On their arrival the Récollet Fathers lodged not far from the Ursuline Convent, till the moment when, their former monastery on the St. Charles River being repaired, they were able to install themselves there. Some years later they built a simple refuge on land granted them in the Upper Town. Finally, having become almoners of the Château St. Louis, where the governor resided, they built their monastery opposite the castle, back to back with the magnificent church which bore the name of St. Anthony of Padua. They reconquered the popularity which they had enjoyed in the early days of the colony, and the bishop entrusted to their devotion numerous parishes and four missions. Unfortunately, they allowed themselves to be so influenced by M. de Frontenac, in spite of repeated warnings from Mgr. de Laval, that they espoused the cause of the governor in the disputes between the latter and the intendant, Duchesneau. Their gratitude towards M. de Frontenac, who always protected them, is easily explained, but it is no less true that they should have respected above all the authority of the prelate who alone had to answer before God for the religious administration of his diocese.
[4] Racine's Athalie.
[5] A sort of porridge of water and pounded maize.
CHAPTER VIII
THE PROGRESS OF THE COLONY
This year, 1668, would have brought only consolations to Mgr. de Laval, if, unhappily, M. de Talon had not inflicted a painful blow upon the heart of the prelate: the commissioner obtained from the Sovereign Council a decree permitting the unrestricted sale of intoxicating drinks both to the savages and to the French, and only those who became intoxicated might be sentenced to a slight penalty. This was opening the way for the greatest abuses, and no later than the following year Mother Mary of the Incarnation wrote: "What does the most harm here is the traffic in wine and brandy. We preach against those who give these liquors to the savages; and yet many reconcile their consciences to the permission of this thing. They go into the woods and carry drinks to the savages in order to get their furs for nothing when they are drunk. Immorality, theft and murder ensue.... We had not yet seen the French commit such crimes, and we can attribute the cause of them only to the pernicious traffic in brandy."
Commissioner Talon was, however, the cleverest administrator that the colony had possessed, and the title of the "Canadian Colbert" which Bibaud confers upon him is well deserved. Mother Incarnation summed up his merits well in the following terms: "M. Talon is leaving us," said she, "and returning to France, to the great regret of everybody and to the loss of all Canada, for since he has been here in the capacity of commissioner the country has progressed and its business prospered more than they had done since the French occupation." Talon worked with all his might in developing the resources of the colony, by exploiting the mines, by encouraging the fisheries, agriculture, the exportation of timber, and general commerce, and especially by inducing, through the gift of a few acres of ground, the majority of the soldiers of the regiment of Carignan to remain in the country. He entered every house to enquire of possible complaints; he took the first census, and laid out three villages near Quebec. His plans for the future were vaster still: he recommended the king to buy or conquer the districts of Orange and Manhattan; moreover, according to Abbé Ferland, he dreamed of connecting Canada with the Antilles in commerce. With this purpose he had had a ship built at Quebec, and had bought another in order to begin at once. This very first year he sent to the markets of Martinique and Santo Domingo fresh and dry cod, salted salmon, eels, pease, seal and porpoise oil, clapboards and planks. He had different kinds of wood cut in order to try them, and he exported masts to La Rochelle, which he hoped to see used in the shipyards of the Royal Navy. He proposed to Colbert the establishment of a brewery, in order to utilize the barley and the wheat, which in a few years would be so abundant that the farmer could not sell them. This was, besides, a means of preventing drunkenness, and of retaining in the country the sum of one hundred thousand francs, which went out each year for the purchase of wines and brandies. M. Talon presented at the same time to the minister the observations which he had made on the French population of the country. "The people," said Talon, "are a mosaic, and though composed of colonists from different provinces of France whose temperaments do not always sympathize, they seem to me harmonious enough. There are," he added, "among these colonists people in easy circumstances, indigent people and people between these two extremes."
But he thought only of the material development of the colony; upon others, he thought, were incumbent the responsibility for and defence of spiritual interests. He was mistaken, for, although he had not in his power the direction of souls, his duties as a simple soldier of the army of Christ imposed upon him none the less the obligation of avoiding all that might contribute to the loss of even a single soul. The disorders which were the inevitable result of a free traffic in intoxicating liquors, finally assumed such proportions that the council, without going as far as the absolute prohibition of the sale of brandy to the Indians, restricted, nevertheless, this deplorable traffic; it forbade under the most severe penalties the carrying of firewater into the woods to the savages, but it continued to tolerate the sale of intoxicating liquors in the French settlements. It seems that Cavelier de la Salle himself, in his store at Lachine where he dealt with the Indians, did not scruple to sell them this fatal poison.