Count Frontenac / Makers of Canada, Volume 3

by William Dawson LeSueur

The king this time lost patience. When an answer came back, it was his displeasure that was known, and displeasure with his "high and mighty Lordship, the governor." The king told him plainly that he had on various occasions advanced claims that had very little foundation, and that in this matter his pretensions were directly opposed to a royal ordinance. His Majesty added: "I am sure you are the only man in my kingdom who, being honoured with the titles of governor and lieutenant-general, would care to be styled chief and president of a council such as that at Quebec." Colbert dealt with the matter officially, and quoted this opinion of the king's almost in the same words. He also observed that, if Frontenac had any wish to give satisfaction to his Majesty, he would have to change entirely the line of conduct he had hitherto pursued. It seemed, however, as if the court could not afford to give a clear victory to Duchesneau, for, as a practical settlement of the point at issue, it was ordered that the modus vivendi suggested by the attorney-general and actually in force should be adopted as a permanent rule—a classical example of political trimming.

It is difficult to understand how any man in Frontenac's position could fail to feel profoundly humbled and chastened by so emphatic a reproof emanating direct from his sovereign master, and echoed in an official despatch from the minister in charge of colonies. We look in vain, however, for evidence that any such effect was produced on the spirit of the governor. He doubtless felt that he had achieved at least half a victory. The title had been depreciated in the despatches from the court; it was not worth his having, and Duchesneau was not to have it. For a time there was what looked like a truce between the two heads of the state, and shortly afterwards we find Duchesneau writing to say that he and the governor are now on excellent terms; that he is omitting nothing on his side that can give satisfaction to the latter; that he communicates the very smallest things to him, and that he hopes, by sheer force of amiability, to secure a little show of kindness in return. Seeing, however, that in the same despatch in which these excellent sentiments occur, he enters into lengthy accusations against Frontenac on the trading question, and that the latter was engaged about the same time in working up similar charges against him, as appears by a document bearing date the following year, we may reasonably doubt whether very amicable or charitable feelings prevailed on either side.

D'Auteuil, the attorney-general, who had been for some time in a failing condition, and whose health had probably not been improved by his occasional stormy interviews with the governor, by whom he was cordially detested, died in the early winter of 1679-80. Duchesneau, in anticipation of this event, had obtained the king's permission to name a successor, and had secured a signed commission which, to be complete, only required to have a name filled in. Auteuil's son, François Madeleine, had been assisting him for a couple of years in his office, and as he was a very assuming youth—he was not yet twenty-one—and bitterly hostile to the governor, he was naturally the intendant's choice. Young d'Auteuil had hardly entered on his duties before he picked a quarrel with Boulduc, prosecutor of the lower court, known as a firm ally of Frontenac, whom he ordered to wait upon him at his office every Saturday to prepare cases for the court under his (d'Auteuil's) supervision. Boulduc refused. The council took the matter up, but found it hard to decide, and the squabble dragged during most of the year 1680. In the following year facts came to light which caused Boulduc to be charged with embezzlement, and d'Auteuil pushed the matter with great zeal. Frontenac, anxious to save his friend, tried to represent the accusation as the outcome of private vengeance; unfortunately the facts were against the procureur, who was condemned, and dismissed from office.

Some of the side issues that were raised on this occasion brought out strikingly the spirit of Canadian official society. Villeray, first councillor, a man more obnoxious to Frontenac on account of his extreme devotion to the ecclesiastical authorities perhaps than by reason of his dubious antecedents,[19] gave himself, in certain pleadings, the title of "esquire." Frontenac denied that he had any right to it, and held the pleadings invalid. Frontenac's secretary, Le Chasseur, appeared on a summons before the council, but refused to answer because he had been described in the summons as "secretary of Monsieur, the Governor," instead of "Monseigneur the Governor." Thus were the king's instructions to all and sundry to practise peace and concord being observed! A worse affair was that of the councillor, Damours, who, in the summer of 1681, obtained a congé from Frontenac to go as far as Matane where he had a property, and who was arrested by order of the governor on his return a few weeks later for having in some way exceeded the terms of his permit. Damours' wife appealed to the council, but Frontenac objected to having her letter read. Duchesneau urged the council to take cognizance of the case, but some of the members did not feel it safe to do so, and finally the papers were referred to the king—another quarrel for his Majesty to adjust! Meantime Damours remains in confinement for about six weeks. His Majesty of course disapproves of such harshness. In a letter dated 30th April 1681, after giving his representative various other cautions, he begs him to divest his mind of all those private animosities which up to the present have been almost the sole motive of his actions. "It is hard," he adds, "for me to give you my full confidence when I see that everything gives way to your personal enmities."

A question reserved for consideration in this chapter was as to how far there was foundation for the charges of illegitimate trading brought so continually by the intendant against the governor, and retorted by the latter against the intendant. What may be noticed in the first place is the slight amount of attention apparently paid by the court to these charges and counter-charges. The king could not openly approve of trading on the part of his high officers; he was obliged to condemn it in strong and precise terms; but he knew at the same time that they had starvation salaries, and it is possible that he was not wholly unwilling that they should, in a quiet way, make a little money out of the traffic in furs. Frontenac and Duchesneau were both recalled in the end; but it was not for trading; it was for quarrelling, playing at cross-purposes, and sacrificing the welfare of the country to their mutual jealousies. M. Lorin, whose sympathy with Frontenac is conspicuous, is disposed to admit that he did not wholly abstain from trading; but he thinks he did it in a more respectable and less rapacious manner than Duchesneau. He observes that Frontenac's partners, if partners he had, were chiefly the great explorers, La Salle, Du Lhut and others; while the associates of Duchesneau were traders pure and simple, men like Lebert, Le Moyne and La Chesnaye. On the other hand the court does not seem to have taken Frontenac's accusations against the intendant seriously. The king indeed informs him that he regards his charges as "mere recriminations." Duchesneau, it will be remembered, had been warned not to put into his despatches things that were not true; possibly he was worrying the minister and the king with information they would rather not receive. The correspondence of 1679 shows clearly the hostile relations of the two administrators.

In the summer and fall of that year the governor spent nearly three months at Montreal. On the 6th November, having returned to Quebec, he writes to the king: "I have received diverse advices from the Jesuit fathers and other missionaries that General Andros (Governor of New York) was lately soliciting the Iroquois in an underhand way to break with us, and that he was about convening a meeting of the Five Nations, in order to propose matters of a nature to disturb our trade with them." Four days later the intendant takes up his parable and informs the minister that the governor "had made the news he pretended to have received regarding the plans of the English general, Andros, to debauch the Iroquois," the whole thing being a mere pretext for making a prolonged stay at Montreal at the height of the trading season. He charges the governor with exacting presents from the Indians in return for the protection afforded them by his guards, and with having taken seven packages of beaver skins from the Ottawas in consideration of his having settled a dispute into which they had got with some Frenchmen at Montreal. It will be remembered, and the fact certainly has an air of significance, that, when it was a question of granting amnesty to the coureurs de bois, it was Duchesneau who suggested that each man should be required to give the fullest information as to what trade he had been carrying on, and on whose account. The amnesty was granted without this condition. Evidently the court did not want an embarrassment of information. Duchesneau's trouble was an excess of not wholly disinterested zeal.

The case is not overstated by Frontenac's latest and fullest biographer, M. Lorin, when he says that "the lack of a good understanding between the two administrators had divided Canadian society, or at least that portion of it which came into contact with the king's officers, into two camps." Street brawls arising out of the embitterment of feeling were not infrequent. An illustrative incident was the imprisonment of young Duchesneau, son of the intendant, for singing in the streets some snatches of a song disrespectful to the governor. The patience of the court was at last exhausted, and in the summer of 1682, Frontenac and Duchesneau were simultaneously recalled; and thus was brought to a close the count's first term of office as governor of Canada.

Some larger questions relating to this period may now profitably occupy our attention. One of the earliest acts of Frontenac, it will be remembered, was to summon the Iroquois to meet him in conference at Cataraqui, where, by his happy manner of dealing with them, he established a remarkable personal ascendency over their minds, and succeeded, for the time at least, in placing the relations between them and the French upon an excellent footing. The frequent visits which he subsequently paid to his favourite fort gave him opportunities of improving his acquaintance with his dusky lieges and of strengthening the good understanding that had been brought about. For some years things worked smoothly, and the colony enjoyed a comfortable sense of security. From the first, however, the influence of Onontio was more felt by the eastern and nearer members of the confederacy than by the western and more remote; and, as time wore on, the latter, particularly the Senecas, began to show a quarrelsome and insolent temper. They did not venture to attack the French, but they committed various acts of aggression on native tribes allied with them and under their protection. Several years before they had waged war with the Illinois and driven them from their habitations. Then they turned southwards and engaged in a prolonged conflict with a tribe known as the Andostagnés, during which time the Illinois, having recovered in a measure from their losses, ventured to return to their former abodes. The explorations of La Salle had brought these people into alliance with the French; but when the Senecas had successfully concluded their war with the Andostagnés they were not disposed to refrain from attacking them anew on that account. After various preliminary raids, they sent, in the spring of 1680, an army of five or six hundred men into the Illinois territory and committed great havoc. It was on this occasion that Tonty, La Salle's lieutenant, nearly lost his life at Fort Crèvecoeur. The question now was whether the French would stand idly by and see their allies destroyed. If they did, not only would their influence over the tribes trusting in their protection be annihilated, but they might soon have to fight for their own preservation without any native assistance. Frontenac sent messages to the Iroquois enjoining them to keep the peace; but the voice that once had charmed and overawed sounded now a very ineffectual note. Father Lamberville, Jesuit missionary to the Iroquois, wrote to say that the upper tribes had lost all fear of the French, and that a slight provocation would cause them to make war on Canada.

Frontenac and Duchesneau both discuss the matter in their despatches of the year 1681, the latter as usual blaming the former, hinting that he shirked his duty in not going up to Cataraqui in the previous summer in order to meet the tribes and use his personal influence in favour of peace. Frontenac writes as if he had not much confidence in that method; he asks for five or six hundred soldiers to quell the rebellious tribes. He thinks it would be quite enough to patrol Lake Ontario with a respectable force in order to bring them to submission. After this despatch had gone, news arrived of a most regrettable incident which threatened to precipitate war. This was the murder of a Seneca chief by an Illinois on the territory of the Kiskakons, one of the Ottawa tribes in alliance with the French. According to Indian usage the Kiskakons were responsible for the crime, and the Senecas were hot for revenge. Appreciating the gravity of the situation, Frontenac sends a special message to request the offended tribe to stay their hands, promising to hold himself responsible for seeing that full atonement is made for the wrong done. They consent, but ask that he will meet them somewhere in or near Iroquois territory on the 15th June of the following year. No pledge is given on this point, but messengers are sent to the Ottawas to tell them that they must be prepared to make full amends, and that, if they will send delegates to Montreal, the matter will be discussed and arranged there.

The winter of 1681-2 was clearly an anxious one for the colony. Frontenac thought it well to summon the wisest heads in the country to meet in the Jesuit Seminary at Quebec in order to discuss the Indian question in all its bearings. Those taking part in the conference, in addition to himself, were the intendant, the provost, and three Jesuit fathers, who had had long experience in mission work and knew the savage tribes thoroughly. The general opinion of the meeting was that Frontenac should go to Fort Frontenac to meet the Iroquois, as they had requested, in the following month of June. Frontenac, for some reason or other, did not like the idea. He did not want to go further than Montreal. Moreover, there was no use, he said, in meeting the Iroquois till he knew what the Ottawas were going to do; and they would not reach Montreal till late in the summer. The governor had his way. The Ottawas, including the Kiskakons, came in August. Only with great difficulty were they persuaded to give the necessary satisfaction to the Iroquois, who, they said, no doubt with truth, were much keener in seeking satisfaction for wrongs than in giving it when wrong was done by themselves. The Iroquois sent delegates to Montreal in the following month; and by dint of presents and promises a somewhat doubtful arrangement was patched up for the temporary maintenance of peace. Frontenac took advantage of his visit to Montreal to survey the fortifications and give instructions for strengthening them at several points. These were virtually the final acts of his administration, for in the last week of September his successor landed at Quebec.