French Canada, pt. 2 -- Envisioning a Province, 1648-1688

We examine how French Canada and its indigenous allies weathered the apocalyptic disasters of the mid-1600s, giving shape in the process to a new, distinctly Canadian form of mystical and penitential piety. We trace how in the 1660s, the new absolutist regime under the young Louis XIV and Colbert took the colony under direct royal rule, investing immense resources into the colonizing venture,…