CHAPTER 3
1673-1675.
FRONTENAC AND PERROT.
LA SALLE, FORT FRONTENAC, PERROT, HIS SPECULATIONS, HIS TYRANNY, THE BUSH-RANGERS, PERROT REVOLTS, BECOMES ALARMED,  DILEMMA OF FRONTENAC, MEDIATION OF FENELON, PERROT IN PRISON, EXCITEMENT OF THE SULPITIANS, INDIGNATION OF FENELON,  PASSION OF FRONTENAC, PERROT ON TRIAL, STRANGE SCENES, APPEAL TO THE KING, ANSWERS OF LOUIS XIV.  AND COLBERT, FENELON REBUKED.
Not long before Frontenac's arrival, Courcelle, his predecessor, went to Lake Ontario with an armed force, in order to impose respect on the Iroquois, who had of late become insolent.  As a means of keeping them in check, and at the same time controlling the fur trade of the upper country, he had recommended, like Talon before him, the building of a fort near the outlet of the lake.  Frontenac at once saw the advantages of such a measure, and his desire to execute it was stimulated by the reflection that the proposed fort might be made not only a safeguard to the colony, but also a source of profit to himself.

At Quebec, there was a grave, thoughtful, self-contained young man, who soon found his way into Frontenac's confidence.  There was between them the sympathetic attraction of two bold and energetic spirits; and though Cavelier de la Salle had neither the irritable vanity of the count, nor his Gallic vivacity of passion, he had in full measure the same unconquerable pride and hardy resolution.  There were but two or three men in Canada who knew the western wilderness so well.  He was full of schemes of ambition and of gain; and, from this moment, he and Frontenac seem to have formed an alliance, which ended only with the governor's recall.

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 Saint 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.  

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 Saint 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 Saint 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.  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.  

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.  

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 Saint Sulpice at Montreal was the Abbe Salignac de Fenelon, half-brother of the celebrated author of Telemaque.  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 Fenelon, 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 abbe, who was delighted to play the part of peace-maker, at length resolved to follow his counsel.  It was mid-winter.  Perrot and Fenelon set out together, walked on snow-shoes a hundred and eighty miles down the frozen Saint 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 chateau, with guards placed over him by day and night.  Frontenac made choice of one La Nouguere, 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 Nouguere 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.  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 Saint 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 Nouguere 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 Abbe Fenelon.  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 Fenelon returned to Montreal, he vented his feelings in a sermon plainly levelled at Frontenac.  So sharp and bitter was it, that his brethren of Saint 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 Fenelon before the council at Quebec to answer the charge of instigating sedition.

Fenelon had a relative and friend in the person of the Abbe d'Urfe, his copartner in the work of the missions.  D'Urfe, 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'Urfe was charged with having used abusive language concerning him.  Warm words ensued, till Frontenac, grasping his cane, led the abbe 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.  

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 Abbe Fenelon.  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 Nouguere.  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.  

Meanwhile, other sessions were held for the trial of Fenelon; 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.  Fenelon, 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.  Fenelon 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 abbe.  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.  Fenelon 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.  

This behavior of the effervescent abbe, 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, Fenelon 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 Bernieres, 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 Fenelon.  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 Fenelon, 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." 

In his charges of cabal and intrigue, Frontenac had chiefly in view the clergy, whom he profoundly distrusted, excepting always the Recollet 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 Abbe d'Urfe, who sailed in the same ship with Fenelon.  The moment was singularly auspicious to him.  His cousin, the Marquise d'Allegre, 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 Fenelon, 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." 

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 Allegre and my son, the Abbe d'Urfe 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'Urfe 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." 

Fenelon, 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 Fenelon.  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."