[Footnote 1:  Its official title was in 1678 changed to Superior Council.]

In the matter of powers the Council was given by the edict of 1663 jurisdiction over all civil and criminal matters under the laws and ordinances of the kingdom, its procedure in dealing with such matters to be modeled on that of the Parliament of Paris.  It was to receive and to register the royal decrees, thus giving them validity in New France, and it was also to be the supreme tribunal of the colony with authority to establish local courts subordinate to itself.  There was no division of powers in the new frame of government.  Legislative, executive, and judicial powers were thrown together in true Bourbon fashion.  Apparently it was Colbert’s plan to make of the governor a distinguished figurehead, with large military powers but without paramount influence in civil affairs.  The bishop was to have no civil jurisdiction, and the intendant was to be the director of details.  The Council, according to the edict of 1663, was to be the real pivot of power in New France.

Through the long years of storm and stress which make up the greater part of the history of the colony, the Sovereign Council rendered diligent and faithful service.  There were times when passions waxed warm, when bitter words were exchanged, and when the urgent interests of the colony were sacrificed to the settlement of personal jealousies.  Many dramatic scenes were enacted around the long table at which the councilors sat at their weekly sessions, for every Monday through the greater portion of the year the Council convened at seven o’clock in the morning and usually sat until noon or later.  But these were only meteoric flashes.  Historians have given them undue prominence because such episodes make racy reading.  By far the greater portion of the council’s meetings were devoted to the serious and patient consideration of routine business.  Matters of infinite variety came to it for determination, including the regulation of industry and trade, the currency, the fixing of prices, the interpretation of the rules relating to land tenure, fire prevention, poor relief, regulation of the liquor traffic, the encouragement of agriculture—­and these are only a few of the topics taken at random from its calendar.  In addition there were thousands of disputes brought to it for settlement either directly or on appeal from the lower courts.  The minutes of its deliberations during the ninety-seven years from September 18, 1663, to April 8, 1760, fill no fewer than fifty-six ponderous manuscript volumes.

Though, in the edict establishing the Sovereign Council, no mention was made of an intendant, the decision to send such an official to New France came very shortly thereafter.  In 1665 Jean Talon arrived at Quebec bearing a royal commission which gave him wide powers, infringing to some extent on the authority vested in the Sovereign Council two years previously.  The phraseology was similar to that used in the commissions