imble and
biting wit, a Gascon impetuosity of temperament, and as much devotion as
an officer of the King was forced to profess, coupled with small love of
priests and an aversion to Jesuits.[18] Carheil and Marest, missionaries
of that order at Michilimackinac, were objects of his especial
antipathy, which they fully returned. The two priests were impatient of
a military commandant to whose authority they were in some small measure
subjected; and they imputed to him the disorders which he did not, and
perhaps could not, prevent. They were opposed also to the traffic in
brandy, which was favored by Cadillac on the usual ground that it
attracted the Indians, and so prevented the English from getting control
of the fur-trade,--an argument which he reinforced by sanitary
considerations based on the supposed unwholesomeness of the fish and
smoked meat which formed the chief diet of Michilimackinac. "A little
brandy after the meal," he says, with the solemnity of the learned
Purgon, "seems necessary to cook the bilious meats and the crudities
they leave in the stomach."[19]

Cadillac calls Carheil, superior of the mission, the most passionate and
domineering man he ever knew, and further declares that the Jesuit tried
to provoke him to acts of violence, in order to make matter of
accusation against him. If this was Carheil's aim, he was near
succeeding. Once, in a dispute with the commandant on the brandy-trade,
he upbraided him sharply for permitting it; to which Cadillac replied
that he only obeyed the orders of the court. The Jesuit rejoined that he
ought to obey God, and not man,--"on which," says the commandant, "I
told him that his talk smelt of sedition a hundred yards off, and begged
that he would amend it. He told me that I gave myself airs that did not
belong to me, holding his fist before my nose at the same time. I
confess I almost forgot that he was a priest, and felt for a moment
like knocking his jaw out of joint; but, thank God, I contented myself
with taking him by the arm, pushing him out, and ordering him not to
come back."[20]

Such being the relations of the commandant and the Father Superior, it
is not surprising to find the one complaining that he cannot get
absolved from his sins, and the other painting the morals and manners of
Michilimackinac in the blackest colors.

I have spoken elsewhere of the two opposing policies that divided
Canada,--the policies of concentration and of expansion, on the o