THE MAKERS OF CANADA

COUNT
FRONTENAC

BY

WILLIAM D. LE SUEUR

TORONTO

MORANG & CO., LIMITED

1909

PREFACE

The author of the following work desires to acknowledge his obligations to two preceding writers who have dealt with the life and times of Count Frontenac, the late Mr. Parkman, and M. Henri Lorin. The merits of the former are too well known and too thoroughly established to need any commendation at this time. If he charms by the lucidity and picturesqueness of his style, none the less does he achieve a high level of historical accuracy, and manifest the control of the true spirit of historical criticism. The work of M. Lorin is, perhaps, less attractive in point of style, but it treats the whole subject from an independent point of view, and in a very comprehensive manner. It is a treasure-house of carefully sifted facts in relation to the career of Canada's most famous governor under the old régime. A certain French writer once complimented another—a dim recollection suggests that it was Buffon who so complimented President Debrosses in regard to his work on language—by saying that whoever treated the same subject "après lui" would also have to do it "d'après lui"; and such the author inclines to think has, to some extent, been his situation in relation to his two able and industrious predecessors. At the same time the present work has not been written without consultation of original sources, and it is trusted that it will be found—for Canadian readers especially—a not unserviceable or uninteresting narrative.

W. D. LE SUEUR

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XII

CHAPTER I

CANADA BEFORE FRONTENAC

1608 TO 1632

When Count Frontenac landed at Quebec, in the month of September 1672, to administer the government of Canada or, as it was then more generally called, New France, the country had been for a period of a little over sixty years under continuous French rule. The period may, indeed, be limited to exactly sixty years if we take as the starting-point the commission issued to Samuel de Champlain on the 15th of October 1612 as "Commander in New France," under the authority of the Count de Soissons, who had been appointed by the queen regent, Marie de Medicis, as lieutenant-general of that territory. What had been accomplished during those sixty odd years? How had the country developed, and what were the elements of the situation which confronted Frontenac on his arrival?