The French colonial state finally took direct control of the forges after the second private company went bankrupt, and managed it until the British arrival in the 1760s.

[2] François Poulin de Francheville was the Seigneur of Saint-Maurice, involved in the fur trade, and rather successful as an entrepreneur, when he attempted to expand to heavy industry, and to develop ironworks in his seigneury.

As the Seigneur realized the cost such an industry could have on one man, he formed a company with three partners, while still retaining majority control of the new "Compagnie des Forges du Saint-Maurice."

Those partners included his brother, another merchant, the secretary of the intendant, and a member of the Conseil Supérieur, which was the sovereign council of New France.

[5] While Francheville did construct a few roads,[6] he tried to bypass the lack of infrastructure by conducting the smelting in the middle of winter, so that he could transport tonnes of ore from the mines to the forge over the smooth snow using sleds.

Unfortunately, Francheville and his ironworkers did not have the expertise to properly and consistently utilize these techniques, which were nevertheless working successfully in the British colonies to the south.

The same year, Cugnet, the aforementioned member of the Conseil Supérieur, was left in control of the company with a heavy debt to deal with.

[8] He believed that a few changes would be enough to achieve significant production output and to create approximately 120 jobs, an outcome the Colonial authorities desired.

It involved Cugnet and Gamelin, who were previous investors in the forges, along with Tascherueau who was a high-ranking individual within the Marine, Vézin, and another skilled ironworker from France.

[17] The constant setbacks drove the ironworks deeper into debt to the French Crown, which continuously gave loans in the thousands of livres at the request of various colonial ministers, most notably the intendant Hocquart.

However, some private creditors still had to be paid back and, from 1743 until 1750, the State consecrated a part of the profit of the forges to finally move on from the economic legacy of the previous owners.

This success might have been the result of a cautious management; government officials did not have to worry about paying back loans to the State like previous owners did, and thus could take wiser decisions.

Expensive repairs could not be delayed any longer and French imports increased competition on the market, causing a drop in iron prices.

[29] Despite a sharp economic decline caused by the Seven Years' War, the forges remained interesting enough for the British to take over when they gained control of the colony in 1760.

[30] Therefore, under State direction the forges made better progress but did not reach total success because of multiple disruptive wars, and because of the lack of interests from colonial labor forces as well as deceived governmental hopes of finding private associates to take over.

[31] In 1810 the plant contributed all of the ironwork to John Molson's Accommodation ferryboat, which was the first steamship to ply the waters of the St. Lawrence river.