70 FRONTENAC AND DUCHESNEAU. [1682. 



mired the prompt and fiery soldier who played 

 with their children, and gave beads and trinkets to 

 their wives ; who read their secret thoughts and 

 never feared them, but smiled on them when their 

 hearts were true, or frowned and threatened them 

 when they did amiss. The other tribes, allies of 

 the French, were of the same mind ; and their re- 

 spect for their Great Father seems not to have been 

 permanently impaired by his occasional practice of 

 bullying them for purposes of extortion. 



Frontenac appears to have had a liking not only 

 for Indians, but also for that roving and lawless 

 class of the Canadian population, the coureurs de 

 hois, provided always that they were not in the 

 service of his rivals. Indeed, as regards the Cana- 

 dians generally, he refrained from the strictures 

 with which succeeding governors and intenclants 

 freely interlarded their despatches. It was not his 

 instinct to clash with the humbler classes, and he 

 generally reserved his anger for those who could 

 retort it. 



He had the air of distinction natural to a man 

 familiar all his life with the society of courts, and 

 he was as gracious and winning on some occasions 

 as he was unbearable on others. When in good 

 humor, his ready wit and a certain sympathetic 

 vivacity made him very agreeable. At times he 

 was all sunshine, and his outrageous temper slum- 

 bered peacefully till some new offence wakened it 

 again ; nor is there much doubt that many of his 

 worst outbreaks were the work of his enemies, who 

 knew his foible, and studied to exasperate him. 



