misfortune had been the pensioners of France. Charles II, a
Stuart, alien in religion to the convictions of his people,
looked to Catholic France to give him security on his throne.
Before the first half of the reign of Louis XIV had ended, it was
the boast of the French that the King of England was vassal to
their King, that the states of continental Europe had become mere
pawns in the game of their Grand Monarch, and that France could
be master of as much of the world as was really worth mastering.
In 1679 the Canadian Intendant, Duchesneau, writing from Quebec
to complain of the despotic conduct of the Governor, Frontenac,
paid a tribute to "the King our master, of whom the whole world
stands in awe, who has just given law to all Europe."

To men thus obsessed by the greatness of their own ruler it
seemed no impossible task to overthrow a few English colonies in
America of whose King their own was the patron and the paymaster.
The world of high politics has never been conspicuous for its
knowledge of human nature. A strong blow from a strong arm would,
it was believed both at Versailles and Quebec, shatter forever a
weak rival and give France the prize of North America. Officers
in Canada talked loftily of the ease with which France might
master all the English colonies. The Canadians, it was said, were
a brave and warlike people, trained to endure hardship, while the
English colonists were undisciplined, ignorant of war, and
cowardly. The link between them and the motherland, said these
observers, could be easily broken, for the colonies were longing
to be free. There is no doubt that France could put into the
field armies vastly greater than those of England. Had the French
been able to cross the Channel, march on London and destroy
English power at its root, the story of civilization in a great