The successors of Frontenac and Duchesneau received their appointments in the month of May 1682, and arrived at Quebec towards the end of the following September. They were, respectively, a military officer named Lefebvre de la Barre who had served with some distinction in the West Indies; and a man of whose previous career little or nothing is known, one M. Jacques de Meulles. If the fault of Frontenac had been the assumption of too much state and dignity, and the exercise of too much self-will, the fault of La Barre was that he possessed too little dignity and extremely little firmness of character. The recall of Frontenac had practically been one more triumph for the ecclesiastical authorities, who caused it to be understood that, if Duchesneau had also been recalled, it was simply to save Frontenac from too open humiliation. La Barre prudently determined, therefore, from the first not to come into collision with the clergy, whatever else he might do. On the other hand the Abbe Dudouyt writing from Paris, enjoins prudence on the bishop, lest "it should seem as if he could not keep on good terms with anybody." With such dispositions on both sides, it is not surprising that, during the whole of La Barre's administration his relations with the church were extremely harmonious. The Abbe Gosselin says that he and Meulles "revived the happy times of the highly Christian administration of M. de Tracy." The king, however, did not view the situation with equal approval; the despatches of the period show that he thought that deference to the views of the clergy was being carried too far.