Page:Harper's New Monthly Magazine - v109.djvu/839

Rh sionary interest, and pointed out the way which France should take, or at least the way in which she should try to go, during the coming period, which included the two administrations of Frontenac, the most brilliant epoch of Canadian history under French rule.

It was in 1672 that Louis de Buade, Comte de Palluau et de Frontenac, became Governor-General of Canada. Parkman said that Frontenac was "the most remarkable man who ever represented the crown of France in the New World." It could easily be added that he was the most remarkable European in America during the last thirty years of the seventeenth century. At the time of his appointment he was fifty-two years old, a soldier of broken fortunes, who had served the King faithfully and well in the wars in Flanders, Italy, and Germany. He was a brigadier-general (maître de camp) at Orbilletto, where his arm was broken. He was appointed to Canada to represent the King, and for a short time was without an Intendant. It is said that an Intendant was not appointed to act with Frontenac because of the count's known infirmities of temper. Colbert thought to try him alone.

The line between the powers of a Governor-General and those of an Intendant in Canada during this period is difficult to define; but, as a rule, the Governor-General was the personal representative of the King, and, especially, he exercised the military power, while the Intendant was charged with the police, judicial, and financial functions of the colony. Having the power over the purse and over police, he had the power over the country, and from every Intendant associated with him during his two administrations Frontenac suffered indignities and insults. He was the object of innumerable intrigues and the victim of some. It is evident that the Intendant felt himself to be, and in reality he was, quite as independent of the Governor-General as was the bishop. The latter, too, was Frontenac's enemy.

Frontenac's first administration extended from 1672 to 1682, and one of its chief traits was contention. Frontenac came to America with the purpose of being the King in the woods, and he found an organized ecclesiastical establishment with Bishop Laval at its head, who had intentions and plans for the colony which were quite different from his. In three years after his arrival at Quebec he was at war with every one. His fierce temper had blazed up over questions of precedence with the bishop. He undertook to punish the coureurs des bois, as the court desired, and he came into serious encounters with Perrot, the Governor of Montreal, who was their protector and who profited illicitly by