The Fighting Governor A Chronicle of Frontenac   By: Charles W. (Charles William) Colby (1867-1955)

THE FIGHTING

GOVERNOR

A Chronicle of Frontenac

BY

CHARLES W. COLBY

TORONTO

GLASGOW, BROOK & COMPANY

1915

Copyright in all Countries subscribing to the Berne Convention

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CONTENTS

Page

I. CANADA IN 1672 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 II. LOUIS DE BUADE, COMTE DE FRONTENAC . . . . . . . . . . . 17 III. FRONTENAC'S FIRST YEARS IN CANADA . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 IV. GOVERNOR, BISHOP, AND INTENDANT . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 V. FRONTENAC'S PUBLIC POLICY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71 VI. THE LURID INTERVAL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87 VII. THE GREAT STRUGGLE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113 VIII. FRONTENAC'S LAST DAYS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162 INDEX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164

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ILLUSTRATIONS

FRONTENAC ANSWERING PHIPS'S MESSENGER, 1690 . . . . Frontispiece From a colour drawing by C. W. Jefferys.

LADY FRONTENAC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Facing page 22 From a painting in the Versailles Gallery.

JEAN BAPTISTE COLBERT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . " 26 From an engraving in the Château de Ramezay.

ROBERT CAVELIER DE LA SALLE . . . . . . . . . . . . " 40 From an engraving by Waltner, Paris.

FIGURE OF FRONTENAC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . " 80 From the Hébert Statue at Quebec.

PIERRE LE MOYNE, SIEUR D'IBERVILLE . . . . . . . . . " 118 From an engraving in the John Ross Robertson Collection, Toronto Public Library.

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CHAPTER I

CANADA IN 1672

The Canada to which Frontenac came in 1672 was no longer the infant colony it had been when Richelieu founded the Company of One Hundred Associates. Through the efforts of Louis XIV and Colbert it had assumed the form of an organized province.[1] Though its inhabitants numbered less than seven thousand, the institutions under which they lived could not have been more elaborate or precise. In short, the divine right of the king to rule over his people was proclaimed as loudly in the colony as in the motherland.

It was inevitable that this should be so, for the whole course of French history since the thirteenth century had led up to the absolutism of Louis XIV. During the early ages of feudalism France had been distracted by the wars of her kings against rebellious nobles. The virtues and firmness of Louis IX {2} (1226 70) had turned the scale in favour of the crown. There were still to be many rebellions the strife of Burgundians and Armagnacs in the fifteenth century, the Wars of the League in the sixteenth century, the cabal of the Fronde in the seventeenth century but the great issue had been settled in the days of the good St Louis. When Raymond VII of Toulouse accepted the Peace of Lorris (1243) the government of Canada by Louis XIV already existed in the germ. That is to say, behind the policy of France in the New World may be seen an ancient process which had ended in untrammelled autocracy at Paris.