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THE ABBÉ FÉNELON.—HE ATTACKS THE GOVERNOR.—THE ENEMIES OF LA SALLE.—AIMS OF THE JESUITS.—THEIR HOSTILITY TO LA SALLE.

A curious incident occurred soon, after the building of the fort on Lake Ontario. A violent quarrel had taken place between Frontenac and Perrot, the Governor of Montreal, whom, in view of his speculations in the fur- trade, he seems to have regarded as a rival in business; but who, by his folly and arrogance, would have justified any reasonable measure of severity. Frontenac, however, was not reasonable. He arrested Perrot, threw him into prison, and set up a man of his own as governor in his place; and, as the judge of Montreal was not in his interest, he removed him, and substituted another, on whom he could rely. Thus for a time he had Montreal well in hand.

The priests of the Seminary, seigneurs of the island, regarded these arbitrary proceedings with extreme uneasiness. They claimed the right of nominating their own governor; and Perrot, though he held a commission from the king, owed his place to their appointment. True, he had set them at nought, and proved a veritable King Stork, yet nevertheless they regarded his removal as an infringement of their rights.

During the quarrel with Perrot, La Salle chanced to be at Montreal, lodged in the house of Jacques Le Ber; who, though one of the principal merchants and most influential inhabitants of the settlement, was accustomed to sell goods across his counter in person to white men and Indians, his wife taking his place when he was absent. Such were the primitive manners of the secluded little colony. Le Ber, at this time, was in the interest of Frontenac and La Salle; though he afterwards became one of their most determined opponents. Amid the excitement and discussion occasioned by Perrot's arrest, La Salle declared himself an adherent of the Governor, and warned all persons against speaking ill of him in his hearing.

The Abbé Fénelon, already mentioned as half-brother to the famous Archbishop, had attempted to mediate between Frontenac and Perrot; and to this end had made a journey to Quebec on the ice, in midwinter. Being of an ardent temperament, and more courageous than prudent, he had spoken somewhat indiscreetly, and had been very roughly treated by the stormy and imperious Count. He returned to Montreal greatly excited, and not without cause. It fell to his lot to preach the Easter sermon. The service was held in the little church of the Hôtel-Dieu, which was crowded to the porch, all the chief persons of the settlement being present. The curé of the parish, whose name also was Perrot, said High Mass, assisted by La Salle's brother, Cavelier, and two other priests. Then Fénelon mounted the pulpit. Certain passages of his sermon were obviously levelled against Frontenac. Speaking of the duties of those clothed with temporal authority, he said that the magistrate, inspired with the spirit of Christ, was as ready to pardon offences against himself as to punish those against his prince; that he was full of respect for the ministers of the altar, and never maltreated them when they attempted to reconcile enemies and restore peace; that he never made favorites of those who flattered him, nor under specious pretexts oppressed other persons in authority who opposed his enterprises; that he used his power to serve his king, and not to his own advantage; that he remained content with his salary, without disturbing the commerce of the country, or abusing those who refused him a share in their profits; and that he never troubled the people by inordinate and unjust levies of men and material, using the name of his prince as a cover to his own designs. [Footnote: Faillon, Colonie Française, iii. 497, and manuscript authorities there cited. I have examined the principal of these. Faillon himself is a priest of St. Sulpice. Compare H. Verreau, Les Deux Abbés de Fénelon, chap. vii.]

La Salle sat near the door, but as the preacher proceeded, he suddenly rose to his feet in such a manner as to attract the notice of the congregation. As they turned their heads, he signed to the principal persons among them, and by his angry looks and gesticulation called their attention to the words of Fénelon. Then meeting the eye of the curé, who sat beside the altar, he made the same signs to him, to which the curé replied by a deprecating shrug of the shoulders. Fénelon changed color, but continued his sermon. [Footnote: Information faicte par nous, Charles Le Tardieu, Sieur de Tilly, et Nicolas Dupont, etc. etc., contre le Sr. Abbé de Fénelon, MS. Tilly and Dupont were sent by Frontenac to inquire into the affair. Among the deponents is La Salle himself.]

This indecent procedure of La Salle filled the priests with anxiety, for they had no doubt that the sermon would speedily be reported to Frontenac. Accordingly they made all haste to disavow it, and their letter to that effect was the first information which the Governor received of the affair. He summoned the offender to Quebec, to answer a charge of seditious language, before the Supreme Council. Fénelon appeared accordingly, but denied the jurisdiction of the Council; claiming that as an ecclesiastic it was his right to be tried by the Bishop. By way of asserting this right, he seated himself in presence of his judges, and put on his hat; and being rebuked by Frontenac, who presided, he pushed it on farther. [Footnote: The Council always held its session with hats on. It seems that a priest, summoned before it as a witness, was also entitled to wear his hat, and Fénelon maintained that it had no right to require him to appear before it in any other character.] He was placed under arrest, and soon after required to leave Canada; but the king accompanied the recall with a sharp word of admonition to his too strenuous lieutenant. [Footnote: Lettre du Roi à Frontenac, 22 Avril, 1675, MS.]

This affair gives us a glimpse of the distracted state of the colony, racked by the discord of conflicting interests and passions. There were the quarrels of rival traders, the quarrels of priests among themselves, of priests with the civil authorities, and of the civil authorities among themselves. Prominent, if not paramount, among the occasions of strife, were the schemes of Cavelier de La Salle. All the traders not interested with him leagued together to oppose him; and this with an acrimony easily understood, when it is remembered that they depended for subsistence on the fur-trade, while La Salle had engrossed a great part of it, and threatened to engross far more. Duchesneau, Intendant of the colony, and in that capacity almost as a matter of course on ill terms with the Governor, was joined with this party of opposition, with whom he evidently had commercial interests in common. La Chesnaye, Le Moyne, and ultimately Le Ber, besides various others of more or less influence, were in the league against La Salle. Among them was Louis Joliet, whom his partisans put forward as a rival discoverer, and a foil to La Salle. Joliet, it will be remembered, had applied for a grant of land in the countries he had discovered, and had been refused. La Salle soon after made a similar application, and with a different result, as will presently appear. His adherents continually depreciated the merits of Joliet, and even expressed doubt of the reality, or at least the extent, of his discoveries.

But there was another element of opposition to La Salle, less noisy, but not less formidable, and this arose from the Jesuits. Frontenac hated them; and they, under befitting forms of duty and courtesy, paid him back in the same coin. Having no love for the Governor, they would naturally have little for his partisan and protégé; but their opposition had another and a deeper root, for the plans of the daring young schemer jarred with their own.

We have seen the Canadian Jesuits in the early apostolic days of their mission, when the flame of their zeal, fed by an ardent hope, burned bright and high. This hope was doomed to disappointment. Their avowed purpose of building another Paraguay on the borders of the Great Lakes [Footnote: This purpose is several times indicated in the Relations. For an instance, see "Jesuits in North America," 153.] was never accomplished, and their missions and their converts were swept away in an avalanche of ruin. Still, they would not despair. From the Lakes they turned their eyes to the Valley of the Mississippi, in the hope to see it one day the seat of their new empire of the Faith. But what did this new Paraguay mean? It meant a little nation of converted and domesticated savages, docile as children, under the paternal and absolute rule of Jesuit fathers, and trained by them in industrial pursuits, the results of which were to inure, not to the profit of the producers, but to the building of churches, the founding of colleges, the establishment of warehouses and magazines, and the construction of works of defence,—all controlled by Jesuits, and forming a part of the vast possessions of the Order. Such was the old Paraguay, [Footnote: Compare Charlevoix, Histoire de Paraguay