The Fighting Governor : A Chronicle of FrontenacColby, Charles W. (Charles William)
History
The Fighting Governor : A Chronicle of Frontenac
Colby, Charles W. (Charles William)
Canada -- History -- To 1763 (New France); Frontenac, Louis de Buade, comte de, 1620-1698
Both the seigneur and his tenant, the habitant, had a
stake in Canada and helped to maintain the colony in the
face of grievous hardships. The courage and tenacity of
the French Canadian are attested by what he endured
throughout the years when he was fighting for his foothold.
And if he suffered, his wife suffered still more. The
mother who brought up a large family in the midst of
stumps, bears, and Iroquois knew what it was to be
resourceful.
Obviously the Canada of 1672 lacked many things--among
them the stern resolve which animated the Puritans of
New England that their sons should have the rudiments of
an education. [Footnote: For example, Harvard College
was founded in 1636, and there was a printing-press at
Cambridge, Mass., in 1638.] At this point the contrast
between New France and New England discloses conflicting
ideals of faith and duty. In later years the problem of
knowledge assumed larger proportions, but during the
period of Frontenac the chief need of Canada was heroism.
Possessing this virtue abundantly, Canadians lost no time
in lamentations over the lack of books or the lack of
wealth. The duty of the hour was such as to exclude all
remoter vistas. When called on to defend his hearth and
to battle for his race, the Canadian was ready.
CHAPTER II
LOUIS DE BUADE, COMTE DE FRONTENAC
Louis de Buade, Comte de Frontenac et de Palluau, was
born in 1620. He was the son of Henri de Buade, a noble
at the court of Louis XIII. His mother, Anne de Phelippeaux,
came from a stock which in the early Bourbon period
furnished France with many officials of high rank, notably
Louis de Phelippeaux, Comte de Pontchartrain. His father
belonged to a family of southern France whose estates
lay originally in Guienne. It was a fortunate incident
in the annals of this family that when Antoine de Bourbon
became governor of Guienne (1555) Geoffroy de Buade
entered his service. Thenceforth the Buades were attached
by close ties to the kings of Navarre. Frontenac's
grandfather, Antoine de Buade, figures frequently in the
Memoirs of Agrippa d'Aubigne as aide-de-camp to Henry
IV; Henri de Buade, Frontenac's father, was a playmate
and close friend of Louis XIII; [Footnote: As an
illustration of their intimacy, there is a story that
one day when Henry IV was indisposed he had these two
boys on his bed, and amused himself by making them fight
with each other.] and Frontenac himself was a godson and
a namesake of the king.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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