"
The Governor sat down, after courteously motioning the Intendant to
rise and address the Council.
The Intendant hated the mention of peace. His interests, and the
interests of his associates of the Grand Company, were all involved
in the prolongation of the war.
War enabled the Grand Company to monopolize the trade and military
expenditure of New France. The enormous fortunes its members made,
and spent with such reckless prodigality, would by peace be dried up
in their source; the yoke would be thrown off the people's neck,
trade would again free.
Bigot was far-sighted enough to see that clamors would be raised and
listened to in the leisure of peace. Prosecutions for illegal
exactions might follow, and all the support of his friends at Court
might not be able to save him and his associates from ruin--perhaps
punishment.
The parliaments of Paris, Rouen, and Brittany still retained a
shadow of independence. It was only a shadow, but the fury of
Jansenism supplied the lack of political courage, and men opposed
the Court and its policy under pretence of defending the rights of
the Gallican Church and the old religion of the nation.
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