nor, if he chose; that the missionaries in Indian villages say that they are equals of Onontio, and tell their converts that all will go wrong till the priests have the government of Canada; that directly or indirectly they meddle in all civil affairs; that they trade even with the English of New York; that, what with Jesuits, Sulpitians, the bishop, and the seminary of Quebec, they hold two-thirds of the good lands of Canada; that, in view of the poverty of the country, their revenues are enormous; that, in short, their object is mastery, and that they use all means to compass it.1 The recall of the governor was a triumph to the ecclesiastics, offset but slightly by the recall of their instrument, the intendant, who had done his work, and whom they needed no longer.

Thus far, we have seen Frontenac on his worst side. We shall see him again under an aspect very different. Nor must it be supposed that the years which had passed since his government began, tempestuous as they appear on the record, were wholly given over to quarrelling. They had their periods of uneventful calm, when the wheels of administration ran as smoothly as could be expected in view of the condition of the colony. In one respect at least,

1 Frontenac, Mémoire adressé à Colbert, 1677. This remarkable paper will be found in the Découvertes et Établissements des Français dans l'Amérique Septentrionale; Mémoires et Documents Originaux edited by M. Margry. The paper is very long, and contains references to attestations and other proofs which accompanied it, espe cially in regard to the trade of the Jesuits.

1682.]

QUALITIES OF FRONTENAC.

73

Frontenac had shown a remarkable fitness for his office. Few white men have ever equalled or approached him in the art of dealing with Indians. There seems to have been a sympathetic relation between him and them. He conformed to their ways, borrowed their rhetoric, flattered them on occasion with great address, and yet constantly maintained towards them an attitude of paternal superiority. When they were concerned, his native haughtiness always took a form which commanded respect without exciting anger. He would not address them as "brothers," but only as "children;" and even the Iroquois, arrogant as they were, accepted the new relation. In their eyes Frontenac was by far the greatest of all the "Onontios," or governors of Canada. They admired the prompt and fiery soldier who played with their children, and gave beads and trinkets to their wives; who read their secret thoughts and never feared them, but smiled on them when their hearts were true, or frowned and threatened them when they did amiss. The other tribes, allies of the French, were of the same mind; and their respect for their Great Father seems not to have been permanently impaired by his occasional practice of bullying them for purposes of extortion.

Frontenac appears to have had a liking not only for Indians, but also for that roving and lawless class of the Canadian population, the courcurs de bois, provided always that they were not in the service of his rivals. Indeed, as regards the Canadians generally,

he refrained from the strictures with which succeeding governors and intendants freely interlarded their despatches. It was not his instinct to clash with the humbler classes, and he generally reserved his anger for those who could retort it.

He had the air of distinction natural to a man familiar all his life with the society of courts, and he was as gracious and winning on some occasions as he was unbearable on others. When in good humor, his ready wit and a certain sympathetic vivacity made him very agreeable. At times he was all sunshine, and his outrageous temper slumbered peacefully till some new offence wakened it again; nor is there much doubt that many of his worst outbreaks were the work of his enemies, who knew his foible, and studied to exasperate him. He was full of contradictions; and, intolerant and implacable as he often was, there were intervals, even in his bitterest quarrels, in which he displayed a surprising moderation and patience. By fits he could be magnanimous. A woman once brought him a petition in burlesque verse. Frontenac wrote a jocose answer. The woman, to ridicule him, contrived to have both petition and answer slipped among the papers of a suit pending before the council. Frontenac had her fined a few francs, and then caused the money to be given to her children.1

When he sailed for France, it was a day of rejoic

1 Note, by Abbé Verreau, in Journal de l'Instruction Publique (Canada), viii. 127.

1682.]

DEPARTURE OF FRONTENAC.

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ing to more than half the merchants of Canada, and, excepting the Récollets, to all the priests; but he left behind him an impression, very general among the people, that, if danger threatened the colony, Count Frontenac was the man for the hour.

CHAPTER V.

1682-1684.

LE FEBVRE DE LA BARRE.

HIS ARRIVAL AT QUEBEC. THE GREAT FIRE. - A COMING STORM. - IROQUOIS POLICY. - THE DANGER IMMINENT. - INDIAN ALLIES OF FRANCE. FRONTENAC AND THE IROQUOIS. - BOASTS OF LA BARRE; HIS PAST LIFE; HIS SPECULATIONS; HE TAKES ALARM; HIS DEALINGS WITH THE IROQUOIS; HIS ILLEGAL TRADE; HIS COLLEAGUE DENOUNCES HIM; FRUITS OF HIS SCHEMES; HIS ANGER AND HIS FEARS.

On a

WHEN the new governor, La Barre, and the new intendant, Meules, arrived at Quebec, a dismal greeting waited them. All the Lower Town was in ashes, except the house of the merchant Aubert de la Chesnaye, standing alone amid the wreck. Tuesday, the fourth of August, at ten o'clock in the evening, the nuns of the Hôtel-Dieu were roused from their early slumbers by shouts, outcries, and the ringing of bells; "and," writes one of them, "what was our terror to find it as light as noonday, the flames burned so fiercely and rose so high." Half an hour before, Chartier de Lotbinière, judge of the King's court, heard the first alarm, ran down the descent now called Mountain Street, and found everything in confusion in the town below. The