rs de
bois, one of whom as an example was hanged in front of Perrot's prison.

The trouble did not stop here, nor with the imprisonment of Brucy, who
was Perrot's chief agent and the custodian of the storehouse at He
Perrot. Fenelon, whose temper was ardent and emotional, felt that he
had been made the innocent victim of a detestable plot to lure Perrot
from Montreal. Having upbraided Frontenac to his face, he returned to
Montreal and preached a sermon against him, using language which the
Sulpicians hastened to repudiate. But Fenelon, undaunted, continued to
espouse Perrot's cause without concealment and brought down upon
himself a charge of sedition.

In its final stage this _cause celebre_ runs into still further
intricacies, involving the rights of the clergy when accused by the
civil power. The contest begun by Perrot and taken up by Fenelon ran
an active course throughout the greater part of a year (1674), and
finally the {50} king himself was called in as judge. This involved
the sending of Perrot and Fenelon to France, along with a voluminous
written statement from Frontenac and a great number of documents. At
court Talon took the side of Perrot, as did the Abbe d'Urfe, whose
cousin, the Marquise d'Allegre, was about to marry Colbert's son.
Nevertheless the king declined to uphold Frontenac's enemies. Perrot
was given three weeks in the Bastille, not so much for personal
chastisement as to show that the governor's authority must be
respected. On the whole, Frontenac issued from the affair without
suffering loss of prestige in the eyes of the colony. The king
declined to reprimand him, though in a personal letter from his
sovereign Frontenac was told that henceforth he must avoid invading a
local government without giving the governor preliminary notice. The
hint was also conveyed that he should not harry the clergy.
Frontenac's position, of course, was that he only interfered with the
clergy when they were encroaching upon the rights of the crown.

Upon this basis, then, the quarrel with Perrot was settled. But at
that very moment a larger and more serious contest was about to begin.

[1] In the minutes of this first meeting of the Sovereign Council at
which Frontenac presided the high-sounding words 'haut et puissant'
stand prefixed to his name and titles.

[2] The power of the States-General reached its height after the
disastrous battle of Poitiers (1356). For a short period, under the
l