DECADE OF FEBISTCH EULE. 19 



Two skilful novelists, our colleagues, the one iu the English language, "Wm. Kirby, 

 of Niagara, ' the other in the French, Joseph Marmette, now of Ottawa,^ have woven 

 graphic historical romances out of the materials which the career of Intendant Bigot, and 

 and the desertion of the colony in its hour of trial, by France, so abundantly supply. 



One flash of sunshine lights up the latest phase of French rule the sturdy devotion 

 of the Canadian militia towards its oblivious mother country ; their feats at the Beauport 

 engagements, on July 31st, 1V59, their usefulness as auxiliaries, after the battle of the 

 Plains of Abraham, and at Levi's victory at Ste. Foye, on April 28th, 1'760, a day glorious 

 to French arms, but a bootless victory. 



You have just witnessed the fall of the curtain over the last scene of the great 

 French drama, a pageant once so gorgeous at Quebec — now, alas ! very sorrowful. Let 

 us, for a moment, dwell on the stern justice visited by oblivious France, on the leading 

 actors in the recent scenes of public plunder, rapine, lust ' — some say — treason, perpetrated ; 

 fifty-five of them had been indicted. 



On December 10th, 1*763, a Royal commission of twenty-scAœn judges, at the Chatelet, 

 in Paris, presided over by M. de Sartines, lieutenant-general of police, delivered the fol- 

 lowing sentences, on François Bigot and his accomplices, who for fifteen months had been 

 locked up in the Bastille awaiting their trial : — 



Bigot. — Perpetual banishment; his property to be confiscated; 1,000 Imrs, tine, and 800,000 to be refunded. 



V.\KiN. — Perpetual banishment; his property to be confiscated; 1,000 livres, fine, and 800,000 to be refunded. 



Cadet. — Nine years' banishment ; 500 liwes, fine, and 300,000 to be refunded. 



Penisseault. — Nine years' exile ; 500 hrren, fine, and 600,000 to be refunded. 



Mauein. — Nine years' exile ; 500 livres, fine, and 600,000 to be refunded. 



CoRPKON. — Condemned to be admonished in Parliament ; 6 livres to the poor, and 100,000 to be refunded. 



' Le Chien d'Or, by Wm. Kirby: New York and Montreal, Lovell, Adam, Wesson & Co., 1877. 



^ L'Intendant Bigot, by Jos. Marmette : Montreal, George E. Desbarats, 1872. 



■'The accusations, says Dr. H. Miles, which were more or less completely proved, were substantially as follows: 

 "That illegal compacts existed between Bigot and four other officials, for the purpose of monopolizing to them- 

 selves the commerce of the colony, and which resulted in the commission of innumerable frauds; that false 

 entries were made relative to commodities and necessaries purchased for the King's service, in which the 

 prices and quantities were overstated, so as to produce enormous gains to those concerned in the transactions ; 

 that on one occasion the cargo of a captured English merchant vessel had been purchased on the King's account 

 for eight hundred tliousand francs and then charged nearly two millions; that in course of 1757 and 1758 the 

 confederates had realized profits amounting to twenty million francs on two single transactions concerning the 

 purchase of provisions and equipments ; that Bigot and his accomplices, for the purpose of effecting these 

 gigantic frauds, bribed the commandants, commissaries and guardians of stores at the diflfereiit forts; that, under 

 the pretext of provisioning the ditferent fortified stations of the colony, charges were made for the transport of 

 supplies which were fictitious, existing only on paper; that at the very time when the soldiers were without 

 necessaries the King was charged for rations and complete sets of equipments never furnished to the troops; that 

 cargoes of merchandise, imported at the expense of the King, were sold to contractors and then re-isold to the King 

 at a fourfold price; that while the King was made liable by means of false entries for the payment of supplies 

 two or three times over, the soldiers and militia were suflering from want and obliged to buy at their own cost 

 those necessaries which had been provided by the King for their use ; that the Intendant and his subordinates, as 

 well as several officers being in league to defraud the King, those who were injured could not obtain justice or 

 even raise their voices against the administration, and that no honest merchants were permitted to have any 

 shares in the contracts for supplies ; that Bigot caused the sale of peltry, on the King's account, to be made at 

 very low prices to his agents in order to profit by the subsequent disposal of it in the ordinary way of business; 

 and that finally Bigot and his subordinates were guilty of constantly making untrue declarations and entries to 

 conceal their fraudulent practices, falsifying everything relating to the actual expenses by changing their title, 

 nature, object and amounts." Miles's History of Canada, French Regime, p. 350. 



