Book: Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV

F >> Francis Parkman >> Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV




In telling the story of La Salle, I have described the execution of
the new plan: the muster of the Canadians, at the call of Frontenac;
the consternation of those of the merchants whom he and La Salle had
not taken into their counsels, and who saw in the movement the
preparation for a gigantic fur trading monopoly; the intrigues set on
foot to bar the enterprise; the advance up the St. Lawrence; the
assembly of Iroquois at the destined spot; the ascendency exercised
over them by the governor; the building of Fort Frontenac on the
ground where Kingston now stands, and its final transfer into the
hands of La Salle, on condition, there can be no doubt, of sharing the
expected profits with his patron. [Footnote: Discovery of the Great
West, chap. vi.]

On the way to the lake, Frontenac stopped for some time at Montreal,
where he had full opportunity to become acquainted with a state of
things to which his attention had already been directed. This state of
things was as follows:--When the intendant, Talon, came for the second
time to Canada, in 1669, an officer named Perrot, who had married his
niece, came with him. Perrot, anxious to turn to account the influence
of his wife's relative, looked about him for some post of honor and
profit, and quickly discovered that the government of Montreal was
vacant. The priests of St. Sulpice, feudal owners of the place, had
the right of appointing their own governor. Talon advised them to
choose Perrot, who thereupon received the desired commission, which,
however, was revocable at the will of those who had granted it. The
new governor, therefore, begged another commission from the king, and
after a little delay he obtained it. Thus he became, in some measure,
independent of the priests, who, if they wished to rid themselves of
him, must first gain the royal consent.

Perrot, as he had doubtless foreseen, found himself in an excellent
position for making money. The tribes of the upper lakes, and all the
neighboring regions, brought down their furs every summer to the
annual fair at Montreal. Perrot took his measures accordingly. On the
island which still bears his name, lying above Montreal and directly
in the route of the descending savages, he built a storehouse, and
placed it in charge of a retired lieutenant named Brucy, who stopped
the Indians on their way, and carried on an active trade with them, to
the great profit of himself and his associate, and the great loss of
the merchants in the settlements below. This was not all. Perrot
connived at the desertion of his own soldiers, who escaped to the
woods, became _coureurs de bois_, or bush-rangers, traded with the
Indians in their villages, and shared their gains with their
commander. Many others, too, of these forest rovers, outlawed by royal
edicts, found in the governor of Montreal a protector, under similar
conditions.

The journey from Quebec to Montreal often consumed a fortnight. Perrot
thought himself virtually independent; and relying on his commission
from the king, the protection of Talon, and his connection with other
persons of influence, he felt safe in his position, and began to play
the petty tyrant. The judge of Montreal, and several of the chief
inhabitants, came to offer a humble remonstrance against disorders
committed by some of the ruffians in his interest. Perrot received
them with a storm of vituperation, and presently sent the judge to
prison. This proceeding was followed by a series of others, closely
akin to it, so that the priests of St. Sulpice, who received their
full share of official abuse, began to repent bitterly of the governor
they had chosen.

Frontenac had received stringent orders from the king to arrest all
the bush-rangers, or _coureurs de bois_; but, since he had scarcely a
soldier at his disposal, except his own body-guard, the order was
difficult to execute. As, however, most of these outlaws were in the
service of his rival, Perrot, his zeal to capture them rose high
against every obstacle. He had, moreover, a plan of his own in regard
to them, and had already petitioned the minister for a galley, to the
benches of which the captive bush-rangers were to be chained as
rowers, thus supplying the representative of the king with a means of
transportation befitting his dignity, and at the same time giving
wholesome warning against the infraction of royal edicts. [Footnote:
_Frontenac au Ministre_, 2 _Nov._, 1672.] Accordingly, he sent orders
to the judge, at Montreal, to seize every _coureur de bois_ on whom he
could lay hands.

The judge, hearing that two of the most notorious were lodged in the
house of a lieutenant named Carion, sent a constable to arrest them;
whereupon Carion threatened and maltreated the officer of justice, and
helped the men to escape. Perrot took the part of his lieutenant, and
told the judge that he would put him in prison, in spite of Frontenac,
if he ever dared to attempt such an arrest again. [Footnote: _Mémoire
des Motifs qui ont obligé M. le Comte de Frontenac de faire arrêter le
Sieur Perrot._]

When Frontenac heard what had happened, his ire was doubly kindled. On
the one hand, Perrot had violated the authority lodged by the king in
the person of his representative; and, on the other, the mutinous
official was a rival in trade, who had made great and illicit profits,
while his superior had, thus far, made none. As a governor and as a
man, Frontenac was deeply moved; yet, helpless as he was, he could do
no more than send three of his guardsmen, under a lieutenant named
Bizard, with orders to arrest Carion and bring him to Quebec.

The commission was delicate. The arrest was to be made in the
dominions of Perrot, who had the means to prevent it, and the audacity
to use them. Bizard acted accordingly. He went to Carion's house, and
took him prisoner; then proceeded to the house of the merchant Le Ber,
where he left a letter, in which Frontenac, as was the usage on such
occasions, gave notice to the local governor of the arrest he had
ordered. It was the object of Bizard to escape with his prisoner
before Perrot could receive the letter; but, meanwhile, the wife of
Carion ran to him with the news, and the governor suddenly arrived, in
a frenzy of rage, followed by a sergeant and three or four soldiers.
The sergeant held the point of his halberd against the breast of
Bizard, while Perrot, choking with passion, demanded, "How dare you
arrest an officer in my government without my leave?" The lieutenant
replied that he acted under orders of the governor-general, and gave
Frontenac's letter to Perrot, who immediately threw it into his face,
exclaiming: "Take it back to your master, and tell him to teach you
your business better another time. Meanwhile you are my prisoner."
Bizard protested in vain. He was led to jail, whither he was followed
a few days after by Le Ber, who had mortally offended Perrot by
signing an attestation of the scene he had witnessed. As he was the
chief merchant of the place, his arrest produced a great sensation,
while his wife presently took to her bed with a nervous fever.

As Perrot's anger cooled, he became somewhat alarmed. He had resisted
the royal authority, and insulted its representative. The consequences
might be serious; yet he could not bring himself to retrace his steps.
He merely released Bizard, and sullenly permitted him to depart, with
a letter to the governor-general, more impertinent than apologetic.
[Footnote: _Mémoire des Motifs, etc._]

Frontenac, as his enemies declare, was accustomed, when enraged, to
foam at the mouth. Perhaps he did so when he learned the behavior of
Perrot. If he had had at command a few companies of soldiers, there
can be little doubt that he would have gone at once to Montreal,
seized the offender, and brought him back in irons; but his body-guard
of twenty men was not equal to such an enterprise. Nor would a muster
of the militia have served his purpose; for the settlers about Quebec
were chiefly peaceful peasants, while the denizens of Montreal were
disbanded soldiers, fur traders, and forest adventurers, the best
fighters in Canada. They were nearly all in the interest of Perrot,
who, if attacked, had the temper as well as the ability to make a
passionate resistance. Thus civil war would have ensued, and the anger
of the king would have fallen on both parties. On the other hand, if
Perrot were left unpunished, the _coureurs de bois_, of whom he was
the patron, would set no bounds to their audacity, and Frontenac, who
had been ordered to suppress them, would be condemned as negligent or
incapable.

Among the priests of St. Sulpice at Montreal was the Abbé Salignac de
Fénelon, half-brother of the celebrated author of _Télémaque_. He was
a zealous missionary, enthusiastic and impulsive, still young, and
more ardent than discreet. One of his uncles had been the companion of
Frontenac during the Candian war, and hence the count's relations with
the missionary had been very friendly. Frontenac now wrote to Perrot,
directing him to come to Quebec and give account of his conduct; and
he coupled this letter with another to Fénelon, urging him to
represent to the offending governor the danger of his position, and
advise him to seek an interview with his superior, by which the
difficulty might be amicably adjusted. Perrot, dreading the
displeasure of the king, soothed by the moderate tone of Frontenac's
letter, and moved by the assurances of the enthusiastic abbé, who was
delighted to play the part of peace-maker, at length resolved to
follow his counsel. It was mid-winter. Perrot and Fénelon set out
together, walked on snow-shoes a hundred and eighty miles down the
frozen St. Lawrence, and made their appearance before the offended
count.

Frontenac, there can be little doubt, had never intended that Perrot,
once in his power, should return to Montreal as its governor; but
that, beyond this, he meant harm to him, there is not the least proof.
Perrot, however, was as choleric and stubborn as the count himself;
and his natural disposition had not been improved by several years of
petty autocracy at Montreal. Their interview was brief, but stormy.
When it ended, Perrot was a prisoner in the château, with guards
placed over him by day and night. Frontenac made choice of one La
Nouguère, a retired officer, whom he knew that he could trust, and
sent him to Montreal to command in place of its captive governor. With
him he sent also a judge of his own selection. La Nouguère set himself
to his work with vigor. Perrot's agent or partner, Brucy, was seized,
tried, and imprisoned; and an active hunt was begun for his _coureurs
de bois_. Among others, the two who had been the occasion of the
dispute were captured and sent to Quebec, where one of them was
solemnly hanged before the window of Perrot's prison; with the view,
no doubt, of producing a chastening effect on the mind of the
prisoner. The execution was fully authorized, a royal edict having
ordained that bush-ranging was an offence punishable with death.
[Footnote: _Édits et Ordonnances_, I. 73.] As the result of these
proceedings, Frontenac reported to the minister that only five
_coureurs de bois_ remained at large; all the rest having returned to
the settlements and made their submission, so that farther hanging was
needless.

Thus the central power was vindicated, and Montreal brought down from
her attitude of partial independence. Other results also followed, if
we may believe the enemies of Frontenac, who declare that, by means of
the new commandant and other persons in his interest, the
governor-general possessed himself of a great part of the trade from
which he had ejected Perrot, and that the _coureurs de bois_, whom he
hanged when breaking laws for his rival, found complete impunity when
breaking laws for him.

Meanwhile, there was a deep though subdued excitement among the
priests of St. Sulpice. The right of naming their own governor, which
they claimed as seigniors of Montreal, had been violated by the action
of Frontenac in placing La Nouguère in command without consulting
them. Perrot was a bad governor; but it was they who had chosen him,
and the recollection of his misdeeds did not reconcile them to a
successor arbitrarily imposed upon them. Both they and the colonists,
their vassals, were intensely jealous of Quebec; and, in their
indignation against Frontenac, they more than half forgave Perrot.
None among them all was so angry as the Abbé Fénelon. He believed that
he had been used to lure Perrot into a trap; and his past attachment
to the governor-general was turned into wrath. High words had passed
between them; and, when Fénelon returned to Montreal, he vented his
feelings in a sermon plainly levelled at Frontenac. [Footnote:
_Information faite par nous, Charles le Tardieu, Sieur de Tilly._
Tilly was a commissioner sent by the council to inquire into the
affair.] So sharp and bitter was it, that his brethren of St. Sulpice
hastened to disclaim it; and Dollier de Casson, their Superior,
strongly reproved the preacher, who protested in return that his words
were not meant to apply to Frontenac in particular, but only to bad
rulers in general. His offences, however, did not cease with the
sermon; for he espoused the cause of Perrot with more than zeal, and
went about among the colonists to collect attestations in his favor.
When these things were reported to Frontenac, his ire was kindled, and
he summoned Fénelon before the council at Quebec to answer the charge
of instigating sedition.

Fénelon had a relative and friend in the person of the Abbé d'Urfé,
his copartner in the work of the missions. D'Urfé, anxious to conjure
down the rising storm, went to Quebec to seek an interview with
Frontenac; but, according to his own account, he was very ill
received, and threatened with a prison. On another occasion, the count
showed him a letter in which D'Urfé was charged with having used
abusive language concerning him. Warm words ensued, till Frontenac,
grasping his cane, led the abbé to the door and dismissed him,
berating him from the top of the stairs in tones so angry that the
sentinel below spread the report that he had turned his visitor out of
doors. [Footnote: _Mémoire de M. d'Urfé à Colbert_, extracts in
Faillon.]

Two offenders were now arraigned before the council of Quebec: the
first was Perrot, charged with disobeying the royal edicts and
resisting the royal authority; the other was the Abbé Fénelon. The
councillors were at this time united in the interest of Frontenac, who
had the power of appointing and removing them. Perrot, in no way
softened by a long captivity, challenged the governor-general, who
presided at the council board, as a party to the suit and his personal
enemy, and took exception to several of the members as being
connections of La Nouguère. Frontenac withdrew, and other councillors
or judges were appointed provisionally; but these were challenged in
turn by the prisoner, on one pretext or another. The exceptions were
overruled, and the trial proceeded, though not without signs of doubt
and hesitation on the part of some of the councillors. [Footnote: All
the proceedings in the affair of Perrot will be found in full in the
_Registre des Jugements et Délibérations du Conseil Supérieur_. They
extend from the end of January to the beginning of November, 1674.]

Meanwhile, other sessions were held for the trial of Fénelon; and a
curious scene ensued. Five councillors and the deputy attorney-general
were seated at the board, with Frontenac as presiding judge, his hat
on his head and his sword at his side, after the established custom.
Fénelon, being led in, approached a vacant chair, and was about to
seat himself with the rest, when Frontenac interposed, telling him
that it was his duty to remain standing while answering the questions
of the council. Fénelon at once placed himself in the chair, and
replied that priests had the right to speak seated and with heads
covered.

"Yes," returned Frontenac, "when they are summoned as witnesses, but
not when they are cited to answer charges of crime."

"My crimes exist nowhere but in your head," replied the abbé. And,
putting on his hat, he drew it down over his brows, rose, gathered his
cassock about him, and walked in a defiant manner to and fro.
Frontenac told him that his conduct was wanting in respect to the
council, and to the governor as its head. Fénelon several times took
off his hat, and pushed it on again more angrily than ever, saying at
the same time that Frontenac was wanting in respect to his character
of priest, in citing him before a civil tribunal. As he persisted in
his refusal to take the required attitude, he was at length told that
he might leave the room. After being kept for a time in the anteroom
in charge of a constable, he was again brought before the council,
when he still refused obedience, and was ordered into a sort of
honorable imprisonment. [Footnote: _Conteste entre le Gouverneur et
l'Abbé de Fénelon; Jugements et Déliberations du Conseil Supérieur_,
21 _Août_, 1674.]

This behavior of the effervescent abbé, which Frontenac justly enough
characterizes as unworthy of his birth and his sacred office, was,
nevertheless, founded on a claim sustained by many precedents. As an
ecclesiastic, Fénelon insisted that the bishop alone, and not the
council, had the right to judge him. Like Perrot, too, he challenged
his judges as parties to the suit, or otherwise interested against
him. On the question of jurisdiction, he had all the priests on his
side. Bishop Laval was in France; and Bernières, his grand vicar, was
far from filling the place of the strenuous and determined prelate.
Yet the ecclesiastical storm rose so high that the councillors,
discouraged and daunted, were no longer amenable to the will of
Frontenac; and it was resolved at last to refer the whole matter to
the king. Perrot was taken from the prison, which he had occupied from
January to November, and shipped for France, along with Fénelon. An
immense mass of papers was sent with them for the instruction of the
king; and Frontenac wrote a long despatch, in which he sets forth the
offences of Perrot and Fénelon, the pretensions of the ecclesiastics,
the calumnies he had incurred in his efforts to serve his Majesty, and
the insults heaped upon him, "which no man but me would have endured
so patiently." Indeed, while the suits were pending before the
council, he had displayed a calmness and moderation which surprised
his opponents. "Knowing as I do," he pursues, "the cabals and
intrigues that are rife here, I must expect that every thing will be
said against me that the most artful slander can devise. A governor in
this country would greatly deserve pity, if he were left without
support; and, even should he make mistakes, it would surely be very
pardonable, seeing that there is no snare that is not spread for him,
and that, after avoiding a hundred of them, he will hardly escape
being caught at last." [Footnote: _Frontenac au Ministre, 14 Nov.,
1674_. In a preceding letter, sent by way of Boston, and dated 16
February, he says that he could not suffer Perrot to go unpunished
without injury to the regal authority, which he is resolved to defend
to the last drop of his blood.]

In his charges of cabal and intrigue, Frontenac had chiefly in view
the clergy, whom he profoundly distrusted, excepting always the
Récollet friars, whom he befriended because the bishop and the Jesuits
opposed them. The priests on their part declare that he persecuted
them, compelled them to take passports like laymen when travelling
about the colony, and even intercepted their letters. These
accusations and many others were carried to the king and the minister
by the Abbé d'Urfé, who sailed in the same ship with Fénelon. The
moment was singularly auspicious to him. His cousin, the Marquise
d'Allègre, was on the point of marrying Seignelay, the son of the
minister Colbert, who, therefore, was naturally inclined to listen
with favor to him and to Fénelon, his relative. Again, Talon, uncle of
Perrot's wife, held a post at court, which brought him into close
personal relations with the king. Nor were these the only influences
adverse to Frontenac and propitious to his enemies. Yet his enemies
were disappointed. The letters written to him both by Colbert and by
the king are admirable for calmness and dignity. The following is from
that of the king:--

"Though I do not credit all that has been told me concerning various
little annoyances which you cause to the ecclesiastics, I nevertheless
think it necessary to inform you of it, in order that, if true, you
may correct yourself in this particular, giving to all the clergy
entire liberty to go and come throughout all Canada without compelling
them to take out passports, and at the same time leaving them perfect
freedom as regards their letters. I have seen and carefully examined
all that you have sent touching M. Perrot; and, after having also seen
all the papers given by him in his defence, I have condemned his
action in imprisoning an officer of your guard. To punish him, I have
had him placed for a short time in the Bastile, that he may learn to
be more circumspect in the discharge of his duty, and that his example
may serve as a warning to others. But after having thus vindicated my
authority, which has been violated in your person, I will say, in
order that you may fully understand my views, that you should not
without absolute necessity cause your commands to be executed within
the limits of a local government, like that of Montreal, without first
informing its governor, and also that the ten months of imprisonment
which you have made him undergo seems to me sufficient for his fault.
I therefore sent him to the Bastile merely as a public reparation for
having violated my authority. After keeping him there a few days, I
shall send him back to his government, ordering him first to see you
and make apology to you for all that has passed; after which I desire
that you retain no resentment against him, and that you treat him in
accordance with the powers that I have given him." [Footnote: _Le Roi
a Frontenac_, 22 _Avril_, 1675.]

Colbert writes in terms equally measured, and adds: "After having
spoken in the name of his Majesty, pray let me add a word in my own.
By the marriage which the king has been pleased to make between the
heiress of the house of Allègre and my son, the Abbé d'Urfé has become
very closely connected with me, since he is cousin german of my
daughter-in-law; and this induces me to request you to show him
especial consideration, though, in the exercise of his profession, he
will rarely have occasion to see you."

As D'Urfé had lately addressed a memorial to Colbert, in which the
conduct of Frontenac is painted in the darkest colors, the almost
imperceptible rebuke couched in the above lines does no little credit
to the tact and moderation of the stern minister.

Colbert next begs Frontenac to treat with kindness the priests of
Montreal, observing that Bretonvilliers, their Superior at Paris, is
his particular friend. "As to M. Perrot," he continues, "since ten
months of imprisonment at Quebec and three weeks in the Bastile may
suffice to atone for his fault, and since also he is related or
connected with persons for whom I have a great regard, I pray you to
accept kindly the apologies which he will make you, and, as it is not
at all likely that he will fall again into any offence approaching
that which he has committed, you will give me especial pleasure in
granting him the honor of your favor and friendship." [Footnote:
_Colbert a Frontenac,_ 13 _Mai,_ 1675.]

Fénelon, though the recent marriage had allied him also to Colbert,
fared worse than either of the other parties to the dispute. He was
indeed sustained in his claim to be judged by an ecclesiastical
tribunal; but his Superior, Bretonvilliers, forbade him to return to
Canada, and the king approved the prohibition. Bretonvilliers wrote to
the Sulpitian priests of Montreal: "I exhort you to profit by the
example of M. de Fénelon. By having busied himself too much in worldly
matters, and meddled with what did not concern him, he has ruined his
own prospects and injured the friends whom he wished to serve. In
matters of this sort, it is well always to stand neutral." [Footnote:
_Lettre de Bretonvilliers, 7 Mai, 1675_; extract in Faillon. Fénelon,
though wanting in prudence and dignity, had been an ardent and devoted
missionary. In relation to these disputes, I have received much aid
from the research of Abbé Faillon, and from the valuable paper of Abbé
Verreau, _Les deux Abbés de Fenelon,_ printed in the Canadian _Journal
de l'Instruction Publique,_ Vol. VIII.]




CHAPTER IV.

1675-1682.

FRONTENAC AND DUCHESNEAU.

FRONTENAC RECEIVES A COLLEAGUE.--HE OPPOSES THE CLERGY.--DISPUTES IN
THE COUNCIL.--ROYAL INTERVENTION.--FRONTENAC REBUKED.--FRESH
OUTBREAKS.--CHARGES AND COUNTERCHARGES.--THE DISPUTE GROWS
HOT.--DUCHESNEAU CONDEMNED AND FRONTENAC WARNED.--THE QUARREL
CONTINUES.--THE KING LOSES PATIENCE.--MORE ACCUSATIONS.--FACTIONS AND
FEUDS.--A SIDE QUARREL.--THE KING THREATENS.--FRONTENAC DENOUNCES THE
PRIESTS.--THE GOVERNOR AND THE INTENDANT RECALLED.--QUALITIES OF
FRONTENAC.

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