and ineffaceable, on the most memorable page of French-American History. In the Church of Notre Dame, at Quebec, on a day in the early autumn of 1672, the priests were singing _Te Deum_ for the safe arrival of him whom they were soon to wish beyond the sea again, or beneath it. Here you would have seen the new governor surrounded by officers, and by the chief inhabitants, anxious to pay their court; a tall man in the pompous garb of a military noble of that gorgeous reign, well advanced in middle life, but whose high keen features, full of intellect and fire, bespoke his prompt undaunted nature,--Louis de Buade, Count of Palluau and Frontenac. He belonged to the high nobility, had held important commands, and, if the song-writers of his time speak true, had anticipated the king in the favors of Madame de Montespan. [Footnote: See Brunet, in notes to _Correspondance de la Duchesse d'Orleans_; Paulin, in notes to the _Historiettes de Tallement des Reaux_; and Margry, in _Journal General de I'Instruction Publique_.] His wife, who could not endure him--and the aversion seems to have been mutual--was a noted beauty of the court, and held great influence in its brilliant and corrupt society. [Footnote: St. Simon and Mademoiselle de Montpensier give very curious accounts of Madame de Frontenac, who is also mentioned in the _Lettres de Madame de Sevigne_. Her portrait will be found at Versailles.] Frontenac was full of faults; but it is not through these that his memory has survived him. He was domineering, arbitrary, intolerant of opposition, irascible, vehement in prejudice, often wayward, perverse, and jealous: a persecutor of those who crossed him; yet capable, by fits, of moderation, and a magnanimous lenity; and gifted with a rare charm--not always exerted--to win the attachment of men: versed in books, polished in courts and salons; without fear, incapable of repose, keen and broad of sight, clear in judgment, prompt in decision, fruitful in resources, unshaken when others despaired; a sure breeder of storms in time of peace, but in time of calamity and danger a tower of strength. His early career in America was beset with ire and enmity; but admiration and gratitude hailed him at its close: for it was he who saved the colony and led it triumphant from an abyss of ruin. [Footnote: In the Library of the Seminary of Quebec is preserved the funeral oration pronounced over the body of Frontenac by Olivier Goyer, a Recollet friar. It is a blind and wholesale panegyric, but it is interlined with notes and comments at great length, by some other ecclesiastic, a bitter enemy of the Governor. He is vindictive and acrimonious beyond measure; but, between the two, a good deal of truth is struck out. Charlevoix's estimate of Frontenac is admirably candid, when it is remembered that he writes of an enemy of his Order. The career of Frontenac, his letters, and those of his enemies,--of which many are preserved,--are, however, his best interpretation.]