opposing factions--those who believed the charges and those who did
not. The bishop had become the stormy petrel of colonial politics, and
nature had in truth well fitted him for just such a rôle.

Soon, moreover, the relations between Mézy and Laval themselves became
less cordial. For a year the governor had proved ready to give way
graciously on every point; but there was a limit to his amenability,
and now his proud spirit began to chafe under the dictation of his
ecclesiastical colleague. At length he ventured to show a mind of his
own; and then the breach between him and Laval widened quickly.
Three of the councillors having joined the bishop against him, Mézy
undertook a _coup d'état_, dismissed these councilors from their
posts, and called a mass-meeting of the people to choose their
successors. On the governor's part this was a serious tactical error.
He could hardly expect that a monarch who was doing his best to crush
out the last vestige of representative government in France would
welcome its establishment and encouragement by one of his own
officials in the New World. But Mézy did not live to obey the recall
which speedily came from the King as the outcome of this indiscretion.
In the spring of 1665 he was taken ill and died at Quebec. "He went
to rest among the paupers," says Parkman, "and the priests, serenely
triumphant, sang requiems over his grave."

But discord within its borders was not the colony's only trouble
during these years. The scourge of the Iroquois was again upon the
land. During the years 1663 and 1664 bands of Mohawks and Oneidas
raided the regions of the Richelieu and penetrated to the settlement
at Three Rivers. These _petites guerres_ were making things
intolerable for the colonists, and the King was urged to send out a
force of troops large enough to crush the bothersome savages once for