In the year before the proclamation of military rule, tension increased markedly in Quebec. Vallieres' book was declared illegal in Canada and its author was arrested on charges of sedition. Labor protest intensified considerably, and Premier Bourassa promised that 100,000 new jobs would be created by 1971. The provincial government stepped up its prosecution of suspected FLQ terrorists; one man whom police arrested, Pierre-Paul Geoffroy, pleaded guilty to 120 incidents of bombing in order to prevent the authorities from prosecuting others in the FLQ for those incidents. Geoffroy is now serving a 12,000-year sentence in a Quebec jail.

The vote for the Parti Quebecois in the April parliamentary elections indicated strong support for the goals, if not the methods, of the FLQ; and the separatist Front d'Aotion Politique was thought to have strong backing in the Montreal city elections. And yet, even as the government felt the threat of increasing secessionist tendencies among Quebec's electorate, the FLQ was tiring of the ballot box as a means of achieving power: the April vote had yielded the PQ only seven out of 108 National Assembly seats, and the temper of the underground group was wearing rather thin:

"We once believed that perhaps it would be worth it to channel our energy and our impatience . . . in the Parti Quebecois, but the Liberal victory showed us clearly that that which we call democracy is nothing but the democracy of the rich" ( from the FLQ manifesto, issued three weeks ago. )

Finally, on the morning of Monday, October 5, four armed members of the FLQ's Liberation cell entered the home of British Trade Commissioner James R. Cross, seized him, and issued a list of seven demands:

the release from prison of 23 FLQ members (including Pierre-Paul Geoffroy) who had been convicted of armed robbery, arson, bombing, or murder;

the safe transport of these prisoners to Algeria or Cuba;

a $500,000 ransom, payable only in gold (the FLQ did not want the government to pass them marked bills);

the reading of the FLQ manifesto over French-speaking Montreal radio;

the rehiring of 456 Montreal mail drivers who had earlier been dismissed in a labor dispute with the Post Office management;

the disclosure of a police informer whom the Liberation cell suspected of having infiltrated their group;

an immediate halt to any police search for the kidnapped Trade Commissioner.

The kidnapping threw Montreal into a panic. From Ottawa, External Affairs Minister Mitchell Sharp ordered armed guards posted at all foreign embassies and consulates; Canadian officials and prominent businessmen began themselves to live at home and travel only under heavy protection. After the passage of several "deadlines" for the meeting of the demands, Montreal radio broadcast the FLQ manifesto; but negotiations between the government and the FLQ's representative Robert Lemieux never got underway, and on the evening of October 10, the Chernier cell of the FLQ seized "the Minister of Unemployment and Exploitation," Laporte.

By now the government was wild with rage. The disappearance of Cross, though painful, had not hit home nearly so hard as the abduction of Laporte, a powerful political figure and a personal acquaintance of both Bourassa and Trudeau. Justice Minister Jerome Choquette immediately offered to negotiate a safe-conduct passage abroad for the kidnappers in exchange for the return of the two hostages. Lemieux responded by lauding the FLQ as "the most progressive, devoted, and generous element of Quebec youth, perhaps even Quebec society." And many Montreal youths joined in the response. The 7000-student University of Quebec voted to close indefinitely until the provincialgovernment met the FLQ's demands. A rally in support of the FLQ's manifesto drew a tempestuous crowd of 500.

As the FLQ's popularity continued to grow, Lemieux rejected the government's final offer: the release of five prisoners for the return of the two men. Trudeau then met with his Cabinet and announced the enactment of martial law. Laporte's death followed 36 hours later.

When the tally of arrests began to skyrocket, it became clear that the government was using its power to move against political opponents who had little if anything to do with the activities of the underground group. Aside from the few FLQ spokesmen they could lay their hands on (Lemieux and Vallieres were among the first to be arrested), the police and the military were singularly unsuccessful in cracking the FLQ's tight security and uncovering is members. If there were any truth or logic to what the Trudeau government was doing, it would have outlawed the FLQ only if it knew precisely the people in the FLQ whom it was looking for and then sought them out with a minimum of dispatch. But the available evidence now indicates that the ban on the FLQ was designed not so much to jail its few dozen members as to be able to punish those far more numerous individuals and organizations whose political outlook approaches a position of support for the FLQ.