1620-48.] EARLY LIFE OF FRONTENAC. 5 



that we sent for the cure with holy water to exor- 

 cise her." 1 



Count Frontenac came of an ancient and noble 

 race, said to have been of Basque origin. His 

 father held a high post in the household of 

 Louis XIII., who became the child's god-father, 

 and gave him his own name. At the age of fif- 

 teen, the young Louis showed an incontrollable 

 passion for the life of a soldier. He was sent to 

 the seat of war in Holland, to serve under the 

 Prince of Orange. At the age of nineteen, he was 

 a volunteer at the siege of Hesdin ; in the next 

 year, he was at Arras, where he distinguished him- 

 self during a sortie of the garrison ; in the next, he 

 took part in the siege of Aire ; and, in the next, in 

 those of Callioure and Perpignan. At the age of 

 twenty-three, he was made colonel of the regiment 

 of Normandy, which he commanded in repeated 

 battles and sieges of the Italian campaign. He 

 was several times wounded, and in 1646 he had 

 an, arm broken at the siege of Orbitello. In the 

 same year, when twenty-six years old, he was 

 raised to the rank of marechal de camp, equiva- 

 lent to that of brigadier-general. A year or two 

 later, we find him at Paris, at the house of his 

 father, on the Quai des Celestins. 2 



In the same neighborhood lived La Grange- 

 Trianon, Sieur de Neuville, a widower of fifty, 



1 Memoires de Mademoiselle de Montpensier, II. 265. The cure's holy 

 water, or his exhortations, were at last successful. 



2 Pinard, Chronologie Historique-militaire, VI. ; Table de la Gazette de 

 France ; Jal, Dictionnaire Critique, Biographique, et d'Histoire, art. " Fron- 

 tenac; " Gojer, Oraison Funebre da Comte de Frontenac. 



