ho served their King far better than they served
themselves, who gave the best years of their lives to the task of
making New France a bright jewel in the Bourbon crown. The colonial
intendant was the royal man-of-all-work. The King spoke and the
intendant forthwith transformed his words into action. As the King's
great interest in New France, coupled with his scant knowledge of
its conditions, moved him to speak often, and usually in broad
generalities, the intendant's activity was prodigious and his
discretion wide. Ordinances and decrees flew from his pen like sparks
from a blacksmith's forge. The duty devolved upon him as the overseas
apostle of Gallic paternalism to "order everything as seemed just and
proper," even when this brought his hand into the very homes of the
people, into their daily work or worship or amusements. Nothing that
needed setting aright was too inconsequential to have an ordinance
devoted to it. As general regulator of work and play, of manners and
morals, of things present and things to come, the intendant was the
busiest man in the colony.

In addition to the governor, the council, and the intendant, there
were many other officials on the civil list. Both the governor and the
intendant had their deputies at Montreal and at Three Rivers. There
were judges and bailiffs and seneschals and local officers by the
score, not to speak of those who held sinecures or received royal
pensions. There were garrisons to be maintained at all the frontier
posts and church officials to be supported by large sums. No marvel it
was that New France could never pay its own way. Every year there was
a deficit which, the King had to liquidate by payments from the royal
exchequer.

The administration of the colony, moreover, fell far short of even
reasonable efficiency. There were far too many officials for the
relatively small amount of work to be done, and their respective
fields of authority were inadequately defined. Too often the work of
these officials lacked even the semblance of harmony, nor did the
royal authorities always view this deficiency with regret. A fair
amount of working at cross-purposes, provided it did not bring affairs
to a complete standstill, was regarded as a necessary system of checks
and balances in a colony which lay three thousand miles away. It
prevented any chance of a general conspiracy against the home
authorities or any wholesale wrong-doing through collusion. It served
to make