The Fighting Governer; A Chronicle of Frontenac (Paperback)

Excerpt: ...will be remembered that Frontenac received orders from Colbert (April 7, 1672) to prevent the Jesuits from becoming too powerful. In carrying out these instructions he soon found himself embroiled at Quebec, and the same discord made itself felt throughout the wilderness. Frontenac favoured the establishment of trading-posts and government forts along the great waterways, from Cataraqui to Crevecoeur. Footnote: Fort Crevecoeur was La Salle's post in the heart of the Illinois country. He sincerely believed that these were the best guarantees of the king's power on the Great Lakes and in the valley of the Mississippi. The Jesuits saw in each post a centre of debauchery and feared that their religious work would be undone by the scandalous example of the coureurs de bois. What for Frontenac was a question of political expediency loomed large to the Jesuits as a vital issue of morals. It was a delicate question at best, though probably a peaceable solution could have been arranged, but for the mutual agreement of Frontenac and the Jesuits that they must be antagonists. War having once been declared, Frontenac proved a poor controversialist. He could have defended his forest policy without alleging that the Jesuits maintained their missions as a source of profit, which was a slander upon heroes and upon martyrs. Moreover, he exposed himself to a flank attack, for it could be pointed out with much force that he had private motives in advocating the erection of forts. Frontenac was intelligent and would have recommended the establishment of posts whether he expected profit from them or not, but he weakened his case by attacking the Jesuits on wrong grounds. During Frontenac's first term the settled part of Canada was limited to the shores of the St Lawrence from Lachine downward, with a cluster of seigneuries along the lower Richelieu. In this region the governor was hampered by the rights of the intendant and the influence of the bishop. Westward of...