rous family. So eminently respectable was he that we find him
churchwarden at Quebec. In time he retired from trade, in which he had
engaged, and became a judge of the newly established Court of the
Prevote at Quebec. This was not doing badly for a man under sentence of
death. But over him still hung this affair in France and, in 1680, he
petitioned the King to have the sentence annulled. For this petition he
secured the support of the families of the men killed in the quarrel
fifteen years earlier. In 1681 Louis XIV's pardon was registered with
solemn ceremonial at Quebec, and at last Comporte was no longer an
outlaw.

He had plans to settle his great fief. Working in his brain no doubt
were dreams of a feudal domain, of a seigniorial chateau looking out
across the great river, of respectful tenants paying annual dues to
their lord in labour, kind, and money, of a parish church in which over
the seigniorial pew should be displayed his coat of arms. But if these
pictures inspired his fancy and cheered his spirit, they were never to
become realities. In 1687 he was, apparently, in need of money, and he
resolved to sell two-thirds of his interest in the seigniory of Malbaie.
The price was a pitiful 1000 livres, or some $200, and the purchasers
were Francois Hazeur, Pierre Soumande and Louis Marchand of Quebec, who
were henceforth to get two-thirds of the profits of the seigniory. Then,
in 1687, still young--he was only forty-six--Comporte died, as did also
his wife, leaving a young family apparently but ill provided for. His
name still survives at Malbaie. The portion of the village on the left
bank of the river above the bridge is called Comporte, and a lovely
little lake, nestling on the top of a mountain beyond the Grand Fond,
and unsurpassed for the excellence of its trout fishing, is called Lac a
Comporte; it may be that well-nigh two and a half centuries ago the
first seigneur of Malbaie followed an Indian trail to this lake and wet
a line in its brown and rippling waters.

Comporte and his partners in the seigniory had planned great things.
They had begun the erection of a mill, an enterprise which Comporte's
heirs could not continue. So the guardian of the children determined to
sell at auction their third of the seigniory. The sale apparently took
place in Quebec in October, 1688. We have the record of the bids made.
Hazeur began with 410 livres; one Riverin offered 430 livres; after a
few other bids Hazeur rais