Year by year the resources of the Venetians had grown less and their plight more desperate.  In 1668 they had received some assistance from French volunteers under the Duc de la Feuillade.  This was followed by an application to Turenne for a general who would command their own troops in conjunction with Morosini.  It was a forlorn hope if ever there was one; and Turenne selected Frontenac.  Co-operating with him were six thousand French troops under the Duc de Navailles, who nominally served the Pope, for Louis XIV wished to avoid direct war against the Sultan.  All that can be said of Frontenac’s part in the adventure is that he valiantly attempted the impossible.  Crete was doomed long before he saw its shores.  The best that the Venetians and the French could do was to fight for favourable terms of surrender.  These they gained.  In September 1669 the Venetians evacuated the city of Candia, taking with them their cannon, all their munitions of war, and all their movable property.

The Cretan expedition not only confirmed but enhanced the standing which Frontenac had won in his youth.  And within three years from the date of his return he received the king’s command to succeed the governor Courcelles at Quebec.

Gossip busied itself a good deal over the immediate causes of Frontenac’s appointment to the government of Canada.  The post was hardly a proconsular prize.  At first sight one would not think that a small colony destitute of social gaiety could have possessed attractions to a man of Frontenac’s rank and training.  The salary amounted to but eight thousand livres a year.  The climate was rigorous, and little glory could come from fighting the Iroquois.  The question arose, did Frontenac desire the appointment or was he sent into polite exile?

There was a story that he had once been a lover of Madame de Montespan, who in 1672 found his presence near the court an inconvenience.  Others said that Madame de Frontenac had eagerly sought for him the appointment on the other side of the world.  A third theory was that, owing to his financial straits, the government gave him something to keep body and soul together in a land where there were no great temptations to spend money.

Motives are often mixed; and behind the nomination there may have been various reasons.  But whatever weight we allow to gossip, it is not necessary to fall back on any of these hypotheses to account for Frontenac’s appointment or for his willingness to accept.  While there was no immediate likelihood of a war involving France and England, [Footnote:  By the Treaty of Dover (May 20, 1670) Charles II received a pension from France and promised to aid Louis XIV in war with Holland.] and consequent trouble from the English colonies in America, New France required protection from the Iroquois.  And, as a soldier, Frontenac had acquitted himself with honour.  Nor was the post thought to be insignificant.  Madame de Sevigne’s son-in-law, the Comte de