The Fighting Governor

The Fighting Governor

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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
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE
FIGHTING GOVERNOR ***

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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