Such were the events which, in seven years, had brought New France to the brink of ruin.  But she was not to perish from the Iroquois.  In October 1689 Frontenac returned to take Denonville’s place.

CHAPTER VII

THE GREAT STRUGGLE

During the period which separates his two terms of office Frontenac’s life is almost a blank.  His relations with his wife seem to have been amicable, but they did not live together.  His great friend was the Marechal de Bellefonds, from whom he received many favours of hospitality.  In 1685 the king gave him a pension of thirty-five hundred livres, though without assigning him any post of dignity.  Already a veteran, his record could hardly be called successful.  His merits were known to the people of Canada; they believed him to be a tower of strength against the Iroquois.  At Versailles the fact stood out most plainly that through infirmities of temper he had lost his post.  His pension might save him from penury.  It was far too small to give him real independence.

Had either La Barre or Denonville proved equal to the government of Canada, it is almost certain that Frontenac would have ended his days ingloriously at Versailles, ascending the stairs of others with all the grief which is the portion of disappointed old age.  Their failure was his opportunity, and from the dreary antechambers of a court he mounts to sudden glory as the saviour of New France.

There is some doubt, as we have seen, concerning the causes which gave Frontenac his appointment in 1672.  At that time court favour may have operated on his behalf, or it may have seemed desirable that he should reside for a season out of France.  But in 1689 graver considerations came into play.  At the moment when the Iroquois were preparing to ravage Canada, the expulsion of James II from his throne had broken the peace between France and England.  The government of New France was now no post for a court favourite.  Louis XIV had expended much money and effort on the colony.  Through the mismanagement of La Barre and Denonville everything appeared to be on the verge of ruin.  It is inconceivable that Frontenac, then in his seventieth year, should have been renominated for any other cause than merit.  Times and conditions had changed.  The task now was not to work peaceably with bishop and intendant, but to destroy the foe.  Father Goyer, the Recollet who delivered Frontenac’s funeral oration, states that the king said when renewing his commission:  ’I send you back to Canada, where I expect you will serve me as well as you did before; I ask for nothing more.’  This is a bit of too gorgeous rhetoric, which none the less conveys the truth.  The king was not reappointing Frontenac because he was, on the whole, satisfied with what he had done before; he was reappointing him because during his former term of office and throughout his career he had displayed the qualities which were called for at the present crisis.