and his natural disposition had not been improved by several years of
petty autocracy at Montreal. Their interview was brief, but stormy.
When it ended, Perrot was a prisoner in the chateau, with guards
placed over him by day and night. Frontenac made choice of one La
Nouguere, a retired officer, whom he knew that he could trust, and
sent him to Montreal to command in place of its captive governor. With
him he sent also a judge of his own selection. La Nouguere set himself
to his work with vigor. Perrot's agent or partner, Brucy, was seized,
tried, and imprisoned; and an active hunt was begun for his _coureurs
de bois_. Among others, the two who had been the occasion of the
dispute were captured and sent to Quebec, where one of them was
solemnly hanged before the window of Perrot's prison; with the view,
no doubt, of producing a chastening effect on the mind of the
prisoner. The execution was fully authorized, a royal edict having
ordained that bush-ranging was an offence punishable with death.
[Footnote: _Edits et Ordonnances_, I. 73.] As the result of these
proceedings, Frontenac reported to the minister that only five
_coureurs de bois_ remained at large; all the rest having returned to
the settlements and made their submission, so that farther hanging was
needless.

Thus the central power was vindicated, and Montreal brought down from
her attitude of partial independence. Other results also followed, if
we may believe the enemies of Frontenac, who declare that, by means of
the new commandant and other persons in his interest, the
governor-general possessed himself of a great part of the trade from
which he had ejected Perrot, and that the _coureurs de bois_, whom he
hanged when breaking laws for his rival, found complete impunity when
breaking laws for him.