In the journal of the superior of the Jesuits we find, under date of February 4, 1667, a record of the first ball in Canada, along with the pious wish, “God grant that nothing further come of it.” Nevertheless more balls were not long in following; and, worse yet, sundry comedies were enacted under no less distinguished patronage than that of Frontenac, the governor. Laval denounced them vigorously, the Jesuit Dablon attacked them in a violent sermon; and such excitement followed that the affair was brought before the royal council, which declined to interfere. ** This flurry, * Mandement contre le luxe et la vanité des femmes et des filles, 1682. (Registres de l'Evêché de Québec.) A still more vigorous denunciation is contained in Ordonnance contre les vices de luxe et d’impureté, 1690. This was followed in the next year by a stringent list of rules called Réglement pour la conduite des fidèles de ce diocèse. ** Arrêts du 24 et 28 juin par lesquels cette affaire (des comédies) est renvoyésn& Sa Majesté, 1681. (?) (Registre du Conseil Souverain.) however, was nothing to the storm raised ten or twelve years later by other dramatic aggressions, an account of which will appear in the sequel of this volume. The morals of families were watched with unrelenting vigilance. Frontenac writes in a mood unusually temperate, “they (_the priests_) are full of virtue and piety, and if their zeal were less vehement and more moderate they would perhaps succeed better in their efforts for the conversion of souls; but they often use means so extraordinary, and in France so unusual, that they repel most people instead of persuading them. I sometimes tell them my views frankly and as gently as I can, as I know the murmurs that their conduct excites, and often receive complaints of the constraint under which they place consciences. This is above all the case with the ecclesiastics at Montreal, where there is a curé from Franche Comté who wants to establish a sort of inquisition worse than that of Spain, and all out of an excess of zeal.” * It was this curé, no doubt, of whom La Hontan complains. That unsanctified young officer was quartered at Montreal, in the house of one of the inhabitants. “During a part of the winter I was hunting with the Algonquins; the rest of it I spent here very disagreeably. One can neither go on a pleasure party, nor play a game of cards, nor visit the ladies, without the curé knowing it and preaching about it publicly from his pulpit. The priests excommunicate * Frontenac au Ministre, 20 Oct., 1691.