88 THE FALL OF NEW FRANCE 
necessity of beheading the king or driving him into 
exile, and all they asked was to be let alone. To 
sundry general commercial restrictions they submitted, 
especially so long as these restrictions were not en- 
forced, but in all important details each community 
managed its own affairs according to its own ideas of 
its own interests. 
In ecclesiastical policy the difference between the 
two peoples was as great as in their political and 
social life. Religion and the Church occupy as promi- 
nent a position in the history of Canada as in that of 
New England. There are few more heroic chapters 
in the annals of the Catholic Church than that which 
recounts the labours and the martyrdom of the Jesuits 
in North America. Already, before the death of 
Champlain, the Jesuits had acquired full control of the 
spiritual affairs of Canada. Their policy aimed at 
nothing less than the consolidation of the aboriginal 
tribes into a Christian state under the direct control of 
the followers of Loyola; and upon this hopelessly 
impracticable task they entered with an enthusiasm 
worthy of the noblest of the old crusaders. The char- 
acter of Maisonneuve claims a place in our affectionate 
remembrance by the side of Tancred and Godfrey de 
Bouillon. The charming chronicler Lejeune might 
be mated with the Sieur de Joinville. Nor was St. 
Louis himself inspired with a grander fervour than the 
black-robed priests of the Huron mission. The in- 
domitable Brébeuf, the delicate Lallemant, the long- 
suffering Jogues, may be ranked with the ancient 
martyrs of Christianity, and in their heroic lives and 
deaths the system of Loyola appeared in its brightest 
and purest light. Though thrown away upon the 
