The White and the Gold (41 page)

Colbert, unassuming and efficient and the longest of workers, was found at the King’s right side very soon afterward. Gradually he took all posts of importance into his own hands: the superintendence of public buildings, the controller-generalship, the Ministry of Marine, the Ministry of Commerce and Colonies, the management of the royal household.

The young monarch in the meantime had been working with corresponding zeal. He rose at eight o’clock and dressed himself (except on stated occasions when hereditary rights to assist at the royal toilet had to be considered), gave interviews, went to Mass, and then sat down with his council until noon. The midday meal of the monarch was eaten alone at a small table and took some time. After a drive he went back to work and did not desist until the hour for dinner, which was sometimes as late as ten o’clock. While he dined, generally in the company of the liveliest ladies of the court, the royal servants stood about in impressive files, their handsome livery of blue velvet laced with gold and silver lending a note of ostentation. On state occasions the King himself wore his fabulous black velvet coat, which was so encrusted with jewelry and gold that it had cost twelve million francs.

The court, it will be realized, was becoming a brilliant one. Colbert was producing the funds necessary to allow the youthful ruler his chance to dramatize himself in his role of absolute monarch. In the first two years the minister had nearly doubled the royal income by sweeping out most of the hundred thousand tax farmers who had been absorbing the money wrung from the poorer inhabitants of the country. He had discovered, moreover, the efficacy of indirect taxation and by this means was making the nobility bear the share they had haughtily refused to assume before.

And this was the situation which Laval faced when he arrived in France. It was made clear at once that he stood high in royal favor. The reports which had been received of him had pleased the Queen Mother and the pious young King. The will to dominate which he had displayed was in accord with the policy which Louis himself
was following. They listened to his harangues with ready ears and agreed, in principle at least, with everything he suggested.

The vicar-apostolic had a list of changes which he desired to put into effect. First he asked for the recall of Avagour, using the latter’s obstinacy in the matter of the brandy traffic as the reason. This was granted readily enough. The King, in fact, went a step farther and left the selection of a successor in Laval’s own hands; a rash step, because the militant head of the Church was unlikely to look for more than one qualification in his candidate, a pliant attitude in regard to procedure and their mutual responsibilities. Laval, it developed, had his man already in mind, one Saffray de Mézy, commander of the citadel at Cȧėn. When the young bishop had been imbibing Jesuitical teachings at the Hermitage in Cȧėn he had known Mézy and had seen in him a man of deep religious feeling. Mézy was, moreover, of humble origin and it might be a relief to deal with a man who lacked the haughty convictions of the aristocrat. The appointment was to prove a failure, from Laval’s viewpoint at least, as will develop later.

On the second point which he pleaded before the King he scored a partial success only. He made a vigorous appeal to be appointed Bishop of Quebec, contending that the purely nominal title of Bishop of Petraea did not lend him the prestige he needed. The young monarch was willing to accede to this request, but it developed immediately that the question was still a prickly and controversial one. Would a Bishop of Quebec be under the Archbishop of Rouen or under the direct supervision of the Pope? It was the old controversy reborn, the Gallican viewpoint against the papal, and the French Church divided again into rival camps. Tongues clacked about the throne, voices were raised high in violent disputation. The King made the discovery that to find the solution to an ecclesiastical problem was a far different matter from resolving the disputes which came up in his council. He could not put his foot down and say simply, “This is my will.” There was also the will of the Pope to be considered and the wills of many proud and powerful churchmen. The dispute went on and on.

It was to go on, in fact, for ten years more before Quebec would be made an episcopal see with Laval as the first bishop.

The latter had immediate success with a civil issue. It had become painfully apparent by this time that the machinery which Cardinal Richelieu had set up to control Canadian affairs, the Company of
One Hundred Associates, had been a failure. The company still functioned in a restricted way. The monopoly of the fur trade had been transferred to the leading citizens of New France with the stipulation that the Associates receive a certain proportion of the profits. In return for this they were doing nothing at all. The provisions which Richelieu had so carefully imposed were being disregarded. No settlers were being sent out. No supply ships were provided. Even while they brushed aside their obligations, the greedy Associates were striving to increase the return they received from the domain of King Castor. An agent of the company named Peronne Dumesnil had been sent out to the colony in 1660 to investigate conditions there. Dumesnil had uncovered plenty of evidence that the leading citizens of New France were doing very well indeed out of beaver pelts and refusing to make more than a token yield to the company. There had been a great deal of trouble as a result of the agent’s activities. Charges and countercharges had been brought. Arrests had been made, including one episode when Dumesnil himself was laid by the heels.

Laval placed these facts before the King and his council, asking that the life of the company be terminated once and for all.

By royal edict in April 1663 the Company of New France was dissolved, and never after were the heavy hands of the Hundred Associates felt in Canadian affairs. To replace the absentee control of the investors, a council was to be set up, consisting of the governor and Laval as head of the Church, who were to select five councilors from among the leading citizens of the colony and a new civil official who was to carry the title of intendant. Armed with the necessary authority, Laval and Mézy sailed for New France on September 15 to set the new wheels to turning.

But before Laval left, a matter of even greater importance was discussed in the royal council. On his journey back to France following his dismissal, Avagour had prepared a statement on conditions in Canada; a vigorous appraisal which had caused Colbert some hours of serious reflection and had brought a light of new determination into the eyes of the youthful King. The ex-governor had stated his belief that the country along the St. Lawrence could become in time “the greatest state in the world.” To realize the imperial possibilities of this overseas domain of the Crown, it would be necessary, he pointed out, to establish peace first by defeating the Five Nations. To perpetuate the security which this would establish, it would be
essential to build strong forts along the St. Lawrence and on the southward-flowing river which the Dutch controlled (the Hudson), so that the French Government could use it as a trade outlet to the sea, not to mention the encirclement which this would bring about of the seaboard lands which the English were taking over.

Avagour had presented a detailed plan. Three thousand soldiers should be sent out at once to New France to carry on offensive operations against the Five Nations. The soldiers were to be discharged after three years’ service and to be given land. This would turn the St. Lawrence into a vital source of food supply as well as the life line of the trade with the natives. The retiring governor had gone even farther and had prepared an estimate of the cost of thus turning a struggling colony of puny health into a new empire. Four hundred thousand francs a year for ten years would suffice.

This bold plan had been debated while Laval was in France, and there can be no doubt that his voice was raised in impassioned support. Before he left he had the satisfaction of knowing that the King had decided to follow it in its broad outline. A regiment of soldiers would be sent to New France to bring the Iroquois war to a final end. The officers would be given large tracts of land and would be expected to portion their holdings out to the men of their own companies.

New France was to have at last the full support of the Crown. A new day was dawning.

Monseigneur Laval and Saffray de Mézy were soon at loggerheads.

Arriving on the same ship and on the best of terms, they proceeded to erect the new machinery of government. It was Laval who made the selections for the council. Jean Bourdon was made attorney general, an engineer who had risen from such posts as barber, painter, chief gunner at the citadel of St. Louis, and collector of customs for the Hundred Associates. He was a deeply religious man and thoroughly in accord with the bishop’s views. The first of the councilors appointed was Royer de Villeray, who had been valet to Lauson when the latter was governor. It was said in the colony that Lauson had taken him out of prison at La Rochelle, where he had been incarcerated for debt. Whether this was true or not, he was now
counted the richest man in the colony. The other members were Juchereau de la Ferté, Ruette d’Autueil, Le Gardeur de Tilly, and Matthieu Damours.

The council as thus constituted proceeded at once to take the measure of Dumesnil, the investigator sent out by the Associates, who was still at Quebec. Although the company had ceased to exist, it was known that Dumesnil had papers which he intended to use in charging citizens of Quebec with embezzlement of funds which should have been paid to the defunct concern. He was prepared, it was known, to point the finger of proof at members of the council.

This could not be allowed. At the second session of the council Bourdon made a demand that the papers of Dumesnil be seized. Villeray was sent to carry out the order, Bourdon going along for good measure, and the governor supplying them with ten soldiers. They arrived at the house of the investigator early that evening.

“Robbers!” cried Dumesnil, who guessed immediately what their errand was. “Robbers!”

The soldiers took him in hand, holding him fast in a chair and covering his mouth. While he struggled to get free, the locksmith who had been brought along broke open his cabinets. Everything they contained was seized, including his private papers. Among them were the documents he had intended to use against members of the council.

Dumesnil did not accept this bold proceeding quietly. He raised such an uproar, in fact, that another meeting was held and it was decided to put him under arrest. No word of this resolve was allowed to get out, the plan being to wait until the last vessel had left in the fall. Their hope was that the affair would cool off before spring, which would be the earliest it could be brought to the attention of the King’s ministers. Dumesnil received a hint of their plan and got away on an earlier ship. Arriving in France, he took his complaints to Colbert, and it looked for a time as though a first-class scandal would result. Nothing came of it in the end, however. In the meantime the Dumesnil papers were held in Quebec. They were never released.

The illegal seizure of the papers had been carried out with the consent of the new governor, but Mézy soon became convinced that at least some of Laval’s selections for the council were unfortunate. He appealed to the bishop to give his consent to the expulsion of Bourdon, Villeray, and Autueil and to an election by the vote of the
people of new men to take their places. To this Laval returned an emphatic refusal.

Mézy seems to have been a man of singleness of purpose. Once committed to a course of action, he could not be diverted. Determined that the councilors he considered unfit should be dismissed, he placed placards about Quebec, stating his views. This was followed by the proclamation of an election with beating of drums.

It can be imagined that a light appeared in the stern eyes of the bishop and a hint of a smile showed at the corners of his tight lips when this happened. The governor had made a fatal error. The King would be furious at the suggestion of selecting councilors by popular vote. He, Louis XIV, who was being called Louis the Invincible by the languishing ladies of his court, he alone had the power to appoint officials. It followed that in the breach which opened between the bishop and the governor, Laval had the full support of the King.

It happened that the bishop, in proceeding with his plans for the seminary, had laid a tithe of one thirteenth on the incomes of the people. This measure had to be changed to one twenty-sixth because of the inability of the people to pay more. They were wrathful about it and so were inclined at this point to give their support to Mézy rather than the bishop. Mézy prevailed temporarily, therefore. He secured a new council by again posting placards about the city and sending criers to summon the people to vote. For the period of a year the new appointees functioned. Then the governor made a second mistake. He banished Bourdon and Villeray from the colony. They took back with them to France reports on the unorthodox policy Mézy was following. The King fell into a fury and signed an order at once for the governor’s recall. An inquiry into his conduct was to be held as soon as he reached France.

He was not to be faced with the necessity, however, of defending his conduct. He fell ill and died before the time came for him to return and meet the accusations of the affronted King.

The militant churchman was seated firmly in the saddle. It had required no more than a hint of his dissatisfaction to remove the Baron d’Avagour from office. Mézy, being his own appointee, had been a more difficult case. But now poor Mézy, honest of purpose but fumbling of method, was gone. On his deathbed he had confessed to Laval and had received absolution from him; and the moment of death had found them once more in accord. But Laval’s position
was not quite as secure as it must have seemed to everyone at this point. Louis XIV was a complete autocrat and could not tolerate about him any minor exponents of absolutism. He was beginning to wonder about this solemn man of strong purpose whose iron hands controlled New France; as certain instructions which he sent out later will attest.