time their answer. The minister Colbert wrote: "Your assembling of the
inhabitants to take the oath of fidelity, and your division of them
into three estates, may have had a good effect for the moment; but it
is well for you to observe that you are always to follow, in the
government of Canada, the forms in use here; and since our kings have
long regarded it as good for their service not to convoke the
states-general of the kingdom, in order, perhaps, to abolish
insensibly this ancient usage, you, on your part, should very rarely,
or, to speak more correctly, never, give a corporate form to the
inhabitants of Canada. You should even, as the colony strengthens,
suppress gradually the office of the syndic, who presents petitions in
the name of the inhabitants; for it is well that each should speak for
himself, and no one for all." [Footnote: _Frontenac au Roi_, 2 _Nov._,
1672; _Ibid._, 13 _Nov._, 1673; _Harangue du Comte de Frontenac en
l'Assemblee a Quebec_; _Prestations de Serment_, 23 _Oct._, 1672;
_Reglement de Police fait par Monsieur le Comte de Frontenac_;
_Colbert a Frontenac_, 13 _Juin_, 1673.]

Here, in brief, is the whole spirit of the French colonial rule in
Canada; a government, as I have elsewhere shown, of excellent
intentions, but of arbitrary methods. Frontenac, filled with the
traditions of the past, and sincerely desirous of the good of the
colony, rashly set himself against the prevailing current. His
municipal government, and his meetings of citizens, were, like his
three estates, abolished by a word from the court, which, bold and
obstinate as he was, he dared not disobey. Had they been allowed to
subsist, there can be little doubt that great good would have resulted
to Canada.

Frontenac has been called a mere soldier. He was an excellent soldier,