1681.] STREET QUARRELS. 63 



lawlessness he has transported himself, in order to 

 compel me to use violence against him, with the 

 hope of justifying what he has asserted about my 

 pretended outbreaks of anger." 1 



The mutual charges of the two functionaries 

 were much the same ; and, so far at least as con- 

 cerns trade, there can be little doubt that they 

 were well founded on both sides. The strife of 

 the rival factions grew more and more bitter : 

 canes and sticks played an active part in it, and 

 now and then we hear of drawn swords. One is 

 reminded at times of the intestine feuds of some 

 mediaeval city, as, for example, in the following in- 

 cident, which will explain the charge of Frontenac 

 against the intenclant of barricading his house and 

 arming his servants : — 



On the afternoon of the twentieth of March, a 

 son of Duchesneau, sixteen years old, followed by 

 a servant named Vautier, was strolling along the 

 picket fence which bordered the descent from the 

 Upper to the Lower Town of Quebec. The boy was 

 amusing himself by singing a song, when Fronte- 

 nac's partisan, Boisseau, with one of the guardsmen, 

 approached, and, as young Duchesneau declares, 

 called him foul names, and said that he would give 

 him and his father a thrashing. The boy replied 

 that he would have nothing to say to a fellow like 

 him, and would beat him if he did not keep quiet; 

 while the servant, Vautier, retorted Boisseau's 

 abuse, and taunted him with low birth and dis- 

 reputable employments. Boisseau made report to 



1 Frontenac au Ministre, 2 Nov., 1681. 



