Even the wise and benevolent Charlevoix seemed to have forgotten that Christianity is "the religion of civilized man," and that its doctrine and practice are utterly incompatible with the habits of savage life. He, in common with his Jesuit brethren, ever exhibited a jealous hesitation and dislike to the enlightenment of the Indians by secular instruction, or to the improvement of their physical condition; any effort made by others with this object caused them deep uneasiness. When, in 1667, M. de Talon, the intendant, urged by the far-sighted Colbert, endeavored to introduce the language and civilization of Europe among the savages, he was defeated by the determined opposition of the missionaries, who alone at that time exercised influence over the red children of the forest. Nearly twenty years afterward the same policy was pressed upon M. de Denonville, and by him attempted; but, as Charlevoix complacently says, when the French were brought into contact with the Indians for this purpose, "the French became savages instead of the savages becoming French." This readiness in adapting themselves to the habits of the natives, which for a time gained them great power and popularity,[156] was ultimately fatal to their success as colonists. The Anglo-Americans, on the other hand, despising their Indian neighbors, and, in return, hated and feared by them, were seldom or never infected by the contagion of savage indolence. M. de Frontenac writes, in the year 1691, that "the experience of twelve years' residence in Canada has convinced me that the Jesuit missions ought not to be separated as they are from the settlements of the French, but that free intercourse should be encouraged between the Indians and Europeans; thus they might become '_francisé_' at the same time that they are Christianized, otherwise more harm than good will accrue to the king's service." But on this question of the improvement of the Indians, the civil and the military authorities of the colony were at perpetual issue with the formidable brotherhood; the Canadian people generally concurred with their temporal rulers on this point, hence it resulted that in later years the Jesuits were little loved or esteemed in the colony.