1682.] QUALITIES OF FRONTENAC. 69 



umph to the ecclesiastics, offset but slightly by the 

 recall, of their instrument, the intendant, who had 

 done his work, and whom they needed no longer. 



Thus far, we have seen Frontenac on his worst 

 side. We shall see him again under an aspect 

 very different. Nor must it be supposed that the 

 years which had passed since his government began, 

 tempestuous as they appear on the record, were 

 wholly given over to quarrelling. They had their 

 periods of uneventful calm, when the wheels of ad- 

 ministration ran as smoothly as could be expected 

 in view of the condition of the colony. In one 

 respect at least, Frontenac had shown a remarkable 

 fitness for his office. Few white men have ever 

 equalled or approached him in the art of dealing 

 with Indians. There seems to have been a sympa- 

 thetic relation between him and them. He con- 

 formed to their ways, borrowed their rhetoric, 

 flattered them on occasion with great address, and 

 yet constantly maintained towards them an attitude 

 of paternal superiority. When they were concerned, 

 his native haughtiness always took a form which 

 commanded respect without exciting anger. He 

 would not address them as brothers, but only as 

 children; and even the Iroquois, arrogant as they 

 were, accepted the new relation. In their eyes 

 Frontenac was by far the greatest of all the 

 " Onontios," or governors of Canada. They ad- 

 paper will be found in the Decouvertes et Elablissements des Francois dans 

 PAiiie'ii'/iie Septentrionale; Memoires et Documents Originaux, edited by 

 M. Margry. The paper is very long, and contains references to attesta- 

 tions and other proofs which accompanied it, especially in regard to 

 the trade of the Jesuits. 



