the Sovereign Council and asked that two of their number
be directed to report on the social entertainments held
during the last carnival, in order to show that nothing
improper had taken place. When the report was made, it
declared that nothing deserving of condemnation had
occurred in these festivities, and that there was no
occasion to censure them. Evidently, if there was
encroachment upon this occasion, it was encroachment of
the civil on the spiritual power. The special rules of
a pious association in no way affected the safety of the
state or public order. If a number of ladies wished to
join its ranks and accept its discipline in order to
follow the path of Christian perfection and lead a more
exemplary life in the world, they should be free to do
so, and their directors should be free to remonstrate
with them if they were not faithful to their pledge. In
this incident the intendant was not at his best. He seems
to have sought an occasion of checking the bishop's
authority, and the occasion was not well chosen. It is
likely that M. de Tracy, still in the colony at the time,
intervened in the interests of peace, for the entry in
regard to Talon's complaint was erased from the register
of the Sovereign Council.

In a state paper by Talon for Colbert's information, in
1669, the intendant's Gallican views reveal themselves
fully. He complains of the excessive zeal of the bishop
and clergy which led them to interfere in matters of
police, thus trespassing upon the province of the civil
magistrate. He went on to say that too strict a moral