On August 21st M. de Fénelon appeared by command before the Sovereign Council at Quebec. He came determined to protest against the competency of the civil court to try him, relying on the privileges granted by the kings of France. "Clericus, si cogatur ad forum laici, debet protestari," was an axiom of many jurisconsults of the period, such as Aufrerius, president of the parliament of Rouen. [123]
Among other privileges, a cleric summoned before the lay court, unless sent there for misdemeanour by his bishop, could reply seated and uncovered. On entering the hall of justice, M. de Fénelon, uncovered, made for a seat. The governor reproved him, and Fénelon quoted his canonical privilege. The heated head of the council then told him, he might walk out if he would not take the attitude ordered. M. de Fénelon demanded rather that M. de Frontenac should leave the council, as he was acting not as his judge and the head of the council, but as his opponent. The council, however, sustained the governor and M. de Fénelon was taken as prisoner to the brewery under the conduct of an usher.
On August 23d M. de Fénelon again appeared, presenting his protest in writing, and refusing to be tried till sent by his bishop, when he would give his reasons for alleging that the governor was his opposing party and was not acting as the president of the council. Again the recalcitrant de Fénelon went back to his prison. The council, however, began to doubt their power to try the case, and it sent to the king the judgment on M. de Fénelon, with the statement that there remained only three judges whom he did not refuse. Similar action was taken in M. Perrot's case. The unfortunate governor of Montreal had been kept a close prisoner since January 26th and had not ceased sending to the council protest upon protest, [124] refusing to accept his judges, and demanding, without avail, to have his case concluded and sent to be tried before the king in France.
In the month of September some of the council wavered and M. de Villeray refused to act against either, alleging that there was such a natural connection between the affairs of M. de Fénelon and M. Perrot that having refused to act in the case of M. Perrot, fearing to displease the late Intendant Talon, the uncle of Madame Perrot, who had given him his own nomination to the council, he could do not less for M. de Fénelon, and his reasons were accepted by the council. (Archives de la Marine, October 22, 1674.) Thus it was that Frontenac had to allow M. Perrot and M. de Fénelon to go for a time to France by the last vessels sailing in November. With them went Dollier de Casson, now broken in health and suffering from the loss of sight in one of his eyes since his fall on the ice, and M. l'Abbé d'Urfé, on important business to the country. The latter intended to complain at court of the vexatious conduct of M. de Frontenac in regard to the missionaries, whose letters to France he opened and to whom he handed, among those arriving for them, only such as he pleased. Perhaps it was knowledge of his intention, added to his displeasure at M. d'Urfé's friendship for Fénelon, that made the governor refuse to allow M. d'Urfé's servant to accompany him on the voyage. Thus the Montreal party sailed, hoping for redress in France.
At the same time M. de Frontenac, scenting recrimination, wrote, on November 14, 1674, to Colbert: "I am sending M. Perrot to France and with him M. l'Abbé Fénelon, so that you may judge of their conduct. On my part, I submit mine to everything that it shall please His Majesty to impose on me; if I have been found wanting, I am ready to accept the correction pleasing to him. A governor would be very much to be pitied, if he was not sustained, having no one in whom he can trust, and being ever obliged to distrust everybody; and when he should commit any fault, it should assuredly be very pardonable, since there are not wanting snares stretched for him, so that having to avoid a hundred of them, it would be difficult not to fall into one. The distance, too, from the court and the impossibility of receiving new orders, except after a long interval, make his faults necessarily no short ones. Thus, Monseigneur, if it shall have happened that I have made any false step, which may displease His Majesty, he will have the goodness to pass it over and to believe that it has occurred rather by an excess of zeal to do my duty and to carry out His intentions, than from any other motive."
But Colbert was likely to be sympathetic to the Montrealers. When M. d'Urfé arrived he was warmly welcomed by the minister, for on the 8th of February following, his son, the Marquis de Seignelay contracted a marriage with M. d'Urfé's cousin-germain, the rich and youthful heiress, the Marquise Marie-Marguerite d'Allègre, only daughter of Claude-Ives d'Allègre. The chosen intermediary in the marriage was also M. de Bretonvilliers, the superior general of the Sulpicians at Paris. Hence M. d'Urfé's mémoire on the conduct of M. de Frontenac, received by Colbert and communicated to the king, on April 22, 1675, brought from the latter the following series of counsels to guide the governor in his future conduct: "I have noted with attention," wrote the king, "all that is contained in your dispatches of February 16th and November 14th last, and to explain to you my designs and all they contain, I will tell you that in a feeble colony, such as yours, your principal and almost sole employment ought to be, to maintain and conserve all the inhabitants there and to induce others to come thither. You ought then to use the power I give you, only with the greatest moderation and gentleness, more particularly with regard to the ecclesiastics whom it is your duty to uphold in their functions, in peace and concord, without giving them any trouble: being assured, as I am, that they will never be wanting in the obedience due me, nor in their readiness to inspire my people with the same sentiments. [125] Although I do not attach importance to all that has been told me of many petty annoyances, given by you to the ecclesiastics, I deem it necessary all the same for the good of my government, to warn you of them, so that you correct what is amiss, if they are true. But my present order is, that you make known to no one, that I have written to you about them; and that even when the bishop or the ecclesiastics speak of them, you will not cherish any resentment against them.... They say, then here, that you are not willing to allow the ecclesiastics power to attend to their missions and their other functions, or to leave their stations without passports, even to go from Montreal to Quebec; that you cause them to journey to you often for very slight reasons; that you intercept their letters and do not allow the liberty of writing; that you have not been willing to allow M. d'Urfé's valet to cross over to France with his master; nor permitted the grand vicar of the bishop of Petrea to take his place at the Sovereign Council, in accordance with the regulation of the month of April, 1673. If any part of the things is true, or even the whole, you must make amends."
In a similar delicate strain Colbert wrote on May 13, 1675, adding that he wished Frontenac to pay some mark of consideration to M. d'Urfé, now that he had become allied to him as his daughter-in-law's first cousin.
The conduct of M. de Fénelon at Montreal, both for his sermon and his support of M. Perrot, was blamed, and caused a letter dated May 7, 1675, to be written by M. de Bretonvilliers to the Sulpicians at Montreal: "I exhort you all to profit by the example of M. de Fénelon. For being too much mixed up with the world, and with affairs which did not concern him, he has mismanaged his own affairs, and has done wrong to those of his friends, while wishing to serve them. In these kinds of affairs, which have regard only to personal quarrels, neutrality is to always be approved...."
The upshot was that M. de Fénelon was not allowed to return to Canada by the king, on recommendation of M. de Bretonvilliers. The criminal procedure instituted by de Frontenac was not allowed to proceed. A letter from the king to Frontenac, dated April 22, 1675, explains this: "I have blamed the action of M. de Fénelon and I have ordered him not to return to Canada. But I must tell you that it was difficult to institute criminal procedure against this cleric and also to oblige the priests of the Seminary of Montreal to testify against him; at least, he should have been left in the hands of the bishop or the grand vicar. Besides, the differences between you and the priests of the Seminary of Montreal are entirely settled and can have no consequences. As, moreover, the superior of the Seminary of St. Sulpice (M. de Bretonvilliers) has assured me that all the priests of his community, who are at Montreal, live in the respect and obedience due to me, and to your dignity, I desire that you forget all that has passed. Strive then, assiduously to reunite to yourself all minds, that these differences may have divided."
On the 14th of May a characteristic letter of Colbert followed this up: "It is to the good estate and good government of the king and the colony, that you show particular consideration for the community of the Seminary of St. Sulpice at Montreal, of which M. de Bretonvilliers, the superior, is one of my best friends."