What was Count Frontenac's famous reply when asked to surrender Québec to the English in 1690?

Discover Canada records this defiant moment in a single highlighted block. The guide states that Count Frontenac refused to surrender Quebec to the English in 1690, and gives his exact words in the same caption: "My only reply will be from the mouths of my cannons!" No other reply is offered for this moment by Discover Canada — the answer to memorise is exactly that line.

The wider context helps the line make sense. Discover Canada describes Count Frontenac alongside two other major figures of New France in a separate sentence: Outstanding leaders like Jean Talon, Bishop Laval, and Count Frontenac built a French Empire in North America that reached from Hudson Bay to the Gulf of Mexico. So when the English demanded Quebec's surrender in 1690, the man on the other side of the wall was one of the architects of that French Empire — not a minor garrison commander, but a leader credited by the guide with extending New France across most of the continent.

The reply itself is also significant for what it reveals about the colony's mood. Discover Canada places this caption next to a passage on "a tradition of accommodation," showing both sides of New France's character: a willingness to negotiate and accommodate (as later seen in the Quebec Act of 1774), but also, when pushed, a sharp refusal to surrender. Count Frontenac's words have therefore been remembered as a moment of resolve in the long Anglo-French struggle that ran through the 1600s and 1700s.

This is one of Discover Canada's named historical quotations — like "Whereas Canada is founded upon principles that recognize the supremacy of God and the rule of law" from the Charter, or Isaac Brock's example of duty in the War of 1812. The test asks whether new citizens have noticed and remembered such a specific cultural reference.

The 1690 episode also helps anchor the New France timeline. The peace with the Iroquois came in 1701; the British defeat of the French at the Plains of Abraham came in 1759; the Frontenac stand-off at Quebec sits in between, in 1690 — a moment when Discover Canada's account shows the colony was not yet ready to fall.