PREFACE. 



The events recounted in this book group them- 

 selves in the main about a single figure, that of 

 Count Frontenac, the most remarkable man who 

 ever represented the crown of France in the New 

 World. From strangely unpromising beginnings, 

 he grew with every emergency, and rose equal 

 to every crisis. His whole career was one of 

 conflict, sometimes petty and personal, sometimes 

 of momentous consequence, involving the ques- 

 tion of national ascendency on this continent. 

 Now that this question is put at rest for ever, it 

 is hard to conceive the anxiety which it wakened 

 in our forefathers. But for one rooted error of 

 French policy, the future of the English-speaking 

 races in America would have been more than 

 endangered. 



Under the rule of Frontenac occurred the first 

 serious collision of the rival powers, and the 

 opening of the grand scheme of military occu- 

 pation by which France strove to envelop and 

 hold in check the industrial populations of the 



