LA FRIPONNE
PALACE OF THE INTENDANT
It has been thought useful to describe the methods of "La Friponne" of Quebec in order to explain the similar one, set up in Montreal by Varin, the head of the government commissariat here. He is described as born in France, of low extraction, small in figure and of an unattractive appearance, a liar, arrogant, capricious, headstrong and a libertine. In order to become rich, in imitation of the Quebec monopolists, he laid violent hands on the supplies for the posts above Montreal, and not to compromise himself personally he associated with himself Martel, the king's storekeeper of the town. Varin and Martel equipped the camps and did large business. They set up a store on similar lines to those at Quebec, which also the people were not slow in nicknaming "La Friponne." Over this was placed the Sieur de Pénisseault, an able manager, but who had the reputation of having left France under a cloud. The newsmongers of the salons of this period say that Péan stood in well with Madame Pénisseault regardless of consequences until he gallantly yielded his place to a more brilliant star in the person of the dashing Chevalier de Lévis. The morals of Paris and Versailles were being reflected in the humbler salons of Quebec and Montreal.
Before leaving Pénisseault it may be added that he was the appointed agent at Montreal of Cadet, who had been appointed in 1756 commissary general of the stores in Canada. Herein was a new opportunity for battening on the treasury which was exercised to its utmost. Pénisseault was assisted in Montreal by the hunchback, Maurin, deformed in mind as in body, but a clever and avaricious trader, though at times ostentatiously generous. These two had been terribly scourged by the pen of the annalist of the period. ("Mémoires de Sieur de C.," p. 87.)
Another source of illicit revenue came to these latter in conjunction with the associates of "La Grande Société," which is attested in the final judgment rendered in Paris in 1763, when tardy justice meted out more or less adequate reward to this ring of embezzlers. We may conclude this chapter with General Murray's criticism as follows:
"The small salaries given by the French government to the civil officers in general made them neglect their duty and wreck their invention to cheat and trick both king and people. This was carried to such a length that many instances may be cited of clerks and men in petty offices with yearly salaries of only six or eight hundred livres, raising to themselves, in the compass of three or four years, fortunes of three or four hundred thousand." (Observation in General Murray's Report in 1762 on the State of the Government During the French Administration.)
NOTE
THE PECULATORS