In spite of the Sorbonne, in spite of Père La Chaise, and of the Archbishop of Paris, whom he also consulted, the king was never at heart a prohibitionist. * His Canadian revenue was drawn from the fur trade; and the singular argument of the partisans of brandy, that its attractions were needed to keep the Indians from contact with heresy, served admirably to salve his conscience. Bigot as he was, he distrusted the Bishop of Quebec, the great champion of the anti-liquor movement. His own letters, as well as those of his minister, prove that he saw or thought that he saw motives for the crusade very different from those inscribed on its banners. He wrote to Saint-Vallier, Laval’s successor in the bishopric, that the brandy trade was very useful to the kingdom of France; that it should be regulated, but not prevented; that the consciences of his subjects must not be disturbed by denunciations of it as a sin; and that “it is well that you (_the bishop_) should take care that the zeal of the ecclesiastics is not excited by personal interests and passions.” ** Perhaps he alludes to the spirit of encroachment and domination which he and his minister in secret instructions to their officers often impute to the bishop and the clergy, or perhaps he may have in mind other accusations which had reached him * See, among other evidence, Mémoire sur la Traite des Boissons, 1678. ** Le Roy à Saint-Vallier, 7 Avril, 1691 from time to time during many years, and of which the following from the pen of the most noted of Canadian governors will serve as an example. Count Frontenac declares that the Jesuits greatly exaggerate the disorders caused by brandy, and that they easily convince persons “who do not know the interested motives which have led them to harp continually on this string for more than forty years.... They have long wished to have the fur trade entirely to themselves, and to keep out of sight the trade which they have always carried on in the woods, and which they are carrying on there now.” *