was not long before Sir John Thompson could congratulate Laurier, in
one of the sharpest sayings parliament ever heard, upon having among
his lieutenants--"the black Tarte and the yellow Martin." For ten
years he remained Laurier's chief lieutenant in Quebec, but he never
in any sense of the word became a Liberal, though in 1902, just
before he was thrown from the battlements, he busied himself in
reading lifelong Liberals out of the party. Chapleau, who was
Tarte's confidant and ally, though he was also a member of the
Dominion government, became Lieutenant-governor of Quebec and
retired to Spencer Wood, but not to forget politics among its
shades. When the peculiar developments of the Dominion campaign of
1896 made it evident that Conservative victory in Quebec under the
virtual leadership of the bishops meant the permanent domination of
the Castors, the whole Bleu influence was thrown to the Liberals.

Professor Skelton's life of Laurier does not take us much behind the
scenes. It is in the main a record of political events, with
comments upon Laurier's relations to them. Laurier's letters, mostly
to unnamed correspondents, are of slight interest, but to this there
are a few notable exceptions. There are letters between Laurier,
Tarte and Chapleau of the greatest political value. They make clear
to a demonstration, what shrewd political observers of that day
surmised, that there was a definite political understanding between
these three men. This explains the composition of the Quebec
delegation in the Laurier government. Apart from Laurier there was
in it no representative of French Catholic Liberalism, unless the
purely nominal honor of minister without portfolio given to C. A.
Geoffrion is to be taken as giving this representation. C. A. did
not put the honor very high. "I am," he said, "the mat before the
door." Tarte, a Quebecker and a Bleu, became Montreal's