other men. It was this impetuosity that served to make the official
circles of the colony, during many months of his term, a "little hell
of discord."

But when the new viceroy arrived at Quebec he was in high fettle;
he was pleased with the situation of the town and flattered by the
enthusiastic greeting which he received from its people. His first
step was to familiarize himself with the existing machinery of
colonial government, which he found to be far from his liking. He
proceeded, accordingly, in his own imperious way, to make
some startling changes. For one thing, he decided to summon a
representative assembly made up of the clergy, the seigneurs, and
the common folk of New France. This body he brought together for his
inauguration in October, 1672. No such assembly had ever been convened
before, and nothing like it was ever allowed to assemble again.
Before another year had passed, the minister sent Frontenac a polite
reprimand with the intimation that the King could not permit in the
colony an institution he was doing his best, and with entire success,
to crush out at home. The same fate awaited the governor's other
project, the establishment of a municipal government in the town of
Quebec. Within a few months of his arrival, Frontenac had allowed
the people of the town to elect a syndic and two aldermen, but the
minister vetoed this action with the admonition that "you should very
rarely, or, to speak more correctly, never, give a corporate voice
to the inhabitants, for ... it is well that each should speak for
himself, and no one for all." In the reorganization of colonial
administration, therefore, the governor found himself promptly called
to a halt. He therefore turned to another field where he was much more
successful in having his own way.

From the day of his arrival at Quebec the governor saw the pressing
need of extending French, influence and control into the regions
bordering upon the Great Lakes. To dissipate the colony's efforts in
westward expansion, however, was exactly what he had been instructed
not to do. The King and his ministers were sure that it would be far
wiser to devote all available energies and funds to developing the
settled portions of the land. They desired the governor to carry on
the policy of encouraging agriculture which Talon had begun, thus
solidifying the colony and making its borders less difficult to
defend. Frontenac's instructions on this point could hardly have be