The White and the Gold

by Thomas B. Costain

  He had brought to his new post a conviction that the Church in Canada should be molded along new lines. The rigidity into which the mother church had settled over the centuries would not serve in this strange new land. The practice in France, to quote one of the major points, was to allow a curé to remain a full lifetime in the parish to which he was first assigned and to remove him only if his unfitness was unmistakably revealed; with the result that a slothful or indifferent priest could chill the spiritual zeal of his flock into an enduring apathy. Laval was determined to keep in his hands the power to remove a priest from any post where he was failing to function with zeal and understanding. He wanted also to have supervision over the selection and training of the priests who were to carry on the work in the colony. All this pointed to the need for a seminary where young men born or reared in Canada could be trained for holy orders under his own stern eye.

  This was the first major change which the vicar-apostolic brought into effect. He was sadly hampered for funds in the early stages. Perhaps he regretted the excess of zeal which had induced him to part with all his personal property, for everything which remained to him would undoubtedly have been applied to the cost of the building and its maintenance. Having nothing, he raised funds among his kinsmen and friends in France and he strove, not too successfully, to impose a tithe on the settlers. In later years, when the seminary was firmly grounded and was fulfilling its function to his satisfaction, he put himself in the way of receiving land grants which he turned over in perpetuity to the institution. In this way the valuable acres of Beaupré, the Island of Jesus, and what was once the seigneury of the Petite Nation remain today among the possessions of the school.

  Ramparts now circled the crest of the rock. Reaching the top, a visitor saw to the left the jumble of stone and framework which was called the citadel of St. Louis and over which the white flag of France waved. To the right was the Couillard house, occupying some of the land originally granted to Louis Hébert. Between the Couillard property and the square on which the Jesuit college and the cathedral fronted was an open stretch of land. This the young bishop selected as the site for his seminary and here he built a far from pretentious training school for the first of the youth of New France who offered themselves to the Church.

  One of the finest things about Bishop Laval was his intense love for this institution of his own founding. He planned and directed it on the soundest lines. It was to be not only a school but a sanctuary to which the clergy of Canada could turn in sickness or weariness of spirit and where they could spend their last years. Around it he gradually created subsidiary establishments: a school for the elementary education of boys who might elect to join the priesthood, which was started in 1668 in the Couillard house, and a farm school for manual training. Out of this system of schools came in time Laval University, which stands as proof of the farsightedness of this stormy and controversial figure.

  CHAPTER XXI

  Mazarin Dies and Louis XIV Decides to Rule for Himself—Colbert Becomes His First Minister—A Great Plan for Canada

  1

  MARCH 9, 1661. Young King Louis XIV had been alone in his rooms ever since Cardinal Mazarin had succumbed earlier in the day to his illnesses and a final attack of gout. The courtiers and officials who had flocked out to the castle of Vincennes, which occasionally served as a royal residence, stood about in low-speaking groups and discussed the meaning of this long seclusion. The King had been grief-stricken over the death of his able minister but had recovered quickly enough after a brief outburst of tears. He had been dry-eyed when he announced his intention of giving himself up to solitary thought; and so, clearly enough, it was not sorrow which was occupying him. What problems, then, filled the royal mind?

  The courtiers sometimes abandoned their nervous speculation on the lengthy absence of the King to discuss the passing of the chief minister. Was it true that the dying man had been impatient with the Queen Mother because she sat so faithfully at the side of his couch? Could it be that he said in a final attack of umbrage: “This woman will kill me with her importunities. Will she never leave me in peace?” Poor Anne of Austria had accepted this upbraiding with resignation, for it was known that she still sat by the bedside and wept bitterly. The whole nation knew, of course, that she had loved the cardinal devotedly, and in a very few hours the streets of Paris would be resounding with coarse songs and scurrilous couplets.

  Another point of discussion in the crowded anterooms was the disposal of Mazarin’s great fortune. Did he actually possess two hundred million francs as well as his many houses, his fabulous art treasures, and his great library? Was it a fact, people asked themselves anxiously, that the young King had been foolish enough to refuse when the cardinal offered to will everything to him? Surely, surely, he had displayed more common sense than that! Did he want this huge accumulation of wealth to be divided among Mazarin’s nieces, the avaricious Mancinis?

  It was two hours before the King emerged from his secretarial closet. There was an air of gravity about him as he halted and glanced around the room. That he had changed into a close-bodied black velvet coat with white lining did not detract at all from his appearance. The color, in fact, set off the lines of his fine legs, and this led him to strut a little. There was a single sheet of paper in one hand. Pausing in the doorway, he motioned to a few of his immediate circle to draw in close about him.

  He had been considering the future, he said in a low tone. Here—on this sheet of paper—he had set down the decisions at which he had arrived. First—glancing particularly at a man in a green frock coat who had placed himself directly under the royal eye as though conscious of this being his right—he had made up his mind to follow the advice of the late cardinal. Another quick glance at the man in green and he added that he was going to be his own first minister.

  There was an almost incredulous gasp at this announcement. The debonair young King was very popular, but he was not regarded as in any sense intellectual or ambitious. It had been assumed that he would do as his father had done before him. Had not Mazarin been quite open in declaring that Louis would not be trop instruit?

  The King then proceeded to pledge himself to a life of effort and hard work, checking off the items on the paper as he spoke. His days were to be so divided that no aspect of his life would be neglected; so many hours for sleep, so many for meals (like all the Bourbons, he was an enormous eater), so many for recreation, a quite considerable time for prayers. The most important stiuplation was six to eight hours a day for work, and under this heading he was not including such kingly duties as receptions and appearances. The young monarch, in other words, was dedicating himself to a life of assiduous toil.

  The one member of the royal staff who felt the most surprise, and the most disappointment, was the man in the green coat, Nicholas Fouquet, the Intendant of Finance. This brilliant official had fully expected to succeed Mazarin. In addition to such expectations, he had good reason to dread any innovations in the order of things. Change might lead to an investigation of the affairs of his department. He desired above everything else to avoid this, for he had been despoiling the country and at the same time robbing the King in the process of accumulating a large personal fortune for himself. It would be demonstrated later that only a very small percentage of the taxes collected ever reached the royal coffers. The showy and venal Fouquet had been uneasy for some time. He had been so conscious of the corruption in his department that he had begun to build a great fortress on his island off the coast of Brittany which was known as Belle-Isle. His plan (or so it was whispered) was to provide himself with an impregnable sanctuary in the event of the King’s turning against him.

  The minister who felt the least concern at the announcement was Jean Baptiste Colbert, who was in almost all respects the exact opposite of the handsome and vulnerable Fouquet. Colbert claimed to have Scottish blood in his veins and gave credit to this mixture of ancestry for his extraordinary aptitude in the field of finance. He was a rather
glum individual who dressed in frumpish clothes and had the reputation of being a heavy drinker. Wherever he went he carried a black velvet bag with him from which he could produce at any moment all the figures and documents which might be necessary. He was farseeing, sound in his judgment, an undeniable wizard with figures, and absolutely without scruples. It had been by acting on his advice that Mazarin, after impoverishing himself in the civil wars of the Fronde, had succeeded in creating for himself an immense fortune in the years which followed.

  Colbert was already deep in the King’s confidence. He was in a position to produce from his invaluable bag the proofs of Fouquet’s astounding peculations. Fouquet could feel the hot breath of this rival on the back of his neck and was struggling to shake him off. The struggle between them was a matter of public knowledge, and at court men were taking sides. The general public, which of course was made up of dupes, favored the glittering minister who robbed them. Having nothing but contempt for the unimpressive Colbert, people jeered him on the streets and saw to it that scurrilous verses were on his desk every morning.

  The outcome was never in doubt. One day a certain Monsieur d’Artagnan, who served as lieutenant of the King’s musketeers and was destined to receive much posthumous acclaim which would have astonished him very much, tapped the great Fouquet on the shoulder and said, “I arrest you in the King’s name.”

  Colbert, unassuming and efficient and the longest of workers, was found at the King’s right side very soon afterward. Gradually he took all posts of importance into his own hands: the superintendence of public buildings, the controller-generalship, the Ministry of Marine, the Ministry of Commerce and Colonies, the management of the royal household.

  The young monarch in the meantime had been working with corresponding zeal. He rose at eight o’clock and dressed himself (except on stated occasions when hereditary rights to assist at the royal toilet had to be considered), gave interviews, went to Mass, and then sat down with his council until noon. The midday meal of the monarch was eaten alone at a small table and took some time. After a drive he went back to work and did not desist until the hour for dinner, which was sometimes as late as ten o’clock. While he dined, generally in the company of the liveliest ladies of the court, the royal servants stood about in impressive files, their handsome livery of blue velvet laced with gold and silver lending a note of ostentation. On state occasions the King himself wore his fabulous black velvet coat, which was so encrusted with jewelry and gold that it had cost twelve million francs.

  The court, it will be realized, was becoming a brilliant one. Colbert was producing the funds necessary to allow the youthful ruler his chance to dramatize himself in his role of absolute monarch. In the first two years the minister had nearly doubled the royal income by sweeping out most of the hundred thousand tax farmers who had been absorbing the money wrung from the poorer inhabitants of the country. He had discovered, moreover, the efficacy of indirect taxation and by this means was making the nobility bear the share they had haughtily refused to assume before.

  2

  And this was the situation which Laval faced when he arrived in France. It was made clear at once that he stood high in royal favor. The reports which had been received of him had pleased the Queen Mother and the pious young King. The will to dominate which he had displayed was in accord with the policy which Louis himself was following. They listened to his harangues with ready ears and agreed, in principle at least, with everything he suggested.

  The vicar-apostolic had a list of changes which he desired to put into effect. First he asked for the recall of Avagour, using the latter’s obstinacy in the matter of the brandy traffic as the reason. This was granted readily enough. The King, in fact, went a step farther and left the selection of a successor in Laval’s own hands; a rash step, because the militant head of the Church was unlikely to look for more than one qualification in his candidate, a pliant attitude in regard to procedure and their mutual responsibilities. Laval, it developed, had his man already in mind, one Saffray de Mézy, commander of the citadel at Cȧėn. When the young bishop had been imbibing Jesuitical teachings at the Hermitage in Cȧėn he had known Mézy and had seen in him a man of deep religious feeling. Mézy was, moreover, of humble origin and it might be a relief to deal with a man who lacked the haughty convictions of the aristocrat. The appointment was to prove a failure, from Laval’s viewpoint at least, as will develop later.

  On the second point which he pleaded before the King he scored a partial success only. He made a vigorous appeal to be appointed Bishop of Quebec, contending that the purely nominal title of Bishop of Petraea did not lend him the prestige he needed. The young monarch was willing to accede to this request, but it developed immediately that the question was still a prickly and controversial one. Would a Bishop of Quebec be under the Archbishop of Rouen or under the direct supervision of the Pope? It was the old controversy reborn, the Gallican viewpoint against the papal, and the French Church divided again into rival camps. Tongues clacked about the throne, voices were raised high in violent disputation. The King made the discovery that to find the solution to an ecclesiastical problem was a far different matter from resolving the disputes which came up in his council. He could not put his foot down and say simply, “This is my will.” There was also the will of the Pope to be considered and the wills of many proud and powerful churchmen. The dispute went on and on.

  It was to go on, in fact, for ten years more before Quebec would be made an episcopal see with Laval as the first bishop.

  The latter had immediate success with a civil issue. It had become painfully apparent by this time that the machinery which Cardinal Richelieu had set up to control Canadian affairs, the Company of One Hundred Associates, had been a failure. The company still functioned in a restricted way. The monopoly of the fur trade had been transferred to the leading citizens of New France with the stipulation that the Associates receive a certain proportion of the profits. In return for this they were doing nothing at all. The provisions which Richelieu had so carefully imposed were being disregarded. No settlers were being sent out. No supply ships were provided. Even while they brushed aside their obligations, the greedy Associates were striving to increase the return they received from the domain of King Castor. An agent of the company named Peronne Dumesnil had been sent out to the colony in 1660 to investigate conditions there. Dumesnil had uncovered plenty of evidence that the leading citizens of New France were doing very well indeed out of beaver pelts and refusing to make more than a token yield to the company. There had been a great deal of trouble as a result of the agent’s activities. Charges and countercharges had been brought. Arrests had been made, including one episode when Dumesnil himself was laid by the heels.

  Laval placed these facts before the King and his council, asking that the life of the company be terminated once and for all.

  By royal edict in April 1663 the Company of New France was dissolved, and never after were the heavy hands of the Hundred Associates felt in Canadian affairs. To replace the absentee control of the investors, a council was to be set up, consisting of the governor and Laval as head of the Church, who were to select five councilors from among the leading citizens of the colony and a new civil official who was to carry the title of intendant. Armed with the necessary authority, Laval and Mézy sailed for New France on September 15 to set the new wheels to turning.

  But before Laval left, a matter of even greater importance was discussed in the royal council. On his journey back to France following his dismissal, Avagour had prepared a statement on conditions in Canada; a vigorous appraisal which had caused Colbert some hours of serious reflection and had brought a light of new determination into the eyes of the youthful King. The ex-governor had stated his belief that the country along the St. Lawrence could become in time “the greatest state in the world.” To realize the imperial possibilities of this overseas domain of the Crown, it would be necessary, he pointed out, to establish peace first by defeating the Five Nati
ons. To perpetuate the security which this would establish, it would be essential to build strong forts along the St. Lawrence and on the southward-flowing river which the Dutch controlled (the Hudson), so that the French Government could use it as a trade outlet to the sea, not to mention the encirclement which this would bring about of the seaboard lands which the English were taking over.

  Avagour had presented a detailed plan. Three thousand soldiers should be sent out at once to New France to carry on offensive operations against the Five Nations. The soldiers were to be discharged after three years’ service and to be given land. This would turn the St. Lawrence into a vital source of food supply as well as the life line of the trade with the natives. The retiring governor had gone even farther and had prepared an estimate of the cost of thus turning a struggling colony of puny health into a new empire. Four hundred thousand francs a year for ten years would suffice.

  This bold plan had been debated while Laval was in France, and there can be no doubt that his voice was raised in impassioned support. Before he left he had the satisfaction of knowing that the King had decided to follow it in its broad outline. A regiment of soldiers would be sent to New France to bring the Iroquois war to a final end. The officers would be given large tracts of land and would be expected to portion their holdings out to the men of their own companies.

  New France was to have at last the full support of the Crown. A new day was dawning.