Audiobook · read by volunteers
Chronicles of Canada Volume 07 - The Fighting Governer: A Chronicle of Frontenac
Charles W. Colby (1867–1955)
Read by Sarah Jennings, Graham Redman, Kevin McAsh, Marco, Esther, Robin Cotter · 8 chapters · 3 h 24
About the book
When Count Frontenac arrived in Quebec in 1672, the colony he was sent to govern was small, with fewer than seven thousand inhabitants, yet its institutions were surprisingly elaborate and precise. Charles W. Colby opens this chronicle with a portrait of Canada at that moment, and then follows the man whom the title calls the fighting governor. Frontenac was proud, quarrelsome and energetic, and his years in office were marked by disputes with the bishop and the intendant as well as by the larger struggle over the fur trade and the frontier. The narrative is brisk and written for the general reader, with a clear eye for personality. Eight recordings, a little under three and a half hours, bring a formative chapter of Canadian history to life.
Introduction
Charles W. Colby (1867-1955) was a Canadian historian who wrote for a general audience as well as for scholars. The Fighting Governor: A Chronicle of Frontenac was published in 1915 as volume seven of the Chronicles of Canada, a series of short histories designed to tell the story of the country through its leading figures and episodes.
The subject is Louis de Buade, Count of Frontenac, who came to New France in 1672 as governor. The opening chapter describes Canada as it was in that year: a colony with a small population but a carefully ordered system of authority, in which the governor, the bishop and the intendant each had their own sphere. The chapters that follow take up Frontenac’s origins, his first years in Canada, and the tensions between the three officials that soon appeared.
The Chronicles series was meant to be readable, and Colby’s prose is lively and direct. As is usual with histories of the early twentieth century, it reflects the views of its time, and listeners may wish to compare it with more recent accounts, especially where the experience of Indigenous peoples is concerned.
The recording has eight files, whose titles include Canada in 1672 and Governor, Bishop, and Intendant, and it lasts about three and a half hours. LibriVox volunteers shared the reading. It will interest anyone who wants to understand the early history of French Canada.
Public domain
Charles W. Colby died in 1955: the work is in the public domain in Switzerland, more than 70 years after the author’s death.
The LibriVox volunteers dedicated this recording to the public domain.
Sources : LibriVox page · Files at the Internet Archive · Original text