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Updated: May 7, 2025
M. Lorin, who writes in great detail, finds much to say on behalf of Frontenac's motives, if not of his conduct, in these controversies. But viewing his career broadly it must be held that, at best, he lost a chance for useful co-operation by hugging prejudices and prepossessions which sprang in part from his own love of power and in part from antipathy towards the Jesuits in France.
While Callières and Valrennes were repulsing Peter Schuyler from Laprairie, the French in another part of Frontenac's jurisdiction were preparing for the offensive. The centre of this activity was the western part of Acadia that is, the large and rugged region which is watered by the Penobscot and the Kennebec.
Saint-Simon calls him 'a man of excellent parts, living much in society. And again, when speaking of Madame de Frontenac, he says: 'Like her husband she had little property and abundant wit. The bane of Frontenac's life at this time was his extravagance. He lived like a millionaire till his money was gone.
Frontenac therefore entered upon a correspondence, not only with Perrot, but with one of the leading Sulpicians in Montreal, the Abbé Fénelon. This procedure yielded quicker results than could have been expected. Frontenac's letter which summoned Perrot to Quebec for an explanation was free from threats and moderate in tone.
The events of 'William and Mary's War, as it was known in New England, show how wide the French zone in North America had come to be. Frontenac's province extended from Newfoundland to the Mississippi, from Onondaga to Hudson Bay. The rarest quality of a ruler is the power to select good subordinates and fill them with his own high spirit.
The man is certainly in earnest about something, and has spent great time and endeavor in this search. He has even been to Quebec, and worked on Frontenac's sympathies, for he bears from the governor a letter of safe conduct to me, and another, from the Jesuits, to Father Carheil. He comes apparently on no political mission; he is alone, and his tale is entirely plausible.
Frontenac's position, of course, was that he only interfered with the clergy when they were encroaching upon the rights of the crown. Upon this basis, then, the quarrel with Perrot was settled. But at that very moment a larger and more serious contest was about to begin. At the beginning of September 1675 Frontenac was confronted with an event which could have given him little pleasure.
The envoy, when the whole letter was read, took out his watch, and remarking that it was ten o'clock, asked that he be sent back by eleven. Count de Frontenac's answer was defiant. He refused to recognise William of Orange as the lawful sovereign of England, and declared him an "usurper."
It was a leading feature of Frontenac's diplomacy to reward the friendly, and to win over malcontents by presents or personal attention.
They desired the governor to carry on the policy of encouraging agriculture which Talon had begun, thus solidifying the colony and making its borders less difficult to defend. Frontenac's instructions on this point could hardly have been more explicit.
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