our
native land.

"This present war may end suddenly,--I think it will: the late victory
at Lawfelt has stricken the allies under the Duke of Cumberland a blow
hard as Fontenoy. Rumors of renewed negotiations for peace are flying
thick through Europe. God speed the peacemakers, and bless them, I
say! With peace comes opportunity. Then, if ever, if France be true to
herself and to her heritage in the New World, she will people the valley
of the Ohio and secure forever her supremacy in America!

"But our forts far and near must be preserved in the meantime. We must
not withdraw from one foot of French territory. Quebec must be walled,
and made safe against all attack by land or water. I therefore will
join the Council in a respectful remonstrance to the Count de Maurepas,
against the inopportune despatches just received from His Majesty. I
trust the Royal Intendant will favor the Council now with his opinion on
this important matter, and I shall be happy to have the cooperation of
His Excellency in measures of such vital consequence to the Colony and
to France."

The Governor sat down, after courteously motioning the Intendant to rise
and address the Council.

The Intendant hated the mention of peace. His interests, and the
interests of his associates of the Grand Company, were all involved in
the prolongation of the war.

War enabled the Grand Company to monopolize the trade and military
expenditure of New France. The enormous fortunes its members made, and
spent with such reckless prodigality, would by peace be dried up in
their source; the yoke would be thrown off the people's neck, trade
would again free.

Bigot was far-sighted enough to see that clamors would be raised and
listened to in the leisure of peace. Prosecutions for illegal exactions
might follow, and all the support of his friends at Court might not be
able to save him and his associates from ruin--perhaps punishment.

The parliaments of Paris, Rouen, and Brittany still retained a shadow of
independence. It was only a shadow, but the fury of Jansenism supplied
the lack of political courage, and men opposed the Court and its policy
under pretence of defending the rights of the Gallican Church and the
old religion of the nation.

Bigot knew he was safe so long as the Marquise de Pompadour governed the
King and the kingdom. But Louis XV. was capricious and unfaithful in his
fancies; he had changed his mistresses, and his policy with them, many
time