Had He Confined
His Operations Merely To Trading, His Commercial Ventures Would Have
Excited Little Blame, Trading Having Been A Practice Indulged In By
Several Other High Colonial Officials.
His salary was totally
inadequate to the importance of his office, and quite insufficient to
meet the expenditure his exalted position led him into.
His
speculations, his venality, the extortions practised on the community
by his heartless minions: this is what has surrounded his memory with
eternal infamy and made his name a by-word for scorn.
There existed, at Quebec, a ring composed of the Intendant's
secretary, Deschenaux, of the Commissary General of Supplies, Cadet,
of the Town-Major, Hugues Pean; of the Treasurer-General, Imbert. Pean
was the Chief and Bigot the Great Chief of this nefarious association.
Between Bigot and Pean, another link existed. Pean's favour at Court
lay in the charms of his wife. Madame Pean, nee Angelique De
Meloises, was young, pretty, witty and charming; a fluent and
agreeable speaker - in fact so captivating that Francois Bigot was
entirely ruled by her during all his stay at Quebec. At her house in
St. Louis street he spent his evenings; there, he was sought and found
in May, 1759, by Col. de Bougainville returning from Paris, the bearer
of the dispatches, announcing the coming struggle.
Would you like some of the pen-photographs which a clever French
contemporary [121] has left of the corrupt entourage of the
magnificent intendant, here are a few:
"Brassard Deschenaux, the son of a poor cobbler, was born at Quebec. A
notary who boarded with Deschenaux, senior, had taught his son to
read. Naturally quick and intelligent, young Deschenaux made rapid
progress and soon found something to do in the office of Intendant
Hocquart where Bigot found him and succeeded in having him appointed
clerk in the Colonial Office at Quebec. Industrious, but at heart a
sycophant, by dint of cringing he won the good graces of Bigot, who
soon put unlimited trust in him, to that degree as to do nothing
without Deschenaux's aid, but Deschenaux was vain, ambitious, haughty
and overbearing and of such inordinate greed, that he was in the habit
of boasting 'that to get rich he would even rob a church.'
"Cadet was the son of a butcher. In his youth he was employed to mind
the cattle of a Charlesbourg peasant; he next set up as a butcher and
made money. His savings, he invested in trade; his intriguing spirit
brought him to the notice of the Intendant Hocquart, who gave him
contracts to supply meat for the army. Deschenaux soon discovered that
Cadet could be useful to him; he made him his friend and lost no
opportunity to recommend him to the Intendant. He was accordingly
often employed to buy the supplies for the subsistence of the troops.
In verity, there were few men more active, more industrious, more
competent to drive a bargain. The King required his services and
secured them, by having Cadet named Commissary General.
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