For the order of the nobles, he found three or four
_gentilshommes_ at Quebec, and these he reinforced with a number of
officers. The third estate consisted of the merchants and citizens;
and he formed the members of the council and the magistrates into
another distinct body, though, properly speaking, they belonged to the
third estate, of which by nature and prescription they were the head.
The Jesuits, glad no doubt to lay him under some slight obligation,
lent him their church for the ceremony that he meditated, and aided in
decorating it for the occasion. Here, on the twenty-third of October,
1672, the three estates of Canada were convoked, with as much pomp and
splendor as circumstances would permit. Then Frontenac, with the ease
of a man of the world and the loftiness of a _grand seigneur_,
delivered himself of the harangue he had prepared. He wrote
exceedingly well; he is said also to have excelled as an orator;
certainly he was never averse to the tones of his own eloquence. His
speech was addressed to a double audience: the throng that filled the
church, and the king and the minister three thousand miles away. He
told his hearers that he had called the assembly, not because he
doubted their loyalty, but in order to afford them the delight of
making public protestation of devotion to a prince, the terror of
whose irresistible arms was matched only by the charms of his person
and the benignity of his rule.
Pages:
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42