Callieres was mildly advised not to take part in the disputes of the
bishop and the Recollets. [Footnote: _Le Ministre a Callieres_, 8
_Juin_, 1695.] Thus was conjured down one of the most bitter as well
as the most needless, trivial, and untimely, of the quarrels that
enliven the annals of New France.
A generation later, when its incidents had faded from memory, a
passionate and reckless partisan, Abbe La Tour, published, and
probably invented, a story which later writers have copied, till it
now forms an accepted episode of Canadian history. According to him,
Frontenac, in order to ridicule the clergy, formed an amateur company
of comedians expressly to play "Tartuffe;" and, after rehearsing at
the chateau during three or four months, they acted the piece before a
large audience. "He was not satisfied with having it played at the
chateau, but wanted the actors and actresses and the dancers, male and
female, to go in full costume, with violins, to play it in all the
religious communities, except the Recollets. He took them first to the
house of the Jesuits, where the crowd entered with him; then to the
Hospital, to the hall of the paupers, whither the nuns were ordered to
repair; then he went to the Ursuline Convent, assembled the
sisterhood, and had the piece played before them.
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