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Updated: July 10, 2025
They found the Lower Town of Quebec in ruins, for a devastating fire had just swept through it. Hardly anything remained standing save the buildings on the cliff. La Barre and Meulles were soon at loggerheads. It appears that, instead of striving to repair the effects of the fire, the new governor busied himself to accumulate a fortune.
They found the Lower Town of Quebec in ruins, for a devastating fire had just swept through it. Hardly anything remained standing save the buildings on the cliff. La Barre and Meulles were soon at loggerheads. It appears that, instead of striving to repair the effects of the fire, the new governor busied himself to accumulate fortune.
De la Chesnaye, summoned to appear before the intendant, maintained that the company had no right to this trade, . . . that the enterprise involved so many risks that he could not consent to divide the profits, if he had any. The partners having been heard, M. de Meulles orders that the boats from Hudson Bay be anchored at Quebec.
More than one intendant was amused by this broad streak of vanity in the colonial character. "Every one here," wrote Meulles, "begins by calling himself an esquire and ends by thinking himself a nobleman." Yet despite this attempt to keep up appearances, the people were poor. Clearing the land was a slow process, and the cultivable area available for the support of each household was small.
The king had the greatest desire for the future reign of harmony in the colony; accordingly he enjoined upon M. de Meulles to use every effort to agree with the governor-general: "If the latter should fail in his duty to the sovereign, the commissioner should content himself with a remonstrance and allow him to act further without disturbing him, but as soon as possible afterwards should render an account to the king's council of what might be prejudicial to the good of the state."
He had indeed promised the king that, unlike his predecessors, he would seek no profit from private trading, and had on this ground requested an increase of salary. Meulles presently reported that, far from keeping this promise, La Barre and his agents had shared ten or twelve thousand crowns of profit, and that unless checked the governor's revenues would soon exceed those of the king.
The rapid progress of New England caused Louis XIV to express dissatisfaction at the slow development of Acadia, and he desired a report of the condition of the colony to be transmitted to Versailles. Monsieur de Meulles, the intendant, accordingly visited Acadia in 1686 where he found the French settlements "in a neglected and desolate state."
A New England Calvinist could not have shown more firmness in upholding the English position. Indeed, no governor of Puritan New England had ever equalled Dongan in hostility to Catholic New France. Frontenac's successor, Lefebvre de la Barre, who had served with distinction in the West Indies, arrived at Quebec in September 1682. By the same ship came the new intendant, Meulles.
As soon as the General was on board, together with the few healthy men that remained, the canoes were dispersed, for the militia straggled here and there, and every one made the best of his way home. With this ignominious adventure the career of La Barre ends. The reports which Meulles sent to France produced a speedy effect in securing his dismissal from office.
So far had matters gone that Colonel Thomas Dongan, governor of New York, had urged the Iroquois to dig up the hatchet, and he was only too willingly obeyed. Unfortunately, the two governing heads of the colony were replaced just at that moment. Governor de Frontenac and Commissioner Duchesneau were recalled in 1682, and supplanted by de la Barre and de Meulles.
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