of New France was the intendant. He was the overseas
apostle of Bourbon paternalism, and as his commission
authorized him to 'order all things as he may think just
and proper,' the intendant never found much opportunity
for idleness.

Tocqueville, shrewdest among historians of pre-revolutionary
France, has somewhere pointed out that under the old
regime the administration took the place of Providence.
It sought to be as omniscient and as omnipotent; its ways
were quite as inscrutable. In this policy the intendant
was the royal man-of-all-work. The king spoke and the
intendant transformed his words into action. As the
sovereign's great interest in the colony moved him to
speak often, the intendant's activity was prodigious.
Ordinances, edicts, judgments and decrees fairly flew
from his pen like sparks from an anvil. Nothing that
needed setting aright was too inconsequential for a
paternal order. An ordinance establishing a system of
weights and measures for the colony rubs shoulders with
another inhibiting the youngsters of Quebec from sleigh-
riding down its hilly thoroughfares in icy weather.
Printed in small type these decrees of the intendant's
make up a bulky volume, the present-day interest of which
is only to show how often the hand of authority thrust
itself into the daily walk and conversation of Old Canada.

From first to last there were a dozen intendants of New
France. Jean Talon, whose prudence and energy did much
to set the colony on its feet, was the first; Fracois