Maintenons seated with his minister at a small table beside the fire, the king in an armchair, the minister on a stool with his bag of papers on a second stool near him. In another armchair, at another table, on the other side of the fire, sat the sedate favorite, busy to all appearance with a book or a piece of tapestry, but listening to every thing that passed. “She rarely spoke,” says Saint-Simon, “except when the king asked her opinion, which he often did; and then she answered with great deliberation and gravity. She never or very rarely showed a partiality for any measure, still less for any person; but she had an understanding with the minister, who never dared do otherwise than she wished. Whenever any favor or appointment was in question, the business was settled between them beforehand. She would send to the minister that she wanted to speak to him, and he did not dare bring the matter on the carpet till he had received her orders.” Saint-Simon next recounts the subtle methods by which Maintenon and the minister, her tool, beguiled the king to do their will, while never doubting that he was doing his own. “He thought,” concludes the annalist, “that it was he alone who disposed of all appointments; while in reality he disposed of very few indeed, except on the rare occasions when he had taken a fancy to somebody, or when somebody whom he wanted to favor had spoken to him in behalf of somebody else.” * * Mémoires du Duc de Saint-Simon, XIII. 38, 39 (Cheruel, 1857). Saint-Simon, notwithstanding the independence of his character, held a high position at court; and his acute and careful observation, joined to his familiar acquaintance with ministers and other functionaries, both in and out of office, gives a rare value to his matchless portraitures. Add to all this the rarity of communication with the distant colony. The ships from France arrived at Quebec in July, August, or September, and returned in November. The machine of Canadian government, wound up once a year, was expected to run unaided at least a twelvemonth. Indeed, it was often left to itself for two years, such was sometimes the tardiness of the overburdened government in answering the despatches of its colonial agents. It is no matter of surprise that a writer well versed in its affairs calls Canada the “country of abuses.” * * Etat présent du Canada, 1768. CHAPTER XVII. 1663-1763. TRADE AND INDUSTRY. _Trade in Fetters.--The Hüguenot Merchants.--Royal Patronage.--The Fisheries.--Cries for Help.--Agriculture.--Manufactures.--Arts of Ornament.--Finance.--Card Money.--Repudiation.--Imposts.--The Beaver Trade.--The Fair at Montreal.--Contraband Trade.--A Fatal System.--Trouble and Change.--The Coureurs de Bois.--The Forest.--Letter of Carheil._