Parkman Vol. 5, Chapter 10

Count Frontenac stood before him. Since his recall, he had lived at court, needy and no longer in favor; but he had influential friends, and an intriguing wife, always ready to serve him.

Our special project presenting the definitive account of France in Canada by Francis Parkman, one of America’s greatest historians.

Previously in Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV. Beginning Chapter 10.

The sun of Louis XIV. had reached its zenith. From a morning of unexampled brilliancy it had mounted to the glare of a cloudless noon; but the hour of its decline was near. The mortal enemy of France was on the throne of England, turning against her from that new point of vantage all the energies of his unconquerable genius. An invalid built the Bourbon monarchy, and another invalid battered and defaced the imposing structure: two potent and daring spirits in two frail bodies, Richelieu and William of Orange.

Versailles gave no sign of waning glories. On three evenings of the week, it was the pleasure of the king that the whole court should assemble in the vast suite of apartments now known as the Halls of Abundance, of Venus, of Diana, of Mars, of Mercury, and of Apollo. The magnificence of their decorations, pictures of the great Italian masters, sculptures, frescoes, mosaics, tapestries, vases and statues of silver and gold; the vista of light and splendor that opened through the wide portals; the courtly throngs, feasting, dancing, gaming, promenading, conversing, formed a scene which no palace of Europe could rival or approach. Here were all the great historic names of France, princes, warriors, statesmen, and all that was highest in rank and place; the flower, in short, of that brilliant society, so dazzling, captivating, and illusory. In former years, the king was usually present, affable and gracious, mingling with his courtiers and sharing their amusements; but he had grown graver of late, and was more often in his cabinet, laboring with his ministers on the task of administration, which his extravagance and ambition made every day more burdensome.

[Saint-Simon speaks of these assemblies. The halls in question were finished in 1682; and a minute account of them, and of the particular use to which each was destined, was printed in the Mercure Français of that year. See also Soulié, Notice du Musée impérial de Versailles, where copious extracts from the Mercure are given. The grands appartements are now entirely changed in appearance, and turned into an historic picture gallery.]

There was one corner of the world where his emblem, the sun, would not shine on him. He had done his best for Canada, and had got nothing for his pains but news of mishaps and troubles. He was growing tired of the colony which he had nursed with paternal fondness, and he was more than half angry with it because it did not prosper. Denonville’s letters had grown worse and worse; and, though he had not heard as yet of the last great calamity, he was sated with ill tidings already.

Count Frontenac stood before him. Since his recall, he had lived at court, needy and no longer in favor; but he had influential friends, and an intriguing wife, always ready to serve him. The king knew his merits as well as his faults; and, in the desperate state of his Canadian affairs, he had been led to the resolution of restoring him to the command from which, for excellent reasons, he had removed him seven years before. He now told him that, in his belief, the charges brought against him were without foundation. [1] “I send you back to Canada,” he is reported to have said, “where I am sure that you will serve me as well as you did before; and I ask nothing more of you.” [2] The post was not a tempting one to a man in his seventieth year. Alone and unsupported, — for the king, with Europe rising against him, would give him no more troops, — he was to restore the prostrate colony to hope and courage, and fight two enemies with a force that had proved no match for one of them alone. The audacious count trusted himself, and undertook the task; received the royal instructions, and took his last leave of the master whom even he after a fashion honored and admired.

[1: Journal de Dangeau, II. 390. Frontenac, since his recall, had not been wholly without marks of royal favor. In 1685, the king gave him a “gratification” of 3,500 francs. Ibid., I. 205. ]

[2: Goyer, Oraison Funèbre du Comte de Frontenac.]

He repaired to Rochelle, where two ships of the royal navy were waiting his arrival, embarked in one of them, and sailed for the New World. An heroic remedy had been prepared for the sickness of Canada, and Frontenac was to be the surgeon. The cure, however, was not of his contriving. Denonville had sent Callières, his second in command, to represent the state of the colony to the court, and beg for help. Callières saw that there was little hope of more troops or any considerable supply of money; and he laid before the king a plan, which had at least the recommendations of boldness and cheapness. This was to conquer New York with the forces already in Canada, aided only by two ships of war. The blow, he argued, should be struck at once, and the English taken by surprise. A thousand regulars and six hundred Canadian militia should pass Lake Champlain and Lake George in canoes and bateaux, cross to the Hudson and capture Albany, where they would seize all the river craft and descend the Hudson to the town of New York, which, as Callières stated, had then about two hundred houses and four hundred fighting men. The two ships were to cruise at the mouth of the harbor, and wait the arrival of the troops, which was to be made known to them by concerted signals, whereupon they were to enter and aid in the attack. The whole expedition, he thought, might be accomplished in a month; so that by the end of October the king would be master of all the country. The advantages were manifold. The Iroquois, deprived of English arms and ammunition, would be at the mercy of the French; the question of English rivalry in the west would be settled for ever; the king would acquire a means of access to his colony incomparably better than the St. Lawrence, and one that remained open all the year; and, finally, New England would be isolated, and prepared for a possible conquest in the future.

The king accepted the plan with modifications, which complicated and did not improve it. Extreme precautions were taken to insure secrecy; but the vast distances, the difficult navigation, and the accidents of weather appear to have been forgotten in this amended scheme of operation. There was, moreover, a long delay in fitting the two ships for sea. The wind was ahead, and they were fifty-two days in reaching Chedabucto, at the eastern end of Nova Scotia. Thence Frontenac and Callières had orders to proceed in a merchant ship to Quebec, which might require a month more; and, on arriving, they were to prepare for the expedition, while at the same time Frontenac was to send back a letter to the naval commander at Chedabucto, revealing the plan to him, and ordering him to sail to New York to co-operate in it. It was the twelfth of September when Chedabucto was reached, and the enterprise was ruined by the delay. Frontenac’s first step in his new government was a failure, though one for which he was in no way answerable.

[Projet du Chevalier de Callières de former une Expédition pour aller attaquer Orange, Manatte, etc.; Résumé du Ministre sur la Proposition de M. de Callières; Autre Mémoire de M. de Callières sur son Projet d’attaquer la Nouvelle York; Mémoire des Armes, Munitions, et Ustensiles nécessaires pour l’Entreprise proposée par M. de Callières; Observations du Ministre sur le Projet et le Mémoire ci-dessus; Observations du Ministre sur le Projet d’Attaque de la Nouvelle York; Autre Mémoire de M. de Callières au Sujet de l’Entreprise proposée; Autre Mémoire de M. de Callières sur le même Sujet.]

It will be well to observe what were the intentions of the king towards the colony which he proposed to conquer. They were as follows: If any Catholics were found in New York, they might be left undisturbed, provided that they took an oath of allegiance to the king. Officers, and other persons who had the means of paying ransoms, were to be thrown into prison. All lands in the colony, except those of Catholics swearing allegiance, were to be taken from their owners, and granted under a feudal tenure to the French officers and soldiers. All property, public or private, was to be seized, a portion of it given to the grantees of the land, and the rest sold on account of the king. Mechanics and other workmen might, at the discretion of the commanding officer, be kept as prisoners to work at fortifications and do other labor. The rest of the English and Dutch inhabitants, men, women, and children, were to be carried out of the colony and dispersed in New England, Pennsylvania, or other places, in such a manner that they could not combine in any attempt to recover their property and their country. And, that the conquest might be perfectly secure, the nearest settlements of New England were to be destroyed, and those more remote laid under contribution.

[Mémoire pour servir d’Instruction à Monsieur le Comte de Frontenac sur l’Entreprise de la Nouvelle York, 7 Juin, 1689. “Si parmy les habitans de la Nouvelle York il se trouve des Catholiques de la fidelité desquels il croye se pouvoir asseurer, il pourra les laisser dans leurs habitations après leur avoir fait prester serment de fidelité à sa Majesté…. Il pourra aussi garder, s’il le juge à propos, des artisans et autres gens de service nécessaires pour la culture des terres ou pour travailler aux fortifications en qualité de prisonniers…. II faut retenir en prison les officiers et les principaux habitans desquels on pourra retirer des rançons. A l’esgard de tous les autres estrangers (ceux qui ne sont pas Français) hommes, femmes, et enfans, sa Majesté trouve à propos qu’ils soient mis hors de la Colonie et envoyez à la Nouvelle Angleterre, à la Pennsylvanie, ou en d’autres endroits qu’il jugera à propos, par mer ou par terre, ensemble ou séparément, le tout suivant qu’il trouvera plus seur pour les dissiper et empescher qu’en se réunissant ils ne puissent donner occasion à des entreprises de la part des ennemis contre cette Colonie. Il envoyera en France les Français fugitifs qu’il y pourra trouver, et particulièrement ceux de la Religion Prétendue-Réformée (Huguenots).” A translation of the entire document will be found in N. Y. Col. Docs., IX. 422.]

In the next century, some of the people of Acadia were torn from their homes by order of a British commander. The act was harsh and violent, and the innocent were involved with the guilty; but many of the sufferers had provoked their fate and deserved it.

Louis XIV commanded that eighteen thousand unoffending persons should be stripped of all that they possessed, and cast out to the mercy of the wilderness. The atrocity of the plan is matched by its folly. The king gave explicit orders, but he gave neither ships nor men enough to accomplish them; and the Dutch farmers, goaded to desperation, would have cut his sixteen hundred soldiers to pieces. It was the scheme of a man blinded by a long course of success. Though perverted by flattery and hardened by unbridled power, he was not cruel by nature; and here, as in the burning of the Palatinate and the persecution of the Huguenots, he would have stood aghast, if his dull imagination could have pictured to him the miseries he was preparing to inflict.

[On the details of the projected attack of New York, Le Roy à Denonville, 7 Juin, 1689; Le Ministre à Denonville, même date; Le Ministre à Frontenac, même date; Ordre du Roy à Vaudreuil, même date; Le Roy au Sieur de la Caffinière, même date; Champigny au Ministre, 16 Nov., 1689.]

From Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV, Chapter 10 by Francis Parkman

The below is from Francis Parkman’s Introduction.

If, at times, it may seem that range has been allowed to fancy, it is so in appearance only; since the minutest details of narrative or description rest on authentic documents or on personal observation.

Faithfulness to the truth of history involves far more than a research, however patient and scrupulous, into special facts. Such facts may be detailed with the most minute exactness, and yet the narrative, taken as a whole, may be unmeaning or untrue. The narrator must seek to imbue himself with the life and spirit of the time. He must study events in their bearings near and remote; in the character, habits, and manners of those who took part in them, he must himself be, as it were, a sharer or a spectator of the action he describes.

With respect to that special research which, if inadequate, is still in the most emphatic sense indispensable, it has been the writer’s aim to exhaust the existing material of every subject treated. While it would be folly to claim success in such an attempt, he has reason to hope that, so far at least as relates to the present volume, nothing of much importance has escaped him. With respect to the general preparation just alluded to, he has long been too fond of his theme to neglect any means within his reach of making his conception of it distinct and true.

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