Of those appointed to the new council, their enemy Dumesnil says that they were "incapable persons,” and their associate Gaudais, in defending them against worse charges, declares that they were “unlettered, of little experience, and nearly all unable to deal with affairs of importance.” This was, perhaps, unavoidable; for, except among the ecclesiastics, education was then scarcely known in Canada. But if Laval may be excused for putting incompetent men in office, nothing can excuse him for making men charged with gross public offences the prosecutors and judges in their own cause; and his course in doing so gives color to the assertion of Dumesnil, that he made up the council expressly to shield the accused and smother the accusation. **
The two persons under the heaviest charges received the two most important appointments: Bourdon, attorney-general, and Villeray, keeper of
* Dumesnil here makes one of the few mistakes I have been
able to detect in his long memorials. He says that the name
of the niece of Gaudais was Marie Nau. It was, in fact,
Michelle-Therese Nau, who married Joseph, son of Robert
Giffard, on the 22d of October, 1663. Dumesnil had forgotten
the bride’s first name. The elder Giffard was surety for
Repentigny, whom Dumesnil charged with liabilities to the
company, amounting to 644,700 livres. Giffard was also
father-in-law of Juchereau de la Ferte, one of the accused.
** Dumesnil goes further than this, for he plainly
intimates that the removing from power of the company, to
whom the accused were responsible, and the placing in power
of a council formed of the accused themselves, was a device
contrived from the first by Laval and the Jesuits, to get
their friends out of trouble.
the seals. La Ferté was also one of the accused. * Of Villeray, the governor Argenson had written in 1059: “Some of his qualities are good enough, but confidence cannot be placed in him, on account of his instability.” ** In the same year, he had been ordered to France, “to purge himself of sundry crimes wherewith he stands charged.” *** He was not yet free of suspicion, having returned to Canada under an order to make up and render his accounts, which he had not yet done. Dumesnil says that he first came to the colony in 1651, as valet of the governor Lauson, who had taken him from the jail at Rochelle, where he was imprisoned for a debt of seventy-one francs, “as appears by the record of the jail of date July eleventh in that year.” From this modest beginning he became in time the richest man in Canada. **** He was strong in orthodoxy, and an ardent supporter of the bishop and the Jesuits. He is alternately praised and blamed, according to the partisan leanings of the writer.
* Bourdon is charged with not having accounted for an
immense quantity of beaver-skins which had passed through
his hands during twelve years or more, and which are valued
at more than 300,000 livres. Other charges are made against
him in connection with large sums borrowed in Lauson’s time
on account of the colony. In a memorial addressed to the
king in council, Dumesnil says that, in 1662, Bourdon,
according to his own accounts, had in his hands 37,516
livres belonging to the company, which he still retained.
Villeray’s liabilities arose out of the unsettled accounts
of his father-in-law, Charles Sevestre, and are set down at
more than 600,000 livres. La Ferté’s are of a smaller
amount. Others of the council were indirectly involved in
the charges.
** Lettre d’Argenson, 20 Nov., 1659.
*** Edit du Roy, 13 Mai, 1659.
**** Lettre de Colbert a Frontenac, 17 Mai, 1674.
Bourdon, though of humble origin, was, perhaps, the most intelligent man in the council. He was chiefly known as an engineer, but he had also been a baker, a painter, a syndic of the inhabitants, chief gunner at the fort, and collector of customs for the company. Whether guilty of embezzlement or not, he was a zealous devotee, and would probably have died for his creed. Like Villeray, he was one of Laval’s stanchest supporters, while the rest of the council were also sound in doctrine and sure in allegiance.
In virtue of their new dignity, the accused now claimed exemption from accountability; but this was not all. The abandonment of Canada by the company, in leaving Dumesnil without support, and depriving him of official character, had made his charges far less dangerous. Nevertheless, it was thought best to suppress them altogether, and the first act of the new government was to this end.
On the twentieth of September, the second day after the establishment of the council, Bourdon, in his character of attorney-general, rose and demanded that the papers of Jean Péronne Dumesnil should be seized and sequestered. The council consented, and, to Complete the scandal, Villeray was commissioned to make the seizure in the presence of Bourdon. To color the proceeding, it was alleged that Dumesnil had obtained certain papers unlawfully from the greffe or record office. “As he was thought,” says Gaudais, “to be a violent man."
Bourdon and Villeray took with them ten soldiers, well armed, together with a locksmith and the secretary of the council. Thus prepared for every contingency, they set out on their errand, and appeared suddenly at Dumesnil's house between seven and eight o’clock in the evening. “The aforesaid Sieur Dumesnil,” further says Gaudais, “did not refute the opinion entertained of his violence; for he made a great noise, shouted robbers! and tried to rouse the neighborhood, outrageously abusing the aforesaid Sieur de Villeray and the attorney-general, in great contempt of the authority of the council, which he even refused to recognize.”
They tried to silence him by threats, but without effect; upon which they seized him and held him fast in a chair; “me,” writes the wrathful Dumesnil, “who had lately been their judge.” The soldiers stood over him and stopped his mouth while the others broke open and ransacked his cabinet, drawers, and chest, from which they took all his papers, refusing to give him an inventory, or to permit any witness to enter the house. Some of these papers were private; among the rest were, he says, the charges and specifications, nearly finished, for the trial of Bourdon and Villeray, together with the proofs of their “peculations, extortions, and malversations.” The papers were enclosed under seal, and deposited in a neighboring house, whence they were afterwards removed to the council-chamber, and Dumesnil never saw them again. It may well be believed that this, the inaugural act of the new council, was not allowed to appear on its records. *