and illiberal in commercial policy.
The first administration of Frontenac will
always be associated with the intrepid enterprises of the great
western explorers, Jolliet, La Salle, Du Lhut, Nicolas Perrot, and
others. To Jolliet is reasonably assigned the first discovery of the
Mississippi. Starting from Green Bay, or, as it was then called,
Baie des Puants, on the west shore of Lake Michigan, in company with
the Jesuit father, Marquette, he worked his way to the Wisconsin
River, which he followed to its junction with the Mississippi; and
then descended the latter river till he reached, latitude 33°, or
about as far as the northern boundary of the present state of
Louisiana. Fear of falling into the hands of the Spaniards, who, as
he was informed by the Indians, had settlements not far to the
south, caused him to retrace his steps. When he was just completing
his return journey, his canoe upset close to Montreal, and all his
papers were lost, including the notes he had made of his
observations, and a map of the region through which he had passed.
He himself narrowly escaped with his life—the laws of nature were in
fact suspended, as he gravely declares, in his behalf—but a young
savage whom he was bringing from the country of the Illinois was
drowned.2 He reached Quebec in
the month of August 1674, and the thrilling
account which he gave of his adventures produced
a strong impression on the mind of the governor. Nevertheless when,
two years later, he asked permission to go with twenty men to make
further explorations in the same direction, Colbert refused his
request. A possible explanation is that his previous journey with
P£re Marquette had established relations which Frontenac did not
quite approve between him and the Jesuits in the western country,
who had lost no time in pushing their missions towards the south.
However this may have been, Frontenac had his eye at this very time
upon a man who seemed to him much better suited to be an agent of
his policy.
It has already been mentioned that Robert
Cavelier de la Salle obtained from the king in the year 1675 a grant
of the fort erected by Frontenac at Cataraqui. The conditions of the
grant were that he was to reimburse the cost of construction,
estimated at ten thousand livres; keep it in good repair; maintain a
sufficient garrison; employ twenty men for two years in clearing the
land conceded to him in the neighbourhood; provide a priest or friar
to perform divine service and administer the sacraments; form
villages of Indians and French; and have all his lands cleared and
improved, within twenty years. On these terms he was to have four
square leagues of land, that is to say, eight leagues in length
along the river and lake front, east and west of the fort, by half a
league in depth, together 156 with the islands opposite. But what
was of most value in a pecuniary sense, and what he depended on to
compensate his outlay, was the right of hunting and fishing in the
neighbouring region, and of trading with the Indians. To what extent
La Salle actually developed the property thus conceded to him is a
matter of dispute. The Abb£ Faillon, who perhaps has some little
animus against him, says that he did nothing worth mentioning
towards establishing such a colony as the king intended. The king,
on the other hand, when granting La Salle authority to undertake
explorations in the direction of the Mississippi speaks approvingly
of the work he had done on his concession. The information may have
been derived from La Salle himself, who went to France in the autumn
of 1677 to obtain sanction for his proposed expedition; but it is
hardly likely that he would lay altogether false information before
the minister for submission to the king. It seems to be certain that
he did at least put the fort in a good condition of defence. He
pulled down the old one, which consisted merely of a wooden palisade
banked up with earth and having a circumference of one hundred and
twenty yards, and replaced it by one having a circumference of seven
hundred and twenty yards, and protected by four stone bastions.
The probability is that La Salle, from the
first, looked upon his establishment at the fort partly as an
advanced base for the further explorations he had in view, and
partly as a means of providing the funds without which his schemes
could not be realized. The proposition which he laid before the
government, was that he should erect at his own expense two forts,
one at the mouth of the Niagara River on the east side, the other at
the southern extremity of Lake Michigan ; and that he should be
commissioned to proceed to the discovery of the mouth of the
Mississippi, and be granted the exclusive right of trading with the
Indians inhabiting the countries to be visited. The trade he was
most anxious to control was that in buffalo hides, a sample of which
he had brought with him to France. Having obtained all necessary
powers, he sailed for Canada in the summer of 1678, bringing with
him as much money as he could persuade his family and friends to
advance, together with a large quantity of goods. The pecuniary
obligations thus assumed were to be paid off, as he hoped, partly by
the profits of his trade at Cataraqui, and partly by those of his
operations in the more distant West. The story of his struggles and
tribulations is too long to give in any detail here, but the main
points may be hurriedly sketched.
The first care of the explorer on arriving at
Quebec in the autumn was to load several canoes with goods to the
value of several thousands of francs, and despatch them with a party
of men to the Illinois country. In the spring carpenters were sent
forward to Niagara to commence the construction of a fort. He
himself followed in a large canoe laden
with provisions and goods. His first misadventure was the loss of
this canoe and its freight, not far from the mouth of the Niagara
River. The accident was due to the inattention of his men while he
was on shore. A little above the Falls of Niagara he began the
construction of a forty-five ton vessel, destined for the trade
between that point and an establishment he proposed to make at the
southern end of Lake Michigan. The Iroquois of the neighbourhood did
not like these proceedings, but did not make any active opposition.
The vessel was completed and La Salle and his men sailed away in her
through Lake Erie, the St. Clair River, and Lake Huron into Lake
Michigan. Severe storms were encountered on the way. Near Green Bay
the men whom he had sent forward with goods the previous fall met
him with a number of canoes, all laden with skins, the result of
their trading with the Illinois. This was more expedition than he
had counted on, for he had told them to await his arrival. He caused
the goods, however, to be transferred to his vessel, the
Griffon,
as she was called, and sent her back to Niagara with a sufficient
crew. She was never-heard of more; but the Indians reported that,
shortly after she left shelter, a terrible storm had arisen on Lake
Michigan. They watched her for some time as she was tossed about by
the fury of the waves, and then they lost sight of her. Ignorant of
this disaster, La Salle was making his way south. He established two
forts on the Illinois River. The first,
which he called St. Louis, was near the site of the present town of
La Salle. The second, a little further south, near to Peoria, he
named Crkvecceur. The name is significant of " heartbreak," and his
fortunes were then at their lowest ebb, for provisions were
exhausted and a number of men had deserted; still it is not recorded
that the name was given on that account. Leaving Henry Tonty, a man
of great energy and resource, whom he had brought out from France,
in charge of Fort Cr&vecceur he made his way back alone to Fort
Frontenac and thence to Montreal.
It was at Fort Frontenac that La Salle first
learnt the fate of his richly-laden
Griffon; while at Montreal the news
reached him of the loss of a vessel coming from France with a large
quantity of goods for his trade. Such an accumulation of misfortunes
was enough to break the spirit of an ordinary man; but La Salle was
a man whom adversity could not conquer. Straining his credit to the
utmost to procure supplies and reinforcements, he returns to the
Illinois country to find Fort Cr&vecceur in ruins. It had been
attacked by the Iroquois and its defenders scattered. Tonty, wounded
in the skirmish, had gone to Michili-mackinac. Getting no word of
him, La Salle assumes that he is dead. Once more the long journey
eastward must be faced. He reaches Montreal, and succeeds in
organizing yet another expedition. Again he sets out for the West.
It is late in the fall of 1680 when he reaches Michilimackinac,
where he is overjoyed to find the lost Tonty. The two proceed
together to the Illinois country. The year 1681 is spent in
establishing or re-establishing posts and dealing or negotiating
with the natives. On the 6th February 1682 La Salle strikes the
Mississippi. Two months and three days later, or on the 9th of
April, he is gazing forth over the waters of the Gulf of Mexico.
The tale is quickly told; but not so easy is it
adequately to appraise the courage, determination and resource
necessary for the accomplishment of such an enterprise. Knowing what
we do of the man, the portrait of him in Margry's third volume seems
to possess a certain convincing character, though Margry himself
does not vouch for its authenticity. We see a face sensitive,
perhaps sensuous, subtle, passionate, daring, tenacious. Such a man
could not bind himself to the task of patient colonization at Fort
Frontenac, or even find satisfaction in the more varied and exciting
life of a frontiersman and trader. An overwhelming desire possessed
him and to follow the swelling flood of the mightiest of rivers to
its bourne in some mighty sea. Such a man will have the defects of
his qualities, and La Salle was neither devoid of jealousy nor
incapable of injustice ; and he was a somewhat hard taskmaster.
Possessed himself of iron nerve and unbending resolution, and
sustained by visions of high accomplishment, he expected more from
average men than they were altogether capable of rendering. More
than once some of his followers deserted him. One attempt was made
at Fort Frontenac to poison him ; and finally he met his death at
the hand of an assassin, a member of his own party, in that far
southern region which he had added to the domain of France.
Frontenac's personal relations with La Salle are
not very clearly defined. He was certainly favourable to him at
first. The two men were much alike in their attitude towards the
ecclesiastical power; and both showed a preference for the Itdcollet
order, two members of which La Salle maintained at the fort.
Frontenac also approved of La Salle's plans of discovery in the west
and south, as tending to the extension of the French dominions and
the glory of the French name, and possibly also as furnishing a
counterpoise to the growing influence of the Jesuits among the
western Indians. There is nothing, however, to show that he followed
the later movements of the great explorer with any particular
sympathy.
Du Lhut was a man of a different type. He did
not possess the vaulting ambition, nor perhaps the talent for
organization, of La Salle; but he discovered a vast stretch of new
territory in what is now the western part of New Ontario, and along
the course of the Assiniboine; and, so far as skill in the
management of the native races was concerned he was probably
superior to the more romantic explorer.
No man was more successful in upholding French prestige amongst the
Indian tribes. It was just before La Salle returned from France in
the autumn of 1678 that Du Lhut, in somewhat clandestine fashion,
slipped off to the West. Those were the days in which the
coureur de bois difficulty was at its
height; and, upon arriving at Sault Ste. Marie, he wrote to
Frontenac in a rather deprecatory tone as if sensible of the
doubtful legality of his position, but pointed out the advantages
that would accrue from entering into relations with the North
Western Indians. About a year later he presided over a great meeting
of the tribes on the site of the important city which now bears his
name (according to one spelling of it); established peace between
communities that had long been at war; and obtained. the promise of
the important tribe of the Nades-sioux to direct their trade in
future to Montreal. This was eminently useful work, and gained for
its author the full sympathy of Frontenac. Nevertheless, on his
return to Quebec in the following year (1680), he was imprisoned for
violation of the king's regulations, in all probability at the
instance of the vigilant M. Jacques Duchesneau, who would be prompt
to suspect complicity in illegal trading between him and the
governor. He was released after a short detention, and went to
France in the fall of 1681, in the hope of obtaining the king's
sanction for further explorations. In this he was unsuccessful; but,
returning to Canada, he obtained employment in the West as post
commander and agent to the tribes west and north of Lake Superior.
Through him the French influence was extended, not only far into
what is now our own North-West, but even to the shores of Hudson's
Bay, much of the trade which had before been done with the English
of that region being diverted, through his persuasions, to Montreal.
While the secular rulers of the country were,
with somewhat divided aims, striving to promote the material
interests and provide for the security of the colony, the church,
with considerably more unity of purpose, was labouring to achieve
spiritual results. The promotion of M. de Laval to the see of Quebec
put an end to much disputing and mutual distrust amongst different
orders of the clergy. It is said to have had a markedly beneficial
effect on Laval himself, who seemed at once to dismiss the
exaggerated suspicions he had entertained regarding all who were not
thoroughly subdued to his influence, and the Sulpician order in
particular. Missionary work was actively carried on, and though the
question of tithes gave more or less trouble, and the people were
not as zealous as might have been wished in providing for the
maintenance of their local clergy, the influence of the church and
of religion was strongly felt throughout the length and breadth of
the land. The king had much at heart the establishment of permanent
curacies, and in 1679 issued an edict on the subject, which,.however,
had little effect.
His Majesty's idea was that the
cure should receive tithes, and that if
these did not suffice to give him a decent living, further rates
should be levied on the seigneurs and the people. As even the tithes
were paid very grudgingly, it is easy , to believe that a scheme of
further taxation for church purposes stood little chance of
acceptance. We have already seen that Laval was by no means in love
with the policy of fixed
cures, and he was probably not sorry to
be able to represent to the court that it really could not be
carried into effect. Bishop and people together were too much even
for the king.
The Rdcollets, always on the alert to make
themselves useful, rose to the occasion by offering to serve the
parishes and accept simply what the people might be disposed to
give, but the bishop thought their zeal savoured of officiousness,
and declined the offer with scanty thanks. These worthy
ecclesiastics were very popular in the country, and it is probable
they could have successfully carried out their undertaking had they
been allowed to try. The bishop had other views for the nurture of
his Canadian flock. The Rdcollet fathers did not at this time stand
very high in his esteem. The Jesuits accused them of tolerating
grave abuses in the household of the governor, who had a Rdcollet,
Father Maupassant, for confessor; but, as M. Lorin pertinently
observes, the accusation was singularly ill-timed, considering the
flagrant disorders which marked the private life of Frontenac's
master, Louis XIV, whose spiritual interests were in charge of the
Jesuit, P&re Lachaise. The monarch—" ce religieux prince," as the
Abb£ Faillon calls him—had no hesitation in demanding of the
parliament of Paris legitimation of successive batches of his
bastard offspring, and registration of the titles of nobility he was
pjeased to confer upon them. Whatever the responsibilities of Father
Maupassant may have been, he must have had a sinecure in comparison
with the king's confessor. It may be added that Frontenac vehemently
denied that there were any disorders or scandals in his household.
Missions to the different Indian tribes were in
active operation during the whole of the period now under review.
Those of the Jesuits were by far the most widespread. Their chief
establishment outside of Quebec was at Sault Ste. Marie ; in
addition they had permanent missions at Mackinac, Green Bay, and
various points in the Iroquois country; while Father Albanel
penetrated as far as Hudson's Bay, and others laboured amongst the
Indians of the Saguenay region. The Sulpicians were less
adventurous; they did most of their evangelizing work on or near to
the Island of Montreal. They had an establishment, however, on the
Bay of Quintd, and one or more on the Ottawa River. The Rdcollets
had Fort Frontenac, Perc£ on the Baie des Chaleurs, and certain
posts on the line of La Salle's explorations.
As regards the conversion of the savage tribes.
it can hardly be claimed that any of these missions were very
successful. All authorities agree that it was extremely difficult to
impress the Indian mind with the truths of Christianity, or with the
idea of any absolute and exclusive theology. The Indian was quite
ready to accept the missionary's version of the origin of the world,
provided the missionary would reciprocate and accept his decidedly
different version. Each, he held, was good in its place ; a little
variety in these matters did no harm. He had little or no sense of
sin, for he did not recognize that the things he did were wrong, and
when threatened with the terrors of a future world, he simply said
that he did not believe the " master of life " could hate anybody.
At the same time he was quite prepared to join in religious services
if requested, and seemed even to enjoy the ceremonial. He believed
in unlimited charity to relatives and friends, but could not be got
to admit the duty of forgiving enemies. An Indian who had been
informed that in France many died of want, while others of the same
nation had food and substance of all kinds in the greatest
profusion, was scandalized beyond measure. He was affected much as
we should be by some dark tale of cruelty and superstition from a
far-off heathen land. And to think that people of whom such things
could be told were sending missionaries to
him, to enjoin upon him, among other
things, the duty of charity!
But if the missionaries made comparatively
little headway in the matter of actual conversions, it is impossible
to doubt that they exerted a general influence for good upon the
tribes to whom they ministered. This may fairly be inferred from the
moral authority they exercised and the security and respect they
enjoyed. They were themselves men of pure lives and disinterested
motives; and so far they personally recommended the doctrines they
preached. To some extent also they taught the savages various useful
arts of life. Frontenac specially commends the Montreal Seminary for
their efforts to civilize the Indians of their missions who, under
their instruction, had taken to raising domestic animals, swine,
poultry, etc., and to cultivating wheat as well as native grains.
The Abbé Verreau, on the other hand, is inclined to hold that the
attempts made, at the urgent demand of the French government, to
civilize as well as christianize the Indians are accountable, in
part at least, for the general failure of the missions. "We all know
now," he says, " what has been the result of so much effort and so
much outlay of money. Two or three poor villages inhabited by
unhappy creatures who have added our vices to their own
deficiencies, without having adopted any of our better qualities.
That is all that remains of the Abenaquis, the Hurons, and the
Iroquois."1 The reflection is a sad
one, and the abbé feels it, for he speaks
further of the painful mystery of the disappearance of these
children of the forest. Truly does the poet say that" God fulfils
Himself in many ways," yet none the less the surviving white man may
well feel some misgiving when he thinks of all his past dealings
with his red brother. |
