322 AN INTERLUDE. [1693,1694. 



forming against me cannot produce impressions 

 which may prevent you from doing me justice. 

 For the rest, if it is thought fit that I should leave 

 the priests to do as they like, I shall be delivered 

 from an infinity of troubles and cares, in which I 

 can have no other interest than the good of the 

 colony, the trade of the kingdom, and the peace of 

 the king's subjects, and of which I alone bear the 

 burden, as well as the jealousy of sundry persons, 

 and the iniquity of the ecclesiastics, who begin to 

 call impious those who are obliged to oppose their 

 passions and their interests." 1 



As Champigny always sided with the Jesuits, his 

 relations with Frontenac grew daily more critical. 

 Open rupture at length seemed imminent, and the 

 king interposed to keep the peace. " There has 

 been discord between you under a show of har- 

 mony," he wrote to the disputants. 2 Frontenac 

 was exhorted to forbearance and calmness ; while 

 the intendant was told that he allowed himself to 

 be made an instrument of others, and that his 

 charges against the governor proved nothing but 

 his own ill-temper. 3 The minister wrote in vain. 

 The bickerings that he reproved were but premoni- 

 tions of a greater strife. 



Bishop Saint-Vallier was a rigid, austere, and 

 contentious prelate, who loved power as much as 



1 " L'iniquite des ecclesiastiques qui commencent a traiter d'impies 

 ceux qui sont obliges de resister a leurs passions et a leurs interets." 

 Frontenac an Ministre, 20 Oct., 1691. 



2 Memoire du Rot/ pour Frontenac et Champigny, 1694. 



3 Le Ministre a Frontenac, 8 May, 1694 ; Le Ministre a Champigny, 

 mime date. 



