and majesty placed over against the solitary protesting individual. Doubtless self-government in the full sense would not have been possible at the time, seeing that self-government implies, as its first condition, pecuniary independence, and the country was not in a position to provide all the money required for its civil and military expenditure. However, possible or impossible, the thing was not thought of, or to be thought of, at the time. The result of the elaborate organization actually established was that administrators and councillors, having far too little to do, fell to quarrelling with one another in the manner already seen and yet to be seen. The Canadian colony was not really peculiar in this respect. Any one who reads in Clement's great work the voluminous correspondence of Colbert will see that strife and jealousy was the rule throughout the whole colonial service. The same spirit, in fact, prevailed which was exhibited in the daily life of the court, where every one was desperately struggling for the sunshine of royal favour, and where, consequently, questions of precedence and etiquette were regarded as of surpassing importance. And now a most serious question of this nature was to blaze forth in Canada. In various despatches from the court, Frontenac had been spoken of as "President of the Sovereign Council," though that office had never in any formal way been attached to the governorship. Shortly after Duchesneau's appointment as intendant, a royal ordinance was issued conferring the title in question upon him. In this there was no intention whatever to diminish the rank or prestige of the governor. The idea was rather to relieve him from the drudgery of presiding at meetings of the council, by giving to the latter a permanent working head in the person of the intendant, a man assumed to be accustomed to routine business and to have the trained official's capacity for details. Any other man than Frontenac would have seen the matter in this light, and rejoiced that a substitute had been found for him in a most uninteresting duty. He still had access to the council, and whenever he chose to attend, he occupied the seat of honour as the king's immediate representative, while a lower functionary would act as chairman, put questions to the vote, and sign the minutes. To the mind of Frontenac, unfortunately, the thing presented itself in a very different light; he saw his prerogative attacked, his dignity impaired. If he was not president of the council, why was he ever so addressed in official despatches? M. Duchesneau, on the other hand, took his stand on the stronger ground of a special ordinance appointing him to the office. Behold the elements of a mighty quarrel!