it will serve as an example to restrain others. But if I must inform you
of my sentiments, after having thus satisfied my authority which was
violated in your person, I will tell you that without absolute need you
ought not to have these orders executed throughout the extent of a local
jurisdiction like Montreal without communicating with its governor.... I
have blamed the action of the Abbé de Fénelon, and have commanded him to
return no more to Canada; but I must tell you that it was difficult to
enter a criminal procedure against him, or to compel the priests of St.
Sulpice to bear witness against him. He should have been delivered over
to his bishop or to the grand vicar to suffer the ecclesiastical
penalties, or should have been arrested and sent back to France by the
first ship. I have been told besides," added the monarch, "that you
would not permit ecclesiastics and others to attend to their missions
and other duties, or even leave their residence without a passport from
Montreal to Quebec; that you often summoned them for very slight causes;
that you intercepted their letters and did not allow them liberty to
write. If the whole or part of these things be true, you must mend your
ways." On his part Colbert enjoined upon the governor a little more
calmness and gentleness. "His Majesty," wrote the minister, "has ordered
me to explain to you, privately, that it is absolutely necessary for the
good of your service to moderate your conduct, and not to single out
with too great severity faults committed either against his service or
against the respect due to your person or character." Colbert rightly
felt that fault-finding letters were not sufficient to keep within
bounds a temperament as fiery as that of the governor of Canada; on the
other hand, a man of Frontenac's worth was too valuable to the colony to
think of dispensing with his services. The wisest course was to renew
the Sovereign Council, and in order to withdraw its members from the too
preponderant influence of the governor, to put their nomination in the
hands of the king.