Date Published:
July 2005

L’Encyclopédie de l’histoire du Québec / The Quebec History Encyclopedia

Louis de Buade

Comte de Frontenac

Frontenac, Louis de Buade, Comte de Palluau et de (1620-1698), governor of New France (1672-82 and 1689-98), was born in 1620, the son of Henri de Buade, colonel of the regiment of Navarre. In 1635 he entered the army, and saw service in the Low Countries and in Italy. In 1646 he attained the rank of maréchal de camp. He was appointed governor of New France in 1672; and, except for an interval of seven years, from 1682 to 1689, he continued to administer the government of the colony until his death at Quebec on November 28, 1698. A man of proud and overbearing temper, he quarrelled with successive bishops and intendants; and it was on account of these quarrels that he was recalled in 1682. As a civil administrator he was not without decided defects. But as a military governor he was without a rival, among all the governors of New France. His handling of the Indians, among whom he was known as the "Great Onontio", was marked by qualities approaching genius; and his defence of Quebec against the English in 1690 afforded a good example of his talent for war. It was under him that the military organization of New France took shape, an organization that enabled New France, with a comparatively small population, to hold its own against the populous English colonies to the south. In 1648 he married Anne de la Grange Trianon, daughter of the Sieur de Neuville; and by her he had one son, who died apparently in youth. But he early separated from his wife, and she did not accompany him to Canada.

See W. D. LeSueur, Count Frontenac (Toronto, 1906), H. Lorin, Le comte de Frontenac . (Paris, 1895) , E. Myrand, Frontenac et ses amis (Quebec, 1902), F. Parkman, Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV (Boston, 1877), and T. P. Bédard, La comtesse de Frontenac (Lévis, 1904). There is no authentic portrait of Frontenac known to exist.

Source  : W. Stewart WALLACE, ed., The Encyclopedia of Canada, Vol. II, Toronto, University Associates of Canada, 1948, 411p., p. 402-403.