the level of beasts. The traders retorted that the savages would not
go without drink. If they were denied it by the French they would take
their furs to Albany, and there imbibe not only bad rum but
soul-destroying heresy. Why be visionary and suffer one's rivals to
secure an advantage which would open up to them the heart of the
continent?

Laval, on the other hand, had chosen his side in this controversy long
before Frontenac {62} came to Canada, and he was not one to change his
convictions lightly. As he saw it, the sale of brandy to the Indians
was a sin, punishable by excommunication; and so determined was he that
the penalty should be enforced that he would allow the right of
absolution to no one but himself. In the end the king decided it
otherwise. He declared the regulation of the brandy trade to fall
within the domain of the civil power. He warned Frontenac to avoid an
open denial of the bishop's authority in this matter, but directed him
to prevent the Church from interfering in a case belonging to the
sphere of public order. This decision was not reached without deep
thought. In favour of prohibition stood Laval, the Jesuits, the
Sorbonne, the Archbishop of Paris, and the king's confessor, Pere La
Chaise. Against it were Frontenac, the chief laymen of Canada,[3] the
University of Toulouse, and Colbert. In extricating himself from this
labyrinth of conflicting opinion Louis XIV was guided by reasons of
general policy. He had never seen the Mohawks raving drunk, and, like
Frontenac, {63} he felt that without brandy the work of France in the
wilderness could not go on.

Such were the issues over which Frontenac and Laval faced each other in
mutual antagonism.

Between Frontenac and his other opponent, the intendant Duchesneau, the
strife revolved about a different set of questions without losing any
of its bitterness. Frontenac and Laval disputed over ecclesiastical
affairs. Frontenac and Duchesneau disputed over civil affairs. But as
Laval and Duchesneau were both at war with Frontenac they naturally
drew together. The alliance was rendered more easy by Duchesneau's
devoutness. Even had he wished to hold aloof from the quarrel of
governor and bishop, it would have been difficult to do so. But as an
active friend of Laval and the Jesuits he had no desire to be a neutral
spectator of the feud which ran parallel with his own. The two feuds
soon became intermingled, and Frontenac, instead of