16 FROXTEXAC AT QUEBEC. J1672. 



Frontenac shared the spirit of the hour. His 

 first step was to survey his government. He 

 talked with traders, colonists, and officials ; visited 

 seigniories, farms, fishing-stations, and all the in- 

 fant industries that Talon had galvanized into life ; 

 examined the new ship on the stocks, admired the 

 structure of the new brewery, went to Three 

 Rivers to see the iron mines, and then, having 

 acquired a tolerably exact idea of his charge, re- 

 turned to Quebec. He was well pleased with what 

 he saw, but not with the ways and means of Cana- 

 dian travel ; for lie thought it strangely unbecom- 

 ing that a lieutenant-general of the king should 

 be forced to crouch on a sheet of bark, at the bot- 

 tom of a birch canoe, scarcely daring to move his 

 head to the right or left lest he should disturb the 

 balance of the fragile vessel. 



At Quebec he convoked the council, made them 

 a speech, and administered the oath of allegiance. 1 

 This did not satisfy him. He resolved that all 

 Quebec should take the oath together. It was lit- 

 tle but a pretext. Like many of his station, Fron- 

 tenac was not in full sympathy with the centraliz- 

 ing movement of the time, which tended to level 

 ancient rights, privileges, and prescriptions under 

 the ponderous roller of the monarchical adminis- 

 tration. He looked back with regret to the day 

 when the three orders of the state, clergy, nobles, 

 and commons, had a place and a power in the 

 direction of national affairs. The three orders still 

 subsisted, in form, if not in substance, in some of 



1 Registre du Conseil Souverain. 



