The Great Intendant : A Chronicle of Jean Talon in Canada, 1665-1672

When the year 1665 began, the French colony on the shores of the St Lawrence, founded by the valour and devotion of Champlain, had been in existence for more than half a century. Yet it was still in a pitiable state of weakness and destitution. The care and maintenance of the settlement had devolved upon trading companies, and their narrow-minded mercantile selfishness had stifled its progress. From other causes, also, there had been but little growth. Cardinal Richelieu, the great French minister, had tried at one time to infuse new life into the colony; [Footnote: For the earlier history of New France the reader is referred to three other volumes in this Series--The Founder of New France, The Seigneurs of Old Canada, and The Jesuit Missions.] but his first attempts had been unlucky, and later on his powerful mind was diverted to other plans and achievements and he became absorbed in the wider field of European politics. To the shackles of commercial greed, to forgetfulness on the part of the mother country, had been added the curse of Indian wars. During twenty-five years the daring and ferocious Iroquois had been the constant scourge of the handful of settlers, traders, and missionaries. Champlain's successors in the office of governor, Montmagny, Ailleboust, Lauzon, Argenson, Avaugour, had no military force adequate to the task of meeting and crushing these formidable foes. Year after year the wretched colony maintained its struggle for existence amidst deadly perils, receiving almost no help from France, and to all appearance doomed to destruction. To make things worse, internal strife exercised its disintegrating influence; there was contention among the leaders in New France over the vexed question of the liquor traffic. In the face of so many adverse circumstances--complete lack of means, cessation of immigration from the mother country, the perpetual menace of the bloody Iroquois incursions, a dying trade, and a stillborn agriculture--how could the colony be kept alive at all? Spiritual and civil authorities, the governor and the bishop, the Jesuits and the traders, all united in petitioning for assistance. But the motherland was far away, and European wars and rivalries were engrossing all her attention.

Fortunately a change was at hand. The prolonged struggle of the Thirty Years' War and of the war against Spain had been ended by the treaty of Munster and Osnabruck in 1648 and by that of the Pyrenees in 1659. The civil dissensions of the Fronde were over, thanks to the skilful policy of Cardinal Mazarin, Richelieu's successor. After the death of Mazarin in 1661, Louis XIV had taken into his own hands the reins of administration. He was young, painstaking, and ambitious; and he wanted to be not only king but the real ruler of his kingdom. In Jean Baptiste Colbert, the man who had been Mazarin's right hand, he had the good fortune to find one of the best administrators in all French history. Colbert soon won the king's confidence. He was instrumental in detecting the maladministration of Fouquet as superintendent of Finance, and became a member of the council appointed to investigate and report on all 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.