CHAPTER V
DIVIDED POWER
If the king read carefully, as he says he did, the cruel mass of correspondence which Frontenac forwarded to him in connection with the Perrot-Fénelon imbroglio, he could hardly have failed to come to the conclusion that something was amiss in the state of Canada. Frontenac had begged, somewhat piteously, that he might be "sustained," and sustained he was in a manner, as we have just seen; but the king and the minister had their own opinion on the subject, which they only partly expressed in words, the rest they translated into action. Frontenac, from the date of his arrival in Canada, had been the only visible source of authority. Laval was in France, looking after the long delayed bull which was to raise him from the doubtful rank of a bishop in partibus to the full legal status of bishop of Quebec. Talon, too, had left the country a few weeks after the governor's arrival, and no one had been sent to replace him. The old warrior had, therefore, had things entirely his own way, and his own way had not proved to be the way of peace. To place matters on a better footing, the court decided on two measures: to reorganize the Sovereign Council, and to revive the office of intendant. The council, it will be remembered, consisted of four members and an attorney-general, nominated by the governor and the bishop jointly, and holding office during their good pleasure. Henceforth it was to consist of seven members, each holding office by direct commission from the king. The main object of the change was to enable it to act with more independence in the performance of its proper functions, which were essentially of a judicial character. A secondary effect, probably neither foreseen nor intended, was to augment the influence of the bishop, at the expense of that of the governor, through the operation of the natural law which inclines men to side rather with permanent than with transient forces. Frontenac was jealous from the first of the increased prestige of the council, and soon became disagreeably aware of the advantage it afforded to his ecclesiastical rival.
The council, as reconstituted, consisted of the four old members, Louis Rouer de Villeray, who received the designation of first councillor, Le Gardeur de Tilly, Mathieu Damours, and Nicolas Dupont, with three new ones, Réné Charlier de Lotbinière, Jean Baptiste de Peyras, and Charles Denis de Vitre. The attorney-general, Denis Joseph Ruette d'Auteuil, a man described by Frontenac a couple of years later as "very ignorant, and having such imperfect sight that he can neither read nor write," was by name reappointed to his office, with one Gilles Rageot as clerk. All these, holding their appointments directly from the king, were secure from removal by any lesser authority. The utmost the governor could do would be to suspend one or more of them for grave misconduct, subject to confirmation of his action by the sovereign. Another change in the judiciary of the colony was made a couple of years later. The king had, in the year 1674, abolished a court called the Prévôté (Provost's Court) of Quebec, which had been established by the West India Company for the purpose of exercising a kind of police jurisdiction, and making preliminary inquiries in certain cases. The royal idea at the time had been that it would be simpler to intrust the whole administration of justice to one court, the Sovereign Council. The enlargement and strengthening of the council, however, and the appearance upon the scene of an intendant whose views did not always harmonize, to speak very moderately, with those of the governor, somewhat altered the situation. There was a balance of powers; but justice itself would sometimes hang in the balance longer than was desirable. In order, therefore, to get as many cases as possible disposed of without troubling that important tribunal, his Majesty, in the month of May 1677, determined to re-establish the Prévôté, with power to judge, as a court of first instance, all cases civil and criminal, subject to appeal to the Sovereign Council. The court was to consist of a lieutenant-general as judge, a public prosecutor and a clerk. To these was added, by an edict of the same month, a special officer having the title of prévôt, with judicial functions in criminal cases only. It probably was not foreseen that the governor might play off the Prévôté against the Sovereign Council. That, however, is what happened, and as the lower court had at its service six "archers" or constables, it was able, when acting in concert with the governor, to accomplish an occasional tour de force.
The new intendant, M. Jacques Duchesneau, arrived at Quebec in the month of September 1675 by the same vessel which bore back Laval, in all the glory and power of full episcopal authority, to a flock from which he had been absent three long years. His letter of instructions mentions the fact that he had filled a somewhat similar office at Tours in France, and had acquitted himself therein to the great satisfaction of his Majesty. Research has been made without success to find out what the office was; we have only, therefore, to take his Majesty's word for it. Whatever M. Duchesneau's previous history may have been, he seems to have come to Canada with the determination to keep a very watchful, and not too benevolent, eye on the proceedings of his official superior, the governor. There was the strongest possible contrast between the characters of the two men. Frontenac was haughty, headstrong, and aggressive; Duchesneau, cautious, crafty, and persistent. When two such men come into conflict, it is not the cool calculator who suffers most, however he may whine (as Duchesneau did) at the high-handed proceedings of the other. Under the best of circumstances a governor and an intendant were not likely to work very harmoniously together. Courcelles and Talon did not, though both were well-meaning men. M. Lorin hints that Colbert sent out Duchesneau to act as a spy upon Frontenac.[16] The supposition seems to be a needless one. Duchesneau was sent out as Talon had been before him, to see that the intentions of the court in the government of the country were duly carried into effect, and in particular that the considerable sums of money which the king appropriated to the uses of the colony were rightly expended. It is possible that, had Frontenac acted with more judgment and moderation during the first two years of his administration, the appointment of an intendant would not have been considered necessary; but, in any case, the court in giving him a colleague, and thus relieving him of part of his responsibilities, was simply applying to Canada a system of administration long established in France, where, as a rule, every province had its intendant as well as its governor.
Duchesneau's instructions were certainly very clear as to the attitude he was to maintain towards the governor. He was enjoined "to be careful to live with Comte de Frontenac in relations of great deference, not only on account of the honour he had of representing the king's person, but also on account of his personal merit, and not to do anything in the whole range of his duties without his consent and participation." To secure concordant conduct on the governor's part, he was instructed in a despatch of even date to allow the intendant to act "with entire liberty in everything relating to justice, police, and finance, without meddling at all in these matters, except when they are discussed in the Sovereign Council." It is significant that in this same letter a hint is dropped about trading: not only was Frontenac not to trade himself, or allow trading on his behalf, but he was not to permit any one belonging to his household to trade. It thus appears that, before Duchesneau had even arrived in the country, the court had had its suspicions aroused as to the course the king's personal representative might be tempted to pursue in this matter. We may be certain that anything Perrot and Fénelon knew on the subject would be poured into the minister's ear, nor were they the only ones whose representations regarding the governor would not be of a friendly character. Villeray, the senior member of the Sovereign Council and the Abbé d'Urfé, a relative of Fénelon's, were in France at the same time. The former had been denounced by Frontenac in one of his earliest despatches as a busybody and a close ally of the Jesuit order; while the latter had been very haughtily treated by him in connection with the Fénelon matter, and had left Canada in high indignation by the same vessel which bore Fénelon and Perrot. It happened that, just about this time, Urfé's cousin, a Mademoiselle d'Allegre, was being contracted in marriage to Colbert's son and destined successor in office, the Marquis de Seignelay, so that altogether the influences which were operating against Frontenac at this juncture were of a somewhat formidable character. That his position should have been so little affected speaks well for his claim to personal consideration. It speaks well also for the spirit of equity which actuated the king in his relations with his officers.
A meeting of the reorganized Sovereign Council was held at Quebec on the 16th September 1675. It is this meeting which fixes for us as nearly as it can be done the date of the arrival of the bishop and intendant, for the minutes show that the former was present, and that part of the business transacted was the registration of the commission of the latter. M. de Laval lost no time in making his influence felt. The Abbé Fénelon, when arraigned before the Sovereign Council the year before, had demanded to be tried by an ecclesiastical tribunal, and reply had been made that there was no such tribunal in Canada. The bishop's first act was to supply this lack by establishing a court consisting of his two grand-vicars, Bernières and Dudouyt, and a clerk or registrar. The new court soon found work to do. A man was cited before it, upon information of the curé of Montreal, for having failed to perform his Easter duties. He appealed to the Sovereign Council, which at first showed a disposition to assume jurisdiction in the case, but in the end left it in the hands of the ecclesiastics. The bishop wished it to be understood that Canada was not France. Some encroachments of the civil on the spiritual power had, he said, taken place in that country, but "these were things to be guarded against in a country in which a Church is in course of establishment." Manifestly Laval understood the word "Church" in a very absolute sense, and meant to enforce his understanding of it if possible.
During his absence from the country the clergy had got into the way, either of their own accord, or at Frontenac's suggestion, of paying the governor certain honours in church which the bishop considered—correctly it appears—unsanctioned by precedent or usage. He ordered that they should be discontinued. A wrangle with the governor ensued, and the matter had to be referred to the king, who must sometimes have wondered whether the colonial game was worth the candles consumed in reading the colonial despatches; for his Majesty, no less than his minister, had often to prolong the work far into the night. The patient monarch replied that the governor had been claiming more than was his due, and more than was accorded to men of his rank in the provinces of the kingdom; he must, therefore, make up his little difference with the bishop of Quebec, by gracefully moderating his pretensions. Three years later there were still some differences of the same nature pending, for we find the king sending directions to the bishop to pay the same honours to the governor of Canada as were paid to the governor of Picardy in the cathedral of Amiens. Frontenac, on his part, was not to claim more.
The document which throws most light on Frontenac's attitude towards the dominant ecclesiastical powers—the bishop and the Jesuits—and on his estimate of their work and general policy, is a letter which he wrote to Colbert in 1677, and which must have been of a confidential nature.[17] "Nearly all the disorders existing in New France," he therein declares, "have their origin in the ambition of the ecclesiastics, who wish to add to their spiritual authority an absolute power over temporal matters." Their aim from the first, he goes on to say, was to amass wealth as a means of influence; and in this they have been extraordinarily successful. They have had subsidies from the king and charitable donations from individuals in France; they have obtained concessions of large tracts of the best and most valuable lands in the country; finally, in spite of the king's prohibitions, they have been driving an active and most profitable trade. In support of the latter statement he cites the names of a number of persons who have given him positive and detailed evidence on the point. He estimates the bishop's revenue from all sources at not less than forty thousand livres; and refers to the fact that he is erecting vast and superb buildings at Quebec at a cost of four hundred thousand livres, although he and his ecclesiastics are already lodged much better than the governor-general. He complains of the espionage they exercise through the country and in his own household; and says there would be no end to the story if he were to attempt to tell all that they have done to augment their influence through the confessional and by threats of excommunication. Instances are given of what the writer claims to have been their undue severity towards persons who had incurred their censure. If the bishop chose, he could do what he has always hitherto refused to do: provide the country with a reasonable number of parish priests having fixed positions. He has ample means for the purpose if he would employ them in a less ambitious manner; his main objection to doing so is that the erection of parishes served by priests not removable at pleasure would diminish his power and throw patronage into the hands of the king. So far the governor. It is probable that his impeachment of his ecclesiastical rivals did not fall on altogether unsympathetic ears; but Colbert, as a statesman, recognized power wherever it existed; and his only advice to the civil administrators was to hold their own as well as they could. In a despatch, written some years before, he had told Courcelles that be looked forward to the time when, with an increase of population, things would get into better shape, and the secular power assume its just preponderance.