The White and the Gold (45 page)

Talon’s first activities were in connection with the need for a steady increase in the population. He was full of schemes, some of them as bold as anything which had ever entered the soaring brain of Richelieu. He conceived a plan to have the holdings of the Dutch, which had been taken over by the British, transferred to France instead. It was a decidedly Machiavellian idea which he outlined in letters to Colbert. When the time came for the three nations to make permanent peace settlements France should insist on the return of the New Netherland colonies to Holland. In the meantime a secret understanding would be reached with the Dutch Government by which the colonies would then be ceded to France. Once this had been accomplished, the intendant pointed out in his communications with Colbert on the subject, the English would be hopelessly hemmed in and France would have a strangle hold on the Atlantic seaboard. As a corollary of this devious plan he suggested that five
hundred settlers be sent out each year without fail, an addition which would soon assure Canada of a thriving population.

Colbert reached the conclusion that this appointee of his was going a little too fast. He cautioned the new intendant not to expect too much, to be content with less ambitious strides. Sending out five hundred settlers a year would in time “unpeople France.” Colbert, it may be taken for granted, was too shrewd to believe anything as untenable as this. Obviously he was using the argument as a means of meeting the importunings of the overbrisk Talon.

Failure in this direction did not quench the enthusiasm of the intendant. He began to work out plans himself, the most ambitious being the establishment of new settlements around Quebec, selecting the neighborhood of Charlesbourg for the purpose. Forty houses were erected in three separate communities called Bourg-Royal, Bourg-Ia-Reine, and Bourg-Talon. With Quebec still hopelessly crowded, there was an immediate demand for all of the houses. To show his faith in the plan, Talon bought a tract of the land himself. He had it cleared and erected thereon a large house, a barn, and other farm structures.

A shrewd plan to make these new villages easy of defense had suggested itself to Talon. The tracts of land for individual use were cut in triangular shape like wedges of cheese. The houses were built at the narrow angle where the tips of all the tracts came together, which provided a solid core of settlement at the center, with the shares of land widening as they progressed outward. Security was what prospective settlers demanded first of all, and so this unique idea took hold at once. This was putting in concrete form a plan which was being tried out elsewhere; and it established a pattern which persists to the present day, the very long and thin type of farm, with the farmhouse itself in close proximity to neighbors.

The settlers who swarmed to the Charlesbourg developments, to borrow a modern term, were given a supply of food to keep them going while clearing the stipulated two acres of land. They were paid something for their time as well and the necessary tools were supplied to them. In other words, a man could start with nothing save the will to make himself a landholder. The money to pay for all this came out of the King’s Extraordinary Fund. One obligation was assumed by the new settlers: each must clear two acres of land
on other tracts, to ease the strain on those who came later. On these terms the Talon villages began to fill up rapidly.

The King viewed these steps with paternal approval. As Colbert phrased it in one of his letters, “The King regards his Canadian subjects, from the highest to the lowest, as his own children.” He wanted them to enjoy “the mildness and happiness of his reign.” The intendant was directed, in order to make sure that this beneficent design was being observed, to visit the people in all parts of the colony, “to perform the duties of a good head of the family” and so put the people in the way of “making some profit.” It was a generous thought, and the young monarch was to be commended for his intentions. Carried to an extreme later, however, the paternalistic design was to prove the basis of a cramping and irksome tyranny.

The resourceful Talon proceeded then to attack a problem created by the increase in population. An industrial background was needed to supply some of the necessities of life and at the same time to provide employment. He started the farmers to growing hemp and then created demands for the crop. This was done by an arbitrary method which, fortunately for all concerned, worked out very well. The hemp seed was distributed to landholders with the understanding that they must plant it at once and replace the seed next year from their own crops. In the meantime Talon went to all the shops and seized the supplies of thread. It was given out that thread could be secured only in exchange for hemp. As the mothers of growing families had to make clothes for their children, they either saw to it that their husbands raised hemp or went into the market and bought it. This highhanded procedure was maintained for a brief period only, as it resulted in starting a steady crop of hemp and provided the demand for it at the same time.

It was very clear in the practical mind of the intendant that the colony should reap some of the profits that fishermen from European ports were still sharing evey season. Cod-fishing stations were established along the lower St. Lawrence, and the “take” was good from the very beginning. Settlers were encouraged to go out to the sea where the seal and the white porpoise could be caught. The oil extracted was a valuable commodity and could be sold readily on home markets, thus creating a balance for the purchase of needed goods in France.

One of his most ambitious moves was the creation of a shipbuilding
plant at Quebec. New France, he contended, must no longer be entirely dependent for supplies on the ships which plied to and fro from French ports. The men of the colony must be in a position to venture out under their own sails and to establish trading connections with the French colonies in the West Indies. The first ship completed was at Talon’s own expense. The cost of the second, a much more ambitious attempt, was borne by the King. The latter does not seem to have complained at the size of the withdrawals for the purpose, which reached a total finally of forty thousand livres. The venture had provided the colony with an excellent vessel and had at the same time given employment to three hundred and fifty men. It is recorded that in 1667 six vessels of various sizes and kinds were finished and put into use.

Having thus provided the colony with a thriving industry, the creative mind of the intendant turned in another direction. The brandy trade was still a bitter bone of contention in the colony. There seemed no way of preventing independent traders from using it as their main item of barter, and the colonists themselves liked it almost as well as the Indians. Talon conceived the idea that there would be less demand for brandy if fresh beer were available. He decided to build a brewery and, having every confidence that the plan would prove profitable, supplied the funds from his own purse. The idea found instant favor. In commenting on it, a correspondent in the
Relations
spoke of the beer as “this other drink which is very wholesome and not injurious.” The brewery had been erected in the St. Charles section of the town. This was in 1668, and three years later the output had reached substantial proportions. The intendant reported the plant capable of producing four thousand hogsheads of beer annually, although there is no indication that this high level had been reached.

In many of his letters to Colbert the intendant stressed the need for livestock as a means of putting agriculture on a broader base. His demands fell on attentive ears. The supplies of cattle, sheep, and hogs which were sent out kept mounting. A few horses were supplied also. This led to the establishment of tanneries. To make use of the wool, the housewives were given looms, and this was the beginning of the carpet weaving which has been a characteristic activity in Quebec ever since. Potash was extracted from wood ash. Tar from the trees was collected and sent to France for sale.

There is behind every colonizing venture a hope that easy wealth will be discovered. The world still watched enviously as Spain grew ever richer on the easy gold of Mexico and Peru. North America had beaver skins and an abundance of sea fish, but there was no easy profit in either field; hard work and not luck was the key to financial returns there. The hope was never abandoned in France that ultimately Canada would provide natural resources from which wealth would flow eastward. This had always been behind the formation of the commercial companies to whom colonization had been entrusted.

Knowing this, Talon was always alert to any rumors of the discovery of mines. When it was reported that lead had been found on the Gaspé peninsula, he had investigations made at once. The search proved unsuccessful. It was found that iron ore existed at Baie St. Paul which was sufficiently high grade to be profitable, and immediate steps were taken to begin mining operations.

A thrill of excitement ran through the colony when it was rumored that coal had been found—and, of all places, in the Rock itself! The first trace of it had been stumbled on in the cellar of a house in Lower Town. Talon was swept along by the enthusiasm which had gripped the place and wrote to Colbert: “The coal is good enough for the forge. If the test is satisfactory, I shall see to it that our vessels take out loads of it.” He was seeing rosy visions: the colony well supplied with coal for the heating of homes, the shipbuilding industry receiving impetus on being freed of the necessity of buying coal from England. There was one drawback: if the shafts were carried into the heart of the Rock, the security of Upper Town would be imperiled. Talon began to experiment with the possibility that the shafts could be extended in other directions. His last letters to France indicated that he was convinced the grade of coal being found burned well enough to be used, at any rate, for industrial purposes.

If there actually was coal in the Rock, it is still there. After the initial excitement subsided, Talon wrote no more reports, favorable or otherwise. Any attempts at mining were abandoned. Even the location of the cellar where the initial discovery had been made was forgotten. It can be taken for granted that later tests had not been
as encouraging as the first. It is even possible that the whole thing was a hoax.

The coal of Quebec has been one of the favorite topics of speculation down the years, but no explanation of the mystery has been found.

There was plenty of evidence that copper existed in the country in large quantities. Jesuit priests returned from the missionary fields with persistent stories of great mines and sometimes they brought specimens of the metal with them. These stories tantalized the intendant with dreams of great wealth to please the King as well as the merchants of France who had never yet given wholehearted support to the colony.

The most exciting reports came from the islands formed by channels between Lake Huron and Lake Superior. Father Claude Dablon, who had been assigned to the upper Algonquin missions, wrote a letter for the
Relations
which created an immense amount of excitement. Copper was to be found in great quantity, in particular on the island of Michipicoten. This fabulous isle had one drawback: it was a floating hill of ore and shallow vegetation, never to be found in the same location because it shifted its position with the winds. The Indians seldom went there because they regarded it as the home of evil spirits. On one occasion some hardy natives ventured to pay it a visit and came back with large pieces of reddish metal which was found most useful in cooking food. The squaws would heat it to a ruddy glow and then throw it into the kettles, where it would set the water to boiling. But they never went back for more. As they paddled away from the shore on their one visit, they heard a wrathful voice as loud as a thunderclap speak to them from the sky. “Who,” demanded this dread voice, “are these robbers carrying off from me my children’s cradles and playthings?” They knew it was the voice of Missibizi, the evil god of the north winds, who thus complained that they were removing the slabs of bright metal which children liked to collect and which were sometimes used as the base of cradles. The natives were careful not to arouse the wrath of the god again.

More reliable reports about the abundance of copper began to come back as the missionaries pushed on farther west. They found an island which did not shift with the winds and which Missibizi did not haunt but which had enormous stores of the metal. It was called Minong (later named Isle Royale by the French), and the engineers who inspected it on Talon’s orders found that its hills
had large deposits of copper. Father Dablon reported the existence there of a copper rock which he had seen with his own eyes and which weighed seven or eight hundred livres.

In the spare little office he used (there was not yet in Quebec enough space to go around) Talon kept specimens of the copper on his plain oak desk, using them as paperweights for the piles of letters and documents, with official seals dangling from them, which always lay in front of him. They were both a challenge to him and a puzzle. Here was the wealth which had so long been sought. But how could it be mined and smelted and brought from these far-distant islands? Talon had plenty of plans for solving the difficulties. He saw visions, no doubt, of the copper islands so black with the smoke belching from smelters that even the wrathful eye of Missibizi would not be able to see what was going on. He pictured fleets of flat-bottomed barges being towed all the way to Quebec through the Great Lakes. He saw mills in the colony where the muzzles of great cannon would be cast for King Louis to use in his European wars.

If this resourceful man had lived a hundred years later he would have been able to solve the difficulties and to turn his dreams into actualities. He might have converted French Canada into a busy industrial country. As it was, he made the colony a going concern and created a background of prosperity and content. But New France, still no more than a precarious toe hold on the edge of a continent, was not ready for a Talon.