The White and the Gold

by Thomas B. Costain

  Knowing this, Talon was always alert to any rumors of the discovery of mines. When it was reported that lead had been found on the Gaspé peninsula, he had investigations made at once. The search proved unsuccessful. It was found that iron ore existed at Baie St. Paul which was sufficiently high grade to be profitable, and immediate steps were taken to begin mining operations.

  A thrill of excitement ran through the colony when it was rumored that coal had been found—and, of all places, in the Rock itself! The first trace of it had been stumbled on in the cellar of a house in Lower Town. Talon was swept along by the enthusiasm which had gripped the place and wrote to Colbert: “The coal is good enough for the forge. If the test is satisfactory, I shall see to it that our vessels take out loads of it.” He was seeing rosy visions: the colony well supplied with coal for the heating of homes, the shipbuilding industry receiving impetus on being freed of the necessity of buying coal from England. There was one drawback: if the shafts were carried into the heart of the Rock, the security of Upper Town would be imperiled. Talon began to experiment with the possibility that the shafts could be extended in other directions. His last letters to France indicated that he was convinced the grade of coal being found burned well enough to be used, at any rate, for industrial purposes.

  If there actually was coal in the Rock, it is still there. After the initial excitement subsided, Talon wrote no more reports, favorable or otherwise. Any attempts at mining were abandoned. Even the location of the cellar where the initial discovery had been made was forgotten. It can be taken for granted that later tests had not been as encouraging as the first. It is even possible that the whole thing was a hoax.

  The coal of Quebec has been one of the favorite topics of speculation down the years, but no explanation of the mystery has been found.

  There was plenty of evidence that copper existed in the country in large quantities. Jesuit priests returned from the missionary fields with persistent stories of great mines and sometimes they brought specimens of the metal with them. These stories tantalized the intendant with dreams of great wealth to please the King as well as the merchants of France who had never yet given wholehearted support to the colony.

  The most exciting reports came from the islands formed by channels between Lake Huron and Lake Superior. Father Claude Dablon, who had been assigned to the upper Algonquin missions, wrote a letter for the Relations which created an immense amount of excitement. Copper was to be found in great quantity, in particular on the island of Michipicoten. This fabulous isle had one drawback: it was a floating hill of ore and shallow vegetation, never to be found in the same location because it shifted its position with the winds. The Indians seldom went there because they regarded it as the home of evil spirits. On one occasion some hardy natives ventured to pay it a visit and came back with large pieces of reddish metal which was found most useful in cooking food. The squaws would heat it to a ruddy glow and then throw it into the kettles, where it would set the water to boiling. But they never went back for more. As they paddled away from the shore on their one visit, they heard a wrathful voice as loud as a thunderclap speak to them from the sky. “Who,” demanded this dread voice, “are these robbers carrying off from me my children’s cradles and playthings?” They knew it was the voice of Missibizi, the evil god of the north winds, who thus complained that they were removing the slabs of bright metal which children liked to collect and which were sometimes used as the base of cradles. The natives were careful not to arouse the wrath of the god again.

  More reliable reports about the abundance of copper began to come back as the missionaries pushed on farther west. They found an island which did not shift with the winds and which Missibizi did not haunt but which had enormous stores of the metal. It was called Minong (later named Isle Royale by the French), and the engineers who inspected it on Talon’s orders found that its hills had large deposits of copper. Father Dablon reported the existence there of a copper rock which he had seen with his own eyes and which weighed seven or eight hundred livres.

  In the spare little office he used (there was not yet in Quebec enough space to go around) Talon kept specimens of the copper on his plain oak desk, using them as paperweights for the piles of letters and documents, with official seals dangling from them, which always lay in front of him. They were both a challenge to him and a puzzle. Here was the wealth which had so long been sought. But how could it be mined and smelted and brought from these far-distant islands? Talon had plenty of plans for solving the difficulties. He saw visions, no doubt, of the copper islands so black with the smoke belching from smelters that even the wrathful eye of Missibizi would not be able to see what was going on. He pictured fleets of flat-bottomed barges being towed all the way to Quebec through the Great Lakes. He saw mills in the colony where the muzzles of great cannon would be cast for King Louis to use in his European wars.

  If this resourceful man had lived a hundred years later he would have been able to solve the difficulties and to turn his dreams into actualities. He might have converted French Canada into a busy industrial country. As it was, he made the colony a going concern and created a background of prosperity and content. But New France, still no more than a precarious toe hold on the edge of a continent, was not ready for a Talon.

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  What was Governor Courcelle doing while this energetic man of business turned the colony upside down and gathered the control of things into his own hands? Courcelle grew more antagonistic all the time and more ready to display his disgruntlement. He sat in his cabinet in the citadel behind the handsome rosewood desk which had been brought out from France, unhappily aware that it was more likely to have on its polished surface a set of chess men or a tricktrack board than communications from France. The candles burning in the crystal chandelier above his head reflected the marks of chagrin which had become habitual on his features. Sometimes he lashed out furiously at the intendant when they met to discuss business, and often he allowed his resentment to show in his letters to France.

  The reason for Talon’s increase in official stature and the shrinkage in Courcelle’s is easy to understand. The governor never lived down the failure of his invasion of the Mohawk country and the heavy losses which had resulted from his rashness. It soon became apparent to Colbert also that when he referred matters to Talon they were attended to promptly and satisfactorily, while in Courcelle’s hands they dragged along interminably. The notes which the King scribbled on the margins of the reports from New France (the busy monarch read them all carefully) and the decisions which were arrived at in the morning meetings of the royal council were referred, therefore, to the intendant and not to the governor. Talon always knew what was going on in France and the latest ideas which had sprouted in the mind of the monarch. Courcelle was frequently in the dark. The governor often went to Talon for information, even for instructions. It was inevitable that Courcelle would complain to Colbert of the way he was being pushed aside. Talon found it necessary at times to complain also of the jealousy of the governor and the obstructive attitude he was adopting.

  It must seem that the progress recorded in Talon’s period of administration was the work of many years. In point of fact he was in Canada for two terms, each of no more than three years. It is no exaggeration to say that he had accomplished more in these brief years than all the officials, glittering with jeweled orders and resplendent with lace and velvet, who had preceded him; with one exception, of course, Champlain.

  It was due partly to his frequent disagreements with Courcelle that Talon asked in 1668 to be recalled, partly also to ill-health and the need to attend to personal affairs in France. Reluctantly the King agreed, and in November of that year Talon sailed for home. He was most sincerely regretted. Marie de l’Incarnation, who seems to have commented on every event of importance in her revealing letters, was very much disturbed. “It is a great loss to Canada,” she wrote. “… During his term here as intendant, this country has developed more and progressed more tha
n it had done before from the time of the first settlement by the French.” This high praise of the departing official was echoed by all, with the probable exception of the Sieur de Courcelle. Certainly it was shared by the two who counted most, the King and Colbert.

  A new intendant sat after that in the small office with the plain furniture which had been made for Talon by industrious artisans (with a fine eye for design and proportions) in Quebec, a Monsieur Bouteroue. But in actuality the reins were never out of the former’s hands. The King and Colbert saw to that. Instead of engaging himself immediately in the straightening out of his properties in France or in bolstering his health in the balmy airs of the south (he had always disliked cold weather), Talon was kept in constant attendance on his royal master. It was natural that it should be so. The King’s interest in Canada had been growing all the time, and now he had available the one man who understood the problems of the colony intimately and could give advice out of this practical knowledge. Day after day, week after week, the conferences went on among the trio, the aggressive and lordly King, his ubiquitous minister, and the ex-official who was supposed to be recuperating.

  During these protracted talks Talon succeeded in committing the King to a remarkable program. In the first place, Canada was removed from the control of the Company of the West. Colbert may have gibed at this, having been responsible for the company in the first place, but Talon fought the issue vigorously, making it clear that the moneygrubbing merchants who composed the company had no concern for the welfare or the future of the colony.

  It was decided to reinforce the remnants of the Carignan regiment who remained under arms in New France with six companies of fifty men each and thirty officers, all of whom were expected to settle down in the country after their terms of enlistment were over.

  In addition the King agreed to send two hundred more settlers and a great list of supplies. A steady program was laid out for the sending of “King’s Girls” to provide the unmarried men of the colony with wives, an initial shipment of 150 being arranged.

  In a burst of enthusiasm over his success in accelerating the royal design, Talon wrote to Courcelle, “His Majesty has appropriated over 200,000 livres to do what he deems necessary for the colony!”

  One outcome of these extended deliberations was inevitable. Talon had been a bare three months at home when he was reappointed to the post of intendant. Perhaps he had foreseen it would work out that way. It is even possible that he had arranged things with this development in view, realizing that he must sit face to face with the King to get the royal assent to his program. At any rate, he accepted the responsibility for the second time without any outward show of reluctance. On July 15, with his new commission signed, his brief instructions in his pocket, he set sail from La Rochelle.

  But he did not reach Canada that year. The ship was buffeted about by a succession of heavy storms and finally had to put back to the port of Lisbon to be refitted and revictualed. Starting out again, it was wrecked in shoal water no more than three leagues out from port, and those on board were rescued with great difficulty. This ended the effort to get to Canada that year. Talon and the military officers with him returned to France, and it was not until August 18 of the following year, 1670, that the intendant arrived at Quebec for the second time.

  The mind of the great intendant was filled with plans of magnificent proportions, for he was confident now that he would have the backing of the King in anything he undertook. Above everything else he wanted to stimulate exploration, and his accomplishments in that field will be recorded in a later chapter. His immediate task was to see that the steps already discussed with the King and duly ratified were properly carried out. The work involved was heavy and seemingly never-ending. The health of the intendant was not good, and it was clear from the start that the burden of so much detail weighed heavily upon him. It is easy to picture him at this important stage of his work: seated at his desk, his luxuriant and heavy wig removed and his hands clutching at times of stress at his lank and not too abundant hair, his face gray and showing a multitude of lines. He felt it wise to look after everything himself, leaving practically nothing to the initiative, or lack of it, of his subordinates. There were the King’s Girls, for instance. It had to be seen to that they found husbands. The full first shipment, 150 of them, had arrived. (“All the girls who came this year are married, except fifteen,” he reported to the King.) More and more were to be sent out, this batch under Madame Bourdon, the next in the care of Madame Etienne (“Canaille of both sexes,” wrote Marie de l’Incarnation in speaking of some of the newcomers.) The division of the land was to be attended to, and the wholesale bestowal of seigneurial rights which Talon took upon himself in the last few months of his second term (thirty-one were handed out on one day, November 3, 1672) will be noted later. There was, finally, the matter of creating a proper system of education. (“They take to schools for sciences, arts, handicrafts, and especially navigation.”)

  For three years Jean Talon worked incessantly to accomplish all the things which had been discussed and agreed upon during the many conferences with the King. By the fall of 1672 he had done as much as was humanly possible; and the relationship with Courcelle had reached an irruptive stage. He again begged for his recall and again the request was granted. He was rewarded on his return with the title of Comte d’Orsainville and given an easy post as captain of Mariemont Castle. For twenty-two years he enjoyed the ease of this kind of existence, but undoubtedly he longed at times for the excitement of life at Quebec. He died on March 24, 1694.

  CHAPTER XXIV

  The King Becomes the Paternal Tyrant of Canada, Making Regulations for Every Phase of Life—The King’s Girls—Rigid Police Restrictions

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  SOME of them are demoiselles and tolerably well brought up,” wrote Talon to Colbert in France, in speaking of the 100 King’s Girls who had been sent to New France that year. He had asked for young ladies, knowing that those who had come earlier had too often deserved the comment of Marie de l’Incarnation, canaille.

  The King’s Girls were the young females who were shipped out to provide the unmarried men of the colony with wives. It was not a new idea when Louis the Paternal Tyrant began it: the English had sent King’s Girls to Virginia and the Spanish to their colonies in the Indies. It was a situation made to order for writers of romance, and many stories have since been published over the years about girls of great beauty and good family who ran away from home and escaped by joining the colonial shipments, always finding the husband of their hopes and dreams.

  It is doubtful if any girls of the nobility came to Canada under such circumstances. The closest approach to a romantic atmosphere, in fact, is contained in the brief reference above by Intendant Talon. The demoiselles he mentions were girls with good backgrounds and even a little education. They were wrangled over and selected and married, probably to military officers or men of more than average property. They were happy or unhappy thereafter according to their dispositions and the luck they had had in finding compatible mates.

  Many hundreds of the King’s Girls were sent out over the two decades when the need for them was felt. As many as 150, in fact, arrived at one time. They came mostly from the northwestern provinces of France, from Normandy, Brittany, and Picardy. The preference seems to have been most decidedly for peasant girls because they were healthy and industrious. Girls from the cities did not prove as satisfactory; they were inclined to be lightheaded, lazy, and sometimes sluttish, and the sturdy young habitants had no desire for wives of that type even though they might be prettier and trimmer than the broad-beamed candidates from the farms.

  It is very doubtful if any girl of high degree fleeing from an elderly suitor (the reason most often employed in the romantic stories) or for political reasons could have succeeded in enrolling for Canada. The candidates were looked over carefully, their birth certificates were examined, and their recommendations from parish priest or confessor were read and considered.
There were a few occasions when mistakes were made and girls were admitted who had either been guilty of loose conduct or had criminal records. The exceptions had been frequent enough to justify the comment of Marie de l’Incarnation and to explain the slighting descriptions of an officer named La Hontan who visited the colony and wrote a book which contains the fullest information available on this matrimonial traffic. There were even a few cases where women who had been married were brought out. What happened to them when they were caught is not explained. Probably they were submerged in the ducking stool or publicly whipped before being sent back. A wife’s status under French law was pretty much that of a chattel. It was almost impossible, for instance, for her to regain her freedom. Infidelity on a husband’s part was not acceptable as an excuse. Only if he beat her with a stick thicker than his wrist could she claim the right of separation.

  It is La Hontan who tells what happened when the girls arrived in the colony. They landed, of course, at Quebec, where they were looked over by the local swains. There were sometimes bitter complaints that the best were snapped up in Quebec and the culls were then sent on to Three Rivers and Montreal. On first landing, after making the long journey under stern duennas appointed by the government, they were placed in three separate halls for inspection. What basis was used for determining to which hall a girl should be sent is not stated, not even by that arrant gossip, La Hontan. Were they divided according to weight or coloring or even according to social background? Whatever the arrangement may have been, it permitted the authorities to direct the young men who came seeking brides to the particular hall where they were most likely to find a suitable choice.