La Motte Cadillac, a staff officer, thus describes the excitement raised by these performances: "The clergy beat their alarm drums, armed _cap-à-pie_, and snatched their bows and arrows. The Sieur Glandelet was the first to begin, and preached two sermons in which he tried to prove that nobody could go to a play without mortal sin. The Bishop issued a mandate, and had it read from the pulpits, in which he speaks of certain impious, impure, and noxious comedies, insinuating that those which had been acted were such. The credulous and infatuated people, seduced by the sermons and the mandate, began already to regard the count as a corrupter of morals and a destroyer of religion. The numerous party of the pretended devotees mustered in the streets and public places, and presently...persuaded the Bishop to publish a mandate in the church whereby the Sieur de Mareuil, a half-pay lieutenant, was interdicted the use of the sacraments." [Illustration: THE CITADEL IN WINTER] In the midst of it all, death was slowly creeping upon the central figure of so many stormy scenes. The treaty concluded at Ryswick in 1697, and proclaimed in Canada, improved the position of the French in America, encouraging them to new aspirations of conquest. Already on the brink of the grave, the indomitable Frontenac cast his challenge in the teeth of New England, claiming the Iroquois as the recalcitrant subjects of Louis XIV. The gage was duly taken, and although the challenger could not await the issue, his visor remained closed till the end. Even in death Count Frontenac set his face against the Jesuits, for he was buried in the Récollet Chapel. When he was laid to rest the province was stricken with genuine grief, for all men felt that the best bulwark of New France had been laid in mortal ruin. CHAPTER X BORDER WARFARE Frontenac's best legacy to Quebec and to Canada was the pacification of the Indian tribes. Under his stern rule the prestige of France had been restored, and to the new Governor, De Callières, was left the duty of arranging the formalities of peace with the ancient enemy, the Iroquois. A treaty, however, was only concluded in the face of strenuous opposition from New England, which now beheld with grave concern the changed front of the "Five Nations," who, for the space of a hundred years, had been the sharpest thorn in the side of New France, and whose territory had been as armour-plate about their own settlements.