68 FROXTEXAC AXD DUCHESNE AU. [1682. 



declaration that his rank in that body is superior 

 to that of the intendant. 1 



The key to nearly all these disputes lies in the 

 relations between Frontenac and the Church. The 

 fundamental quarrel was generally covered by 

 superficial issues, and it was rarely that the gov- 

 ernor fell out with anybody who was not in league 

 with the bishop and the Jesuits. " Nearly all the 

 disorders in New France," he writes, " spring from 

 the ambition of the ecclesiastics, who want to join 

 to their spiritual authority an absolute power over 

 things temporal, and who persecute all who do not 

 submit entirely to them." He says that the in- 

 tendant and the councillors are completely under 

 their control, and dare not decide any question 

 against them ; that they have spies everywhere, 

 even in his house ; that the bishop told him that 

 he could excommunicate even a governor, if he 

 chose ; that the missionaries in Indian villages say 

 that they are equals of Onontio, and tell their con- 

 verts that all will go wrong till the priests have the 

 government of Canada ; that directly or indirectly 

 they meddle in all civil affairs ; that they trade even 

 with the English of New York ; that, what with 

 Jesuits, Sulpitians, the bishop, and the seminary of 

 Quebec, they hold two-thirds of the good lands of 

 Canada ; that, in view of the poverty of the country, 

 their revenues are enormous ; that, in short, their 

 object is mastery, and that they use all means to 

 compass it. 2 The recall of the governor was a tri- 



1 Registre du Conseil Suptfrieur, 16 Fe'v., 1682. 



2 Frontenac, Me'moire adress€ a Colbert, 1677. This remarkable 



