uined and lost the ancient Colony of Acadia, through his
defrauds and malversations as Chief Commissary of the Army, and instead
of trial and punishment, had lately been exalted to the higher and still
more important office of Royal Intendant of New France.

On the right of the Intendant sat his bosom friend, the Sieur Cadet, a
large, sensual man, with twinkling gray eyes, thick nose, and full red
lips. His broad face, flushed with wine, glowed like the harvest moon
rising above the horizon. Cadet had, it was said, been a butcher in
Quebec. He was now, for the misfortune of his country, Chief Commissary
of the Army and a close confederate of the Intendant.

On the left of the Intendant sat his Secretary, De Pean, crafty and
unscrupulous, a parasite, too, who flattered his master and ministered
to his pleasures. De Pean was a military man, and not a bad soldier in
the field; but he loved gain better than glory, and amassed an enormous
fortune out of the impoverishment of his country.

Le Mercier, too, was there, Commandant of Artillery, a brave officer,
but a bad man; Varin, a proud, arrogant libertine, Commissary of
Montreal, who outdid Bigot in rapine and Cadet in coarseness; De Breard,
Comptroller of the Marine, a worthy associate of Penisault, whose
pinched features and cunning leer were in keeping with his important
office of chief manager of the Friponne. Perrault, D'Estebe, Morin, and
Vergor, all creatures of the Intendant, swelled the roll of infamy, as
partners of the Grand Company of Associates trading in New France, as
their charter named them--the "Grand Company of Thieves," as the people
in their plain Norman called them who robbed them in the King's name
and, under pretence of maintaining the war, passed the most arbitrary
decrees, the only object of which was to enrich themselves and their
higher patrons at the Court of Versailles.

The rest of the company seated round the table comprised a number of
dissolute seigneurs and gallants of fashion about town--men of great
wants and great extravagance, just the class so quaintly described by
Charlevoix, a quarter of a century previous, as "gentlemen thoroughly
versed in the most elegant and agreeable modes of spending money, but
greatly at a loss how to obtain it."

Among the gay young seigneurs who had been drawn into the vortex of
Bigot's splendid dissipation, was the brave, handsome Le Gardeur de
Repentigny--a captain of the Royal Marine, a Colonial corp