1698.] HIS DISPUTES WITH THE CLERGY. 435 



It is clear enough from what quiver these arrows 

 came. From the first, Frontenac had set himself 

 in opposition to the most influential of the Cana- 

 dian clergy. When he came to the colony, their 

 power in the government was still enormous, and 

 even the most devout of his predecessors had been 

 forced into conflict with them to defend the civil 

 authority ; but, when Frontenac entered the strife, 

 he brought into it an irritability, a jealous and 

 exacting vanity, a love of rule, and a passion for 

 having his own way, even in trifles, which made 

 him the most exasperating of adversaries. Hence 

 it was that many of the clerical party felt towards 

 him a bitterness that was far from ending with his 

 life. 



The sentiment of a religion often survives its 

 convictions. However heterodox in doctrine, he 

 was still wedded to the observances of the Church, 

 and practised them, under the ministration of the 

 Recollets, with an assiduity that made full amends 

 to his conscience for the vivacity with which he 

 opposed the rest of the clergy. To the Recollets 

 their patron was the most devout of men ; to his 

 ultramontane adversaries, he was an impious per- 

 secutor. 



His own acts and words best paint his character, 

 and it is needless to enlarge upon it. What per- 



That indefatigable investigator of Canadian history, the late M. Jacques 

 Viger, to whom I am indebted for a copy of this eulogy, suggested that 

 the anonymous critic may have been Abbe la Tour, author of the Vie de 

 Laval. If so, his statements need the support of more trustworthy evi- 

 dence. The above extracts are not consecutive, but are taken from vari- 

 ous parts of the manuscript. 



