This etext was produced by Gardner Buchanan.
CHRONICLES OF CANADA
Edited by George M. Wrong and H. H. Langton
In thirty-two volumes
THE FIGHTING GOVERNOR
A Chronicle of Frontenac
By CHARLES W. COLBY
TORONTO, 1915
The Canada to which Frontenac came in 1672 was no longerthe infant colony it had been when Richelieu founded theCompany of One Hundred Associates. Through the effortsof Louis XIV and Colbert it had assumed the form of anorganized province. [Footnote: See The Great Intendantin this Series.] Though its inhabitants numbered lessthan seven thousand, the institutions under which theylived could not have been more elaborate or precise. Inshort, the divine right of the king to rule over hispeople was proclaimed as loudly in the colony as in themotherland.
It was inevitable that this should be so, for the wholecourse of French history since the thirteenth centuryhad led up to the absolutism of Louis XIV. During theearly ages of feudalism France had been distracted bythe wars of her kings against rebellious nobles. Thevirtues and firmness of Louis IX (1226-70) had turnedthe scale in favour of the crown. There were still to bemany rebellions—the strife of Burgundians and Armagnacsin the fifteenth century, the Wars of the League in thesixteenth century, the cabal of the Fronde in theseventeenth century—but the great issue had been settledin the days of the good St Louis. When Raymond VII ofToulouse accepted the Peace of Lorris (1243) the governmentof Canada by Louis XIV already existed in the germ. Thatis to say, behind the policy of France in the New Worldmay be seen an ancient process which had ended inuntrammelled autocracy at Paris.
This process as it affected Canada was not confined tothe spirit of government. It is equally visible in theforms of colonial administration. During the Middle Agesthe dukes and counts of France had been great territoriallords—levying their own armies, coining their own money,holding power of life and death over their vassals. Inthat period Normandy, Brittany, Maine, Anjou, Toulouse,and many other districts, were subject to the king inname only. But, with the growth of royal power, the dukesand counts steadily lost their territorial independenceand fell at last to the condition of courtiers.Simultaneously the duchies or counties were changed intoprovinces, each with a noble for its governor—but anoble who was a courtier, holding his commission fromthe king and dependent upon the favour of the king. Sideby side with the governor stood the intendant, even morea king's man than the governor himself. So jealously didthe Bourbons guard their despotism that the crownwould not place wide authority in the hands of any onerepresentative. The governor, as a noble and a soldier,knew little or nothing of civil business. To watch overthe finances and the prosperity of the province, anintendant was appointed. This official was alwayschosen from the middle class and owed his position, hisadvancement, his whole future, to the king. The governormight possess wealth, or family connections. The intendanthad little save what came to him from his sovereign'sfavour. Gratitude and interest alike tended to make hima faithful servant.
But, though the crown had destroyed the political powerof the nobles, it left intact their social pre-eminence.The king was as supreme as a Christian ruler could be.Yet by its very nature the monarchy could not existwithout the nobles, from whose ranks the sovereign drewhis attendants, friends, and li