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THE
information we possess respecting the life of Count Frontenac prior
to his appointment to the governorship of Canada is far from being
as complete as might be wished. Such particulars as the records of
the period furnish have been carefully gathered by Parkman and
others ;1 and it is doubtful whether any further facts of
importance will come to light. He was born— there is nothing to show
where—in 1620, one year after the great minister, Colbert, under
whom he was destined to serve. His family belonged to the small
principality of Béarn, now incorporated in the Department of the
Basses Pyrénées, which, made an appanage to the French Crown by
Henry of Navarre, was only formally incorporated with the kingdom of
France in the very year in which Frontenac was born. His father,
Henri de Buade, was colonel of the regiment of Navarre, but has not
otherwise passed into history. His grandfather, Antoine de Buade,
Seigneur de Frontenac and Baron de Palluau, was a man of more
distinction, being not only state councillor under Henry IV, but
first steward of the royal household and governor of St.
Germain-en-Laye. He is described in the memoirs of Philip Hurault as
"one of the oldest servants of the king." His children used to play
familiarly with the dauphin, afterwards Louis XIII; and the
association thus formed lasted for some time after their playmate
became king, which he did, nominally, at the age of nine, upon the
assassination of his father, Henry IV. The Frontenac family was thus
noble, though not of the highest nobility; and its connection with
the domestic life of the royal family gave it no doubt an additional
measure of influence. The youthful king, with whom the young
Frontenacs played, became the father of Louis XIV.
Louis de Buade, Count Frontenac, the subject of
this narrative, felt early in life a call to arms. The Thirty Years'
War broke out in 1618 ; and when France, in 1635, under the astute
guidance of Cardinal Richelieu, interfered on the Protestant side,
Frontenac, then fifteen years of age, was sent to Holland to serve
under the Prince of Orange. He seems to have acquitted himself with
bravery and distinction in many different sieges and engagements
both in the Low Countries and in Italy. He was wounded many times:
at the siege of Orbitello in 1646 he had an arm broken. In this year
he was raised to the rank of
marechal de camp, or brigadier-general.
Three years before, at the age of twenty-three, he had been made
colonel of the regiment of Normandy
His service appears to have been continuous, or
nearly so, till the war was brought to a conclusion in 1648 by the
Peace of Westphalia. In the year mentioned we find him resting from
the alarms and fatigues of war in his father's house on the Quai des
Celestins at Paris. Close by lived an attractive young lady of
sixteen, daughter of a certain M. de la Grange-Trianon, Sieur de
Neuville, with whom, as became his age and profession, the returned
warrior fell deeply in love. His passion was returned sufficiently
to lead the young lady, when her father's consent could not be
obtained, to marry her suitor at one of the churches in Paris
authorized to solemnize marriages, in more or less urgent cases,
without the consent of parents. The marriage was not a happy one.
Madame de Frontenac soon conceived a positive aversion for her
husband, and they seem, at a very early period, to have ceased to
live together, though not before the birth of a son. The child was
placed in the charge of a village nurse, and little more is heard of
him, except that when he grew up he embraced the profession of arms,
and died, it is not certain how, at a comparatively early age. The
mother joined the train of Mademoiselle de Montpensier. These were
the days of the Fronde —the abortive rebellion against the fiscal
iniquities of Mazarin during the minority of Louis XIV— and in
following the fortunes of her patroness, whose father, the king's
uncle, had joined the opposition, the young countess had some
strange adventures.
What part, if any, Frontenac himself took in the
troubles of the period, does not appear; probably none, for although
somewhat turbulent by nature, as will abundantly appear hereafter,
he was not without a large element of caution, particularly where
persons in high authority were concerned. It is certain, at least,
that, when the strife was over, he enjoyed a good position at court,
as Mademoiselle de Montpensier notes, having met him more than once
in the cabinet of the queen. He possessed a property on the Indre,
in the neighbourhood of Blois, and here he attempted to keep up a
state far beyond his income. " Your means are very slender and your
waste is great," said the chief-justice to Sir John Falstaff; and
the same observation might not inaptly have been addressed to
Frontenac. He prided himself extravagantly upon his horses, his
table, his servants—in a word, on everything that was his ;
entertained largely, and ran himself hopelessly into debt. In
1669 the French government sent a
contingent to assist the Venetians in defending Candia (Crete),
against the Turks. The Venetians offered to place their own troops
under French command, and Frontenac had the high honour of being
recommended by Turenne, the greatest military leader of the age, for
the position. In this struggle the Turks triumphed; the island fell
into their power; and Frontenac returned to France with enhanced
military prestige, but without any amelioration of his financial
position. Saint Simon describes him as "a man of good abilities,
holding a prominent position in society, but utterly ruined." He
adds that he could not bear the haughty temper of his wife, and that
his appointment as governor of Canada was given to him in order to
relieve him of her, and afford him some means of living. His wife's
temper was not more haughty probably than his own; neither
apparently was disposed to show any deference to the wishes of the
other. Madame de Frontenac, who was a woman of keen intelligence,
without any large amount of feminine tenderness, took too
dispassionate a measure of her husband's qualities to satisfy his
rather exacting self-esteem. She must have had some means of her
own, for, though she did not go to court, she lived for many years
surrounded by the best people and enjoying a high degree of social
authority. Though she did not accompany her husband to Canada, and
probably was not invited to do so, it is plausibly conjectured that
her influence in court circles stood him in good stead on more than
one occasion.
Frontenac's commission as governor was dated
6th April
1672, but he did not leave France till
midsummer. It is interesting to know that M. de Grignan, Madame de
S&vignd's son-in-law, was a candidate for the same position. Had he
obtained it,
and had his wife, the accomplished daughter of a still more
accomplished mother, accompanied him, what flashes of light on
Canadian society might we not have obtained from that mother's
correspondence! Unfortunately no vestige of Frontenac's private
correspondence with either his wife or any one else remains.
Courcelles and Talon were still at Quebec when he arrived. From the
former he obtained a full account of his expedition to Lake Ontario;
and from the latter much information as to the general condition of
the country, the various enterprises in the way of exploration that
had already been undertaken, and the further ones that it might be
well to organize. Frontenac, who had the eye of a soldier for a good
military position, was much impressed by what Courcelles told him of
Cataraqui; and from the first the idea of establishing a fortified
post at that point took strong possession of his mind.
The new governor was not a young man—he was
fifty-two years of age—but his natural force, either of body or of
mind, was not abated. To a man of his tastes and habits there were
many privations involved in a residence in a country like Canada;
but there were compensations, the chief of which, perhaps, was to be
found in the opportunity afforded him of exercising a semi-royal
pomp and power; while a close second, it cannot be doubted, was the
chance of rehabilitating his shattered fortunes. It would be unjust,
at the same time, to suppose that the man who had fought through so
many hard campaigns was not sincerely desirous of serving his king
and country in the new position to which he had been assigned.
The first important step that he took was a
characteristic one, namely, an attempt to constitute in Canada the
"three estates" of nobles, clergy, and people, of which the kingdom
of France was nominally constituted. True, the three estates, or "
States-General," as they were properly called, had not been summoned
in the mother country since 1614, and it was doubtful if their
existence as an organ of political authority, or even of political
opinion, was more than theoretical. This fact might have caused
another man to hesitate, but not Count Frontenac ; to him the idea
of gathering representatives of the country round him, marshalling
them in their respective orders, and, after addressing them in the
name of the king, requiring them to take the oath of allegiance in
his presence, was too alluring to be put aside. So the summons went
forth, and the assembly was held on one of the last days of October
in the new church of the Jesuits. The "estates " were constituted,
the oaths were taken, and the governor stirred the feelings of his
audience, consisting, he says, of over a thousand persons, by
referring to the victories which his royal master had that year
achieved in his war with Holland. Everything, indeed, passed off
beautifully; but when a report of the proceedings reached the
minister, Colbert, his response was of a somewhat chilling nature.
The immediate effect of the assembly might, perhaps, he said, be
good, but it is well for you to observe that, as you are
always to follow the forms in force here,
and as our kings have considered it for a long time advantageous not
to assemble the States-General of their kingdom, with the object
perhaps of insensibly abolishing that ancient form, you also ought
only very rarely, or—to speak more correctly—never, give that form
to the corporate body of the inhabitants of that country." Colbert
did not even approve— though perhaps on this point he was expressing
more particularly the views of the king—of the election of " syndics
" to represent the interests of the population of Quebec. "Let every
one," he said, "speak for himself; it is not desirable to have any
one authorized to speak for all." This was absolutism with a
vengeance. It answered for the day ; but could the minister have
looked forward to 1789
he would have seen that the "ancient form," which it was proposed to
extinguish by desuetude, was destined, like a blazing star that
suddenly flashes a strange light in the heavens, to leap into a new
life, amazing, consuming, resistless.
The views of the governor, it must be admitted,
were, in this whole matter, decidedly in advance of those of the
minister, able administrator as the latter undoubtedly was.
Frontenac had come to Canada to uphold the royal authority in the
fullest sense, but he appears to have had a perception that, in a
new country where so much responsibility was necessarily thrown upon
individuals, there ought to be a certain measure of spontaneous
political life. Masterful as he was himself by nature, it is not
recorded that he ever dwelt on the necessity of repressing
individual liberty; it is the intendant, Meulles, a dozen years
later, who writes: "It is of very great importance that the people
should not be allowed to speak their minds."
No, the quarter in which Frontenac conceived the
authority of his royal master might, perhaps, be threatened, was a
different one altogether; in other words the battle he foresaw was
not against the political aspirations of the people, but against the
excessive claims and pretensions of the ecclesiastical power. This
idea did not originate in his own mind. The instructions which he
brought out with him, while they eulogized the zeal and piety of the
Jesuits, hinted that they might seek to extend their authority
beyond its proper limits, in which case Frontenac was to " give them
kindly to understand the conduct they ought to observe "; and if
they did not amend their ways, he was, as the document read, "skilfully
to oppose their designs in such a way that no rupture may ensue, and
no distinct intention on your part to thwart their purposes may be
apparent." The court had, indeed, for several years been under the
impression that cautions of this kind to its representatives were
necessary. In Talon's instructions, drafted in the year
1664, the troubles that had occurred
between previous governors and the bishop were rehearsed, and the
inference was at least suggested that these might in part have
arisen from the domineering spirit of the prelate. He had had his
way with Argenson, Avaugour, and M£zy; but, if the civil power was
not to pale entirely before the ecclesiastical, it was about time
that the series of his victories should close. Other despatches to
Courcelles, Bouteroue (interim intendant during Talon's temporary
absence in France), and Frontenac himself contain observations of a
like tenor.
The redoubtable vicar-apostolic was not in
Canada when Frontenac arrived. He had sailed for France in the month
of May to press the important matter of his appointment as bishop of
Quebec. A letter which he wrote to the cardinals of the propaganda
almost immediately on his arrival serves to show the reasons he had
for desiring this change of status, and, incidentally, his opinion
of the civil officers of the Crown. " I have learnt," he says, " by
a long experience how insecure the office of vicar-apostolic is
against those who are entrusted with political affairs, I mean the
officers of the court, the perpetual rivals and despisers of the
ecclesiastical power, who steadily contend that the authority of a
vicar-apostolic is open to doubt, and should be kept within certain
limits. That is why, having considered the whole matter very
carefully, I have fully determined to resign that office, and not to
return to New France, unless the bishopric of Quebec is constituted,
and unless I am provided and armed with the bulls constituting me
the Ordinary." These are the words of a man who knows his own mind,
and, we may add, of one who is prepared to fight his enemies to a
finish. He may not have known, before he arrived in France, what
man, and what kind of a man, had been selected as successor to
Courcelles ; but we may be sure that, when he found out, he was not
less impressed than before with the need for a strengthening of his
position.
Louis XIV had himself for thirteen /
years been pressing, at intervals, upon the Holy See the expediency
of establishing a bishopric in New France, but without much success.
There were some points of difference between the French court and
the Roman authorities as to the conditions under which the projected
diocese should be created, and the latter showed a wonderful skill
in prolonging the negotiations. Finally, the only point in dispute
was whether the new bishop should be a suffragan of one of the
French archbishops, as desired by the king, or directly dependent on
the Pope. This point was conceded by the king in December 1673; but
it was not till October 1674 that the necessary bull was issued. In
the following April Laval took the oath of fealty to the king as
bishop of Quebec, with jurisdiction over the whole of Canada, and
shortly afterwards he set sail for the scene of his pastoral
labours. Thus it was that for nearly three years
Frontenac had no direct relations with the head of the Canadian
church.
Was this interval, then, one of peace ? Not
entirely. Frontenac defines his position and raises a note of alarm
in his very first despatch to the minister for the colonies.1
He was dissatisfied, he said, with "the complete subserviency of the
priests of the seminary at Quebec, and the bishop's vicar-general to
the Jesuit fathers, without whose orders they never do anything.
Thus," he adds, " they [the Jesuits] are indirectly the masters of
whatever relates to the spiritual, which, as you are aware, is a
great machine for moving all the rest." He thinks they have gained
an ascendency even over the Superior of the Rdcollets;2
and he expresses the wish that the ecclesiastics of that order could
be replaced by abler men who could hold their own against the Jesuit
influence. He men
tions that he had expressed his surprise in
strong terms to the Jesuit fathers at Ste. Foy that not one of their
Indian converts had been taught the French language, and had told
them that they " should bethink themselves, when rendering the
savages subjects of Jesus Christ, of making them subjects of the
king also—that the true way to make them Christians was to make them
men." The governor had probably noticed that lack of vigorous,
self-helping manhood in the Indian converts, which is hinted at even
in the Jesuit
Relations, and which had certainly been
conspicuous in the christianized Huron tribe in the crisis of their
struggle with the Iroquois. As regards teaching them the French
language, the missionaries had their own well-defined reasons for
not doing so. They did not wish to bring them into too close contact
with the French inhabitants, lest they should unlearn the lessons of
morality and religion that had been taught to them. The great object
which the priests had in view was to build up a kingdom not of this
world ; and, as the object which the king and his officers had
mainly in view was to enlarge and strengthen the French dominions,
it is not surprising that there was clashing now and again.
Frontenac, in writing to Colbert, seems to have felt assured of
sympathy in his somewhat anti-clerical, or, at least, anti-Jesuit,
attitude; otherwise he would never have ventured to make, as he does
in the same despatch, the unjustifiable statement that the Jesuit
missionaries were quite as much
interested in the beaver trade as in the conversion of souls, and
that most of their missions were pure mockeries. It was of Colbert
that Madame de Maintenon said: "He only thinks of his finances, and
never of religion."
But while the elements of future trouble were
plainly visible, no serious friction occurred during the first year
of the new governors administration. His relations with the Jesuit
order were civil, and with the Sulpicians, at Montreal, and the
Récollets entirely friendly. With the Sovereign Council, too, they
were all that could be wished. His mind at this time was greatly
taken up with the project he had in view of following in Courcelles'
footsteps and establishing a military and trading post at Cataraqui.
His general policy when he wanted to do a thing was not to ask
permission beforehand, but to do it, and trust to the result for
justification. Had he laboured under Nelson's disability, he would
have been quite capable of turning his blind eye to a prohibitive
signal, even after seeing it distinctly with his good one. In his
despatch to Colbert of the 2nd November he mentions, in a casual
way, that he proposes next spring to visit the place at the outlet
of Lake Ontario where M. de Courcelles had projected the
establishment of a fort, in order that he may be able " the better
to understand its site and importance, and to see if,
notwithstanding our actual weakness, it be not possible to create
some establishment there that would also
strengthen the settlement the gentlemen of Montreal [the Sulpicians]
have already formed at Quintd" He adds: "I beg of you, my Lord, to
be assured that I shall not spare either care or trouble, or even my
life itself, if it be necessary, in the effort to accomplish
something pleasing to you, and to prove the gratitude I shall ever
feel for the favours I have received at your hands." This is quite
effusive, and at the same time tolerably diplomatic. How
could the minister do otherwise than
approve an enterprise undertaken in so self-sacrificing a spirit,
and one prompted by so much personal devotion to himself? Colbert
might possibly have replied—if he had had the chance—by pointing
Frontenac to his instructions, and asking him to show his devotion
to duty by following them out as closely as possible. Those
instructions contained the following clause, the tenor of which we
shall find repeated in many subsequent communications from the home
government: "Sieur de Frontenac is to encourage the inhabitants by
all possible means to undertake the cultivation and clearing of the
soil; and as the distance of the settlements from one another has
considerably retarded the increase thereof, and otherwise
facilitated the opportunities of the - Iroquois for their
destructive expeditions, Sieur de Frontenac will consider the
practicability of obliging those inhabitants to make contiguous
clearings, either by constraining the old colonists to labour at it
for a certain time, or by making new grants to future settlers under
this condition." There is not a word said about extending the
boundaries of the colony, or throwing out advanced posts, or any
other phase of the policy of expansion. The French government was in
fact strongly anti-expansionist; but Frontenac, resembling in this
point a later sage, did not think they knew everything in the "Judee"
of the ministry of marine and colonies.
So, just about the time that the minister was
inditing the despatch in which he gently chided the ebullient
Frontenac for his rashness in summoning the States-General,the
latter was preparing another little surprise for him. In the spring
of the year he had given orders that men and canoes should be held
in readiness for the contemplated movement; and, as the supply of
available canoes was likely to fall short, he had ordered that a
number of new ones should be built. He also directed the
construction of two flat-boats, similar to the one used by
Courcelles, but of twice the capacity. On the
3rd of June he started with a certain
force from Quebec, and after visiting and inspecting different posts
along the river, arrived at Montreal, the point of rendezvous, on
the 15th of
the same month. Here he was received, according to his own account,
which there is no reason to question, with the greatest enthusiasm
and eclat.
It may be interesting to pause for a moment and
try to reconstruct in imagination the scene on which the grizzled
and sun-beaten warrior gazed as he
alighted from his canoe at five o'clock in the afternoon of that
long, bright summer day. The river bank, which had become a common,
was probably no longer flower-bespread as it was on that glorious
morning in the month of May 3642 when Maisonneuve, Mademoiselle
Mance, and their companions knelt in prayer on the soil which their
labours and sacrifices were to consecrate ; but the mountain, with
its leafy honours thick upon it, stood forth in royal splendour,
while cultivated fields, smiling with the promise of a harvest,
sloped upwards to its base. In the foreground was the growing burg,
full of life and animation on this memorable day. To the left was
the fort built by Maisonneuve, no longer relied on for defence, but
used chiefly as a residence for the local governor. The river front
was as yet unoccupied by houses, the nearest line of which lay along
what is now, as it was then, St. Paul Street, from St. Peter Street
in the west to somewhat beyond the present Dalhousie Square in the
east. Montreal as yet did not possess any parish church ; the
churches maintained by the different congregations, particularly
that of the Hotel Dieu, having up to this time been made to serve
the needs of the population. The foundations of a regular parish
church had been laid, but the work of construction was proceeding
slowly, and five years had yet to elapse before the edifice was
finished. The principal buildings were the H6tel Dieu, which had
lately lost its pious founder,
Mademoiselle Mance; the Congregation de Notre Dame, still conducted
by the brave and cheery Margaret Bourgeoys; and the Seminary of St.
Sulpice. The whole town, if we may so call it, was comprised between
the eastern and western limits just defined, and the northern and
southern ones of St. Paul and St. James Streets; even so, much the
larger part of the contained space was not built up. A few of the
wealthier merchants had erected substantial houses, and there was
something already in the appearance of the place which suggested
that it would have a future. We can imagine the zeal with which the
local governor, Perrot, upon whose proceedings in the way of illicit
traffic it is probable Frontenac already had an eye—an eye of envy
the Abbé Faillon somewhat harshly suggests—would receive the king's
direct representative. All the troops that the island could furnish
were drawn up under arms at the landing-place, and salvos of
artillery and musketry gave emphasis to the official words of
welcome. The officers of justice and the " syndic" — the spokesman
of the people in municipal matters—were next presented, and, after
they had delivered addresses, a procession was formed to the church,
at the door of which the clergy were waiting to receive the
viceregal visitor with all due honour. By the time the appropriate
services, including the chanting of the
Te Deum, had been concluded, the sun had
sunk behind the mountain. It was the hour for rest and refreshment,
and the governor was conducted to the quarters assigned to him in
the fort, beneath the windows of which tranquilly rolled the mighty
flood of the St. Lawrence, still bright with the evening glow.
Frontenac had brought with him his military
guard, consisting of twenty men or so, his staff, and a few
volunteers. Additional men were to follow from Quebec, Three Rivers,
and other places; and some were to be recruited at Montreal. In ten
or twelve days everything was in readiness. A waggon-road had been
made to Lachine, over, which baggage, provisions, and munitions of
war were conveyed; and a start was made from that point on the
30th June, the whole force consisting of
about four hundred men, including some Huron Indians, in one hundred
and twenty canoes and the two flat-boats already, mentioned. -Some
time before setting out Frontenac had sent on, as an envoy to the
five Iroquois nations, to invite them to a conference, Cavelier de
la Salle, a man who had already penetrated some distance into the
western country, and who was destined to achieve the highest fame as
an explorer.
The voyage up the river was attended, as had
indeed been expected, with serious difficulty. The united strength
of fifty men was necessary to draw each of the flat-boats up the
side of some of the rapids. The whole force, however, worked with
the utmost zeal and good-will; the Hurons in particular
accomplishing wonders of strength and endurance such as they had
never been known to perform for any previous commander. But if
portions of the journey were thus arduous, others were delightful.
Thus we read in Frontenac's own narrative: " It would be impossible
to have finer navigation or more favourable weather than we had on
the 3rd of
July, a light north-east breeze having sprung up which enabled our
bateaux to keep up with the canoes. On the
4th we pursued our journey and came to
the most beautiful piece of country that can be imagined, the river
being strewn with islands, the trees in which are all either oak or
other kinds of hard wood, while the soil is admirable. The banks on
both sides of the river are not less charming, the trees, which are
very high, standing out distinctly and forming as fine groves as you
could see in France. On both sides may be seen meadows covered with
rich grass and a vast variety of lovely wild flowers; so that it may
be safely stated that from the head of Lake St. Francis to the next
rapid above, you could not see a more beautiful country, if only it
were cleared a bit."
On the 12th
July, as the expedition was approaching Cataraqui in excellent
military order, they were met by the Indians, who evinced much
pleasure at seeing the count and his followers, and conducted them
to a spot suitable for encampment. Some preliminary civilities were
exchanged, but it was not till the 17th
that serious negotiations were begun. The count, meanwhile,
having found close by what he considered an
advantageous location for his .proposed fort, set his men to work %o
clear the ground, fell and square timber, dig trenches, etc., in a
manner which fairly surprised the Indians, who were not accustomed
to seeing building operations carried on so systematically and
speedily. But if they were impressed by the working capacity of the
expeditionary force, they were still more deeply influenced by the
discourse of the governor and the presents which accompanied it. Had
the count been a " black robe " himself, he could not have spoken
with more unction or more unimpeachable orthodoxy in urging his
savage hearers to embrace Christianity. He condensed, for the
occasion, the whole of Christian teaching into the two great
commandments of love to God and love to man, and appealed to the
consciences of his hearers as to whether both were not entirely
reasonable. This portion of his speech, in which he also declared
that he desired peace both between the French and the Iroquois, and
between the latter and all Indian tribes under French protection,
was recommended by a present of fifteen guns and a quantity of
powder, lead, and gunflints. Next he informed them of his intention
to form a trading-post at Cataraqui. "Here," he said, "you will find
all sorts of refreshments and commodities, which I shall cause to be
furnished to you at the cheapest rate possible." He added, however,
that it would be very expensive to bring goods so far, and that they
must take that into consideration in criticizing prices. Twenty-five
large overcoats were distributed at this point. In the third place
he reproached them with their cruel treatment of the Hurons, and
said that he meant to treat all the Indian nations alike, and wished
all to enjoy equal security and equal advantages in every way. "
See," he said, " that.no complaints are made to me henceforward on
this subject, for I shall become angry; as I insist that you
Iroquois, Algonquins, and other nations that have me for a father,
shall live henceforth as brothers." He asked also that they would
let him have a few of their children that they might learn the
French language and be instructed by the priests. Twenty-five
shirts, an equal number of pairs of stockings, five packages of
glass beads, and five coats were given to round off this appeal.
The reply of the delegates of the five Iroquois
nations was in tone and temper all that could be wished. They
thanked Onontio that he had addressed them as children, and were
glad that he was going to assume towards them the relation of
father. They readily consented to live at peace with the Hurons and
Algonquins, and would, when they returned to their cantons,
carefully consider the question of letting him have a certain number
of their children. One delegate showed his financial acumen by
observing that, while Onontio had promised to let them have goods as
cheap as possible at the fort, he had not said what the tariff would
be. To this the count replied that he could not say what the freight
would amount to, but that considering them as his children, he would
see that they were fairly treated. Another, a Cayugan, evinced his
knowledge of current history by lamenting the calamities which the
Dutch were suffering in their war with the French, trade relations
between the Dutch and the Iroquois having always been very
satisfactory. He consoled himself, however, with the thought that
his nation would now find a father in Onontio.
While the negotiations were in progress, work on
the fort was proceeding rapidly, and by the 20th of the month it was
finished. The count then dismissed the body of his force, the men
being anxious to return to their homes. He himself remained behind
to meet some belated delegates from points on the north shore of
Lake Ontario, whom he did not fail to reprove for their want of
punctuality, after which, with rare liberality of speech, he
repeated to them all he had said to the others. A few days' delay
was also caused by the necessity of awaiting a convoy from Montreal
with a year's provisions for the fort. Finally, on the 28th July,
the governor and his party started on their homeward journey and
arrived safely at Montreal on the 1st of August. During the whole
expedition not one man or one canoe was lost.
The narrative of this expedition has been given
in some detail because it sets in a strong light the better side of
Frontenac's character. We see him here as the able and vigorous
organizer, the firm, judicious, and skilful commander, the
accomplished diplomat, and the lover of peace rather than war. Short
a time as he had been in the country, he seemed already to
understand the Indian character, and the Indians in turn understood
him. His language in addressing them was direct and simple, frank
and courageous. He had no hesitation in assuming the paternal
relation, and won their hearts by doing so. But it was not only over
savages that he exerted a natural ascendency, for we have seen the
zeal and enthusiasm with which his orders were executed by the whole
expeditionary force. Whatever weaknesses he may have had, it was not
in the field or in active service that they were displayed.
The memorandum, which serves as authority for
the facts just narrated, was addressed to Colbert, and sent to
France by a ship sailing from Quebec shortly before the close of
navigation. The minister's reply was dated 17th May of the following
year. He does not at all congratulate Frontenac upon his exploit.
"You will readily understand," he says, " by what I have just told
you,1 that his Majesty's intention is not that you
undertake great voyages by ascending the river St Lawrence, nor that
the inhabitants spread themselves for the future further than they
have already done. On the contrary, he desires that you labour
incessantly, and during the whole time you are in that country, to
consolidate, concentrate, and form them into towns and villages,
that they may be in a better position to defend themselves
successfully." In acknowledging this despatch, far from apologizing
for what he had done, Frontenac told the minister that the very best
results had flowed from it. More Indians had come to Montreal than
ever before, eight hundred having been seen at one time; Iroquois,
Algonquins, and Hurons were mixing with one another in the most
friendly manner; the Jesuit missionaries among the Iroquois found
their position greatly improved, and were never tired of saying so ;
and, finally, he had obtained the Indian children he had asked for,
eight in number, who were being educated in the French fashion, and
who would be a perpetual guarantee of the peaceful behaviour of the
tribes to which they belonged. At the same time he says, that if the
minister absolutely disapproves of the fort, he will go next year
and pull it down with as much alacrity as he had put it up. This the
minister did not insist on. In fact he was not long in coming round
to Frontenac's view that considering all the circumstances of the
case the fort was a necessity. One point of interest connected with
its establishment, upon which Frontenac has left us in ignorance, is
whom he appointed as its first commandant. A contemporary writer1
tells us it was La Salle, and the statement is not improbable. It
was La Salle, as we have seen, whom the governor sent to the
Iroquois to invite them to the conference, and as he had acquitted
himself of that mission in the most successful manner, it seems
natural that lie should have been the first chosen to command a
post, the principal object of which was to serve as a convenient
meeting-place for Iroquois and French. A temporary concession of the
fort was made a year later to two Montreal merchants, Bazire and
Lebert, but it passed again, in the following year, into the hands
of La Salle, who had meantime gone to France and laid before the
court certain larger schemes for which Fort Frontenac was to serve
as a base, and which he obtained the king's authority to carry into
effect. |
