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r-general. A year or two later, we find him at Paris, at the house of his father, on the Quai des Celestins. [Footnote: Pinard, _Chronologie Historique-militaire_, VI; _Table de la Gazette de France_; Jul, _Dictionnaire Critique, Biographique, et d'Histoire_, art. "Frontenac;" Goyer, Oraison Funebre du Comte de Frontenac.]

In the same neighborhood lived La Grange-Trianon, Sieur de Neuville, a widower of fifty, with one child, a daughter of sixteen, whom he had placed in the charge of his relative, Madame de Bouthillier. Frontenac fell in love with her. Madame de Bouthillier opposed the match, and told La Grange that he might do better for his daughter than to marry her to a man who, say what he might, had but twenty thousand francs a year. La Grange was weak and vacillating: sometimes he listened to his prudent kinswoman, and sometimes to the eager suitor; treated him as a son-in-law, carried love messages from him to his daughter, and ended by refusing him her hand, and ordering her to renounce him on pain of being immured in a convent. Neither Frontenac nor his mistress was of a pliant temper. In the neighborhood was the little church of St. Pierre aux Boeufs, which had the privilege of uniting couples without the consent of their parents; and here, on a Wednesday in October, 1648, the lovers were married in presence of a number of Frontenac's relatives. La Grange was furious at the discovery; but his anger soon cooled, and complete reconciliation followed. [Footnote: _Historiettes de Tallemant des Réaux_, IX. 214 (ed. Monmerqué); Jal, _Dictionnaire Critique_, etc.]

The happiness of the newly wedded pair was short. Love soon changed to aversion, at least on the part of the bride. She was not of a tender nature; her temper was imperious, and she had a restless craving for excitement. Frontenac, on his part, was the most wayward and headstrong of men. She bore him a son; but maternal cares were not to her liking. The infant, François Louis, was placed in the keeping of

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Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV , page 11
by Francis Parkman Jr

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