CHRONICLES OF CANADA
Edited by George M. Wrong and H. H. Langton
In thirty-two volumes

Volume 7

THE FIGHTING GOVERNOR
A Chronicle of Frontenac

By CHARLES W. COLBY
TORONTO, 1915




CHAPTER I

CANADA IN 1672

The Canada to which Frontenac came in 1672 was no longer
the infant colony it had been when Richelieu founded the
Company of One Hundred Associates. Through the efforts
of Louis XIV and Colbert it had assumed the form of an
organized province. [Footnote: See The Great Intendant
in this Series.] Though its inhabitants numbered less
than seven thousand, the institutions under which they
lived could not have been more elaborate or precise. In
short, the divine right of the king to rule over his
people was proclaimed as loudly in the colony as in the
motherland.