The Great Intendant | Page 2

financial questions. Of this body he was the leading
spirit from the beginning. Although at first without the title of minister,
he was promptly invested with a wide authority over the finances, trade,
agriculture, industry, and marine affairs. Within two years he had
shown his worth and had justified the king's choice. Great and

beneficial reforms had been accomplished in almost every branch of
the administration. The exhausted treasury had been replenished, trade
and industry were encouraged, agriculture was protected, and a navy
created. Under a progressive government France seemed to awake to
new life.
The hour was auspicious for the entreaties of New France. Petitions and
statements were addressed to the king by Mgr de Laval, the head of
ecclesiastical affairs in the colony, by the governor Avaugour, and by
the Jesuit fathers; and Pierre Boucher, governor of the district of Three
Rivers, was sent to France as a delegate to present them. Louis and his
minister studied the conditions of the colony on the St Lawrence and
decided in 1663 to give it a new constitution. The charter of the One
Hundred Associates was cancelled and the old Council of
Quebec--formed in 1647--was reorganized under the name of the
Sovereign Council. This new governing body was to be composed of
the governor, the bishop, the intendant, an attorney-general, a secretary,
and five councillors. It was invested with a general jurisdiction for the
administration of justice in civil and criminal matters. It had also to
deal with the questions of police, roads, finance, and trade.
To establish a new and improved system of administration was a good
thing, but this alone would hardly avail if powerful help were not
forthcoming to rescue New France from ruin, despondency, and actual
extermination. The colony was dying for lack of soldiers, settlers, and
labourers, as well as stores of food and munitions of war for defence
and maintenance. Louis XIV made up his mind that help should be
given. In 1664 three hundred labourers were conveyed to Quebec at the
king's expense, and in the following year the colonists received the
welcome information that the king was also about to send them a
regiment of trained soldiers, a viceroy, a new governor, a new intendant,
settlers and labourers, and all kinds of supplies. This royal pledge was
adequately fulfilled. On June 19, 1665, the Marquis de Tracy,
lieutenant-general of all the French dominions in America, arrived from
the West Indies, where he had successfully discharged the first part of
the mission entrusted to him by his royal master. With him came four
companies of soldiers. During the whole summer ships were

disembarking their passengers and unloading their cargoes of
ammunition and provisions at Quebec in quick succession. It is easy to
imagine the rapture of the colonists at such a sight, and the enthusiastic
shouts that welcomed the first detachment of the splendid regiment of
Carignan-Salieres. At length, on September 12, the cup of public joy
was filled to overflowing by the arrival of the ship Saint Sebastien with
two high officials on board, David de Remy, Sieur de Courcelle, the
governor appointed to succeed the governor Mezy, who had died earlier
in the year, and Jean Talon, the intendant of justice, police, and finance.
The latter had been selected to replace the Sieur Robert, who had been
made intendant in 1663, but, for some unknown reason, had never
come to Canada to perform the duties of his office. The triumvirate on
whom was imposed the noble task of saving and reviving New France
was thus complete. The Marquis de Tracy was an able and
clear-sighted commander, the Sieur de Courcelle a fearless,
straightforward official. But the part of Jean Talon in the common task,
though apparently less brilliant, was to be in many respects the most
important, and his influence the most far-reaching in the destinies of
the colony.
Talon was born at Chalons-sur-Marne, in the province of Champagne,
about the year 1625. His family were kinsfolk of the Parisian Talons,
Omer and Denis, the celebrated jurists and lawyers, who held in
succession the high office of attorney-general of France. Several of
Jean Talon's brothers were serving in the administration or the army,
and, after a course of study at the Jesuits' College of Clermont, Jean
was employed under one of them in the commissariat. The young man's
abilities soon became apparent and attracted Mazarin's attention. In
1654 he was appointed military commissary at Le Quesnoy in
connection with the operations of the army commanded by the great
Turenne. A year later, at the age of thirty, he was promoted to be
intendant for the province of Hainault. For ten years he filled that office
and won the reputation of an administrator of the first rank. Thus it
came about that, when an