The redoubtable vicar-apostolic was not in Canada when Frontenac arrived. He had sailed for France in the month of May to press the important matter of his appointment as bishop of Quebec. A letter which he wrote to the cardinals of the propaganda almost immediately on his arrival serves to show the reasons he had for desiring this change of status, and, incidentally, his opinion of the civil officers of the Crown. "I have learnt," he says, "by a long experience how insecure the office of vicar-apostolic is against those who are entrusted with political affairs, I mean the officers of the court, the perpetual rivals and despisers of the ecclesiastical power, who steadily contend that the authority of a vicar-apostolic is open to doubt, and should be kept within certain limits. That is why, having considered the whole matter very carefully, I have fully determined to resign that office, and not to return to New France, unless the bishopric of Quebec is constituted, and unless I am provided and armed with the bulls constituting me the Ordinary."[8] These are the words of a man who knows his own mind, and, we may add, of one who is prepared to fight his enemies to a finish. He may not have known, before he arrived in France, what man, and what kind of a man, had been selected as successor to Courcelles; but we may be sure that, when he found out, he was not less impressed than before with the need for a strengthening of his position. Louis XIV had himself for thirteen years been pressing, at intervals, upon the Holy See the expediency of establishing a bishopric in New France, but without much success. There were some points of difference between the French court and the Roman authorities as to the conditions under which the projected diocese should be created, and the latter showed a wonderful skill in prolonging the negotiations. Finally, the only point in dispute was whether the new bishop should be a suffragan of one of the French archbishops, as desired by the king, or directly dependent on the Pope. This point was conceded by the king in December 1673; but it was not till October 1674 that the necessary bull was issued. In the following April Laval took the oath of fealty to the king as bishop of Quebec, with jurisdiction over the whole of Canada, and shortly afterwards he set sail for the scene of his pastoral labours. Thus it was that for nearly three years Frontenac had no direct relations with the head of the Canadian church.