remain neutral."

Frontenac was about to be blamed in his turn. The governor had obtained
from the council a decree ordering the king's attorney to be present
at the rendering of accounts by the purveyor of the Quebec Seminary, and
another decree of March 4th, 1675, declaring that not only, as had been
customary since 1668, the judges should have precedence over the
churchwardens in public ceremonies, but also that the latter should
follow all the officers of justice; at Quebec these officers should have
their bench immediately behind that of the council, and in the rest of
the country, behind that of the local governors and the seigneurs. This
latter decree was posted everywhere. A missionary, M. Thomas Morel, was
accused of having prevented its publication at Levis, and was arrested
at once and imprisoned in the Chateau St. Louis with the clerk of the
ecclesiastical court, Romain Becquet, who had refused to deliver to the
council the registers of this ecclesiastical tribune. He was kept there
a month. MM. de Bernieres and Dudouyt protested, declaring that M. Morel
was amenable only to the diocesan authority. We see in such an incident
some of the reasons which induced Laval to insist upon the immediate
constitution of a regular diocese. Summoned to produce forthwith the
authority for their pretended ecclesiastical jurisdiction, "they
produced a copy of the royal declaration, dated March 27th, 1659, based
on the bulls of the Bishop of Petraea, and other documents, establishing
incontestably the legal authority of the apostolic vicar." The council
had to yield; it restored his freedom to M. Morel, and postponed until
later its decision as to the validity of the claims of the
ecclesiastical court.

This was a check to the ambitions of the Count de Frontenac. The
following letter from Louis XIV dealt a still more cruel blow to his
absolutism: "In order to punish M. Perrot for having resisted your
authority," the prince wrote to him, "I have had him put into the
Bastille for some time; so that when he returns to your country, not
only will this punishment render him more circumspect in his duty, but
it will serve as an example to restrain others. But if I must inform you
of my sentiments, after having thus satisfied my authority which was
violated in your person, I will tell you that without absolute need you
ought not to have these orders executed throughout the extent of a local
jurisdiction like Montreal without commun