[Footnote 3: _Les Jesuites et la Nouvelle France._ Vol. i. Introduction, p. xv. More than two centuries earlier the pious Superior of the Ursuline Convent, Mere de l'Incarnation, had referred, in her own gentle way, to their incompleteness. "If," she says, "any one is disposed to conclude that the labours of the convent are useless because no mention is made of them in the _Relations_, the inference must equally be drawn that Monseigneur the Bishop is useless; that his Seminary is useless; that the Seminary of the Jesuit fathers themselves is useless; that the ecclesiastics of Montreal are useless; and that finally the Hospital nuns are useless; because of none of these persons or things do the _Relations_ say a word. Nothing is mentioned save what relates to the progress of the Gospel; and, even so, lots of things are cut out after the record gets to France."--_Letires Spirituelles_, edition of 1681, p. 259.] [Footnote 4: _Jesuits in North America_, chap. xv.] [Footnote 5: See the excellent monograph by M. Thos. Chapais, _Jean Talon, Intendant de la Nouvelle France_, Quebec, 1904.] CHAPTER III THE BEGINNING OF FRONTENAC'S ADMINISTRATION The information we possess respecting the life of Count Frontenac prior to his appointment to the governorship of Canada is far from being as complete as might be wished. Such particulars as the records of the period furnish have been carefully gathered by Parkman and others;[6] and it is doubtful whether any further facts of importance will come to light. He was born--there is nothing to show where--in 1620, one year after the great minister, Colbert, under whom he was destined to serve. His family belonged to the small principality of Bearn, now incorporated in the Department of the Basses Pyrenees, which, made an appanage to the French Crown by Henry of Navarre, was only formally incorporated with the kingdom of France in the very year in which Frontenac was born. His father, Henri de Buade, was colonel of the regiment of Navarre, but has not otherwise passed into history. His grandfather, Antoine de Buade, Seigneur de Frontenac and Baron de Palluau, was a man of more distinction, being not only state councillor under Henry IV, but first steward of the royal household and governor of St. Germain-en-Laye. He is described in the memoirs of Philip Hurault as "one of the oldest servants of the king." His children used to play familiarly with the dauphin, afterwards Louis XIII; and the association thus formed lasted for some time after their playmate became king, which he did, nominally, at the age of nine, upon the assassination of his father, Henry IV. The Frontenac family was thus noble, though not of the highest nobility; and its connection with the domestic life of the royal family gave it no doubt an additional measure of influence. The youthful king, with whom the young Frontenacs played, became the father of Louis XIV.