Book: Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV

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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: _Mémoire 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 à Frontenac_, 8 _May_,
1694; _Le Ministre à Champigny, même 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
associations of pious women helped them in the work. [Footnote: Old
Régime, 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
Château 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 Récollet 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 passed 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 snatched their bows and arrows. The Sieur
Glandelet was first to begin, and preached two sermons, in which he
tried to prove that nobody 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
à_ -----, 28 _Sept_., 1694.]

This story needs explanation. Not only had the amateur actors at the
château played two pieces inoffensive enough in themselves, but a
report had been spread that they meant next to perform the famous
"Tartuffe" of Molière, a satire which, while purporting to be levelled
against falsehood, lust, 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 Comédies_, 16 _Jan_., 1694; _Mandement au Sujet de certaines
Personnes qui tenoient des Discours impies, même 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
passes 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 anticipated 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 God, 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, assumed; 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 _Fév_., 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 Récollets, 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. _Mémoire du Roy
pour Frontenac et Champigny,_ 1694; _Le Ministre à l'Évêque,_ 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 mass. 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 à_ ----, 28 _Sept.,_ 1694; _Champigny au Ministre,_ 27
_Oct.,_ 1694.] The bishop then went up to Montreal, and discord went
with him.

Except Frontenac alone, Callières, 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 Récollets, 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. Callières was
also present, kneeling at a _prie-dieu_, or prayer-desk, near the
middle of the church. Saint-Vallier, having just said mass, was
seating himself in his arm-chair, close to the altar, when he saw
Callières 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." Callières 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
Callières; and the prelate withdrew abruptly through the sacristy,
refusing any farther part in the ceremony. [Footnote: _Procès-verbal
du Père Hyacinthe Perrault, Commissaire Provincial des Récollets
(Archives Nationales); Mémoire touchant le Démeslé entre M. l'Évesque
de Québec et le Chevalier de Callières (Ibid.)_.] When the services
were over, he ordered the friars to remove the obnoxious _prie-dieu_.
They obeyed; but an officer of Callières 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'Église des Récollets_, 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 Supérieur du dit Couvent
estant lié 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'Évesque de Québec
(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
Callières. [1] It is said that the accusation was groundless, and the
character of the woman wholly irreproachable. The Récollets 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 Assinneboins, to rid himself of all these torments."
[Footnote: _Frontenac à 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 Callières, "after
quarrelling with everybody." The various points in dispute were set
before the king. An avalanche of memorials, letters, and
_procès-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 Procédures faites entre le Sieur Évesque de Québec
et les Sieurs Mareuil, Desjordis, etc., seront évoquez au Conseil
Privé de Sa Majesté_, 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 à 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 à 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 à 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.
Callières was mildly advised not to take part in the disputes of the
bishop and the Récollets. [Footnote: _Le Ministre à Callières_, 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
passionate and reckless partisan, Abbé 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 château during three or four months, they acted the piece before a
large audience. "He was not satisfied with having it played at the
château, 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 Récollets. 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, assembled 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'Évesque accuse publiquement le Rev. Père Joseph, supérieur
des Récollets de Montréal, d'être l'entremetteur d'une galanterie
entre sa soeur et le Gouverneur. Cependant Mr. l'Évesque sait
certainement que le Père Joseph est l'un des meilleurs et des plus
saints religieux de son ordre. Ce qu'il allègue du prétendu commerce
entre le Gouverneur et la Dame de la Naudière (_soeur du Père
Joseph_) est entièrement faux, et il l'a publié avec scandale, sans
preuve et contre toute apparence, la ditte Dame ayant toujours eu une
conduite irréprochable." _Mémoire touchant le Démeslé, etc._
Champigny also says that the bishop has brought this charge, and that
Callières 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 (Hôtel-Dieu). The contemporary _Récit d'une Religieuse
Ursuline_ speaks of Frontenac with gratitude, as a friend and
benefactor, as does also Mother Juchereau, superior of the Hôtel-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.--MASSACRE 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
_garçons_ and 30 _filles_ were sent by the king to Acadia, at the cost
of 6,000 livres. _État. de Dépenses_, 1671.] Grandfontaine held the
nominal command for a time, followed by a succession of military
chiefs, Chambly, Marson, and La Vallière. 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 Vallière, 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 Hêve 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 shore 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, Beaubassin 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, passing Mount Desert, another scene
of ancient settlement, and entering Penobscot 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 Beaubassin.
By the census of 1693, the number had reached 1,009.]

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