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The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Fighting Governor, by Charles W. Colby
#7 in our series Chronicles of Canada
#2 in our series by Charles W. Colby
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Title: The Fighting Governor
A Chronicle of Frontenac
Author: Charles W. Colby
Edited by George M. Wrong and H. H. Langton
Release Date: February, 2004 [EBook #5146]
[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
[This file was first posted on May 13, 2002]
Edition: 10
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FIGHTING GOVERNOR ***
This etext was produced by Gardner Buchanan.
CHRONICLES OF CANADA
Edited by George M. Wrong and H. H. Langton
In thirty-two volumes
Volume 7
THE FIGHTING GOVERNOR
A Chronicle of Frontenac
By CHARLES W. COLBY
TORONTO, 1915
CHAPTER I
CANADA IN 1672
The Canada to which Frontenac came in 1672 was no longer
the infant colony it had been when Richelieu founded the
Company of One Hundred Associates. Through the efforts
of Louis XIV and Colbert it had assumed the form of an
organized province. [Footnote: See The Great Intendant
in this Series.] Though its inhabitants numbered less
than seven thousand, the institutions under which they
lived could not have been more elaborate or precise. In
short, the divine right of the king to rule over his
people was proclaimed as loudly in the colony as in the
motherland.
It was inevitable that this should be so, for the whole
course of French history since the thirteenth century
had led up to the absolutism of Louis XIV. During the
early ages of feudalism France had been distracted by
the wars of her kings against rebellious nobles. The
virtues and firmness of Louis IX (1226-70) had turned
the scale in favour of the crown. There were still to be
many rebellions--the strife of Burgundians and Armagnacs
in the fifteenth century, the Wars of the League in the
sixteenth century, the cabal of the Fronde in the
seventeenth century--but the great issue had been settled
in the days of the good St Louis. When Raymond VII of
Toulouse accepted the Peace of Lorris (1243) the government
of Canada by Louis XIV already existed in the germ. That
is to say, behind the policy of France in the New World
may be seen an ancient process which had ended in
untrammelled autocracy at Paris.
This process as it affected Canada was not confined to
the spirit of government. It is equally visible in the
forms of colonial administration. During the Middle Ages
the dukes and counts of France had been great territorial
lords--levying their own armies, coining their own money,
holding power of life and death over their vassals. In
that period Normandy, Brittany, Maine, Anjou, Toulouse,
and many other districts, were subject to the king in
name only. But, with the growth of royal power, the dukes
and counts steadily lost their territorial independence
and fell at last to the condition of courtiers.
Simultaneously the duchies or counties were changed into
provinces, each with a noble for its governor--but a
noble who was a courtier, holding his commission from
the king and dependent upon the favour of the king. Side
by side with the governor stood the intendant, even more
a king's man than the governor himself. So jealously did
the Bourbons guard their despotism that the crown
would not place wide authority in the hands of any one
representative. The governor, as a noble and a soldier,
knew little or nothing of civil business. To watch over
the finances and the prosperity of the province, an
intendant was appointed. This official was always
chosen from the middle class and owed his position, his
advancement, his whole future, to the king. The governor
might possess wealth, or family connections. The intendant
had little save what came to him from his sovereign's
favour. Gratitude and interest alike tended to make him
a faithful servant.
But, though the crown had destroyed the political power
of the nobles, it left intact their social pre-eminence.
The king was as supreme as a Christian ruler could be.
Yet by its very nature the monarchy could not exist
without the nobles, from whose ranks the sovereign drew
his attendants, friends, and lieutenants. Versailles
without its courtiers would have been a desert. Even the
Church was a stronghold of the aristocracy, for few became
bishops or abbots who were not of gentle birth.
The great aim of government, whether at home or in the
colonies, was to maintain the supremacy of the crown.
Hence all public action flowed from a royal command. The
Bourbon theory required that kings should speak and that
subjects should obey. One direct consequence of a system
so uncompromisingly despotic was the loss of all local
initiative. Nothing in the faintest degree resembling
the New England town-meeting ever existed in New France.
Louis XIV objected to public gatherings of his people,
even for the most innocent purposes. The sole limitation
to the power of the king was the line of cleavage between
Church and State. Religion required that the king should
refrain from invading the sphere of the clergy, though
controversy often waxed fierce as to where the secular
ended and the spiritual began.
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