This remark was not pleasing to Bigot, who hated Colonel Philibert equally with his father. "I merely said he had not participated in the riot, Colonel Philibert, which was true. I did not excuse your father for being at the head of the party among whom these outrages arise. I simply spoke truth, Colonel Philibert. I do not eke out by the inch my opinion of any man. I care not for the Bourgeois Philibert more than for the meanest blue cap in his following."

This was an ungracious speech. Bigot meant it to be such. He repented almost of the witness he had borne to the Bourgeois's endeavors to quell the mob. But he was too profoundly indifferent to men's opinions respecting himself to care to lie.

Colonel Philibert resented the Intendant's sneer at his father. He faced Bigot, saying to him,--"The Chevalier Bigot has done but simple justice to my father with reference to his conduct in regard to the riot. But let the Intendant recollect that, although a merchant, my father is above all things a Norman gentleman, who never swerved a hair-breadth from the path of honor--a gentleman whose ancient nobility would dignify even the Royal Intendant." Bigot looked daggers at this thrust at his own comparatively humble origin. "And this I have further to say,"

continued Philibert, looking straight in the eyes of Bigot, Varin, and Cadet, "whoever impugns my father's honor impugns mine; and no man, high or low, shall do that and escape chastisement!"

The greater part of the officers seated round the council-board listened with marks of approval to Philibert's vindication of his father. But no one challenged his words, although dark, ominous looks glanced from one to another among the friends of the Intendant. Bigot smothered his anger for the present, however; and to prevent further reply from his followers he rose, and bowing to the Governor, begged His Excellency to open the Council.

"We have delayed the business of the King too long with these personal recriminations," said he. "I shall leave this riot to be dealt with by the King's courts, who will sharply punish both instigators and actors in this outrage upon the royal authority."

These words seemed to end the dispute for the present.

CHAPTER XIV. THE COUNCIL OF WAR.

The Council now opened in due form. The Secretary read the royal despatches, which were listened to with attention and respect, although with looks of dissent in the countenances of many of the officers.

The Governor rose, and in a quiet, almost a solemn strain, addressed the Council: "Gentlemen," said he, "from the tenor of the royal despatches just read by the Secretary, it is clear that our beloved New France is in great danger. The King, overwhelmed by the powers in alliance against him, can no longer reinforce our army here. The English fleet is supreme--for the moment only, I hope!" added the Governor, as if with a prevision of his own future triumphs on the ocean. "English troops are pouring into New York and Boston, to combine with the militia of New England and the Middle Colonies in a grand attack upon New France. They have commenced the erection of a great fort at Chouagen on Lake Ontario, to dispute supremacy with our stronghold at Niagara, and the gates of Carillon may ere long have to prove their strength in keeping the enemy out of the Valley of the Richelieu. I fear not for Carillon, gentlemen, in ward of the gallant Count de Lusignan, whom I am glad to see at our Council. I think Carillon is safe."

The Count de Lusignan, a gray-headed officer of soldierly bearing, bowed low to this compliment from the Governor. "I ask the Count de Lusignan," continued the Governor, "what he thinks would result from our withdrawing the garrison from Carillon, as is suggested in the despatches?"

"The Five Nations would be on the Richelieu in a week, and the English in Montreal a month after such a piece of folly on our part!" exclaimed the Count de Lusignan.

"You cannot counsel the abandonment of Carillon then, Count?" A smile played over the face of the Governor, as if he too felt the absurdity of his question.

"Not till Quebec itself fall into the enemy's hands. When that happens, His Majesty will need another adviser in the place of the old Count de Lusignan."

"Well spoken, Count! In your hands Carillon is safe, and will one day, should the enemy assail it, be covered with wreaths of victory, and its flag be the glory of New France."

"So be it, Governor. Give me but the Royal Roussillon and I pledge you neither English, Dutch, nor Iroquois shall ever cross the waters of St.

Sacrament."

"You speak like your ancestor the crusader, Count. But I cannot spare the Royal Roussillon. Think you you can hold Carillon with your present garrison?"

"Against all the force of New England. But I cannot promise the same against the English regulars now landing at New York."

"They are the same whom the King defeated at Fontenoy, are they not?"

interrupted the Intendant, who, courtier as he was, disliked the tenor of the royal despatches as much as any officer present,--all the more as he knew La Pompadour was advising peace out of a woman's considerations rather than upholding the glory of France.

"Among them are many troops who fought us at Fontenoy. I learned the fact from an English prisoner whom our Indians brought in from Fort Lydius," replied the Count de Lusignan.

"Well, the more of them the merrier," laughed La Corne St. Luc. "The bigger the prize, the richer they who take it. The treasure-chests of the English will make up for the beggarly packs of the New Englanders.

Dried stock fish, and eel-skin garters to drive away the rheumatism, were the usual prizes we got from them down in Acadia!"

"The English of Fontenoy are not such despicable foes," remarked the Chevalier de Lery; "they sufficed to take Louisbourg, and if we discontinue our walls, will suffice to take Quebec."

"Louisbourg was not taken by THEM, but fell through the mutiny of the base Swiss!" replied Bigot, touched sharply by any allusion to that fortress where he had figured so discreditably. "The vile hirelings demanded money of their commander when they should have drawn the blood of the enemy!" added he, angrily.

"Satan is bold, but he would blush in the presence of Bigot," remarked La Corne St. Luc to an Acadian officer seated next him. "Bigot kept the King's treasure, and defrauded the soldiers of their pay: hence the mutiny and the fall of Louisbourg."

"It is what the whole army knows," replied the officer. "But hark! the Abbe Piquet is going to speak. It is a new thing to see clergy in a Council of War!"

"No one has a better right to speak here than the Abbe Piquet," replied La Corne. "No one has sent more Indian allies into the field to fight for New France than the patriotic Abbe."

Other officers did not share the generous sentiments of La Corne St.

Luc. They thought it derogatory to pure military men to listen to a priest on the affairs of the war.

"The Marshal de Belleisle would not permit even Cardinal de Fleury to put his red stockings beneath his council-table," remarked a strict martinet of La Serre; "and here we have a whole flock of black gowns darkening our regimentals! What would Voltaire say?"

"He would say that when priests turn soldiers it is time for soldiers to turn tinkers and mend holes in pots, instead of making holes in our enemies," replied his companion, a fashionable freethinker of the day.

"Well, I am ready to turn pedlar any day! The King's army will go to the dogs fast enough since the Governor commissions Recollets and Jesuits to act as royal officers," was the petulant remark of another officer of La Serre.

A strong prejudice existed in the army against the Abbe Piquet for his opposition to the presence of French troops in his Indian missionary villages. They demoralized his neophytes, and many of the officers shared in the lucrative traffic of fire-water to the Indians. The Abbe was zealous in stopping those abuses, and the officers complained bitterly of his over-protection of the Indians.

The famous "King's Missionary," as he was called, stood up with an air of dignity and authority that seemed to assert his right to be present in the Council of War, for the scornful looks of many of the officers had not escaped his quick glance.

The keen black eyes, thin resolute lips, and high swarthy forehead of the Abbe would have well become the plumed hat of a marshal of France.

His loose black robe, looped up for freedom, reminded one of a grave senator of Venice whose eye never quailed at any policy, however severe, if required for the safety of the State.

The Abbe held in his hand a large roll of wampum, the tokens of treaties made by him with the Indian nations of the West, pledging their alliance and aid to the great Onontio, as they called the Governor of New France.

"My Lord Governor!" said the Abbe, placing his great roll on the table, "I thank you for admitting the missionaries to the Council. We appear less as churchmen on this occasion than as the King's ambassadors, although I trust that all we have done will redound to God's glory and the spread of religion among the heathen. These belts of wampum are tokens of the treaties we have made with the numerous and warlike tribes of the great West. I bear to the Governor pledges of alliance from the Miamis and Shawnees of the great valley of the Belle Riviere, which they call the Ohio. I am commissioned to tell Onontio that they are at peace with the King and at war with his enemies from this time forth forever.

I have set up the arms of France on the banks of the Belle Riviere, and claimed all its lands and waters as the just appanage of our sovereign, from the Alleghanies to the plantations of Louisiana. The Sacs and Foxes, of the Mississippi; the Pottawatomies, Winnebagoes, and Chippewas of a hundred bands who fish in the great rivers and lakes of the West; the warlike Ottawas, who have carried the Algonquin tongue to the banks of Lake Erie,--in short, all enemies of the Iroquois have pledged themselves to take the field whenever the Governor shall require the axe to be dug up and lifted against the English and the Five Nations. Next summer the chiefs of all these tribes will come to Quebec, and ratify in a solemn General Council the wampums they now send by me and the other missionaries, my brothers in the Lord!"

The Abbe, with the slow, formal manner of one long accustomed to the speech and usages of the Indians, unrolled the belts of wampum, many fathoms in length, fastened end to end to indicate the length of the alliance of the various tribes with France. The Abbe interpreted their meaning, and with his finger pointed out the totems or signs manual--usually a bird, beast, or fish--of the chiefs who had signed the roll.

The Council looked at the wampums with intense interest, well knowing the important part these Indians were capable of assuming in the war with England.

"These are great and welcome pledges you bring us, Abbe," said the Governor; "they are proofs at once of your ability and of your zealous labors for the King. A great public duty has been ably discharged by you and your fellow-missionaries, whose loyalty and devotion to France it shall be my pleasure to lay before His Majesty. The Star of Hope glitters in the western horizon, to encourage us under the clouds of the eastern. Even the loss of Acadia, should it be final, will be compensated by the acquisition of the boundless fertile territories of the Belle Riviere and of the Illinois. The Abbe Piquet and his fellow-missionaries have won the hearts of the native tribes of the West. There is hope now, at last, of uniting New France with Louisiana in one unbroken chain of French territory.

"It has been my ambition, since His Majesty honored me with the Government of New France, to acquire possession of those vast territories covered with forests old as time, and in soil rich and fertile as Provence and Normandy.

"I have served the King all my life," continued the Governor, "and served him with honor and even distinction,--permit me to say this much of myself."

He spoke in a frank, manly way, for vanity prompted no part of his speech. "Many great services have I rendered my country, but I feel that the greatest service I could yet do Old France or New would be the planting of ten thousand sturdy peasants and artisans of France in the valley of the far West, to make its forests vocal with the speech of 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.