In spite of the Sorbonne, in spite of Père La Chaise, and of the Archbishop of Paris, whom he also consulted, the king was never at heart a prohibitionist. * His Canadian revenue was drawn from the fur trade; and the singular argument of the partisans of brandy, that its attractions were needed to keep the Indians from contact with heresy, served admirably to salve his conscience. Bigot as he was, he distrusted the Bishop of Quebec, the great champion of the anti-liquor movement. His own letters, as well as those of his minister, prove that he saw or thought that he saw motives for the crusade very different from those inscribed on its banners. He wrote to Saint-Vallier, Laval’s successor in the bishopric, that the brandy trade was very useful to the kingdom of France; that it should be regulated, but not prevented; that the consciences of his subjects must not be disturbed by denunciations of it as a sin; and that “it is well that you (the bishop) should take care that the zeal of the ecclesiastics is not excited by personal interests and passions.” ** Perhaps he alludes to the spirit of encroachment and domination which he and his minister in secret instructions to their officers often impute to the bishop and the clergy, or perhaps he may have in mind other accusations which had reached him
* See, among other evidence, Mémoire sur la Traite des
Boissons, 1678.
** Le Roy à Saint-Vallier, 7 Avril, 1691
from time to time during many years, and of which the following from the pen of the most noted of Canadian governors will serve as an example. Count Frontenac declares that the Jesuits greatly exaggerate the disorders caused by brandy, and that they easily convince persons “who do not know the interested motives which have led them to harp continually on this string for more than forty years.... They have long wished to have the fur trade entirely to themselves, and to keep out of sight the trade which they have always carried on in the woods, and which they are carrying on there now.” *
Trade of the Jesuits.—As I have observed in a former volume, the charge against the Jesuits of trading in beaver-skins dates from the beginning of the colony. In the private journal of Father Jerome Lalemant, their superior, occurs the following curious passage, under date of November, 1645: “Pour la traite des castors. Le 15 de Nov. le bruit estant qu’on s’en alloit icy publier la defense qui auoit esté publiée aux Trois Riuieres que pas vu n’eut à traiter avec les sauvages, le P. Vimont demanda à Mons. des Chastelets commis general si nous serions de pire condition soubs eux que soubs Messieurs de la Compagnie. La conclusion fut que non et que cela iroit pour nous à U ordinaire, mais que nous le fissions doucement.” Journal des Jésuites. Two years after, on the request of Lalemant, the governor Montmagny, and his destined successor Aillebout, gave the Jesuits a certificate to the effect that “les pères de la compagnie de Jésus sont innocents de la calomnie qui leur a été imputée, et ce qu’ils en ont fiait a été pour le bien de la communauté et pour un bon sujet.” This leaves it to be inferred that they actually traded, though with good intentions. In 1664, in reply to similar “calumnies,” the Jesuits made by proxy a declaration before the council, stating, “que les dits Révérends Pères Jésuites n’ont fait jamais aucune profession de vendre et n’ont jamais rien vendu, mais seulement que les marchandises qu’ils donnent aux particuliers ne sont que pour avoir leurs
* Frontenac au Ministre, 29 Oct., 1676.
nécessités.” This is an admission in a thin disguise. The word nécessités is of very elastic interpretation. In a memoir of Talon, 1667, he mentions, “la traite de pelleteries qu’on assure qu’ils (les Jésuites) font aux Outaouacks et au Cap de la Madeleine; ce que je ne sais pas de science certaine.”
That which Talon did not know with certainty is made reasonably clear for us by a line in the private journal of Father Le Mercier, who writes under date of 17 August, 1665, “Le Père Frémin remonte supérieur au Cap de la Magdeleine, ou le temporel est en bon estât. Comme il est delivre de tout soin d'aucune traite, il doit s’appliquer à l’instruction tant des Montagnets que des Algonquins.” Father Charles Albanel was charged, under Frémin, with the affairs of the mission, including doubtless the temporal interests, to the prosperity of which Father Le Merciei alludes, and the cares of trade from which Father Frémin was delivered. Cavelier de la Salle declared in 1678, “Le père Arbanelle (Albanel) jésuite a traité au Cap (de la Madeleine) pour 700 pistoles de peaux d’orignaux et de castors; luy mesme me l’a dit en 1667. Il vend le pain, le vin, le bled, le lard, et il tient magazin au Cap aussi bien que le frère Joseph à Québec. Ce frère gagne 500 pour 100 sur tous les peuples. Ils (les Jésuites) ont bâti leur collège en partie de leur traite et en partie de l’emprunt.” La Salle further says that Frémin, being reported to have made enormous profits, “ce père répondit au gouverneur (qui lui en avait fait des plaintes) par un billet que luy a conservé, que c’estoit une calomnie que ce grand gain prétendu; puisque tout ce qui se passoit par ses mains ne pouvoit produire par an que quatre mille de revenant bon, tous frais faits, sans comprendre les gages des domestiques.” La Salle gives also many other particulars, especially relating to Michillimackinac, where, as he says, the Jesuits had a large stock of beaver-skins. According to Peronne Dumesnil, Mémoire de 1671, the Jesuits had at that time more than 20,000 francs a year, partly from trade and partly from charitable contributions of their friends in France.
The king repeatedly forbade the Jesuits and other ecclesiastics in Canada to carry on trade. On one occasion he threatened strong measures should they continue to disobey him. Le Roi à Frontenac, 28 Avril, 1677. In the same year the minister wrote to the intendant Duchesneau: “Vous ne sauriez apporter trop de precautions pour abolir entièrement la coustume que les Ecclesiastiques séculiers et réguliers avaient pris de traitter ou de faire traitter leurs valets,” 18 Avril, 1677.
The Jesuits entered also into other branches of trade and industry with a vigor and address which the inhabitants of Canada might have emulated with advantage. They were successful fishers of eels. In 1646, their eel-pots at Sillery are said to have yielded no less than forty thousand eels, some of which they sold at the modest price of thirty sous a hundred. Ferland, Notes sur les Registres de N. D. de Québec, 82. The members of the order were exempted from payment of duties, and in 1674 they were specially empowered to construct mills, including sugar-mills, and beep slaves, apprentices, and hired servants. Droit Canadien, 180.