en to the
flames, and the savages, thus rendered homeless, became a charge upon
the friendly English settlements, only to increase the enmity which
already marked the relations of the latter with the French colony.

Frontenac returned once more in triumph to Quebec, and a semblance of
peace reigned in North America--the ominous calm before a storm which
was soon to shake the Continent. The Castle of St. Louis now became a
centre of gaiety, despite the grey hairs of its distinguished
occupant, whose spirits and buoyancy were still unquenched. Quebec
was giving unmistakable signs of a social revolt against the rigorous
subjection in which the Church had held her. Exiled from
Fontainebleau, the officers of the Governor's suite did their best to
improvise a counterpart, and the ladies of the ambitious _noblesse_
were not loth to join in the crude but brilliant revels of the castle.
The winter carnival, then, as now, afforded merriment to a gay
company, the King's representative being as keen a pleasure-seeker as
the rest. On Frontenac's suggestion, private theatricals were added to
the polite diversions of Quebec. The Marquis de Tracy's ball far back
in 1667 had given grievous offence to the Jesuits, and the unholy
acting of plays was now declared an open profanity. _Nicomede_ and
_Mithridate_ were condemned as immoral; but when _Tartuffe_, Moliere's
mordant satire upon religious hypocrisy, was put upon the boards, the
limits of endurance were reached and overpassed.

La Motte Cadillac, a staff officer, thus describes the excitement
raised by these performances: "The clergy beat their alarm drums,
armed _cap-a-pie_, and snatched their bows and arrows. The Sieur
Glandelet was the first to begin, and preached two sermons in which he
tried to prove that nobody could go to a play without mortal sin. The
Bishop issued a mandate, and had it read from the pulpits, in which he
speaks of certain impious, impure, and noxious comedies, insinuating
that those which had been acted were such. The credulous and
infatuated people, seduced by the sermons and the mandate, began
already to regard the count as a corrupter of morals and a destroyer
of religion. The numerous party of the pretended devotees mustered in
the streets and public places, and presently...persuaded the Bishop to
publish a mandate in the church whereby the Sieur de Mareuil, a
half-pay lieutenant, was interdicted the use of the sacraments."

[Illustration: THE CITADEL