The Critic. "True; but it was for his creatures and for nobody else."
The Orator. "I pass in silence that reading of spiritual books which he practised as an indispensable duty more than forty years; that holy avidity with which he listened to the word of God,—"
The Critic. "Only if the preacher addressed the sermon to him, and called him Monseigneur. As for his reading, it was often Jansenist books, of which he had a great many, and which he greatly praised and lent freely to others."
The Orator. "He prepared for the sacraments by meditation and retreat,—"
The Critic. "And generally came out of his retreat more excited than ever against the Church."
The Orator. "Let us not recall his ancient and noble descent, his family connected with all that is greatest in the army, the magistracy, and the government; Knights, Marshals of France, Governors of Provinces, Judges, Councillors, and Ministers of State: let us not, I say, recall all these without remembering that their examples roused this generous heart to noble emulation; and, as an expiring flame grows brighter as it dies, so did all the virtues of his race unite at last in him to end with glory a long line of great men, that shall be no more except in history."
The Critic. "Well laid on, and too well for his hearers to believe him. Far from agreeing that all these virtues were collected in the person of his pretended hero, they would find it very hard to admit that he had even one of them." [7]
[7] Oraison Funèbre du très-haut et très-puissant Seigneur Louis de Buade, Comte de Frontenac et de Palluau, etc., avec des remarques critiques, 1698. That indefatigable investigator of Canadian history, the late M. Jacques Viger, to whom I am indebted for a copy of this eulogy, suggested that the anonymous critic may have been Abbé la Tour, author of the Vie de Laval. If so, his statements need the support of more trustworthy evidence. The above extracts are not consecutive, but are taken from various parts of the manuscript.
It is clear enough from what quiver these arrows came. From the first, Frontenac had set himself in opposition to the most influential of the Canadian clergy. When he came to the colony, their power in the government was still enormous, and even the most devout of his predecessors had been forced into conflict with them to defend the civil authority; but, when Frontenac entered the strife, he brought into it an irritability, a jealous and exacting vanity, a love of rule, and a passion for having his own way, even in trifles, which made him the most exasperating of adversaries. Hence it was that many of the clerical party felt towards him a bitterness that was far from ending with his life.
The sentiment of a religion often survives its convictions. However heterodox in doctrine, he was still wedded to the observances of the Church, and practised them, under the ministration of the Récollets, with an assiduity that made full amends to his conscience for the vivacity with which he opposed the rest of the clergy. To the Récollets their patron was the most devout of men; to his ultramontane adversaries, he was an impious persecutor.