When Laval, who had just laid the corner-stone of his seminary at Quebec, saw the way things were going, he decided to start for France himself, to see what he could effect for the cause he had so deeply at heart by personal representations. The decision of the court, however, was what might have been expected under the circumstances. Two edicts were issued in the following year, one dated the 25th April 1679, confirming the regulations previously laid down respecting the _coureurs de bois_, but allowing the governor to grant hunting permits good from the 15th January to the 15th April of each year; and the other, dated 24th May, expressly prohibiting the holders of such permits from carrying liquor to the Indians, under pain of a fine of one hundred francs for the first offence, three hundred for the second, and corporal punishment for the third. The French of the settlements on the other hand were left free to sell liquor to the Indians resorting thither. The bishop was at the same time requested to make the "reserved case" apply only to those selling under illegal conditions, which, with no little reluctance, he consented to do. It is to be noted that the second edict contains a clause expressly entrusting its enforcement to "Sieur, Comte de Frontenac, governor and lieutenant-general for his Majesty in the said country," and not as previously to the intendant. Frontenac thus had it in his power, M. Lorin observes, "to free himself in practice from the time limits imposed, or even tacitly to authorize the hunters to carry a few goods to the Indians." This writer, who is an ardent admirer of Frontenac, seems to regard it as a thing quite to be expected that the king's representative should seize the opportunity to violate the king's regulations. The motive, however, which he assigns for such probable disobedience is a very high one: the governor was anxious to keep in touch, through the traders, with the outlying Indian tribes, in order that he might watch the course of their trade, study their dispositions, and thus be enabled to take timely measures to maintain them in right relations with the French colony. Were there ground for assurance that this was his only, or even his greatly predominant, motive, we might well join with M. Lorin in considering such far-sighted devotion to the king's interests as more than a set-off to a technical irregularity. But can we? The question is one in regard to which the documents before us, consisting mainly of the correspondence of Frontenac and Duchesneau with the court, render it difficult to arrive at a positive conclusion. The matter will be discussed in the following chapter; meanwhile let us briefly note the further development of the _coureur de bois_ question to the end of Frontenac's first administration.