torrid in summer. We are happy to think that these brave and strong men
belong to our race. But in the time of Frontenac the ecclesiastical and
civil authorities were averse to seeing the colony lose thus the most
vigorous part of its population. While admitting that the _coureurs de
bois_ became stout fellows in consequence of their hard experience, just
as the fishermen of the French shore now become robust sailors after a
few seasons of fishing on the Newfoundland Banks, the parallel is not
complete, because the latter remain throughout their lives a valuable
reserve for the French fleets, while the former were in great part lost
to the colony, at a period when safety lay in numbers. If they escaped
the manifold dangers which they ran every day in dealing with the
savages in the heart of the forest, if they disdained to link themselves
by the bond of marriage to a squaw and to settle among the redskins, the
_coureurs de bois_ were none the less drones among their compatriots;
they did not make up their minds to establish themselves in places where
they might have become excellent farmers, until through age and
infirmity they were rather a burden than a support to others.

To counteract this scourge the king published in 1673, a decree which,
under penalty of death, forbade Frenchmen to remain more than
twenty-four hours in the woods without permission from the governor.
Some Montreal officers, engaged in trade, violated this prohibition; the
Count de Frontenac at once sent M. Bizard, lieutenant of his guards,
with an order to arrest them. The governor of Montreal, M. Perrot, who
connived with them, publicly insulted the officer entrusted with the
orders of the governor-general. Indignant at such insolence, M. de
Frontenac had M. Perrot arrested at once, imprisoned in the Château St.
Louis and judged by the Sovereign Council. Connected with M. Perrot by
the bonds of friendship, the Abbé de Fénelon profited by the occasion to
allude, in the sermon which he delivered in the parochial church of