lling hand more than ever necessary. It was
no secret that the French-Canadian ministers, Langevin, Caron, and
Chapleau, were far from showing that spirit of mutual trust and
confidence which is supposed to exist among members of the same
Ministry. {141} Sir Hector Langevin, the senior of the triumvirate,
had been the lieutenant of Cartier, but, in this instance, the mantle
of Elijah had not fallen upon his successor. In my experience I never
met a man who more neatly fulfilled Bismarck's cynical description of
Lord Salisbury--'a lath painted to look like iron.' He was a good
departmental officer--but he was nothing more. The moment Sir John
Macdonald's support was taken away, he fell. Yet Sir John stood by him
against the attacks of his opponents, and generally sided with him in
his differences with his colleagues.

During a holiday of 1888 Sir John said to me one day at Dalhousie,
N.B., where he was spending the summer: 'George Stephen keeps pressing
me to retire, and I think I shall. My only difficulty is about my
successor.' 'Whom do you think of as such?' I asked. 'Oh,' replied
he, 'Langevin; there is no one else.'[1] 'Well,' I remarked, 'I have a
candidate--one who lives on the border line between the two provinces,
speaks both languages with facility, and is equally at home {142} in
Quebec and Ontario.' 'Who is he?' 'Mr Abbott,' I replied. 'John
Abbott,' said Sir John incredulously. 'Why, he hasn't a single
qualification for the office. Thompson,' he went on, 'is very able and
a fine fellow, but Ontario would never endure his turning Catholic.
No, I see no one but Langevin.' Yet it was Abbott after all. When
asked why he thought so much of Langevin, the reply was at once
forthcoming: 'He has always been true to me.' The same thing might
have been said of Sir Adolphe Caron, ever a faithful supporter, and
from his youth up, equally in prosperity and adversity, a close
personal friend of the old chief; but Sir John thought that Caron
sometimes allowed his personal feelings to obscure his judgment, or, as
he expressed it, 'Caron is too much influenced by his hates--a fatal
mistake in a public man, who should have no resentments.' Sir Adolphe
Chapleau, with all his attractiveness and charm, Sir John never quite
trusted. The relations between these three French-Canadian ministers
were hard to define. I frankly confess that, with all my
opportunities, I could never master the intricacies of Lower-Ca