-general, d'Argenson, on
questions of precedence and etiquette. Some of these disputes would seem
to us childish to-day if even such a writer as Parkman did not put us on
our guard against a premature judgment.[1] "The disputes in question,"
writes Parkman, "though of a nature to provoke a smile on irreverent
lips, were by no means so puerile as they appear. It is difficult in a
modern democratic society to conceive the substantial importance of the
signs and symbols of dignity and authority, at a time and among a people
where they were adjusted with the most scrupulous precision, and
accepted by all classes as exponents of relative degrees in the social
and political scale. Whether the bishop or the governor should sit in
the higher seat at table thus became a political question, for it
defined to the popular understanding the position of Church and State in
their relations to government."

In his zeal for making his episcopal authority respected, could not the
prelate, however, have made some concessions to the temporal power? It
is allowable to think so, when his panegyrist, the Abbe Gosselin,
acknowledges it in these terms: "Did he sometimes show too much ardour
in the settlement of a question or in the assertion of his rights? It is
possible. As the Abbe Ferland rightly observes, 'no virtue is perfect
upon earth.' But he was too pious and too disinterested for us to
suspect for a moment the purity of his intentions." In certain passages
in his journal Father Lalemant seems to be of the same opinion. All men
are fallible; even the greatest saints have erred. In this connection
the remark of St. Bernardin of Siena presents itself naturally to the
religious mind: "Each time," says he, "that God grants to a creature a
marked and particular favour, and when divine grace summons him to a
special task and to some sublime position, it is a rule of Providence
to furnish that creature with all the means necessary to fulfil the
mission which is entrusted to him, and to bring it to a happy
conclusion. Providence prepares his birth, directs his education,
produces the environment in which he is to live; even his faults
Providence will use in the accomplishment of its purposes."

Difficulties of another sort fixed between the spiritual and the
temporal chiefs of the colony a still deeper gulf; they arose from the
trade in brandy with the savages. It had been formerly forbidden by the
Sovereign Council, and this measure, urged b