Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV | Page 7

was given the government of Canada to deliver him from
her, and afford him some means of living." [Footnote: _Memoires du
Duc de Saint-Simon_, II. 270; V. 336.] Certain scandalous songs of the
day assign a different motive for his appointment. Louis XIV. was
enamoured of Madame de Montespan. She had once smiled upon
Frontenac; and it is said that the jealous king gladly embraced the
opportunity of removing from his presence, and from hers, a lover who
had forestalled him. [1]
Frontenac's wife had no thought of following him across the sea. A
more congenial life awaited her at home. She had long had a friend of
humbler station than herself, Mademoiselle d'Outrelaise, daughter of an
obscure gentleman of Poitou, an amiable and accomplished person,
who became through life her constant companion. The extensive

building called the Arsenal, formerly the residence of Sully, the
minister of Henry IV., contained suites of apartments which were
granted to persons who had influence enough to obtain them. The Duc
de Lude, grand master of artillery, had them at his disposal, and gave
one of them to Madame de Frontenac. Here she made her abode with
her friend; and here at last she died, at the age of seventy-five. The
annalist Saint-Simon, who knew the court and all belonging to it better
than any other man of his time, says of her: "She had been beautiful
and gay, and was always in the best society, where she was greatly in
request. Like her husband, she had little property and abundant wit. She
and Mademoiselle d'Outrelaise, whom she took to live with her, gave
the tone to the best company of Paris and the court, though they never
went thither. They were called Les Divines. In fact, they demanded
incense like goddesses; and it was lavished upon them all their lives."
Mademoiselle d'Outrelaise died long before the countess, who retained
in old age the rare social gifts which to the last made her apartments a
resort of the highest society of that brilliant epoch. It was in her power
to be very useful to her absent husband, who often needed her support,
and who seems to have often received it.
She was childless. Her son, François Louis, was killed, some say in
battle, and others in a duel, at an early age. Her husband died nine years
before her; and the old countess left what little she had to her friend
Beringhen, the king's master of the horse. [Footnote: On Frontenac and
his family, see Appendix A.]
[1] Note of M. Brunet, in _Correspondance de la Duchesse d'Orléans_,
I. 200 (ed. 1869). The following lines, among others, were passed about
secretly among the courtiers:--
"Je suis ravi que le roi, notre sire, Aime la Montespan; Moi, Frontenac,
je me crève de rire, Sachant ce qui lui pend; Et je dirai, sans être des
plus bestes, Tu n'as que mon reste, Roi, Tu n'as que mon reste."
Mademoiselle de Montpensier had mentioned in her memoirs, some
years before, that Frontenac, in taking out his handkerchief, dropped
from his pocket a love-letter to Mademoiselle de Mortemart, afterwards
Madame de Montespan, which was picked up by one of the attendants
of the princess. The king, on the other hand, was at one time attracted
by the charms of Madame de Frontenac, against whom, however, no
aspersion is cast.

The Comte de Grignan, son-in-law of Madame de Sévigné, was an
unsuccessful competitor with Frontenac for the government of Canada.

CHAPTER II
.
1672-1675.
FRONTENAC AT QUEBEC.
ARRIVAL.--BRIGHT PROSPECTS.--THE THREE ESTATES OF
NEW FRANCE.--SPEECH OF THE GOVERNOR.--HIS
INNOVATIONS.--ROYAL DISPLEASURE.--SIGNS OF
STORM.--FRONTENAC AND THE PRIESTS.--HIS ATTEMPTS TO
CIVILIZE THE INDIANS.--OPPOSITION.--COMPLAINTS AND
HEART-BURNINGS.
Frontenac was fifty-two years old when he landed at Quebec. If time
had done little to cure his many faults, it had done nothing to weaken
the springs of his unconquerable vitality. In his ripe middle age, he was
as keen, fiery, and perversely headstrong as when he quarrelled with
Préfontaine in the hall at St. Fargeau.
Had nature disposed him to melancholy, there was much in his position
to awaken it. A man of courts and camps, born and bred in the focus of
a most gorgeous civilization, he was banished to the ends of the earth,
among savage hordes and half-reclaimed forests, to exchange the
splendors of St. Germain and the dawning glories of Versailles for a
stern gray rock, haunted by sombre priests, rugged merchants and
traders, blanketed Indians, and wild bush-rangers. But Frontenac was a
man of action. He wasted no time in vain regrets, and set himself to his
work with the elastic vigor of youth. His first impressions had been
very favorable. When, as he sailed up the St. Lawrence, the basin of
Quebec opened before him, his imagination kindled with the grandeur