The governor represented the king’s dignity and the force of his arms.  He was a noble, titled or untitled.  It was the business of the governor to wage war and of the intendant to levy taxes.  But as an expedition could not be equipped without money, the governor looked to the intendant for funds, and the intendant might object that the plans of the governor were unduly extravagant.  Worse still, the commissions under which both held office were often contradictory.  More than three thousand miles separated Quebec from Versailles, and for many months governor and intendant quarrelled over issues which could only be settled by an appeal to the king.  Meanwhile each was a spy as well as a check upon the other.  In Canada this arrangement worked even more harmfully than in France, where the king could make himself felt without great loss of time.

Yet an able intendant could do much good.  There are few finer episodes in the history of local government than the work of Turgot as intendant of the Limousin. [Footnote:  Anne Robert Jacques Turgot (1727-81), a statesman, thinker, and philanthropist of the first order.  It was as intendant of Limoges that Turgot disclosed his great powers.  He held his post for thirteen years (1761- 74), and effected improvements which led Louis XVI to appoint him comptroller-general of the Kingdom.] Canada also had her Talon, whose efforts had transformed the colony during the seven years which preceded Frontenac’s arrival.  The fatal weakness was scanty population.  This Talon saw with perfect clearness, and he clamoured for immigrants till Colbert declared that he would not depopulate France to people Canada.  Talon and Frontenac came into personal contact only during a few weeks, but the colony over which Frontenac ruled as governor had been created largely by the intelligence and toil of Talon as intendant. [Footnote:  See The Great Intendant.]

While the provincial system of France gave Canada two chief personages, a third came from the Church.  In the annals of New France there is no more prominent figure than the bishop.  Francois de Laval de Montmorency had been in the colony since 1659.  His place in history is due in large part to his strong, intense personality, but this must not be permitted to obscure the importance of his office.  His duties were to create educational institutions, to shape ecclesiastical policy, and to represent the Church in all its dealings with the government.

Many of the problems which confronted Laval had their origin in special and rather singular circumstances.  Few, if any, priests had as yet been established in fixed parishes—­each with its church and presbytere.  Under ordinary conditions parishes would have been established at once, but in Canada the conditions were far from ordinary.  The Canadian Church sprang from a mission.  Its first ministers were members of religious orders who had taken the conversion of the heathen for their chosen task.