The answer came back the following year. It was dated 15th April 1676, but seems only to have reached Quebec in September. The governor, by royal edict, was forbidden to issue permits under any pretext whatsoever. The punishment of contumacious _coureurs de bois_ was placed in the hands of the intendant exclusively, as it was he alone--such was the reason given--who had official knowledge of the conditions under which the fur trade was being farmed out. Quebec, Montreal, and Three Rivers were at the same time indicated as the only places where the trade with the Indians might lawfully be carried on.
Frontenac was not at Quebec when this document arrived; he was at Fort Frontenac (Cataraqui), which was now in the hands of his friend La Salle under a concession from the king. Doubtless he was enjoying, not only his temporary freedom from the worries and vexations of office, but also the congenial society of a man, who, though much his junior, had, in common with himself, a large knowledge of the world, a keen and aspiring spirit, and a strong love of adventure. At Quebec the councillors were somewhat at a loss what to do in the matter of the despatch. Some were indisposed to register, in the absence of the governor, an edict which so directly condemned the policy he was pursuing. Duchesneau, however, did not approve of delay, and on the 5th of October the document was registered, and thus became the law of the land. When Frontenac returned to Quebec and found what had been done--that one of the first acts of the intendant had been to hand him over to the censure of the court, and that its censure had practically been pronounced--he was indignant beyond measure. He saw at a glance that, if the situation were not in some way retrieved, his authority and prestige in the colony he had been sent out to govern would be gravely compromised. The fall vessels were to leave in a week or two, so he sat down and wrote a despatch to Colbert which gave that able minister something to think about. The bishop, dreading lest the governor's reasons--he probably knew that Frontenac wielded a vigorous pen--might lead to a countermanding of the instructions, thought it well to send an envoy of his own to France in the person of the Abbé Dudouyt. Frontenac meantime so far complied with the edict as to publish an order requiring all _coureurs de bois_, licensed and unlicensed, to return at once to the settlements; though, according to Duchesneau, he nullified this to a great extent by issuing a number of hunting permits which were only trading permits in disguise.