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.
Bigot knew he was safe so long as the Marquise de Pompadour governed the King and the kingdom. But Louis XV. was capricious and unfaithful in his fancies; he had changed his mistresses, and his policy with them, many times, and might change once more, to the ruin of Bigot and all the dependents of La Pompadour.
Bigot's letters by the Fleur-de-Lis were calculated to alarm him.
A rival was springing up at Court to challenge La Pompadour's supremacy: the fair and fragile Lange Vaubernier had already attracted the King's eye, and the courtiers versed in his ways read the incipient signs of a future favorite.
Little did the laughing Vaubernier forsee the day when, as Madame du Barry, she would reign as Dame du Palais, after the death of La Pompadour. Still less could she imagine that in her old age, in the next reign, she would be dragged to the guillotine, filling the streets of Paris with her shrieks, heard above the howlings of the mob of the Revolution: "Give me life! life! for my repentance!
Life! to devote it to the Republic! Life! for the surrender of all my wealth to the nation!" And death, not life, was given in answer to her passionate pleadings.
These dark days were yet in the womb of the future, however. The giddy Vaubernier was at this time gaily catching at the heart of the King, but her procedure filled the mind of Bigot with anxiety: the fall of La Pompadour would entail swift ruin upon himself and associates. He knew it was the intrigues of this girl which had caused La Pompadour suddenly to declare for peace in order to watch the King more surely in his palace. Therefore the word peace and the name of Vaubernier were equally odious to Bigot, and he was perplexed in no small degree how to act.
Moreover, be it confessed that, although a bad man and a corrupt statesman, Bigot was a Frenchman, proud of the national success and glory. While robbing her treasures with one hand, he was ready with his sword in the other to risk life and all in her defence. Bigot was bitterly opposed to English supremacy in North America. The loss of Louisbourg, though much his fault, stung him to the quick, as a triumph of the national enemy; and in those final days of New France, after the fall of Montcalm, Bigot was the last man to yield, and when all others counselled retreat, he would not consent to the surrender of Quebec to the English.
To-day, in the Council of War, Bigot stood up to respond to the appeal of the Governor. He glanced his eye coolly, yet respectfully, over the Council. His raised hand sparkled with gems, the gifts of courtiers and favorites of the King. "Gentlemen of the Council of War!," said he, "I approve with all my heart of the words of His Excellency the Governor, with reference to our fortifications and the maintenance of our frontiers. It is our duty to remonstrate, as councillors of the King in the Colony, against the tenor of the despatches of the Count de Maurepas. The city of Quebec, properly fortified, will be equivalent to an army of men in the field, and the security and defence of the whole Colony depends upon its walls.
There can be but one intelligent opinion in the Council on that point, and that opinion should be laid before His Majesty before this despatch be acted on.
"The pressure of the war is great upon us just now. The loss of the fleet of the Marquis de la Jonquiere has greatly interrupted our communications with France, and Canada is left much to its own resources. But Frenchmen! the greater the peril the greater the glory of our defence! And I feel a lively confidence,"--Bigot glanced proudly round the table at the brave, animated faces that turned towards him,--"I feel a lively confidence that in the skill, devotion, and gallantry of the officers I see around this council- table, we shall be able to repel all our enemies, and bear the royal flag to fresh triumphs in North America."
This timely flattery was not lost upon the susceptible minds of the officers present, who testified their approval by vigorous tapping on the table, and cries of "Well said, Chevalier Intendant!"
"I thank, heartily, the venerable Abbe Piquet," continued he, "for his glorious success in converting the warlike savages of the West from foes to fast friends of the King; and as Royal Intendant I pledge the Abbe all my help in the establishment of his proposed fort and mission at La Presentation, for the purpose of dividing the power of the Iroquois."
"That is right well said, if the Devil said it!" remarked La Corne St. Luc, to the Acadian sitting next him. "There is bell-metal in Bigot, and he rings well if properly struck. Pity so clever a fellow should be a knave!"
"Fine words butter no parsnips, Chevalier La Corne," replied the Acadian, whom no eloquence could soften. "Bigot sold Louisbourg!"
This was a common but erroneous opinion in Acadia.
"Bigot butters his own parsnips well, Colonel," replied La Corne St.
Luc; "but I did not think he would have gone against the despatches!
It is the first time he ever opposed Versailles! There must be something in the wind! A screw loose somewhere, or another woman in the case! But hark, he is going on again!"