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Title: Montreal 1535-1914 under the French Régime - Vol. 1, 1535-1760
Author: Atherton, William Henry
Language: English
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MONTREAL
1535-1914
UNDER THE FRENCH RÉGIME
1535-1760
By
WILLIAM HENRY ATHERTON, Ph. D.
_Qui manet in patria et patriam cognoscere temnit
Is mihi non civis, sed peregrinus erit_
VOLUME I
[Illustration]
ILLUSTRATED
THE S. J. CLARKE PUBLISHING COMPANY
MONTREAL VANCOUVER CHICAGO
1914
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
1535-1542
HOCHELAGA
THE ARRIVAL OF JACQUES CARTIER AT HOCHELAGA ON HIS SECOND
VOYAGE TO CANADA--HIS ROYAL COMMISSION--THE FRUITLESS DEVICE
OF DONNACONA TO FRIGHTEN CARTIER FROM VISITING HOCHELAGA--THE
DIFFICULTY OF CROSSING LAKE ST. PETER--THE ARRIVAL AND
RECEPTION AT HOCHELAGA--JACQUES CARTIER THE FIRST HISTORIAN OF
MONTREAL--DESCRIPTION OF THE TOWN--CARTIER RECITES THE FIRST CHAPTER
OF ST. JOHN'S GOSPEL OVER AGOHANNA, THE LORD OF THE COUNTRY--MOUNT
ROYAL NAMED AND VISITED--CARTIER'S ACCOUNT OF THE VIEW FROM THE
MOUNTAIN TOP--CARTIER'S SECOND VISIT IN 1540 TO HOCHELAGA AND TO
TUTONAGUY, THE SITE OF THE FUTURE MONTREAL--THE PROBABLE VISIT OF
DE ROBERVAL IN 1542. NOTES: THE SITE OF HOCHELAGA--HOCHELAGA'S
CIVILIZATION--CANADA--GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF MOUNT ROYAL AND THE
MONTEREGIAN HILLS. 1
CHAPTER II
1516-1627
COLONIZATION
UNDER THE EARLY TRADING COMPANIES OF NEW FRANCE
FRENCH COLONIZATION, A CHRISTIANIZING MOVEMENT--THE CROSS
AND CROWN--ROBERVAL'S COMMISSION TO COLONIZE CANADA AND
HOCHELAGA--FEUDALISM PROJECTED--CRIMINALS AND MALEFACTORS TO BE
SENT AS COLONISTS--JACQUES CARTIER SAILS IN ADVANCE--CHARLESBOURG
ROYAL, THE FIRST COLONY, STARTED--CARTIER SAILS FOR HOCHELAGA AND
PASSES TUTONAGUY--CARTIER SAILS SECRETLY FOR FRANCE--CHARLESBOURG
A FAILURE--DEATH OF CARTIER--HIS GREAT NEPHEW, NOEL, VISITS THE
GREAT SAULT IN 1557--THE FIRST PRIVATE MONOPOLY TO NOEL AND
OTHERS--THE FIRST ROYAL TRADE MONOPOLY TO DE LA ROCHE--THE EDICT OF
NANTES--CHAUVIN, A HUGUENOT, SECURES A TRADE MONOPOLY--TADOUSSAC,
THE COURT OF KING PETAUD--EYMARD DE CHASTES RECEIVES A COMMISSION
AND ENGAGES THE SERVICES OF A ROYAL GEOGRAPHER, SAMUEL DE
CHAMPLAIN--CHAMPLAIN'S FIRST VISIT TO THE SAULT--DE MONTS, SUCCEEDING
DE CHASTES, RETAINS CHAMPLAIN AS HIS LIEUTENANT--QUEBEC CHOSEN
BY CHAMPLAIN--CHAMPLAIN BECOMES A COMPANY PROMOTER AND MANAGING
DIRECTOR, THE SHAREHOLDERS BEING MOSTLY HUGUENOTS, THE PRINCE DE
CONDE, GOVERNOR GENERAL--CHAMPLAIN'S BLUNDER IN ALLYING HIMSELF WITH
THE ALGONQUINS AND HURONS AGAINST THE IROQUOIS, AFTERWARDS THE CAUSE
OF IROQUOIS HOSTILITIES AGAINST THE FUTURE MONTREAL--THE COMING OF
THE "RECOLLECTS"--CHAMPLAIN'S ATTEMPT AT A REAL COLONIZING SETTLEMENT
AT QUEBEC--THE JESUITS ARRIVE--THE COMPANY OF ONE HUNDRED
ASSOCIATES 23
CHAPTER III
1603-1625
THE GREAT SAULT
CHAMPLAIN THE FIRST TRADER
THE HISTORY OF HOCHELAGA AFTER CARTIER'S VISIT--CHAMPLAIN, THE
FIRST CARTOGRAPHER OF THE ISLAND OF MONTREAL--ITS DESCRIPTION
IN 1603--CHAMPLAIN EXPLORES THE NEIGHBORHOOD--PLACE ROYALE IN
1611--ST. HELEN'S ISLAND NAMED--THE FIRST TRADING TRANSACTION
RECORDED--CHAMPLAIN SHOOTS THE RAPIDS, 1613--THE EXPLORATION
OF THE OTTAWA VALLEY--1615 THE FIRST MASS IN CANADA AT RIVIERE
DES PRAIRIES--1625 THE DROWNING OF VIEL AND AHUNTSIC AT
SAULT-AU-RECOLLET--THE INTENTION OF CHAMPLAIN TO MAKE A PERMANENT
SETTLEMENT ON THE ISLAND 35
CHAPTER IV
1627-1641
COLONIZATION
UNDER THE COMPANY OF ONE HUNDRED ASSOCIATES
THE CHARTER OF THE HUNDRED ASSOCIATES THE BASIS OF THE SEIGNEURIAL
SYSTEM TO BE AFTERWARDS ESTABLISHED AT MONTREAL--THE ENGLISH IN
1629 CAPTURE QUEBEC--1632, CANADA AGAIN CEDED TO THE FRENCH--1633,
THE COMING OF THE JESUITS--THE RECOLLECTS DO NOT RETURN--THREE
RIVERS IS ESTABLISHED--DESCRIPTION OF COLONIAL LIFE AT QUEBEC--DEATH
OF CHAMPLAIN IN 1635--THE RELIGIOUS INSTITUTIONS TO BE IMITATED
AFTERWARDS AT MONTREAL--THE "RELATIONS DES JESUITES"--THE IROQUOIS
BEGIN THEIR ATTACKS--THE NEWS OF A REINFORCEMENT AND DISAPPOINTMENT
THAT MONTREAL HAS BEEN CHOSEN AS ITS HEADQUARTERS 49
CHAPTER V
1640-1641
MONTREAL
THE COMPANY OF NOTRE DAME DE MONTREAL
PREVIOUS COLONIZATION REVIEWED--MONTREAL CEDED TO SIEUR DE CHAUSSEE
IN 1636 AND LATER TO DE LAUSON--THE DESIGN OF THE SETTLEMENT
OF MONTREAL ENTERS THE MIND OF M. DE LA DAUVERSIERE--THE FIRST
ASSOCIATES OF THE COMPANY OF NOTRE DAME DE MONTREAL--THE CESSION
OF THE ISLAND OF MONTREAL TO THEM IN 1640--THE RELIGIOUS NATURE OF
THE NEW COLONIZING COMPANY--TRADING FACILITIES CRIPPLED--POLITICAL
DEPENDENCE ON QUEBEC SAFEGUARDED--M. OLIER FOUNDS THE CONGREGATION OF
ST. SULPICE IN PARIS IN VIEW OF THE MONTREAL MISSION--PREPARATIONS
FOR THE FOUNDATION AND ESTABLISHMENT OF THE FULLY ORGANIZED
SETTLEMENT OF "VILLA MARIE"--PAUL DE CHOMEDEY DE MAISONNEUVE CHOSEN
AS LOCAL GOVERNOR--THE CALL OF JEANNE MANCE TO FOUND THE HOTEL
DIEU--THE EXPEDITION STARTS--MAISONNEUVE ARRIVES AT QUEBEC--THE FIRST
CLASH OF THE GOVERNORS--MONTMAGNY OFFERS THE ISLE OF ORLEANS FOR THE
NEW SETTLEMENT--MAISONNEUVE IS FIRM FOR THE ISLAND OF MONTREAL--THE
FIRST FORMAL POSSESSION OF MONTREAL AT PLACE ROYALE--WINTER AT ST.
MICHEL AND STE. FOY--FRICTION BETWEEN THE RIVAL GOVERNORS 57
CHAPTER VI
1642-1643
VILLE MARIE
FOUNDED BY PAUL DE CHOMEDEY DE MAISONNEUVE
THE DEPARTURE OF THE EXPEDITION FROM MONTREAL--THE ARRIVAL
AT PLACE ROYALE--THE "VENI CREATOR SPIRITUS" AND MASS ON THE
"COMMON"--VIMONT'S PROPHECY--ACTIVITIES OF ENCAMPMENT--THE
FIRST REINFORCEMENT--THE FIRST QUASI-PAROCHIAL CHAPEL BUILT IN
WOOD--ALGONQUINS VISIT THE CAMP--FLOODS AND THE PILGRIMAGE TO THE
MOUNTAIN--PEACEFUL DAYS--PRIMITIVE FERVOUR AND SIMPLICITY--THE
DREADED IROQUOIS AT LAST APPEAR--FIRST ATTACK--THE FIRST
CEMETERY--"CASTLE DANGEROUS"--THE ARRIVAL OF THE SECOND
REINFORCEMENT--_Les Véritables Motifs_. NOTES: THE HURONS,
ALGONQUINS AND IROQUOIS 73
CHAPTER VII
1644-1651
PROGRESS AND WAR
THE COMPANY OF MONTREAL CONFIRMED BY LOUIS XIV--MAISONNEUVE
REAPPOINTED GOVERNOR--A SYNDIC ELECTED; THE FIRST STEP IN
REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT--THE BUILDING OF THE HOTEL-DIEU--MILITARY
HISTORY--PILOT, THE WATCHDOG OF THE FORT--THE EXPLOIT OF PLACE
D'ARMES--FEAR OF IROQUOIS--LABARRE'S REINFORCEMENT--AGRICULTURE
BEGINS--MONTREAL'S FREE TRADE MOVEMENT--THE FIRST IROQUOIS WAR
IS OVER--MAISONNEUVE GOES TO FRANCE--THE PROMOTION IN PARIS OF A
BISHOPRIC FOR MONTREAL--CHARLES LE MOYNE--THE FORTIFICATIONS OF THE
FORT--WAR AGAIN--THE SALARIES OF THE GOVERNOR OF QUEBEC, THREE RIVERS
AND MONTREAL--THE CAMP VOLANT--FINANCIAL GLOOM IN MONTREAL--MUTUAL
BENEFIT ASSOCIATION--A PICTURE OF MONTREAL--A TAX PERILOUS, SUDDEN
AND FREQUENT--THE HOTEL-DIEU A FORTRESS FOR FOUR YEARS--THE
ABANDONMENT OF THE SETTLEMENT THREATENED--MAISONNEUVE GOES TO FRANCE
FOR SUCCOUR--THE SKELETON SOLDIERS--MONTREAL A FORLORN HOPE 87
CHAPTER VIII
1652-3
CRITICAL YEARS
LAMBERT CLOSSE, COMMANDANT
MAISONNEUVE'S SUCCESS IN PARIS--MADAME DE BULLION'S
DONATIONS--"PARMENDA"--THE EXPLOIT OF LAMBERT CLOSSE--THE PHANTOM
SHIP--MONTREAL REPORTED AT QUEBEC TO BE BLOTTED OUT--PROPOSALS OF
PEACE FROM THE ONONDAGAS--MARCH OF MOHAWKS ON MONTREAL--CHARLES LE
MOYNE AND ANONTAHA TO PARLEY FOR PEACE--A PATCHED UP PEACE--THE END
OF THE SECOND IROQUOIS WAR 105
CHAPTER IX
1653-4
THE SECOND FOUNDATION OF MONTREAL
THE GREAT REINFORCEMENT OF 1653
MAISONNEUVE RETURNS WITH A RELIEF FORCE--THE MONTREAL CONTINGENT
THE SAVIOURS OF CANADA--THE ORIGIN AND TRADES OF THE NEW
COLONISTS--MARGUERITE BOURGEOYS, THE FIRST SCHOOLMISTRESS,
ARRIVES--HER CALL--SHIP FEVER--ARRIVAL AT QUEBEC--THE GOVERNOR
OF QUEBEC WOULD RETAIN THE RELIEF CONTINGENT--MAISONNEUVE FIRM
FOR MONTREAL--THE WORK OF CONSOLIDATING THE ENLARGED COLONY AT
VILLE MARIE--BUILDING ACTIVITIES--AGRICULTURAL AND INDUSTRIAL
OCCUPATIONS--MARRIAGE CONTRACTS--JEANNE MANCE AND MARGUERITE
BOURGEOYS, THE MOTHERS OF THE SETTLEMENT--THE KNIGHTLY MAISONNEUVE, A
"_Chevalier sans reproche_"--THE MILITARY CONFRATERNITY--THE
MOUNTAIN CROSS REPLACED--MEDICAL CONTRACTS--THE GOVERNMENT OF
MONTREAL--THE ELECTION OF A SYNDIC--THE "NEW" CEMETERY--THE NEW
"PARISH" CHURCH--THE MARRIAGE OF CHARLES LE MOYNE WITH CATHERINE
PRIMOT--A RARE SCANDAL--THE PRIMITIVE FERVOUR STILL MAINTAINED 111
CHAPTER X
1654-1657
IROQUOIS AND JESUITS
THE DEPARTURE OF THE JESUITS
RENEWAL OF HOSTILITIES IN THE SPRING--PEACE--WAMPUM NECKLACES AND
BELTS--MONTREAL HEADQUARTERS OF PEACE PARLEYS--AUTUMN ATTACKS--"LA
BARRIQUE"--MONTREAL LEFT SEVERELY ALONE--CHIEF "LA GRANDE
ARMES"--M. DE LAUSON PERSECUTING MONTREAL--THE COMPLETION OF THE
PARISH CHURCH--PENDING ECCLESIASTICAL CHANGES IN MONTREAL--NOTES:
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES ON THE EARLY JESUIT MISSIONARIES IN
MONTREAL--PONCET--JOGUES--LE MOYNE--BUTEAUX--DRUILLETTES--ALBANEL--LE
JEUNE--PARKMAN'S ESTIMATE OF THE SUCCESS OF THE JESUIT MISSIONS--DR.
GRANT'S APPRECIATION OF THEIR WORK 123
CHAPTER XI
1655-1658
THE COMING OF THE SULPICIANS
(1657)
MAISONNEUVE GOES TO FRANCE--ARRANGES FOR HOSPITALIERES AND
SULPICIANS--BISHOPRIC FOR NEW FRANCE--THE NOMINATIONS OF DE
QUEYLUS AND LAVAL--THE APPOINTMENT DELAYED--THE DEATH OF M.
OLIER--THE ARRIVAL OF DE QUEYLUS AND MAISONNEUVE AT QUEBEC--TWO
RIVAL "GRANDS VICAIRES"--DE QUEYLUS GOES TO MONTREAL AND
QUICKLY RETURNS TO RULE THE CHURCH IN QUEBEC--THE INTRUSION
RESENTED--THE SULPICIANS IN MONTREAL--TRIBUTE TO THEM AS CIVIC
AND RELIGIOUS ADMINISTRATORS--IROQUOIS HOSTILITIES RESUMED--THE
HEAD OF JEAN ST. PERE--THE CHURCH IN MONTREAL TAKES ON "PARISH"
PRETENSIONS--CHURCH WARDENS AND "LA FABRIQUE"--THE FIRST SCHOOL
HOUSE--THE FLIGHT TO MONTREAL FROM ONONDAGA--PRECAUTIONARY
ORDINANCES BY MAISONNEUVE--FORTIFIED REDOUBTS--THE ECCLESIASTICAL
DISPUTE SETTLED--DE QUEN "GRAND VICAIRE" OF QUEBEC, DE QUEYLUS OF
MONTREAL--BON SECOURS CHURCH DELAYED--JEANNE MANCE AND MARGUERITE
BOURGEOYS VISIT FRANCE 137
CHAPTER XII
1659
THE NEW REINFORCEMENT FOR MONTREAL
THE COMING OF LAVAL
RETROSPECT OF MAISONNEUVE'S JUDICIAL SENTENCES--FIRST DEATH
SENTENCE--INJURIOUS LANGUAGE--CALUMNY--BANISHMENT--GAMES OF CHANCE,
DRUNKENNESS AND BLASPHEMY, ETC., FORBIDDEN--THE GOVERNOR GENERAL AND
THE LOCAL GOVERNOR OF MONTREAL--A PESSIMISTIC PICTURE OF MONTREAL IN
1659--A BISHOP FOR NEW FRANCE--LAVAL, CONSECRATED BISHOP OF PETREA IN
ARABIA, ARRIVES AT QUEBEC AS VICAR APOSTOLIC--DE QUEYLUS RECALLED TO
FRANCE--THE REINFORCEMENT ARRIVES WITH JEANNE MANCE AND MARGUERITE
BOURGEOYS--THE STORY OF ITS JOURNEY--DIFFICULTIES AT LA FLECHE--SHIP
FEVER ON THE ST. ANDRE--DIFFICULTIES AT QUEBEC--LAVAL WOULD RETAIN
THE HOSPITALIERES BROUGHT BY JEANNE MANCE--THEY ARE FINALLY ALLOWED
TO PROCEED TO THE HOTEL-DIEU OF MONTREAL 151
CHAPTER XIII
1660
HOW MONTREAL SAVED NEW FRANCE
DOLLARD'S EXPLOIT AT THE LONG SAULT
UNIVERSAL FEAR OF IROQUOIS IN THE COLONY--THE GARRISON
OFFICERS AT MONTREAL--ADAM DOLLARD, SIEUR DES ORMEAUX--THE
PERMISSION FROM THE GOVERNOR TO LEAD AN ATTACK UP COUNTRY--HIS
COMPANIONS--PREPARATIONS--WILLS AND THE SACRAMENTS--THE FLOTILLA
OF CANOES--THE LONG SAULT REACHED--THE DILAPIDATED IROQUOIS WAR
CAMP--ANONTAHA AND MITIWEMEG--THE AMBUSH AND ATTACK--THE RETREAT
TO THE STOCKADE--THE SIEGE--THIRST--THE ALGONQUINS DESERT--FIVE
HUNDRED IROQUOIS ALLIES ARRIVE--THE TERRIBLE ATTACK AND RESISTANCE--A
GLORIOUS DEFEAT--RADISSON'S ACCOUNT--THE INVENTORY OF DOLLARD--UNPAID
BILLS--THE NAMES OF THE "COMPANIONS"--NEW FRANCE SAVED--A CONVOY OF
BEAVER SKINS REACHES MONTREAL--A REINFORCEMENT OF TROOPS FROM FRANCE
ASKED FOR TO WIPE OUT THE IROQUOIS 163
CHAPTER XIV
1661-1662
HOSTILITIES AND LOSSES
MONTREAL THE THEATRE OF IROQUOIS CARNAGE--THE FIRST SULPICIAN
SLAUGHTERED, M. LE MAITRE--THE SECOND, M. VIGNAL--THE FIRST VISIT OF
LAVAL TO MONTREAL--THE ABBE DE QUEYLUS AGAIN APPEARS--ECCLESIASTICAL
DISPUTES LEGAL, NOT PERSONAL--THE DEATH OF LAMBERT CLOSSE--THE
EXPLOIT OF PICOTE DE BELESTRE--MAISONNEUVE'S ORDINANCE AGAINST SALE
OF LIQUOR TO INDIANS--INDIAN ORGIES AND BLOODSHED--THE GOVERNOR
GENERAL AT QUEBEC DISAPPROVES OF MAISONNEUVE'S ACTION--THE FAMOUS
LIQUOR TRAFFIC DISPUTES--JEANNE MANCE LEAVES FOR FRANCE 173
CHAPTER XV
1663-1664
THE SOVEREIGN COUNCIL AND THE SEIGNEURS OF THE ISLAND
GREAT CHANGES, PHYSICAL AND POLITICAL
MILITIA SQUADS ESTABLISHED--THE FORMATION OF THE CONFRATERNITY OF
THE HOLY FAMILY--THE EARTHQUAKE AT MONTREAL--POLITICAL CHANGES--THE
RESIGNATION OF THE COMPANY OF ONE HUNDRED ASSOCIATES--CANADA BECOMES
A CROWN COLONY--THE TRANSFER OF THE SEIGNEURY OF THE ISLAND FROM
THE COMPANY OF MONTREAL TO THE "GENTLEMEN OF THE SEMINARY"--ROYAL
GOVERNMENT--THE APPOINTMENT OF THE SOVEREIGN COUNCIL--CHANGE
IN THE MONTREAL JUDICIAL SYSTEM--FORMER HOME RULE PRIVILEGES
RESCINDED--MONTREAL UNDER QUEBEC--PIERRE BOUCHER'S DESCRIPTION
OF CANADA AND MONTREAL--SOCIAL LIFE OF THE PERIOD--MONTREAL
SOLDIERY--THE ELECTION OF POLICE JUDGES--ATTEMPT TO SUPPLANT
MAISONNEUVE AS LOCAL GOVERNOR--DISCORD IN THE SOVEREIGN COUNCIL 181
CHAPTER XVI
1665
THE RECALL OF DE MAISONNEUVE
THE GOVERNOR GENERAL DE COURCELLES AND THE INTENDANT TALON
ARRIVE--THE DUAL REIGN INHARMONIOUS--SIEUR DE TRACY,
LIEUTENANT GENERAL OF THE KING FOR NORTH AMERICA, ARRIVES--THE
CARIGNAN-SALLIERES REGIMENT--CAPTURE OF CHARLES LE MOYNE
BY IROQUOIS--BUILDING OF OUTLYING FORTS--PREPARATIONS FOR
WAR--THE DISMISSAL OF MAISONNEUVE--AN UNRECOGNIZED MAN--HIS
MONUMENT--MAISONNEUVE IN PARIS--A TRUE CANADIAN 191
CHAPTER XVII
1666-1670
THE SUBDUAL OF THE IROQUOIS
THE END OF THE HEROIC AGE
PRIMITIVE EXPEDITIONS UNDER DE COURCELLES, SOREL AND DE TRACY--THE
ROYAL TROOPS AND THE MONTREAL "BLUE COATS"--DOLLIER DE CASSON, THE
SOLDIER CHAPLAIN--THE VICTORY OVER THE IROQUOIS--THE HOTEL-DIEU AT
MONTREAL RECEIVES THE SICK AND WOUNDED--THE CONFIRMATION OF THE
GENTLEMEN OF THE SEMINARY AS SEIGNEURS--THE LIEUTENANT GENERAL AND
INTENDANT IN MONTREAL--THE "DIME"--THE CENSUS OF 1667--MORE CLERGY
NEEDED--THE ABBE DE QUEYLUS RETURNS, WELCOMED BY LAVAL AND MADE
VICAR GENERAL--REINFORCEMENT OF SULPICIANS--THEIR FIRST MISSION AT
KENTE--THE RETURN OF THE RECOLLECTS--THE ARRIVAL OF PERROT AS LOCAL
GOVERNOR OF MONTREAL 195
CHAPTER XVIII
1671-1672
THE FEUDAL SYSTEM ESTABLISHED
THE SEIGNEURS OF THE MONTREAL DISTRICT
SUBURBAN GROWTH--THE EARLIEST OUTLYING FIEFS--PRAEDIA
MILITARIA--MILITARY SEIGNEURIES OF THE MONTREAL DISTRICT--THE FEUDAL
SYSTEM--THE "NOBLESSE"--THE "PARISHES"--"CENS ET RENTES"--"LODS
ET VENTES"--TRIBUTE TO THE FEUDALISM OF THE CLERICAL "SEIGNEURS
OF MONTREAL"--MUNICIPAL OFFICERS--ORDER IN PROCESSIONS--THE
CHURCH WARDENS--THE SOLDIER COLONISTS--CATTLE BREEDING, HORSES,
ASSES--AGRICULTURE--NEW CONCESSIONS--LAWS REGULATING OPENING UP THE
LAND--FIRST PUBLIC ROADS AND BRIDGES AT MONTREAL--NOTE: FORTS AND
REDOUBTS 203
CHAPTER XIX
1666-1672
ECONOMICAL PROGRESS
INDUSTRIES, TRADE AND LABOUR
COMMERCE--MINING--SHIP BUILDING--INDUSTRIES--A "MUNICIPAL"
BREWERY--THE FIRST MARKET--PRICES--LABOUR--MEDICAL MEN 213
CHAPTER XX
1666-1672
COLONIZATION AND POPULATION
ENCOURAGEMENT OF MARRIAGE--BACHELORS TAXED--"FILLES DU
ROI"--DOWRIES--PENSIONS FOR LARGE FAMILIES--MONTREAL HEALTHY FOR
WOMEN--NOTE ON IMMIGRATION 215
CHAPTER XXI
1667-1672
EXPEDITIONS FROM MONTREAL
LA SALLE--DOLLIER DE CASSON--DE COURCELLES
A FEUDAL VILLAGE AND ITS YOUNG SEIGNEUR--LA SALLE'S JESUIT
TRAINING--AN EX-JESUIT--THE SEIGNEURY OF ST. SULPICE--SOLD--THE FEVER
FOR EXPLORATION--LA SALLE, DOLLIER DE CASSON AND GALINEE--SOLDIER
OUTRAGES ON INDIANS--THE EXPEDITION TO LAKES ERIE AND ONTARIO--LA
SALLE RETURNS--HIS SEIGNEURY NICKNAMED "LA CHINE"--THE SULPICIANS
TAKE POSSESSION OF LAKE ERIE FOR LOUIS XIV--RETURN TO MONTREAL--DE
GALINEE'S MAP--THE SUBSEQUENT EXPEDITION OF THE GOVERNOR GENERAL, DE
COURCELLES 221
CHAPTER XXII
1667-1672
EDUCATION
AT QUEBEC: JACQUES LEBER, JEANNE LEBER, CHARLES LE MOYNE (OF
LONGUEUIL), LOUIS PRUDHOMME--MARGUERITE BOURGEOYS' SCHOOL AT
MONTREAL--"GALLICIZING" INDIAN CHILDREN--GANNENSAGONAS--THE
SULPICIANS AT GENTILLY--THE JESUITS AT MADELEINE LA PRAIRIE 229
CHAPTER XXIII
1666-1672
GARRISON LIFE--SLACKENING MORALS
SIEUR DE LA FREDIERE--LIQUOR TRAFFIC WITH THE INDIANS--SOLDIERS
MURDER INDIANS--THE CARION-DE LORMEAU DUEL--THE FIRST BALL IN
CANADA--LARCENIES, ETC.--A CORNER IN WHEAT--THE "VOLUNTAIRES," OR
DAY LABOURERS--THE TAVERNS--A POLICE RAID--"HOTEL" LIFE--BLASPHEMY
PUNISHED--THE LORDS' VINEYARDS RUINED 233
CHAPTER XXIV
1671-1673
NOTABLE LOSSES
DE QUEYLUS FINALLY LEAVES VILLE MARIE--DE COURCELLES AND TALON
RECALLED--TRIBUTE TO THEIR ADMINISTRATION--MGR. DE LAVAL
ABSENT FOR THREE YEARS--THREE DEATHS--MADAME DE PELTRIE--MARIE
L'INCARNATION--JEANNE MANGE--HER LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT 239
CHAPTER XXV
1672-1675
TOWN PLANNING AND ARCHITECTURE
THE FOUNDATION OF THE PARISH CHURCH AND BON SECOURS CHAPEL
THE FIRST STREET SURVEY--"LOW" TOWN AND "UPPER" TOWN--THE ORIGIN
OF THE NAMES OF THE STREETS--COMPLAINTS AGAINST CITIZENS STILL
CULTIVATING THE STREETS--ORDERS TO BEGIN BUILDING--THE NEW PARISH
CHURCH--THE FOUNDATION STONES AND PLAQUES--THE DEMOLITION OF THE FORT
FORBIDDEN--THE CHURCH OF BON SECOURS--THE POWDER MAGAZINE IN ITS
GARRET--A PICTURE OF MONTREAL 241
CHAPTER XXVI
1672-1682
ALTERCATIONS
FRONTENAC'S FIRST TERM OF GOVERNORSHIP
I. THE RIVAL GOVERNORS
II. CHURCH AND STATE
III. THE GOVERNOR, THE INTENDANT AND THE SOVEREIGN COUNCIL
I. THE TWO GOVERNORS--PERROT--ILE PERROT--REMONSTRANCES OF
CITIZENS--FRONTENAC--A "VICE-ROI"--GENEROUS ATTEMPT TO GRANT
REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT RESTRAINED--FORT FRONTENAC (OR
KINGSTON)--CORVEES--THE GOVERNOR GENERAL--EXPEDITION STARTS FOR
MONTREAL--LA SALLE--THE FRONTENAC-PERROT DUEL COMMENCES--PERROT
IMPRISONED--COUREURS DE BOIS--DULUTH--CHICAGO--FRONTENAC RULES
MONTREAL
II. THE FRONTENAC-FENELON DUEL--THE EASTER SERMON IN THE
HOTEL-DIEU--LA SALLE PRESENT IN THE CHAPEL--M. FENELON RESIGNS
FROM THE SULPICIANS--THE TRIAL BEFORE THE SOVEREIGN COUNCIL--THE
MONTREAL PARTY PRESENT THEIR CASE IN FRANCE--FRONTENAC AND FENELON
REPRIMANDED, PERROT IN PRISON--PERROT QUICKLY RELEASED AND SENT BACK
AS LOCAL GOVERNOR OF MONTREAL
III. THE MONTREAL COMPLAINTS HAVE A RESULT--THE REARRANGEMENT OF
THE POSITIONS OF HONOUR IN THE SOVEREIGN COUNCIL--THE GOVERNOR AND
THE INTENDANT, DUCHESNEAU--RIVAL FACTIONS--CENTRALIZATION AND HOME
RULE THE CAUSE OF FRENCH FAILURE IN CANADA--PERROT MADE GOVERNOR OF
ACADIA 247
CHAPTER XXVII
1672-1683
TRADE AT MONTREAL UNDER FRONTENAC AND PERROT
WEST INDIA COMPANY SUPPRESSED--MONTREAL HEAD OF FUR
INDUSTRY--EXPEDITIONS--MARQUETTE--JOLIET--THE ANNUAL FAIRS--LAVAL
RETURNS--THE "CONGREGATION" CONFIRMED--THE INDIAN MISSIONS--CATHERINE
TEKAKWITHA--THE "FORT DES MESSIEURS"--EXPLORATIONS--LA SALLE,
DULUTH, HENNEPIN--LOUISIANA NAMED--THE GOVERNOR GENERAL AND
THE INTENDANT--FACTIONS AT MONTREAL, "A PLAGUE ON BOTH YOUR
HOUSES!"--FRONTENAC AND DUCHESNEAU RECALLED 265
CHAPTER XXVIII
1683-1687
WAR AGAIN. THE IROQUOIS. NEW YORK AND HUDSON'S BAY
THE GOVERNMENTS OF DE LA BARRE AND DENONVILLE
GOVERNOR DE LA BARRE OPPOSES LA SALLE--THE POW-WOW IN THE NEW
PARISH CHURCH--WAR PREPARATIONS AT MONTREAL--THE DISEASE-STRICKEN
EXPEDITIONS RETURN--LAVAL LEAVES FOR FRANCE--THE PIONEER PAPER
MONEY INVENTED TO PAY THE SOLDIERS--NOTES ON "CARDS" AND CURRENCY
DURING FRENCH REGIME--GOVERNOR DENONVILLE AND MGR. DE ST. VALLIER
ARRIVE--CALLIERES BECOMES GOVERNOR OF MONTREAL--A GLOOMY REPORT
ON THE "YOUTH" AND DRAMSHOPS--MGR. DE ST. VALLIER'S MANDEMENT OF
THE VANITY OF THE WOMEN--THE FORTIFICATIONS REPAIRED--SALE OF ARMS
CONDEMNED--THE STRUGGLE FOR CANADA BY THE ENGLISH OF NEW YORK--THE
STRUGGLE FOR HUDSON'S BAY--THE PARTY FROM MONTREAL UNDER THE
SONS OF CHARLES LE MOYNE--THE DEATH OF LA SALLE--OTHER MONTREAL
DISCOVERERS--A PSYCHOLOGICAL APPRECIATION OF LA SALLE'S CHARACTER 273
CHAPTER XXIX
1687-1689
IROQUOIS REVENGE
DENONVILLE'S TREACHERY AND THE MASSACRE OF LACHINE
ST. HELEN'S ISLAND A MILITARY STATION--FORT FRONTENAC--DENONVILLE'S
TREACHERY--THE FEAST--INDIANS FOR THE GALLEYS OF FRANCE--THE
WAR MARCH AGAINST THE SENECAS--THE RETURN--MONTREAL AN INCLOSED
FORTRESS--DE CALLIERES' PLAN FOR THE INVASION OF NEW YORK--THE
STRUGGLE FOR TRADE SUPREMACY--MONTREAL BESIEGED--KONDIARONK, THE RAT,
KILLS THE PEACE--DENONVILLE RECALLED--CALLIERES' PLAN FAILS--THE
MASSACRE AT LACHINE--DENONVILLE'S TREACHERY REVENGED. NOTE: THE
EXPLOIT AT THE RIVIERE DES PRAIRIES 285
CHAPTER XXX
1689-1698
MONTREAL PROWESS AT HOME AND ABROAD
FRONTENAC'S SECOND TERM OF GOVERNMENT
FRONTENAC RETURNS--REVIEW AT MONTREAL--INDIANS FROM THE GALLEYS
SENT WITH PEACE OVERTURES--NEW ENGLAND TO BE ATTACKED--THE MONTREAL
LEADERS--THREE SUCCESSFUL EXPEDITIONS--RETALIATION MEDITATED BY THE
ENGLISH--TRADE FLOWING BACK TO MONTREAL--THE GRAND COUNCIL IN THE
MARKET--FRONTENAC LEADS THE WAR DANCE--JOHN SCHUYLER'S PARTY AGAINST
MONTREAL RETIRES--SIR WILLIAM PHIPPS SEIZES QUEBEC--THE MONTREAL
CONTINGENT--PETER SCHUYLER DEFEATED AT LA PRAIRIE--THE COLONY IN DIRE
DANGER--MADELEINE DE VERCHERES, HER DEED OF ARMES--THE EXPEDITION
VIA CHAMBLY--ARRIVAL OF FURS FROM MICHILLIMACKINAC--FRONTENAC, THE
SAVIOUR OF THE COUNTRY--MONTREAL PROWESS EAST AND WEST--A PLEIAD OF
MONTREAL NAMES--THE LE MOYNE FAMILY--NEWFOUNDLAND--HUDSON'S BAY--FORT
FRONTENAC AGAIN--THE DEATH OF FRONTENAC 293
CHAPTER XXXI
1688-1698
SOCIAL, CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS PROGRESS
THE PICKET ENCLOSURE--FORTIFICATIONS STRENGTHENED--GARRISON
JEALOUSIES--PRESEANCE--THE "CONGREGATION" BURNT DOWN--A POOR
LAW BOARD--TO QUEBEC ON FOOT--THE CHURCH OF THE "CONGREGATION"
ON FIRE--THE ENCLOSING OF A RECLUSE--THE JESUIT RESIDENCE--THE
RECOLLECTS--THE "PRIE DIEU" INCIDENT--MGR. DE ST. VALLIER'S
BENEFACTIONS--THE FRERES CHARON--FIRST GENERAL HOSPITAL--TECHNICAL
EDUCATION--THE SEMINARY BEING BUILT--SULPICIAN ADMINISTRATION--THE
MARKET PLACE. NOTE: THE GENTLEMEN OF THE SEMINARY 305
CHAPTER XXXII
1698-1703
THE GREAT INDIAN PEACE SIGNED AT MONTREAL. THE FOUNDATION OF DETROIT
THE GOVERNMENT OF DE CALLIERES
DE CALLIERES--PREPARATIONS FOR PEACE--DEATH OF THE "RAT"--THE GREAT
PEACE SIGNED AT MONTREAL--LA MOTTE-CARDILLAC--THE FOUNDATION OF
DETROIT--THE DEATH OF MARGUERITE BOURGEOYS 315
CHAPTER XXXIII
1697-1713
FROM THE TREATY OF RYSWICK TO THE TREATY OF UTRECHT QUEEN ANNE'S WAR
MONTREAL SAVED BY LAND AND WATER
"THE FRENCH HAVE ALWAYS COMMENCED HOSTILITIES IN CANADA"--SAMUEL
VECHT IN MONTREAL--MONTREAL TO BE INVADED BY WOOD CREEK--NICHOLSON'S
ARMY ROUTED BY DYSENTERY--THE "BOSTONNAIS" PLAN A SECOND DESCENT ON
MONTREAL--JEANNE LEBER'S STANDARD--THE EXPEDITION OF SIR HOVENDER
WALKER AGAINST QUEBEC--THE VOW OF THE MONTREAL LADIES--"OUR LADY
OF VICTORIES" BUILT IN COMMEMORATION--PEACE OF UTRECHT--COMPARISON
BETWEEN NEW ENGLAND AND NEW FRANCE. NOTE: THE CHATEAU DE RAMEZAY 323
CHAPTER XXXIV
1700-1721
HALF A CENTURY OF PEACE AND PROGRESS
CIVIC SIDE LIGHTS
I.
THE LONG PEACE--THE TWO GOVERNORS--TAVERN LICENSES--PERMIT
TO MARRY--CULTIVATION OF HEMP--FIRST ATTEMPT OF THE LACHINE
CANAL BY THE SEIGNEURS--GEDEON DE CATALOGNE--CHAUSSEGROS DE
LERY--"SEDITIOUS ASSEMBLIES"--CLAUDE DE RAMEZAY--WAR PRICES--LINEN
AND CLOTH INDUSTRIES DEVELOPED--AN ORDINANCE AGAINST DIRTY
STREETS--AGAINST PIGS IN THE HOUSES--MARKET REGULATIONS--THE USE
OF THE COMMONS--SALE OF LIQUOR TO SAVAGES--THE SEIGNEURS AND
THE HABITANTS--REGULATIONS CONCERNING TANNERS, SHOEMAKERS AND
BUTCHERS--ENGLISH MERCHANDISE NOT TO BE TOLERATED AT MONTREAL--A
MARKET FOR CANADIAN PRODUCTS DESIRED--CONCENTRATION IN THE
EAST VERSUS EXPANSION IN THE WEST--CONGES--FAST DRIVING--ROAD
MAKING--HORSE BREEDING RESTRAINED--PIGS TO BE MUZZLED--LIQUOR
LICENSES OVERHAULED--SNOW-SHOEING TO BE CULTIVATED--DIVERSE NATIONAL
ORIGINS--A MARBLE QUARRY--THE DEATH OF A RECLUSE--MURDERER BURNT IN
EFFIGY--CARD MONEY--A "BOURSE" FOR THE MERCHANTS--PATENTS OF NOBILITY
TO THE LEBER AND LE MOYNE FAMILIES--PARTRIDGE SHOOTING--A "CURE ALL"
PATENT MEDICINE--POSTAL SERVICE--A PICTURE OF MONTREAL ABOUT 1721 BY
CHARLEVOIX 331
CHAPTER XXXV
1721-1748
SIDE LIGHTS OF CIVIC PROGRESS
II
THE FIRE OF 1721--BUILDING REGULATIONS--STONE ENCOURAGED--TOWN
EMBELLISHMENT--CITY PLANNING--THE FORTIFICATIONS--PEW
RENTING--CHATEAU DE VAUDREUIL--TRADE WITH NEW ENGLAND
FORBIDDEN--ILLICIT LIQUOR TRAFFIC--DEATHS OF DE RAMEZAY AND DE
VAUDREUIL--EVEN NATURALIZED STRANGERS FORBIDDEN TO TRADE--DESCRIPTION
OF INDIAN LIFE AT MONTREAL--MONTREAL IS FOLLOWED BY QUEBEC IN
THE REFORM OF WEIGHTS AND MEASURES--VERENDRYE'S EXPEDITION FROM
MONTREAL--RELIGIOUS ASYLUM FORBIDDEN--FIRST SAILING VESSEL OF LAKE
SUPERIOR--THE "OUTRAGED CRUCIFIX"--SORCERY, MAGIC AND SACRILEGE--THE
LEGEND OF THE RED CROSS--PUNISHMENT OF "BREAKING ALIVE" IN THE MARKET
PLACE--CARE OF FOUNDLINGS--SULPICIANS FOUND LA PRESENTATION--SKATING
IN THE STREETS; FAST DRIVING. NOTES: THE DISCOVERIES OF LA
VERENDRYE--CHATEAU VAUDREUIL 347
CHAPTER XXXVI
1749-1755
SIDELIGHTS OF CIVIC PROGRESS
III
PETER KALM--THE FIRST SWEDES IN MONTREAL--THE FRENCH WOMEN CONTRASTED
WITH THOSE OF THE AMERICAN COLONIES--DOMESTIC ECONOMY--THE MEN
EXTREMELY CIVIL--MECHANICAL TRADES BACKWARD--WATCHMAKERS--THE TREATY
OF AIX-LA-CHAPELLE CELEBRATED--PAPER MONEY--WAGES--PEN PICTURE OF
MONTREAL IN 1749--ITS BUILDINGS AND THEIR PURPOSES--FRIDAY, MARKET
DAY--THERMOMETRICAL AND CLIMATIC OBSERVATIONS--NATURAL HISTORY
CULTIVATED--MONTREAL THE HEADQUARTERS OF THE INDIAN TRADE--THE GOODS
FOR BARTER--THE LADIES MORE POLISHED AND VOLATILE AT QUEBEC BUT
MORE MODEST AND INDUSTRIOUS AT MONTREAL--ECONOMIC FACTS--WINE AND
SPRUCE BEER--PRICES AND COST OF LIVING--CONSENTS TO MARRIAGE--SOCIAL
AND DOMESTIC CUSTOMS--FRANQUET'S JOURNEY FROM QUEBEC TO MONTREAL
BY RIVER, FIVE DAYS--POUCHOT'S APPRECIATIONS OF CANADIANS--THE
TRADE SYSTEM OF THE COUNTRY--GOVERNMENTAL MAGAZINES AND UP-COUNTRY
FORTS--PRIVATE TRADE AT THE POSTS--ITINERANT PEDDLERS. NOTE: THE
DEVELOPMENT OF THE PARISH CHURCH 359
CHAPTER XXXVII
EDUCATION--PRIMARY, SECONDARY AND TECHNICAL
A RECORD FROM 1657 TO 1760
FRENCH PRONUNCIATION--SCHOOL FOR GIRLS--THE CONGREGATION--BOARDING
SCHOOLS--SCHOOLS OF DOMESTIC ECONOMY--NORMAL SCHOOLS--SCHOOLS
FOR BOYS--ABBE SOUART FIRST SCHOOLMASTER--THE FIRST ASSOCIATION
OF TEACHERS--SCHOOL BOOKS--BOOKS ON PEDAGOGY--LATIN SCHOOLS, THE
HIGH SCHOOLS OF THE PERIOD--LATIN BOOKS--ATTEMPT AT A CLASSICAL
COLLEGE--FAILURE--TECHNICAL EDUCATION--JEAN FRANÇOIS CHARON--THE
GENERAL HOSPITAL--ARTS AND MANUFACTURES--LES FRERES CHARON--A NORMAL
SCHOOL FOR CANADA AT ROCHELLE PROJECTED--FRERE TURC GOES TO ST.
DOMINGO--THE BROTHERS OF THE CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS INVITED TWICE TO COME
TO CANADA--BROTHER DENIS AND PACIFICUS IN MONTREAL--THE FRERES CHARON
IN EVIL DAYS--THE HOSPITAL TRANSFERRED TO MADAME D'YOUVILLE 377
CHAPTER XXXVIII
1747
THE GENERAL HOSPITAL OF MONTREAL UNDER MADAME D'YOUVILLE
MADAME D'YOUVILLE--TIMOTHEE DE SILVAIN--CONFRATERNITY OF THE HOLY
FAMILY--"SOEURS GRISES"--PERSEVERANCE THROUGH OPPOSITION--FIRE OF
1745--PROVISIONAL CONTROL OF HOSPITAL--ATTEMPT TO ANNEX THE GENERAL
HOSPITAL TO THAT OF QUEBEC--THE "GREY NUNS" FORMERLY APPROVED AS
"SISTERS OF CHARITY" 387
CHAPTER XXXIX
MONTREAL, MILITARY HEADQUARTERS
THE FINAL STRUGGLE FOR SUPREMACY--THE SEVEN YEARS, 1756-1763--THE
CAMPAIGN OF 1756 (OSWEGO)--THE WINTER AT MONTREAL
REVIEW--CELERON DE BIENVILLE--DE VAUDREUIL--MONTCALM--HIS MILITARY
AND HOUSEHOLD STAFF--DE LEVIS, BOURLAMAQUE, BOUGAINVILLE--CHATEAU
DE VAUDREUIL--THE MEETING OF MONTCALM AND DE VAUDREUIL--MONTCALM'S
POSITION--THE THREE MILITARY ARMS--THE MILITIA, MARINE, REGULARS--THE
RED ALLIES--CAPITULATION OF OSWEGO--SACKING--TE DEUM IN THE PARISH
CHURCH--THE TWO PREJUGES--WINTER IN MONTREAL--GAMING AT QUEBEC--A
WINTER WAR PARTY--SOCIAL GAYETIES AT MONTREAL--SCARCITY OF
PROVISIONS--SHIPS AWAITED 391
CHAPTER XL
THE CAMPAIGN OF 1657
THE SIEGE OF WILLIAM HENRY--WINTER GAYETY AND GAUNT FAMINE
SHIPS ARRIVE--NEWS OF GREAT INTERNATIONAL WAR--RED ALLIES IN
MONTREAL--STRONG LIQUOR--PREPARATIONS FOR WAR--FORT WILLIAM
HENRY FALLS--ARRIVAL OF SAVAGES AND TWO HUNDRED ENGLISH
PRISONERS--CANNIBALISM--THE PAPER MONEY--FEAR OF FAMINE--MONTCALM'S
LETTER TO TROOPS ON RETRENCHMENT--A SELF-DENYING ORDINANCE--GAMING
AMID SOCIAL MISERY--HORSE FLESH FOR THE SOLDIERS--DE LEVIS PUTS DOWN
A REVOLT--THE "HUNGER STRIKE"--THE LETTERS OF MONTCALM--BIGOT AND LA
GRANDE SOCIETE--"LA FRIPONNE" AT MONTREAL--MURRAY'S CRITICISM. NOTE:
THE PECULATORS 403
CHAPTER XLI
1758
THE VICTORY OF CARILLON
A WINTER OF GAYETY AND FOREBODING
SIXTY LEAGUES ON THE ICE--SHIPS ARRIVE--FAMINE CEASES--ENGLISH
MOBILIZATION--TICONDEROGA (CARILLON)--MILITARY
JEALOUSIES--SAINT-SAUVEUR--RECONCILIATION OF MONTCALM AND
VAUDREUIL--ENMITIES RENEWED--WINTER IN MONTREAL--HIGH COST OF
LIVING--THE "ENCYCLOPEDIA"--AVARICE AND GRAFT--MADAME DE VAUDREUIL 415
CHAPTER XLII
1759
THE FALL OF QUEBEC
MONTREAL THE SEAT OF GOVERNMENT
THE SPRING ICE SHOVE--NEWS FROM FRANCE--MILITARY HONOURS SENT BUT
POOR REINFORCEMENTS--PROJECTED FRENCH INVASION OF ENGLAND--GLOOM IN
CANADA--THE MONTREAL MILITIA AT THE SIEGE OF QUEBEC--FALL OF QUEBEC,
MONTREAL SEAT OF GOVERNMENT--THE WINTER ATTEMPT TO REGAIN QUEBEC--THE
EXPECTED FRENCH FLEET NEVER ARRIVES--RETREAT OF FRENCH TO MONTREAL 425
CHAPTER XLIII
1760
THE FALL OF MONTREAL
THE CAPITULATION
THE LAST STAND AT MONTREAL--THE APPROACH OF THE BRITISH
ARMIES--SURRENDER OF ARMS BY FRENCH ON THE ROUTE--PAPER MONEY
VALUELESS--MURRAY'S ADVANCE FROM QUEBEC--HAVILAND'S PROGRESS FROM
LAKE CHAMPLAIN--AMHERST'S DESCENT FROM OSWEGO--MONTREAL WITHIN
AND WITHOUT--THE COUNCIL OF WAR IN THE CHATEAU VAUDREUIL--THE
TERMS OF CAPITULATION--THE NEGOTIATIONS WITH AMHERST--HONOURS
OF WAR REFUSED--DE LEVIS' CHAGRIN--THE CAPITULATION SIGNED--THE
CONDITIONS--FORMAL POSSESSION OF TOWN BY THE BRITISH--THE END OF THE
FRENCH REGIME 431
APPENDIX I
THE GOVERNMENT OF LA NOUVELLE FRANCE
THE GOVERNMENT OF MONTREAL UNDER LA NOUVELLE FRANCE--ROYAL
COMMISSIONS--VICEROYS--GOVERNORS--INTENDANTS--BISHOPS--FRENCH AND
ENGLISH SOVEREIGNS--LOCAL GOVERNORS OF MONTREAL--THE SEIGNEURS OF THE
SEMINARY 441
APPENDIX II
AN INVENTORY OF THE CHARTS AND PLANS OF THE ISLAND AND TOWN OF
MONTREAL UP TO 1760 447
AUTHOR'S FOREWORD
The history now being prepared seems necessary; for we are at a period
of great flux and change and progress. The city is being transformed,
modernized and enlarged before our very eyes. Old landmarks are daily
disappearing and there is a danger of numerous memories of the past
passing with them.
We are growing so wonderfully in wealth through the importance of
our commerce and in the size of our population by the accretion of
newcomers of many national origins and creeds, to whom for the most
part the history of the romantic story of Montreal is a sealed books,
that a fuller presentation of our development and growth is called for,
to supplement previous sketches and to meet the conditions of the hour.
It is hardly needful, therefore, to offer any apology for the
present undertaking. For if the continuity of a city's growth and
development is to be preserved in the memory of the citizens of each
generation, this can only be done through the medium of an historical
survey, issued at certain suitable intervals, such as the one now
offered, connecting the present with the past, and presenting to the
new generation, out of the intricate chain of events and varying
vicissitudes that have woven themselves into the texture of the city's
organic life, the story of those forces which have moulded its growth
and have produced those resultant characteristic features which make it
the individualized city of today and none other.
Montreal being a unique city, with a personality of its own, its
history, beyond that of any city of the new world, is particularly
interesting and fruitful for such a retrospect. Dealing with the
fortunes of several peoples, the original inhabitants of Hochelaga
visited by Jacques Cartier in 1535, the French colonists from 1642 and
the Anglo-Saxons and Gaels from their influx in 1760, together with the
steady addition of those of other national origins of later years, the
story of Montreal, passing over the greater part of four centuries, is
full of romance and colour and quickly moving incidents; of compelling
interest to the ordinary student, but how much more so to those who
have any way leagued their fortunes with it, and assisted in its
progress and in its making!
Such cannot dip into the pages of the history of this ancient and
modern city without finding fresh motives for renewed enthusiasm and
for deeper pride.
For Montreal is still in the making, with its future before it.
The present work is especially dedicated to those who would realize the
duties of good citizenship and it is the hope of the writer that it may
serve to deepen the sense of civic pride now happily being cultivated
here. To foster this civic pride is the justifying reason why he has
been induced by his friends to launch on a long and laborious task,
sweetened though it may be by the pleasure anticipated of communion
with the scenes and thoughts and deeds of a romantic past and a
wonderfully progressive present.
All history is profitable. Perhaps, however, civic history has not
been cultivated sufficiently. The present work is an attempt to
repair this by interesting Montrealers in their citizenship so that
by placing before them the deeds of the doers of the past, they may
realize they are dwellers in no mean city. We would hope that something
of the spirit of love for their cities, of the Romans, Athenians, or
Florentines, might be reincarnated, here in Montreal. Good citizenship
would then be thoroughly understood as the outcome of a passionate love
of all that is upright, noble and uplifting in human conduct, applied
to the life of a city by which it shall be made beautiful and lovable
in the sight of God and man. For this purpose the life story of any
city that has reached any eminence and has a worthy past should be
known by good citizens so that they begin to love it with a _personal_
love.
For like each nation, each city has its own individuality, its own
characteristic entity, its own form of life which must be made the most
of by art and thoughtful love.
This is not merely true of the physical being of a city from the city
planner's point of view. There is also a specific character in the
spiritual, artistic, moral and practical life of every city that has
grown into virility and made an impress on the world.
Every such city is unique; it has its predominant virtues and failings.
You may partially eliminate the latter and enlarge the former, but the
city being human--the product of the sum total of the qualities and
defects of its inhabitants--it takes on a character, a personality, a
mentality all its own.
Civic history then leads us to delve down into the origins of things to
find out the causes and sources of that ultimate city character which
we see reflected today in such a city as Montreal.
The research is fascinating and satisfactory to the citizen who
would know his surroundings, and live in them intelligently with
consideration for the diverse view points of those of his fellow
citizens who have different national origins and divergent mental
outlooks from his own.
Yet while this city character is in a way fixed, still it is not so
stable but that it will be susceptible to further development in the
times that are to come with new problems and new situations to grapple
with.
The peculiar pleasure of the reading of the history of Montreal will be
to witness the development of its present character from the earliest
date of the small pioneering, religious settlement of French colonists,
living simple and uneventful days, but chequered by the constant fear
of the forays of Indian marauders on to the "Castle Dangerous" of Ville
Marie, through its more mature periods of city formation, then onward
through the difficult days of the fusion of the French and English
civilization starting in 1760, to the complex life of the great and
prosperous cosmopolitan city of today, the port and commercial centre
of Canada--the old and new _régimes_ making one harmonious unity, but
with its component parts easily discernible. The city's motto is aptly
chosen, "_Concordia Salus_."
Much there will be learned in the history of Montreal of the past that
will explain the present and the mentality of its people. _Tout savoir,
c'est tout pardonner._
A clue to the future will also be afforded beforehand. Certainly it
will be seen that Montreal is great and will be greater still, because
great thoughts, high ideals, strenuous purposes have been born and
fostered within its walls.
The thinking student will witness the law of cause and effect, of
action, and reaction, ever at work, and will read design where the
undisciplined mind would only see chaos and blind forces at work.
Recognizing that the city is a living organism with a personality of
its own, he will watch with ever increasing interest the life emerging
from the seed and at work in all the varying stages of its growth and
development. He will see the first rude beginning of the city, its
struggles for existence, its organized life in its social and municipal
aspects, its beginnings of art and learning, the building of its
churches, the conscious struggles of its people to realize itself, the
troubles of its household, the battle of virtue and vice, its relation
to other cities, the story of its attacks from without, the conflicts
with opposing ideas, the influx of new elements into the population,
the adaptation of the organism to new habits of government and thought,
to new methods of business, and the inauguration of untried and new
industrial enterprises, the growth of its harbour, and its internal
and external commerce, the conception of its own destiny as one of the
great cities of the world--all these and more it is the purpose of
a history of Montreal to unfold to the thoughtful citizen who would
understand the life in which he is playing his part not as a blind
factor but as an intelligent co-operator in the intricate and absorbing
game of life.
But let it not be thought that while peering into the past we shall
become blind to the present. In this "History of Montreal" we shall
picture the busy world as we see it round us. Here are heroic and
saintly deeds being done today in our midst. The foundations of new and
mighty works even surpassing those of the past are being laid in the
regions of religion, philanthropy, art, science, commerce, engineering,
government and city planning this very hour, and their builders are
unconsciously building unto fame.
Besides, therefore, portraying the past, we would wish to present
a moving picture of the continued development of Montreal from the
beginning, tracing it to the living present from the "mustard seed"
so long ago spoken of by Père Vimont in reference to the handful of
his fellow pioneers assembled at Mass on the day of the arrival on May
18, 1642, at the historic spot marked today by the monument in Place
Royale, to the _mighty_ tree of his prophecy that now has covered the
whole Island of Montreal, and by the boldness, foresight and enterprise
of Montreal's master builders, has stretched its conquering arms of
streams and iron across the mighty continent discovered by Jacques
Cartier in 1535.
What Montreal was and is, we know. Its future we can only surmise.
But it is bound to be a great one. Its position, with its mountain
in the centre and its encircling waterways, with the glorious St.
Lawrence at its feet, proclaims it as the ideal location for one of the
greatest cities in the world. It is no cause for wonder that Jacques
Cartier, visiting it in 1535, after naming the mountain "Mount Royal"
in honour of his king, Francis I of France, should have commended it
as favourable for a settlement in his description of his voyage to
Hochelaga, and that Champlain in 1611 should have made it his trading
post and further endorsed it as a suitable place for a permanent
settlement, and that Maisonneuve should have carried it into execution
in 1642. They had the instinct of the city planner--that is all.
That they did not err, the history of Montreal will abundantly show.
WILLIAM HENRY ATHERTON.
PREFACE
"QUI MANET IN PATRIA ET PATRIAM COGNOSCERE TEMNIT
IS MIHI NON CIVIS, SED PEREGRINUS ERIT"
In placing before the public the first volume of the History of
Montreal, under the title of "Under the French Régime," I would first
dedicate it to a group of prominent lovers of the city, truly deserving
the name of good citizens, who originally encouraged me to undertake
the historical researches necessary for this work in the view that
an orderly narration of the city's origins and gradual development
would thereby foster the right spirit of civic pride in those who do
not merely dwell in this ancient and new city, but have linked their
fortunes with it at least for a while.
Secondly, it is dedicated to those who endorsed the above invitation by
subscribing for copies, thus making publication possible.
Thirdly, it is dedicated to all good citizens of Montreal, whether by
birth or adoption, who will welcome this attempt to interest them in
their citizenship.
Further, it is offered to all students of the civic life and progress
of our Canadian cities through the medium of the historical method. May
it encourage a healthy Canadian civic consciousness begotten of the
records of the doings of the early makers of our Canadian cities.
May it encourage the careful keeping of early historical documents,
especially among those new municipalities now growing up in the new
Canada of today.
* * * * *
I wish to take this opportunity of thanking those who have especially
made my way easy in this first volume by affording me access to books
or documents. Among these are: Mr. W. D. Lighthall, president of the
Numismatic and Antiquarian Society of Montreal, who was also the first
to encourage this present work, Dr. A. Doughty, Mr. C. H. Gould, of the
McGill University Library, Mr. Crevecoeur, of the Fraser Institute, and
to other representatives of public and private libraries. To Mr. E. Z.
Massicotte, the careful archivist of the district of Montreal, I am
especially indebted for much courteous and valuable assistance of which
the following pages will give many indications. In general, the sources
consulted are sufficiently indicated in the text or foot notes. They
will be seen to be the best available.
I beg to thank those who have helped me to illustrate the work and
particularly Mr. Edgar Gariépy, who has keenly aided me.
September, 1914. WILLIAM HENRY ATHERTON.
HISTORY OF MONTREAL
CHAPTER I
1535-1542
HOCHELAGA
THE ARRIVAL OF JACQUES CARTIER AT HOCHELAGA ON HIS SECOND
VOYAGE TO CANADA--HIS ROYAL COMMISSION--THE FRUITLESS DEVICE
OF DONNACONA TO FRIGHTEN CARTIER FROM VISITING HOCHELAGA--THE
DIFFICULTY OF CROSSING LAKE ST. PETER--THE ARRIVAL AND
RECEPTION AT HOCHELAGA--JACQUES CARTIER THE FIRST HISTORIAN OF
MONTREAL--DESCRIPTION OF THE TOWN--CARTIER RECITES THE FIRST
CHAPTER OF ST. JOHN'S GOSPEL OVER AGOHANNA, THE LORD OF THE
COUNTRY--MOUNT ROYAL NAMED AND VISITED--CARTIER'S ACCOUNT OF THE
VIEW FROM THE MOUNTAIN TOP--CARTIER'S SECOND VISIT IN 1540 TO
HOCHELAGA AND TO TUTONAGUY, THE SITE OF THE FUTURE MONTREAL--THE
PROBABLE VISIT OF DE ROBERVAL IN 1542. NOTES: THE SITE OF
HOCHELAGA--HOCHELAGA'S CIVILIZATION--CANADA--GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF
MOUNT ROYAL AND THE MONTEREGIAN HILLS.
The story of Montreal, as far as authentic historical documents are
concerned, begins with Saturday, October 2, 1535. On that day, the
Indian natives of Hochelaga had been quickly apprised that two strange
large vessels containing many palefaced wanderers, wonderfully attired
and speaking an unknown tongue, had come up the river, and were now
lying off its sloping margin. The people immediately prepare quickly
to receive them with a hospitality of which we shall hear. The women
busy themselves in preparing their presents while the men hurriedly run
down the hill slope to the water's edge, to be soon also followed by
the women and children. There they found a good gathering of swarthy
and bronzed men of the sea, mariners from St. Malo, to the number of
twenty-eight, simple men, but adored by the natives as superior beings.
All hail to them! Would that of the seventy-four[1] names we have
preserved to us, of those who sailed from St. Malo, we had those of
them who were privileged to come up to Hochelaga, as we must yet call
it.
Besides the sailors, there are, however, six whose dress and bearing
mark them out as men of some distinction, as indeed they are; for one
is Claude du Pont Briand, cup bearer to My Lord the Dauphin; the second
and third, gentlemen adventurers of some rank, Charles de la Pommeraye
and Jehan Gouion; the fourth and fifth are the bronzed and rugged
captains of the small fleet lying down the river at Lake St. Peter,
Guillaume le Breton, captain of the Emerillon, and Marc Jalobert,
captain of the Petite Hermine, brother-in-law of the sixth. This last,
a firm set man of forty-five years, and of commanding appearance,
is none other than Jacques Cartier, captain of the Grande Hermine,
pilot and captain general of the fleet, and he has come with a royal
commission[2] explore new seas and lands for his sovereign maste
Francis I of France, whose flags proudly wave from the prows of either
vessel now tossing in the Hochelagan waters.
Jacques Cartier claims notice, for he is at once the discoverer and
the first historian of Montreal. He is a mariner, of a dignified
profession, and was born in 1491, though De Costa and others say, in
1494, at the seaport of St. Malo in Brittany, the fertile cradle of
many hardy daring corsairs and adventurers on the waters. Early the
young son of Jamet Cartier and Geseline Jansart seems to have turned
his thoughts to a seafaring life as he met the bronzed mariners
arriving at the wharves of St. Malo, and telling strange stories of
their perils and triumphs. On the 2d of May, 1519, being now a master
pilot, he married Catherine des Granches, the daughter of the high
constable of the city.
[Illustration: JACQUES CARTIER
(After a traditional drawing)]
[Illustration: MANOR HOUSE OF CARTIER AT LIMOILOU NEAR ST. MALO
(Interior View)]
We know only imperfectly of his wanderings on the sea after this. He
seems to have gone to Brazil. But he probably joined the band of those
Norman ships going to Newfoundland on their fishing expeditions, and
became well acquainted with the waters thereabout, and able to pilot
them to some good purpose.
How Cartier became interested in discovering the passage to the
Northwest we do not know; though it was the dream of so many navigators
at that time to find a way to China and the east ports of India. To the
man who should find it there would be undying fame, and many there were
who strove for it. Probably Cartier believed that he should find the
long expected route to India through one of the openings in the coast
in the vicinity of Newfoundland, then thought to be but a projection
of the eastern coast of Asia! At any rate, in 1533, we find him being
introduced to Francis I of France by the high admiral of France,
Phillipe Chabot, Sieur de Brion, to endeavour to persuade the king to
allow him the means to secure the western passage for his royal master
and the flag of France. The permission was granted, the vice admiral,
the Sieur de Meilleraye personally undertaking to supervise the
equipment of the vessels, and Cartier now is to be ranked among those
others whose names have come down to us as leaders of expeditions.
[Illustration: This wooden medallion, 20 inches in diameter, bears on
the back the deeply carved date 1704 and the initials J. C. It was
found between outer and inner "skins" of an ancient house in the French
fishing village of Cape des Roziers at the mouth of the St. Lawrence
River, November, 1908, and was the stern shield of some French vessel
wrecked on that coast. The face is alleged to be that of Jacques
Cartier, the discoverer of Canada, and is the oldest known portrait of
him. The claim is made by Dr. John M. Clarke of Albany, state geologist
of New York.]
We next find him armed with the Royal Commission, preparing to fit
his vessels, and seeking for St. Malo men to man them in the service
of the king. He had his difficulties in meeting the obstructions and
jealousies that stood in his way. But on the 20th of April, 1534, he
sailed with pilots, masters and seamen to the number of sixty, who were
solemnly sworn by the vice admiral, Sieur de Meilleraye. It is not the
purpose of this book to describe the discovery of Canada which Cartier
made on this first voyage although the task is a fascinating one, since
we have his own recital to follow. On July 24th, having planted on the
coast of Gaspé a cross of the length of thirty feet bearing a shield
adorned with the _fleur-de-lys_ and inscribed "Vive le Roi de France,"
he made preparations for the return home, reaching St. Malo on
September 5th.
But he had not, as yet, stumbled upon the discovery of the mouth of the
St. Lawrence, up which the kingdom of the Hochelagans lay, on which we
are to fix our gaze. The news of his discoveries were received with
enthusiasm, and on the Friday in Pentecost week, May 19, 1535, we find
Jacques Cartier and his men sailing away from St. Malo, after having
confessed themselves and received the benedictions of the archbishop
and the godspeeds of their friends. The names of those accompanying
Cartier--"pilots, masters and seamen, and others"--are preserved in
the archives of St. Malo, numbering seventy-four, of whom several were
of some distinction and twelve at least were related to him by blood
or marriage, some led thither perhaps by the hope of trade. Two of the
names are those of Dom Guillaume le Breton and Dom Antoine. It has
been claimed the title Dom indicates that they were probably secular
priests, and acted as chaplains, according to the general custom when
the expedition was a royal mission. But this is not likely; in this
case Guillaume le Breton was the captain of the Emerillon. Among those
not mentioned in the list of Carrier's men were two young Indians,
Taignoagny and Agaya, whom Cartier had seized at Gaspé before leaving
to return to France, after his first voyages, and whose appearance
in France created unusual interest. These were now to be useful as
interpreters to the tribes to be visited. Cartier had however to regret
some of their dealings on his behalf. Charity begins at home and so it
did with these French-veneered Indians on mingling with their own.
The Royal Commission signed by Phillipe de Chabot, admiral of France,
and giving greeting "to the Captain and Master Pilot Jacques Cartier of
St. Malo," dated October 31, 1534, may here be quoted in part.
"We have commissioned and deputed, commission and depute you by the
will and command of the King to conduct, direct, and employ three
ships, equipped and provisioned each for fifteen months for the
accomplishment of the voyage to the lands by you already begun and
discovered beyond the Newlands; * * * the said three ships you shall
take, and hire the number of pilots, masters and seamen as shall seem
to you to be fitting and necessary for the accomplishment of this
voyage. * * * We charge and command all the said pilots, masters and
seamen, and others who shall be on the same ships, to obey and follow
you for the service of the King in this as above, as they would do to
ourselves, without any contradiction or refusal, and this under pains
customary in such cases to those who are found disobedient and acting
contrary."
[Illustration: JACQUES CARTIER'S SHIPS IN THE ST. LAWRENCE]
[Illustration: THE CLOSING PORTION OF JACQUES CARTIER'S LIST OF SEAMEN]
The three ships that had been assigned to him were the Grande Hermine,
the Petite Hermine and the Emerillon, the first being a tall ship of
126 burthen and the others of sixty and forty respectively, and they
were provisioned for fifteen months. How the expedition encountered
storms and tempests, delaying its progress until they reached the
Strait of St. Peter, where familiar objects began to meet the eyes of
the captive Indians on board; how they eagerly pointed out to Cartier
the way into Canada; how they told him of the gold to be found in the
land of the Saguenay; how Cartier visited the lordly Donnacona, lord of
Canada; how at last on his resolve to pursue the journey to the land
of Hochelaga he found himself in the great river of Canada which he
named St. Lawrence; how he passed up the river by mountain and lowland,
headlands and harbours, meadows, brush and forests, scattering saints'
names on his way to Stadaconé[3] whence he determined to push his way
to Hochelaga before winter--can be read at length in the recital of the
second voyage of Jacques Cartier.
[Illustration: A CONFERENCE WITH THE INDIANS AT STADACONE]
It is legitimate only for us to place before our readers that part
concerning the approach to Hochelaga. Hitherto, on his journey, Cartier
had received all help in his progress from the friendly natives; but
effort was made to dissuade him from going up to Hochelaga. Cartier,
however, always made reply that notwithstanding every difficulty he
would go there if it were possible to him "because he had commandment
from the king to go the farthest that he could." On the contrary the
lordly savage Donnacona and the two captives, Dom Agaya and Taignoagny,
used every device to turn the captain from his quest. An attempt will
be made hereafter to prevent a visit to Montreal as we shall see when
we speak of Maisonneuve and the settlement of Ville Marie.
[Illustration: MANUSCRIPT OF NO. 5589 OF CARTIER'S SECOND VOYAGE]
Carrier's account has the following for September 18th:[4]
"HOW THE SAID DONNACONA, TAIGNOAGNY, AND OTHERS DEVISED AN
ARTIFICE AND HAD THREE MEN DRESSED IN THE GUISE OF DEVILS,
FEIGNING TO HAVE COME FROM CUDOUAGNY, THEIR GOD, FOR TO HINDER US
FROM GOING TO THE SAID HOCHELAGA.[5]
"The next day, the 18th of the said month, thinking always to hinder
us from going to Hochelaga, they devised a grand scheme which they
effected thus: They had three men attired in the style of three devils,
that had horns as long as one's arms, and were clothed in skins of
dogs, black and white, and had their faces painted as black as coal,
and they caused them to be put into one of their boats unknown to
us, and then came with their band near our ships as they had been
accustomed, who kept themselves in the woods without appearing for two
hours, waiting till the time and the tide should come for the arrival
of the said boat, at which time they all came forth, and presented
themselves before our said ships without approaching them as they
were wont to do; and asked them if they wanted to have the boat,
whereupon the said Taignoagny replied to them, not at that time, but
that presently he would enter into the said ships. And suddenly came
the said boat wherein were the three men appearing to be three devils,
having put horns on their heads, and he in the midst made a marvelous
speech in coming, and they passed along our ships with their said boat,
without in any wise turning their looks toward us, and went on striking
and running on shore with their said boat; and, all at once, the said
Lord Donnacona and his people seized the said boat and the said three
men, the which were let fall to the bottom of it like dead men, and
they carried the whole together into the woods, which were distant
from the said ships a stone's throw; and not a single person remained
before our said ships, but all withdrew themselves. And they, having
retired, began a declamation and a discourse that we heard from our
ships, which lasted half an hour. After which the said Taignoagny and
Dom Agaya marched from the said woods toward us, having their hands
joined, and their hats under their elbows, causing great admiration.
And the said Taignoagny began to speak and cry out three times, 'Jesus!
Jesus! Jesus!' raising his eyes toward heaven. Then Dom Agaya began
to say, 'Jesus Maria! Jacques Cartier,' looking toward heaven like
the other, the captain seeing their gestures and ceremonies, began to
ask what was the matter, and what it was new that had happened, who
responded that there were piteous news, saying 'Nenny, est il bon,' and
the said captain demanded of them afresh what it was, and they replied
that their God, named Cudouagny, had spoken at Hochelaga, and that the
three men aforesaid had come from him to announce to them the tidings
that there was so much ice and snow that they would all die. With which
words we all fell to laughing and to tell that their God Cudouagny was
but a fool, and that he knew not what he said, and that they should
say it to his messengers and that Jesus would guard them well from the
cold if they would believe in him. And then the said Taignoagny and
his companion asked the said captain if he had spoken to Jesus and he
replied that his priests[6] had spoken to him and that he would make
fair weather; whereupon they thanked the said captain very much, and
returned into the woods to tell the news to the others, who came out
of the said woods immediately, feigning to be delighted with the said
words thus spoken by the said captain. And to show that they were
delighted with them, as soon as they were before the ships they began
with a common voice to utter three shrieks and howls, which is their
token of joy, and betook themselves to dancing and singing, as they
had done from custom. But for conclusion, the said Taignoagny and Dom
Agaya told our said captain that the said Donnacona would not that any
of them should go with him to Hochelaga if he did not leave a hostage,
who should abide ashore with the said Donnacona. To which he replied to
them that if they had not decided to go there with good courage they
might remain and that for him he would not leave off making efforts to
go there."
We have seen the manifest disinclination of Donnacona's party to
allow the discoverers to proceed to Hochelaga. Was it because the
Hochelagans were a hostile people or was it from selfish reasons to
keep the presents of the generous strangers for themselves? At any
rate, Cartier sets out for Hochelaga and on Tuesday, September 26th,
enters Lake St. Peter with a pinnace and two boats. This lake was not
named by Cartier, but subsequently it was named Lac d'Angoulesme,
either in honour of his birthplace or more probably that of Francis
I, who was Count of Angoulême. It was left for Champlain entering upon
the lake, on the feast of SS. Peter and Paul, June 29, 1603, to give
it its present name. Cartier's pinnace could not cross Lake St. Peter
owing to the shallowness of the water[7] which forced him to take the
boats to Hochelaga, starting about six miles below St. Mary's current.
The journey through Lake St. Peter and the arrival at Hochelaga must
now be followed in the words of Jacques Cartier, the first historian of
Montreal (Phinney Baxter, pp. 157-171).
[Illustration: THE RECEPTION OF JACQUES CARTIER AT HOCHELAGA
(A section of the palisaded town is shown. D in the center is King
Agohama's abode.)]
"The said twenty-eighth day of September we came into a great lake
and shoal of the said river, about five or six leagues broad and
twelve long, and navigated that day up the said lake without finding
shallowing or deepening, and coming to one of the ends of the said
lake, not any passage or egress appeared to us; it seemed rather to be
completely closed without any stream. And we found at the said end but
a fathom and a half, wherefore it behooved us to lay to and heave out
our anchor, and go to seek passage with our boats. And we found that
there were four or five streams all flowing from the said river into
this lake and coming from the said Hochelaga; but, by their flowing out
so, there are bars and passages made by the course of the water, where
there was then only a fathom in depth. And the said bars being passed,
there are four or five fathoms, which was at the time of year of the
lowest waters, as we saw by the flow of the said waters that they
increased more than two fathoms by pike.
"All these streams flow by and surround five or six fair islands[8]
which form the head of said lake; then they come together about fifteen
leagues above all into one. That day we went to one of them, where
we found five men, who were hunting wild beasts, the which came as
familiarly to our boats as if they had seen us all their lives, without
having fear or apprehension; and our said boats having come to land,
one of these men took our captain in his arms and carried him ashore as
lightly as he would have carried a child of five years, so large and
strong was this man. We found they had a great pile of wild rats,[9]
which live in the water, and are as large as rabbits, and wonderfully
good to eat, of which they made a present to our captain, who gave them
knives and paternosters for recompense. We asked them by sign if that
was the way to Hochelaga; they answered us yes, and that it was still
three days journey to go there.
"HOW THE CAPTAIN HAD THE BOATS FITTED OUT FOR TO GO TO THE SAID
HOCHELAGA, AND LEFT THE PINNACE, OWING TO THE DIFFICULTY OF THE
PASSAGE; AND HOW HE CAME TO THE SAID HOCHELAGA, AND THE RECEPTION
THAT THE PEOPLE GAVE US AT OUR ARRIVAL.
"The next day our captain, seeing that it was not possible then to be
able to pass the said pinnace, had the boats victualed and fitted out,
and put in provisions for the longest time that he possibly could and
that the said boats could take in, and set out with them accompanied
with a part of the gentlemen,--to wit, Claude du Pont Briand, grand
cupbearer to my lord the Dauphin, Charles de la Pommeraye, Jehan
Gouion, with twenty-eight mariners, including with them Marc Jalobert
and Guillaume le Breton, having the charge under the said Cartier,--for
to go up the said river the farthest that it might be possible for us.
And we navigated with weather at will until the second day of October,
when we arrived at the said Hochelaga, which is about forty-five
leagues distant from the place where the said pinnace was left, during
which time and on the way we found many folks of the country, the which
brought fish and other victuals, dancing and showing great joy at our
coming. And to attract and hold them in amity with us, the said captain
gave them for recompense some knives, paternosters, and other trivial
goods, with which they were much content. And we having arrived at
the said Hochelaga, more than a thousand persons presented themselves
before us, men, women and children alike, the which gave us a good
reception as ever father did to child, showing marvelous joy; for the
men in one band danced, the women on the other side and the children on
the other, the which brought us store of fish and of their bread made
of coarse millet,[10] which they cast into our said boats in the way
that it seemed as if it tumbled from the air. Seeing this, our said
captain landed with a number of his men, and as soon as he was landed
they gathered all about him, and about all the others, giving them an
unrestrained welcome. And the women brought their children in their
arms to make them touch the said captain and others, making a rejoicing
which lasted more than half an hour. And our captain, witnessing their
liberality and good will, caused all the women to be seated and ranged
in order, and gave them certain paternosters of tin and other trifling
things, and to a part of the men knives. Then he retired on board the
said boats to sup and pass the night, while these people remained on
the shore of the said river nearest the said boats all night making
fires and dancing, crying all the time 'Aguyaze,' which is their
expression of mirth and joy.
"HOW THE CAPTAIN WITH GENTLEMEN, AND TWENTY-FIVE SEAMEN, WELL
ARMED AND IN GOOD ORDER, WENT TO THE TOWN OF HOCHELAGA, AND OF THE
SITUATION OF THE SAID PLACE.
"The next day, in the early morning, the captain attired himself
and had his men put in order to go to see the town and habitation
of the said people, and a mountain that is adjacent to their said
town, whither the gentleman and twenty mariners went with the said
captain, and left the rest for the guard of the boats, and took three
men of the said Town of Hochelaga to bring and conduct them to the
said place. And we, being on the road, found it as well beaten as it
might be possible to behold, and the fairest and best land, all full
of oaks as fine as there be in a forest of France under the which all
the ground was covered with acorns. And we, having marched about a
league and a half, found on the way one of the chief lords of the Town
of Hochelaga, accompanied by a number of persons, the which made us a
sign that we should rest at the said place near a fire that they had
made by the said road, which we did, and then the said lord began to
make a discourse and oration, as heretofore is said to be their custom
of showing joy and familiarity, this lord thereby showing welcome to
the said captain and his company; the which captain gave him a couple
of hatchets and a couple of knives, with a cross and memorial of the
crucifixion, which he made him kiss, and hung it on his neck, for
which he rendered thanks to the said captain. This done, we marched
farther on, and about half a league from there we began to find the
land cultivated, and fair, large fields full of grain of their country,
which is like Brazil millet, as big or bigger than peas, on which
they live just as we do on wheat; and in the midst of these fields
is located and seated the Town of Hochelaga, near to and adjoining a
mountain, which is cultivated round about it and highly fertile, from
the summit of which one sees a very great distance. We named the said
mountain Mont Royal. The said town is quite round and inclosed with
timbers in three rows in the style of a pyramid, crossed at the top,
having the middle row in the style of a perpendicular line; and ranged
with timbers laid along, well joined and tied in their manner, and
is in height about two pikes. There is in this town but one gate and
entrance, which fastens with bars, upon which and in many places of
the said inclosure there are kinds of galleries and ladders to mount
to them, which are furnished with rocks and stones for the guard and
defense of it.
"There are within this town about fifty long houses of about fifty
paces or more each, and twelve or fifteen paces wide and all made of
timbers covered and garnished with great pieces of bark and strips of
the said timber, as broad as tables, well tied artificially according
to their manner. And within these there are many lodgings and chambers,
and in the middle of these houses there is a great room on the ground
where they make their fire and live in common; after that the men
retire with their wives and children to their said chambers. Likewise
they have granaries at the top of their houses where they put their
corn of which they make their bread, which they call 'carraconny,'[11]
and they make it in the manner following: They have mortars of wood
as for braying flax, and beat the said corn into powder with pestles
of wood; then they mix it into paste and make round cakes of it,
which they put on a broad stone which is hot; then they cover it with
hot stones, and so bake their bread instead of in an oven. They make
likewise many stews of the said corn, and beans and peas of which they
have enough, and also of big cucumbers and other fruits. They have also
in their houses great vessels like tons, where they put their fish,
eels and others, the which they dry in the smoke during the summer and
live upon it in the winter. And of this they make a great store, as we
have seen by experience. All their living is without any taste of salt,
and they lie on barks of trees stretched upon the earth, with wretched
coverings of skins from which they make their clothing--namely, wolves,
beavers, martens, foxes, wild cats, deer, stags, and other wild beasts;
but the most part of them go almost entirely naked. The most precious
thing that they have in their world is 'esnogny,'[12] the which is
white as snow, and they take it into the same river from the
cornibotz[13] in the manner which follows: When a man heserved
death, or when they have taken any enemies in war, they kill them, then
cut them into the buttocks, thighs, and shoulders with great gashes;
afterward in the places where the said esnogny is they sink the said
body to the bottom of the water, and leave it ten or twelve hours,
then draw it up and find within the said gashes and incisions the said
cornibots, of which they make bead money and use it as we do gold and
silver, and hold it the most precious thing in the world. It has the
virtue of stanching blood from the nostrils, because we have tried it.
"All the said people give themselves only to tillage and fishing for a
living; for the goods of this world they make no account, because they
have no knowledge of them, and as they budge not from their country,
and do not go about like those of Canada[14] and of the Saguenay.
Notwithstanding the said Canadians are their subjects, with eight or
nine other peoples who are upon the said river.
"HOW WE ARRIVED AT THE SAID TOWN AND OF THE RECEPTION WHICH WAS
MADE UP THERE, AND HOW THE CAPTAIN MADE THEM PRESENTS; AND OTHER
THINGS THAT THE SAID CAPTAIN DID, AS SHALL BE SEEN IN THIS CHAPTER.
"When we had arrived near the town, a great number of the inhabitants
of it presented themselves before us, who after their fashion of doing,
gave us a good reception; and by our guides and conductors we were
brought to the middle of the town, where there was a place between the
houses the extent of a stone's throw or about in a square, who made
us a sign that we should stop at the said place, which we did. And
suddenly all the women and girls of the said town assembled together,
a part of whom were burdened with children in their arms, and who came
to us to stroke our faces, arms, and other places upon our bodies
that they could touch; weeping with joy to see us; giving us the best
welcome that was possible to them, and making signs to us that it might
please us to touch their said children. After the which things the men
made the women retire, and seated themselves on the ground about us,
as if we might wish to play a mystery. And, suddenly, a number of men
came again, who brought each a square mat in the fashion of a carpet,
and spread them out upon the ground in the middle of the said place
and made us rest upon them. After which things were thus done there
was brought by nine or ten men the king and lord of the country, whom
they all call in their language Agohanna, who was seated upon a great
skin of a stag; and they came to set him down in the said place upon
the said mats beside our captain, making us a sign that he was their
lord and king. This Agohanna was about the age of fifty years and was
not better appareled than the others, save that he had about his head a
kind of red band for a crown, made of the quills of porcupines and this
lord was wholly impotent and diseased in his limbs.
"After he had made his sign of salutation to the said captain and to
his folks, making them evident signs that they should make them very
welcome, he showed his arms and legs to the said captain, praying that
he would touch them, as though he would beg healing and health from
him; and then the captain began to stroke his arms and legs with his
hands; whereupon the said Agohanna took the band and crown that he
had upon his head and gave it to our captain: and immediately there
were brought to the said captain many sick ones, as blind, one-eyed,
lame, impotent, and folks so very old that the lids of their eyes hung
down even upon their cheeks, setting and laying them down nigh to our
said captain for him to touch them, so that it seemed as if God had
descended there in order to cure them.
"Our said captain, seeing the mystery and faith of this said people,
recited the Gospel of St. John; to wit, the _In principio_, making the
sign of the cross on the poor sick ones, praying God that he might give
them knowledge of our holy faith and the passion of our Saviour, and
the grace to receive Christianity and baptism. Then our said captain
took a prayer book and read full loudly, word by word, the passion of
our Lord, so that all the bystanders could hear it, while all these
poor people kept a great silence and were marvelously good hearers,
looking up to heaven and making the same ceremonies that they saw us
make; after which the captain made all the men range themselves on one
side, the women on another, and the children another, and gave to the
chiefs hatchets, to the others knives, and to the women paternosters
and other trifling articles; then he threw into the midst of the place
among the little children some small rings and Agnus Dei of tin, at
which they showed a marvelous joy. This done the said captain commanded
the trumpets and other instruments of music to sound, with which the
said people were greatly delighted; after which things we took leave of
them and withdrew. Seeing this, the women put themselves before us for
to stop us, and brought us of their victuals, which they had prepared
for us, as fish, stews, beans and other things, thinking to make us eat
and dine at the said place; and because their victuals were not to our
taste and had no savor of salt, we thanked them, making them a sign
that we did not need to eat.
"After we had issued from the said town many men and women came to
conduct us upon the mountain aforesaid, which was by us named Mont
Royal, distant from the said place some quarter of a league; and
we, being upon this mountain, had sight and observance of more than
thirty leagues round about it. Toward the north of which is a range
of mountains which stretches east and west, and toward the south as
well; between which mountains the land is the fairest that it may be
possible to see, smooth, level, and tillable; and in the middle of the
said lands we saw the said river, beyond the place where our boats were
left, where there is a waterfall,[15] the most impetuous that it may
be possible to see, and which it was impossible for us to pass. And we
saw this river as far as we could discern, grand, broad and extensive,
which flowed toward the southwest and passed near three fair, round
mountains which we saw and estimated that they were about fifteen
leagues from us. And we were told and shown by signs by our said three
men of the country who had conducted us that there were three such
falls of water on the said river like that where our said boats were,
but we could not understand what the distance was between the one and
the other. Then they showed us by signs that, the said falls being
passed, one could navigate more than three moons by the said river; and
beyond they showed us that along the said mountains, being toward the
north, there is a great stream, which descends from the west like the
said river.[16] We reckoned that this is the stream which passed by
the realm and province of Saguenay, and, without having made them any
request or sign, they took the chain from the captain's whistle, which
was of silver, and the haft of a poniard, the which was of copper,
yellow like gold, which hung at the side of one of our mariners, and
showed that it came from above the said river, and that there were
Agojuda, which is to say evil folk, the which are armed even to the
fingerhowing us the style of their armor, which is of cords and of
wood laced and woven together, giving us to understand that the said
Agojuda carried on continual war against one another; but by default
of speech we could not learn how far it was to the said country. Our
captain showed them some red copper,[17] which they call _caignetdaze_,
pointing them toward the said place, and asking by signs if it came
from there, and they began to shake their heads, saying no, and showing
that it came from Saguenay, which is to the contrary of the preceding.
After which things thus seen and understood, we withdrew to our boats,
which was not without being conducted by a great number of the said
people, of which part of them, when they saw our folk weary, loaded
them upon themselves, as upon horsesd carried them. And we, having
arrived at our said boats, made sail to return to our pinnace, for
doubt that there might be some hindrance; which departure was not made
without great regret of the said people, for as far as they could
follow us down the said river they would follow us, and we accomplished
so much that we arrived at our said pinnace Monday, the fourth day of
October."
The reader must have been struck with the pride of the Hochelagans in
conducting their visitors to the mountain as well as at the accurate
and picturesque description given by Cartier of the scene that met
his delighted gaze. Today the same beautiful sight may be seen by
the visitor who makes his way to the "lookout" or the observatory.
The landscape at his feet has been covered with a busy city and its
suburbs, its manufactories, its public buildings and its homes and
villas, but still it appears as if all these were peeping out of a
garden. All around the green fields and pleasant meadows are there as
of yore. From this height the disfigurements of the lower city are not
visible. Montreal has been described as a beautiful lady handsomely
gowned, but whose skirt fringes are sadly mud and dust stained.
The river has been spanned by gigantic bridges but the main grand
lines of the landscape are those that Cartier gazed upon. There at the
south is the great St. Lawrence with its islands on its bosom, now
studded with ocean going steamers; beyond there is the great sweep
of the St. Lawrence Valley, broken abruptly by the solitary mountain
ridges of Montarville, St. Bruno, Beloeil, Rougemont, Yamaska, and
Mount Johnson--a volcanic sisterhood of which Mount Royal is itself a
member--and hemmed in on the horizon by the cloudlike ridges of the
Green and Adirondack mountains. Looking to the west are the Lachine
Rapids and beyond the Lake St. Louis, and to the north the Rivière des
Prairies or the Back River is seen, at the head of which lies the
bright surface of the Lake of the Two Mountains. Far away hemming in
the horizon on that side runs the hoary Laurentian Range, the oldest
hills known to geology. All this apart from the works of civilization
Cartier saw from the mountain which has only of late years been planned
to intensify its beauty and usefulness. We are now looking forward to
the day when that same city around the mountain will also bear the mark
of an intelligible plan to intensify the beauty of the city and make
it by art, as it is by nature, one of the finest cities in the world,
worthy of the jewel standing out--the pride of its city--Mount Royal.
Cartier saw the island from the point of view of Greater Mount Royal.
In this he resembles those who today see a Greater Montreal. Modern
Hochelagans are as proud of their mountain as those of old. D'Arcy
McGee imagines Jacques Cartier telling of it on his return to St. Malo:
He told them of the Algonquin braves--the hunters of the wild,
Of how the Indian mother in the forest rocks her child;
Of how, poor souls, they fancy in every living thing
A spirit good or evil, that claims their worshipping;
Of how they brought their sick and maim'd for him to breathe upon,
And of the wonders wrought for them through the Gospel of St. John.
He told them of the river whose mighty current gave
Its freshness for a hundred leagues to Ocean's briny wave;
He told them of the glorious scene presented to his sight,
What time he rear'd the cross and crown on Hochelaga's height,
And of the fortress cliff that keeps of Canada the key,
And they welcomed back Jacques Cartier from his perils o'er the sea.
On Tuesday, September 4th, Jacques Cartier regained his pinnace and on
Wednesday, September 5th, he passed thence on his way to Stadaconé.
At Stadaconé, on May 3d, the festival of the Holy Cross, he planted
the cross and inscribed it with the royal name and title, "Franciscus
Primus Dei Gratia." There he treacherously seized Donnacona and his
friends Dom Agaya and Taignoagny and took them to France. On July 6th,
1636, he reached St. Malo "by the grace of the Creator, whom we pray,
making an end of our navigation to grant us his grace and Paradise at
the end. Amen."
CARTIER'S SECOND VISIT TO HOCHELAGA, 1540
When Cartier appeared before the King, Francis I, after his second
voyage there is no doubt that he would have enthusiastically
recommended the country of Hochelaga, especially that island, on which
was the mountain to which he had given the title "Mont Royal" as the
site of a settlement, for in Jacques Cartier's commission, dated
October 17, 1540, in preparation for the third voyage, we read:
"And among others we have sent there our dear and well beloved
Jacques Cartier, who has discovered the large countries of Canada and
Hochelaga, making an end of Asia, on the western side, which country
he found, as he reported to us, furnished with many good commodities,
and the people thereof well formed in body and limb, and well disposed
in spirit and understanding, of whom he likewise brought us a certain
number, whom we have for a long time supported and instructed in our
holy faith[18] with our said subjects, in consideration of which and
seeing their good intentions, we have considered and decided to send
back the said Cartier to the said country of Canada and Hochelaga,
and as far as the land of Saguenay, if we can reach there with a
good number of ships of our said subjects of good intentions and of
all conditions, arts and industries, in order to enter farther into
the said countries to converse with the said peoples thereof, and
if necessary, live with them in order to accomplish better our said
intention and to do a thing agreeable to God our Creator and Redeemer
and which may be for the promoting of his holy sacred name and of our
mother the Holy Catholic church, of which we are called and named the
first son."
Yet before he signed this commission five years had passed. For up to
this Francis had troubles enough at home, with his kingdom invaded by
Charles V of Spain and his throne threatened, to prevent his giving
thought to Hochelaga in the West. But on June 15, 1538, the truce
between France and Spain gave him more leisure for colonization schemes
and the extension of the empire. Especially did he desire it to turn
to the western hemisphere, for he looked with jealous eyes upon the
activity of the King of Spain in that direction. "I should like to see
the clause in our father Adam's will which bequeathed to him this fine
heritage."
There is no doubt that Cartier's action in seizing Donnacona,
Taignoagny and Dom Agaya and others, and taking them to France, from
which they never returned, was the beginning of the cause of the
hostility of the Indians. At first these had received Cartier kindly,
but they could not be expected to forget this treachery in the loss
of their friends. Mather, alluding to a similar piece of treachery by
an English captain some time before the arrival of the Pilgrim Colony
declares that "it laid the foundation of grievous annoyances to all the
English endeavors of settlements, especially in the northern parts of
the island, for several years ensuing. The Indians would never forget
or forgive this injury."
We have no record of Hochelaga till September 7-11, 1540. For this we
are again indebted to Cartier's account of his third voyage. Luckily
this has been partially preserved in Hakluyt's translation, which
is that of the "Bref Récit," the only version known. On Wednesday
(September 7, 1541) Cartier left the proposed French settlement,
Charlesbourg Royal, about four leagues beyond the harbour of St. Croix,
with two boats, to visit Hochelaga and the rapids above it. Following
Hakluyt we learn:
"How after the departure of the two ships which were sent back to
Brittany, and that the fort was begun to be builded, the captain
prepared two boats to go up the great river to discover the passage of
the three saults or falls of the river." While awaiting the arrival of
Roberval in command of the first colonizing party Cartier went up to
the sault from Charlesbourg Royal on September 7th, "and we sailed with
so prosperous a wind that we arrived the 11th day of the month at the
first sault of water, which is two leagues distant from the Town of
Tutonaguy."[19]
There is no further description of Tutonaguy, which we take to be the
site of Montreal. Cartier mentions that finding it impossible to get up
against the course of the sault he came on shore to a beaten path going
towards the first sault. "And on the way and soon after, we found an
habitation of people which made us great cheer and entertained us very
hospitably." Four young men conducted them to another hospitable people
who lived over against the second sault. We may perhaps conclude that
those of the first sault were islanders of Montreal and we are pleased
that their hospitality was forthcoming as is always that of our modern
city. But we regret that Jacques Cartier appears to have made no stay
at Tutonaguy.
With this we take leave of Cartier. Canadians have one grudge against
him, for there seems no doubt that his description of the severity of
our climate delayed colonization here, but his account of Montreal
is satisfactory to us. We are not writing his life, but Montreal can
rejoice in having been discovered by a worthy man. We are glad that
Francis I recognized his merits as we find him spoken of, in an act of
the Chapter of St. Malo, September 29, 1549, as Sieur de Limoilou, and
in another act, of February 5, 1550, as a "noble man." Unfortunately as
he did not leave any child by his wife, Catherine Desgranges, he did
not pass on his title of nobility to anyone. Jacques Cartier is worthy
of recognition as among the great men of his time, and Montreal is
proud of its discoverer and first historian.
ROBERVAL'S PROBABLE VISIT TO HOCHELAGA, 1542
The next French visit to Hochelaga can only be surmised. We have the
record as follows, which gives us an indication of such a possible
visit: It is found in Hakluyt's description of the
"COURSE OF JEAN ALPHONSE, CHIEF PILOT TO MONSIEUR ROBERVAL 1542.
"By the nature of the climate the lands towards Hochelaga are better
and better and more fruitful; and this land is fit for figs and pears;
and I think that gold and silver will be found here according as the
people of the country say." It is likely that it received a visit from
"John Francis de la Rocque, knight, Lord of Roberval," whose voyage
from his fort in Canada is related by Hakluyt "to the countries of
Canada, Saguenay and Hochelaga with three tall ships and 200 persons,
both men and women, and children, begun in April, 1542, in which parts
he remained the same summer and all the next winter." On the 6th of
June about 6 o'clock in the morning, Monsieur Roberval, the king's
lieutenant general in the countries of Canada, Saguenay and Hochelaga,
"set sail for the country of the Saguenay and sailed against the stream
in which voyage their whole furniture was of eight barks, as well great
as small and to the number of three score and ten persons, with the
aforesaid general." Unfortunately the rest of this voyage is wanting.
We know that de Roberval's party contained many undesirables and not
good matter for citizenship and we are glad, that if these did visit
Montreal, they did not stay there.
Montreal would never have been proud of itself with such an origin.
NOTE I
THE SITE OF HOCHELAGA
Where did Jacques Cartier land on the island of Montreal in 1535? We
should very much like to know this. All we know is the naming of the
mountain. There is a portion of Montreal called Hochelaga, being to
the southwest of the present city, but there is no contention that
this is the original part of the island, on which Jacques Cartier
landed. The "Bref Récit" of Cartier's voyage states that he landed two
leagues from the Indian town, which was a quarter of a league from the
mountain. Hakluyt makes the latter distance a league. The Abbé Faillon
in "La Colonie Française" thinks that Cartier ascended the river to the
Lachine Rapids. There is more reason to believe he stayed on his way
opposite Nun's Island. A theory advanced in November 19, 1860, by Sir
William Dawson, principal of McGill College, in a discourse before the
Natural History Society of Montreal, locates the site of Hochelaga in
the space between Metcalfe and Mansfield streets in one direction and
Burnside Place and Sherbrooke Street in the other.
"Doctor Dawson founded his opinion after the examination of some
Indian relics excavated by some workmen in November, 1860, near
Mansfield Street, in the sandy ridge of a terrace immediately north of
Sherbrooke Street. They exhumed two skeletons, and with them or near
them were found jawbones of a beaver and of a dog, with a fragment of
an earthen vessel and of a hollow cylinder of red clay. The skeletons
were in a sitting or crouching posture, as was the mode of burial
with certain early Indian tribes. Among other relics previously found
and exhibited on this occasion was an instrument made of bone, found
among the remains, which exactly fitted the marks on some of the
pottery, the large end having been fashioned like a cup, and the small
end artificially tapered to a point. There were also several knives
and chisels of sharpened bone, in tolerable preservation and some
singular counters which are supposed to have been used in play, the
Indians being inveterate gamblers. The most interesting relics were
tobacco pipes, handsomely fashioned in the shape of lotus flowers,
with the hole through the stem perfectly preserved. I have thought
it well to enumerate these finds because they are now at the Natural
History Museum of the city, and several gentlemen, antiquarians and
archæologists have also private collections of their own. May not
they serve the reader's imagination to conjure up and reconstruct for
himself a picture of the village life of the earliest known inhabitants
of Montreal in place of a labored description of the present
writer."[20]
Describing Cartier's walk toward Hochelaga Mr. Stanley Bagg (Numa),
in the "Canadian Antiquarian and Numismatic Journal, July, 1873, Vol.
II, p. 14, says: "Where the brook crosses McGill College ground, he
was met by a deputation of the aborigines; afterwards he came into the
presence of their king, was conducted through corn-fields to the town
and subsequently ascended the mountain. Cartier's description of the
locality, taken in connection with the statement of the missionaries,
and the discovery of Indian antiquities, place the Town of Hochelaga on
the space between Mansfield Street to a little west of Metcalfe Street
in one direction and in the other from a little south of Burnside Place
to within sixty yards of Sherbrooke Street. In this area, several
skeletons, hundreds of old fireplaces, indications of huts, bones of
wild animals, pottery and implements of stone and bone have been found."
NOTE II
HOCHELAGA CIVILIZATION
In order to present a picture of these early settlers around Mount
Royal the following description from Jacques Cartier's second voyage
may be of avail:
"OF THE MANNER OF LIVING OF THE PEOPLE OF THE SAID LAND, AND OF
CERTAIN CONDITIONS, BELIEF, AND MANNER OF MAKING WHAT THEY HAVE
"The said people have not any belief in God which may avail, for they
believe in one whom they call Cudouagny, and they say that he speaks
frequently to them and tells them what the weather should be. They say
also that when he is angry with them he throws dirt in their eyes.
They believe also that when they depart they go to the stars, then
go declining to the horizon like the said stars, then pass into fair
fields toward plains of beautiful trees, flowers and sumptuous fruits.
After they had given us to understand these things we showed them their
error and said that their Cudouagny is an evil spirit who abuses them,
and said that there is only one God, who is in heaven, who gives us all
things necessary, and is the Creator of all things, and that in Him
only should we believe, and that it was necessary to be baptised or
go to hell. Many other things of our faith were shown them which they
readily believed, and called their Cudouagny, Agojuda, so that many
times they prayed our captain to have them baptised. And the said Lord
Taignoagny, Dom Agaya, and all the people of their town, came there for
the purpose of being baptised; but because we knew not their intention
and sincerity and that there was none that could show them the faith
there, excuse was made to them, and it was told Taignoagny and Dom
Agaya that they should make them understand that we should return
another voyage, and would bring priests and holy oil, giving them
to understand for excuse that one could not be baptised without the
said holy oil, which they believed because they saw several children
baptised in Brittany, and of the promise that the captain made them to
return they were very joyous and thanked him.
"The said people live in almost a community of goods, rather of the
style of the Brazilians, and are wholly clothed with skin of wild
beasts, and poorly enough. In winter they are shod with stockings and
shoes, and in summer they go barefoot. They keep the order of marriage,
save that they take two or three wives, and after the husband is dead
the wives never remarry, but wear mourning for the said dead all
their lives, and besmear their faces with coal-dust and with grease
as thick as the thickness of a knife; and by that one knows that they
are widows. They have another custom very bad for their girls; for
after they are of age to marry they are all put into a common house,
abandoned to everybody who desires them until they have found their
match. And all this we have seen by experience, for we have seen the
houses as full of the said girls as is a school of boys in France.
And, moreover, gaming according to their manner is held in the said
houses, where they stake all that they have, even to the covering of
their nature. They do not any great work, and with little pieces of
wood about the size of a half-sword cultivate their land whereon they
raise their corn, which they call Zis, the which is as big as peas,
of the same grain in growth as in Brazil. Likewise they have a great
quantity of great melons, cucumbers, and pumpkins, peas and beans of
all colours, not of the kind of ours. They have also an herb of which
during the summer they make a great store for the winter, the which
they greatly esteem, and the men only use it in the manner following:
They have it dried in the sun and carry it about their necks in a
little beast's skin in place of a bag, with a horn of stone or wood;
then by and by they make powder of the said herb and put it in one of
the ends of the said horn, then put a coal fire thereon and suck at
the other end so long that they fill their bodies with smoke; insomuch
that it comes out by the mouth and nostrils as by a chimney funnel; and
they say that it keeps them healthy and warm, and they never go without
having their said things. We have tried the said smoke, which, after
being put into our mouths, seemed to be powder of pepper put therein,
it was so hot. The women of the said country work beyond comparison
more than the men, as well in fishing, of which they make a great
business, as in tilling and other things; and men, women and children
alike are more hardened to the cold than beasts, for with the greatest
cold that we may have seen, the which was extreme and bitter, they came
over the ice and snow every day to our ships, the most part of them
almost entirely naked, which is an incredible thing to one who has not
seen it. They take during the said ice and snow a great quantity of
wild beasts, as deer, stags, and bears, of which they brought us but
very little, because they were stingy of their victuals. They eat their
flesh wholly raw, after having been dried by the smoke, and likewise
their fish. By what we have seen and been able to learn of this said
people it seems to me that they might be easy to tame in such fashion
as one might desire. God by his divine compassion bestow upon them his
regard. Amen."
NOTE III--CANADA
Canada was limited by Cartier to the region between the Isle of Bacchus
(Isle d'Orleans) and Hochelaga. There can be no doubt that the word
Canada is derived from Cannata or Kannata, which in Iroquois signifies
a collection of dwellings, in other words a settlement, and it is
probable that when the Indians were asked by the French the name of
their country, they replied pointing to their dwellings, "Cannata,"
which their interrogators applied in a broader sense than was intended.
NOTE IV--GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF MOUNT ROYAL
The following geological study of Mount Royal prepared by Dean F. D.
Adams of McGill University for the Geological Survey Department of
the Federal Government cannot fail to be of interest to students of
Montreal:
"In the Province of Quebec, between the enormous expanse of the
Laurentian highlands to the northwest, constituting the 'Canadian
Shield,' and the disturbed and folded tract of country which marks
the Appalachian uplift, there is a great plain underlain by nearly
horizontal rocks of lower Palæozoic age. This plain, while really
showing slight differences of level from place to place, seems to the
casual observer perfectly flat. Its surface is mantled with a fertile
soil consisting of drift redistributed upon its surface by the sea,
which covered it at the close of the Glacial times. The uniform expanse
of this plain, however, is broken by several isolated hills composed of
igneous rocks, which rise abruptly from it and which constitute very
striking features of the landscape.
"From the top of Mount Royal the other hills referred to can all be
seen rising from the plain to the east; while to the north the plain
stretches away unbroken to the foot of the Laurentian plateau.
"The hills under consideration, while by no means 'mere hummocks,'
being situated in such a country of low relief, seem to be higher than
they really are and are always referred to locally as 'mountains.'
"These mountains, whose positions are shown on the accompanying map,
are eight in number, their names and their height above sea level being
as follows:
"Mount Royal 769.6 feet.
Montarville or St. Bruno 715 " (O'Neil)
Beloeil 1,437 " (Leroy)
Rougemont 1,250 "
Yamaska 1,470 " (Young)
Shefford 1,725 "
Brome 1,755 "
Mount Johnson or Monnoir 875 "
"They have been called the Monteregian Hills from Mount Royal ('Mons
Regius'), which is the best known member of the group and may be taken
as their type.
"Brome Mountain is by far the largest member of the group, having an
area of 30 square miles. Shefford comes next in size, having an area of
rather less than nine square miles; while Mount Johnson, which is very
much smaller than any of the others, has an area of only .422 of one
square mile.
"Of these eight, the first six, as Logan notes, 'stand pretty nearly
in a straight line,' running approximately east and west, Mount Royal
being the most westerly, and the others following in the order in which
they are enumerated above, until Shefford Mountain, the most easterly
member of the series, is reached. Mount Johnson and Brome Mountain lie
on a line parallel to them, a short distance to the south, Rougemont
being the nearest neighbour to Mount Johnson and Brome Mountain
immediately south of Shefford. It is highly probable, in view of this
distribution, that these ancient volcanic mountains are, as is usual
in such occurrences, arranged along some line or lines of weakness or
deep-seated fracture. The 'pretty nearly straight line' referred to
by Logan, on which the first six mountains of the group are situated,
must be considered either as a single line with a rather sharp curve
in the middle or as made up of two shorter straight lines, each with
three mountains, diverging from one another at an angle of about thirty
degrees, with Montarville at the point of intersection. Mount Johnson
and Brome Mountain might then be considered as situated on short
subsidiary fractures.
"The distance from Brome Mountain, the most easterly member of the
Monteregian Hills, to Mount Royal the most westerly, is 50 miles
(80 km.). For a few miles to the east and west of these mountains
respectively, however, evidences of the igneous activity of the system
are manifested in the occurrence of occasional dykes or small stocks
of the consanguineous rocks of the series, the extreme easterly
representative of these being a little stock exposed about a mile and
a half east of Eastman, on the line of the Canadian Pacific Railway,
and the most westerly being a series of dykes and a small stock at La
Trappe, on the Lake of Two Mountains. Similarly, the most northerly
extension is represented by a sheet intercalated between strata of the
Chazy limestone in the bed of the Little River, near St. Lin, 15 miles
(24 km.) north of St. Lin Junction. It is difficult to say just how far
to the south the last evidences of the Monteregian activity are found,
but scattered dykes of bostonite, camptonite and monchiquite have been
described by Kemp and Marsters from the shores of Lake Champlain (out
of which flows the River Richelieu), to a distance of 90 miles (145
km.) or more south of Mount Johnson.
"The Monteregian Hills are a series of ancient plutonic intrusions.
Some of them (e. g. Brome Mountain) are apparently denuded laccoliths,
one of them (Mount Johnson) is a typical neck or pipe, and it is
probable that some, if not all, of them, represent the substructures of
volcanoes which at one time were in active eruption in this region.
"It is impossible to determine accurately the date of these intrusions.
In the case of Mount Royal, however, inclusions of Lower Devonian
limestone are found in the intruded rock, so that the intrusions
forming the mountain are later than Lower Devonian time.
"Since Dresser by another line of evidence, has shown that the
intrusion of Mount Shefford probably took place before late
Carboniferous time, the Monteregian intrusions probably date back to
the late Devonian or early Carboniferous period.
"It must be noted that while six of these mountains rise from the
horizontal strata of the plain, the two most easterly members of the
group, namely Shefford and Brome, while still to the west of the axis
of that range, lie well within the folded belt of the Appalachians,
although, owing to the extensive denudation from which the region
has suffered, this folding has had but little influence on the local
topography. About La Trappe, at the extreme westerly extension of the
Monteregian area, the dykes of the series cut rocks of Laurentian age,
which here form an outlier of the great Laurentian protaxis on the
north.
"The Monteregian Hills form an exceptionally distinct and well marked
petrographical province, being composed of consanguineous rocks of very
interesting and rather unusual type. These are characterized by a high
content of alkali and in the main intrusion of almost every mountain
two distinct types are found associated with one another, representing
the products of the differentiation of the original magma.
"These are--
"(a) Nepheline syenite, in some cases replaced by or associated
with pulaskite, tawite, akerite or nordmarkite.
"(b) Essexite, in some cases represented by theralite, yamaskite,
rougemonite, or rouvillite.
"It may be mentioned that yamaskite is a very basic rock type
characterized by a great predominance of pyroxene, basaltic hornblende
and ilmenite, with about two per cent of anorthite. Rougemonite
consists largely of anorthite with pyroxene as the only important
ferro-magnesian constituent. Rouvillite is a highly feldspathic variety
of theralite.
GEOLOGY OF MOUNT ROYAL
"Mount Royal consists of a body of intrusive plutonic rock penetrating
the nearly horizontal limestone of the Trenton formation (Ordovician).
It consists of two main intrusions composed of essexite and nepheline
syenite respectively, of which the nepheline syenite is the later
followed by a swarm of dykes and sheets of consanguineous rocks which
cut not only the main intrusions, but also penetrate the surrounding
limestones in all directions. The intrusive rock in some places tilts
up the limestones while elsewhere about the mountain these maintain
their horizontal attitude. The intrusion may be essentially laccolitic
in character, or it may represent the plutonic basis of a volcano. The
erosion has been so long continued that it has been impossible as yet
to reach a definite conclusion on this point.
"The greater part of the plain through which the mountain rises, and
which is underlaid by Ordovician strata, is mantled by drift which also
covers the slopes of the mountain. This drift, and in some places the
underlying rock, has been terraced by a series of well defined beaches,
which mark the successive stages of the retreat of the sea at the close
of the Glacial age.
"The City of Montreal is built upon these drift deposits, and lies
upon the slopes of Mount Royal and upon the plain about its foot. The
development of the city was largely influenced by the position of the
main beaches above mentioned.
"At a number of places on the slopes of Mount Royal and in its vicinity
there are remarkable developments of igneous breccia. This has as a
matrix one or other of the dyke rocks of the series, while the included
fragments consist in part of the Trenton limestone, often associated
with fragments of the other underlying stratified rocks traversed by
the dykes in their upward passage. These fragments are frequently so
numerous that they constitute a large part of the whole mass. Perhaps
the most remarkable of these breccias is that which occurs on St.
Helen's Island in the harbor of Montreal, and which is unique among
these occurrences in that it contains fragments of rocks which are
more recent in age than any of the sedimentary strata now found in the
district.
"At the present time a tunnel, about three and a half miles in
length, is being driven through Mount Royal by the Canadian Northern
Railway, in order to gain an entrance from the westward to their
proposed terminals in the vicinity of the corner of Dorchester and Ste.
Monique streets, in the City of Montreal. It has afforded an excellent
opportunity of studying the distribution of dykes, sheets, etc., as
well as fresher specimens of many of the rock types of the district.
Already about two miles and a half of the sub-heading have been driven.
More minute description, in detail, of the various explored strata of
rock is to be found in the same work."
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The company is said to be 110.
[2] This commission was dated October 31, 1534.
[3] Stadaconé is the site of Quebec. Stadaconé is "wing" in Huron
Iroquois, so called because of the formation of the point between the
St. Lawrence and the St. Charles rivers.
[4] The translation of the second voyage of Jacques Cartier which we
are using with his permission is that made by Mr. James Phinney Baxter
and published in 1906 in his "Memoir of Jacques Cartier." We have
not chosen Hakluyt's for the following reasons: In the Bibliothèque
Nationale of Paris there are three contemporary manuscripts, numbered
55 5644 and 5653, which vary very slightly. That numbered 5653 was
probably the copy used for a publication of the second voyage issued at
Paris in 1545 under the title of "Bref Récit" and appeared translated
into English by Hakluyt in 1600. In comparing the other manuscript
it has been found that numerous errors and omissions occurred in
the version printed under the title of the Bref Récit including the
omission of two entire chapters. Doctor Baxter has therefore translated
the manuscript 5589 and it is a portion of this that we present to the
readers.
[5] Hochelaga is Huron Iroquois for "at the Beavers Dam."
[6] This might indicate that there were chaplains with Cartier, if he
had perhaps not deluded the savages, as likely he did.
[7] The history of the efforts of the Montreal merchants to deepen the
channels dates from the same cause. The success of the navigation to
Montreal has followed the varying increases in depth of this channel.
[8] The present Sorel Islands, the streams being the channels between
them.
[9] The Algonquin word is Mooskouessou.
[10] Maize or Indian corn.
[11] Lescarbot has it caracona. The word is Huron Iroquois.
[12] "Esnogny," the wampum of the Abenaki.
[13] Shells.
[14] Cartier's Canada was limited to the region between the Isle
Bacchus and Hochelaga.
[15] The Lachine Rapids.
[16] The Ottawa.
[17] Probably from the region of Lake Superior.
[18] Donnacona, Dom Agaya and Taignoagny were baptized, as it appears
by the register of St. Malo. Donnacona, being the so-called King of the
Savages, was doubtless named François for the king. The following is a
translation in the entry in the registry: "This day, Notre Dame XXVth
of March, the year one thousand five hundred and thirty-eight, were
baptized three savage men from the party of Canada, taken in the said
country by the honest man, Jacques Cartier, captain for the King, our
Sire, for the discovery of the said lands. The first was named Charles,
by the venerable and discreet master Charles de Champ Girault, dean
and canon of the said places principal sponsor; and secondary sponsor,
Monsieur the Lieutenant and Seigneur de la Verderye; and godmother
Catherine Des Granges. And the second was named François, the name
of the King, our Sire, by the honest man, Jacques Cartier, principal
godfather; and secondary godfather Master Pierre le Gobien; godmother,
Madame le Lieutenant Seigneur de la Verderye. The third was named ----
by Master Servan May ---- of the said place, and secondary godfather,
Jehan Nouël; and godmother Guillemette Maingard."
[19] Montreal is known in Iroquois as "Tioktiaki" which the Abbé
Faillon has identified as Tutonaguy.
[20] Sandham's "Ville Marie Past and Present."
CHAPTER II
1516-1627
COLONIZATION
UNDER THE EARLY TRADING COMPANIES
OF NEW FRANCE
FRENCH COLONIZATION, A CHRISTIANIZING MOVEMENT--THE CROSS
AND THE CROWN--ROBERVAL'S COMMISSION TO COLONIZE CANADA AND
HOCHELAGA--FEUDALISM PROJECTED--CRIMINALS AND MALEFACTORS TO BE
SENT AS COLONISTS--JACQUES CARTIER SAILS IN ADVANCE--CHARLESBOURG
ROYAL, THE FIRST COLONY, STARTED--CARTIER SAILS FOR HOCHELAGA AND
PASSES TUTONAGUY--CARTIER SAILS SECRETLY FOR FRANCE--CHARLESBOURG
A FAILURE--DEATH OF CARTIER--HIS GREAT NEPHEW, NOEL, VISITS
THE GREAT SAULT IN 1557--THE FIRST PRIVATE MONOPOLY TO NOEL
AND OTHERS--THE FIRST ROYAL TRADE MONOPOLY TO DE LA ROCHE--THE
EDICT OF NANTES--CHAUVIN, A HUGUENOT, SECURES A TRADE
MONOPOLY--TADOUSSAC, THE COURT OF KING PETAUD--EYMARD DE CHASTES
RECEIVES A COMMISSION AND ENGAGES THE SERVICES OF A ROYAL
GEOGRAPHER, SAMUEL DE CHAMPLAIN--CHAMPLAIN's FIRST VISIT TO THE
SAULT--DE MONTS, SUCCEEDING DE CHASTES, RETAINS CHAMPLAIN AS
HIS LIEUTENANT--QUEBEC CHOSEN BY CHAMPLAIN--CHAMPLAIN BECOMES
A COMPANY PROMOTER AND MANAGING DIRECTOR, THE SHAREHOLDERS
BEING MOSTLY HUGUENOTS, THE PRINCE DE CONDE, GOVERNOR
GENERAL--CHAMPLAIN's BLUNDER IN ALLYING HIMSELF WITH THE
ALGONQUINS AND HURONS AGAINST THE IROQUOIS, AFTERWARDS THE CAUSE
OF IROQUOIS HOSTILITIES AGAINST THE FUTURE MONTREAL--THE COMING
OF THE "RECOLLECTS"--CHAMPLAIN'S ATTEMPT AT A REAL COLONIZING
SETTLEMENT AT QUEBEC--THE JESUITS ARRIVE--THE COMPANY OF ONE
HUNDRED ASSOCIATES.
As the origin of Montreal is bound up so closely with the history of
the colonization of La Nouvelle France, it is well to place it in
relation with this movement, otherwise Montreal will appear as detached
from its mission in the growth and development of Canada.
The date usually assigned for the discovery of Canada is April 5,
1409, but the knowledge of Canada begins only with Jacques Cartier.
Long, however, before him, the fishing grounds of Newfoundland had
seen navigators from Dieppe, St. Malo, La Rochelle, Honfleur and other
ports of France, besides those of Cornwall, Devonshire and the Channel
Islands. Brave mariners, Normands, Bretons and Basques, besides being
familiar with Newfoundland, knew vaguely of the existence of Canada,
although that name had not been yet attached to this country. Other
nations also were represented in these fishing regions, but it was
reserved to Cartier definitely to discover it, and to Francis I of
France, to attempt to colonize and christianize it.
It must be conceded that the religious policy played a great part, as
the commissions granted to Cartier, Champlain, and others, as well
as the report of these and the relations of their discoveries, amply
testify. Lescarbot, no good Catholic, acknowledges that: "Our kings in
enterprising these movements for discovery, have had another end than
that of our neighbours (the English and the Dutch). For I see by their
commissions that these smack only of the advancement of the Christian
religion without any present profit."
It is this lofty missionary spirit that we must read into the
adventurous motives of the first discoverers and founders of Canada--La
Nouvelle France--of Quebec and Montreal in particular, else nothing
but a sordid desire for trade, mixed perhaps with adventure, is to be
the story of the origin of our great country. Unless the religious
character and close touch with the supernatural, possessed by the first
inhabitants are appreciated, the romance of the accounts of the early
historians will have no attraction for our readers nor will the key to
the understanding of the history of Canada till the occupation by the
British in 1760 be supplied.
We must look upon Jacques Cartier, when as the bearer of a Royal
Commission, he left St. Malo, on April 20, 1534, to conquer new lands
for Christianity, as dignified by this side of his duty--to promote
the glory of God and that of France. Consequently his progress up the
River St. Lawrence to Hochelaga is marked by such incidents as the
distribution of rosaries and pious objects, emblems of the faith he
believed in, and the planting at Gaspé of a cross thirty feet high, in
the middle of which was a shield with three _fleurs de lis_, with the
inscription, cut into the wood, "Vive Le Roi de France." His course
and that of Champlain, up the St. Lawrence is strewn with a number
of places named after the festivals of the church, all dignifying an
otherwise prosaic catalogue of discoveries. The cross and the crown of
France may therefore be considered the emblems of the French occupation.
It is not the purpose of this book to detail Cartier's voyages, three
of which we have recounted by himself, those of 1534, 1535-36, and
1540. We have, however, chosen several extracts from the second voyage,
as these relate especially to Montreal. We wish to gather the results
of his work. He left no permanent settlement and established no trading
posts but he claimed the land for France and his accounts to the king
and the ministers and his published voyages of the country of Canada,
Hochelaga and Saguenay, kept before his countrymen the existence of a
great land in the West worth the colonizing.
Cartier's commission in the first voyage was that of "Captain and
Master Pilot of the King;" in the second, "Captain General and Master
Pilot." When he was sent on his third voyage, a new element entered
into the view of Canada. At the head of the expedition was placed a
gentleman of Picardy, Jean François de la Rocque Seigneur de Roberval,
whom Francis I playfully styled the Petty King of Vimeux, and whom he
appointed his lieutenant and governor in the countries of Canada and
Hochelaga, with Jacques Cartier as "the Captain General and leader of
the ships." His commission is dated October 20, 1540. This was to be
the first colonizing movement.
Jean François de la Rocque's letters patent were granted by Francis
I, on January 15, 1540. It reads, having learnt of the discovery
of countries, "the which have been found furnished with very good
commodities, and the people thereof well formed in body and limb and
well disposed in disposition and understanding, of which have also
been brought us others having the appearance of good inclination. In
consideration of which things we have considered and determined to
send again into the same countries of Canada and Hochelaga and others
circumjacent, as well as into all transmarine and maritime countries
inhabited, not possessed nor granted, by any Christian princes, some
goodly number of gentlemen, our subjects, as well men of war as common
people of each sex, and other craftsmen and mechanics in order to
enter further into the said countries; and as far as into the land of
the Saguenay and all other countries aforesaid, for the purpose of
discoursing with the said peoples therein, if it can be done, and to
dwell in the said lands and countries, there to construct and build
towns and forts, temples and churches in the communication of our Holy
Catholic Faith and Christian doctrine, to constitute and establish
laws in our name, together with officers of justice to make them live
according to equity and order and in the fear and love of God, to the
end that they may better conform to our purpose and do the things
agreeable to God, our Creator, Saviour and Redeemer, which may be to
the sanctification of His Holy Name and to the increase of our Holy
Faith and the growth of our Mother of the Holy Catholic Church, of the
which we are said to be and entitled the first son," etc.
The text of the letters patent following is a very long one, it enters
most minutely, and in a most legal and formal manner, into the details
of the powers of the governor which are to be very great and foresee a
thoroughly organized kingdom with all the elements of feudalism with
his fiefs and seigneuries--in fact a Nouvelle France!
On January 15th, Roberval's Royal Commission empowering him to take
the means for the equipment, was signed at Fontainebleau. It gave to
"our said lieutenant full authority, charge, commission and special
mandate to provide and furnish of himself all things necessary to
said army and to levy or cause to be levied in all parts, places and
precincts of our realm as shall seem to him good, paying therefor
reasonably, and as is meet, and to take men of war, or artisans and
others of divers conditions in order to carry them with him on the said
voyage, provided that this may be of their own good will and accord,
and likewise also provisions, victuals, arms, artillery, arquebuses,
powder, saltpeter, pikes and other offensive and defensive weapons, and
generally all clothing, instruments and other things suitable for the
equipment, despatch and efficiency of this army," etc. The supply of
volunteers for this expedition does not seem to have been sufficiently
encouraging, for, dated February 7th, we have an order by Francis I,
for delivery of prisoners to Jehan François de la Rocque. This document
after re-stating the terms of the commissions, already given, in view
of the wish of the King that the expedition shall sail on the 15th
of April, at the latest, states "and on account of the long distance
from the said country and the fear of shipwreck and maritime risks,
and others regretting to leave their goods, relatives and friends,
fearing to make the said voyage; and, peradventure as a number, who
would willingly make the same journey, might object to remain in the
same country after the return of our said lieutenant, by means of
which, through want of having a competent number of men for service,
and other volunteers to people the said countries, the undertaking of
the said voyage could not be accomplished so soon, and as we desire,
and as it is requisite for the weal of the human creatures dwelling
in the said country without law and without knowledge of God and of
his holy faith, which we wish to increase and augment by a great zeal,
a thing if it were not accomplished, which would cause us very great
regret, considering the great benefit and public weal which would
proceed from the said enterprise, and as we have enjoined and verbally
commanded our said lieutenant to diligently execute our said will and
intention, to depart and commence the said voyage by the fifteenth of
April next ensuing, at farthest if it can be accomplished," etc. * * *
"We desire to employ clemency, in doing a good and meritorious work,
towards some criminals and malefactors, that by this they may recognize
the Creator by rendering him thanks and amending their lives, we have
thought proper to have given and delivered to our said lieutenant,
his clerks and deputies, to the full number that he shall advise of
the said criminals and malefactors detained in the jails and state
prisons of our parliament and of other jurisdictions, * * * such as
they shall desire to choose and select, condemned and judged as has
been said, always excepting the imprisoned criminals to whom we are not
accustomed to give pardon * * * commuting the penalty of death into an
honest and useful voyage, with the condition that when the said persons
return home again from the said voyage without permission from us, they
shall be executed in the place in which they may have been condemned,
immediately and without hope of pardon."
An extract from the Parliament Registers at Rouen of March 9th, giving
power to Roberval to have the prisoners transferred from its jails to
him limits the choice somewhat by "excepting the prisoners who shall
be held in cases and crimes of heresy and high treason in the first
degree, of counterfeiting money and other too monstrous cases and
crimes."
Roberval could not get his party together for April. Indeed it seemed
that he needed Jacques Cartier's assistance, for on October 17, 1540,
we find him receiving a commission similar to Roberval's to take over
fifty prisoners. In this charge he is allowed and permitted "to take
the little galleon, called L'Emerillon which he now has of us, the
which is already old and rotten, in order to serve in repairing those
of the ships which shall have need of it," without rendering any
account of it. But it was not till May 23d of the year following, 1541,
that Cartier set sail with five ships, well furnished and victualed
for two years. He went without Roberval, because as the King had sent
Cartier letters "whereby he did expressly charge him to depart and
set sail immediately upon the sight and receipt thereof, on pain of
incurring his displeasure, and as Roberval had not got his artillery,
powder and ammunitions ready he told Cartier to go on ahead and he
would prepare a ship or two at Honfleur whither he expected his things
were to come. Having mustered and reviewed "the gentleman soldiers and
mariners which were retained and chosen for the performance of the said
voyage, he gave unto Captain Cartier full authority to depart and go
before and to govern all things as if he had been there in person."
So Cartier sailed away, on May 23d. We will leave the misfortunes on
the way to be read in Cartier's memoir of the third voyage. At last,
however, Cartier arrived at the mouth of what is now Cape Rouge River
and found a spot where a fort should be built on the high point now
called Redclyffe. This fort he called Charlesbourg Royal, doubtless
after Charles, Duke of Orléans, son of Francis I. He put three of the
vessels in haven, and after the two others were emptied of all that
was destined for the colony, Cartier sent them back and with them
in command Marc Jalobert, his brother-in-law, and Etienne Noël, his
nephew, to tell King Francis that they had begun to construct a fort,
but that Monsieur de Roberval was not yet come and that he feared
that by occasion of contrary winds and tempests he was driven back to
France. They departed for St. Malo on September 2d.
Things were progressing at the fort; the land was tilled and the fort
was begun to be built; but now a party consisting of Cartier, Martin
de Painport, with other gentlemen, and the remnant of the mariners,
departed with two boats "with victuals to go as far as Hochelaga of
purpose to view and understand the fashion of the Saults of water."
The Viscount de Beaupré stayed behind for the guarding and government
of all things in the fort. Cartier's party reached the rapids passing
Tutonaguy, which we identify as the site of Montreal, but we have no
record of his staying there. Cartier's memoirs of the voyage break off
here. However, as we are interested only in the colonizing movement,
we get sufficient information from Roberval's account of his voyage of
the fate of the Charlesbourg attempt. Roberval says that Cartier left
for France at the end of September, 1541, and that he himself after
having set sail from Honfleur, on the 16th of April, 1542, arrived at
Newfoundland on the 7th of June following, where he found Cartier on
his way home. Cartier explained that he had left the fort because he
had not been able, with his little troupe, to resist the savages who
roamed daily around the fort, and were very harassing. However, Cartier
and his men praised the country highly, as being very rich and fertile,
adding that they had taken away many diamonds, and a certain quantity
of gold ore which Roberval examined and found good. Roberval had
arrived with three great vessels fitted out at the expense of the King,
with 200 souls, men and women and some gentlemen, among them being the
Sieur de Lenneterre, his lieutenant, Lespinay, his ensign, the Captain
Guinecourt, and the pilot, Jean Alphonse. He ordered Cartier to retrace
his steps to Charlesbourg, believing that the new recruitment was able
to resist the attacks of the enemy. But Cartier, and his following,
departed secretly the following night. Whether or not this flight was
disloyal, or born of fear, or of vainglory, since Roberval asserted,
that Cartier had fled being desirous of getting first to France to
acquaint the king of his discoveries, certain it is that it was wise.
For this first royal colonizing party composed of so many men and women
from the jails of France was fated to be a most lamentable failure.
Famine and lawlessness marked its sojourn at Charlesbourg. It was well
that New France should not be born of such material for citizenship.
This voyage has an interest for Montrealers in that Roberval passed by
it on a voyage to the Sault.
Cartier never seems to have been blamed by the king for his desertion
of Roberval, but, it is said, he was sent back to recall him for more
useful service in France. Of this fourth voyage of Jacques Cartier
we have no record. We find him settled in France, ennobled and known
as the Sieur de Limoilou, although there is a tradition, not well
founded, that he made a fifth voyage to Canada. He lived an honoured
man in St. Malo to his death. In the margin of the old record of the
Town of St. Malo under date of September 1, 1557, we find the following:
"This said Wednesday about five o'clock in the morning died
Jacques Cartier."
Cartier's name is no longer to be associated with the further history
of Canada, except in the memory of a grateful people, who will come to
admire the memory of this brave sailor, daring adventurer, missionary
and historian--the discoverer of Canada and Montreal. We shall see,
however, how this spirit of enterprise for Canadian extension was
carried on by his nephews.
We cannot help feeling sorry for Roberval. He was a young man of
energy and had great ideas as a colonizer. He went out, according to
Charlevoix, with the Royal Commission as "Lord of Norumberga, Viceroy
and Lieutenant General of Canada, Hochelaga, Saguenay, Newfoundland,
Belle-Isle, Carpunt, Labrador, the Great Bay and Baccalaos." He was
recalled for more useful service!
After Cartier had ceased visiting the St. Lawrence, the care of the
French government for the development and colonization of Canada seems
to have been neglected from 1543 to 1603. Cartier's discoveries were
not appreciated; it was reserved for Champlain three-quarters of a
century later, to follow in his footsteps. As Champlain is the trader
_par excellence_ of Canada and of Montreal, we may now briefly trace
the history of our trade.
Although discovery and colonization were so long abandoned still the
banks of Newfoundland and the mouth of the St. Lawrence were frequented
yearly by hardy Normans and Bretons as before, for the cod and whale
fishery there.[21] Trading with the natives in peltry became insensibly
mingled with the occupation of fisherman and Tadoussac grew to be a
public market for this sort of commerce and exchange. There we would
have found many good friends of Jacques Cartier, among them Capt. Marc
Jalobert, his brother-in-law, who visited Hochelaga in 1535 and Etienne
Noël, his nephew, also a sturdy captain under Cartier in his third
voyage. There, too, would have been Jacques Noël, his great-nephew,
who reports in a letter of 1557 that he had gone on his uncle's
traces up the St. Lawrence as far as the Great Sault. This visit to
Hochelaga makes us interested in him, the more so, as it was this Noël,
associated with Sieur de la Jaunaye-Chaton and the nephew of Jacques
Cartier, who in 1558 applied to Henry III for a charter similar to that
granted by Francis I to their uncle, appealing for this favour on the
ground that their uncle had spent, from his own pocket in the service
of the king in the voyage of 1541, a sum in excess of that which he had
received from the king, and had been allowed no recompense; nor had
indeed his heirs. Warned by the failures and the expenses of the past
the King demurred. Cartier's nephew then compromised. They offered to
renew their uncle's design and to form a French colony in Canada to
Christianize the savages, all at their own expense, provided that the
king would grant them the sole privilege for twelve years of trading
with the inhabitants, principally in peltry and that he would forbid
interference of rivals with them in this privilege and in the
exploitation of a mine discovered by them. To this the King consented
by a favour of January 14, 1588. This monopoly, the first of its kind,
was soon revoked at the instance of jealous rival traders of St. Malo
who obtained a revocation of the charter on the 5th of May following
for they considered that the good things coming from Jacques Cartier's
discoveries were to be shared in by all of St. Malo, since they
belonged to all and not to his nephews alone.
This attempt to obtain a private monopoly having failed, we are
surprised to find a monopoly being granted in 1589 by Henry IV to a
gentleman of Brittany, the Sieur de la Roche, apparently in accordance
with a promise given verbally or otherwise by Henry III at sometime
before his assassination in August, 1659. This document was one similar
to that granted by Francis I to Roberval and it made de la Roche
the king's lieutenant governor in New France--with real vice-regal
privileges. The commission differed in this from Roberval's that it
gave power to the lieutenant general to choose merchants to accompany
him and forbade all others to trade in the same regions without his
consent under penalty of confiscation of merchandise and vessels.
Again a miserable fiasco was to take place. The lieutenant governor
had to draw upon the jails and galleys for his colonists. He arrived
with sixty men under the direction of pilot Chedotel at Sable Island,
twenty-five leagues to the south of the Island of Cape Breton. Arrived
there he disembarked, according to Lescarbot, the greater part of those
he had drawn from the prisons, left them provisions and merchandise,
and promised to return for them as soon as he had found on the
mainland, a suitable place for settlement. Taking a little bark, he
went to the Acadian coast, but on returning was surprised by so violent
a wind that he was driven back to France in less than twelve days. The
fate of the abandoned colonists had better be told by Champlain. In
the description of his voyages, dedicated to Cardinal Richelieu and
published in 1632, Champlain's criticism of de la Roche's expedition
was "that the fault of this attempt at colonizing was that this
marquis did not have some one experienced in such matters explore and
reconnoitre, before assuming so excessive an outlay." On the other hand
we can be glad that Canada did not start her origin as a colony with
such stuff as composed the greater part of Roberval's and de la Roche's
consignments.
In 1598 the Edict of Nantes had been published in France and it was
soon to affect Canada in this wise. In France it had restored civil and
religious liberty to the Huguenots, Protestants or French Calvinists.
The spirit of conciliation was in the air and Huguenots now began to
take their place in the judicature and financial posts, and in the
army. Next year we find a sailor merchant of St. Malo named Dupont
Gravé soliciting a commission for Sieur Chauvin, of Normandy, a
Huguenot, a man of great skill and experience in navigation, captain
in the King's navy and of some influence at the court. As the King
remembered the good services of M. Chauvin he granted a monopoly to
him on the condition that no one should trade in Canada unless he had
Chauvin's permission and should settle in the country and make a home
there. Chauvin was to bear all the expenses, and he was to take 500 men
to fortify the country and defend it, and to teach the Catholic faith
to the Indians.
Tadoussac was chosen as the headquarters. Thither Chauvin and Dupont
Gravé and a Huguenot, Pierre Dugas, Sieur de Monts, a prospector who
came out on "pleasure," went with an advance party. Tadoussac had
been well enough for a summer trading post but, says Champlain, "if
there is an ounce of cold forty leagues up the river there is a pound
at Tadoussac." However, they fixed up a guardlike building of wood, 25
feet long by 18 wide, and 8 feet high. This was to harbour seventeen
men and provisions. "Behold them there very warm for the winter,"
chuckles Champlain, who had no love for the Huguenots. The leaders went
to France and during the winter the settlement at Tadoussac was "the
Court of King Pétaud; each one wished to command. Laziness, idleness,
and the diseases that attacked those remaining, reduced them to great
want and obliged them to give themselves up to the savages, who kindly
harboured them and they left their lodging. Some died miserably; others
suffered a great deal while waiting for the return of the ships." In
the next year a second voyage as fruitless as the first was made, by
Chauvin. He assayed another but fell into an illness which sent him to
another world. We have Champlain's comment in the account published
in 1632 on this attempt at colonization. "The trouble with this
undertaking was giving to a man of opposing religion a commission to
establish a nursery for the Catholic Apostolic and Roman faith[22] of
which the heretics have such a horror and abomination. These are the
defects that must be mentioned in regard to the enterprise."
After the death of Chauvin, the same commission of lieutenant general
was applied for, by Eymard de Chastes, Knight of Malta, Commander of
Lormetan, Grand Master of the Order of St. Lazarus and Governor of
Dieppe. Henry IV granted it and de Chaste should have made a good
colonizer for he intimated that in making his application it was in the
intention of betaking himself thither in person and of devoting the
rest of his years to the service of God and that of his king, but he
was not to live long. In order to meet the expenses of the expedition
Commander de Chastes formed a company of several of the principal
merchants of Rouen and elsewhere. He chose the explorer, Dupont Gravé,
to direct the flotilla as before to Tadoussac, and he desired him to
associate with himself in his further explorations for which he had
received a commission from the king, a young captain of Saintonge,
who had already given undoubted proof of his ability as a zealous,
courageous and intelligent explorer.
This was none other than Samuel de Champlain, whose name is to be
connected this very year of 1603 with Montreal and more lastingly in
1611. He is to become entitled to be called the founder of La Nouvelle
France. De Champlain had been living at Dieppe after his return from
a visit of two years to the West Indies and New Spain, for which he
had started early in 1599 in command of a French ship chartered by the
Spanish authorities and in which he had sailed under his uncle, a man
of distinction, in the previous year. During this period he had the
opportunity of observing and studying a European colony before trying
to found one himself. His "_Brief discours des choses plus remarquables
que Samuel Champlain de Brouage a reconnues aux Indes Occidentales, au
voyage qu' il y a fait_," was the result of this experience.
Champlain was now thirty-six years of age, having been born about the
year 1567 at Brouage, a small seaport town in the old province of
Saintonge, southeast of Rochefort and opposite the island of Oléron.
Champlain's father was a sailor, being a captain of the marine; his
uncle's position we have seen. Hence we do not wonder, when he tells
us of himself: "From my earliest years the art of navigation attracted
me, made me love the sea and drove me to expose myself nearly all
my life to the wild waves of the ocean. It has made me explore the
coasts of a part of the lands of America, and principally those of 'La
Nouvelle France,' where I have always had the desire to cause the lily
to flourish with the only Catholic religion, Apostolic and Roman." But
Champlain was also a soldier, for, having taken up the cause of Henry
IV in the troublous times of the League, he had served in Brittany
under Maréchals de Daumont de St. Luc and de Brissac and held during
several years the rank of Maréchal de Logis in the royal army. He held
this position till May 2, 1598, when peace between France and Spain
was established by the treaty of Vervins. Then again he turned to the
sea and went with his uncle to Spain, and afterward to Spanish America
as we have said. On his return he seems to be in favour with, and in
the service of, the King. He is in receipt of a pension, either for
his services in the army, or, as it has been supposed, because the
King, having been shown the notes and topographical sketches taken
by Champlain in his late voyage, had given him the title of Royal
Geographer; but when Commander de Chastes, who doubtless also had seen
the manuscripts, offered him a post in his new expedition, Champlain
told him he must obtain the king's permission for him to embark as
indeed de Chastes did. Moreover, the king commissioned Champlain to
report faithfully on his discoveries.
So Dupont Gravé and Champlain set out for Tadoussac and on the 18th of
June, reaching it, made for the Grand Sault. They passed by Quebec,
"which is a strait of the River of Canada, and anchored till Monday,
June 28th, and thence proceeding examined and named Three Rivers and
found it good for a future settlement." Finally on Wednesday, July 2,
the feast of the Visitation, they reached the entrance of the Sault. We
will reserve this visit to its proper chapter. After their exploration
on July 4th they turned back to Tadoussac and thence to France, where
they learned of the death of the worthy Commander de Chastes at Dieppe
on Tuesday, May 13, 1603. To replace de Chastes, that same Sieur de
Monts, who prospected Tadoussac with Chauvin, now took command of the
reins of government as lieutenant general, having applied for a similar
charter as the last. He was a Huguenot and was Governor of Paris for
the Protestant party. He continued the same association, employing
Dupont Gravé and Champlain. With them was the gentleman adventurer, the
Sieur de Poutrincourt. They set sail from Havre on the 7th of March,
1604, this time for Acadia. A site, since called "Port Royal," was
chosen by Poutrincourt and granted on condition he should return.
After having abandoned Acadia in 1607, de Monts now turned his
attention to Canada. He did this the more readily because the king
gave him for one year the exclusive right of the fur trade. Champlain,
hitherto a man subordinate, was charged by the lieutenant general as
his lieutenant. Champlain sailed from France on the 13th of April,
arrived at Tadoussac on the 3d of June and ascending the St. Lawrence,
named Cape Tourment and Montmorency Falls and, reaching Stadaconé,
he chose that place called Kébec by the natives and began to take
possession of it in the name of M. de Monts, and to construct a fort.
Champlain's instinct as a city planner was distinctly manifested
in the choice of the bold promontory whose bases are washed by the
Rivers St. Lawrence, Cap Rouge and St. Charles and whose outlook from
the promontory above is one of the grandest in the world. There were
twenty-eight men sent by de Monts for the expedition. A plot having
arisen among these to kill Champlain, one of the conspirators was
beheaded and three others were sent back to France. Soon, also, some
twenty died of scurvy or of dysentery caused by the eating of eels to
excess. The colony was now a cipher. Meanwhile, in France, de Monts'
one year's monopoly was revoked owing to the jealousy of the merchants
there. The question of the sale of the habitation of Quebec came up,
as the post appeared to be unnecessary if there was to be no monopoly.
Sieur de Monts remained governor general. Seeing the danger of de
Monts' enterprise breaking up, through the trading with the savages
being thrown open to other traders, Champlain began to look out for
himself and to cast his eyes on the Great Sault as a trading post for
himself. Thither he now went, as shall be related hereafter.
About this time, as the prohibition of trading had been removed from
private individuals, the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the river was a scene
of rival barks of greedy, avaricious, envious people without harmony
and without chief. On his return to France as de Monts wished to
resign his command, Champlain went to court to get permission to form
a company with exclusive rights and he was advised to invite Charles
de Bourbon, Count of Soissons, to accept the governor generalship on
the ground that his powerful protectorate would control order among
the traders in Canadian waters. This was accepted, and after the
necessary documents had been made out, but before being published,
the count died. The Prince de Condé, Henri de Bourbon, then accepting
the protectorate, received his commission, and named Samuel de
Champlain his lieutenant. But the commission was not published, owing
to representations being made to the Prince de Condé that such an
association was prejudicial to trade. The delay was doubtless annoying
to Champlain. However, as the old company was not yet dissolved,
Champlain, not wishing to lose the fur trade for the current year, ran
off again to Canada. On his return to France he went to Fontainebleau,
where the King and the Prince of Condé were.
Champlain was now successful as a company promoter. He contrived to get
his opposing merchants to come into the scheme themselves, and form a
company, of which they made him the managing director in Canada, with
a yearly salary of two hundred écus for looking after their interests.
The Prince of Condé became the governor general and the commission gave
a monopoly for eleven years. The usual powers were given as we have
seen before of absolute power, the proviso of bringing the savages
to the light of the Holy Roman and Catholic and Apostolic religion
being included as usual. This seems strange considering that all the
merchants of the new company were Huguenot Protestants.
On arriving in Canada Champlain soon made his first great mistake. He
was about to commence the great work of colonization of La Nouvelle
France, in which he was to succeed, but his first important step was
a great blunder and one from which La Nouvelle France was to suffer
for many years. The whole story of the Iroquois attacks, which
terrorized the French settlements and Montreal for so many years, is
bound up in the policy now initiated by the colonial builder of Canada.
It will be remembered that in the commissions granted to those sent
out to Canada, side by side with the duty of taking every means to
attract the natives to Christianity, was the privilege to contract
alliances with the natives and if they did not keep their treaties to
force them by open warfare, and to make peace or war--but all this,
be it understood, in accordance with the dignity of a great power and
following established methods of diplomacy. Champlain's fault lies
in this, that having arrived in Canada in the spring of 1605 as the
representative of the king of France, he was tempted, for the sake of
the petty reason of securing traffic facilities, to jeopardize the
future by taking sides with the Algonquins and Hurons, who were then in
open warfare with the Iroquois. Instead of remembering that the future
peace of the colony depended on his neutrality, he went with the few
men of the colony against the Iroquois, and with his modern weapons
caused deadly havoc among the bewildered Iroquois, who thenceforth
became the irreconcilable enemy of the Frenchmen. They never forgot
this needless intrusion of the Frenchmen into their quarrels; thus
they were implacable in their attacks on their Algonquin allies, and
were ready later to ally themselves with the English in their campaign
against the colony. It certainly made the work of Christianizing and
civilizing the people later very difficult. Champlain's blunder at
the battle of Lake Champlain on July 29, 1609, has been avoided in
subsequent colonization schemes of other nations as far as possible.
This is one of the uses of history.
[Illustration: CHAMPLAIN'S PICTURE OF HIS FIGHT WITH THE IROQUOIS]
So far we have seen that the two chief conditions, on which the trading
companies were granted their monopolies, were those of taking steps to
colonize and to Christianize. Neither had been observed. The merchants
were there for business and nothing else. Be it said, however, to
Champlain's credit that he was more ready than any of the others to
carry out both conditions. In 1615 he secured the four Recollect
Fathers of whom we shall speak. Their memoirs reveal a pitiable state
of irreligion, and apathy towards the policy of French colonization and
Christianizing the natives. Thus in Quebec, in 1617, there were only
fifty to sixty Frenchmen, in 1620 only sixty men, women and children
and religious all told. There seems to have been only one family,
that of the colonist, Louis Hébert, and he had a sorry time to make
a living. Louis Hébert was an apothecary and thus he was useful to
be tolerated, by the merchants. Some day Hébert will have a monument
raised to Him to commemorate his efforts to commence agriculture in
Canada.
Towards the end of the year Champlain's blunder begins to have its
fruits, for the savages around Quebec determined to exterminate the
French settlement. In the sequel, they satisfied their vengeance
by killing only two secretly, but it was a sign of more to follow.
Meanwhile what were the gentlemen with the high sounding titles
of governor general and viceroy of the king doing to carry on the
wonderful scheme outlined in their commissions? They were like modern
titled directors of speculating companies, drawing their fees. Thus
the Prince of Condé drew 1,000 _écus_, then while he was in prison
his successor to the fees, the Maréchal de Thémines drew 5,000, to
be followed by 11,000 drawn by the Duke de Montmorency, a young man
of twenty-five years, appointed governor general in 1618. This was
a drain on the merchants. Still it was better than losing their
privileges.
The new governor general, Montmorency, appointed Champlain his
particular lieutenant. In fact, Champlain may be called the acting
governor. This looked at last like a real attempt to make a true
settlement. Champlain now brought Madame de Champlain out and others,
and with them Madame Champlain brought her furniture. The Recollect
Father, Denis Jamay, came back with two other Recollects. The day after
arrival at Quebec, after mass and a sermon in the chapel exhorting all
the colonists to obedience to the king, they all assembled and the
commission of His Majesty to Montmorency was read, as well as that of
Montmorency to Champlain as his lieutenant. The cannon spoke amid the
cries of "Vive le Roi" and Champlain took possession of the Habitation
in the name of the Duke of Montmorency. It became Government House.
Obliged by his commission to carry on justice, Champlain now looked out
for the most capable men in the country to act with him on the bench
of justice. The king's procuratorship fell to Louis Hébert, while the
office of _lieutenant de prevost_ was taken by Gilbert Coursera, and a
man named Nicholas became the clerk of the Court of Quebec. Champlain
took the direction of the "_police_."
Building activities were now taking place. The Recollects commenced
the foundations for a convent and a seminary, for the native children,
under the name of Notre Dame des Anges, the stone being laid by Father
Jean d'Olbeau on June 3d. Champlain began to build another habitation
on the hill which he named the Fort St. Louis. He also began tilling
the ground and making a garden, a work which he delighted in. He was
seconded in such enterprises by the Recollects. He next prepared to
receive cattle. But there were only forty-five people at the habitation
and the company was not sending more. In order to better things
Montmorency in 1621 formed another company opposed to that of which
M. de Monts was still head and he placed in command two Huguenots,
Guillaume de Caen and Emery de Caen, uncle and nephew. The new company
was opposed to the old but a union was effected between them: still
with no better results. In the beginning of 1625 Henri de Lévy, Duke
de Vantadour, a pious nobleman who afterwards became a religious,
succeeded his uncle, the Duke de Montmorency, as governor general.
Negotiations pending the introduction of Jesuits, on the request of the
Recollects, were now concluded. Accordingly he sent at his own expense
Fathers Lalement, Brébeuf, Massé and two lay brothers, who arrived
in the absence of Champlain and were coldly received by de Caen, who
offered them no hospitality. The Recollects, however, entertained them
at their convent, for two years and a half, until their own buildings
were ready. In 1627, a year of great famine, the above company was
supplanted by the famous Company of One Hundred Partners or Associates.
FOOTNOTES:
[21] For the purposes of trade the connection with Canada never ceased.
In 1578 there were 100 French vessels at Newfoundland besides 200
Spanish, Portugese and English vessels. (Kingsford, Vol. I, Page 12.)
[22] In a note by Kingsford, Vol. I, Page 24, he wishes to substantiate
his theory that Champlain was Huguenot by quoting his words: "C'est
plus facile de planter la fois Chrestienne" as meaning Christianity
distinguished from the Roman Catholic point of view. Taken in
conjunction with these words above Kingsford's theory cannot be upheld.
CHAPTER III
1603-1625
THE GREAT SAULT
CHAMPLAIN THE FIRST TRADER
THE HISTORY OF HOCHELAGA AFTER CARTIER'S VISIT--CHAMPLAIN, THE
FIRST CARTOGRAPHER OF THE ISLAND OF MONTREAL--ITS DESCRIPTION
IN 1603--CHAMPLAIN EXPLORES THE NEIGHBORHOOD--PLACE ROYALE IN
1611--ST. HELEN'S ISLAND NAMED--THE FIRST TRADING TRANSACTION
RECORDED--CHAMPLAIN SHOOTS THE RAPIDS, 1613--THE EXPLORATION
OF THE OTTAWA VALLEY--1615 THE FIRST MASS IN CANADA AT RIVIERE
DES PRAIRIES--1625 THE DROWNING OF VIEL AND AHUNTSIC AT
SAULT-AU-RECOLLET--THE INTENTION OF CHAMPLAIN TO MAKE A PERMANENT
SETTLEMENT ON THE ISLAND.
The name of Samuel de Champlain is next to be more closely associated
with Montreal. For, although the date connecting him with his first
visit to this site is 1603, and that of Cartier's visit in 1535,
Montreal had not been visited or dwelt upon by any distinguished
European that we can attach a name to, with any certainty.
During all this time, according to tradition, sad things had occurred
at Hochelaga.
"The fate of this Indian town," says Mr. Arthur Weir in "Montreal, the
Metropolis of Canada," "is shrouded in the mists of antiquity. There
is reason to believe that here was enacted a tragedy similar to that
which resulted in the destruction of Troy. According to Mr. Peter
Dooyentate Clarke, the historian of the Wyandots, himself a descendant
of the tribe, the Senecas and Wyandots, or Hurons, lived side by side
at Hochelaga, until in an evil moment a stern chief of the Senecas
refused to permit his son to marry a Huron maiden. The damsel thereupon
rejected all suitors and promised to marry only him who should kill the
chief who had thus offended her.
"A youthful Huron, more amorous than wise, fulfilled the terms of
the vow and won the girl. But the Senecas adopted the cause of their
murdered chief, and made war upon the Hurons, whom they almost
exterminated with the assistance of the other tribes of the Iroquois,
driving their more peaceful and civilized neighbours to the very lake
that now bears their name." However true or false this legend, it is
certain that when Champlain visited the island in 1603 the Indian town
was gone and desolation prevailed.
Another version of the same tradition is given by Mr. Bourinot, in
"The Story of Canada," where he tells the popular tradition handed
down by the Indians, "that the Hurons and Iroquois, branches of the
same family, speaking dialects of one common language, were living at
one time in villages, not far from each other,--the Hurons probably
at Hochelaga and the Senecas on the other side of the mountain. It
was against the law of the two communities for their men and women
to intermarry, but the potent influence of true love, so rare in an
Indian's bosom, soon broke this command. A Huron girl entered a cabin
of an Iroquois chief as his wife. It was an unhappy marriage, the
husband killed the wife in an angry moment. This was a serious matter,
requiring a council meeting of the two tribes. Murder must be avenged
or liberal compensation given to the friends of the dead. The council
decided that the woman deserved death, but the verdict did not please
all her relatives, one of whom went off secretly and killed an Iroquois
warrior. Then, both tribes took up the hatchet, and went on the warpath
against each other, with the result, that the Village of Hochelaga,
with all the women and children, was destroyed, and the Hurons, who
were probably beaten, left the St. Lawrence and eventually found a new
home on Lake Huron."--See Horatio Hale's "Fall of Hochelaga" in Journal
of American Folklore, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1894.
If Cartier was the discoverer of "Hochelaga," the Island of Montreal,
it is to Champlain's honour that he was the first trader and the first
designator of the site of the present City of Montreal. He was the
first city planner in that he saw the possibilities of Montreal as a
trading port, having all the attractions for a future settlement. It
had a beautiful mountain with gentle slopes to the river at its base,
and a natural harbour; it was the natural rendezvous of all the tribes
bordering on the river beyond the _saults_, the last of which is that
now known as the Lachine Rapids; it was the port for the fur trade
of the hinterland beyond. Both Cartier and Champlain also noted the
wonderful fertility of its soil and the beauty of its surroundings. As
then, so today, Montreal's position, placed at the head of Atlantic
navigation, the natural headquarters of the Gulf trade, that of the
St. Lawrence and of the Great Lakes, centre of attraction and terminus
of all the great railroads of the West and from the United States,
secures it an undoubted future as a great commercial centre. It is to
Champlain's credit that in his own day he realized the geographical
value of Montreal as a trading centre, indicated by the natural laws
for shipment and transportation, albeit he contemplated it only with
the limited vision of a fur trader whose clients were the savages from
the back country and their freight vessels, canoes laden with peltry.
He looked ahead.
[Illustration: The first trader at Montreal]
In July, 1603, Champlain reached the rapids of the sault above
Montreal. Champlain says that it used to be called Hochelaga but now
the Sault. When he reached it there was nothing of the old villages
left. Luckily Champlain was a cartographer and historian, and we have
the account of visits to Montreal which we now reproduce; but it must
be remembered that he always speaks of the site as "the Sault," "the
grand Sault," or "the Sault St. Louis."
The first quotations shall be from the account of his voyage in 1603.
This was published in 1604 in Paris under the title, "_Des Sauvages,
ou Voyage de Sammuel Champlain de Brouage faict en la France Nouvelle,
l'an mil six cens trois_." This was made into English and published in
"Purchas', His Pilgrimes," London, 1625.
"At length we came this very day to the entrance of the Sault or Fall
of the Great River of Canada with favourable wind; and we met with an
Ile, which is almost in the middest of the said entrance, which is a
quarter of a league long, and passed on the South side of the said Ile,
where there was not past three, four or five feet water, and sometimes
a fathome or two, and straight on the sudden we found again not past
three or foure foot. There are many Rockes and small islands, whereon
there is no wood, and they are even with the water. From the beginning
of the aforesaid Ile, which is in the middest of the entrance the
water beginneth to run with a great force. Although we had the wind
very good, yet we could not with all our might make any great way;
neuerthelesse wee passed the said Ile which is at the entrance of the
Sault or Fall. When wee perceived that we could go no further, we came
to an anchor on the North Shoare ouer against a small Iland, which
aboundeth for the most part with those kinds of fruits which I have
spoken of before. Without all delay we made ready our Skiffe which wee
had made of purpose to pass the said Sault: whereinto the said Monsieur
du Pont and my selfe entered with certaine Sauages, which we had
brought with vs to show vs the way. Departing from our Pinnace, we were
scarce gone three hundred paces, but we were forced to come out, and
caused certain mariners to free our Skiffe. The canoa of the Sauages
passed easily. Wee met with an infinite number of small Rockes, which
were euen with the water, on which we touched often times. There be
two great Ilands one on the North Side which containeth some fifteene
leagues in length, and almost as much in breadth, beginning some twelve
leagues vp within the River of Canada, going towards the River of the
Irocois and endeth beyond the Sault. The Iland which is on the South
Side is some four leagues long and some halfe league broad. There is
also another island which is neare to that on the North Side which may
bee some halfe a league long, and some quarter broad; and another small
iland which is between that on the North Side, and another nearer to
the South Shoare, whereby we passed the entrance of the Sault. This
entrance being passed, there is a kind of Lake, wherein all these
Ilands are, some five leagues long and almost as broad, wherein are
many small Ilands which are Rockes. There is a Mountaine neere the said
Sault which discovereth farre into the Countrie and a Little River
which falleth from the said Mountaine into the Lake. On the South
Side there are some three or foure Mountaines which seem to be about
fifteen or sixteen leagues within the Land. There are also two Rivers;
one which goeth to the first Lake of the River of the Irocois by which
sometimes the Algoumequins invade them: and another which is neer unto
the Sault, which runneth not farre into the countrey."
On this voyage he describes the Sault. Since he is later, in 1611, to
shoot it, we may record his impression of it in 1603. "At our coming
neere to the said Sault with our Skiffe and Canoa, I assure you, I
neuer saw any stream of water to fall down with such force as this
doth; although it be not very high, being not in some places past one
or two fathoms, and at the most three. It falleth as it were steppe by
steppe: and in euery place where it hath some small height, it maketh a
strong boyling with the force and strength of the running of the water.
In the breadth of the said Sault, which may containe some league, there
are many broad Rockes, and almost in the middest, there are very narrow
and long Ilands, where there is a fall as well on the side of the said
Iles which are toward the South, as on the North Side: where it is so
dangerous that it is not possible for any man to pass with any boat how
small so-euer it be."
In his voyage in 1603 he makes mention of an island of a quarter of a
league in length and of another on the north about fifteen leagues long
which overlooked the lands for a long distance. He does not mention
the name of either, but the former was St. Paul's island or Nuns'
island and the latter Hochelaga. Up to Champlain no one has recorded or
noticed that Montreal was an island.
As early as 1610 Lescarbot had remarked that of all the islands in
the River St. Lawrence, the most suitable for commerce was without
contradiction that of Montreal. ("La Conversion des Sauvages Baptisés
en Canada.")
Champlain certainly looked upon the locality of the Sault as a suitable
place for a permanent establishment, when he commenced operations at
Place Royale. He continued in this belief.
"My Savage Arontal," he says in his "Voyages of 1615-1616," published
in 1627, "being at Quebec that to attract his people to us we should
make a habitation at the Sault, which would give them the surety of
the passage of the river and would protect them against their enemies
and that as soon as we should have built a house, they would come in
numbers to live with us as brothers, a thing which I promised them and
answered them I would do as soon as possible."
There is reason to believe that the spot he had in mind to do this is
the island which he had noted in his voyage of 1603, but to which he
later gave the name of St. Helen.[23] This is most probable in view of
his late marriage five months before with Hélène Boullé, for it could
not have been given, as other names in the river had been, owing to
the coincidence of a church feast day with the day of discovery, for
Champlain arrived at Place Royale on the 28th of May and the feast of
St. Helen fell on the 18th of August following, when he was in France.
We know that Champlain had gone to the "Sault" in 1603, but he makes no
mention of the site of Montreal in his account. However, with regard to
the year of 1611, he gives us many interesting details.
From these excerpts from the account of 1603 we may, therefore, sum up
the following conclusions: (1) that (according to Laverdière) the place
where Champlain "came to an anchor on the North Shoare over against one
small island," was the little island formerly existing opposite the
Place Royale (which was not, however, named till 1611) and now joined
to the main land by the present harbour piers; (2) that incidentally
he thus indicates the site of the present harbour of Montreal; that
Champlain was the first to note that Montreal, or Hochelaga, was an
island, this being deduced from his description of the great island
(not named by him) "on the north side which continueth some fifteen
leagues in length and almost as much in breadth," etc; (3) that the
"mountain neere the said Sault which discovereth farre into the
country" is the same as that named by Jacques Cartier as Mount Royal
while "the Little River which falleth from the said mountain into the
lake" is the Rivière des Prairies; (4) that while he gives no names
beyond that of Sault yet he has left us a very clear indication that he
was familiar with the site of the present Island of Montreal. From the
above quotations there is no explicit mention of the suitability of the
Island of Montreal as a future trading post, yet there is little doubt
but that Champlain had it in his mind as such when the occasion should
serve.
[Illustration: FIGURATIVE MAP
Sketch of Sault St. Louis (Kahnawake) and part of the south shore of
the Island of Montreal made by Champlain in 1611
(See opposite page for explanation)]
EXPLANATION OF MAP ON OPPOSITE PAGE
A--Piece of land which I ordered to be cleared.
B--Small pond.
C--Small island where I had a stone wall erected.
D--Small stream where barques are lying.
E--Prairies where Indians encamp when coming to this country.
F--Mountains seen at a distance.
G--Small pond.
H--Mount Royal.
I--Small stream.
L--The "Saut."
M--Place where the Indians from the north begin their "portage."
N--Place where one of our men and an Indian were drowned.
O--Small, rocky island.
P--Other small island where birds build their nests.
Q--"Heron" Island.
R--Other islands of the "Saut."
S--Small island.
T--Round Islet.
V--Other islet, half of which is covered with water.
W--Other islet where water fowls are found.
Y--Prairies.
Z--Small river.
2--Rather fine and large island.
3--Places which appear bare at low water and where the current is
very strong.
4--Prairies covered with water (swamps).
5--Rather low and marshy land.
6--Other small island.
7--Small rocks.
S--Helen's Island.
9--Small island barren of trees.
10--Marshes in the "Grand Saut."
Their adventurers afterward went up to the Sault which became the goal
of many of the "free" traders and prospectors who coursed the St.
Lawrence during the period, already described, of the temporary removal
of the prohibition against private traders. Certain it is that as early
as 1610 Lescarbot had remarked that of all the islands in the river St.
Lawrence the most suitable for commerce was without contradiction that
of Montreal. (Cf. "La Conversion des Sauvages Baptisés En Canada.") But
it was reserved for Champlain in 1611 to put this notion into effect
and to become the pioneer trader and the first harbour builder of
Montreal. His own narration of the events of 1611 may serve to prove
these claims.
THE CHOICE OF MONTREAL AS A TRADING POST
"In the year 1611, I took back my savage to those of his tribe, who
were to come to Sault St. Louis, intending to get my servant whom they
had as a hostage. I left Quebec, May 20 (21), and arrived at these
great rapids[24] the 28th of the month. I immediately went in a canoe
with the savage which I had taken to France and one of our men. After
having looked on all sides, not only in the woods, but also along the
river bank, to find a suitable place for the site of a settlement, and
to prepare a place in which to build, I went eight leagues by land,
along the rapids through the woods, which are rather open, and as far
as the lake,[25] where our savages took me. There I contemplated the
country very much in detail. But in all that I saw I did not find any
place at all more suitable than a little spot which is just where the
barks and shallops can come easily, either with a strong wind or by
a winding course, because of the strength of the current. Above this
place (which we named La Place Royale), a league from Mount Royal,
there are a great many little rocks and shoals, which are dangerous."
THE SITUATION OF PLACE ROYALE DESCRIBED
"And near this Place Royale there is a little river running back a
goodly way into the interior, all along which there are more than sixty
acres of cleared land, like meadows, where one might sow grain and
make gardens. Formerly savages tilled there. There were also a great
number of other beautiful meadows, to support as many cattle as one
wishes, and all kinds of trees that we have in our forests at home,
with a great many vines, walnuts, plum trees, cherries, strawberries
and other kinds which are very good to eat. Among others there is one
very excellent, which has a sweet taste resembling that of plantains
(which is a fruit of the Indies), and is as white as snow, with a leaf
like that of the nettle, and running on trees or the ground like ivy.
Fishing is very good there, and there are all the kinds that we have
in France, and a great many others that we do not have, which are
very good; as is also game of all kinds; and hunting is good, stags,
hinds, does, caribous, rabbits, lynxes, bears, beavers and other little
animals which so abound that while we were at these rapids we never
were without them."
PLACE ROYALE CLEARED AND A HARBOUR REVETMENT WALL BUILT
"After having made a careful exploration, then, and found this place
one of the most beautiful on this river, I at once had the woods cut
down[26] and cleared from this Place Royale, to make it level and ready
for building. Water can easily be made to flow around it, making a
little island of it, and a settlement can be made there as one may wish.
"There is a little island[27] twenty fathoms from this Place Royale
which is about one hundred paces long, whereon could be put up a good,
well defended set of buildings. There are also a great many meadows
containing good potter's clay, whether for bricks or to build with,
which is a great convenience. I had some of it worked up, and made a
wall of it four feet thick, and from three to four feet high and ten
fathoms long, to see how it would last in the winter when then the
floods came down, which in my opinion, would not rise to this wall
although the land is about twelve feet above that river, which is quite
high."
ST. HELEN'S ISLAND NAMED
"In the middle of the river there is an island about three-quarters
of a league in circumference, where a good and strong town could be
built and I named it Ile de Ste. Hélène.[28] These rapids descend into
a sort of lake where there are two or three islands and some beautiful
meadows."
CHAMPLAIN PLANTS GARDENS
"While waiting for the savages I had two gardens made: one in the
meadows and the other in the woods which I had cleared; and the second
day of June I sowed some seeds in them, which came up in perfect
condition and in a little while, which showed the goodness of the soil.
"I resolved to send Savignon, our savage, with another, to meet those
of his country, in order to make them come quickly; and they hesitated
to go in our canoe which they distrusted, for it was not good for much."
CHAMPLAIN EXPLORES THE NEIGHBOURHOOD
"On the seventh I went to explore a little river[29] by which sometimes
the savages go to war, which leads to the rapids of the river of the
Iroquois.[30] It is very pleasant, with meadows on it, more than three
leagues in circumference, and a great deal of land which could be
tilled. It is one league from the great rapids[31] and a league and a
half from Place Royale.
"On the ninth our savage arrived. He had been a little way beyond the
lake,[32] which is about ten leagues long, that I have seen before.
He did not meet anything there, and could not go any further, because
their canoe gave out and they were obliged to return."
This savage reported the loss of the life of a young man, Louis, who
had lost his life in the rapids. There is a discussion as to whether
Champlain called the rapids the Sault "St. Louis" in commemoration of
this event or in honour of Louis XIII of France, who began reigning
the year previously and from whom Champlain had received a commission
to build storehouses for the fur trade near the rapids. The solution
I leave to the choice of the reader. At this time "Heron" island at
the St. Louis rapids received its name. There seems no doubt that
if Champlain had as thoroughly investigated the possibilities and
advantages of climate, soil and natural position as a trading centre
of Montreal in 1603 as he did in 1611, he would have chosen Montreal,
for the settlement in 1603, instead of Quebec, which was after all de
Monts' choice. In the account of 1603 Champlain had said: "The air is
softer and more temperate than at any other place that I have seen in
this country."
In this same account of 1611 we get a picture of the first trading
reported at Montreal which is worth recording.
THE FIRST TRADING TRANSACTION AT MONTREAL
"On the 13th of this month (June 13, 1611), 200 Huron savages with the
chiefs, Ochateguin, Iroquet, and Tregourote, brothers of our savage,
brought back my lad. We were very glad to see them, and I went to meet
them with a canoe and our savage. Meantime, they advanced quietly in
order, our men preparing to give them a salvo with the arquebuses and
some small pieces. As they were approaching, they began to shout all
together, and one of their chiefs commanded their addresses to be made,
in which they praised us highly, calling us truthful, in that I had
kept my word to them, to come to find them at these rapids. After they
had given three more shouts, a volley of musketry was fired twice,
which astonished them so much that they asked me to tell them that
there should not be any shooting, saying that the greater number of
them never had seen Christians before, nor heard thunderings of that
sort, and that they were afraid of its doing them harm.... After a good
deal of discourse they made me a present of 100 beavers. I gave them in
exchange some other kinds of merchandise."
CHAMPLAIN THE FIRST WHITE MAN TO SHOOT THE RAPIDS
These Indians camped about with Champlain for some days till they
returned to their own part of the rapids, "some leagues into the
woods." Champlain accompanied them. He now tells of his historic
shooting the rapids which we may place as happening on the 17th of
June, 1611.
"When I had finished with them I begged them to take me back in our
despatch boat. To do this they prepared eight canoes to run the rapids,
and stripped themselves naked, and made me take off everything but my
shirt; for often it happens that some are lost in shooting the rapids;
therefore they keep close to one another, to aid one another promptly
if a canoe should happen to capsize. They said to me, 'If by chance
yours should happen to turn over, as you do not know how to swim, on no
account abandon it, but hold on to the little sticks that are in the
middle, for we will save you easily.' I assure you that those who have
not seen or passed this place in these little boats that they have,
could not pass it without great fear, even the most self-possessed
persons in the world. But these people are so skillful in shooting
these rapids that it is easy for them. I did it with them--a thing that
I never had done, nor had any Christian, except my youth--and we came
to our barks where I lodged a large number of them."
The next day, the 18th of June, the party broke up; Champlain set out
for Quebec, which he says he reached on the 19th, shortly to leave for
France. He describes the parting at Montreal thus: "After they had
traded the little that they had, they separated into three groups--one
to go to war, one to go up the rapids--they set out on the 18th day of
this month, and we also."
The quotations I have chosen cover nearly four weeks of Champlain's
dwelling at his new post. I have let him speak himself. The picture
he draws enables us to construct in our imagination the picturesque
situation of our city at this time.
GRAND SAULT, 1613
In 1613 Champlain tells us in his journal published in 1632, that
having left Quebec on March 13th he arrived at the Sault on the 21st.
He does not mention stopping at his trading post at Place Royale; he
must have visited it and done some trading and put his boats up; but
he set out on May 27th in his canoes "from the Isle of St. Hélène" with
four Frenchmen and a savage. His object was at present to discover
the Mer du Nord, lately discovered by Hudson and of which a map had
appeared in Paris in 1612. One of the four Frenchmen with him in
his canoes was named Nicholas de Vignau. This man had been sent in
preceding years to make discoveries for Champlain and in 1612, while
in Paris, this man reported to Champlain that he had seen this same
"Mer du Nord." Champlain consequently took him with him to lead the
way, with the result that can be judged from his own description of de
Vignau, as "the boldest liar that had been seen for a long time." It
was on this fruitless exploration that on the Portage route by way of
Muskrat and Mudlakes, Champlain lost his astrolabe, the instrument then
used for astronomical observation. Near this place he ceases giving
the correct latitudes as he had been doing. Two hundred and fifty-four
years later, a farmer on an August day unearthed an old brass astrolabe
of Paris make, dated 1603. We may safely conclude it was Champlain's.
On the voyage up the Ottawa he described the visit to Allumette Island,
45° 47'. "After having observed the poorness of the soil, I asked them
how they enjoyed cultivating so poor a country, in view of the fact
that there was some much better, than that they left deserted and
abandoned at the Rapids of St. Louis. They answered me that they were
obliged to do so to keep themselves secure and that the roughness of
the place served them as a bulwark against their enemies. But they said
that if I would make a settlement a Frenchman at the Rapids of St.
Louis, as I had promised to do, they would leave their dwelling place
to come and settle near us, being assured that their enemies would not
do them harm while we were with them. I told them that this year we
should make preparations with wood and stones to make a fort next year
and cultivate the land. When they heard this they gave a great shout,
as a sign of applause. After this the conference finished."
After having explored the Ottawa River they returned from the fruitless
search for the Northern sea on June 17th and continued their course
till "we reached the barks and were saluted by some discharges of
canon, at which some of the savages were delighted and others very
much astonished, never having heard such music. Having landed, Sieur
de Maisonneuve[33] de Saint Malo came to me with the passport for
three vessels from Monseigneur the Prince. As soon as I had seen it, I
let him and his men enjoy the benefit of it, like ourselves, and had
the savages told that they might trade the next day." The place of
the barks would, undoubtedly, be the little harbour at Place Royale
described in the account of 1611, and near his trading fort.
After having made de Vignau confess himself of his lie, "as the savages
would not have him, no matter how much I begged them, we left him to
the protection of God." Champlain then left for Tadoussac, at which he
arrived on July 6th, whence he shortly sailed to France.
[Illustration: MODERN TADOUSSAC]
On this journey in France, Champlain set about to secure clergy and
through the intervention of Sieur Hoüel, secretary of the king, he got
the Recollect Fathers whom he said "would be the right ones there, both
for residence at our settlement and for the conversion of the infidels.
I agreed with this opinion, as they are without ambition and live
altogether in conformity to the rule of St. Francis."
On April 24, 1615, Champlain left Honfleur with four Franciscan
Recollects Denis Jamay, Jean d'Olbeau, Joseph le Caron and the lay
brother, Pacifique du Plessis, reaching Tadoussac on May 25th. The
Recollects he left at Quebec whence he hastened to the Sault, soon to
be followed by Father Jean le Caron. The importance that Champlain
gives to his trading post at the rapids to which he hurried will be
seen from the following quotation. On arriving at Tadoussac, "we began
to set men to work to fit up our barks, in order to go to Quebec,
the place of our settlement, and to the great Rapids of St. Louis,
the great gathering place of the savages who come there to trade.
Immediately upon my arrival at the rapids I visited these people who
were very anxious to see us and delighted at our return, from their
hopes that we would give them some of our number to help them in
their wars against their enemies. They explained that it would be
hard for them to come to us if we did not assist them, because the
Iroquois, their old enemies, were always along the trail and kept the
passage closed to them. Besides I had always promised to aid them in
their wars, as they gave us to understand through their interpreter.
Whereupon I perceived that it was very necessary to assist them,
not only to make them love us more, but also to pave the way for my
undertakings and discoveries, which to all appearance could not be
accomplished except by their help; and also because this would be to
them a sort of first step and preparation to coming into Christianity;
and to secure this I decided to go thither and explore their country
and aid them in their wars, in order to oblige them to show me what
they had so many times promised to.
"I had them all gather to tell them my intention, upon hearing which
they promised to furnish us 2,500 men of war, who would do wonders,
while I on my part, was to bring, for the same purpose as many men as
I could; which I promised them, being very glad to see them come to
so wise a decision. Then I began to explain to them the methods to
follow in fighting in which they took a singular pleasure. When all the
matters were decided upon, we separated with the intention of returning
to carry out our undertaking."
This alliance which Champlain then made against the Iroquois will help
to explain the prolonged animosity of these against the Hurons, and
later their allies, the settlers of Ville Marie, under Maisonneuve.
But, as yet Champlain's fort was only a summer trading post, and such
it remained till 1642. He had it in his mind to make it a regular
settlement, and it would seem likely to become so.
On the occasion of the above gathering mass was said by the Recollects
for the first time in Canada, at least since the time of Cartier.
We may briefly narrate the events leading up to this. Owing to the
trading monopolies being granted on condition that the conversion of
the savages to the Catholic faith should be attempted and owing to
the discontentment existing at the continued unfulfillment of this
condition, de Monts and other merchants found that they would have to
take means to comply with it or lose their monopoly.
The merchants were keener on the peltry trade than on the civilization
of the country. They did not welcome colonists from France nor did they
desire the Indians to settle down in their neighbourhood. They wanted
them to get busy to bring in their furs. They were there for business
solely, although their charter said otherwise.
So it was, with bad grace, they had to yield. Champlain must,
however, be disassociated from this opposition. For he had willingly
undertaken the negotiations to obtain the Recollect Fathers through the
intermediary of the pious Sieur de Hoüel, the controller general of the
salt mines of Brouage, one of the few members of the de Monts company
that was not a Huguenot; accordingly after some negotiations during
the winter of 1614 and 1615, the four Franciscan Recollects mentioned,
three priests, Denis Jamay, superior, Jean d'Olbeau, Joseph le Caron,
and Brother Pacifique du Plessis embarked with Champlain at Honfleur
on April 24, 1615, on the St. Etienne, one of the company's ships
commanded by Dupont Gravé. They arrived at Tadoussac in a month.
On their arrival in Quebec in the beginning of June three of them
stayed to lay out their dwelling and build their chapel, but Father
Joseph le Caron, a very eager and apostolic man, went straight off to
the Indians at the Sault. Becoming quickly acquainted with the mode
of life of the natives there and desirous of their conversion to the
knowledge of Jesus Christ, he determined to spend the winter with
them. "In Canada and its Provinces," Father Lewis Drummond says that
on his journey down, le Caron met Champlain and Father Denis Jamay at
Rivière des Prairies. They tried to persuade him not to winter with the
Indians. But he hastened to Quebec, reaching it on June 20, and on his
return to Rivière des Prairies met Champlain and Father Jamay there,
and mass was celebrated. His object in hurrying back to Quebec was to
obtain the necessary altar equipment and other missionary necessaries.
On arriving at the Isle of Montreal he met Champlain and his canoes at
the entrance of the Rivière des Prairies. These no doubt were preparing
for the exploration of the Ottawa.
There on June 24, 1615, the feast of St. Jean Baptiste, afterwards
taken for the patronal feast of Canada, Fathers Denis and Joseph sang
mass at their portable altar on the banks of the Rivière des Prairies.
"With all devotion," Champlain chronicles, "before these peoples who
were in admiration at the ceremonies and at the vestments which seemed
to them so beautiful as being something they had never seen before;
for these religious are the first who had celebrated the holy mass
there."[34] (This solemn occasion was followed by the chanting of
the Te Deum to the accompaniment of a fusillade of small artillery
with all the pomp that circumstances permitted.) Father Denis Jamay
went back to Quebec to minister to the French Catholics and to form
a sedentary mission for the natives; while there also he could excur
to Threvers as a mission post. He was helped by Brother Pacifique
du Plessis. Jean le Caron now joined a band of Hurons and passed the
winter with them in one of their stockades called Carhagouaha defended
by a triple palisade of wood to the height of thirty feet. Father Jean
d'Olbeau departed for Quebec, on December 2d, to share the fortunes of
the Montagnais below Tadoussac.
[Illustration: THE FIRST MASS IN CANADA AT RIVIERE DES PRAIRIES, JUNE
24, 1615
(After George Delfosse)]
While treating of the early history of the Recollects we may now
anticipate by a few years a circumstance of tragic importance. In the
year 1625 there occurred at the Sault-au-Récollet an event which has
given it its name. This year, the Recollect father, Nicholas Viel,
had gone two years before with Fathers Joseph le Caron and Gabriel
Sagard, to the country of the Hurons. They were now invited by the
Hurons to descend the river to trade with the settlement at Quebec.
Father Viel had accepted the invitation because he wished to make his
annual spiritual retreat at the Convent of Notre Dame des Anges and
he took with him one of his Indian neophytes, whom he had instructed
and baptized, a young boy named Ahuntsic. Among the convoy, in the
same canoe, were some Indians who were secretly ill disposed to the
missionary and when they found themselves separated from the other
canoes by bad weather on the river, they fell upon Father Viel and
Ahuntsic in the last sault near to Montreal and the swift flowing
rapids soon submerged them in their deep waters. The spots of Ahuntsic
and Sault-au-Récollet commemorate this event although the disaster
occurred at the latter place as said.
[Illustration: THE MARTYRDOM OF THE RECOLLET VIEL AND THE NEOPHYTE
AHUNTSIC AT SAULT-AU-RECOLLET. (After George Delfosse)]
Later in the summer of 1615 Champlain redeemed his pledge to explore
the Indian country. On the 9th of July, 1615, Champlain left the fort
with two men, one of whom was his servant, and another an interpreter,
and ten savages to manage the two canoes on a voyage of exploration.
Father le Caron had already gone ahead. Champlain's expedition with
the allied tribes into the country of the Iroquois was one of the most
important undertakings of his life--both on account of the length of
the journey and the knowledge he obtained of the lake region. He lost
prestige by this journey, however, both with the Indians and his French
Canadians. It is not to our purpose to follow him on this voyage but we
cannot refrain from mentioning the Huron village of Carhagouaha which
lay between Nottawasaga Bay and Lake Simcoe. It was to this village
that Father le Caron bent his steps, and where Champlain joined him
on August 12th. The triple palisades, long houses, containing several
households and other distinctive features of the village of Hochelaga
discovered by Cartier, were there reproduced. He returned to the post
at the end of June, 1616, and there he found Sieur du Pont. "We also
saw," he says, "all the holy Fathers (Father Jamay and Brother du
Plessis) who had remained at our settlement and they were very glad
to see us and we to see them." Thus the Recollect fathers having left
"our" settlement at Quebec had come up to Montreal as we may call the
post at the Rapids. From their arrival dates the ecclesiastical life of
our city and the introduction of Christianity. Champlain left the Sault
on the 8th day of July, 1616, reaching Quebec on July 11. Shortly, on
August 3d, he sailed to France.
Champlain was a good advertising agent, as the following shows: "During
my sojourn at the settlement I had some of the common corn cut--that
is, the French corn that had been planted there--which was very
beautiful, in order to carry some to France, to show that this soil
is very good and fertile. There was also some very fine Indian corn
and some grafts and trees that we had brought thither." This contrasts
favourably with the gloomy report given to France by Jacques Cartier of
the Canadian climate, which doubtless influenced the delay of organized
colonization. It is evident that Champlain was still thinking of making
Montreal a permanent settlement. From the memoirs of 1615-16 we learn
that Champlain before leaving for France took with him to Quebec an
Indian, Daronthal or Aronthal, whom he called his host. This man,
after admiring the buildings and the civilization of the settlement
of Quebec, and being desirous that his people should become better
acquainted with the religion of the Christians "in order to learn to
serve God and to understand our way of living," suggested that they
should be attracted to live with the settlers.
"He suggested," says Champlain, "that for the advancement of this work,
we should make another settlement at the St. Louis rapids, so as to
give them a safe passage of the river, for fear of their enemies; and
said that once they would come in great numbers to us to live there
like brothers. I promised to do this as soon as I could." Daronthal was
sent back with this promise to his companions at St. Louis rapids, but
it was reserved for Paul de Chomedey, Sieur de Maisonneuve, twenty-six
years later to carry it out.
FOOTNOTES:
[23] Through the intervention of and in the presence of Pierre du Gas,
Sieur de Monts, as the matrimonial contract dated Paris, December
27, 1610, states, Champlain had contracted to marry after two years
Hélène de Boullé, a young girl not yet in her twelfth year and not
yet marriageable, the daughter of Nicolas Boullé, secretary of the
King's Chamber, a Huguenot like his friend de Monts. In this contract
Champlain made her heiress of all the property that he might be able to
leave, and her parents consented to give him before the marriage 6,000
_livres_.
On the 29th of December, in the church of Saint-Germain l'Auxerrois,
Champlain was handed over four thousand five hundred of the promised
_livres_. On the next day the marriage took place. Hélène Boullé became
a Catholic after two years. Shortly after the marriage Champlain left
for New France, leaving his wife behind. We find him at the Grand Sault
on May 28, 1611.
[24] The Lachine Rapids.
[25] Lake of Two Mountains.
[26] Dollier de Casson says in his "Historic de Montréal" that
Champlain cut down many trees for firewood and also to guarantee
himself against ambuscades.
[27] Ile Normandin.
[28] Registers of Notre Dame record that, on the 19th of August, 1664,
two young men, Pierre Magnan and Jacques Dufresne, were slain here by
Iroquois.
It was used sometimes by the French as a military station; for in June,
1687, the Chevalier de Vaudreuil posted both the regular troops and the
militia there in readiness to march against the Iroquois. Thither it is
alleged the Marquis de Lévis, commanding the last French army in 1760,
withdrew, and here burnt his flags in the presence of his army the
night previous to surrendering the colony to the English. Louis Honoré
Frechette, the national French-Canadian poet, bases upon this his poem,
entitled "All Lost but Honour."
In 1688 the island was acquired by Charles Le Moyne, Sieur de
Longueuil, who gave the name of Ste. Hélène to one of his most
distinguished sons. During the eighteenth century (from before 1723),
his descendants, the Barons of Longueuil, whose territory lay just
opposite, had a residence here, the ruins of which, once surrounded
with gardens, are to be seen upon it on the east side. The Government
acquired it from them by arrangement during the War of 1812, and later
by purchase in 1818, for military purposes. It ceded the park portion
to the city in 1874.
Almost adjoining it, at the lower extremity, is Ile Ronde, a small low
island.
Both islands are interesting geologically from the occurrence there of
a remarkable breccia containing inclusions of Devonian Limestone, and
also from the existence of some rare types of dyke rock.
[29] The St. Lambert River.
[30] The Richelieu.
[31] Sault St. Louis Rapids, now known as the Lachine Rapids.
[32] The Lake of Two Mountains.
[33] Who is this Maisonneuve appearing as a privileged trader with
the passport of the prince, doubtless the Prince de Condé, Henri de
Bourbon, viceroy of Canada and head of Champlain's company? Evidently
he was a person of some consequence from the ease with which Champlain
granted him permission to trade at his settlement. Can it be, as
Kingsford and others ingeniously try to prove, Paul Chomedey de
Maisonneuve, who was later to found Montreal as a settlement in 1642,
acting for "La Compagnie de Montreal?" (1) No. Chomedey was from Paris;
the de Maisonneuve mentioned above is from St. Malo. (2) de Maisonneuve
was a common enough name. There were even several of that name in
Montreal in 1667.
[34] Mass was only said at Quebec for the first time on June 25, 1615,
by which time they had built their chapel. The priority of the Island
of Montreal in its claim to the first mass is substantiated by the
"_Mémoires des Recollects_" of 1637 which distinctly say that "the
first mass was celebrated at Rivière des Prairies and the second at
Quebec."
CHAPTER IV
1627-1641
COLONIZATION
UNDER THE COMPANY OF ONE HUNDRED ASSOCIATES
THE CHARTER OF THE HUNDRED ASSOCIATES THE BASIS OF THE SEIGNEURIAL
SYSTEM TO BE AFTERWARDS ESTABLISHED AT MONTREAL--THE ENGLISH
IN 1629 CAPTURE QUEBEC--1632, CANADA AGAIN CEDED TO THE
FRENCH--1633, THE COMING OF THE JESUITS--THE RECOLLECTS DO NOT
RETURN--THREE RIVERS IS ESTABLISHED--DESCRIPTION OF COLONIAL
LIFE AT QUEBEC--DEATH OF CHAMPLAIN IN 1635--THE RELIGIOUS
INSTITUTIONS TO BE IMITATED AFTERWARDS AT MONTREAL--THE "RELATIONS
DES JESUITES"--THE IROQUOIS BEGIN THEIR ATTACKS--THE NEWS OF A
REINFORCEMENT AND DISAPPOINTMENT THAT MONTREAL HAS BEEN CHOSEN AS
ITS HEADQUARTERS.
On April 29, 1627, Richelieu, the Superintendent of Marine and
Commerce, securing the resignation of the Duke de Vantadour and
annulling the privileges of de Caen and his associates with suitable
indemnities, formed a new association under the title of the "Hundred
Associates of the Company of New France," among whom were many
gentlemen of rank. It was resolved that in the following year of 1628
a colony of two to three hundred men of all trades, all professing the
Catholic religion, would be sent over--to be increased in the following
fifteen years to four thousand, of both sexes. At that time the sole
population of New France was seventy-six souls.
It is well here to consider the conditions of the charter now
given, for it is the ground plan of all subsequent French Canadian
colonization schemes, and Montreal will be affected by it. We have seen
the Huguenots were now to be excluded (not, however, from engaging in
commerce in Canada, but only from _settling_ there). From all points
of view, political and religious and colonial, this was necessary. To
show that there was to be no harshness in the execution of this we may
only point out that Champlain was in charge and he knew Huguenots well
and had worked harmoniously with them. We have seen that since the
companies had been mainly Huguenots, colonization had not succeeded
owing to mutual jealousies. If Canada was to be saved, it was by
colonization, and this could never be carried out with a divided
people. Even Huguenots realized this point. For at the time they were
enjoying full privileges of citizenship as has been said. Hence it was
only by imposing law and order and uniformity of religious belief,
that happy and contented communities could be expected to spread in
Canada.
Richelieu at this time was eager to form a powerful navy and he thought
the possession of thriving colonies would advance the scheme. Hence it
was a wise policy that was now inaugurated. Unfortunately engrossing
interests at home did not allow Richelieu to pursue his scheme for
government promotion of colonization on the broad basis originally
projected by him.
To carry out the conditions of receiving the number of colonists the
King obliged the Company of One Hundred Associates to lodge, board and
maintain for three years all the French they should transport to the
colony. After which, they could be discharged from their obligation,
if they had put the colonists in the way of making their own living,
either by distributing them on cleared land and supplying them with
grain for a first crop, or otherwise. To provide for the maintenance
of the established church there should be three ecclesiastics in each
of the settlements to be formed during fifteen years, maintained in
food and lodging and in everything necessary for the exercise of their
ministry. In compensation for their outlay in advance, the king handed
over to the Associates the Seigneury of Quebec and of the whole of New
France, with the reserve of fealty and homage and a crown of gold of
the weight of eight marks, to be paid at each succeeding reign, and
finally, of the institution of officers of Sovereign Justice to be
nominated and presented by the Associates, when it should be deemed
proper to have them appointed. Moreover, Louis XIII made a gift to the
Associates of two war vessels of three hundred tons, ready equipped for
sailing, and four culverins, with this clause, however, that if at the
end of the first ten years they had not carried over fifteen hundred
French of both sexes, they should pay the price of the aforesaid
vessels. Among other privileges the king granted twelve patents of
nobility signed, sealed and delivered, with a blank space left for the
names of those of the Associates who shall be presented by the company
and who shall enjoy with their heirs, born in lawful wedlock, these
privileges for all time, thus starting the Seigneurial Land Tenure
system which in 1854 yielded to that of freehold.
With regard to commerce, the company should have perpetual privileges
in the peltry traffic of New France, and for fifteen years only, all
other commerce by land and sea with the reservation of the cod and
whale fishery which should be free to all French traders. The colonists
not maintained at the expense of the Associates should be free to trade
with the natives for peltry provided that they forthwith hand over the
peltry to the company which shall be obliged to purchase at the rate of
forty _sols_, Tours currency, for each beaver skin. In consequence, the
privileges accorded previously to Guillaume de Caen and his associates
were revoked by the same edict, and trade in Canada was interdicted
to them and other subjects of the kingdom, under pain of confiscation
of their vessels and merchandise to the benefit of the new company.
Cardinal Richelieu, however, allowed Guillaume de Caen, the privilege
of the peltry trade for one year in indemnification for the loss of his
charter.
So started the Company of the One Hundred Associates under the happiest
auspices, endowed with almost sovereign power and having a leader
of the state as its patron, for at its head was Cardinal Richelieu,
who, without the title of lieutenant general which he perhaps thought
unnecessary, seeing that he connected the work of colonization with
his position as head of the navy, exercised the same authority. On
the 27th of April, 1628, Louis XIII sent Champlain his commission as
"commander in New France in the absence of our very dear and well
beloved cousin, the Cardinal de Richelieu, grand master, chief and
superintendent of the navigation and commerce of France." Champlain did
not receive his commission on behalf of the company until he reached
Dieppe in 1629, after the occupation of Quebec by the English.
The first attempt to carry out the charter was in 1628, when vessels
were equipped and victualled under the orders of de Roquemont, one of
the chief associates. Their first object was to succour Quebec, then
in famine. A number of artisans and their families started and never
reached their destination, for in the gulf their ships were seized
by David Kerth, a master mariner of Dieppe in pay of the English
government and in command of its fleet attacking the colonies. War had
broken out between England and France and hostilities soon extended to
America, and a fleet of ships was sent to invade the settlements of New
France and in particular to capture Quebec.
It is not our duty to tell the story of Quebec or to recount the noble
defence of Champlain till the fall of the city on July 29, 1629, when
Louis Kerth, the brother of the admiral, installed himself as the
governor general, representing the English. The state of the colony at
the end of this siege interests us. Of the French, there only remained
at Quebec the families of the widow of Hébert and of their son-in-law,
Couillard, and these intended to leave after the harvest, but in the
event they were constrained to stay. The rest passed over by way of
Tadoussac into France and with them Champlain, who went to England to
call upon the French ambassador, urging him to demand the restitution
of Quebec on the ground that it had been captured two months after
the expiration of the short war between the two nations. Canada as a
province _quoad civilia_ was under Normandy, and hence it became to be
believed that it was also _quoad sacra_ under Normandy.
[Illustration: THE TAKING OF QUEBEC IN 1629
(From Hennepin, Edition 1698.)]
It is now 1632, the year of the treaty of St. Germain-en-Laye when
Acadia and Canada were again ceded to the French. For three years Louis
Kerth kept Quebec in the name of England and on July 13, he formally
handed over a heap of ruins to Emery de Caen, who conducted the first
contingent of the returning French. "But for our habitation," says
Champlain, "my people have found it utterly consumed along with good
beaver skins valued at 40,000 _livres_."
Meanwhile, the Company of the Hundred Associates was again empowered
to resume possession and Champlain was commissioned anew as acting
governor of all the country along the St. Lawrence, and was appointed
commander of the fleet of three vessels bearing new colonists. He
arrived at Quebec with a good nucleus for the revived colony on May
23, 1633, and was received by a salute of cannon by Emery de Caen.
Among the colonists brought by him there were persons of distinction
who, wearied with religious dissensions in their own provinces, sought
in New France that tranquility denied them in the old, and many rural
labourers and artisans of different trades. As these were mostly from
the diocese of Rouen, the clergy now arriving were the Jesuits, Fathers
Massé and Brébeuf, sent under the jurisdiction of the Archbishop
of Rouen. The Recollects were no longer allowed to return, on the
ground that, theirs being an order which could not own property or
revenues, they were unsuitable for a country where means were needed
to gather together the Indians in settlements in buildings in which
they could band together to be instructed. The chapel of the Recollects
destroyed by the English was rebuilt. The work of reconstruction of
the settlement now began in earnest. What interests us now is to learn
that on July 1st of this year Champlain, at the request of the Indian
allies, sent many workmen to Three Rivers to construct a fort and a fur
factory there. Although Three Rivers had been used as a trading post,
it had only been so temporarily, in the same manner that Montreal, or
the post of the Sault St. Louis, had been the meeting place for the
natives and traders engaged in the fur traffic.
[Illustration: This view of Fort Amsterdam on the Manhattan is copied
from an ancient engraving executed in Holland. The fort was erected
in 1623, but finished upon the above model by Governor Van Twiller in
1635.]
At Quebec there was now great harmony. A lasting colony was
established. Piety and religion flourished and the seeds of a good and
noble population for Canada were sown. After many struggles success
seemed now to be rewarding the efforts of Champlain. One shudders to
think of what the future of Canada had been if the "convict" colonies
of Roberval and la Roche had come to any permanency. We may note now
two important movements helping to civilize the natives, which show
the real desire of the new régime to fulfill its vocation. The first
was the endeavour made by Champlain to nip in the bud the sale of
intoxicating liquors to the natives in exchange for peltry already
introduced by the preceding companies and by the English under Kerth.
Champlain forbade anyone to trade wine or _eau de vie_ with the natives
under penalty of corporal punishment and the loss of their salaries
as servants of the company. The second was the establishment by the
Jesuits of a free boarding school for boys in the house of Notre Dame
des Anges left them by the Recollects for the instruction of the Huron
children. This method of civilization of the natives already employed
by the Recollects was considered a most useful preliminary to the
civilization of the natives by thus Gallicizing and Christianizing
them, and attracted many.
[Illustration: CHAMPLAIN'S FORTIFIED RESIDENCE AT QUEBEC]
That all these institutions were in line with Champlain's policy we see
in Champlain's letter to Cardinal Richelieu, dated August 15, 1635.
After saying that some of the Indians were sedentary and lived in
villages and towns, while others were migratory hunters and fishers,
all led by no other desire than to have a number of Frenchmen and
religious teachers to instruct them in the faith, he adds, "We require
but 120 men light armed for protection against the arrows. Possessing
them, with two or three thousand more Indians, our allies, in a year we
can render ourselves absolute masters of all these peoples by bringing
among them the necessary good government and this policy would increase
the worship of religion and an inconceivable commerce. The whole for
the glory of God." In the last phrase we may see Champlain's whole
policy unfolded.
But the days of Samuel de Champlain, Sieur de Brouage, were drawing to
a close. To found this colony he had suffered many perils by land and
sea, many fatigues, privations and opposition of friends and enemies.
Paralysis now weakened his splendid physique and sturdy form, and after
two months and a half of suffering he died on Christmas day, December
25, 1635. His death was most edifying, as the Jesuit chronicler
relates. His obsequies were attended by the grief-stricken colony in a
body, the settlers, the soldiers, the captains and the religious.
Father Lalemant officiated and Father Lejeune pronounced the funeral
oration: Samuel de Champlain merits well of Canada. His death was
apparently foreseen, for after the above ceremony while the
gathering was still present, letters which had been left in the
hands of Father Lejeune by the Company, to be opened after the death
of Champlain, were publicly read announcing the appointment by
letters patent of the Messieurs de la Compagnie of M. Bras-de-Fer de
Chateaufort, the commandant of the young fort at Three Rivers, as
acting governor _ad interim_ for Mgr. the Duke of Richelieu, while
awaiting the successor of Champlain to be named by the king.
The arrival of the ships from France, the next year, were eagerly
looked forward to, albeit with some anxiety, for France being at war
with Spain many doubted whether they would arrive, but to their delight
they came in greater number than could have been expected, and on the
night preceding the eleventh day of June, the new governor nominated
by the Company and approved by the king arrived. This was Charles
Hualt de Montmagny, Knight of Malta. The reception he received next
morning was most imposing. He was met officially at the harbour, and
conducted to the chapel of Notre Dame de Recouvrance, and thence to
the parish church where a Te Deum was sung with prayers for the king.
Then he mounted to the fortress where M. de Chateaufort, the temporary
governor, handed over the keys amid the roar of cannon and the salvos
of musketry. With M. de Montmagny there arrived a convoy of forty-five
colonists--a notable increase. Among these were some families of
note such as those of M. de Repentigny and M. de la Potherie. Next
year, there came others, with many persons of distinction. A certain
element of official dignity now began to prevail. It was de Montmagny's
chief work to organize and strengthen the defences of the colony in
preparation against the attacks of the Iroquois. At Quebec the governor
reinforced the redoubt built by Champlain on the river by a platform
and added more cannon to the battery. This new military aspect of the
colony is described by the chronicler in the "Relations of the Jesuits
for 1636."
"The morning gun (or the beat of the drum at dawn in the garrison)
awakens us every morning. We see the sentinels put on post; the guard
house is always well manned; each squad has its days of duty. It is a
pleasure to see our soldiers at military exercises in the sweet time of
peace ... in a word, our fortress of Quebec is guarded in peace so as
to be a place of importance, in the heat of war."
With the assistance of M. Chateaufort, reinstated as commandant of
the growing fort at Three Rivers, the palisaded stockade there was
reinforced with two main buildings, a storehouse and a platform for
the cannons. These external signs of power were necessary to impress
the natives, both their allies, the Hurons and Algonquins, should
they prove treacherous, as well as the fierce Iroquois, the deadly
enemies of both. The little garrisons had need to be well prepared for
eventualities.
At this time several foundations in the colony were established, by
private charity, to Christianize the natives and to encourage them
to live a sedentary life and to till the ground. A mission village
was built for them by the Jesuits in 1638 at Sillery, on the banks of
the St. Lawrence, at a distance of four miles from Quebec, the funds
being supplied by the charity of a member of the Hundred Associates,
a distinguished commander of Malta, Noël Brulart de Sillery, a former
Minister of State. At Three Rivers in 1641 similar action was taken.
A third was desired by the missionaries at the Rivière des Prairies
at the north of the Island of Montreal, as a central position for
missionary effort among the up-country tribes.
Tadoussac was visited by the missionaries from time to time, but was
too desolate a spot to attract the natives to dwell there permanently.
The Jesuits had thought of establishing themselves at Ile Jésus, for
there is an act of August 16, 1638, giving it to them at Three Rivers
and signed by Montmagny.
We have seen the establishment of a school for the Indian boys by
the Jesuits. We are now to record a similar one for girls, but who
should undertake inch a work for them? Two noble ladies of France were
to answer this question. The year 1639 saw the arrival at Quebec,
on August 1st, of a party of brave ladies whom we may know as the
pioneers of all those numerous philanthropic organizations and good
works controlled by the devoted women of Canada of today. These were
the ladies sent from France by Madame la Duchesse d'Aiguillon, the
niece of Cardinal Richelieu, and by Madame de la Peltrie, to assist the
struggling colony there.
I will here introduce the reader to what are known as the "Relations."
These are a series of letters or reports which were written by the
Jesuit missionaries in Nouvelle France, starting from the arrival of
Fathers Lalemant and Lejeune and continued long after. They have now
been collected and published, and are the most valuable historical
sources of this early period. They are written to the superiors of
their order in France, sent by the Company's boats, and were the source
of encouragement and inspiration to their religious brethren who
eagerly read them and desired to follow in their writers' footsteps in
the mission field of New France. Many others besides the Jesuits saw
these letters. The news contained in them was eagerly looked for by
many good ladies and gentlemen of France who were interested in the
progress of this romantic settlement among the savages in a far-off
land. The birth struggles of the new colony, the devotion and self
sacrifices of the pioneers, attracted their imagination and stirred
their sympathy and generosity.[35]
In 1634-35 Father Lejeune had written exposing the need of some
establishment to take care of the girls abandoned by the Indians and of
another for education similar to that, for boys, already constructed.
This "Relation" was read by the niece of Cardinal Richelieu, Madame
la Duchesse d'Aiguillon, and she wrote to the Jesuits: "God having
given me the desire to aid in the salvation of these poor savages,
after having read the report you have made of them, it seems to me
that what you believe would be of most service to their conversion is
the establishment of the Religeuses Hospitalières in New France; in
consequence I have resolved to send there this year six labourers to
clear the land and construct dwellings for these good ladies."
[Illustration: PAUL LEJEUNE
The first writer in the Jesuit "Relations."]
The foundation of a community of Ursuline nuns to undertake the
education of the young Indian girls was also similarly inspired this
year, by a good lady whose name is associated with the foundation
of Montreal. This was Madeleine de Chauvigny, the widow of M. de la
Peltrie, a gentleman of means who had died five and a half years
previously. Madame de la Peltrie had long felt impelled to the
religious life, but had been obliged by her father to marry. Being
now free she was anxious to devote her life to good works. But not
having decided whether it should be in New France or elsewhere she fell
dangerously ill, whereupon she made a vow that if she regained her
health she would devote her life and her property to New France. She
recovered quickly. It is related that the physician on visiting her,
remarked in surprise: "Madame, your illness has fled to Canada." The
coincidence of this remark with her own thoughts struck her imagination
and her only thought was now to make the necessary preparations.
[Illustration: MADAME DE LA PELTRIE]
There was at Tours an Ursuline nun named Mother Marie de l'Incarnation,
who was very interested in New France. This was known to Madame de la
Peltrie who now approached her so that shortly permission was granted
by the Archbishop of Tours to Mother Marie to be joined by Mother Marie
de Savonnine de St. Joseph of the same convent, and by Mother Cécile de
Ste. Croix from the Ursuline convent of Dieppe. Thus it was that Madame
de la Peltrie found herself at Quebec with these three and the three
"Hospitalières" sent by Madame d'Aiguillon, viz.: Sisters Marie de St.
Ignace, Superior, Anne de St. Bernard and Marie de St. Bonaventure.
[Illustration: VENERABLE MERE MARIE DE L'INCARNATION]
We must imagine the religious enthusiasm of the colonists at their
arrival and the eagerness with which the two new institutions were
begun, that of the hospital at Quebec and of the Ursuline convent at
Sillery.
But soon gloom was cast upon the little colony. Money and workmen from
the Company in France were needed and they came not. The explanation is
that the small sum of 300,000 _livres_, the original capital subscribed
by the One Hundred Associates, was dwindling, the expenses being
necessarily great, and the company of ladies and gentlemen composing
it, not being as practical as they were pious, so that although they
placed the commercial side of their affairs in the hands of traders,
these mainly looked after their own interests rather than those of the
colony.
The development of the struggling institutions lately mentioned was
hindered. To add to the general distress, on the 4th day of June,
1640, a fire quickly consumed the Church of Notre Dame de Recouvrance,
the house of the Jesuits and the governor's chapel, which were all of
resinous wood.
What a loss this must have been to the handful of colonists who
numbered in all in the year 1641 only 200! The mention of this number
reminds us of the charter given to the Company in 1627, and the reader
is advised to turn back and see how its conditions of colonization have
been filled. Outside the three religious communities and the persons
engaged in their service, the rest was composed of the servants of
the Company engaged in commerce. To add to their other troubles the
Iroquois again began their hostilities, declaring war against the
French and the Hurons. In the autumn of 1640 they captured two of the
French belonging to the garrison of Three Rivers. These were eventually
recaptured and the governor, M. de Montmagny, offered terms of peace if
they would conclude a universal peace with the Huron allies. During the
night, which the Iroquois had demanded to think over this proposition,
they treacherously laid plans to fall upon the French next day, in
which they were routed, escaping however at night in the shadows of the
woods.
Meanwhile news had also arrived of the ill treatment of the Jesuit
missionaries, Chaumont, Garnier, Poncet and Pijart, scattered away the
Indian tribes. All Quebec was in alarm and consternation, and nowhere
was there more fear than at the Indian village under the charge of
the Hospitalières sisters at Sillery, four miles from the garrison.
Such was the depression in the colony that in 1641 Father Viniont, now
superior of the Jesuits in Quebec, wrote home:
"It is going to be destroyed if it is not strongly and quickly
succoured. The trade of the Company, the colony of the French and the
religion which is now beginning to flourish among the savages, are at
the lowest point, if they do not quell the Iroquois. Fifty Iroquois,
since the Dutch have given them fire-arms, are capable of driving the
200 colonists out of the country."
It was in these desperate straits that news came of a reinforcement to
be sent to the colony; but what must have been their disappointment
and misgivings when they realized that the new Company had resolved
upon Montreal, sixty leagues away up at the Sault St. Louis, as their
rendezvous. And that the projected expedition was determined on
definitely, was made clear when the supply of provisions for the new
colony arrived at Quebec in 1840, very opportunely, however, for they
served for the use of the famished garrison, since the Company of One
Hundred Associates had neglected to provide their usual supply.
FOOTNOTE:
[35] The earliest relation was written in 1614; then follows one
for 1626; and after a break of six years, they proceed in regular
succession from 1632-1672.
CHAPTER V
1640-1641
MONTREAL
THE COMPANY OF NOTRE DAME DE MONTREAL[36]
PREVIOUS COLONIZATION REVIEWED--MONTREAL CEDED TO SIEUR
DE CHAUSSEE IN 1636 AND LATER TO DE LAUSON--THE DESIGN OF
THE SETTLEMENT OF MONTREAL ENTERS THE MIND OF M. DE LA
DAUVERSIERE--THE FIRST ASSOCIATES OF THE COMPANY OF NOTRE
DAME DE MONTREAL--THE CESSION OF THE ISLAND OF MONTREAL TO
THEM IN 1640--THE RELIGIOUS NATURE OF THE NEW COLONIZING
COMPANY--TRADING FACILITIES CRIPPLED--POLITICAL DEPENDENCE ON
QUEBEC SAFEGUARDED--M. OLIER FOUNDS THE CONGREGATION OF ST.
SULPICE IN PARIS IN VIEW OF THE MONTREAL MISSION--PREPARATIONS FOR
THE FOUNDATION AND ESTABLISHMENT OF THE FULLY ORGANIZED SETTLEMENT
OF "VILLA MARIE"--PAUL DE CHOMEDEY DE MAISONNEUVE CHOSEN AS LOCAL
GOVERNOR--THE CALL OF JEANNE MANCE TO FOUND THE HOTEL-DIEU--THE
EXPEDITION STARTS--MAISONNEUVE ARRIVES AT QUEBEC--THE FIRST CLASH
OF THE GOVERNORS--MONTMAGNY OFFERS THE ISLE OF ORLEANS FOR THE NEW
SETTLEMENT--MAISONNEUVE IS FIRM FOR THE ISLAND OF MONTREAL--THE
FIRST FORMAL POSSESSION OF MONTREAL AT PLACE ROYALE--WINTER AT ST.
MICHEL AND STE. FOY--FRICTION BETWEEN THE RIVAL GOVERNORS.
The survey of the colonization of New France up to 1641 shows that it
had been singularly unfruitful. The government of France had never
been more than lukewarm after Cartier's voyages. He had given a poor
account of the climate of the country, and the loss of a quarter of his
crew from scurvy must have confirmed it. Roberval sent on a government
expedition, lost fifty of his company and thereafter the private
companies all had their disasters from famine and disease to record,
beginning with that of Chauvin's, who, having left sixteen men at
Tadoussac for the winter, found eleven there on his return.
Were it not for the insatiable desire for commercial gain, through fur
monopolies, Canada would have been utterly deserted. There were no
industries developed to attract colonists. There had been no gold mines
or other treasures exploited to create rushes into a new and harsh
country, such as that of the Yukon of late years.
Agriculture, under difficult circumstances, and unsupported by
government, or by the companies pledged to encourage it, had also
failed. At the end of little more than one hundred years after Jacques
Cartier's visit to the St. Lawrence there were only 200 Frenchmen
near its waters. Of these about a hundred were fur traders, and their
employees, at once furriers and soldiers; and the rest for the greater
part were the religious, of three institutions, and their dependents.
As a further anti-colonizing influence, there was to be reckoned
with, the love of the French for their own land. The traveler and
historian, Lescarbot, himself a Frenchman and a good colonist, speaking
of colonizing had said: "If we fail, we must attribute it partly to
ourselves who are located in too goodly a land to wish to leave it, and
need be in no fear of finding a subsistence therein."
The same sentiment had prevailed up to 1641. But there had been
one element alone, which can justly claim to have had some lasting
influence and success in the colonizing movement, and that had been
the spirit of religious adventure fostered by Champlain, which made
the small garrison of Quebec into a small, but not insignificant or
undignified, centre of colonization.
We are to see this same desire to bear the light of Christianity and
civilization, as the prime moving force of the new movement to settle
in Canada, animating the founders of the new Company of Montreal, which
is now to appear.
Hence it is necessary to read into the story of the foundation of
Montreal that of the heroism of virtue and of high purpose, of
spiritual and physical endurance.
We have followed the history of Montreal from its discovery by Jacques
Cartier in 1535, to the coming of Champlain in 1603, and his choice in
1611 of La Place Royale as the site of a future settlement, ratified by
him and others for a period of many years. Still the site of the port
at the Grand Sault had never become more than an annual trading port
towards which it was the aim of the traders to push, at the opening of
navigation, to meet the natives at this most convenient spot at the end
of the Ottawa Valley.
It was reserved for the new Company of Montreal, by the powers given
it by their charter granted on December 17, 1640, to put this long
cherished idea of a permanent settlement into realization.
The various steps leading to this must now be traced. We have seen that
the Company of New France, that of the Hundred Associates or Partners,
was in possession of the country from 1627. Among other powers the
Associates had the privilege of making certain concessions, but it was
not until the death of Champlain, anticipated as we have seen during
the two months' illness and more before it occurred on Christmas day,
1635, that the privilege seems to have been used under the following
circumstances.
[Illustration: THE FOUNDATION OF MONTREAL. THE FIRST ASSOCIATES OF THE
COMPANY OF MONTREAL.
(A bas relief from the Maisonneuve Monument by Philippe Hébert)]
We have seen that Champlain had clearly meditated a settlement
at Montreal and no doubt meant to make it his own headquarters.
Circumstances had not allowed him to pursue his design. His important
position at Quebec since had left him little leisure for that in
the troublous times following. Still it is curious to note that his
fortifications placed on Ile Ronde in 1611 seemed to have given him a
lien on the site of Montreal, for we hear of no private person being
granted it till after his death in December, 1635. It is only on the
15th of January, following, that such a transaction is announced at the
annual meeting of the Hundred Associates in Paris, held in the house of
M. Jean de Lauson, the intendant of the Company.
In the edict of the establishment of this Company, in order to
facilitate the exercise of his functions, the king had ordered, that
as the whole of the members could not be expected to participate in
the active administration of its affairs, a dozen of them could be
elected directors with sole and full power under the presidency of the
intendant to buy, sell and distribute the lands.
In order to limit the powers of this executive, the eleventh article
of the edict declared that no concession of land exceeding two hundred
arpents could be valid, without the signature of twenty of the
Associates made in the presence of the intendant of the Company.
M. Lauson had been named intendant since 1627, being at that time
Councillor of State and President of the Great Council. At the annual
meeting of the Associates, on January 15, 1636, some most important
concessions were granted which affect Montreal. M. Jacques Gérard,
Chevalier, Sieur de la Chaussée, made application in due form for the
Island of Montreal. Sieur Simon le Maitre made application for the
seigneury, afterwards called de Lauson, and another, Jacques Castillon,
for that part of the Isles of Orleans called hereafter the Seigneurie
de Charny, after the name of one of de Lauson's sons. These concessions
were granted and signed by de Lauson as the intendant. Shortly
afterward when de Lauson relinquished the post of intendant, these
three, who were his friends, and had lent their names for his purpose,
transferred the properties to him. Indeed in the act of April 30, 1638,
by which M. de Chaussée ceded the "Ile de Montréal" he expressly says
that he had accepted it only to give de Lauson pleasure and to lend his
name. At the same meeting several other concessions were put through in
behalf of the eldest son of de Lauson, viz.: with the reserve of the
islands of Montreal and Orleans, all the other islands formed by the
River St. Lawrence, and the exclusive right of fishing and navigation
of the whole extent of this river. Finally, as if these islands,
without number, were not sufficient, the same eldest son received more
than sixty leagues of land facing the River St. Lawrence, beginning
from the River St. Francis, on Lake St. Pierre, and reaching up the
river to above Sault St. Louis. This concession, known hereafter under
the name of La Citière, comprised, according to the deed of possession
July 29, 1636, a part of the territory now belonging to the United
States--the whole little lot making what would have been a European
kingdom. Certainly M. de Lauson was feathering his nest and that of his
children before giving up the intendancy. There was the obligation,
however, which the Company placed on the above persons that they should
send men to the relief of the colony. This was evidently looked upon
as a legal formality, of no serious moment. Similar clauses had been
inserted in so many New France company charters already and this could
be equally disregarded, as it was. However, this illegal omission of
duty was made use of, later, as we shall see, when these concessions
were annulled and revoked by the Company of One Hundred Associates by
their ordinance of December 17, 1640.
The design of the settlement of the Island of Montreal, however, was
soon to enter into the mind of a pious, enthusiastic, and some would
say, visionary person, M. Jérome le Royer Sieur de la Dauversière, a
"receveur général des finances" at La Flèche in Anjou.
[Illustration: JEROME LE ROYER DE LA DAUVERSIERE
Founder of the La Flèche Hospitalières to serve the Hôtel Dieu at
Montreal.]
The Abbé Faillon relates the conception of this design as occurring to
the devout M. de la Dauversière when present at mass with his wife and
children on February 2, the feast of the Purification, 1635 or 1636,
when, after having received holy communion, he became convinced that
it was his duty to establish an order of lady Hospitalières, to take
St. Joseph as their patron; to establish in Montreal a Hôtel-Dieu to
be directed by these nuns; that the Holy Family should be particularly
honoured in this island; that the effect of this inspiration was a
revelation to him, as he had never conceived the project before, even
remotely; and, moreover, his knowledge of Montreal had hitherto been as
vague as that of Canada.
But Dollier de Casson, who was afterwards the parish priest of
Montreal, an old-time soldier, a learned and pious, but practical man,
although a great believer in Providence, gives a less mystical account
in his history of Montreal written from 1672 to 1673.
There he relates the origin of the design of the establishment of
Montreal as due to the reading of one of the "Jesuit Relations," which
had fallen into de la Dauversière's hands. There the writer spoke
strongly of the Island of Montreal as being the most suitable place in
the country for the purpose of establishing a mission and receiving the
savages. In reading this, M. de la Dauversière was at once much touched.
He became enthusiastic and already saw the vision of a French colony
settled at Montreal christianizing the natives. Montreal seems to
have so obsessed his mind that he was never tired of speaking of it,
depicting its position, the geography of its location, its beauty, its
fertility, its size, with such minuteness and vividness, that all who
heard him felt that he had been directly inspired with this knowledge,
for little was known of Montreal owing to the wars which had left so
little opportunity for exploring it well, that it was with difficulty
that even a rough idea of it could be furnished. De la Dauversière saw
himself called to give himself up to the conversion of the savages; but
still doubtful as to whether this idea was from God or not, he betook
himself to his Jesuit friend and confessor, Father Chauveau, rector of
the college at La Flèche.
"Have no doubt, Monsieur," was the reply. "Engage in it in good
earnest."
There was then at La Flèche under the roof of M. de la Dauversière, a
gentleman of ample means who had come to live with him "as in a school
of piety so as to learn to serve our Lord better," This was M. Pierre
Chevrier, Baron de Fancamp, who afterwards forsook the world and joined
the new order of secular priests under the name of the "Seminary of St.
Sulpice."
According to Dollier de Casson, M. Fancamp had also read with similar
emotion the same account which had influenced his friend. On his return
from the "Jesuits" M. de la Dauversière immediately related the reply
he had received and forthwith M. le Baron offered to associate himself
with him in his design and they both resolved to go to Paris together
to form some charitable body which should be ready to contribute to the
enterprise. A dramatic meeting took place there.[37]
"M. de la Dauversière," so says Dollier de Casson, "betook himself to a
mansion whither our lord conducted M. Olier." This is the celebrated M.
Olier who was afterwards the founder of the Seminary of St. Sulpice in
Paris and, indirectly, that of Montreal.
[Illustration: M. JEAN-JACQUES OLIER
Founder of Saint Sulpice in Paris and Montreal.]
Dollier de Casson continues: "These two servants of Jesus Christ
meeting in this mansion, were on a sudden enlightened by a heavenly and
altogether extraordinary gleam. They forthwith saluted one another and
embraced. They knew one another to the very depths of their souls, like
St. Francis and St. Dominic, without speaking, without anyone having
said a word to either of them, and without having previously seen one
another. After these tender embraces M. Olier said to M. Dauversière:
"I know your design. I am going to recommend it to God at the holy
altar."
This said, he left them and went to say holy mass, which M. Dauversière
heard, with a devotion altogether difficult to express when the
mind is not aglow with the same fire that consumed these great men.
Thanksgiving over, M. Olier gave M. de la Dauversière one hundred
pistoles, saying to him: "Take this then to commence the work of God!"
Thus the first interview ended.
Dollier de Casson leaves his readers to imagine with what joy and
eagerness this news is received by the "dear Baron le Fancamp." This
M. Fancamp afterwards became a priest and joined Dollier de Casson at
Montreal and no doubt he had told the first historian of Ville Marie
his story himself _per longum et latum_. Three new associates, friends
of M. Olier, were induced to finance the new venture, of whom the first
was the Baron de Renty, a man of admirable qualities, pious and filled
with apostolic zeal. These six, forming the nucleus of the Société de
Notre Dame de Montréal, determined to fit out an expedition to embark
in the spring of 1641.
But as yet they had no claim on the Island of Montreal. As we have
learned, this had been ceded to M. de la Chaussée in 1636 and
transferred to M. de Lauson in 1638, who had become the intendant of
Dauphigny where he was now residing. With daring boldness M. de la
Dauversière and M. de Fancamp, journeyed to Vienne in Dauphigny to
arrange terms with him for the cession of the island to them. De Lauson
had not colonized it, or carried out any of the conditions requiring
its being tilled, but he was not easily disposed to relinquish what was
a valuable possession for the advancement of his family, the more so as
he learned that his interests were jeopardized by the new company. He
therefore refused to discuss the question.
A second attempt and visit were made, this time with success, for M. de
la Dauversière had secured in the meantime the powerful co-operation of
Father Charles Lalemant, who had been the first Jesuit superior of the
Canadian missions, having been sent out in 1621.
Lalemant knew Canada well and had great influence with the Company of
the Hundred Associates. He had been superior of the church of Notre
Dame de Recouvrance in Quebec, as well as Champlain's confessor, and
had had naturally many official relations with M. de Lauson in his
capacity as intendant of the company. As he was held in great esteem by
M. de Lauson, Father Lalemant, who since his return from Canada two
years before was now the procurator of the missions of the society, was
a powerful advocate for the cession.
Accordingly the cession was granted by deed dated Vienne, August 7,
1640, to Pierre Chevrier, écuyer, Sieur de Fancamp, and Jérome de
Royer, Sieur de la Dauversière. This declares "that M. Jean de Lauson
cedes, has given and transferred, purely and simply the Island of
Montreal, situated on the River St. Lawrence, above Lake St. Peter,
entirely as it was given by the gentlemen of the Company of New France
to M. de la Chaussée for them and theirs to enjoy, having regard to the
same duties and conditions expressed in the act of the fifteenth of
January, 1636."
A second contract was signed, the same afternoon, by which "M. de
Lauson as much in his own name as the legitimate administrator for
Francis de Lauson, écuyer, Sieur de Lyrée, his son, yields to them the
right of navigation and passage on all the extent of the River St.
Lawrence as well as the right of fishing in this river, within ten
leagues around the Island of Montreal and that in consideration of the
great number of men which they are to cause to pass into this island to
people the colony and to aid to till the lands adjoining those of the
said Sieur de Lyrée, with the duty of giving him each year six pounds
of fish, as a token of simple acknowledgment."
In December following the general assembly of the Company of the
Hundred Associates or the "Société de Nouvelle France" was held in
Paris in the house of M. Bordier, secretary of His Majesty's council
and a former director of the Company.
The whole project of the establishment of the new company for Montreal
was discussed and its conclusions drawn up in a deed of concession,
to M. de Fancamp and M. de la Dauversière, dated December 17, 1640.
It annulled and revoked all the concessions granted by the act of
the Company dated January 15, 1636, to M. de Chaussée as well as the
concessions and transferences made thereafter of the same "pretended
rights," the whole being null and revoked through failure of the
execution of the conditions imposed within the time ordered. In the
perusal of this act we can see the relations of the two companies.
That of the Associates of Montreal is clearly regarded as a purely
religious body anxious to aid the parent body in its very great desire
to establish a strong colony in New France to instruct the savage
peoples of that place in the knowledge of God and to draw them to
civilized life. Thus they are very ready to grant them lands to aid in
this praiseworthy enterprise, to wit: etc., which are clearly defined.
In granting this they restricted the concession originally made to M.
de Chaussée of the _whole_ island by reserving to themselves the head
of the island by a line drawn from the Rivière des Prairies up to Lake
St. Louis to the distance of about four leagues from the mountain. In
compensation they granted what afterwards became known as la Seigneurie
de St. Sulpice.
"Moreover, an extent of land two leagues wide along the River St.
Lawrence by six leagues deep in the aforesaid lands, to be taken on the
north side of the same bank where the Assumption River empties into the
said St. Lawrence River, and to begin at a post which will be planted
on that same bank at a distance of two leagues from the mouth of the
same Assumption River, the rest of the said two leagues of frontage to
be taken in a direction running towards the said St. Lawrence River;
whatever lies between the Rivière des Prairies and Assumption River
and between Assumption River and the above mentioned fort, being
reserved to the said company proposing to set up thereon later as forts
and habitations."--Edits et Ord., Quebec, p. 21.
The object of the above restriction is clear. The Company of New France
was primarily a trading concern and it wished to secure its rights to
the north of Montreal as a trading centre for which it was so well
adapted by nature, as it was the natural goal of all the Indian peltry
from beyond the Sault. It reserved rights therefore to build forts and
habitations there.
It next outlined the political and municipal position of the future
colony in respect to the Company. The Sieurs Chevrier (de Fancamp), de
la Dauversière and their successors were obliged, to show their faith
and homage, to take to the fort St. Louis at Quebec in New France,
or other place afterwards designated by the Company, at each change
of possessor, as payment, a piece of gold of the weight of one ounce
stamped with the seal of the Company of New France; to present besides
other signs of acknowledgments of feudal tenure; even to furnish their
aveux et dénombrement,[38] the whole in conformity with the custom of
Paris,--a land tenure system which prevailed for so long afterward in
Canada.
In the matter of Justice, dependence was to be placed on the Sovereign
Court which was to be established at Quebec or otherwise, to which
appeal could be made from the local judges appointed by the Montreal
Company.
Montreal was, thus, crippled beforehand, in its trade extension. The
fur trade with the Indians was only allowed as far as the need and use
of private persons were concerned. All peltry, over and above this,
was to be handed over to the agents of the Company of New France at a
price fixed by it, on the pain of confiscation. Montreal's pretensions
to future independence were guarded against, by it being forbidden to
build any fortress or citadel, this privilege being reserved to the
Company should it afterward desire land for these forts and for the
settlement and housings of the officers and men around them. In case
the Company desired a fort on the mountain, it required five arpents
around it, etc. Nevertheless the seigneurs of Montreal might retrench
or fortify themselves as much as necessary to protect themselves
against the incursions of the savages.
Further limitations were placed on the sources of future population. No
grants of land were to be given to those already settled in New France,
at Quebec, Three Rivers or elsewhere, but only to those who came
expressly to people the lands. In order to insure this, the Seigneurs
Chevrier and le Royer were to send a number of men by the next shipment
made by the Company.
Finally after the clause annulling the gift of de Lauson as stated
above, the document gives order to M. de Montmagny, the governor, to
put the said seigneurs in possession of the lands.
Throughout this document there is no mention of the "Company of
Montreal." The deed is made out to the two named and to their
successors, but it was evidently understood that these were acting for
others with no other pretension than belonging to a number of
associates of the "Company of Montreal."[39]
Let us return to M. Olier. At the time we are speaking of, this young
priest, a man of less than twenty-eight years of age, was a missionary
for the country people. He had returned from these to Paris to take
a decision on a most important subject, which was, whether or not he
should accept the episcopal see of a pious prelate who had been urging
its acceptance by him for over eighteen months.
On the feast of the Purification, February 2, 1636, with this need for
decision on his mind, M. Olier having retired to the abbey church of
St. Germaies-Prés to seek in prayer the solution to his perplexity,
believed that he had received a supernatural light.
"Having prayed for some time," he relates in after years, "at morning
prayer I heard these words, 'you need to consume yourself in me, so
that I may work my whole will in you; and I wish that you may be a
light to illumine the Gentiles; _lumen ad revelationem Gentium_.'"
This appeared to him a clear call to refuse the offer of the
episcopate, which was not among the Gentiles.
At this same time his spiritual director, Père de Coudreu, the general
of the Oratorians, and the holy St. Vincent de Paul, were also thinking
out Olier's decision for him. On this same day, then, Père de Coudreu's
decision that he ought to renounce the episcopacy coming to Olier, he
believed that it was his mission to remain a simple priest, and go at
once to Canada to be allied to the Gentiles there. With difficulty he
is restrained by his director. He is all aglow with zeal, he prays
God, as his autobiographical memoirs tell, "to send me to Montreal in
Canada, where they should build the first chapel, under the title of
the Ever-Blessed Virgin and a Christian town under the name of Ville
Marie, which is a work of marvelous importance."
Olier retired towards the end of 1641, to the Village of Vaugiraud,
where he surrounded himself with some young ecclesiastics who placed
themselves under his direction.[40] Thus he founded the Seminary of
St. Sulpice, the early fruits of which were directed towards Canada.
Thus we shall see, that through his sons, he became the _lumen ad
revelationem_ of his prayers. M. Olier is therefore to be considered
one of the founders of Canada as he is already one of the first three
associates who are to form the new company of Notre Dame de Montréal.
M. Fancamp must shortly have been introduced to Olier, for we learn
that conjointly with M. Olier he sent out to Quebec in 1640, twenty
tons of provisions and tools, begging the Jesuit superior of the
mission to hold them in reserve for the reinforcement they proposed to
send to Montreal the year following before commencing the projected
establishment.
It can but be said that the concession of the Great Company was liberal
and well meaning. Indeed the same day of the concession, December 17,
1640, it engaged itself to transport on its own vessels at its own
expense, thirty men chosen by the Messieurs de Montréal as well as
thirty tons of provisions destined for their sustenance; also to write
to M. de Montmagny to give them two sites, one at the port of Quebec
and the other at Three Rivers, where they might house their provisions
in safety.
Great preparations were now the order of the day. Exhaustive plans
were prepared for the gradual development of the Colony of Montreal,
year by year ahead. Rarely has any settlement ever been thought out
so completely. It had the experience of the Colony of Quebec to fall
back upon. Quebec had its three organized institutions, its clergy
residence, its hospital and its school for the young savages. Ville
Marie should have its similar ones. In the place of the Jesuits it
should have a community of resident secular priests. This was not to
oust the Jesuits, who consented to this from the beginning, as they
wished to follow their vocation to evangelize the country far and
wide, the constitution of their order not designing them to be parish
priests. In the meantime they undertook to look after the spiritual
needs of the young settlement from their headquarters at Quebec. The
plan for the personnel to take charge of the other institutions had not
yet matured.
Documents, in the archives of the Seminary of St. Sulpice, at Paris,
relating to this period, show the fervour of those now planning "by the
goodness of God to see in a short time a new church arise which shall
imitate the purity and the charity of the primitive church."
The Associates, being in the necessity of sending out their first
consignment of men according to their agreement, it became necessary to
choose a governor, dignified, brave and wise, and a good Christian, a
man to command against the attacks of the fierce Iroquois and to build
up the civil life of the community. How the choice fell upon Paul de
Chomedey, Sieur de Maisonneuve, a gentleman of Champagne, must now be
told. Here we follow Dollier de Casson and contemporary chroniclers.
Paul de Chomedey, though still young, being commonly thought to be
within his fortieth year, had followed the career of arms since his
thirteenth year, and had given the first proofs of his courage in the
war against the Dutch. Amid the dissipations of a soldier's life,
Colonel de Maisonneuve had retained his probity and purity unsullied.
He loved his profession, but he often desired to exercise it in some
far-off country, where the gaieties and distractions in which he now
found himself a solitary man should not be forced upon him, so that he
might serve God more easily, and remain faithful to his high purposes.
Thus he was in the world but not of it. De Chomedey had a sister to
whom he was devoted, a member of the Congregation of Notre Dame at
Troyes, that ancient birthplace of warriors, poets and saints, on the
Seine. This good woman, they say, desired to partake of the romantic
and apostolic life of the Ursulines Hospitalières at Quebec, as related
by the Jesuits in their letters then being printed and circulated in
France. Doubtless by her whole-souled enthusiasm she had already
turned her brother's thoughts in the same direction of self-sacrifice.
In the dispositions, happening while visiting the house of a friend,
to put his hand by chance upon a copy of these "Relations," in turning
over the leaves he came across the name of Father Lalemant, the former
superior of the Canadian missions, whom he knew to be now in Paris. The
thought came to him that perhaps he might find congenial occupation in
Canada. Thereupon visiting the good Jesuit, he opened his heart to him.
About this same time M. de la Dauversière called upon Father Lalemant
and told him of the difficulty of the Associates in finding a suitable
leader for their enterprise.
"I know," said Lalemant, "a gentleman of Champagne who perhaps will
suit your purpose," and he advocated the qualities of his recent
visitor. He told M. de la Dauversière of the address of Maisonneuve's
hôtel. Desirous of becoming acquainted with Maisonneuve, M. Dauversière
took up his abode there also, and sought an early opportunity of
becoming casually acquainted with him at table. In order to sound him,
he placed before the guests his embarrassment in the choice of a leader
of his expedition. M. de Maisonneuve apparently did not manifest more
interest than his fellow guests at table, but on rising he took M. de
la Dauversière aside and invited him to his apartment. When alone,
Maisonneuve told him frankly of his interest in the conversation at
table. He explained in addition to his own experience in arms, that
he had a yearly income of 2,000 _livres_. "I have no view of personal
interest. I can live on my revenue, which is sufficient for me,
and I would glad-heartedly employ my purse and my life in this new
enterprise, with no other ambition but that of serving God and the
King, in my profession." If his services were agreeable to the Company
he would gladly command the expedition himself, and was ready to start
at once.
It is needless to say that such a man was a God-send to the six
associates who had only 25,000 écus, according to Dollier de Casson,
but 50,000, according to Mother Jucherau in her history of the
Hôtel-Dieu of Quebec. Preparations were made for departure. The
King, in confirming the cession of Montreal, had given power to name
its governors and to have artillery and other munitions of war. M.
Maisonneuve was appointed governor and he was charged, together with
M. de Fancamp, to prepare the equipment of provisions and implements,
etc., and to find only unmarried men, strong and able, to till the
ground, or to work at different trades, and to bear arms against the
Iroquois. M. de Maisonneuve had some difficulty in persuading his
father to give his consent to his departure. Paul was the only son, and
the only hope of his noble and ancient family, and could he wreck his
career? Paul assured him that on the contrary his reputation lay before
him in the new country. At last the father gave his willing consent.
[Illustration: PAUL DE CHOMEDEY DE MAISONNEUVE]
To Troyes Paul de Chomedey then journeyed to bid adieux to his sister,
Madame de Chuly, and to Soeur Louise de Marie, his other sister, at
the convent. There he had to refuse the offer of four of the nuns to
accompany him, to emulate at Montreal the example of the Ursulines of
Quebec. But judging the time not yet ripe for such an institution at
Ville Marie, he gave a promise that when it should be more peopled he
would employ them. His sister wrote on a statue, which they gave him
to take away as a pledge of their mutual engagement, this inscription
in letters of gold
"Sainte mère de Dieu, pure vierge au coeur loyal,
Gardez-nous une place en votre Montréal."
The spring had come; the expedition was ready to depart from Rochelle,
but the mother of the future colony was wanting. These hardy men needed
the solicitude and refining influence of a woman in their midst.
The call of Jeanne Mance to fill this rôle is full of romance. This
devoted lady was then about thirty-three years of age, having been
born towards the year 1606 at Nogent-le-Roi, about four leagues from
Langres, of one of the most honourable families of the district. She
was a modest girl, of great virtue, who from an early age had taken a
vow of perpetual chastity, but although she never entered the religious
life, she always nevertheless remained an unmarried lay woman. Towards
the middle of April of 1640 she had heard for the first time of the
devotedness of Madame de la Peltrie, who had just taken the Ursulines
to Quebec, and of the generosity of the Duchesse d'Aiguillon, who had
founded the house for the "Hospitalières." Though of frail health,
yet she had a daring spirit that dominated her soul so that a strong
attraction for a like sacrifice came to her. She, too, would offer
her services for Canada. Seeking advice she was told to seek Father
Lalemant in Paris. Thither she went from Langres on May 30th. She saw
Father Lalemant, but the future of the foundation of Montreal was then
uncertain, and he was then going to Dauphigny with M. Dauversière to
see M. de Lauson, as related. He could give no decided advice.
[Illustration: JEANNE MANCE
Administratrix of the first hospital in Montreal.]
Jeanne now consulted Father de St. Jure, the rector of the novitiate
of the Society of Jesus in Paris. He confirmed her in her vocation,
and she now acquainted her reluctant relatives with her firm intention
of going to the mission field of Canada. That winter, in Paris, she
visited Père Rapin, provincial of the Recollects, who entering into her
designs, introduced her to Madame de Bullion, a rich and charitable
lady, the widow of Claude de Bullion, the superintendent of finance
and keeper of the seals under Louis XIII. He was a rich man, very
worldly, clever and courageous, but he had a good heart and had endowed
a hospital for the Franciscan Cordeliers, and in which he had died on
the night of December 22-23, 1640, leaving behind him four sons and one
daughter.
When Jeanne Mance called upon the surviving widow, a few weeks later,
there was laid the foundations of a life-long friendship. At Jeanne's
fourth visit, Madame de Bullion asked her if she could undertake the
charge of a hospital which she had herself resolved to found in New
France, when opportunity occurred.
The remembrance of her frail health now made Jeanne recoil before such
a responsibility. Still, though she feared that she could not be of
much service in this regard, she left herself in the hands of God.
Nothing more was then settled. Jeanne was still determined to reach
the vessels soon about to start for New France, and on calling on
Madame de Bullion to take leave before departing to embark this good
lady gave her a purse of 1200 _livres_ to help her in her good work,
with a pledge of more to come, when Jeanne should have arrived at her
destination and had written an account of the state of affairs, as
she found them, regarding the foundation of a hospital. For many years
Madame de Bullion's name remained a secret to the colonists. Jeanne
Mance was even instructed to write to her, under cover of the name of
Père Rapin.
Neither Jeanne nor her benefactress then knew of the venture of
Montreal. This she did not learn till visiting the Jesuit La Place
at Rochelle, where she met the Baron de Fancamp who told her of its
details. The following day, Jeanne Mance met M. de la Dauversière,
whose enthusiasm made her resolve to accept his offer and that of the
Associates, to join the Montreal expedition. While they were waiting
to sail she begged M. de la Dauversière to put the plan of the new
venture into writing and to give her copies so that she might send one
with a letter in her own handwriting to Madame la Princesse de Condé,
to Madame la Chancelière, and, above all, to Madame de Bullion. These
parcels M. de la Dauversière took with him back to Paris, with fruitful
result.
All was now ready, and one of the ships had set sail. The carpenter,
upon whom they relied so much, had deserted, but on putting the vessel
back, luckily another was found on shore willing to go.
Jeanne Mance was now on her vessel.[41] Her only anxiety was that she
should be the only woman at the new settlement of Montreal, among a
good-hearted but rough body of men. Shortly before this a circumstance
occurred at Dieppe, whence the other ships of the expedition were
embarking, which gave her great joy. Two of the workmen engaged were
found to be married men, and on their refusing to go without their
wives, their condition had been accepted. In addition a young and
virtuous girl of Dieppe, seized with a sudden desire to join the
expedition, had forced her way on to the ship, against all opposition.
She too was accepted for Montreal, and Mademoiselle Mance not only
would have companions but she would find in the young girl a faithful
assistant to nurse the sick at Ville Marie.
The expedition was divided into three ships. On one was M. de
Maisonneuve with about twenty-five, including a priest, M. Antoine
Fauls, destined for the Ursulines at Quebec. On the second was Jeanne
Mance and a dozen men for Montreal with the Jesuit, Father La Place.
The third ship had sailed ahead from Dieppe with the three women spoken
of and ten men. These were the first to arrive at Quebec and they set
to work to build a store at the water's edge, at the spot directed by
M. de Montmagny, the governor. The vessel bearing Jeanne Mance reached
Quebec on August 8, 1641; that of M. de Maisonneuve did not arrive till
August 20th. After having sailed for eight days together, the vessels
were separated by the wind, for the rest of the voyage.
Great as was the joy at receiving Mademoiselle Mance at the garrison,
the delay of M. de Maisonneuve, while causing his friends uneasiness
and apprehension, gave many of the Great Company's agents at Quebec an
opportunity of further criticising the "foolhardy enterprise" (la folle
entreprise) of _Les Messieurs de Montréal_, so inauspiciously begun.
At last Maisonneuve's vessel arrived, sadly leaking and battered by
the winds which had made him thrice put back to France, causing him to
lose on the occasions three or four of his men, one of them, a most
needed man for the settlement, his surgeon. Arriving, however, at
Tadoussac, the undaunted Maisonneuve met M. de Courpon, the admiral of
the fleet of the Company of New France, one of his intimate friends.
M. de Courpon offered his own surgeon and this man straightway gaily
accepting, put his belongings on board. Against all expectation
Maisonneuve's vessel sailed into Quebec on August 20th.[42]
On arriving at Quebec, Maisonneuve must have found himself the centre
of anxious thoughts and criticisms. Jeanne Mance would have told him of
this. He would soon gauge public opinion on his official visits.
It would have been the governor of Quebec that Maisonneuve visited
first. To Governor Montmagny, the position of Maisonneuve was, at
least, strange. Quebec was designed to be the seat of government as
the act of December 17, 1640, had clearly marked out. Montreal was to
derive her power from it. Yet Maisonneuve came with the governor's
commission for Montreal and power from the King himself, to have
artillery, munitions of war and soldiers, and a right to appoint
officers of the future colony on a basis of home rule. Both men must
have scented a future clash at Montreal. Yet hostility must not be
read too quickly into Montmagny's action. He was a gentleman and a
broadminded man although he was one of those who thought the expedition
"a foolish enterprise." Dollier de Casson has recorded the result of
this interview. Montmagny's words were:
"You know that the war with the Iroquois has recommenced, and that they
declared it last month at Lake St. Peter, in a fashion that makes them
appear more active than ever against us. You cannot then, reasonably,
think of settling in a place so far removed from Quebec as Montreal.
You must change your resolution; if you wish it, you will be given the
Island of Orleans, instead. Besides, the season would be too advanced
for you to be able to settle at Montreal before the winter, even had
you thought of so doing."
M. Maisonneuve's reply was dignified and calm.
"What you say sir, would be good, if they had sent me to Canada to
deliberate on the choice of a suitable post, but the Company which
sends me, having determined that I shall go to Montreal, my honour is
at stake, and you will not take it ill that I proceed thither to start
a colony. But owing to the season being so far advanced, you will take
it kindly if I am satisfied to go with the more active young men, to
reconnoitre this post before winter, so as to see in what place I can
encamp next spring with all my party."
Maisonneuve's next visit would have been to the clergy represented
by Father Vimont, superior of the Jesuits. Strong in influence with
the Company, his views are worth recording. For this we must fall
back on the "Relations." The Jesuits in France had promoted the new
settlement of Montreal. In the past the writers of the "Relations"
had foreseen the need of utilizing the position at the Sault for a
permanent centre for religious activities, and this meant a settled
garrison to withstand the inroads of the fury and impetuosity of the
Iroquois. Yet of late, the perilous position of the tottering garrison
of Quebec had been so patent that they felt that concentration was the
policy of the hour. As a result of the interview Father Vimont wrote
this year to France: "We have received pleasure at the sight of the
gentlemen of Montreal because their design, if it is successful, is
entirely to the Glory of our God. M. de Maisonneuve, who commands these
men, has arrived so late that he will have wisdom enough, not to ascend
higher than Quebec for this year; but God grant that the Iroquois close
not the way, when there is question of advancing further.... Some
one will say," he continues, "this enterprise is full of expense and
difficulties; these gentlemen will find mountains where they expect to
find valleys. I will not say to these gentlemen that they will find the
roads strewn with roses; the cross, suffering, and great outlays are
the foundation stones of the house of God.... But patience will put the
last touch to this great work."
We may imagine de Maisonneuve's conversation with this serious
sympathizer would have been on these lines and his courage would not
have been diminished.
In spite of de Maisonneuve's firm resolution, Montmagny still hoped
to win him over. He called a meeting of the principal inhabitants
to consider the position. It was a question of concentration or
disintegration--the Island of Orleans under the shadow of Quebec; or
Montreal, 180 miles away in advance of civilization, at the mercy
of the hostile Iroquois? It was a serious question for "la colonie
française."
When the meeting assembled, and before anything had been decided, de
Maisonneuve spoke like a man of courage and one accustomed to the
profession of a soldier. He explained that he had not come to settle
in the Island of Orleans, but to lay the foundation of a town on the
Island of Montreal, and that even should this project be more perilous
than they had told him it was, he would carry it on, should it cost him
his life. "I am not come to deliberate," he concluded, "but to act.
Were all the trees on the Island of Montreal to be changed into so
many Iroquois it is a point of duty and honour for me to go there and
establish a colony."
The meeting broke up without any further deliberation. The clear and
courageous expression of the governor of Montreal had won the day.
Dollier de Casson tells us that Montmagny was gained over by this
straight-forward speech. He was a Chevalier of the Order of St. John of
Jerusalem, a soldier and a gentleman. He put no further opposition, but
was anxious to put the governor of Montreal in possession of his post
according to the instructions from his Company.
On October 10th, he, himself, with Father Vimont and others, left
Quebec, and arrived with de Maisonneuve at Montreal, on October 14th.
The customary formalities of taking possession were concluded on
October 15th. The site chosen was that we know as La Place Royale.
On his way down to Quebec, de Maisonneuve stayed a day with a venerable
old man, M. Pierre de Puiseaux, Sieur de Montrenault, who had built a
house at a post called Ste. Foy. This house, as well as that of St.
Michel, at which Madame de la Peltrie was living, he generously offered
to Maisonneuve, together with all his farm stock and furniture, for
the use of the expedition. This unexpected gift Maisonneuve accepted
only conditionally on its acceptance being ratified by the Company
of Montreal. The offer of St. Michel,[43] which was then considered
the bijou house of Canada, was most opportune for M. de Maisonneuve,
besides having quarters for the winter time for Mademoiselle Jeanne
Mance, Madame de la Peltrie, who had associated herself with the
Montreal project, and himself, might with M. de Puiseaux superintend
the necessary preparations for the voyage, while at Ste. Foy, at which
he had left the surgeon and the carpenters, the oaks were being cut
down, and barks were being constructed large enough to carry the party
and all their effects to Montreal.
Meanwhile, the care of the stores for all the Montreal party, during
this winter of 1641-2, was under the skillful management of Jeanne
Mance, who endeared herself to all. Moreover the colonists learned to
know one another and their future governor, who went among them day by
day, encouraged them. It seemed already Montreal. Soon de Maisonneuve's
feast day, the Conversion of St. Paul, coming round on January 25th,
Paul de Chomedey gave his men a little feast in honour of the occasion.
The men fired salutes from the artillery they had brought.
Nearby, in Quebec, the noise of the cannon was heard. Its governor,
touchy for his official prerogatives, interpreted this as an
infringement of his dignity, and he caused Jean Gorry, who had fired
the cannon, to be seized and imprisoned. On the first day of February
Jean Gorry being now released, Maisonneuve gave a feast and paid
particular honour to the unfortunate Jean. The governor of Montreal
knew that Montmagny had exceeded his power, but it was not then the
time to provoke an open quarrel.
Montmagny heard of this second exploit and summoned several of
Maisonneuve's men, who had been present at the feast, to testify on
oath what had happened. The affair blew over, and the governors resumed
pleasant relations, probably because Montmagny found that he was in
the wrong and had read a petty challenge in the harmless salute which
was quite permissible under the commission, given by the king to the
governor of Montreal, for his men to bear arms. Still this incident is
significant and worth recording, in view of the friction and jealousy
to arise between the future governors of the rival cities of Quebec and
Montreal.
FOOTNOTES:
[36] Ville Marie is the name of the town appearing in all the official
documents till 1705, when for the first time that of Montreal appears.
Montreal, in the form of the "Island of Montreal," had, however, been
used long before. The document containing the transition from Ville
Marie to Montreal has been recently brought to public attention by Mr.
E. Z. Massicotte, city archivist.
[37] It was in one of the galleries of the "Château de Meudon" where
the two unexpectedly met. Dauversière, it is thought, had gone there
to the keeper of the seals who was then at the palace. The second
conference after Thanksgiving was in the park grounds of the château
and lasted three hours. (Cf. Faillon.)
[38] Consisted in an avowal of the grant of the seigneury from
the Crown and the census of the seigneury with the names of the
concessionaires, the amount of the lands granted them and under
cultivation, together with the number of heads of cattle, etc.
[39] In fact both of these swore to this explicitly before the notaries
of the King, Pourcelle and Chaussiere, on March 25, 1644. (Edits et
Ord., Quebec I, pp. 26-27.) On March 21, 1650, there was also signed an
act by the Associates which gave to the last survivor, excluding all
heirs, the forts, habitations, etc., conceded to the members of the
Company of Montreal. (Edits et Ord., p. 27.)
[40] "La Compagnie de Prêtres de St. Sulpice" was founded at Vaugirard,
near Paris, in January, 1642, by M. Jean Jacques Olier de Verneuil, who
was born in Paris on September 20, 1608, and died April 2, 1657. The
establishment of the seminary at St. Sulpice, in Paris, was commenced
on August 15, 1642. It was erected into a community on October 23,
1645, and was confirmed by letters patent by Cardinal Chighi, legate a
latere for France.
[41] For Jeanne Mance's future assistants de la Dauversière had
established, in 1639, a young community of "Filles Hospitalières" at
La Flèche, although it had been in existence elsewhere since 1636, who
were to prepare themselves for the Hôtel-Dieu of Ville Marie. The order
at La Flèche was erected on October 25, 1643, by Mgr. Claude de Rueil,
bishop of Angers, and approved by Pope Alexander VII by a brief of
January 19, 1666. The Sisters for Montreal did not arrive till 1659.
[42] Dollier de Casson, de Belmont and de la Tour put the date for
August 20th, Sister Morin for October, Montgolfier for September. The
"Relations" say that the season was "very advanced."
[43] St. Michel is the site of the present "Spencer Wood."
CHAPTER VI
1642-1643
VILLE MARIE
FOUNDED BY PAUL DE CHOMEDEY DE MAISONNEUVE
THE DEPARTURE OF THE EXPEDITION FROM MONTREAL--THE ARRIVAL
AT PLACE ROYALE--THE "VENI CREATOR SPIRITUS" AND MASS ON THE
"COMMON"--VIMONT'S PROPHECY--ACTIVITIES OF ENCAMPMENT--THE
FIRST REINFORCEMENT--THE FIRST QUASI-PAROCHIAL CHAPEL BUILT IN
WOOD--ALGONQUINS VISIT THE CAMP--FLOODS AND THE PILGRIMAGE TO THE
MOUNTAIN--PEACEFUL DAYS--PRIMITIVE FERVOUR AND SIMPLICITY--THE
DREADED IROQUOIS AT LAST APPEAR--FIRST ATTACK--THE FIRST
CEMETERY--"CASTLE DANGEROUS"--THE ARRIVAL OF THE SECOND
REINFORCEMENT--_Les Véritables Motifs._ NOTES: THE HURONS,
ALGONQUINS AND IROQUOIS.
During the months of February, March and April, the boat construction
went busily on at Ste. Foy. At length when the ice-bound river
broke up and the last floes had swept past to the gulf beyond, M.
de Maisonneuve's flotilla, loaded with provisions, furniture and
tools, besides little pieces of artillery and ammunition, set sail to
Montreal on May 8th. It consisted of a pinnace, a little vessel with
three masts, a gabarre or flat-bottomed transport barge with sails,
and two barques or chaloupes. On one of these latter M. de Montmagny,
the governor of Quebec, fittingly led the way with M. de Maisonneuve;
with the expedition were several black-robed Jesuits, including Father
Barthélemy Vimont, the superior of the Canadian mission, and Father
Poncet, the first missionary for Ville Marie. There were also M. de
Puiseaux, Madame de la Peltrie, and her maid, Charlotte Barré, Jeanne
Mance, and the rest of the twenty-one colonists, six of whom belonged
to the household of Nicholas Godé, the joiner.
On the 17th, as evening fell, they came in sight of Montreal and
cantiques rent the air. On this day M. Montmagny again[44] put M. de
Maisonneuve formally in possession of the island. Setting sail early
next morning, before daybreak, the rising sun delighted their eyes with
the beautiful meadows smiling with a profusion of flowers of variegated
colours. At last they reached the islet at the mouth of the stream,
which, so long ago, Champlain spoke of as a safe haven, until they
reached hard by the spot named by him, _La Place Royale_. Within this
watered mead, de Maisonneuve had decided to build his settlement and
fort. As he put foot to the soil, inspired by the solemnity of the
moment, lie fell on his knees in thanksgiving to God, and was quickly
followed by all his party. They broke forth into heartfelt psalms
or hymns of joyful gratitude. In the meadow, a spot was chosen for
the mass of thanksgiving. Quickly the altar was arranged under the
direction of Mademoiselle Mance and Madame de la Peltrie. When all were
gathered round it in this open air temple,--the silence only broken
by the twittering of the numerous birds, the flapping of wings of the
wild fowl and their shrill cries as they winged their flight above
the river to the south, the sighing of the trees; the swish of the
meadow plants swaying in the morning breeze and the murmuring of the
little haven-stream on which the chaloupes were tossing; the subdued,
sonorous rush of the water on the mighty St. Lawrence at its mouth,
where the pinnace and gabare were riding at anchor,--the superior of
the missions of Canada, Father Vimont, intoned the grand old solemn
chant of Christian ritual, the _Veni Creator Spiritus_, and the voices
of all joined in with heartfelt unison. Then followed the Grand Mass,
the first that had ever been celebrated at Villa Marie,[45] and all the
while the growing sun shone full upon the slopes of Mount Royal, ever
mounting upward and onward to its wooded peak.
[Illustration: THE COLONISTS' MEMORIAL]
The scene is one of life and colour. The rich hues of the vestments of
the priests, the shining white linen of the altar, the gleaming sacred
ornaments, the picturesque costumes of Montmagny and de Maisonneuve,
the ladies and gentlemen around them, the varied dresses of the
artisans and the arquebusiers, whose weapons glint in the sun, fill in
a picture worthy of the mountain background, such as should inspire any
artist's brush.
And now the action of the Sacrifice was suspended and Father Vimont
broke the sice and earnestly spoke to the worshippers. His words
have become famous, pregnant as they were with prophetic meaning. We
thank Dollier de Casson for having preserved them.
"That which you see, gentlemen, is only a grain of mustard seed, but it
is cast by hands so pious and so animated with faith and religion, that
it must be that God has great designs for it, since He makes use of
such instruments for His work. I doubt not, but that this little grain
may produce a great tree, that it will make wonderful progress some
day, that it will multiply itself, and stretch out on every side."
[Illustration: VIMONT'S PROPHECY. THE FIRST MASS ON THE SITE OF
MONTREAL]
Never was prophecy more true, when we realize the present greatness of
Montreal and remember the distinguished sons and daughters it has sent
over the world. For Montreal has been the home of great discoverers,
religious founders, missionaries and pioneers of civilization, and
captains of industry. It is the mother of the cities of the northwest
and its future is still before it.
The mass ended, the Sacred Host is left exposed throughout the day,
as though the island were a cathedral shrine. For a sanctuary lamp
the women, not having any oil, placed with pious zeal a number of
"fireflies" in a phial, which, as evening stole on, shone like little
clusters of tapers in the vesper gloom.
Next morning the actuaries of an encampment occupied all. Around
the temporary altar, the camp tents were pitched, a chapel of bark
was constructed,[46] and trees were cut down to surround the colony
with an intrenchment of stakes and a ditch, the governor, Montmagny,
felling the first tree, after which he proceeded to Quebec. But Madame
de la Peltrie and M. de Puiseaux remained. On August 15th the first
reinforcement of thirteen men arrived, sent under M. de Repentigny, as
admiral of the Company's vessels by the Associates at Paris, through
the funds collected, as mentioned, on February 2d. With them there came
a most useful man to the colony, the pious and brave carpenter, Gilbert
Barbier, surnamed "Minimus" for his short stature. Altar, furniture
and other valuables arrived, and Gilbert Barbier immediately set about
constructing a worthy chapel of wood, while wings were added to make
the mission settlement house.
Meanwhile, during the summer, the vessels plied between Yule Marie
and St. Michel to bring up the rest of the stores and ammunition left
behind. These reduced the guard to but a score of men, but as yet, the
Iroquois had not got scent of the new settlement. On August 15 the
new chapel was completed and used for service--a framework building
of about ten feet square which did service as a conventual and quasi
parochial chapel till the beginning of 1659.[47]
So passed the happy days unmolested by any foe. A friendly band of
Algonquins visited the camp and after witnessing a religious procession
on Assumption day, 1642, journeyed with the governor to the summit
of Mount Royal. While there, it is related that two of their body,
aged men, told the bystanders that they belonged to the race formerly
inhabiting this island. Stretching out their arms to the slopes on the
west and the south sides of the mountain they exclaimed: "Behold the
places where once there were villages flourishing in numbers, whence
our ancestors were driven by our enemies. Thus it is that this island
became deserted and uninhabited." "My grandfather," said one old man,
"tilled the earth at this place. The Indian corn grew well then." And
taking up the soil in his hands: "See the richness of it," he cried,
"how good it is!" Charmed with this discourse they were pressed to stay
and live happily with their friends, the white men, but the wandering
habits of these forest children finally prevailed.
In the month of December, the safety of the colony was threatened by
the floods of the St. Lawrence which advanced over the low lying lands
towards the fort. With simple faith, M. Maisonneuve planted a cross
over against the invading waters, and the "Relations" of this year,
tell how the floods receded on Christmas day.
In pious gratitude M. Maisonneuve would erect a permanent cross on the
mountain. A trail was blazed and cut, and on the feast of the Epiphany,
January 6, 1643, a procession formed, M. Maisonneuve leading, carrying
the cross on his shoulders and followed by others bearing the wood
for its pedestal. On reaching the summit, Père Duperon had an altar
erected, and celebrated mass after the cross had been blessed and
erected. At this time, there seemed to have been two priests attached
to the mission. This was the origin of the annual pilgrimage, since
discontinued. On the feast of St. Joseph, March 19, 1643, the main
building, or the Habitation, containing the chapel of Notre Dame, the
stores, and dwelling rooms for sixty persons, was completed. In front
they placed the small pieces of artillery and then celebrated the
occasion with a cannonade.
The life within resembled that of a religious community. For the most
part they lived in common, offering a picture of the fervour and
simplicity of the primitive church. Closed up for nearly eleven years
for mutual safety within the fort, they learned to live a life of
charity and holiness. The days were as yet uneventful, and the round
of work and prayer and recreation bound them together in peace and
comfort. Not only the governor and the leaders of the settlement, but
all the rough soldiers and workmen led a fervent and exemplary life.
The hand of obedience pressed lightly on them, and a willing service
was granted by all. The "Relations" of the annals of this period are
full of praise of the sanctity and peace of these early days. "One
saw," says Sister Morin in the Annales of the Hôtel-Dieu, "no public
sins, nor enmities, nor bitternesses; they were united in charity, ever
full of esteem and affection one for another, and ready to serve one
another on all occasions."
The ideal of the pious Associates of the Company of Notre Dame de
Montreal at Paris was being fulfilled.
The governor, in his apostolic zeal, established confraternities among
the men and women, for the conversion of the savages, for this was the
motive that had inspired the foundation of this far off outpost of
civilization.
The singleness of purpose of the settlers at Montreal was not lost upon
the Hurons, who spoke of it to their different tribes, so that many now
began to arrive. In February of 1643 a band of Algonquin braves came
by, leaving their wives and children in camp while they went forth on
the warpath against their enemies, the Iroquois. A few days later they
were visited by Algonquin hunters, for there was much sport around.
The chief of this band stayed behind with his wife, desirous to live
a civilized life, and the parish register records their baptism and
their Christian marriage, on March 7th, of that year, the first to be
recorded in the marriage book. Soon, this was followed by the baptism
of the wife and children of his uncle, a famous orator among the
Algonquins, who was known as "Borgne de l'Ile." The registers finally
record his baptism and his Christian marriage.
Montreal was soon to experience the effects of the alliance of the
Hurons with the French, as well as some of the disasters prophesied
by Montmagny to Maisonneuve at Quebec, from the war which had been
declared a month before Maisonneuve's arrival. Other parts of the
country had already been suffering. In 1642 Father Vimont in the
"Relations" had written that the Iroquois had sworn a cruel war against
the French. They blocked up all the passage of our great river,
hindering commerce and menacing the whole country with ruin.
On the 2d of August, 1643, at Three Rivers, an attack was made by them
on the fort and they killed or took prisoners a party of twenty-three
to twenty-eight Huron allies, and with them the heroic and saintly
Jesuit, Isaac Jogues, and two young Frenchmen. The saintly Jogues was
subjected to much in treatment. After having cut off the thumb of his
right hand and bitten off one of his fingers, they tore his nails out
with their teeth, and put fire under the extremities of his mutilated
fingers. Having done this they tore off his cassock and clothed him in
the garb of a savage. Though he escaped, he was reserved for a martyr's
death, on October 18, 1646, among the Onondagas. The year previously he
had ministered to the infant church at Montreal.
At the new fort on the Iroquois River, designed by Montmagny, on August
13, 1643, the Iroquois swept down after seven days, and captured some
prisoners whom they told that 700 of them were banding together and
would fall upon the French colony in the beginning of next spring.
Great fear for Montreal, the solitary and most advanced port, was
entertained in the spring at Quebec. Still this concerted attack was
not yet to be realized. Yet the immunity of Montreal was not to last
long.
There was a method in the madness of the Iroquois. They hated the
French because of their alliance with the Christian Hurons and they did
their best to cut off the peltry trade of the Northwest from them and
divert it to Albany and New Amsterdam. This naturally suited the Dutch.
To carry this plan out, the Iroquois, small in numbers but expert
military tacticians, had established an uninterrupted line of lookout
posts from Three Rivers to the portage of the Chaudières (Ottawa).
Starting from this as their working point, they divided their fighting
men into ten sections, two of which remained at this exposed post. The
third section was stationed at the foot of the Long Sault, the fourth
above Montreal, the fifth on the island, the sixth on the Rivière des
Prairies, the seventh on Lac St. Pierre, the eighth not far from Fort
Richelieu on the Sorel, the ninth near Three Rivers, while the tenth
formed a flying squadron to carry devastation when the opportunity
presented itself. Few could break past them in safety. Even Jogues had
not been successful.
Soon the number of baptisms registered for this year reached the number
of seventy or eighty. These were busy days for the few ladies of
Montreal.[48]
The frequent visitations of the savages were a drain on the stores of
the community, and we learn from Dollier de Casson that in the spring
of 1644 more serious efforts were made under d'Ailleboust to raise
wheat. To the delight of all, this was abundantly successful. Up to
1643 only vegetables had been cultivated.
Thus passed the peaceful days along, for though there was much hardship
incidental to a pioneering life in a new country so far removed from
communication with civilization, still, all were happy, since so far
the dreaded Iroquois had not appeared. But in July of that year, 1643,
a friendly troupe of Algonquins passed by. There was great joy in the
camp, for it was the occasion of the baptism of the four-year-old child
of one of the chiefs. M. Maisonneuve and Jeanne Mance were happy to be
its godparents. The Indians were invited to return with their families
next spring, and live with them. They promised to do so. No doubt they
told others of their trip, for the colony was again shortly visited.[49]
The Hurons came to be regarded by the Iroquois as the allies of the
hated white men. The establishment of the fort of Montreal was an
additional reason for exterminating the Hurons. In consequence the
register of baptism, for the year of 1644, only records one ceremony.
This is significant, for it marked the presence in the neighbourhood
at last of the dreaded Iroquois, who kept the Hurons from visiting
this year. The circumstance of the presence of the Iroquois in the
neighbourhood became known to this fort one day in 1643, when a
party of ten Algonquins ran terror-stricken into camp, trembling and
afraid of their shadows. Outside the fort were the baffled pursuers
too small in numbers to attack it. One of their tribe had been slain
by the fugitive Algonquins, who had directed their steps to friendly
shelter without being overtaken. From that time forward, there was
dread of Iroquois surprises in the camp. It was now at last discovered;
stealthily and noiselessly the balked enemy reconnoitered the camp and
retired to the woods to spread the news to the tribe and to prepare
for an attack. For, unknown to the fort, the country was infested with
them--sworn to make war upon the French. In June, a party of them were
at Lachine, being joined by a party of unarmed Hurons whom they had
surprised with their canoes laden with peltry. The treacherous Hurons,
who had been in the past kindly received at the fort, to conciliate
their captors, now pointed it out to them for an attack.
Unsuspecting any attack, six men from the fort, cutting wood about two
hundred feet distant, were surprised by forty Iroquois on the 9th of
June. They fought bravely; but three were killed and the rest taken
prisoners. The body of Guillaume Boissier _dit_ Güilling was found that
day and buried but the bodies of Bernard Berté from Lyons and Pierre
Laforest _dit_ L'Auvergnat were not found till later, and were buried
three days after by Father Davost.
The archæologist will be pleased that the place of the first cemetery
is recorded by the chroniclers. At the corner of the angle of the
meadow, where the River St. Pierre joined the St. Lawrence, a little
cemetery was made and fenced around with piles[50] to save the dead from
molestation.
On the day after, some of the treacherous Hurons fled into the camp and
told the awful tale of slaughter committed by the Iroquois during the
night. The Hurons had spent the night insulting the French prisoners
until sleep had closed their eyes, when the Iroquois fell upon them and
slashed to pieces those who could not escape. Then taking the thirteen
Huron canoes they loaded them with peltry; they descended the river
with the three French prisoners in the sight of the onlookers of the
fort, who were too few to pursue them.
What happened to the prisoners was graphically told later when one of
them arrived at the camp.
He told how the design of his captors had been to descend to a point
whence they could land and cut their way through the woods, to the
place now known as Chambly. But having too heavy a load of beaver skins
to carry, on landing they destroyed their canoes with their axes, as
their custom was to render them useless.
When they were in the woods, some four or five leagues from the place
whence they left the river, their care of their prisoners became less
guarded. He had been set to boil a kettle, and taking the opportunity
of being sent to gather wood for the fire, he had eluded his captors
and had come to the spot where he had landed. Finding one of the canoes
less damaged than the others, he plugged up the dents made by the
Iroquois hatchets, and loading it with a few skins, had then paddled
up to Ville Marie. The soldiers of the fort went for the rest of the
peltries and M. de Maisonneuve distributed them, but kept none fur
himself.[51] The fate of the other two prisoners was told later by a
Huron who escaped from the Iroquois. We are not told their names by the
"Relations" of 1643, but one whose Christian name was Henri, having
seen his companion, as well as two Hurons, burnt at a slow fire, had
escaped, only to be recaptured for the same terrible fate.
For the rest of that year, apprehension of ambuscades kept the colony
within the walls of the fort as far as possible. Even to leave the
threshold of their homes was to risk danger.
"Tant il est vrai," adds M. Dollier de Casson, "que dans ces temps
on était plus en assurance de ce qu'on avait franchi le seuil de sa
porte." From this time begins the history of "Castle Dangerous," as we
may term this period of the _nascent city_, now commencing, when there
began a constant struggle with the daily risks of life. It was during
this early anxiety that good news came to allay some of the alarm, and
this was brought by the governor of Quebec.
For, meanwhile in France, during the winter, the eyes of many were
turned onto the infant colony. Praise and criticism alike were freely
distributed. The great Company, stung by reflections on their own
inactivity, repented of having given their charter to a company which
they feared might prove a rival, and would have revoked it, but for
the ratification it had received from the King. There were many,
however, who in high places strongly approved of the aims and objects
of the Company of Montreal.[52] A letter is extant, from Louis XIII
himself, written at St. Germain-en-Laye, on February 21st, which was
written to M. Montmagny, the agent of the Great Company at Quebec,
bidding him "assist and favour in every way in his power, the Seigneur
de Maisonneuve in such manner that there shall be no trouble or
hindrance." This was one of the last acts of this noble prince, who
died on May 24th following, but his kindness to Montreal will always be
remembered. It was he who gave the Company of Montreal besides presents
of artillery the vessel of 250 tons, which, under the name of Notre
Dame de Montréal, was now crossing the ocean bringing new colonists and
their effects.
In the month of July, 1643, the colony was delighted with the presence
of M. Montmagny, who announced the approaching convoy sent by the
Associates, under the guidance of one who was destined to be an
able lieutenant to M. Maisonneuve. This was M. Louis d'Ailleboust,
Seigneur de Coulonges, a man of an illustrious family that had given
distinguished sons to the church and state. The vessels, bringing
him and his party of colonists for Montreal, arrived at Quebec on
Assumption day, 1643, and soon they reached the fort. Among them,
to the great delight of Jeanne Mance, was his noble lady, Barbe de
Boulogne. Jean de Saint-Père, the first notary, was also with them. For
Jeanne Mance, M. d'Ailleboust brought a message, of which we shall hear
later. M. d'Ailleboust was a skillful engineer, and under his guidance
the wooden stockade was reinforced with two bastions, which the fear of
attacks from the Iroquois had rendered most desirable. This enclosure
now began to be called the "Fort" or the "Château."
The religious care of the colony at this time was that exercised by
the Jesuit Fathers,[53] whose headquarters were at Quebec. As we have
seen, they willingly consented to serve this mission until M. Olier had
prepared for the Associates a succession of secular priests formed by
his hand for the special purpose of Montreal. The time was now come for
M. Olier's company to leave Vaugirard, to which he had gone in 1641,
and to follow him to Paris to the parish of St. Sulpice, where he was
now training in his Seminary of St. Sulpice, a goodly number of young
priests suitable for the Canadian mission of Ville Marie. These were
ready to go, but as yet a technical difficulty of ecclesiastical canon
law stood in the way.
Since the re-occupation of Quebec by the French in 1632, after the
departure of the English under Kerth, the Jesuits had been sent under
the jurisdiction of the archbishop of Rouen, and this see had continued
to claim the Catholics of New France as its diocesans.
To M. Olier it appeared that Canada, being a foreign mission, the
privilege of sending clergy belonged directly to Rome; accordingly the
Associates of Montreal addressed a letter to Pope Urbain VIII, asking
him to authorize the papal nuncio then in Paris to give the ordinary
powers of missioners, to those whom they would send to Ville Marie.
This document, preserved in the archives of Versailles, contains,
in addition to the above request, others asking for certain routine
grants and privileges. The answer from Rome, while granting the
latter, ignored the main request. There seemed to be no desire at
present, at Rome, to conflict with the privileges of Rouen, or with the
prescriptive rights of the Jesuits. Then too there was opposition then
being threatened by the Great Company. Matters, therefore, stood where
they were.
Indeed any other course taken at this time would have been very unwise.
Especially as the state of feeling of unrest reflected in France this
year by the "véritables motifs" was doubtless known at the Vatican
through the papal nuncio, who was at this period in Paris, as we have
seen.
Before passing from the events of 1643, notice must be taken of a
remarkable document which appeared in Paris this year. This was "Les
Véritables Motifs," one of the historical documental sources of this
early period.
It was published in a volume of 127 pages in quarto, very likely having
been printed in Paris, but bearing no names of place, printer or
author. M. l'abbé Faillon, the author of "La Colonie Française," thinks
it was written by a former judge, M. Laisné de la Marguerie, who had
left the world to associate himself with M. Olier. On the contrary,
however, the abbé Verreau thinks that it is the production of M. Olier
himself, for reasons which we prefer to follow.
The full title of the book, "Véritables Motifs de Messieurs et Dames
de la Société de Notre Dame de Montréal, pour la Conversion des
Sauvages," is an indication at once, of an apologia for the erection
of the Montreal mission for the conversion of the infidels. It seems
strange in these days that such self-defence should be necessary.
But the document reveals that there was strong opposition to, and
misunderstanding of, the "raison d'être" of a purely religious colony.
We may suspect that the objections formulated must have been from the
Company of New France in a spirit of jealousy.
The chief objections were (1) That it was contrary to the established
custom of the Catholic church to have lay people, and especially
ladies, enterprising a mission for the conversion of infidels.
(2) That this work was not needed for the salvation of the heathen,
as they argued in the case of infidel peoples in the absence of
revelation, they were invincibly ignorant, and that the light of reason
alone sufficed for their salvation.
(3) That the work of the Associates was a piece of ostentatious piety;
that in the past it had sufficed for pious people to give their alms
secretly to be administered by others for the good of religion. There
was no need to establish a company for the purpose.
(4) That this Company injured the interests of others, viz: the Company
of the Hundred Associates, the Jesuits, who had been given the charge
of the Canadian missions, and finally the poor of France, for charity
begins at home.
(5) That the Association of Montreal, not having any other foundation
but that of Christian charity, it is bound to be a financial failure,
and that the enterprise would fall through, owing to lack of enthusiasm
and consequent shortage of funds.
(6) Finally, that the enterprise was ill considered, badly planned
and rash; that South America would have been a better place for such
a settlement; that Montreal was unfitted for French people to live in
on account of the cruel cold and the excessive length of the winter;
that they would be more exposed than ever to the butcheries of the
Iroquois, who would infallibly cut them into pieces; that a work of
such consequence could only be carried on by the King's government on
account of the enormous expenses entailed, and it was folly for private
persons to dare to tempt God openly.
The answer to these objections is continued in the 127 pages of quarto
alluded to. We will leave them to the imagination. Without giving the
reply we need only refer the reader to the year 1643 and the practical
solution now going on at Montreal in the year of 1914.[54]
On the 2d of February, another scene in the romantic story of Montreal
was enacted in Paris in the Church of Notre Dame. There at six o'clock
in the morning Olier said mass at the altar of the Holy Virgin,
surrounded by the members of the Association of Montreal, who now had
reached as many as thirty-five. The lay members, many of distinguished
rank, (for Jeanne Mance's letter on her departure to M. Dauversière
had helped in this), communicated, while the priests celebrated at
neighbouring altars in the vast cathedral.
They consecrated the Island of Montreal to the Holy Family and placed
it particularly under the protection of Mary, whose name they gave to
the city of "Ville Marie," and from that day the seal of the Associates
bore the Virgin's statue with the legend "Notre Dame de Montréal." On
this day the Associates gave a sum of 40,000 _livres_, to be devoted to
defray the expenses of a new expedition.
[Illustration: THE HOLY FAMILY]
NOTE
THE HURONS, ALGONQUINS AND IROQUOIS
HURONS
The Hurons were the Wendots or Wyandots, and were divided into various
clans or families, such as the Bears, the Rocks, the Cords, etc.
They were the parent stock of the five Iroquois Nations and were
related to the Petuns and Neutrals, their neighbours on Lake Huron,
or Attegouestan, as they called it. They were also connected by blood
with the Undastes or Susquehannas of Pennsylvania. The derivation of
the name of Hurons, as the Wyandots were called by the French, is
fanciful but apparently authentic. When Champlain, in 1609, was visited
at Quebec by a tribe of these Wyandots to sell peltry from the far-off
Northwest regions, the irregular tufts of hair on their half-shaven
heads seemed to the Frenchman to represent bristles (_la hure_) on
the back of an angry boar. "Quelle hure!" they exclaimed, and those
possessing the stock of bristles they called "Hurons."
Their country was eight hundred or nine hundred miles away from Quebec,
around Lake Huron. "Roughly speaking," says the Rev. T. J. Campbell in
his "Pioneer Priests of North America," "the territory of the Hurons
was at the head of Georgian Bay, with Lake Simcoe on the east, the
Severn River and Matchedash Bay on the north, Nottawasaga Bay on the
west, and was separated from the Neutrals on the south by what would
now be a line drawn from the present town of Collingwood over to
Hawkstone on Lake Simcoe. The train for Toronto, north of Midland and
Penetanguishena, runs through the old habitat of the Hurons."
Many of the clergy who served Montreal had laboured among them. In the
beginning the Hurons would not listen to any allusion to Christianity.
Success only began in 1639, and lasted but for ten years, for before
the end of 1650 as a distinct people they had vanished, being
exterminated by their implacable foe, the Iroquois.
THE ALGONQUINS
The Algonquins are said to derive their name from the word Algonquin,
"the place where they spear the fish," i. e., the front of the canoe.
They were once a great race. Indeed today they number 95,000 of
which 35,000 are in the United States and the rest in Canada. Their
hereditary enemy, the Iroquois, were not so numerous, and thus we
find Champlain allying himself with the Algonquins against the scanty
sixteen or seventeen thousand Iroquois who lived in the New York
territory. But herein lay Champlain's mistake. The Algonquins were
wanderers and not warriors. They were a simple, stupid people, who
neither cultivated the ground nor learned any textile arts and had
no settled habitations. They were all worshipers of the Manitou,
shameless in their immoralities and just as cruel to their captives,
as were the Iroquois. They were, owing to their nomadic life, a prey
to the latter and a difficulty to the few missionaries to Christianize
them adequately, for every group would have necessitated a priest to
follow them in the hunt for game or fish, as they wandered from place
to place.
Yet, portions of them, being less fierce than other tribes of their
race, welcomed the missionaries, who sympathized with them in their
poverty and wretchedness. Thus at Montreal, as at Three Rivers and
Quebec, these were the basis of the Indian converts.
"When the Algonquins were a great nation they claimed," says the author
of the "Pioneer Priests of North America," "as their own, almost all
the upper regions of the North American continent, and even out in the
Atlantic there was no one to dispute Newfoundland with them, except an
inconsiderable and now forgotten people, known as the Beothuken. Cape
Breton, Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia, and all the country from
Labrador to Alaska was theirs, except where the Esquimaux lived in the
East, the Kitunabaus in the far Northwest, and the Hurons, Petuns and
Neutrals in the region near Georgian Bay. In what is now the United
States, New England was counted as their country, and though their
deadly enemy, the Iroquois, had somehow or other seized the greater
portion of New York, yet the strip along the Hudson belonged to the
Algonquins, as also New Jersey, a part of Virginia, and North Carolina,
Kentucky, Illinois and Wisconsin."
Algonquin is the generic name, but its many subdivisions and tribes
have their specific names such as those set down in ethnological tables
as the Abenaakis, Arapahoes, Cheyennes, Crees, Delawares, Foxes,
Illinois, Kickapoos, Mohicans, Massachusetts, Menominees, Montagnais,
Mohawks, Narragansetts, Nepinues, Ojibways, Ottawas, Powhattans, Sacs,
Shawnees, Wampanoags, Wappingers, etc.
IROQUOIS
The Iroquois were descendants of the Indians whom Jacques Cartier had
met on the banks of the St. Lawrence, in 1634. But at this time they
had drifted mysteriously to what is now New York territory, their
central seat, that of their confederacy or league of five nations,
being at Onondaga.
They were never numerous but they were very warlike. Although they
lost many in war, by disease and drunkenness, for they were filthy and
immoral in their habits, they recruited their strength by adopting
captives seized in their raids.
They lived in palisaded towns and were more intelligent than the
other races. Their houses, unsanitary and overrun with vermin, were
arched constructions, sometimes of 120 feet in length and were covered
with bark. In the centre of the lodge were the fires of the separate
families, who were divided into stalls. The smoke escaped as best it
could. They did not cultivate the land because they were so often on
the warpath, neither did they devote much energy in cultivating the
textile arts; hence they wore the skins of animals.
They had very vague notions of a Supreme Being, their chief object of
worship being Agreskoué, the God of War, who had to be propitiated
with gifts and even by human sacrifices. Theirs has been described by
General Clark as literally "devil worship." They had no priesthood
as such, but each brave had his _oki_ or _manitou_, adopted after a
protracted period of seclusion and fasting. They had their medicine
men, who seemed to the missionaries to use diabolical arts in their
incantations, spells and dances. Many of their sorcerers, however, were
childish charlatans. They were immoral, thieves, liars, gamblers; they
allowed their children to run wild, their women to grow up depraved
and corrupt from girlhood. They were cruel and cannibals. The orgies
of the dream feasts were unspeakably atrocious, especially after the
introduction of "fire water."
They were called by the French collectively "Iroquois," by the English
the "Five Nations," whereas they styled themselves the _Hodenosaunee_,
a People of the Long House, because of the shape of their lodges. They
were joined by the Tuscaroras about 1721 and from then on they were
called by the English the "Six Nations."
As to their name the Bureau of American Ethnology derives it from an
Algonquin word, "Iriakhoué," meaning "real adders." Charlevoix gives a
descriptive derivation from _hero_, or _hiro_, meaning "I have spoken,"
with which they terminated their discourses with the suffix _que_,
or some equivalent gutteral sound which expressed pain or pleasures,
according to the intonation. Thus the French called them "Iroquois."
The five nations were named as follows:
(English) (French) (Iroquois)
_The Five _Hodenosaunee_
Nations_ _Iroquois_ (People of the Long House)
Mohawks, Agniers, Ganeagono (People of the Flint),
Oneidas, Onneyutus, Oneyotekiano (Granite People),
Onondagas, Onontagués, Onundagono (Hill People),
Cayuga, Gogogouins, Gwengwhehons (Muckland People),
Senecas. Tsonnontouans. Mundawono (Great Hill People).
"The Six Nations, Indians in Canada," by J. B. Mackenzie, gives some
modern characteristics of the Iroquois, observed on the Grand River,
after a length of experience and intimate knowledge of the appearance
and manners and racial customs, which may be quoted to illustrate the
life of their ancestors of the period we are now treating. The reserve,
the writer notices, comprises the Township of Tuscarora (about twelve
miles square) with an insignificant strip of territory in the Township
of Onondaga--both of these lying within the County of Brant and a small
portion of the Township of Oneida, in the adjoining County of Haldimand.
The following present-day characteristics are noted: The Indian
maintains a better average as to height than his white brother, say
at about 5 ft. 8-1/2 in. He is straight and is rarely "bowlegged."
The Indian would appear to be built more for fleetness than for
strength; litheness and agility are with him, marked characteristics.
The dignity of chief among the Indians is attained upon the principle
of heredity succession. In case of the death of a chief, this did not
necessarily devolve upon the next of kin. The naming of his successor
with the privilege of determining whether or not he fulfills, in point
of character and capacity, the qualifications requisite to maintain
worthily the position, is confided to the women of the dead chief's
family, whose tribe has been deprived of one of its heads. They are
given a wide latitude in choosing; so long as they recognize through
their appointment the governing, basic theory of kinship to the
deceased ruler, their nomination will be unreservedly approved.
The chiefs are looked upon as the fathers of the tribe. In the earlier
days when the demon of war was about, wisdom and bravery were the chief
requisites.
Oratory is still of supreme importance with the modern Indian. In this
he is well equipped with a deep, powerful voice of rare volume and
resonance. He has great facility of gesture and marvelous control of
facial expression, which becomes the index of his emotions--a perfect
mirror of his imaginative soul. It is no wonder then that, we hear
of chiefs and orators of old haranguing for hours, for, even today,
the undivided, keen attention bestowed on an orator, the unflagging
interest evinced, the genuine and sympathetic appreciation his more
ambitious flights evoke, the liberal applause exhorted by periods, when
denunciation, scorn, or other strong mood that may possess the speaker
is expressed--periods at which he has been aroused to withering, or
flaming invective--all make us vividly realize the powerful oratory
of their predecessors. The contemplative and esthetic bent of the
Indian, living amidst nature's simplicities and deeply impressed by
them, overflowed in the similes and metaphors of his speech. There is
no doubt of his rightful claim to eloquence. The present-day Christian
Indian "believes vaguely in the existence of a Supreme Being, though
his idea of that Being's benignity and consideration relates solely
to an earthly oversight of him, a parental concern for his daily
wants. His conception of future happiness is wholly sensual--bound
up, in many cases, with the theories of an unrestrained indulgence of
animal appetite, and a whole-souled abandonment to riotous diversion.
That estimate of an hereafter, which has gained his unreserved, his
heartfelt approbation--one, in the more complete idealizing of which
these coarser fancies constitute familiar adjuvants--adopts for
cardinal, for constant factor, his thoroughgoing addiction, in some
renovated state of being, to pastimes found congenial and appeasing in
life--their undisturbed enthroning, as it were. Joyously, anticipation
clings to a haunt delectable--happily and charmingly contrived to
embosom spacious parks immure seductive coverts; refreshed soothingly
his spirits by dreams of illimitable, virgin preserves, which should be
stocked with unnumbered game, and where--equipped to perfection for the
chase--he should plunge with satiety into its vehement pursuit."
"It has been said that the Indian, agog for some ample scheme of
ethics, is much more prone to follow the evil than the moral practices
of the whites.... There can be no doubt, I fancy, that were the
Indian to be thrown continuously with a corrupt community amongst the
whites--should he consort freely with a class with whom a lower order
of morality obtains--his acquisition of higher knowledge, instead of
giving him better and finer tastes, must inevitably make him more
skilled in planning works of iniquity."
The writer draws attention to the sardonic delight the humorous Indian
takes in perpetrating some dire practical joke on his victim. The same
trait was shown in this early period, when the brave would calmly smoke
his pipe and grimly watch the Christian missionary's finger forcibly
placed in it, gradually frizzle away.
The modern Iroquois is a supremely indolent creature--fasting stoically
when food does not come easily, but ever ready for unbounded feasting.
The effect of spirituous liquors on him is the same as of old, and
justifies the attempts of the Montreal clergy to suppress its traffic
to the natives. "Intoxicants," says the writer quoted, "when freely
used by the Indian, cloud, often wholly dethrone his reason, annul his
self-control; madly slaying all the gentler, enkindle and set ablaze
all the baser, emotions of his nature, impelling him to acts vile,
inhuman, bestial; with direful transforming power, make the man a
fiend, leave him, in short, the mere sport of demoniac passion. It may
be thought that this is an overdrawn sketch, and that, even if it were
true--which I aver it to be--full exposure of its fearsome aspect, its
sombre outlines, might well have been withheld."
FOOTNOTES:
[44] Dollier de Casson says that Montreal was all handed over on
October 15, 1641. Vimont, who was an eye witness, gives the date as May
17, 1642. See "Relations for 1642." We combine both accounts.
[45] The scene was the angular tongue of low-lying land, known by
Dollier de Casson who came in 1666, on September 7, as "the Common,"
its memory being preserved by Common Street, watered on the south by
the lapping waters of the great St. Lawrence and on the east by the
narrow river St. Peter, long since dried up, which, meandering from the
northwest, skirted the meadow on the north and emptied itself into the
main stream. At this point and up this harbour the flotilla came to
anchor. On the third side of this triangle was a marshy land which was
dried up by Dollier de Casson and became the "domaine des Seigneurs."
[46] Later this chapel gave place to another 25 feet long by 26 broad,
the former room now becoming a "parloir." The new meeting place in the
fort is sometimes spoken of as the chapel or the church. The abbé,
Louis Bertrand de la Tour, says there was a _church_ in 1645. We may
thus put it earlier.--"Annales des Hospitalières par la Soeur Morin."
[47] "The house of the fort," says Sister Morin in her Annals, "existed
till 1682 or 1683, when they finished demolishing it, although it was
only of wood, where is at present the house of M. de Callières, our
governor today." On July 2nd, 1688, de Callières obtained a concession
of the land occupied by the fort. The land book (_livre terrier_) of
the Seminary has the description: "_Quinze perches et demie de front
sur le fleuve, à continuer à pareille larguer jusqu'au bord de la
petite rivière; en superficie 1882 1/2 touses, avec droit de passage,
sur la pointe en avant, appartenant aux Seigneurs._" This point was the
original cemetery till 1654. From Callières' building the Place Royale
began to be spoken of as the Pointe à Callières. Jacques Viger, one
of the fathers of historical researches in Montreal, said that in his
early days he had seen the ruins of de Callières' house.
[48] The parish register has frequent records of their names as
sponsors for the baptized Indian children. They were proud of the
honour. Among the names frequently occurring in the following few
years are Madame d'Ailleboust, Jeanne Mance, Philipine de Boulogne,
Charlotte Barré, Catherine Lezeau and Madame de la Peltrie. Next year,
1644, there is only one baptism recorded; the Iroquois were on the
warpath and had driven the Hurons away. The godmother on this occasion
was Madame de la Peltrie. The date, January 21, 1644, in the parish
register fixing this, shows that she had spent the winter of 1643-4
in Montreal. She left, when the river opened in the spring, to return
to the Ursulines of Quebec, whose establishment she had founded and
with whom she resided till her death. Her stay in Montreal had been
prolonged by her interest in the new foundation, and by her desire to
help it in its early struggles. Her departure was deeply regretted by
the colony, and by none more than by Jeanne Mance, for there were all
too few ladies to help in the devoted work. M. de Puiseaux left at
the same time. Madame de la Peltrie's character has been frequently
discussed. Kingsford in his "History of Canada" devotes two pages to
her. As Montreal only had her presence for less than two years we have
given this note as the impression left of her by all the Montreal
chroniclers. Kingsford says, Vol. I, p. 165: "Much romance has been
thrown over a somewhat commonplace character. Her portraits remain.
A more coquettish, heartless form of beauty is seldom to be found,
either under the adornment of fashion or the hood and veil of the
devotee." Madame de la Peltrie never became a nun. It is to be feared
that Kingsford theorized on matters of Catholic custom through lack of
adequate knowledge, or appreciation.
[49] In the parish church of Notre Dame there is still preserved the
first register of the births, marriages and deaths. It is a manuscript
volume in quarto composed of five note-books. The earliest entries
are in Latin and are ratified by either Père Poncet or Père Duperon,
who served the mission. The first registers were probably written on
fly sheets in 1646 and afterwards copied, for until June 24th the
handwriting appears to be that of a copyist. There are certain blanks
as if the names had been forgotten. The baptismal book appears to start
with an error. The first baptism, that of an Indian child, is put
down for April 28, 1642 (this is probably the date of Father Poncet's
appointment), whereas Père Vimont in his "Relations" for 1642, says it
was on July 1st. The second baptism took place on October 9th. Several
other baptisms are marked down for the month of March, 1643, but the
copyist, better informed, has written "August" between the lines. In
those days handwriting and spelling were not "de rigueur."
[50] This spot, named Pointe à Callières, "ad confluxium magni et
parvi fluminis," was at the junction of the River St. Peter and the
St. Lawrence opposite Ile Normandin, and took its name from the house
of the governor, then Chevalier Hector de Callières, built there in
1668. It is now occupied by the custom house (1914). The plans of the
Château Callières are preserved in the plans of Montreal, 1723, by M.
de Catalogne, and in those of 1761 by M. P. Labrosse. This remained a
cemetery till 1654, when, owing to the inundations, the burials were
transferred to a plot occupied in part today by that Place d'Armes,
which, being in the neighbourhood of the hospital, was called in the
act of burial of 1654 the "new hospital cemetery." The bodies were
not removed, out of respect, till 1793, when the land had been ceded
by the seigneurs to Louis Guy, notary, by an act passed before Joseph
Papineau, November 22, 1749. The Hôtel-Dieu ground was used as the
cemetery for twenty-five years.
[51] Dollier de Casson tells this story, which he had from
eye-witnesses; de Maisonneuve was a very generous and unselfish man.
[52] The more so, as the publication of the "véritables motifs,"
issued by the Associates of the Company of Montreal in defense
of the settlement in clearly stating its aims and justifying the
singlemindedness of its promoters, had gained it many friends, among
whom were many in high places.
[53] The Jesuits had charge of the mission from April 28, 1643, and
continued it up to August 12, 1657. The Sulpicians then took it over,
their first act recorded in the first registers of births, marriages
and sepultures being on August 28, 1657.
[54] One value of the "Motifs" for modern day readers is that it gives
the foundation of Montreal the note of inspiration which is a mark not
claimed by many other cities.
CHAPTER VII
1644-1651
PROGRESS AND WAR
THE COMPANY OF MONTREAL CONFIRMED BY LOUIS XIV--MAISONNEUVE
REAPPOINTED GOVERNOR--A SYNDIC ELECTED; THE FIRST STEP
IN REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT--THE BUILDING OF THE
HOTEL-DIEU--MILITARY HISTORY--PILOT, THE WATCHDOG OF THE
FORT--THE EXPLOIT OF PLACE D'ARMES--FEAR OF IROQUOIS--LABARRE'S
REINFORCEMENT--AGRICULTURE BEGINS--MONTREAL'S FREE TRADE
MOVEMENT--THE FIRST IROQUOIS WAR IS OVER--MAISONNEUVE
GOES TO FRANCE--THE PROMOTION IN PARIS OF A BISHOPRIC FOR
MONTREAL--CHARLES LE MOYNE--THE FORTIFICATIONS OF THE FORT--WAR
AGAIN--THE SALARIES OF THE GOVERNOR OF QUEBEC, THREE RIVERS AND
MONTREAL--THE CAMP VOLANT--FINANCIAL GLOOM IN MONTREAL--MUTUAL
BENEFIT ASSOCIATION--A PICTURE OF MONTREAL--A TAX PERILOUS, SUDDEN
AND FREQUENT--THE HOTEL-DIEU A FORTRESS FOR FOUR YEARS--THE
ABANDONMENT OF THE SETTLEMENT THREATENED--MAISONNEUVE GOES TO
FRANCE FOR SUCCOUR--THE SKELETON SOLDIERS--MONTREAL A FORLORN HOPE.
Louis XIII, who died on May 14, 1643, was succeeded by his young
son, Louis XIV, then a child of five years of age. The policy of his
father in regard to Montreal was continued by him, through the Queen
Regent under the advice of the Duke of Orléans, uncle of the king,
and of Prince Henri de Condé, former viceroy of Canada, who gave the
"Company of Montreal" by new letters patent, dated February 13, 1644,
in the name of the king, the most powerful and honourable recognition,
ratifying all previous powers given. In particular, it gave it power
to make and receive pious legacies and foundations for the savages and
for other Christian movements. The position of the governor of Montreal
is again made clear, "and to allow the inhabitants of Montreal to live
in peace, police and concord, we permit the Associates to commission a
captain or local governor whom they shall desire to name themselves for
us."--(Edits et Ordonnances, I, 24-25.)
The king ordered M. de Montmagny to promulgate these letters. To make
M. de Maisonneuve's position clearer, the Associates, in accord with
the above royal permit, confirmed him anew by a commission, dated March
26, 1644, as local governor (_gouverneur particulier de ce pays_).
This year de Maisonneuve's initiative had brought about that the town
was erected into a municipal corporation and that the civil interests
should be watched by a syndic or tribune of the people. This officer
was elected to represent the colonists, to look after the general good
of the island, to see after the taxes for the upkeep of the garrison
and to bring to justice those who damaged others' property. It was,
however, an honorary position and was subject to election, no one being
allowed to continue for more than three successive years. The election
was usually held in the "hangar" or the dépôt of "the Company of
Montreal," whither the inhabitants for the most part usually resorted
for all necessary clothing, utensils, and even provisions. Later on,
the elections took place in the hall of the seminary or that of the
fort.
This first step of popular representation was then an advanced
movement. Montreal was thus ahead of Quebec, which did not have a
syndic till 1663. In 1672, as we shall see, even this slight concession
to self government was deplored, and Frontenac, who started with broad
views of interesting the people in their affairs, by continuing them in
their separate classes, was told from France by the Minister Colbert to
desist and even gradually to suppress the syndic's office.
When d'Ailleboust arrived in August, 1643, he had brought an
important communication for Jeanne Mance from her friend the "unknown
benefactress," whom we know as Madame de Bullion. This good lady was
resolved to establish a hospital. She had set aside an annual income
of 2,000 _livres_ for this purpose and now in addition sent 12,000
_livres_ to build and furnish it, besides 200 _livres_ to be employed
according to the discretion of Jeanne Mance.
But sickness had been singularly absent up to this. A few rooms
reserved in the mission house had so far sufficed for hospital
purposes. Indeed, Jeanne Mance had recommended that the money should
be devoted to the upkeep of the Jesuit missions among the Hurons, a
proposition which did not please Madame de Bullion, who insisted in
carrying on her pious design.
Thus on January 14th of this year (1664) she had placed a fund, 42,000
_livres_, to endow the hospital, 6,000 of which were to be employed
at once on building operations. So, confident that the work was now
completed, she sent a convoy of furniture and a present of 2,000
_livres_ for Jeanne Mance for current expenses. This persistency forced
de Maisonneuve to postpone other activities and he now diverted the
work of his carpenters to the new foundation. In choosing the site for
it, mindful of the danger of floods, he chose an elevated spot a short
distance outside the fort across the streamlet St. Pierre,[55] and built
the first Hôtel-Dieu of Montreal, a building 60 feet long by 24 broad,
containing a room for Jeanne Mance, one for the attendants and two for
the sick. A little stone chapel was annexed, about nine to ten feet
square, which was furnished with requirements for the altar next year
by the Company. On October 8th, the hospital, dedicated according to
the pious wish of its founder "au nom et en honneur de St. Joseph," was
ready to receive the sick. It was also furnished by the Associates with
all the appliances necessary.[56] Jeanne Mance must have felt at last
happy on entering on her life-long vocation.
The hospital had its modest farm of four arpents, with its two bulls,
three cows and twenty sheep. M. de Maisonneuve's carpenters surrounded
it with a strong palisade as a protection, should the Iroquois venture
to attack it by night.
Hardly had the hospital been completed than the anxiety of Jeanne Mance
as to its utility was dispersed, for it was immediately needed for the
sick and wounded who filled it on account of the daily attacks of the
Iroquois. Indeed they were soon obliged to add another hall, the two
rooms mentioned not being sufficient.
We now resume the military history of Montreal.
After the loss of five of his men in June, 1643, de Maisonneuve issued
orders to safeguard his handful of men and women. When the men went
out of the fort to their work, the sound of the bell gathered them so
that they should go forth together, armed, and at dinner time it again
recalled them in the same fashion. This precaution was necessary to
guard them against the surprises of the Iroquois who sometimes remained
for days together hidden in the adjoining woods or brush, watching,
cat-like, on the ground or in the trees for an opportunity to sally
forth and cut off any straggler. Then they would retreat with extreme
agility back to their accustomed lairs.
[Illustration: CROUCHING IROQUOIS
(By Philippe Hébert)]
The more impatient of his men were all for attacking the enemy in the
woods, but the governor restrained them, urging the extreme imprudence
of so slight a force attempting to cope with an unknown number, in a
mode of warfare in which the enemy were so experienced. Nor could he
run the risk of losing one of his brave defenders.
A valuable assistance was provided by the watch dogs of the fort
brought from France. We are responsible to Dollier de Casson, and
Father Lalemant in the "Relations" of 1647, for the story of a bitch
named Pilot who every morning made the tour of the fort's environs,
accompanied by her pups, to discover the hiding places of the Iroquois.
Should they scent the Iroquois they would turn quickly on their course,
and barking and yelping furiously in the direction of the enemy, would
convey the news to the fort. Thus many a lurking snare was avoided by
the settlers.
The mother was indefatigable in her duty. If one of the pups became
lazy or stubborn she would bite it to make it go on. Should, however,
one of them turn back and escape, in the midst of the round, a beating
assuredly awaited it when Pilot returned into camp.[57]
On an occasion when the barking and yelping were more insistent than
usual, proclaiming the nearness of the foe, the impetuous ones of the
camp would again approach the governor, asking if they were never to
oust the Iroquois by an attack. The governor's policy of delay was
still maintained. "My brave boys," he said, "it is most unwise."
But now rendered impatient, murmurs arose in camp and doubt was cast
upon the governor's courage. This coming to his ears, and fearing,
lest his prudence, being taken for pusillanimity should thus lower his
prestige and power of command, he determined for once to change his
tactics.
The chance offered shortly, for on May 30th of this year (1644), the
persistent barking of the dogs brought the malcontents to him with
their querulous cry again: "Monsieur, shall we never go against the
foe?" To their surprise the calm, brusque reply of the soldier met
them: "Yes, you shall meet the foe; prepare at once for attack; but let
each one be as brave as his word. I myself will lead you!"
There was hurry in the camp, each one of the men sought his gun, his
ammunition, and his _racquettes_, or Indian snowshoes, for the snow
was deep. But there was an insufficiency of the latter. At last the
scanty force of forty men was mustered. The governor put the fort into
the hands of M. d'Ailleboust, and giving him directions to follow out
should he himself never return from the fray, he led his men towards
the foe.
When the Iroquois had noticed this, dividing their force of two hundred
into several bands, they put themselves in ambuscades and awaited the
approach of the men from the fort. As these entered into the woods,
they were met with shots from the Iroquois' muskets on all sides.
Seeing his men thus attacked by so large a force, M. de Maisonneuve
ordered them to get behind the trees, as the Iroquois were, and then
ensued a brisk exchange of shots on either side, so long and furious
that their ammunition giving out and several of his men being already
killed or wounded, de Maisonneuve ordered a retreat. This was no easy
matter, for they were badly equipped with the snowshoes, and those who
had none sank deep into the snow and were hindered in their retreat
while the Iroquois were all well shod and skillful in their use, so
that, as Dollier de Casson relates:
"Qu'à peine étions-nous de l'infanterie, au rapport de cavalerie."
At this period of unrest and danger the hospital was being built
outside the tort, a quadrilateral building, 320 feet in length and an
enclosure flanked by four stone bastions which were connected by a
wooden curtain twelve feet high. In carrying the wood for construction
a beaten path had been made to it, so that the snow was hard and firm,
and progress was easy here without the need of snowshoes. Thither,
under Maisonneuve's directions, the Frenchmen hurried as best they
could, turning to face the enemy, from time to time, to return their
shots. When they reached the footpath, they ran headlong to the fort at
the top of their speed, terrified by the number of Iroquois pursuing
them, and leaving their commander to fall behind, alone and unprotected.
Meanwhile those left behind in the fort, hearing the uproar, and
seeing their approach, and mistaking them for the enemy, one of them
imprudently fired the cannon which stood already directed towards that
road to guard it during the building operations. Providentially the
fuse failed.[58]
The abandoned leader was now face to face with the Iroquois with a
pistol in either hand, fearful each moment of being seized by them.
Thus he kept them at bay. Meanwhile the Iroquois, recognizing him as
the governor, wished to capture him alive to make a show of him to
their tribes and to reserve him for greater cruelties, and so they
delayed a little till their captain came up, to leave to him the honour
of the capture. The chief now leaped forward towards de Maisonneuve
and was almost on his shoulders, when the governor fired one of his
pistols. The pistol did not act and the savage leaped upon him in fury
and seized him by the neck, but raising his other pistol above his
shoulders the governor laid the chief stiff and dead upon the ground,
to the indignation of the surrounding Iroquois watching this single
combat. They hurried at once to secure the dead body of the chief. In
their anxiety lest there should be any force returning from the fort to
seize their chieftain's body, and bear it away as a trophy of victory
against the Iroquois, their attention was diverted from the governor
who, on the fall of his opponent, had fled and been allowed to escape
to the fort.
[Illustration: MAISONNEUVE'S EXPLOIT
(A bas relief from the Maisonneuve Monument by Philippe Hébert)]
This act of courage silenced all suspicion of personal cowardice on the
part of the governor. His former policy was now commended, and the men
protested they would never expose themselves rashly, again.
The parish records of Ville Marie this year reveal the absence of
Indian baptisms. This is due to the fear of the Hurons in approaching
the beleaguered fort. In addition the approaches were cut off. For
in the spring of this year the Iroquois were divided into ten bands,
scattered here and there on the St. Lawrence, breathing fury against
the French, the Hurons and the Algonquins. The Island of Montreal
itself had been visited by one of these bands at the Rivière des
Prairies, and by another, with whom the recent fight described, took
place.
Thus the whole country was in alarm, when, in the summer of 1644, a
reinforcement from France arrived, sent by the queen regent and the
Company of One Hundred Associates, of sixty men to be divided among the
various posts. With them came another force for Montreal sent at the
expense of the Company of Montreal. At this time Fort Richelieu was in
great danger and the new addition was much valued.
The new expedition was under the command of the Sieur Labarre, who
then came on to settle at Montreal in the summer with a number of new
colonists. The early historians speak very slightingly of this man.
He appears to have had the reputation of being very religious. At
Rochelle he carried a large string of rosary beads in his girdle, and
he also had a crucifix which he had almost incessantly before his eyes,
so as to be considered an apostolic man. Hence his appointment. But
this great "hypocrite" was found out in the intimate village life of
Montreal and he was asked very shortly to retire to France as we shall
see.
This year marks the beginning of agriculture in Montreal. Wheat had
been sown principally through the initiative of Louis d'Ailleboust, who
had come in the previous year.
But the difficulty of tilling and sowing the ground, when the workers
had to carry their arms with them amid the danger of such surprises as
we have described, rendered agriculture precarious, and in consequence
the grain produced this year was not sufficient to support even the
small colony. Its provisions had still to be sent from France.
The year 1645 started with an important change in the attitude of
the Company of New France. Public opinion in the motherland had been
drawn to Canadian affairs. The Montreal venture and the publication
of the "Véritables Motifs" had thrown discredit on the Company as a
colonizing force. This body at first no doubt blustered somewhat, but
finally, from fear of being looked upon as mere private speculators,
it was ready to listen to reason. There had been representation from
Quebec from the colonists there that the monopoly of the fur trade by
the Company menaced commerce and prevented Frenchmen coming to Canada.
A modification or suppression of this monopoly as the only means of
increasing and firmly "establishing the colony" was demanded.
Accordingly, after having considered these matters at its annual
meeting in December, we find the Company at a subsequent one, on
January 7th, making, at the demand of the queen regent and the
solicitation of the Jesuits, a treaty with the colonists of New France,
by which they handed over to them the trade in peltry excluding that
of Acadia, Miscou and Cape Breton. This treaty was concluded between
the Company and the representatives of the colonists, MM. de Repentigny
and Godefroi, on January 14, 1644, and ratified by the king on July 13,
1645.--(Edits et Ordonnances.)
The history, therefore, of free trade for Montreal starts from this
period, for we have seen how it had been crippled in its original
charter. Still the troublous times it had been undergoing had not
allowed them at Montreal to feel their restrictions, just as the
times still ahead were not suitable for availing themselves of their
new privileges, for war paralyzed commerce. If truth be told, the
deputation from Canada had obtained a beautiful scheme on paper; the
Company came out the winner.
The document is worthy of consideration.
After conceding to the "habitans du dit pays," present and to come, the
right and license of the trade in skins and peltry in New France ...
it orders that the said "habitans" shall for the future keep up the
colony of New France, and shall discharge for the Company the ordinary
expenses hitherto paid by it for the maintenance and appointments of
ecclesiastics, governor, lieutenants, captains, soldiers and garrisons
in the forts and habitations, and that in consideration of the expenses
already incurred by the Company.
The Company, however, was to retain the name, titles, authority, rights
and powers accorded in its original edict of establishment and to
remain in full ownership, possession, judiciary, seigneurial tenure of
all the country and extent of the lands of New France.
Thus it placed all responsibility on the inhabitants themselves.
Montreal would not suffer very much, because, being a private
corporation, it had already offered to maintain itself at its own cost.
The year 1645 opened again with Iroquois attacks, "but," says Dollier
de Casson, "God has been favourable to us."
The men of the fort even killed some of their assailants, and owing to
the wise soldiership of the governor, not one of his own were killed,
all this year.
[Illustration: A. The fort built in 1645. E. First cemetery in
Montreal. B. Hôtel-Dieu, founded in 1642. C. Residence of M. de
Chomedey de Maisonneuve. D. Windmill built in 1648.]
[Illustration: RESIDENCE OF M. DE CHOMEDEY DE MAISONNEUVE]
Meanwhile, the Indian allies still kept away. But on September 7th the
fort welcomed a body of sixty of them who came under the escort of a
band of the soldiers sent out from France the previous year. These
latter had been ordered on arriving to winter with the Hurons and
protect them from the Iroquois, and they were now on their way back to
the governor of Quebec with a load of skins to the value of thirty to
forty thousand _livres_.
It will be remembered that the disposition of the peltry was now in
the hands of the colonists themselves on condition that they should
maintain the upkeep of the departments of church and state. On arriving
in Quebec there was a disagreement as to the disposal of the profits
of the sale. Finally the colonists devoted part of their proceeds to
the construction of the Jesuit house there.
This year also de Montmagny and the inhabitants applied the product of
1,250 beaver skins to their new church being constructed at Quebec and
dedicated to Our Lady of Peace in view of the conclusion of peace, now
heartily desired.
The possibilities of trade must have appealed to the Montrealers from
the arrival of the above party, the more so as their restrictions had
been removed.
This month, the negotiations for peace were concluded at a
representative gathering of Iroquois and the French allies with the
French party under de Montmagny and thus the first Iroquois war was
over.
Peace now gave M. de Maisonneuve an opportunity to go to France to
arrange the affairs of his father; so putting his own in order, he left
the government of Ville Marie in the good hands of his lieutenant,
Louis d'Ailleboust. He departed, to the great grief of all the fort
gathered at the harbour mouth, but with the promise of a speedy return.
M. de Maisonneuve left Quebec on October 20th, on one of the Company's
ships bearing their season's fur skins to France. He "deported," as we
would say, with him the "undesirable" Sieur de Labarre, whose hypocrisy
had been unmasked in Montreal, "when it became known," as Dollier de
Casson quaintly relates, "he was frequently taking promenades in the
wood with an Indian woman whom he had defiled (qu'il engrossa). There
was no more of the saint about this man than his chapelet and his
deceitful look, for under the guise of virtue he hid a very wicked
life which has made him since finish his days behind a 'bar' which was
heavier than his name of Barre."
This year the Jesuit missioners in charge of Ville Marie were Fathers
Buteaux and Isaac Jogues. Both of these men were zealous pioneers. Each
bore on his body the marks of Iroquois' ill treatment. Yet they did not
ask to be recalled to France and rest on their laurels. Father Jogues
had, however, been recalled after his mutilation, but his missionary
zeal prompted him to return. He profited by the peace, which brought
many of the Iroquois out of curiosity to the fort, to make friends with
them as he wished to work among their tribes shortly.
After Maisonneuve had concluded the arrangement of his father's affairs
he was free for many conferences with members of the Company of
Montreal. Ever since they had written to the pope in 1643 it was their
great desire, and that of Maisonneuve especially, it being thought that
peace was concluded, to establish a bishopric in Canada. As they had
agreed to support the expense of maintaining such a post, preferably
at Montreal, they arranged that one of their number, a M. Legauffre,
a secular priest who had a private fortune of his own, should be
nominated to fill the episcopal see.
His unexpected death now came, but he left a legacy of 30,000 _livres_
towards the founding of a see.
In the meeting of the bishops at the general assembly of the clergy
on May 25, 1646, Mgr. Godeau, bishop of Grasse, promoted the movement
for the establishment of the see, and in July, at the meeting of July
11th, Cardinal Mazarin promised to employ his services with his majesty
towards that end, while he also promised 1,200 _écus_. But as at Quebec
and Three Rivers there was no desire for a bishop, especially in view
of the uncertain nature of the peace, the negotiations were eventually
discontinued, as it became evident that the state of the country
was too unsettled. Still the progressive Montrealers had by their
enterprise and initiative suggested the establishment of a see, which
was erected later on the coming of Laval.
A notable personage now enters into the story of Montreal, Charles le
Moyne. He was then a young man of twenty years of age, but he had been
already in the colony since 1641 and had traveled in the service of the
Jesuits on their Huron missions. Thus he had acquired the knowledge of
their language and that of the Iroquois, and it was with the purpose
of being useful to the fort at Montreal, as an interpreter with the
Iroquois, that he had been sent by de Montmagny to supply a need which
the fort had experienced in dealing with the Indians.
[Illustration: CHARLES LE MOYNE
(By Philippe Hébert)]
M. de Maisonneuve returned at Quebec on September 20th, but hardly
had he arrived there than he received a letter from M. Dauversière
that his brother-in-law had been assassinated and that his mother was
contemplating a second marriage; the latter, seeming to be looked upon
as a ruinous event for the family, he had to cross back immediately to
France to stay its execution. He sailed for that country on October
31st, but while waiting for the boat to go he transacted some business
in Quebec and returned to M. Puiseaux his original donation to the
Company of Montreal, of the fiefs of St. Michel and St. Foy and the
other gifts which he had given in his early enthusiasm, but which he
afterwards reclaimed.
In recompense the Company of Montreal was reimbursed for the
improvements made on the land at St. Michel. This action of M. Puiseaux
is attributed to his failing faculties. However, by his will made at
Rochelle next year, June 21st, he gave the land of Ste. Foy for the
maintenance of the future bishop.
During the calm, which was soon to be perturbed, Charles d'Ailleboust
completed his fortifications with four regular bastions, so well
constructed that the fort exterior was the pride of Canada. The fault
was the delay in not having chosen another site, for even now the
floods and the ice-pushes from the St. Lawrence threatened many times
to upheave the fortifications, and by 1672 the fort was in ruins. Yet
for the present they were of avail and inspired fear in the Iroquois
and pride in the colonists. Agriculture was largely advanced by
d'Ailleboust by cultivating lands for himself and having the same done
for the settlement.
But war was again looming ahead. Signs were not wanting by the gradual
dispersal of the Indian allies from the fort during the late autumn. On
November 17th, three Hurons who were at Ville Marie, having gone to the
hunt, returned, with the loss of one of their companions. A few days
after, having gone in search of him, they were captured by a band of
Iroquois. On November 30, 1646, two Frenchmen were taken at a distance
from the camp. Thus it became evident that the peace had never been
thoroughly intended, for news came in on all sides of disasters from
the Iroquois. The year 1647 passed in troublous vexations. To the great
joy of the settlement M. de Maisonneuve returned in the spring of 1648
and found that life was indeed a warfare.
The wars of the Iroquois were fiercer than ever. Fear filled the
hearts of all the Montrealers. The fort was the centre of surprises.
Yet this year the first windmill was constructed by de Maisonneuve, at
what is still known as Windmill Point. It was built with loopholes for
musketry, so that the mill was intended not only to grind the wheat but
to be an advanced redoubt and a challenge to the Iroquois to show them
that the French were not ready to abandon their field of glory. On
October 21st Charles d'Ailleboust went to France whence he would return
as the governor general.
A word should now be said of the government of the country. By a decree
of the king in 1647 it had been arranged that the government of the
country should be left in the matter of police, commerce and war in the
hands of three, viz., the governor general, the superior of the Jesuits
and the governor of Montreal.
The governor of Quebec was given a salary of 25,000 _livres_, with the
privilege of having sent to him each year, without expense, seventy
tons of freight by the vessels of the fleet on the condition that he
should provide the fort with arms and ammunitions. He was to have,
besides, his own private lieutenant, another at Three Rivers, and
finally sixty-six garrison men who should be maintained at the expense
of the stores. It was further settled that the governor general should
journey into the country as he should judge fit.
As to the local governor of Montreal his salary should be 10,000
_livres_, with thirty tons of freight, and he was to support a garrison
of thirty men. Finally 5,000 _livres_ were granted annually to the
superior of the Jesuits for their missions.
These privileges of the royal decision did not give pleasure to many
in the colony. M. de Maisonneuve seems to have opposed them in France.
It was alleged that M. de Montmagny, in the frequent absence from
Quebec, of the superior of the Jesuits on missions, and that of the
governor of Montreal, was practically sole ruler; that he was drawing
too large a salary and was not fulfilling the conditions imposed upon
him in safeguarding the other outposts of the colony. Thus there was
dissatisfaction among the colonists, and M. Charles d'Ailleboust with
M. des Chastelets went to France to procure amendments.
M. de Montmagny was about to be recalled. His rule was considered
inefficient. A mémoire by M. de la Chesnaye says that there was a
secret cabal intriguing against the governor, composed of a few of the
chief families, who went to France to enrich themselves, and got one of
their own named as governor general. This alludes to de Maisonneuve,
des Chastelets and d'Ailleboust. The former is known to have refused a
nomination to the post and des Chastelets and d'Ailleboust, among other
things, asked for a reduction of the salary of the governor general
from 25,000 _livres_ to 10,000.
On the 5th of March, 1648, these amendments passed. In addition the
governing council of Canada was now to be composed of the governor
general, the superior of the Jesuits, and MM. de Chavigny, Godefroy of
Quebec, and Giffard, to which body the local governors of Three Rivers
and Montreal should be added when they should happen to be in Quebec.
[Illustration:
The last page of the first deed of concession made by M. de Maisonneuve
to Pierre Gadoys. The deed itself is completely written in the
handwriting of the governor himself. Under the signature of Paul de
Chomedey is the acceptance of the concession by Pierre Gadoys before
the notary, Jean de St. Pierre. This is at once the first deed of
concession and the first notarial act registered in Montreal, January
4, 1648.]
Finally the king ordered that it would be necessary for two at least
of the councillors to deliberate with the governor. The salary of the
governor general was reduced to 10,000 _livres_, the sixty tons of
freight to twelve, and his garrison to twelve men, and it was ruled
that the local governors of Montreal and Three Rivers should each
receive 3,000 _livres_, six tons of freight and six soldiers.
The 19,000 _livres_ over should be partially employed in raising a
"camp volant," or flying squadron drawn from men of existing garrisons
if there should be sufficient so disposable, or if not, it should be
raised as soon as possible. In the summer this flying squadron should
guard all the passages by land and water under the command of some
capable officer to be appointed by the governor, and in the winter it
should be distributed in the garrisons to sally forth thence to beat
the bush and to rove around.
The rest of the 19,000 _livres_ should be employed in purchasing arms
and ammunition. Besides this flying squadron the king allowed a company
formed by the settlers at their own expense to act as the necessary
escort to the Hurons or the missionaries. For the support of this,
trading was allowed on these journeys on the condition of bringing the
skins to the government stores at Quebec and sold at the price fixed by
the Quebec council.
These changes were not received with favour by the old party and
d'Ailleboust was made to realize this on his way back. However, he
came to Quebec as governor general on August 20th and was received
with "generous magnanimity" by Montmagny, who left on September 23d.
Madame d'Ailleboust and her sister, Phillipine de Boulogne, joined the
governor at Quebec. There was grief at Montreal in losing them, but
this was tempered by its pride in furnishing the governor general from
its midst.
A few words are needed in further explanation of the "camp volant"
above alluded to.
"In 1642," according to Benjamin Suite, Canadian Antiquarian and
Numismatic Journal, 1879, "there were no less than seventy soldiers at
Three Rivers whose duty it was, not only to defend that place against
the Iroquois, but to patrol Lake St. Peter also. The same year only
fifteen soldiers were quartered at Quebec--a much less exposed position
than Three Rivers. In the year 1644 some troops were sent to Canada by
Anne d'Autriche. Twenty-three of these soldiers accompanied the Hurons,
the missionaries and a few Frenchmen, who went to the Georgian Bay that
summer. M. Ferland says that the garrison of Montreal numbered thirty
men in 1647; but he evidently means the thirty men placed under the
orders of Jean Bourdon for reconnaissance purposes on Lake St. Peter."
These were "soldiers" from 1642; from 1649 there were volunteers, and
from 1651, if not before, a sedentary militia was established.
About 1647 Montmagny had considered a project for forming an active
militia to be on the lookout against the Iroquois, but his resources
were too slender. In the spring of 1649 the "camp volant" was organized
under the command of Charles J. d'Ailleboust de Musseaux, nephew of the
new governor general, M. d'Ailleboust. It numbered forty men and its
duty consisted in patrolling on the St. Lawrence between Montreal and
Three Rivers.
After the slaughter of Sieur Duplessis Kerbodot, nephew of M. Lauson,
now governing and the successor of de Musseaux, on August 19th,
together with fifteen Frenchmen, the "camp volant" became disorganized
for the winter, but it was apparently reformed in the summer of 1653.
After that it seems to have been neglected during the government
of D'Argenson and D'Avaugour. In fact a body of regular troops was
required to check the Iroquois, and not mere militia, whose men could
not attend to their farm and other business and at the same time keep
beating the country nearly all the year round. Hence the request for
troops, of Father Lejeune in 1660, and Pierre Boucher in 1661. In 1663
a body of militia was organized at Montreal.
The next spring, 1640, the "camp volant" of forty men was sent to
Montreal under the command of the nephew of the new governor, Charles
d'Ailleboust des Musseaux, to help to repulse the Iroquois. About the
same time the new governor went to pay his first official visit to
Ville Marie.
He communicated the king's order as above, and among other instructions
he communicated directions from the Company of Montreal. One, touching
the administration of the Hôtel-Dieu, regulated that the surgeon of
this house should attend the sick of the island gratuitously, both
French and Indians, and that the administration accounts of the
hospital should be rendered annually to the governor of Montreal, the
ecclesiastical superior and to the syndics of the inhabitants, who
should sign an act to be sent to Paris.
During this stay the governor, on May 3rd, put the Jesuits[59] formally
in possession of the Seigneurie de Madeleine on the south side of the
St. Lawrence, comprising land two leagues in length by four in depth,
stretching from St. Helen's island towards the Sault St. Louis. This
had been granted by François de Lauson on April 1, 1647.
Sad news had been brought to Jeanne Mance by the governor that many
of the Associates were losing their interest in Montreal and were
diverting their charities to the missions in the Levant. Anxious to get
further news she went to Quebec in the summer and there she found that
Père Rapin, the Recollect, her intermediary with Madame de Bullion, was
dead; that the Company of Montreal was almost dissolved; that M. de la
Dauversière was dangerously ill; that his affairs had become entangled,
and he was now a bankrupt. As he had money in trust for Madame de
Bullion, this was a blow for the colony.
The outlook for Montreal was now financially gloomy. Ville Marie was
also surrounded by war. Jeanne Mance therefore set sail from Quebec on
September 8th to interest her friends in the struggling settlement.
In this she was very successful. Madame de Bullion received her with
kindness and gave her a sum of money to engage workmen to till lands
to support the hospital. The Associates renewed their interest, and in
order to guarantee the continuance of their _Seigneurie_ a new act was
drawn up to supplement that of March 25, 1644, in which M. de Fancamp
and M. de la Dauversière had sworn that they were occupiers of Montreal
in the name of a company, so that these nine remaining members were now
publicly named and signed their names, making at the same time a mutual
donation, reciprocal and irrevocable, by which they handed over to the
last surviving of them the forts, habitations and outhouses, etc.,
belonging to the said Company. This was signed before the Notaries
Pourcelle and Chaussiere on March 21, 1650.[60]
The Company gave the hospital also 200 arpents of land. Jeanne Mance
saw many of the associates privately and stimulated their interest, as
well as that, of others. In the month of September, 1650, she arrived
at Quebec with some labourers and some virtuous marriageable girls,
leaving it on September 25th for Montreal and arriving there three days
before the feast of All Saints (November 1st).[61]
The year 1650 may be chronicled as that of the first general movement
towards agriculture. The constant fear of Iroquois' attacks had kept
the settlers pent up within the walls of the fort, although there
had been since 1643 individual attempts by Charles d'Ailleboust and
others outside.[62] The activity started by Jeanne Mance in putting
into cultivation the 200 arpents lately conceded by the Associates of
the Company of Montreal to the Hôtel-Dieu encouraged others to take to
the land and to build their dwellings on the concessions which they
now demanded from M. Maisonneuve, since it was now thought there was a
likelihood of peace.
These early grants were only of thirty arpents and to ensure as great
protection as possible against Iroquois attacks, they were clustered
around the fort and the brewery. In granting these lands, however, the
seigneurs stipulated that they could be exchanged later for others at a
remote distance, for the location at present used was reserved for the
future city, for the building of the market place, the port and other
public purposes.
What may be called the history of mutual building societies now starts,
for as the number of workmen were limited, the inhabitants, led by the
motives of fraternal charity and public spirit, formed associations to
help one another in the clearing of their lots and in the construction
of their homes. Thus a contract dated November 15, 1650, between Jean
des Carris and Jean Le Duc, binds them to assist each other to build
at common expense a ho, for each, on a clearing, of ten acres each,
made by them, and that if one of them fell sick the work should be
continued by the other without remuneration.
In the present case after the clearing had been made and the house
built on Jean des Carris' concession, the war intervening would
not allow similar work to be done on that of Jean Le Duc, and in
consequence Jean Le Duc received from his partner 580 _livres_ in
recompense for his services.
The harvest of this year was very successful; "particularly at Montreal
where the lands are very excellent," is the account in the "Relations."
It is not difficult now to present a picture of Montreal or Ville
Marie of this period. On the northeast portion of the triangular piece
of land watered on the east and north by the little River St. Peter
and on the south by the St. Lawrence, there was the fort and the new
concessions with their wooden buildings being erected thereon; on the
southern portion there was a long sweep of ground, an arpent in depth
and forty in length, along the banks of the river westward, on which
the cattle of the soldiers and others who were now becoming farmers
were allowed to stray. This was known as "the Common"[63] and was
granted to Jean de Saint Père as the syndic for the people in October,
1651, on the understanding that it should revert to the seigneurs when
they should need it for city expansion. In this common, which was
protected by the fort and the houses above, the animals, under the care
of a watchman, were safe from immediate attack, since all approaching
this pasturage must necessarily venture from afar and be visible. At
the west end of the common was the windmill near the river.[64] Across
the little river there were the houses of M. Maisonneuve and that of
the Hôtel-Dieu. This comprised the situation.
In spite of the pictures of progress and contentment we have presented
as existing towards the end of 1649 and the earlier part of 1650, we
must remember that Montreal was frequently the rendezvous of bands of
Hurons and their Jesuit missionaries, who told of their flight from the
cruelty of the Iroquois; of forts destroyed, pillaged, of burnings and
massacres. Montreal itself, they were told, was soon be the object
of attack. Hence the bands did not delay. After the horrible scenes
that had occurred at St. Louis[65] in July of 1650 the missionaries
brought down three or four hundred Lake Hurons, the relics of three
to four thousand, to Ville Marie, where they stayed only two days.
The "Relation" of this year says: "This is an advantageous situation
for the settlement of the savages, but as it is the frontier of the
Iroquois, whom our Hurons flee from, more than death itself, they could
not determine to start their colony then."
Dollier de Casson gives us this insight into the fear caused at Ville
Marie by these visits and their recitals of disaster. The evident
reflection then was, "If we who are only a handful of Europeans, do not
offer a firmer and more vigorous resistance than 30,000 Hurons have
done, then we must reconcile ourselves to be burnt alive at a slow fire
with all the refinements of unheard of cruelty."
But this year Montreal was able to breathe in comparative peace. A
picture of Montreal of this year is presented by Père P. Ragueneau, the
Jesuit superior of the missions, writing from Quebec on October 8th
to Father Picolomini, the general of the order at Rouen: "At Montreal
there are barely sixty Frenchmen, twenty Hurons, a few Algonquins and
two of our fathers. They cannot leave this fort, which is always very
much exposed."
In the spring of 1651, a perilous period began. Speaking of this year
the Jesuit "Relations" say in general: "It is a marvel that the French
of Ville Marie were not exterminated by the frequent surprises of
Iroquois bands." Other contemporaneous chroniclers repeat the same.
Sister Morin, in the "Annals of the Hôtel-Dieu of Montreal," writes:
"Often ten men of Ville Marie, or less, have been seen holding their
own against fifty or eighty Iroquois, who have acquired for themselves
a great reputation in all Canada and in France, and the Iroquois have
several times avowed that three men of Montreal have inspired them with
more fear than six from elsewhere."
The attacks now were very frequent and sudden. Although the garrison
fought well and bravely, its losses were severe compared with those of
the Iroquois, who though losing more men, yet were able to replace them.
Some of these encounters have been preserved to us. The following
occurred on May 6, 1651: On this day, Jean Boudard had left his house
with a man named Jean Chicot when suddenly they found themselves
surprised by eight or ten Iroquois. Chicot ran for safety to a tree
recently cut down and hid himself there, but Boudard, making headlong
for his home, met his wife, Catherine Mercier, not far from it. Asking
her whether the dwelling was open she replied: "No, I have locked it!"
"Ah!" cried he, "then it is death for both of us! Let us fly at once."
In their flight, the wife could not keep pace with him and, being
left behind, was seized by the Indians. Hearing her cries the husband
returned and attacked them with fisticuffs, so violently that, not
being able to master him otherwise, they massacred him on the spot.
The cries and confusion aroused three of the settlers, Charles Le
Moyne, Archambault and another, who, running to render assistance, were
seen falling into an ambuscade of forty Indians behind the hospital.
Discovering their mistake they made a retreat to the front door of the
hospital which luckily was open, having escaped a brisk fusillade, as
Le Moyne well knew by the hole in his hat. With the captive woman,
the Indians who had surprised Boudard then sought the hiding place
of Chicot. He defended himself with his feet and hands so vigorously
that fearing, lest he should be assisted by the Frenchmen they now saw
approaching, they took his scalp, taking a piece of his skull with
it. This they carried with them as a trophy, as well as the head of
Boudard, who was commonly known as "Grand Jean." Jean Chicot did not
die, however, till nearly fourteen years later, but Catherine Mercier
was brutally burned after having been inhumanly disfigured,[66] during
the summer of the same year in the Iroquois camp.
Four days later another alarm aroused the fort. About two hours after
midnight, a band of forty Iroquois attacked the brewery and some of the
houses. Two of these, belonging to Urbain Tessier _dit_ Lavigne and
Michel Chauvin, they burned, and the brewery would have been reduced to
ashes if the guard of four men within, had not repulsed their attack
with vigour and put them to flight.
On the 18th of June, on a Sunday morning, a party of four, probably
returning to their newly constructed houses from the church in the
fort, was surprised between the fort and Point St. Charles by a large
body of Iroquois. These four ran to a hut used as a kind of watch house
or redoubt, overlooking a quantity of felled timber, where they were
quickly joined by Urbain Tessier and, resolving to sell their lives
dearly, they kept up a lively fusillade on the enemy.
The noise attracted de Maisonneuve in camp and he sent a relief party
under Charles Le Moyne with such success that the Iroquois were put
to flight, leaving behind them twenty-five to thirty men dead on the
field, independently of those who were taken prisoners. On the French
side only four were wounded, although one of them, Léonard Lucault
_dit_ Barbot, died two days afterwards, being buried in the cemetery.
Belmont, in his "Histoire du Canada," mentions another among the dead,
but the parish register only mentions one.
Thus, amid such daily hostilities, was life insecurely led by the
settlers, since it was not safe to venture even a few yards from their
houses without pistol, musket or sword.
Jeanne Mance, in a memoir to be found among the archives of the
seminary at Quebec, tells how the governor now obliged all the
colonists to leave their newly constructed houses and retire with their
families to the safety of the fort. She herself was forced to leave the
hospital. Maisonneuve turned this into a military outpost to guard the
isolated redoubts scattered here and there in the field and to protect
the workmen, by placing in it a squad of soldiers. He had two pieces of
cannon taken there and swivel guns for the windows of the granaries,
and he had loopholes cut into the walls of the building all around,
even in the chapel which served as an artillery armoury.
In this way the hospital became a fortress for four years and a half.
On July 26th the wisdom of Maisonneuve's arrangement was evident.
Marguerite Bourgeoys is responsible for the story. On this day 200
Iroquois had concealed themselves in a trench originally built as a
defence for the hospital, and which, descending from a height nearby,
close to the place where St. Jean Baptiste street is today, crossed the
site of St. Paul street.
All of a sudden the concealed foes disclosed their presence by
attempting to take possession of the building and to set it on fire.
Meanwhile the garrison within, consisting of Lambert Closse,[67]
the town major, and sixteen of his men made a vigorous and valorous
defence against the 200 from 6 o'clock in the morning to 6 at night,
and losing only one man, Denis Archambault, who met his death by a
splinter from the cast iron cannon which had exploded, killing him on
the spot, but without dealing death to the enemy outside. The cannon
was fired by himself. Finally the enemy were forced to retreat, burning
a neighbouring house in revenge for their loss of men.
Other engagements of a like nature took place but the details have
not been recorded. Three Rivers and Quebec were in similar straits.
Disaster, loss, and want of reinforcement for two years had reduced
Montreal to but about fifty defenders, so that there was now open talk
of abandoning it and leaving Canada.
One hope remained, suggested to the governor by Jeanne Mance; it was
that the 22,000 _livres_ put aside as the revenue for the hospital
might be diverted to the expense of sending out a reinforcement to
save Montreal, and she thought that she might interpret her "unknown
benefactress'" goodwill as agreeable to this, seeing the extremity in
which Montreal now stood.
But de Maisonneuve accepted the offer only on the condition that in
exchange Mademoiselle Mance should receive for the hospital 100 arpents
of the domain of the seigneurs. Meanwhile he could go to France and
call on the unknown benefactress herself whose name was now divulged
to him. Mademoiselle Mance tells how "M. de Maisonneuve determined on
departing for France, told me that if he could not obtain at least 100
men, he would return no more to Ville Marie; and in this case he would
order me to return to France with all our party." Thus the abandonment
of the settlement was now threatened.
Before leaving M. de Maisonneuve named the nephew of Louis
d'Ailleboust, M. Charles d'Ailleboust, Sieur des Musseaux, to be the
governor of Montreal in his stead.
In the meantime the new governor general, M. de Lauson, of whom we
have spoken already, had arrived on October 13th to succeed M. Louis
d'Ailleboust at Quebec. This was no good tidings for Montreal, for
as Dollier de Casson remarks, the new governor made known "his good
feelings towards the Messieurs de Montréal" and the good treatment they
ought to hope from him by retrenching 1,000 from the 4,000 _livres_
granted by the general Company for the upkeep of the governor and his
garrison.[68]
"I do not wish," says he, "to say anything touching the conduct of
this gentleman towards this island, more especially as I wish to
believe that he has always had the very best of intentions, although
he was always wise to his own interest since if he had more frequently
strengthened the embankment here, the Iroquois inundations would not
have so easily taken their course towards Quebec and they would not
have done the mischief they did, for they have not always respected
even his own family."
De Maisonneuve before leaving for France persuaded the governor of
Quebec to send ten men as a reinforcement to Ville Marie. Dollier de
Casson, the quondam soldier now priest, treating this quaintly as
follows, says facetiously that de Lauson kept his promise, "sending
their arms in advance," meaning that he sent none at all. This is
confirmed by M. de Belmont, who says that "M. de Lauson sent, in
spite of his own wish, ten soldiers without arms and provisions."
"But he sent them so late," says Dollier, probably on the testimony
of eye-witnesses, "and put them on a chaloupe so poorly clad that
they almost froze to death, and they were taken for living spectres
coming, as mere skeletons, to confront the hardships of the winter. It
was a rather surprising thing to see them arrive in this turnout at
this season, considering that it was the 10th of December; so much so
that it seemed doubtful whether they were men or not, this only being
cleared up when they were seen close at hand; moreover in constitution
these men were most sickly, two of them being mere boys, though in
truth they have become since very good settlers, of whom one is called
Saint Ange and the other, Lachapelle. These poor soldiers were no
sooner here than their hosts proceeded to warm them up as well as they
could, by giving them good cheer and good clothing, and then they came
to be of service in repelling the Iroquois whom we had to deal with at
close quarters every day."
Surely Montreal must have been looked upon as a forlorn hope!
NOTE
THE EXPLOIT OF PLACE D'ARMES
The site of this is claimed by the Abbé Rousseau in his "Maisonneuve,"
page 77, as the space in front of the fort known as the Place d'Armes,
afterwards the market place and now known as Custom House Square, and
the road abutting the new buildings of the Hôtel-Dieu arising at the
corner of St. Joseph Street (St. Sulpice) and the corner of St. Paul
Street.
The Abbé Faillon, Vol. II, page 25, "Histoire de la Colonie Française,"
argues for the present Place d'Armes in front of Notre Dame Parish
Church. M. L. A. Huguet Latour, the first editor of the _Annuaire de
Ville Marie_, holds the same view.
There was a blazed trail, running up the slope of St. Sulpice Street,
which probably went up to the mountain where de Maisonneuve placed his
cross. In a map of 1680 such a road ran by the northwest corner of the
present Place d'Armes.
Faillon claims it was here that the exploit took place; the argument
of time and distance for the action as related by de Casson being more
congruous for this position than at the lower position just outside the
fort in the sight of the defenders within. But it must be remembered
that the present _Place d'Armes_ did not get its name from this
exploit. This name does not appear till 1717, when Chassegros de Léry,
engineer of New France, forwarded to France a lengthy report as to
the advantage of Montreal for the purposes of fortifications. In this
report he said:
"I have marked a _place d'armes_, in front of the parish church where
might afterwards be moved a number of barracks, the houses which are in
that place being of small value."
During the year the work was commenced, but from lack of funds it was
discontinued. Up to 1721 no further progress was made but in that
year it was fairly entered upon and de Léry superintended it. (_Vide_
"Canadiana," Vol. I, pp. 47, 63, 77; notes of John Talon Lespérance,
Henry Platt, Wm. McLennan.)
Let us compromise and say that most of the action took place on St.
Sulpice Street, between the present and the old _Place d'Armes_,
the latter incidents of the story taking place near the old _Place
d'Armes_.
FOOTNOTES:
[55] The position now can be located as at the east corner of St.
Sulpice (originally St. Joseph) Street and St. Paul Street.
[56] There are still preserved in the present Hôtel-Dieu some jars and
other articles of the original dispensary, as well as Mademoiselle
Bullion's gifts of furniture.
[57] The dog Pilot has been immortalized in Hébert's de Maisonneuve
monument in Place d'Armes, Montreal.
[58] The parish register of March 30, 1644, records that the French
lost in this encounter J. Matenac and P. Bizot, besides Guillaume
Lebeau, mortally wounded.
[59] At this time in the Huron country and its neighbourhood there were
eighteen Jesuit priests, four lay brothers, twenty-three men serving
without pay, seven hired men and eight soldiers.
[60] Names of Associates signing: Jean Jacques Olier, priest, curé of
the Church of St. Sulpice; Alexandre de Rageois de Bretonvilliers;
Nicholas Barreau, priest; Roger Duplessis, Seigneur de Liancourt; Henri
Louis Hubert, Seigneur de Montmart, king's councillor and master of
requests; Bertrand Drouart, Esquire; and Louis Séguier, Seigneur de St.
Germain, who all occupied the Isle of Montreal as well for themselves
as for MM. d'Ailleboust and Paul de Chomedey, Sieur de Maisonneuve.
[61] The first concession and notarial act known, signed by Jean St.
Père, dates from this year, as also does the first of the acts of the
government of M. de Maisonneuve. (See Hist. Soc. Records.)
[62] Among others Pierre Gadbois, Lucien Richomme, Blaise Juillet,
Léonard Lucault dit Barbier, François Godé and Godefroy de Normanville.
From 1650 to 1672 ninety-four houses were built.
[63] The name of "Common" Street records the locality of this "common."
[64] At the present Windmill Point.
[65] The Jesuits, Jean de Brébeuf and Gabriel Lalemant, nephew of
Father Charles Lalemant, S. J., were killed by the Iroquois at St.
Louis on the 16th and 17th of March, 1649.
[66] "Relations," 1651.
[67] Lambert Closse came in 1648. He was second in command of the
garrison. He was of noble family. Contemporary writers call him
indifferently sergeant-major of the garrison, major of the garrison,
major of this place, or "of the fort" or "of the town" or "of
Montreal." He also acted as notary.
[68] Montreal fared ill, whereas the salary of the governor of Quebec
was raised 2,000 _livres_ and that of Three Rivers reached 5,200 and 50
horses, the 3,000 _livres_ granted to the governor of Montreal had been
increased to 4,000. This news had been brought to Montreal by Louis
d'Ailleboust. It was now reduced again to 3,000.
CHAPTER VIII
1652-3
CRITICAL YEARS
LAMBERT CLOSSE, COMMANDANT
MAISONNEUVE'S SUCCESS IN PARIS--MADAME DE BULLION'S
DONATIONS--"PARMENDA"--THE EXPLOIT OF LAMBERT CLOSSE--THE PHANTOM
SHIP--MONTREAL REPORTED AT QUEBEC TO BE BLOTTED OUT--PROPOSALS OF
PEACE FROM THE ONONDAGAS--MARCH OF MOHAWKS ON MONTREAL--CHARLES LE
MOYNE AND ANONTAHA TO PARLEY FOR PEACE--A PATCHED UP PEACE--THE
END OF THE SECOND IROQUOIS WAR.
M. de Maisonneuve was absent for nearly three years and during that
time Montreal was in a critical position. The inhabitants were cooped
up within the fortress or in the Hôtel-Dieu for fear of the Iroquois.
The danger of going out of these limits was only too clearly seen when
the cattle guardian, Antoine Roos, was slain at his work on the common
in front, on May 26th.
Anxiety was felt as to M. de Maisonneuve's success in Paris. News was
accordingly eagerly awaited. Thus it was that in June Jeanne Mance
went to Three Rivers under the escort of Major Closse and proceeded on
the way to Quebec under that of M. Duplessis Kerbodot, the governor
of Three Rivers. On arriving there she had almost dared to hope to
hear that M. de Maisonneuve had already arrived, but instead a long
letter awaited her. In this, the governor related his visit to Madame
de Bullion, telling how he had approached Madame adroitly, without
discovering to her his knowledge of her benefactions as the founder of
the Hôtel-Dieu. Not only did this lady not take any steps to show her
disapproval of Mademoiselle Mance's action in making the exchange of
the hospital revenue, but she gave in addition 20,000 _livres_ more
as an anonymous gift, placing it in the hands of the president of the
Company of Montreal, M. de Lamoignon, for the purpose of raising a
convoy for Montreal under M. de Maisonneuve. Thus, in all, this good
lady had contributed 42,000 towards the 75,000 _livres_ for the new
expedition of 115 men provided by the Company. The letter then informed
Mademoiselle Mance that he would return the next year; meanwhile the
preparations would be hastened.
With this good news Jeanne Mance returned as soon as possible to
Montreal. New hope was thus infused into the settlement. On July 29th,
however, the state of hostilities is again revealed to us by the record
of the brave exploit of Martine Messier, the wife of Antoine Primot.
Three Iroquois, who had hidden themselves in the wheat at a distance
of two musket shots from the fort, fell upon her unexpectedly. She
defended herself like a lioness, fighting with her hands and feet. To
quell her loud cries for help they gave her three or four stunning
blows with their axes. Thinking her dead, as she sank to the ground,
one of them threw himself over the prostrate body to take her scalp
as his trophy, when suddenly our Amazon, coming to herself, raised
herself, more furious than ever, seized him with such violence "par un
endroit que la pudeur nous défend de nommer," that he could not free
himself, although he did not cease striking her with the head of the
axe. But she held on tightly, until at last she fell to the ground
exhausted, thus affording her assailant what he most wanted at that
moment, an opportunity to escape from the relief party now running from
all parts of the fort to her rescue.
On reaching the spot where the poor woman lay bathed in her blood,
one of the men assisting her to rise, moved by a natural sentiment of
friendship and compassion, embraced her. But this seems to have made
her confused, for she administered a sound slap in the face of this
affectionate sympathizer, to the great surprise of the bystanders, who
exclaimed: "What are you doing? This man was only showing his sympathy
to you, without any thought of ill. Why do you strike him?"
"Par menda!" she exclaimed in her _patois_. "I thought he wanted to
kiss me!"
Madame Primot did not die, but she was long afterwards known as
"Parmenda," whose valour and modesty were lovingly held in tradition,
as typical of the noble women of these early pioneering days, in which
virtue and courage flourished side by side.
[Illustration: "PARMENDA"
(By Philippe Hébert.)]
The severe treatment received at Montreal turned the Iroquois to Three
Rivers, and in a skirmish on August 19th they killed the governor, M.
Duplessis Kerbodot.
In October, however, Montreal was the scene of fresh fighting. Dollier
de Casson has rescued the story of this from oblivion, from so many
others not recorded.
On the 19th of this month, the barking of the dogs indicated the
direction of an Iroquois ambuscade. The brave town major, Lambert
Closse, ever ready to fly to the post of peril, started out at once
with twenty-four armed men to reconnoitre the situation. But though
brave, he was prudent; he therefore sent three of his soldiers ahead.
La Lochetière,[69] Baston (or Bastoin) and another, ordering them to
proceed within gunshot no further than a certain position marked out by
him. La Lochetière, however, in his eagerness pushed a little ahead of
his companions, and the more easily to discover the whereabouts of the
enemy, he climbed a tree, intending to discover from this lookout if
the enemy were hiding in a thicket.
But, without him knowing it, there was an ambush of them at the foot
of the tree, and as soon as he had climbed it they raised their usual
war cry, and were about to fire on him. No less alert than brave, La
Lochetière seized his musket, fired straight at one of them, who was
aiming at himself, killing his man, but paying the penalty of death
at the same instant from his victim's gun. The other two scouts also
received a volley, from which they were lucky to escape.
Major Chase quickly put his men in order, but, finding his party
surrounded, he directed them to make a rush to a wretched shack near
at hand, belonging to an old settler, M. Prud'homme, who had eagerly
invited them to enter as quickly as possible, for the enemy were
surrounding it. This done, the party made loopholes in the walls for
their guns and prepared to open a brisk fire on the besiegers--all
except one coward, who, falling flat on the ground, could not be
induced by threats or blows to rise. But the Iroquois were now firing
at close quarters all around the house and their balls riddled the
scanty walls so that one of them struck Laviolette, one of the fighters
of the fort, completely disabling him. The loopholes now being ready,
the French party answered the Iroquois with such effect that after
the first rounds the ground was strewn with the dusky bodies of the
slain. The hurly-burly went on, the Iroquois fighting while they
attempted to carry away their wounded and dead, until, fearing a dearth
of ammunition, Major Closse was only too glad to accept the offer of
Baston, whose prowess as a runner was well known, to make a dash to the
fort and bring back a reinforcement of men.
Accordingly, under cover of the fire of the defenders of the house, the
door was opened and Baston, speeding forth, escaped while the Iroquois
were recovering from this last fusillade.
Soon he returned with eight or ten men, all that could be spared, and
two pieces of cannon charged with canister shot. Between the scene of
battle and the fort there was a screen of trees under cover of which
the reinforcement made its way and thus escaped the attention of the
savages till it suddenly appeared in view on this side of the screen
and commenced firing on the Iroquois. Major Closse's party now went
into the open to join fire also and a brisk and hot interchange took
place. But the enemy were being overmastered and made their best to
retreat, carrying with them their dead as far as possible, according to
their custom. Dollier de Casson does not give the number of the enemy
slain. "Usually," he says, "they decimated their losses, but, speaking
of this occasion, they owned that 'we all died there.'"
M. de Belmont in his history states that more than fifty of the
Iroquois were wounded and twenty killed. On the French side the only
one killed was La Lochetière, and one wounded, Laviolette.
This was only one of the brave actions which surrounded the fame of the
warlike Lambert Closse as revealed in the early chronicles.
[Illustration: LAMBERT CLOSSE
(By Philippe Hébert)]
Thus the fort of Montreal was the scene of many such conflicts,
unassisted by the "camp volant," which de Lauson had suppressed in
1652. Père Mercier, in his "Relations of the Year 1653," writes:
"There has passed no month of the year in which the Iroquois have not
stealthily visited Ville Marie, attempting to surprise it. But they
have had no great success. The settlers have assisted one another with
so much determination and courage that as soon as a gunshot is heard
in any direction, they run thither quickly, without any dread of the
dangers besetting them."
At Quebec, it was announced that Montreal had been blotted out.
In the spring of 1653 the governor of Quebec, anxious for news of
this advanced post, had sent a barque thither, giving the commander
instructions that he should not approach the fort, unless he had
proof certain that the French were there, adding that if he did not
see any, he was to come back to Quebec, for fear that the Iroquois,
having captured Ville Marie, might be lying in ambush to capture them
also. The barque advanced near the fort in a dense fog, and anchored.
But seeing no one and hearing no signal, they obeyed their instructions
literally enough, and went back to Quebec with the dire tale of the
destruction of the French colonists. The wiseacres no doubt said that
the inevitable had occurred at last.
Meanwhile in the fort, the keen-eyed had seen the vague outline of a
vessel, but others said it was a phantom of the imagination, and when
later the mist rolled away and they saw no ship, these were satisfied
with their diagnosis until news came later from Quebec that it was a
veritable vessel after all.
In this abandoned state, we are told by the chroniclers how the
Montrealers, under the direction of the Jesuits of the fort, earnestly
prayed for peace.
As if in answer to their petition, on June 26, 1653, an embassy of
sixty Iroquois of the nation of the Onondagas (Onontaquis) appeared
at the fort with a proposal of peace. As they came unarmed, they were
treated kindly, presents were exchanged, and the day was one of public
rejoicing. On returning to their country, passing by the village of the
Oneidas (Onneyuts), they exhibited their presents and spoke in high
praise of the French of Montreal. "They are devils when attacked,"
they said, "but most courteous and affable when treated as friends."
And they protested that they were about to enter into a firm and solid
alliance with them. Touched by these discourses, the Oneida Iroquois
(Onneyuts) would also enter into an alliance with Montreal, and they
sent an embassy with a great porcelain necklace, asking for peace,
which was concluded. But there were three others of the Five Nations
who had not made peace, for though they were allied amongst themselves
they reserved their independence. These were the Mohawks (Agniers), the
Senecas (the Tsonnoutouans), and the Cayugas (Gogogouins).
Three weeks after this, 600 Mohawks marched on Montreal. We have no
records of this attack, but they retired to Three Rivers to seize the
port there. Quebec now also trembled for itself, and it was at this
time that de Lauson reestablished the "camp volant." In September of
this year peace was again concluded, for a time, between the French and
the Iroquois. As Montreal had a large share in bringing this about we
must relate the following circumstances leading to it.
At the time of the descent, of the Iroquois above mentioned, on
Montreal, there was present in the fort a band of Hurons, and among
them one, the bravest of all, named Anontaha. On one occasion these
Hurons had discovered the tracks of a party of lurking Iroquois
meditating mischief for Montreal. They combined with the French
and on August 25th they surrounded the Iroquois, and after a sharp
struggle beat them off, leading four or five Iroquois chiefs, or men of
importance, to the fort. These captives told of the projected raids of
extermination on Three Rivers and Quebec. The acting governor, knowing
of the importance of these Iroquois in the camp, called a meeting of
his counsellors, and it was determined that Charles Le Moyne, the
interpreter, should persuade Anontaha to go to Three Rivers and parley
for peace with the Iroquois, offering to hand them over their chiefs
in captivity in Montreal. This was done on August 24th and peace was
concluded later. Dollier de Casson says of this: "Finally there was
made a sudden patched-up peace in which our enemies acquiesced, solely
to regain their own people and to have an opportunity of surprising us
later. We well knew their rascally motives, but, as they were stronger
than we, we accepted their conditions, 'et en passions par là où ils
voulaient.'"
Thus ended the second Iroquois war.
FOOTNOTE:
[69] The parish register gives Etienne Thibault. The Abbé Faillon reads
Etienne Thibault dit La Lochetière. (Massicotte gives the date as
October 14.)
CHAPTER IX
1653-4
THE SECOND FOUNDATION OF MONTREAL
THE GREAT REINFORCEMENT OF 1653
MAISONNEUVE RETURNS WITH A RELIEF FORCE--THE MONTREAL CONTINGENT
THE SAVIOURS OF CANADA--THE ORIGIN AND TRADES OF THE NEW
COLONISTS--MARGUERITE BOURGEOYS, THE FIRST SCHOOLMISTRESS,
ARRIVES--HER CALL--SHIP FEVER--ARRIVAL AT QUEBEC--THE GOVERNOR
OF QUEBEC WOULD RETAIN THE RELIEF CONTINGENT--MAISONNEUVE
FIRM FOR MONTREAL--THE WORK OF CONSOLIDATING THE ENLARGED
COLONY AT VILLE MARIE--BUILDING ACTIVITIES--AGRICULTURAL AND
INDUSTRIAL OCCUPATIONS--MARRIAGE CONTRACTS--JEANNE MANCE AND
MARGUERITE BOURGEOYS, THE MOTHERS OF THE SETTLEMENT--THE KNIGHTLY
MAISONNEUVE, A "_Chevalier sans reproche_"--THE MILITARY
CONFRATERNITY--THE MOUNTAIN CROSS REPLACED--MEDICAL CONTRACTS--THE
GOVERNMENT OF MONTREAL--THE ELECTION OF A SYNDIC--THE "NEW"
CEMETERY--THE NEW "PARISH" CHURCH--THE MARRIAGE OF CHARLES LE
MOYNE WITH CATHERINE PRIMOT--A RARE SCANDAL--THE PRIMITIVE FERVOUR
STILL MAINTAINED.
The arrival of M. de Maisonneuve's expedition was eagerly awaited by
the whole French colony of Canada. For the addition of newcomers, men
able to bear arms, meant more resources against the common enemy, and
consequently surer stability for the whole French population.
The picture presented at this period of war is distressing. Montreal
was a besieged fortress; Three Rivers similarly, and the Town of Quebec
was described, on the arrival of de Maisonneuve, as only holding five
or six houses in Upper Town, while in the Lower there were only the
storehouses of the Jesuits and that of Montreal. The "Relation" of 1653
says "that the store of Montreal has not bought a single beaver skin
for a year. At Three Rivers, the little sold has gone to strengthen
the fortifications. At Quebec, there is only poverty." Thus there was
extreme discontent through inability to pay private debts or those due
to the government for the upkeep of the colony, which by the cession
of the trading rights to the people now devolved upon them and not on
the great Company. Thus they looked for a continuation of the peace
just declared and a return to trade. It was hoped that Maisonneuve's
contingent would make for both. Consequently it was with great joy and
a solemn _Te Deum_ in the church that its arrival at Quebec was hailed
on September 22nd. The governor of Montreal and his new colonists were
the saviours of the country!
We may now briefly relate the history of the organization of this
relief force. When de Maisonneuve had made sure of the necessary funds,
he proceeded with M. de la Dauversière, the procurator of the Company
of Montreal, to gather the right men. They must be young, brave, have
a trade, be of irreproachable morals, and able to bear arms; in other
words, be ready to help to found and organize a settlement, and put up
with the variety of trying difficulties incidental to such a dangerous
pioneering outpost. These men were hired for the work, and they
guaranteed their services to the Company for five years at Montreal,
on the condition of being fed and lodged, in addition to wages paid
them, besides being provided with tools, etc., for the exercise of
their callings. After the five years expired, they might return to
France at the expense of the Company. These were recruited from
Picardy, Champagne, Normandy, L'Ile de France, Touraine, Burgundy, but
principally from Maine and Anjou, and especially from the neighbourhood
of La Flèche, the home of M. de la Dauversière.
We are able to locate the origin and point out the profession of
nearly each one of those coming with Maisonneuve's force, since we
have the old original acts of Notary Lafousse, of La Flèche, giving
the contracts between 118 of the men and the agents of the Company
of Montreal, signed during the course of March, April and May of
1653. There were 38 others who signed in other places, making the
total, according to Faillon, of 154, all able to bear arms. Of these,
some deserted, some died on the passage out, and, according to M. de
Belmont, only 105 reached Montreal.[70] But these were all picked men
and chosen with care; there were three surgeons, three millers, two
bakers, a brewer, a cooper, a coppersmith, a pastry cook, four weavers,
a tailor, a hatter, three shoemakers, a maker of sabots, a cutler, two
armourers, three masons, a stonecutter, four tilers, nine carpenters,
two joiners, an edgetool maker, a nail maker, a saw maker, a paviour,
two gardeners, a farrier, sixty tillers or labourers for cultivating
the soil, of whom several were sawyers, etc.
The absence of womankind is noticeable in this list, but a few ladies
were provided for the settlement in this way. Before the day for the
departure, fixed for June 20, 1653, de Maisonneuve visited his sisters,
Madame de Chuly and la Soeur Louise de Ste. Marie, who both lived
at Troyes, the latter being a nun of the Congregation of Notre-Dame
there, to bid them adieu. It will be remembered that the good nuns of
Troyes were very anxious to emulate the example of the Ursulines of
Quebec by sending representatives of their order to Montreal to found
an establishment there. De Maisonneuve had promised to make use of
their offer of services, when the time should be ready, but no one who
has followed the story of the chequered days of the city so far, will
blame the governor of Montreal for still refusing to receive as yet a
cloistered nunnery in his beleaguered fort. But there happened to be
a young woman of thirty-three years of age then living with Madame de
Chuly at Troyes, a lay woman belonging to a pious association under the
direction of the Sisters of the Congregation, who had long heard of the
thrilling story of the doings at Ville Marie from Madame de Chuly and
the ladies of the convent. She had, indeed, communicated her idea to
de Maisonneuve's sister, of devoting herself to the work in Montreal,
so that Marguerite Bourgeoys, as was her name, had been promised to be
received into their institute when they should realize their project of
going to Canada.
It was then, in the convent _parloir_, that the good nuns introduced
this young person to de Maisonneuve, who doubtless asked her kindly,
gravely and courteously, if she dared brave the ocean and live in a
little settlement among rough soldiers and teach school to little
Indian children of the forests, and make Christians of them, and thus
do good work for God. Needless to say his offer was accepted. All
necessary permissions were granted,[71] but Marguerite momentarily
hesitated to give herself to the conduct of a strange gentleman whom
she had only met on this occasion.
"Fear not, my child," was the reply of her spiritual adviser, who knew
the integrity of the upright governor. "Put yourself in his hands as
into those of one of the first knights of the Queen of Angels. Go to
Ville Marie with all confidence."
Thus she arrived at St. Nazaire, the port of departure, near Nantes;
but to her great surprise and pleasure she found a small group of her
own sex to accompany her on the voyage--several young girls, and one or
two married women accompanying their husbands. The expedition started
on June 20th in the Saint Nicholas de Nantes, and barely had it made
150 leagues on its way than it was found necessary to put back to St.
Nazaire, for the ship's timbers were rotten and she made water fast.
At first it was thought, with so many hands on board, that by working
at the pumps they could proceed, there being then over one hundred men
of the Montreal party. But "having turned back at last, when they were
nearing land they would have perished," says Marguerite Bourgeoys,
"without the succour which, by the grace of God, the people of this
place (St. Nazaire) gave us."
In the Annals of the Hôtel-Dieu, an instance is related as occurring
on this voyage which illustrates the character of simplicity of M.
de Maisonneuve, with whom Marguerite Bourgeoys was now to become
acquainted. Madame de Chuly had taken care to provide her brother
with a wardrobe of very fine linen and such lace work as gentlemen of
position then wore. It happened that a few days after the ship had set
sail, the package which Marguerite Bourgeoys had made of these was
swept into the sea and, despite all her efforts, she was unable to
recover it.
Not knowing M. de Maisonneuve's character, and fearing that this loss,
which could not be repaired in Canada, might grieve a gentleman of
fashion such as she considered M. de Maisonneuve might be, she told
him of the misfortune with great apprehension, but to her relief the
governor of Montreal made light of it, laughingly remarking that
"both he and she were well rid of the care of such vanities." Later
Marguerite Bourgeoys was to learn of his extreme simplicity in all that
surrounded his private life.
Marguerite tells how M. de Maisonneuve on putting back to St. Nazaire
placed all his soldiers on a small island nearby to prevent them from
deserting, for they now feared the journey, having become excited and
alarmed and believing "they were being led to perdition." Some of them
threw themselves into the waves to escape. Another ship was chartered,
and set sail on July 20th, taking up the men from the island. But
soon fresh disaster--"ship" fever--broke out and many were laid low.
In these days of commodious sailing in a well appointed and sanitary
steamer that takes less than a week to come from Europe to Canada we
do not realize sufficiently the hardships of the early immigrant days.
This voyage took two months; the ship, maybe, a crazy tub of a sailing
vessel--the overcrowded accommodation of the most primitive order;
the provisions of the coarsest kind, and water scarce. Can we wonder
that before the journey ended we learn that out of the 113 men hired
by the Company of Montreal, eight had died? We may well imagine the
great grief of de Maisonneuve, for every man to him was a cherished
possession.
This period brought out the sterling character of Marguerite Bourgeoys,
who undertook the care of the nursing. Throughout the sickness she was
indefatigable, taking the men their meals, assisting the surgeons,
preparing the men for death, and nursing the others into convalescence.
Night and day she was lavish of her charity. It is related that she
would not accept a place with de Maisonneuve's party at table, but
would take her food and whatever delicacies there might be given by
them to distribute among the sufferers, while she herself was satisfied
with the common rations, and scarce portions at that.
Her zeal knew no relaxation, for, whether in sickness or in health, the
soldiers welcomed her as their nurse, their friend, their instructress,
their leader at the morning and night prayers, and singing and
spiritual reading. Thus she laid the foundations of that lasting
respect which the men of Montreal ever had for her.
At last the hoped-for recruitment reached the enfeebled garrison of
Quebec on September 22nd. There was Mademoiselle Jeanne Mance awaiting
the vessel to receive M. de Maisonneuve, to tell him of the perilous
fate of Montreal and to hear from him all the news of the good things
in store for it, for she was keen to hurry back to carry the glad
tidings thither.
We can imagine the courtly Maisonneuve now introducing to the lady of
the Hôtel-Dieu the new assistant that she was to have in the care and
training of the young of Montreal, Marguerite Bourgeoys of Troyes, whom
she would find of good sense and kindly heart, a virtuous and excellent
companion, and a powerful aid for the good work in the settlement. Thus
began an enduring friendship between these noble women.
It will be noticed that at this second foundation of Montreal, which
is now about to begin, history repeats itself. M. de Lauson, seeing
Quebec in its own dire necessity of defenders, would now prevent M.
de Maisonneuve from taking his convoy up country. But the governor of
Montreal firmly insisted on carrying out the project and he would not
leave behind him a single man of those who had cost the Company of
Montreal so much.
Moreover, Maisonneuve had a _lettre de cachet_ which the King, Louis
XIV, had granted the Company of Montreal on April 8, 1653, in which
he approved of the renewed appointment of Maisonneuve as governor,
giving him all power to continue the establishment of the settlement at
Montreal.
Thus silenced, the governor of Quebec could only resist by refusing
to provide transportation facilities by river. Thus it was that the
necessity of obtaining boats delayed Maisonneuve at Quebec for a
month. Meanwhile Marguerite nursed those still sick from the voyage
and presided over the distribution of the stores and the provisions as
Jeanne Mance had done in 1641.
It was during this time that the Ursulines of Quebec made overtures
to her to join their party; thus they thought that they might have a
branch establishment in Montreal.[72] But the future schoolmistress of
Montreal already saw her own vocation clearly before her. At length
the boats were ready and Maisonneuve sailed, last of all, with the
satisfaction of seeing that he did not leave one of his men behind him.
Ville Marie was reached on November 16, 1653.
On reaching Montreal, de Maisonneuve set about the work of
consolidating his colony. The elements he had chosen in his contingent
of 105 men, who, together with those already on the ground, formed
the nucleus of his future city, had in them the potentialities of a
well-constituted and progressive civic society. They were of different
trades, so that mutual help of a diversified nature could be given,
albeit they were all soldiers in that they each bore arms, ready to
build up the City of God, even as the builders of the temple of old had
gone about their work with trowel in one hand and sword in the other.
He found his men, whom the hardships of the journey may have daunted,
now enthusiastic for the ideal Christian life opening up to them and
disposed to make a permanent home with him. Consequently, in the course
of December they were ready to listen at the Sunday services, in the
fort chapel, to his overtures, made in the public announcements before
the sermon, stating the terms on which those that were willing to
forego their contract of remaining only for five years and then being
taken back to France, might be encouraged to build their permanent
homes and take up land.
The governor's intention was to induce them to abandon the advances
of money made in France, and later, on their arrival in Canada, on
condition of building their houses on an arpent of land granted on the
site chosen for the town and cultivating thirty acres on the slopes
of St. Louis or St. Joseph, in the vicinity, with the additional
consideration of a certain sum of money to provide the means to settle,
the latter sum being forfeited if they should ever quit the Island of
Montreal.
On the first day of January, 1654, André Demers thus received 400
_livres_ and two days afterwards Jean des Carris and Jean Le Duc
received 900 on the above promise, soon to be followed in the same
month and that of February by many others on similar terms. These sums
may seem modest, but it was an age of simplicity and they were adequate.
The wooden homes the settlers built on their one arpent were of the
simplest, and on the arrival of the last immigration there was much
activity in felling and carpentering. They assisted one another in
building their little houses of thirty feet, and the bachelors lived
in common till they had built their own homes or "shacks," as the
contracts prove.
The number of houses outside the fort began to grow. M. de Maisonneuve
increased the buildings of the hospital, and Jeanne Mance went back
to live there, protected from the Iroquois attacks by two redoubts he
had constructed hard by, in which were placed two pieces of cannon and
other artillery. The houses of the _habitants_ were built detached from
one another, but clustered, facing one another for mutual protection.
In the walls they had loopholes made so that each home was a fortress
with armed men inside. By 1659 there were about forty of these. The
fort began to be abandoned. Repairs were neglected on the bastions,
already battered by the ice shoves. Soon it sheltered the governor, the
d'Ailleboust family, the town major and his ordinary garrison, and some
others, among whom was Marguerite Bourgeoys.
The lands cultivated were mostly on the St. Louis slopes, and to
protect them Maisonneuve built a redoubt of twenty feet square and
sixteen in height, with a chimney. In 1654 he built another in this
section and gave the workers an indemnity of 300 _livres_.
All were very busy at their trades, for everything now had to be made
"in Canada." No one disdained manual labor, following the example of
the governor and d'Ailleboust and others, such as the town major,
Lambert Closse; Charles Le Moyne, interpreter and storekeeper for the
Company; the Notary Saint Père. Gilbert Barbier, the carpenter, who
was now dignified as fiscal procurator and justice of the peace, had
a busy time superintending and lending a hand to the rapidly arising
homesteads.
On their side, the women were not less engaged, baking the bread and
preparing the meals, combing the wool, spinning and weaving and making
the simple garments. Thirteen years later, when Marguerite Bourgeoys
formed her first community of two helpers, Marie Barbier, daughter of
Gilbert, the first Canadian girl to be received into the Congregation
of Notre-Dame of Montreal, could be seen in her religious habit going
to and from the pasturage grounds of the common, leading the cattle
and often bearing on her shoulders the flour which she had previously
taken as wheat to be ground at the mill. In similar attire could have
been seen Sister Crolo, tending the farm. And when not thus occupied,
Marguerite Bourgeoys and her companions were busy sewing and cutting,
to clothe the women and natives.
But in 1654 Marguerite Bourgeoys, the future schoolmistress, had not
gathered her community together, and she was not overburdened in this
office, for there was only one French girl, Jeanne Loisel, who, born
in Montreal on July 21, 1649, was now about 4-1/2 years of age. This
girl, who remained with Marguerite Bourgeoys till she was married, was
the first child to live to any age. For hitherto all that had been
born had died in their tender years. One child, the adopted daughter
of Parmenda, who had been born a year before coming to Montreal, had,
however, prospered, and she was shortly to be married, as we shall see.
The contracts of marriage, preserved in the city archives of this
period, gave an insight in the life of the time. The contract of
marriage of Louis Prud'homme with Roberte Gadois reveals that her
father gave his daughter, besides the sum of 500 _livres_, a complete
bed, fifty ells of silk, a cow and its calf, six dishes, six plates and
a pewter pot--luxuries in these primitive times.[73]
In a contract of the year 1650, we find that the bridegroom, of
well-to-do means, as a gift to his bride, gave, in his marriage
settlement, the sum of fifty to sixty _livres_ and his residence in
his principal house; and on her part she would bring her dowry of 500
_livres_.
Up to 1654 there had been only ten marriages between the French
settlers, the first having taken place in 1647, after the return of
Maisonneuve on his first visit to France, when he brought with him for
this purpose "some virtuous young women." Marriages flourished again
in 1650, when Jeanne Mance also returned with some eligible partners.
We find in November of this year that Louis Prud'homme, of whom we
have spoken, married Roberte Gadois; and Gilbert Barbier, Catherine de
Lavaux. In 1651 the notary, Jean Saint Père, married Maturine Godé,
the daughter of Nicholas Godé, whose family came over with Maisonneuve
at the first foundation of Montreal. On the occasion of his marriage,
in recompense "for his good and faithful service rendered during eight
years," Maisonneuve, in addition to the gift of forty arpents, promised
him six arpents of land, to be cultivated by him, meanwhile granting
him the enjoyment of six others already tilled near to the fort.
In 1654 there were naturally more marriages, and thirteen are therefore
registered. Of these early marriages, especially of this year, there
are many descendants still living.
Thus for some time Marguerite Bourgeoys, with the exception of Jeanne
Loisel, would have to exercise her care with Jeanne Mance in assisting
the newly-born children, visiting the sick, consoling the afflicted,
washing the linen or mending the clothing of the poor and the soldiers,
burying the dead and following the call of self-sacrifice everywhere.
Otherwise she dwelt within the fort with M. de Maisonneuve, looking
after his domestic arrangements, in a position of friendship and trust
but not of domestic service. Indeed, with Jeanne Mance she became his
wise adviser, for both seemed to have been largely consulted in the
affairs of the settlement.
It will be remembered that Marguerite Bourgeoys, who had taken a vow of
perpetual chastity in France, had been heard to place herself in the
hands of M. de Maisonneuve as in those of "one of the first Chevaliers
of the Angels."
Scrutiny into the life of de Maisonneuve, a "chevalier sans reproche,"
reveals us a singularly pure character. About this time the governor
had doubts whether he should take a wife, but, not feeling himself
called to the married state, he took, according to custom of the time,
a vow of virginity, so that his biographers speak of him as being a
religious without the habit. He was a man of prayer and devoted to
duty, sincere, unaffected and unostentatious, seeking neither praise
nor flattery, and undepressed by slights and contradictions. His life
ideals were high and saintly, and his whole conduct was that of a
Christian knight, a model to all under him. His household was simply
furnished; his table was frugal; he had only one servant, and this
man was the cook and general servant. In his dress ordinarily he
followed the habits of the people, wearing the _tuque_, or _capot_, and
grey tunic which have come down to us in some of the costumes of the
snowshoe clubs of Montreal of today. Yet, not unmindful of his dignity
as governor, on important occasions he would be habited as fitting his
rank as a soldier and a gentleman.
He never strove to make his post serve to increase his fortune,
although, like his lieutenants, he could have legitimately traded in
peltry, then beginning to be very profitable. He seems rather to have
embraced the "Lady Poverty" and to have been singularly unselfish
and altruistic. Dollier de Casson tells us, as an example of his
magnanimity and generosity, how, ever ready to recompense the good
actions of his soldiers, he would deprive himself of his provisions,
even those on his own table, to give them away. "On one occasion," says
this historian, "when the savages came to trade at this place, noticing
that one of his soldiers who had often given proofs of courage against
the enemy was in extreme depression, and having found out on enquiry
that it was caused by having nothing to trade with the Indians who
were then here, he thereupon led him into his own room, and, since the
man was a tailor, gave him all the cloth stuffs he could find, even to
the curtains of his bed, to make into wearing apparel which he might
sell to the Indians." Thus he sent the young soldier away happy. Such
generosity endeared him to his men.
The military organization of Montreal may be said to have become
solidified this year. For hitherto, beyond readiness to respond to the
call to arms, the soldier's sense of duty and _esprit de corps_ had not
been cultivated.
The governor took this work of formation into his own hands and
chose sixty-three of his most devoted men and erected a military
confraternity with the title of the "Soldiers of the Blessed Virgin."
He was proud to command these himself. These met in religious meetings
and the knightly de Maisonneuve would address them with glowing
words of encouragement to acquit themselves like good Christians and
soldiers. These were the governor's guard of honour, which came into
prominence whenever there was a great religious ceremony or civil
function, such as the reception of a distinguished visitor to the
island.
During the week, each of these in turn had the duty of sentinel,
parading the fields, on the lookout for traces of the dreaded Iroquois.
To be selected one of this military order was a high favour. One of
the privileges of this guard of honour was to escort Mademoiselle
Bourgeoys, shortly after her arrival, to the mountain to visit the
cross placed there by de Maisonneuve in 1642, but now found to have
been destroyed by the Iroquois in the recent war. It was immediately
replanted, under her direction, by Gilbert Barbier and four other men,
who placed a palisading around it. This monument was the Mecca of
pilgrimages until the occupation by the British in 1760.
The necessity of providing themselves with the needful and
indispensable objects of life stimulated the industry and inventiveness
of all, so that each man fulfilled many rôles. In addition, the spirit
of enterprise and initiative was encouraged by the cancellation of
their contracts made with the Company in France for mostly all now were
independent workers, anxious to make good for their own interests.
Still the Company had the onus of providing the public works, and the
contracts of this period show that it paid just salaries for services
rendered.
We have an insight into the medical history of the city in a contract
made by the first surgeon, Etienne Bouchard, on March 30, 1655, with
twenty-six families to treat them regularly for a certain sum. To
these were shortly added others to the number, in all, of forty-six.
This shows that the cancellation of the original contract, by which
the surgeon was appointed to give free medical treatment to all the
inhabitants, was a consequence of the new order of things.
The government of the settlement was very simple. Besides the governor,
there was a fiscal procurator or treasurer, a public notary, a keeper
of the storehouse of the Company, and a syndic.
The last named office was first filled in 1644, when Louis XIV gave
the Company of Montreal the right to erect a corporation. The syndic
was elected by a plurality of votes from the inhabitants themselves to
represent their interest and thus became a tribune of the people. He
had the privilege with those of Quebec and Three Rivers of assisting
at the election of the two councillors (or three in the absence of the
governor), who were chosen to compose the General Council of Nouvelle
France, with the governor general and the ecclesiastical superior, for
the time being, in Canada. They were even privileged to represent the
interests of their corporation at the council meetings and to have a
"voix délibérative" in these same matters.
By a royal act of 1647 the syndics could only be appointed for three
years, and by another of 1648 they could not negotiate any loan for
their corporations without the express sanction of the council at
Quebec, under pain of nullity, damages and interests incurred by the
syndics themselves.
The election of a syndic was a simple matter at Montreal. The
inhabitants had first to get the leave of the governor to call a
meeting. The public notary employed by the Company called this and
presided. Placing before the electors the names of likely persons for
the office, he called upon them to subscribe their names or their
marks to the candidate of their choice. On the votes being counted,
the person elected might refuse the honour, but the spirit of civic
duty always prompted him to respond to the call. He then promised to
discharge his duties faithfully, and the retiring syndic would hand
over to his successor the care of the documents of the corporation,
the contracts of property, etc., and other titles such as that already
granted to the syndic for the people in 1651, when forty arpents were
given over to them for a "common."
In the year 1654 it would have been the syndic who received the grant
made to the corporation by the governor on behalf of the Seigneurs of
Montreal, of land for the new cemetery, given on the condition that if
this changed its place, it should revert to the Seigneurs.
The little cemetery, in which for twelve years the first brave
defenders of the Castle Dangerous of Montreal had been buried, had
this year to be abandoned and the bodies removed to higher ground, for
the constant floods of the St. Lawrence had sadly ill used the little
palisaded God's acre at "the Point," or the corner of the junction of
the rivulet St. Pierre and the main stream.
The "new cemetery," as it was called in the burial register on the date
December 11, 1654, was placed on a portion of the ground belonging
to the Hôtel-Dieu, bun above the latter, at a point today occupied
by the southern portion of the Place d'Armes and the piazza steps of
Notre Dame Church. It was at the head of what was the second street or
tract called St. Joseph Street, and nowadays St. Sulpice, while at the
bottom, at the southwest corner bounded by St. Paul Street, was the
Hôtel-Dieu. This cemetery was used for the next twenty-four years.[74]
The expense of these changes was borne by the parishioners and not by
the Company--another sign of the times. We know this, for the salaries
paid are still to be seen in the original document in which it is
recorded that Gilbert Barbier, the carpenter who erected the cross,
gave the half of his salary as a contribution, to the church.
The church towards which Gilbert Barbier gave his donation was probably
not the mission chapel which had been so long the centre of parish life
and piety in the fort itself, but towards a new one that already, on
June 29th of this year, had been determined on to be started as soon as
possible owing to the increase of population from the reinforcement of
1653.
On this day, the feast of SS. Peter and Paul, the syndic had called
a meeting of the habitants in the presence of the governor, when
Jean Saint Père was elected by a majority of votes to act as the
"receiver of alms," or treasurer for funds for a new church. He was to
keep account of all sums given to him, with the names of the donors
and should furnish a financial statement every three months to the
governor. In addition it was ruled that all donations in grain, or in
kind, subject to deterioration, should be sold by the treasurer to the
highest bidder, provided that the auction should be publicly announced
by a notice affixed to the fort gate three days in advance of the sale.
Finally, the treasurer should hand over the sums received by him, when
required, to the director of the church building to be erected by the
citizens in the presence of the governor when there shall be need for
such an appointment. Besides the private donations M. de Maisonneuve,
as the administrator of justice, applied the court fines to the church
fund.
But it was not till August 28, 1656, that the foundations of the new
church were laid. In the meantime the people still worshiped in the
fort chapel, now become too small for its increased population through
the recent influx of the troops of soldiers and the women. It had
many dear memories symbolized by the baptisms, marriages and deaths,
and the feasts and festivals of the year. At its services the Jesuit
missionaries, such as Isaac Jogues, Poncet, Buteaux and others, had
officiated with mutilated limbs, a living instance of the ever brooding
presence of the revengeful Iroquois.[75] In this little mission chapel
many a prayer had gone forth for the relief which tardily came.
But it was too small and must give place to another--a real parish
church, large, dignified and commodious, to meet the needs of the
expanding corporation. The cherished decorations and the altar
furniture and plate, which were gifts from rich friends in France,
would still be a link between the old and the new, and thus its memory
would be kept forever green.
The old chapel church still continued its work. It witnessed, on May
28th of the year following, 1654, the marriage of Charles Le Moyne with
the adopted daughter of Antoine Primot and Martine Mercier, his wife,
whom we know as the valiant and chaste Parmenda. This girl, Catherine
Thierry, probably a niece of Madame Primot, had been brought as a
child of one year to Montreal in 1642, and she was commonly known as
Catherine Primot and was now fourteen years of age. This union begot
the famous Le Moyne family. Their first home was on the arpent town
lot near the hospital. On February 3rd the fort chapel witnessed the
marriage of Jean Gervaise and Anne Archambault, who also reared one of
the most numerous and honourable families of Montreal. This was the
fourth marriage of the thirteen occurring this year.
The history of Anne Archambault gives us an insight into one of the
few scandals of the time. This was Anne's second marriage, having
been married before the church in Quebec in July, 1647, to a Michel
Chauvin, _dit_ Ste Suzanne who had been sent out by de la Dauversière
to Montreal in the service of the Company in 1644.
In 1650 Louis Prud'homme, of whom we have made mention already, had
on a voyage to France discovered that Chauvin had deserted his wife,
and on returning to Montreal he had notified the authorities, so that
on October 8, 1650, Chauvin acknowledged freely before Jean Saint
Père, the official notary of justice, that some seven years before
leaving France for Canada he had married Louise de Liles. He then
hurriedly departed for Quebec and took the first boat back to France.
Anne Archambault had one child by this scoundrel, born on April
5th following. To sympathize with her Jeanne Mance and M. Charles
d'Ailleboust des Musseaux were the godparents.
To the great joy of the colony, Anne Archambault was honourably
remarried on February 3, 1654, to Jean Gervaise, one of the recruits
brought over by de Maisonneuve in the previous autumn. The esteem of
the public was manifested to offset the unaccustomed scandal that had
arisen in their midst. One child, Charlotte Chauvin, was reared by
these two and for this purpose the governor gave special assistance on
behalf of the Company. At this time there were also several orphans,
children of soldiers that had died in battle with the Iroquois, and for
these de Maisonneuve also provided.
Thus the spirit of fervour, charity and uprightness of morals was
exercised in the life of this primitive church of the settlement.
Sister Morin, in the Annals of the Hôtel-Dieu, writes of these early
times: "Nothing was put under key in these days, neither the houses,
chests, or cellars; everything was left open without anyone repenting
of their trustfulness. Those who were in easy circumstances hastened
to lend their assistance to others less fortunate, and gave it
spontaneously without waiting to be called upon, making it a pleasure
to forestall all needs and to give their marks of affection and esteem
to one another."
The words of Longfellow, written so long after, of Grandpré, the home
of Evangeline, might be well applied to Ville Marie at this date:
"Neither locks had they to their doors, nor bars to their windows;
But their dwellings were open as day, and the hearts of the owners.
There the richest were poor, and the poorest lived in abundance."
FOOTNOTES:
[70] How many of those hired sailed for Montreal? An unedited list
containing 102 names has lately been found in the archives of the
Seminary of St. Sulpice at Montreal by Mr. C. O. Bertrand, and has
been reproduced with notes by Mr. E. Z. Massicotte in the Canadian
Antiquarian and Numismatic Journal for October, 1913 (Third Series,
Vol. X). The original number of engagés, according to Faillon, taken
from the notarial contracts before Maître Lafousse at La Flèche,
was 154. But examination shows that, owing to several duplications,
this must be reduced to 150. Before sailing at St. Nazaire only 103,
according to Faillon, answered the call. But on the examination of
Faillon's list, it is seen that the number was 102, which corresponds
with the newly found list.
Marguerite Bourgeoys says that there were about 120 passengers, of whom
108 were "soldiers," as she calls the engagés. The Abbé de Belmont
gives 105 soldiers. Mr. Massicotte, from a study of the contracts of
marriages shortly after the arrival of the recruits of 1653 and other
sources, supplies the eighteen missing members thus: A married woman,
two single women, four men, M. de Maisonneuve, Marguerite Bourgeoys,
and nine others who are mentioned by the latter as "quelques filles,"
who were brought for marriageable purposes.
Marguerite Bourgeoys mentions that eight were buried at sea. Of the 102
in the list mentioned above, Mr. Massicotte finds eleven names that
never occur in any of the documents of the period at Montreal. Hence he
concludes that their owners never reached Montreal and that therefore
eight at least of them correspond to those that were buried in the
ocean.
[71] For she was now thirty-three years of age, having been born on
April 17, 1620, in the town of Troyes in Champagne. Her mother had died
when Marguerite was still young, and early she developed that motherly
thoughtfulness and mature judgment which fitted her later in the
settlement for her matronly solicitude for soldiers and children of the
fort at Montreal, as since her mother's death she had had the care of
her father's children. He, too, had lately died and she was now free to
follow a life of sacrifice.
[72] It was with the view of seeing the possibility of establishing
such a branch that Madame de la Peltrie had delayed in Montreal till
the spring of 1644.
[73] The simplicity of life in a pioneering settlement in New France
less than a century later can be more readily understood if we
but glance at the simple and severe customs prevailing in England
previously to this. It is related of Queen Elizabeth that in the
third year of her reign she received a present of knitted black silk
stockings, an unheard of thing hitherto; in 1588 she appeared, in
public, mounted on the crupper of her horse, behind her chamberlain,
for it was after this date that carriages came into vogue.
[74] The act of November 28th by Père Pijart mentions only "cemeterio,"
that is the old cemetery at Pointe à Callières. The act of December
11th, however, has clear mention of the change to the new cemetery.
"_In novo hospitalis Domus cemeterio Franciscus Lachot sepultus a me
Claudio Pijart, Societatis Jesu Sacerdote_"--In the new cemetery of the
hospital Francis Lachot was buried by me Claude Pijart, priest of the
Society of Jesus.
[75] Most of the earliest Jesuits had served them at least in passing
through, on their adventurous work of Christianizing the redskins of
Canada; of such Bancroft, the historian, has said: "Not a cape was
turned, not a river entered, but a Jesuit led the way."
CHAPTER X
1654-1657
IROQUOIS AND JESUITS
THE DEPARTURE OF THE JESUITS
RENEWAL OF HOSTILITIES IN THE SPRING--PEACE--WAMPUM NECKLACES
AND BELTS--MONTREAL HEADQUARTERS OF PEACE PARLEYS--AUTUMN
ATTACKS--"LA BARRIQUE"--MONTREAL LEFT SEVERELY ALONE--CHIEF
"LA GRANDE ARMES"--M. DE LAUSON PERSECUTING MONTREAL--THE
COMPLETION OF THE PARISH CHURCH--PENDING ECCLESIASTICAL
CHANGES IN MONTREAL--NOTES: BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES OF THE
EARLY JESUIT MISSIONARIES IN MONTREAL--PONCET--JOGUES--LE
MOYNE--BUTEAUX--DRUILLETTES--ALBANEL--LE JEUNE--PARKMAN'S ESTIMATE
OF THE SUCCESS OF THE JESUIT MISSIONS--DR. GRANT'S APPRECIATION OF
THEIR WORK.
The fictitious and temporary peace which had intervened when de
Maisonneuve arrived in the autumn of 1653, and had allowed the settlers
to resume the work of building their homes outside the fort, was
shortly to be broken.
Indeed, during the year just described there were not wanting
indications, early in the spring of 1654, of the renewal of
hostilities, when a young surgeon engaged in setting his beaver traps
was carried off in a canoe by the lurking Onondaga Indians. In the
beginning of May a band of the same Iroquois, who had not heard of
this act of perfidy, were well received when coming for trade and they
sent a canoe back for the stolen man. In the meantime, about seven
hundred Hurons descended to Montreal with thirteen Iroquois captives
made on the journey down. These were given to the Iroquois captain, who
remained as a hostage till the canoe returned, in the hope of making
peace. Soon the surgeon was brought back with a delegation, bearing
twenty necklaces of wampum as signs of peace from the Iroquois nation.
[Illustration: SANS MERCI
(By Hébert)]
One of the significant gifts was to recognize and consolidate the
position of Ville Marie as the headquarters of peace treaties, which
had been lately so constituted by the governor of Quebec, who had
transferred to Montreal the treaty pole which had been erected at
Quebec in the autumn of 1653 as a sign of peace. Its position at
Montreal signified the recognized place for parley councils for peace
overtures. This was an adroit move on the part of de Lauson. It
recognized that Montreal was the frontier post and the most accessible,
and also it was a standing eulogium of the diplomatic ability of de
Maisonneuve to deal with the natives, and it might keep the enemy
higher up the river away from Quebec.
Unfortunately, as we have said, these Iroquois were divided into five
nations, who often acted without concert, so that protestations of
peace by wampum belts had always to be taken for what they were worth.
Montreal was soon to be in daily dread of assault. Thus in the autumn,
when in fancied security, owing to the recent renewal of peace, the
ordinary precautions were being neglected at Montreal in the busy
building and farming operations, a band of Iroquois were in ambuscade
around. The sentinel was standing on a tree stump, leisurely surveying
the country around, when an Iroquois who had stealthily approached,
hiding at intervals behind other stumps, suddenly pounced upon him
and seizing him by the legs, threw him over his shoulders and set
off in flight with the bewildered soldier shrieking for his life and
fighting as best he could. His cries aroused the men in the field and
they pursued them until they came up to the Iroquois band with their
chief at their head. They would have fared badly had not Lambert Closse
come up with his men. Recognizing the chief, who was known by the
French as "La Barrique," or "The Hogshead," because of his barrel-like
corpulency, he ordered one of his best shots cautiously to get within
fighting distance, and pick him off.
Meanwhile Hogshead, unaware of impending disaster, was standing on
a stump haranguing his men and urging them to the attack, when he
received a charge of heavy lead full in his body and he fell to
the ground bathed in blood. Thinking him dead, his followers fled
incontinently.
But he did not die, for under the skillful care of the doctors and
Jeanne Mance, he was tended at the hospital and recovered, though he
was seriously crippled for the rest of his days. Their charity changed
his fierce disposition. When he left he promised never to go on the
warpath against them again but that he would return later to conclude a
peace, as indeed he did, though not so easily as he could have wished.
For a time the Iroquois left Montreal severely alone. "Let us not
go thither," they would say. "They are devils there." They turned
to attack the settlement of the Ile des Oies below Quebec instead.
But later, on May 31, 1655, they attacked the colony and killed one
Dabigeon.
Then they passed over to the other side of the St. Lawrence and
pretended to be another tribe, and sent delegates to parley with the
fort. Charles Le Moyne, who had just come from Quebec, recognized them
as the assailants at the Ile des Oies and, suspecting treachery, they
were told to come the next day. Finally, an engagement took place
and five Iroquois were taken prisoners to the camp, among them Chief
La Plume (or "The Feather"). Another parley now took place, and a
peace was agreed upon on the proposition of Chief La Grande Armée, on
condition that all the captives on both sides should be exchanged, and
that peace with the Hurons and Algonquins should be observed as long as
they should not advance above Three Rivers. Among the French restored
were the captives taken at Ile des Oies, one of whom, Elizabeth Moyen,
then a child, married Lambert Closse in 1657, and her sister Marie who
remained with Jeanne Mance twenty years.
Peace concluded, the work of agriculture was pushed on although, taught
by sad experience, the men went to the fields armed as usual. In order
to pursue this in greater safety, de Maisonneuve, by a permission given
on August 25, 1655, in the name of the Company allowed the colonists to
cultivate and enjoy the fruits of the lands on the "domain of the
Seigneurs," which were nearer to the fort than their own concessions.
When the time came for them to be able to till the latter, the lands
on the domain should be handed back. These negotiations were put into
the hands of Lambert Closse, for de Maisonneuve had chosen him to hold
the reins of government while he himself made a third journey to France
this autumn, as the next chapter will relate.
These peace arrangements at Montreal always meant the interchange
of presents which were a burden on the community instead of on the
governor of Quebec, whom the early historians, with M. de Belmont,
accuse of "persecuting Montreal."
In addition to what we know, de Lauson wanted to levy a tax on all
imports to Montreal. He took it ill that Montreal had its storehouse
at Quebec, wishing it to purchase its necessities from Quebec. He also
wanted the Company of Montreal to send out more men than they found
convenient. All this brought him a letter of Louis XIV in favour of
Montreal.
Misfortunes clouded the last days of de Lauson. He left for France
in the summer of 1656 and died in Paris on February 16, 1666, at the
age of eighty-two years. His sons, for whom he had planned great
possessions in Canada, did not live long after their father's departure
from Canada, and he saw nearly all his family extinct before his death
and all their properties reverting to the king on account of their
conditions of grant not being fulfilled. His ineffectual tenure of
office was due to his inefficiency, aggravated by the cruel abandonment
of the French colony by the great Company.
M. de Lauson was succeeded in the post of governor general by his
son, Charles de Lauson-Charny. But his administration was no more
successful than that of his father. Indeed the office was not to his
taste and he prevailed upon M. d'Ailleboust, who had arrived from
France on September 12, 1657, to take his place, and six days after he
sailed back home, disgusted with the vanities of the world, so that he
entered the ecclesiastical state, returning later to work in the sacred
ministry in Canada.
Meanwhile the new parish church, begun two years ago, was being
completed, the funds, owing to the poverty of the colonists, being
largely supplied by the Seigneurs. It was adjoined to the Hôtel-Dieu
on St. Paul Street, so that it might suffice for the citizens and the
sick. It was dedicated to St. Joseph, the patron of the hospital, and
was opened in 1656. In the foundation and under the doorway of entrance
there was placed, within the first stone, the following inscription,
engraven as a leaden plate: "Cette première pierre a été posée en
l'honneur de St. Joseph, l'an 1656, le 28 Août.
Jesus! Maria! Joseph!"
This building, which served up to 1689 as the parish church of the
colony, was adjoined to the hospital situated on the street which was
formed a little afterwards by the first houses constructed at Ville
Marie and called St. Paul, and was placed at the corner of another
street which was called from the name of the church, St. Joseph, today
known as St. Sulpice. The body of the building was of wood, about
eighty feet long, thirty broad, and twenty feet high; the church being
at one end, covering about fifty feet, and surmounted by a bell tower
with two bells. The good folk of Ville Marie were proud to see their
new temple.
Affairs were now in a bad state; the Iroquois were uncurbed and
unsettled through the weak administration of de Lauson, and thus
prepared for the bitter war again to be proclaimed at the end of 1657.
But at present, in the summer of 1657, there was nothing but
anticipation of the arrival of the governor and the four Sulpicians
who were to be the parish clergy, with a permanent abode and a settled
ecclesiastical status.
The Jesuits who had so long served the mission were to be free to go to
the up-country Indians--their long connection with the settlement was
to be severed.
NOTE
THE JESUIT MISSIONARIES AT MONTREAL
(From 1642 to August 12, 1657, when the Sulpicians succeeded them.)
The first mayor of Montreal, Commander Jacques Viger, has collected
in a little manuscript book preserved in the Archives of St. Marie's
College at Montreal the list of Jesuits serving Montreal from 1642-1657
as follows:
Joseph Poncet, 1642-4; Joseph Imbert Duperon, 1642-3; Ambroise Daoust,
1643; Gabriel Druillettes, 1643-5; Isaac Jogues, 1645; Jacques Buteaux,
1645; Paul Le Jeune, 1645-6; Adrien Daran, 1646; Georges d'Eudemare,
1647-8; Jean de Quen, 1648-50; Pierre Bailloquet, 1648; Charles
Albanel, 1650; André Richard, 1650; Siméon Le Moyne, 1650; Claude
Pijart, 1650 to August 12, 1657.
Fifteen Jesuits resident in fifteen years. This does not account
for names of other distinguished missionaries visiting, whose names
appear on the registers as having officiated at Ville Marie baptisms,
marriages, deaths and other documents during this early period. Mr. E.
Z. Massicotte in his "Les Colons de Montreal de 1642-1667," gives some
of these as follows:
1649--Jérome Lalemant, June 1st to 11th, May 19th to 24th.
1650--Paul Ragueneau, two days.
1655--Claude Dablon passed through Montreal in October, also on
the 30th of March, 1666. He would also have signed 3-5-'62 a
document concerning Hudson Bay.
1656--Joseph Marie Chaumont, October, the bearer of a message for
the Iroquois in 1661, was at Montreal in 1662, resided at Montreal
in 1663.
1656--Léonard Gareau, wounded in a combat on August 30th, buried
September 2d.
1657--François? le Mercier, July 24th.
Of the Montreal Jesuits, there are some who merit special mention here.
JOSEPH ANTOINE PONCET DE LA RIVIERE
Joseph Antoine Poncet de la Rivière, of aristocratic birth, was born
in Paris and entered the Society of Jesus in his nineteenth year as a
novice. His studies finished, he came to New France in 1639. He shortly
went to the Huron mission. We next find him, 1642-4, the first priest
in charge of the mission chapel at the fort of Montreal. After this he
ministered at Quebec. On his return from a visit to the Iroquois, he
went down the St. Lawrence and was the first white man to glide through
the Thousand Islands. He was giving the alarm to the colonists at
Cape Rouge in the summer of 1653, when he was himself seized by the
savages. He bore a remembrance of the ill treatment of his captivity
in the form of a lost finger, which a little child had been ordered
to cut off. He was afterwards released to the Dutch at Fort Orange
and returned to Quebec on November 5th, "just nine times nine days
after my capture," he says. We next know him as the storm centre of
ecclesiastical differences between Montreal and Quebec. As a result
of this Poncet was sent back to Europe. He was installed as French
penitentiary at Loretto, and later was sent to Martinique, where he
died on June 18, 1675.
ISAAC JOGUES
Isaac Jogues was born at Orléans, France, January 10, 1607. His first
schooling was at Rouen and he entered the Jesuit novitiate at Paris
in his seventeenth year. Having finished his studies and period of
teaching we find him in his twenty-ninth year reaching Canada in 1636
in the same vessel as Champlain's successor, Montmagny. Two or three
weeks later, that same October, Jogues began his missionary work,
joining a flotilla of Huron canoes and sailing 900 miles over dangerous
rivers and lakes, skirting rapids and precipices and making many
toilsome "portages" through dense forests, pools and marshes, to the
great Lake Huron which was known as "Fresh Water Sea."
[Illustration: JOGUES, THE JESUIT MISSIONARY]
Such was Jogues' first experience of missionary life. Living on Indian
corn and water, sleeping on rocks and in the woods, battling day after
day against a rapid current, dragging heavy burdens over the long
portages, a part of the time with a sick boy on his shoulder--till he
staggered through the triple stockade of the Indian town of Ihonitiria
and fell into the arms of de Brébeuf and his Jesuit companions. In this
new mission field one of the first works entrusted to his practical
sagacity, which stood his fellow missionaries in good stead, was the
construction of Fort Ste. Marie, whose ruins, discovered in 1859,
testify to the solidity of the outworks. His first apostolic work away
from Fort Ste. Marie was among the Petuns, or Tobacco Indians. In
September, 1641, he went with the Jesuit Raimbault to found a mission
among the Ojibways or Chippewas on the upper reaches of Lake Huron at a
place called by the missionaries Sault Ste. Marie, today a great centre
of commerce. They were the first white men to stand on the shores of
Lake Superior.
We next find him back at Georgian Bay. Supplies were being exhausted
and Jogues offered to go to Quebec, a thousand miles off, for them.
This done, on the way back in the first week of August, 1642, his party
was surprised by the hostile Mohawks and captured. While being taken
up country he was most brutally tortured, beaten by sticks, clubs and
knives, and his wounds torn open by the long nails of the Indians.
The joints of his fingers were gnawed off or burned off at intervals.
On the arrival of the party at Ossernenon, on the north bank of the
Mohawk, a captive Christian woman was compelled, under threat of death,
to saw off with a jagged shell the thumb of the priest. But he was not
killed, as so many of his party were.
On the 29th of September, 1642, René Goupil, his faithful companion,
was tomahawked in the skull for making the sign of the cross on the
head of a child. The place is identified as Auriesville.
When Goupil was dead, Jogues was alone and began his awful captivity
of more than a year, each moment of which was a martyrdom. In the
"Relation," which his superior commanded him to write, he has left us
a partial account of the horrors he endured. Employed in the filthiest
and most degrading of occupations he was regarded with greater contempt
than the most degraded squaw of the village. Heavy burdens were heaped
on his crippled and mangled shoulders, and he was made to tramp fifty,
sixty and sometimes a hundred miles after his savage masters, who
delighted to exhibit him wherever they went. His naked feet left bloody
tracks upon the ice or flints of the road; his flesh was rotting with
disease, and his wounds were gangrened; he was often beaten to the
earth by the fists or clubs of crazy and drunken Indians, and more than
once he saw the tomahawk above his head and heard his death sentence
pronounced. The wretched deerskin they persuaded him to wear was
swarming with vermin; he was often in a condition of semi-starvation
as he crouched in a corner of the filthy wigwam and saw the savages
gorging themselves with meat, which had been first offered to the
demons, and which he therefore refused to eat, though his savage
masters raged against the implied contempt to their gods. For thirteen
months he thus remained a captive. Yet he baptized more than seventy
persons, most of them Huron captives, at the point of death. Often
Jogues would rush into the flames up to the stake for this purpose.
During this time, on June 30, 1643, he secured a scrap of paper on
which he wrote to Montmagny that the Mohawks were about to make a raid
on Fort Richelieu. This message, carried for him by a Huron, warned
the garrison in time and the Indians were repulsed. This defeat was
traced to Jogues and his death was expected. But in the meantime an
order came from Governor Kieft of Manhattan to the commandant at
Fort Orange to secure his release at all costs. This required the
co-operation of Jogues. In spite of his harsh treatment the prisoner
was unwilling at first to enter into the plot, feeling it to be his
duty to remain at his post. At last he consented. He was conveyed to
the Dutch settlement of Fort Orange (Albany), which the angry Mohawks
threatened to burn, but fearful of risking a war with the Dutch while
they were fighting with the French, after a parley they consented to
relinquish their claim on the black robe for 300 _livres_. A six-day
journey brought him to Manhattan which he described as "seven leagues
in circuit and on it is a fort to serve as a commencement of a town to
be built there, and to be called New Amsterdam." At this town, as at
the place of his escape, he was kindly treated by the famous Dominic
Johannes Megapolensis, Jr., the first person who went to New York at
the invitation of Killaen van Rensselaer to look after the spiritual
affairs of the colony. After a month's sojourn at Manhattan, Father
Jogues left on November 5, 1643, in a wretched little vessel which,
after a severe tossing on the Atlantic, reached Falmouth, in Cornwall,
at the end of December, hotly pursued by some of Cromwell's ships, for
the rebellion against Charles I was then in progress.
[Illustration: NEW YORK AS SEEN BY LE MOYNE]
In Falmouth he was robbed, at the point of the pistol, of all his
belongings, by some marauders lurking round the port. At last, having
secured a free passage in a dirty collier, he was flung on Christmas
morning, 1643, on the coast of Brittany, but after eight days he
reached the Jesuit College at Rennes--and at last the emaciated,
haggard tramp was recognized as the lost Isaac Jogues, of whose capture
the "Relations" had warned them.
Honour was now meted out to this humble Jesuit much to his
discomfiture. Anne of Austria, mother of Louis XIV, called him to court
and compelled him to throw back his cloak and tell of the hideous
manner in which his fingers had been eaten or burned. The queen,
descending from the throne, took his hand in hers and, with tears
streaming down her cheeks, devoutly kissed the mutilated members and
exclaimed: "People write romances for us--but was ever a romance like
this? And it is all true."
This form of public exhibition was displeasing to Jogues but the
permission granted by Pope Urbain VIII, at the request of some of
his admirers, to have the canonical impediment raised against his
faculty to say mass because of his mutilated fingers, was a source of
gratification. The answer of Urbain to the request was "_Indignum esset
martyrum Christi, Christi non bibere sanguinem_"--"it would be wrong to
prevent the martyr of Christ from drinking the blood of Christ."
Isaac Jogues did not loiter to be lionized in Paris, but in June was
in Quebec, and was now appointed to serve the sick and hearten the
defenders of the stockade of Montreal. In July he was present at a
parley with the Indians at a conference held at Three Rivers, where
he met Father Bressani, who had also had a similar experience of the
tortures of the Iroquois and whose fingers were also wanting. After a
treaty had been made Jogues returned to Montreal. One result of this
treaty was that an ambassador was to be sent to the Mohawks and Father
Jogues, as he spoke the Iroquois tongue, was appointed to revisit
those who had so ill used him. But it was two years later before the
actual embassy started from Three Rivers, on May 16, 1646. Father
Jogues reached Lake Andiatarocté on the eve of Corpus Christi, the
feast of the Blessed Sacrament, and called it the "Lake of the Blessed
Sacrament." A century later this was renamed by Sir William Johnson
"Lake George" in honour of the English king. On June 5th Jogues reached
Ossernenon, and in his character as ambassador was well received. At
the council held on June 10th or June 16th the party returned, reaching
Quebec on July 3rd. Jogues petitioned to be sent back to the Mohawks
as a missionary. On September 27th he left Quebec for the Iroquois
country. He wrote to a friend: "Ibo sed non redibo--I go but I shall
not return," as though his fate were revealed to him.
[Illustration: LAKE OF THE BLESSED SACRAMENT]
Before he reached Ossernenon he learned that the hatchet had been
dug up to meet him. As an ambassador he had been respected, but as a
Christian missionary a hostile reception awaited him. An innocent box
of vestments left behind him on his previous visit was the cause. A
pestilence had broken out and the crops were withered. Therefore these
misfortunes were due to the _Manitou_ in the box. Jogues could have
avoided Ossernenon and returned to Quebec, but he faced his enemies,
who met him with the sorcerer, Ondersonk. Jogues wore his clerical
garb. His garments were stripped off him; he was slashed with knives
and led, mangled and bleeding, to the scene of his recent triumph as an
ambassador. A council was held at Tionnontoguen to see what was to be
done with him. The Wolf-Tortoise family were against killing him, as
were most of the Bears, and he was spared.
But the Bears, bent on vengeance, invited the wounded Jogues to a feast
on October 18th. He left his cabin and followed to the festive wigwam,
and as he entered a Mohawk, waiting behind the door brought down his
axe with a crash on to his skull. His head was hacked off and fixed on
a stake of the palisade, and his body was flung into the Mohawk River
hard by.
There is no reasonable doubt but that the place of his martyrdom
occurred at Auriesville on the south shore of the Mohawk just above
the Schoharie. "So died," says Ingram Kip, the Protestant bishop of
California, "one of that glorious band that had shown greater devotion
in the cause of Christianity than has ever been seen since the time
of the Apostles; men whose lives and sufferings reveal a story more
touching and pathetic than anything in the records of our country,
and whose names should ever be kept in grateful remembrance; stern,
high-wrought men who might have stood high in court or camp, and who
could contrast their desolate state in the lowly wigwam with the
refinement and affluence that waited on them in their earlier years,
but who had given up home and love of kindred and the golden ties of
relationship for God and man."
Another famous missionary who served Montreal and who often passed
through it on his journeys to and fro, was Siméon Le Moyne, who was
born about 1601. He entered the society at the age of nineteen and in
1638 he was at work in the Canadian mission field, chiefly among the
Hurons, among whom he was known as "Wane," or phonetically in English
"Won," the "w" taking the place of the missing "m" in their language,
the result being an attempt to reproduce the French pronunciation of
"Moyne." His early experiences at Lake Huron brought him in touch with
those other heroes, Brébeuf, Daniel, Lalemant, Jogues, and others, many
of whom were to be killed. He saw the annihilation of the Hurons and
wandered with the remnants over hill and dell and stream, ministering
to them. In 1654 he accepted the dangerous mission to the Iroquois at
Onondaga, leaving his life in the hands of the Almighty. His object
was to pacify the Iroquois as an ambassador, to give comfort to the
Huron captives and to prepare the way for a permanent mission. On
his return to Quebec he recommended this, and the Jesuits Dablon and
Chauminot were appointed. He held several councils and distributed
presents.[76] Le Moyne was endowed with a sense of humour. "Le Moyne,"
says the Rev. T. J. Campbell, "tells us that on this occasion he
strutted around like an actor, gesticulating extravagantly, imitating
the manners of their great orators, each time winning great grunts of
applause from the attendant chiefs and keeping up his eloquence for two
hours." The amusing part is that it was told in Huron, of which the
Iroquois had only a general knowledge: it was the parent stock. The
impressive manner he assumed--he was a past master in mimicry--no doubt
overwhelmed them and possibly whimpered interpretations were being
given at the same time to let them know what he was saying.
On his return, before reaching Montreal, we are told by Charlevoix that
Le Moyne was in a canoe with two Onondagas, the Hurons and Algonquins
following. As they approached Montreal they were surprised to find
themselves surrounded by several canoes full of Mohawks, who poured a
volley upon them from their muskets. The Hurons and Algonquins were all
killed, as well as one of the Onondagas. Le Moyne was taken and bound
as a prisoner of war, and the Onondaga was told to return home, but
he protested that he could not abandon the missionary, who had been
confided to him by the sachems of his canton and he menaced the Mohawks
with all the wrath of the Upper Iroquois. At first they laughed at his
threats, but when they saw that he would not flinch they unbound their
prisoner and put him in the hands of his faithful conductor, who led
him to Montreal. The chief, who was at the head of these Mohawks, was
known as the Flemish Bastard.
The Upper Iroquois, the Agnieronnons, those among whom Isaac Jogues had
been killed in 1646, jealous of the distinction paid to their kinsman,
the Onondagas, desired an envoy to be sent to them. Accordingly the
"Relation" of 1656 tells how Father Le Moyne left Montreal on August
17th with twelve Iroquois and a Frenchman. He arrived at the Village
of Agniée (Auriesville) on September 17th. He then visited Ossernenon
and later went on to Manhattan to visit the Dutch, after which he
returned to Ossernenon, leaving for Montreal in November, lucky to
escape with his life, having however promised the Mohawks to give them
missionaries. In the meantime the Onondagas had been already favoured
by missionaries, and a body of fifty Frenchmen, the nucleus of a
trading post. Again the jealousy of the Mohawks of Ossernenon caused a
second and a third visit from the diplomatic Le Moyne.
The trading post at Onondaga collapsed through the Frenchmen, hearing
of a plot to massacre them, decamping by night and making their way to
Montreal.
The perfidious Iroquois of Onondaga, angry at their discovered
treachery, were now joined by the Mohawks and for two years the St.
Lawrence witnessed bloody fights. Christian Huron settlements were
burned and pillaged, and white and red men massacred. Montreal was the
storm centre of war.
"One day in July (1661), when the storm was at its height, a number of
Iroquois canoes were seen coming down the river towards Montreal. The
garrison rushed to the stockade and watched them as they approached the
shore. In front was a flag of truce. The savage warriors, in paint and
feathers, stepped out as if assured of a friendly reception. The gate
was thrown open and, followed by four French captives, the Iroquois
advanced into the town. The spokesman was the redoubtable Cayuga chief,
named Saonchiowaga. Solemnly he broke the bonds of the French prisoners
and promised the liberation of others still in the Onondaga country.
Then he began his address, offering his presents meanwhile. Coming to
the fifth present he said: 'This is to bring the Frenchman back to us.
We still keep his mat; his house is still standing in Ganentoa. His
fire is still lighted, and his fields have been tilled and await his
return for his hand to gather the harvest.' Then, altering his tone
and raising aloft the last belt, he exclaimed: A black gown must come
to us; otherwise there will be no peace. On his coming depends the
lives of twenty Frenchmen at Onondaga.' And he placed in the governor's
hand a leaf of a book, on the margin of which the twenty unfortunate
captives had written their names." Campbell, Vol. I, p. 102.
Although many thought this a trick to lure others to death Father Le
Moyne offered to go to test its sincerity, and on July 21, 1661, he
left Montreal for Onondaga. There he was successful in concluding peace
with the help of Garagontié, "The Sun that Advances," who shortly went
down to Montreal to negotiate peace. But his withdrawal was a sorry
turn for Le Moyne, whom the Iroquois lads would have burned alive
on the scaffold at the stake. He escaped on one occasion with some
frightful scalds which took six months to heal. At another time he
was nearly tomahawked. The return of Garagontié alone made his work
of charity among the Onondagas possible. He had plenty to do to look
after the French captives and to secure their ransom. In this he was
largely successful and returned to Montreal in the summer of 1662. The
"Relations" record this as follows: "On the last day of August, 1662,
the father made his appearance in a canoe below the Falls of St. Louis,
having around him all the happy rescued ones and a score of Onondagas,
who from being enemies, had become their boatmen. They landed amid the
cheers and embraces of all the French of Montreal, and following Father
Le Moyne proceeded to the church to thank God."
Wars prevented him going back to Onondaga, but he applied for the post
in 1664. His shattered health, however, stood in the way, and he died
in 1665, sick of a fever at Cape Madeleine, opposite Three Rivers. He
may be called the Apostle of the Onondagas.
JAMES BUTEAUX
James Buteaux was born at Abbeville, in France, on April 11, 1600, and
joined the Canadian mission shortly after it was handed over to the
French. He served the Algonquin missions and while at Montreal not
only did he accompany the Christian Indians in their fights, but he
heartened the little garrison at home, as also the good Maisonneuve,
who was then realizing what his declaration had meant when he had
told Montmagny that he would stay in Montreal if every tree were an
Iroquois. He was a most devoted missionary, although he was a frail
man. "I have often seen him," says Father de Quen, "tramping in the
dark through three or four feet of snow, groping along by the light
of a lantern which the howling wind would often tear from his hand or
extinguish, while he himself would perhaps be flung by the violence of
the storm down some icy trail into the snowdrifts below. This would be
surprising news," continues the writer, "for those who remember him in
France, frail to the last degree and almost always a valetudinarian."
This happened at Sillery and his devotedness, no doubt, was similar at
Montreal.
His whole life was led midst the alarms of war. On the 10th of May,
1652, when, with a Huron and a Frenchman, on a journey from his beloved
Three Rivers on a mission to the White Fish tribe, he was fallen upon
by Iroquois. The Huron was seized and the priest and Frenchman fell
riddled with bullets. The savages then rushed upon them with their
knives and tomahawks, stripped them naked and flung them into the river.
GABRIEL DRUILLETTES
Gabriel Druillettes, it is said, was born in 1593, but it is certain he
came to Canada on August 15, 1643, in the same ship with the Jesuits
Garreau and Chabanel, both subsequently being slain by the Indians. He
served Montreal for a short time, but his after-career as the "Apostle
of Maine" entitles him to considerable fame in early American history.
In 1670 he went to the West. In 1671 the white-haired missionary was
at the solemn "_prise de possession_" at Sault Ste. Marie, ordered by
Talon. He remained at the Sault till 1679, whence he journeyed to
Quebec to rest after his long missionary wanderings, dying two years
later, full of years and good works.
CHARLES ALBANEL
Charles Albanel was born in 1613 and came to America on August 23,
1649, and in the following year was at Montreal. His after-career was
one of adventure. He may be called the missionary of the Hudson Bay.
In his second visit there in 1674 he went expressly as Frontenac's
secret agent to induce Radisson to abandon the service of the Hudson's
Bay Company; in fact he handed Radisson a letter from Colbert offering
him a position in the French navy, the payment of all his debts and a
gratuity of 400 pounds sterling if he would return to his allegiance.
The adventurer eventually accepted the proposition. Charles Albanel
was taken prisoner to England because he did endeavour to convert "ye
Indians and persuade them not to trade with ye English."
He is described as a "little ould man born of English parentage." He
was set free, and was in France in 1675, on July 22d set sail for
America. Coming back from Canada his superiors kept him away from the
Hudson Bay territory and sent him west, and the "little ould man" of
1674 died twenty-two years later, as a missionary at Sault Ste. Marie
on January 11, 1696.
PAUL LE JEUNE
Paul Le Jeune, whom the distinguished historian of New York, Dr.
O'Callaghan, calls the Father of the Canadian missions, one among
many reasons for this title being, that, when Canada was restored to
the French, he was elected as superior of the missions, was born at
Châlons-sur-Marne in July, 1591, and arrived in Canada in 1632.[77]
He was the friend of Champlain, whose funeral oration he pronounced
in 1635. He was highly esteemed by Montmagny. As superior of the
missions he ruled from Miscou to Lake Huron, but he was glad enough
to serve humbly in the ranks when Father Vimont became provincial.
Thus it is that we find him serving the mission of Montreal. In 1649
he returned to France as procurator of the French missions in Canada.
Later on when there was a question of naming a bishop of Quebec, Father
Le Jeune was the choice of the queen regent. Charles Lalemant and
Ragueneau were also mentioned, but the general of the Jesuits forbade
the consideration of any Jesuit for that post. Laval, as we know, was
eventually appointed. In 1661, it was Le Jeune who made the touching
and fearless appeal to Louis XIV himself for the perishing colony. This
helped to open the eyes of the monarch and was the herald of better
times which, however, did not occur till 1666, two years after the
death of Le Jeune, when de Tracy's and de Courcelles' handful of men
brought the peace which lasted for fifteen years.
It would be tedious to the reader to give further autobiographical
notes. Yet the importance of these Montreal missionaries for the
colonization of New France and the civilization of the Indians
justifies the space we have allotted.
Parkman in his "Jesuits," pages 318-320, sums up the success of their
missions thus:
"When we look for the results of those missions we soon become aware
that the influence of the French and the Jesuits extended far beyond
the circle of converts. It eventually modified and softened the manners
of many unconverted tribes.
"In the wars of the next century we do not find those examples of
diabolical atrocity with which the earlier annals are crowded. The
savage burned his enemies alive, it is true, but he rarely ate them;
neither did he torment them with the same deliberation and persistency.
He was a savage still, but not so often a devil. * * * In this
softening of manner, such as it was, and in the obedient Catholicity of
a few hundred tamed savages gathered at stationary missions in Canada,
we find after a century had elapsed all the results of the heroic toil
of the Jesuits. The missions had failed because the Indians had ceased
to exist. Of the great tribes on whom rested the hopes of the early
Canadian fathers, nearly all were virtually extinct. The missionaries
built laboriously and well, but they were doomed to build on a falling
foundation. The Indians melted away, not because civilization destroyed
them, but because their own ferocity and untractable indolence made it
impossible that they should exist in its presence. Either the plastic
energies of a higher race, or the servile pliancy of a lower one, would
each in its way have preserved them; as it was, their extinction was
a foregone conclusion. As for the religion which the Jesuits taught
them, however Protestants may carp at it, it was the only form of
Christianity likely to take root in their crude and barbarous nature."
The following appreciation of the early Jesuits, taken from "The
Dominion of Canada--The Brave Days of Old," by a Protestant writer,
Professor Grant, of Kingston, may be of interest as coming from a later
day pen:
"Eyes and heart alternately glow and fill as we read the endless
'Relations' of their faith and failures, their heaped-up measure of
miseries, their boundless wisdom, their heroic martyrdoms. We forget
our traditional antipathy to the name of Jesuit. The satire of Pascal,
the memories of the Inquisition and the political history of the
order, is all forgotten. We dislike to have our sympathies checked
by reminders, that in Canada as elsewhere, they were the consistent,
formidable foes of liberty; that their love of power not only embroiled
them continually with the civil authorities, but made them jealous
of the Recollects and Sulpicians, unwilling that any save their own
order--or, as we say, sect--should share in the dangers and glory of
converting the infidels of New France. How can we, sitting at home in
ease, we who have entered into their labours, criticize men before
whose spiritual white heat every mountain melted away; who carried the
cross in advance of the most adventurous 'coureurs de bois,' or guides,
who taught agriculture to the Indian on the Georgian Bay before a dozen
farms had been cleared on the St. Lawrence--drove or carried cattle
through unbroken forest around the countless rapids and cataracts of
the Ottawa and French rivers that they might wean the Hurons from
nomadic habits and make of them a nation; who shrank from no hardship
and no indignity if by any means they might save some of the miserable
savages who heaped indignities upon themselves; who instituted
hospitals and convents wherever they went, always (in the spirit of
their masters) caring most for the weak, the decrepit, the aged;
and submitted themselves, without thinking of escape, to inutterable
tortures rather than lose an opportunity of administering the last
sacraments to those who had fallen under the hatchets of the Iroquois!
Few Protestants have any idea of the extraordinary missionary activity
of the Church of Rome in the seventeenth century. Few Englishmen know
to what extent French society was inspired then by religious fervour.
Few Canadians have any knowledge of the spiritual inheritance of which
they are the heirs. It would be well for all of us to read Parkman's
'Jesuits in North America,' if we cannot get hold of the original
'Relations;' for the story, looked at even from a Protestant and
republican standpoint, is one to do us all good, revealing as it does
the spiritual bonds that link into oneness of faith Protestant and
Roman Catholic, and teaching that beneath the long black robe of the
dreaded Jesuit is to be found, not so much that disingenuousness and
those schemes of worldly ambition usually associated with the name, but
a passionate devotion to the Saviour, love for the souls of men and the
fixed steadfastness of the martyr's spirit that remains unshaken when
heart and flesh faint and fail.
"The prophetic words of the father superior of the Jesuits in 1647 stir
the heart of the Christian--by whatsoever name known among men--like
the blasts of a trumpet: 'We shall die; we shall be captured, burned,
butchered. Be it so. Those who die in their beds do not always die
the best death. I see none of our Company cast down.' And truly, in
spite of failures, these men did a great work. Seeds of divine truth
they sowed broadcast over the wilderness. Gradually they tempered
the ferocity of the Indian character, and mitigated the horrors of
Indian war. They induced the remnants of many tribes to settle under
the shadow of their missions protected by forts. Portions even of the
terrible Iroquois settled in Canada and the church has, on the whole,
no children more obedient, and Queen Victoria certainly no subjects
more loyal."--(Scribner's Magazine, quoted in Canadian Antiquarian and
Numismatic Journal, 1879.)
FOOTNOTES:
[76] He discovered the salt springs at Onondaga (Syracuse).
[77] Paul le Jeune in 1632 wrote the first letter of the Relations of
the Jesuits.
CHAPTER XI
1655-1658
THE COMING OF THE SULPICIANS
(1657)
MAISONNEUVE GOES TO FRANCE--ARRANGES FOR HOSPITALIERES AND
SULPICIANS--BISHOPRIC FOR NEW FRANCE--THE NOMINATIONS OF DE
QUEYLUS AND LAVAL--THE APPOINTMENT DELAYED--THE DEATH OF M.
OLIER--THE ARRIVAL OF DE QUEYLUS AND MAISONNEUVE AT QUEBEC--TWO
RIVAL "GRANDS VICAIRES"--DE QUEYLUS GOES TO MONTREAL AND
QUICKLY RETURNS TO RULE THE CHURCH IN QUEBEC--THE INTRUSION
RESENTED--THE SULPICIANS IN MONTREAL--TRIBUTE TO THEM AS CIVIC
AND RELIGIOUS ADMINISTRATORS--IROQUOIS HOSTILITIES RESUMED--THE
HEAD OF JEAN ST. PERE--THE CHURCH IN MONTREAL TAKES ON "PARISH"
PRETENSIONS--CHURCH WARDENS AND "LA FABRIQUE"--THE FIRST SCHOOL
HOUSE--THE FLIGHT TO MONTREAL FROM ONONDAGA--PRECAUTIONARY
ORDINANCES BY MAISONNEUVE--FORTIFIED REDOUBTS--THE ECCLESIASTICAL
DISPUTE SETTLED--DE QUEN "GRAND VICAIRE" OF QUEBEC, DE QUEYLUS OF
MONTREAL--BON SECOURS CHURCH DELAYED--JEANNE MANCE AND MARGUERITE
BOURGEOYS VISIT FRANCE.
In the autumn of 1655, profiting by the peace concluded, and seeing the
progress of the town well under way, the governor left Montreal under
the charge of Lambert Closse, and sailed for France. His object was
threefold (1) to promote the erection of an episcopal seat in Canada;
(2) to secure, as originally arranged, permanent parish priests for
Montreal from M. Olier's Seminary of St. Sulpice, since the Jesuits,
being missionaries, desired their men to be ready to visit the
far-off tribes; and (3) to bring back the sisters of the Institute of
Hospitalières, erected lately by M. de la Dauversière, in view of the
service of the Hôtel-Dieu.
On arriving in France, an agreement was entered into by which three or
four of the Hospitalières of La Flèche should come to Montreal when all
was ready. M. Olier, who had wished to finish his days in Canada, chose
for Maisonneuve three of his priests, Gabriel de Queylus, whom he named
superior; Gabriel Souart, Dominic Galinier, and a deacon, M. d'Allet.
In the choice of M. Gabriel de Thubières de Lévy Queylus as superior,
the Associates saw their likely nominee as the bishop whom they wished
to have in the see of New France. They had him in view in promoting
the creation of the episcopal see before the assembly of the bishops
on August 9, 1656, through the good services of Mgr. Godeau, Bishop
of Vence. This was again brought up before the assembly on January
10, 1657, and Cardinal Mazarin, then present, undertook to interest
the king in the formation of the episcopal see as desired. On this
occasion the name of the Abbé de Queylus was mentioned to Cardinal
Mazarin by the bishop of Vence as a man of approved "probity, capacity
and zeal, who possesses an abbacy of considerable value. He is willing
to sacrifice himself in this new episcopate, in a barbarous country,
so far from all consolation; and his person is agreeable to the Jesuit
fathers." (Procès Verbal of the General Assembly, January 10, 1657.)
M. de Queylus had many and great qualifications. He was a doctor of
theology. His capacity and zeal had been shown as the superior of the
community of the parish of St. Sulpice at Paris, when he was Olier's
right hand man. He had laboured in the ecclesiastical reform of several
dioceses in Languedoc and had established the diocesan Seminary of
Viviers, which he sustained by his liberality. He enjoyed the abbacy of
Loc Dieu. He had a private income--a valuable thing for a bishop in a
poor diocese; and his choice, it was alleged, was likely to please the
Jesuits.
This latter was an important argument, for this Order had been on the
ground so long, that they were the most fitted to understand the needs
of a missionary country, and of the natives whose languages they spoke.
They were zealous, able men, who had become necessary, and their blood
had been freely spent in the work of colonization and Christianity. It
would have been most appropriate to have chosen a bishop from among
them, except that the democratic spirit of the order is against the
acceptance of dignities, unless forced upon them. Seeing this, it was
etiquette and the wisdom of the Church not to impose an ecclesiastical
superior above them, without consulting their wishes.
But there is no proof of the above assertion that the Jesuits approved
of de Queylus; indeed, on the contrary, as soon as they learned of
his nomination in the same month of January, they proposed the Abbé
François de Laval de Montmorency, to the king, as their candidate for
the projected see of New France. This opposition shelved the immediate
question of the appointment of a bishop, which was delayed till the
consecration of Laval on December 8, 1658.
Meanwhile M. Olier thought that there should be no delay in the
Sulpicians taking up the pastoral work of Montreal. Accordingly we find
M. de Queylus and his three companions at Nantes waiting to embark,
when the sad news came that M. Olier had died at Paris on Easter
Monday, April 2, 1657.
This was a great blow, since M. Olier was looked upon as the soul of
the Montreal mission. The departure was postponed till the middle of
May. In the meantime the missionaries had recourse to the Archbishop
of Rouen with whom, by prescription, the jurisdiction of New France
lay, seeing that it had not been revoked by the Holy See in 1643. From
him they received by letters dated April 22, 1657, all the accustomed
powers granted on such occasions to Canadian missionaries. But the Abbé
de Queylus received, in addition a "proprio motu" from the archbishop,
appointing him his "grand vicar for all New France." This was a
false step on the part of the Archbishop of Rouen and M. de Queylus,
for it put, even the superior of the Jesuit missionaries under the
local superior of Montreal, a most unwise proceeding. Secondly, the
archbishop forgot that already the Jesuit superior had been granted
similar powers and he had not revoked them. He should certainly have
foreseen inevitable friction. To Rouen is to be attributed the long
drawn out battle now to commence between Quebec and Montreal.
On May 17, 1657, the four missionaries set sail with M. de Maisonneuve,
M. and Mme. d'Ailleboust and other passengers.
On reaching the Isle of Orleans, two leagues from Quebec, Maisonneuve
and the Montreal party disembarked, desirous to proceed immediately by
another vessel to Montreal. But M. d'Ailleboust, arriving at Quebec on
July 29th, announced the coming of the Sulpicians, so that kind-hearted
Père de Quen, formerly in charge of Montreal and now superior of the
Jesuit missions, immediately set forth for the Ile d'Orleans to call
upon them. He congratulated Queylus on his letters of vicar general,
and induced him to come to Quebec. It is strange that de Queylus, with
the letters he bore, did not call directly upon the Jesuit superior
whom he was to supplant. There is no doubt that the position of the
Abbé Queylus was not understood by the Jesuits. Faillon, in his history
of "La Colonie Française," says quite wrongly that there was an express
clause, in the authorization of the new grand vicar, now disclosed to
Father de Quen, especially mentioning the immediate cession of those
powers already granted to the Jesuit superior of the missionaries. M.
de Queylus, no doubt in good faith read this into his letters but he
weakly explained that he would confine the exercise of his powers to
Montreal. The letter of the archbishop certainly did not specifically
revoke previous powers given to the Jesuits. Father de Quen as a
canonist pointed out that it was more consistent that the Abbé de
Queylus, in doubt as to the revocation of the Jesuits' powers, should
follow out the full powers of universal jurisdiction claimed by him.
On this the grand vicar, who did not need much pressure, made with the
assent of Père de Quen an official visit of the parish church which
was under the charge of Father Poncet, the first Jesuit missionary at
Montreal in 1642. Father de Quen's action was weak, but wise, as he
thought, at this time. M. de Queylus confirmed the friendly Father
Poncet in the government of the parish of Quebec and handed to him
the bull of indulgence of Pope Alexander VII on the occasion of his
exaltation to the pontificate.
Father de Quen explained his temporizing acquiescence in a manuscript
letter, in Latin to the general of the society, of September 3, 1658.
"It is true that I did not wish to exercise any act [of jurisdiction,
as a vicar general] from that day on which M. l'Abbé Queylus laid his
letters patent of authority before me lest any evil should thence
arrive; however, I could not, nor would not, yield my jurisdiction
(potestatus et res) until I became certain that it had been revoked
by his Eminence the Archbishop of Rouen, who had granted it to me."
Thus the Jesuit acted constitutionally and wisely. Rouen would now be
approached by him.
In the meantime, after having been recognized as "grand vicaire" M.
de Queylus with the Sulpicians proceeded to Ville Marie. On August
12th Père Claude Pijart, the missionary, gave over the exercise of
his ministry to M. Gabriel Souart who now became the _curé_ or parish
priest. Father Pijart remained in Montreal for some time, but, on
September 3rd, he was in Quebec, where he was appointed to take the
place of Père Poncet, in the charge of the parish church. Père
Poncet, though a zealous and enterprising man, had shown himself a
difficult subject, and his obedience and his spirit of independence had
been already called in question in a letter to Rome. As this may be
accounted the beginning of the ecclesiastical trouble between Montreal
and Quebec we will follow Père Pijart.
On arriving at Quebec, Père Pijart found that the injudicious Père
Poncet had been deposed from his office by his superior, Père de
Quen, as a consequence of his promulgation of the bull left behind
by the grand vicar, announcing the opening of the jubilee for August
12th. Père de Quen, now no longer acting as grand vicar, but still
the superior of the Jesuit missions of Canada, had apparently been
ignorant of the arrival of this bull, and he considered that as his
religious superior and that of most of the clergy in the country he
should have had notification of it and he deposed the parish priest,
Père Poncet,--a power which he had arranged with M. de Queylus to
retain as a religious superior according to acknowledged ecclesiastical
etiquette. The position was a new one. Time only could straighten out
the inevitable difficulties arising in a double régime now commencing.
Père Poncet meanwhile, appointed to the Indian mission of Onondaga
started the year previously, left Quebec on August 28th and, passing by
Montreal, informed the "grand vicaire" of the loss of his parish. The
latter impetuously prevailed on him to suspend his journey, forgetful
that in his inexperience he was committing a new breach of church
etiquette in interfering with the orders of the Jesuit superior to
his own subject, and together they arrived, with M. d'Ailleboust and
the deacon, M. d'Allet, acting as Queylus' secretary, at Quebec on
September 12th.
On September 18th, Father Poncet was sent by de Quen back to France, a
sad return for an heroic man but obedience for the Jesuit is the formal
test of heroism.
M. d'Ailleboust was now called upon to act as governor general,
replacing M. de Lauson-Charny _ad interim_, till another was formally
appointed. On arriving M. Queylus, superseding Father Pijart, unwisely
and ambitiously took up the functions of parish priest himself in
the hitherto Jesuit church and remained there for a year. This was
open hostility. He was assisted on occasions by the chaplain of
the Ursulines, M. Guillaume Vignal, and that of the Hôtel-Dieu, M.
Jean Lebey, both secular priests. M. Queylus lived at the château
with the governor general while the Jesuits inhabited the official
presbytery. The position was electrical and there was open hostility.
There were two factions. Occasional interchange of courtesies and
ministry were, however, carried on and a semblance of diplomatic peace
at last arrived at, so that d'Argenson, the new governor general,
writing on September 5, 1658, a year later, says: "I was surprised,
after having heard in France of the little differences between the
reverend Jesuits and M. l'Abbé de Queylus, to see the union between
them and the church entirely at peace." He recommended, however, the
appointment of a bishop as a solution of the difficulty. D'Argenson had
arrived unexpectedly at Quebec on July 11th. He brought over powers to
settle the ecclesiastical "impasse." During the year the Jesuits had
communicated with the archbishop of Rouen, Mgr. de Harlay, and a brief
of March 30, 1656, written in French, arranged that there should be
two "grands vicaires," one for the Quebec district in the person of
the superior of the Jesuits, and M. de Queylus, who should exercise
his jurisdiction in that of Montreal only. This was not communicated
to M. de Queylus till August 8th. He was at first inclined to dispute
the situation, but d'Argenson, assuring him of the cognizance of
the Company of Montreal of this matter, he "peacefully" acquiesced,
departing from Quebec on August 21st with M. and Mme. d'Ailleboust,
whose presence was no longer required there. During his stay in Quebec
M. Queylus founded the church of Ste. Anne de Beaupré, since, the great
Canadian shrine, the scene of many pilgrimages, and in many ways showed
himself a progressive administrator. He was certainly an active man,
with the defects of his qualities.
The explanation of the letter brought by d'Argenson is as follows:
Shortly after the surprise received by the appearance of the Sulpician
vicar general the superior of the Jesuits, Père de Quen wrote to Father
Brisacier, the Jesuit rector of the college at Rouen, to ask him to
enquire of his Grace the Archbishop of Rouen if he had withdrawn his
faculties as vicar general or not.
He also wrote at the same time to the general of the order, Goswin
Nickel, acquainting him of the new situation in Canada. On December
17, 1657, the general himself also wrote to Father Brisacier in Latin
as follows: "Father J. de Quen, superior of the Canadian missions, has
written to me on September 20th of this year, that he and his subjects
are being harassed by the Abbé de Queylus, sent out there last summer
by his Eminence the Archbishop of Rouen, to act as his vicar general,
asserting that the marriages celebrated by fathers acting as parish
priests are null; that they are abusing the power and jurisdiction of
the vicar general which they had obtained; that he could dispose of
our men 'ad libitum,' and other things which have no little disturbed
the nascent church. The evil might increase from day to day unless
his Grace the Archbishop, through his zeal and piety, will early look
into the matter. Your Reverence will see whether you can obtain from
him either that the power of this abbé may be revoked or that he shall
so treat with ours that he shall have come to New France not for its
destruction but for its upbuilding." (Arch. Gen., 89.)
The final response to the difficulty came to Quebec on July 11, 1658,
when the letter of Mgr. de Harlay, the archbishop of Rouen, arrived.
"To put an end to the differences," he says, "which have intervened
between the Sieur Abbé de Queylus and the venerable superior of the
Jesuits of the house of Quebec, both our _grands vicaires_ in the
part of our diocese called La Nouvelle France, until it may be more
amply provided for by your authority, we have ordered that Sieur Abbé
de Queylus shall exercise hereafter and from the day of the present
ordinance, the vicariate which we have given him, according to the
powers we have given him, in the extent of the Island of Montreal; as
also the superior of the Jesuits of the house of Quebec shall exercise
_the same powers_ that we have accorded him, without either one or
the other of the two grands vicaires being able to undertake anything
in their different territories without the consent of the one and the
other." This act was made and signed at Paris on March 30, 1658.
It would certainly appear then that Father de Quen's powers had never
been revoked, that Abbé de Queylus had forced the sense of his letters
patent accorded April 22, 1657, since in giving him an extended
jurisdiction he did not revoke previous powers given. There were to be
two independent parallel vicariates under Rouen. In a later letter of
September 3, 1658, of Father de Quen to the general of his order, he
interprets the above as a _confirmation_ of his previous powers, and
not a _new concession_.
"The Most Eminent Archbishop of Rouen has sent me letters in which he
_confirms_ the power conceded by him to us _now since many years_, of
vicar general of Quebec and in other adjacent places. He has written
also to the Abbé de Queylus a letter which has constituted him vicar
general in the Island of Montreal only." (Arch. Gen., S. J.)
In spite of the storm clouds gathered over them, the arrival of the
Sulpicians at Montreal was welcomed. They represented to the colonists,
the Company of Notre-Dame de Montreal that had brought them out. M. de
Queylus was wealthy and a member of the Company of Montreal, and the
others were self supporting members of a body, to whom it had already
been proposed by the Company to hand over the seigneury of the whole
island, as indeed happened in 1663. This meant material advancement
for the church and progress for the settlement. Although the Jesuits
were very much loved by the people, their number was small, they had
no settled income and frequently they were called to absent themselves
from Montreal. The permanent presence of four Sulpicians, with the
prospects of an assured continuity, was indeed gratifying also from a
spiritual point of view. The honour of receiving them fell to Jeanne
Mance, and they were allotted the large room in the hospital, which
was at once the refectory, recreation, study, and bedroom, all in one.
There they remained till the stone house named the Seminary was built
for them. M. Souart being a doctor could also be on hand for assistance
to the hospital sick.
Meanwhile, the peaceful situation at Ville Marie, during the above
negotiations, claims our attention.
The advent of the Sulpicians marks the growth of organized progress in
the development of the religious and civic life of Montreal. It was due
to them that the church began to take on parish proportions, one of
their first acts being the foundation of the "Oeuvre de Fabrique" soon
to be chronicled. It was the mission of the Jesuits to be the hardy
pioneers to succour the spiritual needs during their early days of the
handful of struggling settlers; that of the Sulpicians to develop the
sense of civic administration and to guide it for many generations. A
modern historian[78] writing in 1887, pays the following tribute to the
Sulpicians:
"Thus not only the city but the entire Island of Montreal today
possesses an ecclestiastico-civil status, that is now denied even to
Rome. This circumstance must never be overlooked, for it has been
far-reaching in its influence. Montreal's first lessons in Christian
civilization were taken under the auspices I have just described--among
the best, it may safely be said, that the France of the period
could furnish--and every Protestant church, as well as every other
institution in the city, has felt the powerful sway of the gentlemen of
the Seminary."
The position of the Catholic Church in the city with its many beautiful
churches and educational establishments stands largely as a monument to
the important seeds sown in this coming in 1657.
M. de Queylus did not stay long in Ville Marie, for on September 3rd he
started for Quebec, as said, to assume the control of the parish church.
On October 25, 1857, the Sulpicians were to experience their first
taste of war, for they had three burials in one day in the same
sepulchre. On this day, Nicholas Godé was building his house at Point
St. Charles, assisted by his son-in-law, Jean Saint Père, the notary,
and Jacques Noël, their hired assistant, when several of a band of
Indians who had been in the neighbourhood, approached the house and
were hospitably treated. After a meal the three had gone unarmed on
the roof, which they were covering, when their guests treacherously
fired at them, and their hosts came toppling off the roof like wounded
sparrows. Nicholas Godé and Jacques Noël they scalped, but cutting the
head off Jean Saint Père, they fled with it, to exhibit his handsome
headpiece to their braves.
Dollier de Casson, who arrived in Montreal later, says that he heard
the following story from the lips of trustworthy persons, among them a
man, whom Marguerite Bourgeoys in her _memoirs_ names a M. Cuillérier,
who having been a prisoner among the Iroquois spoke their language, and
had heard the story from the savages themselves, that the head of Jean
Saint Père proved a trouble to them, for he reproached them in very
good Iroquois in such words as these: "You kill us, and you do many
cruel things to us; you wish to wipe out the French in this country.
You will not come to your wish. You will have to take care, for one day
we shall be your masters and you will obey us." And this, although the
deceased knew no word of Iroquois; wherever they were, day and night,
they heard the voice; in their vexation they scalped the head and threw
the troublesome skull away, but they still heard the accusing voice.
Dollier de Casson believed the story and thought he must not pass it
over in obscurity. A modern historian would explain that the frightened
Indians only heard subjectively the voice of their accusing conscience.
Not ignoring this sign of the approaching outbreak of hostilities,
d'Ailleboust, at Quebec, gave instructions, on November 1st, that all
Iroquois approaching the forts should be seized, looking upon the late
act as a declaration of war.
Two Iroquois had been seized by de Maisonneuve, one of them an
Onondagan, but not wishing by these arrests to compromise the Jesuits
at the mission at Onondaga he sent this Indian with three letters
addressed to them, asking them to explain the massacre at Point St.
Charles and telling them that the prisoners were being retained in
honourable custody, until it was learned whether the late attack had
been made by their people or not.
Amid such anxious times the new church, begun in 1656, was rapidly
nearing completion, assisted by the funds provided by the Sulpicians.
It was a modest building of wood and stood on the corner of St. Joseph
(St. Sulpice Street of today) and St. Paul. There it stood till 1678,
the first "parish" church, till it was given over entirely to the
hospital for the sick.
The church at Montreal now took on parochial airs and pretentions
although it was not canonically erected as a parish till 1678, and it
must have its _marguilliers_, or church wardens. Accordingly at an
election held November 21, 1657, Louis Prud'homme, Jean Gervaise and
Gilbert Barbier were appointed. This day must be taken as the birthday
of the foundation of the parish of Montreal. The parish or at least
the establishment of the "Fabrique" or corporation for the management
of the temporals of the church school was next to be set up. A stable
in stone, 36 by 18 feet, situated near the hospital, with a plot of
playing ground of forty-eight perches, was donated by the Company
through Maisonneuve by act of January 22, 1658. "The present concession
made to be of service for the instruction of the girls of Montreal
as well as for the dwelling for the said Marguerite Bourgeoys, and
after her decease, to perpetuity," this latter being inserted because
it was understood that Marguerite would found a body to continue the
work after her. She was then thirty-eight years of age. The donation
was accepted and witnessed by the chief officers of the community: M.
Souart, _curé_; M. Galinier, _vicaire_; the then church wardens; Marin
Jannot, syndic; Lambert Closse, "major of the island," Mademoiselle
Mance, administratrice of the hospital, and Charles Le Moyne,
storekeeper of the Company.
Montreal of today is perhaps the greatest educational centre on this
continent. It receives its students from all parts. Let us then glance
at the description given by Marguerite Bourgeoys, in her memoirs, of
the humble beginnings of the first home of education in Montreal: "Four
years after my arrival M. de Maisonneuve was good enough to give me
a stone stable to make a school of it and to lodge there persons to
conduct it. This stable has served as a dovecot and a home for cattle.
It had a granary loft above to sleep in, to which it was necessary to
ascend by an outside staircase. I had it cleaned and a chimney put
in, and all that was necessary for schoolkeeping." School was opened
on April 30. She was assisted by Marguerite Picard who on November 5
married Nicholas Godé and afterwards became Madame Lamontagne, Sieur
de la Montague, son of Nicholas, the joiner, who came in 1642. The
girls too old to go to school Marguerite formed, on July 2, 1658, into
a pious girls' club, or sodality, on the lines of the Congregation of
Externes at Troyes, of which she herself had been a member. Thus the
house became known as the "Congregation."
The next date of interest this year (1658) is that of April 3rd,
"when," says Dollier de Casson, "fifty Frenchmen reached here under
the command of M. Dupuis, with the Jesuit fathers who had been forced
to leave the mission of Onondaga for fear of being burned alive by the
Iroquois. Several of their people, less disposed than they to death by
being burned alive, as well as to any other kind which Providence might
please to send, had such a fright that they were only cured when they
came in sight of Montreal, a like miracle occurring here several times."
This is the sequel of the letters sent by Maisonneuve, and its
story must be told. The letters were not delivered, but instead the
treacherous Indian messenger told the Onondagas that the French had
just allied themselves with the Algonquins to make war against them.
This angering the Onondagans, they concerted with the Mohawks and a
delegation went to Quebec, arriving on January 3, 1658, to demand
the return of their twelve prisoners detained as hostages. But M.
d'Ailleboust gave them little satisfaction and they departed in
February.
In the same month a secret gathering was held, at Agnié of a few of
the most influential heads of all the Iroquois nations, and there was
sworn a war of extermination of the whites if their captives were not
returned, and they would commence with the settlement of the black
robes at Onondaga, which had been settled with them at their own
invitation in 1656. A Christian Iroquois revealed this plot to the
missionaries at Onondaga and these communicated it to Quebec. But how
to escape from their own impending slaughter, the like of which had
been witnessed on August 3, 1657, when seven Christians had been slain,
by these same Onondagas before the horrified eyes of Father Ragueneau,
then on his way, to be similarly repeated when, on reaching Onondaga,
some of the Christian captives were burned, including several women and
their infant children.
As Father Ragueneau was among the fugitives that came to Montreal with
Zacharie Dupuis, we may take his story as substantially that which the
terrified party told to the horror-stricken Montrealers but with more
harrowing details. But first a note on the relater. Paul Ragueneau,
born in Paris in 1605, came to Canada when he was thirty-one years of
age. In 1646 he was superior of the Huron missions. He was an ideal
superior and was very much valued by de Lauson and d'Avaugour on the
supreme council. He left Canada in 1662 and acted as the procurator
for the Canadian missions in Paris. He died in 1680, on September 3.
A year after Father Dablon had sailed with his fifty Frenchmen over
Lake Onondaga he was followed by Paul Ragueneau in August, 1657, with a
band of thirteen or sixteen Senecas, thirty Onondagas and about fifty
Christian Hurons. On the way there was a general butchery of the Hurons
by the rest of the party which Ragueneau was forced to witness. When he
reached Onondaga his practiced eye took in the unsettled situation. The
lives of the French colonists were treacherously foresworn to Indian
butchery. This plot became clearer as the autumn passed. In the early
months of 1658, Ragueneau, who was superior, called in gradually the
missionaries from the outstations and it was arranged with Dupuis, the
French commandant, to make a secret flight on the night of March 21,
1658.
Ragueneau's official account of this, to be found in the "Relations"
of this year, is as follows: "The resolution was taken to quit the
country forthwith, even though the difficulties seemed unsurmountable.
To supply the want of canoes we built, in secret, two boats of a novel
structure to pass the rapids. They were flat-bottomed and could carry
considerable freight, with fourteen or fifteen men on each. We had,
besides, four Algonquin and four Iroquois canoes. The difficulty was to
build and launch them without being detected, for without secrecy we
could only expect a general massacre.
"After succeeding in finishing the boats we invited the savages in our
neighbourhood to a solemn banquet, and spared neither the noise of
drums nor instruments of music, to deceive them as to our purpose. At
the feast, every one vied with each other in uttering the most piercing
shrieks, now of revelry, now of war. The savages sang and danced
in French fashion, and the French after the manner of the Indians.
Presents were given and the greatest tumult was kept up to cover the
noise of forty of our people outside, who were launching the boats. The
feast was concluded, the guests retired and were soon overpowered by
sleep, and we slipped out by the back way to the boats.
"The little lake on which we sailed in the darkness of the night froze
as we advanced. God, however, delivered us and, after having advanced
all night and all the following day, we arrived in the evening at Lake
Ontario. The first day was the most dangerous. Ten or twelve Iroquois
could have intercepted us, for the river was narrow, and ten leagues
down the stream it leaped over a frightful precipice. It took us four
hours to carry our boats around it, through a dense and unknown forest.
The perils in which we walked made us shudder after we escaped them. We
had no bed at night but the snow, after having passed entire days in
icy water.
"Ten days after our departure we reached the St. Lawrence, but it was
frozen and we had to cut a channel through the ice. Two days after our
little fleet nearly foundered in the rapids. We were in the Long Sault
without knowing it. We found ourselves in the midst of breakers, with
rocks on all sides, against which the mountains of water flung us at
every stroke of our paddles. The cries of our people, mingling with
the roar of the waters, added to the horror of the scene. One of our
canoes was engulfed in the breakers and barred the passage through
which we all had to pass. Three Frenchmen were drowned there; a fourth
fortunately saved himself by clinging to the canoe. He was picked up at
the foot of the Sault just as his strength was giving out and he was
letting go his hold. On the 3rd of April we landed at Montreal at the
beginning of the night."
At Montreal, the fugitives were received with tender solicitude and
the graphic details recounted at length. Thus the first attempt to
plant Christianity in New York territory, after two years had come to a
disastrous end.
Radisson, the half-civilized Frenchman, who had spent his early manhood
as an adopted Iroquois, had accompanied Ragueneau from Montreal to
Onondaga and back, tells the story in his "Travels." He dwells mostly
on the occurrences of the feast, when the Indians gorged themselves
so, that it was suggested to the priest by a Frenchman, probably by
Radisson himself, that the fugitives should massacre them in their
helpless drunken stupor and sleep--a suggestion which Ragueneau
repudiated.
The surprise of the Onondagas next day was afterwards learned. "When
night had given place to day," wrote Ragueneau, "darkness to light, the
barbarians awoke from sleep and, leaving their cabins, roved around our
well-locked house. They were astonished at the profound silence that
reigned there. They saw no one going in or out. They heard no voice.
They thought at first that we were at prayer or in council but, the
day advancing, and the prayers not coming to an end, they knocked at
the door. The dogs, which we had designedly left behind, answered by
barking." Radisson's account adds that the idea of a religious ceremony
going on within was stimulated by a pig who had a bell rope attached to
his leg, so that whenever he moved the bell pealed.
"The cock crows which they heard in the morning," says Ragueneau, "and
the noise of the dogs, made them think that the masters were not far
off, and they recovered their patience, which they had lost. But at
length the sun began to go down, and no person answering either to
the voice of men or the cries of the dogs, they scaled the house to
see what might be the condition of our men in this terrible silence.
Astonishment now gave place to fright. They opened the door; the chiefs
enter, descend to the cellar and mount to the garret. Not a Frenchman
made his appearance, dead or alive. They thought they had to deal with
devils."
This was further borne in upon them, because they had seen no boats.
A search in the woods not revealing the fugitives, they came to the
conclusion that the Frenchmen had vanished, and might as mysteriously
reappear, to fall upon their village.
The news of this disaster and the fear of a terrible uprisal at the
hands of the frustrated Iroquois caused the governor to issue the
ordinance of March 18, 1658, which was promulgated by Bénigne Basset,
the successor to Notary Saint Père. In this the habitants were again
ordered as formerly to provide themselves with arms and to fortify
their houses; not to endanger their lives, but to work as far as
possible in groups; to retire to their homes at the sound of the
bell at night and not to leave until next morning without absolute
necessity. They were not to go far for their hunting expeditions
without special permission, and they were not to use any of the canots
or chaloupes that were not their own without the express consent of the
proprietors, unless it was a case of saving life.
Such precautions as these manifested the prudence of the governor and
was the reason why there had been only one Frenchman killed between the
date of the Point St. Charles massacre, October, 1657, to April, 1660.
This solitary death was that of Sylvester Vacher dit Saint Julien, who
was slain in 1659 near the Lac des Loutres close to the town. We may
mention here several of the means adopted this year and the following
to secure public safety. On the east, a new mill was built on a rising
mound, afterwards called Citadel Hill, which was later the site of
Dalhousie Square and is now the site of the Viger station. This was
fortified as a redoubt and, together with the old fort mill at Windmill
Point on the west, guarded the river front.
In addition the Sulpicians built two fortified farmhouses as redoubts
or citadels in the extreme ends of the settlement to guard the
labourers there--that of Ste. Marie on the east and that of St.
Gabriel, named after M. Gabriel de Queylus, on the west. M. de Queylus
interested himself in city planning also and he mapped out the lines on
which the city should extend. An important protection was also secured
by the construction of a well of one hundred feet in diameter, built
by Jacques Archambault at the order of the governor, "in the middle of
the court," or of the "place d'armes" of the fort, as it read in the
contract of October 8, 1658. So far the water used had been supplied by
the river, but fear of invasion and siege, and possible burning of the
fort by the Iroquois, rendered this precaution very wise. In the next
year, 1659, a similar well was placed in the hospital garden by order
of M. de Queylus, and in the following year, 1660, a third contract
was signed by Jacques Archambault for Charles Le Moyne, Jacques Leber
and Jacques Tessard, for the mutual assistance of their houses near
the hospital; and during this year also a storehouse of 60 by 30 feet
was built by Francis Bailly dit Lafleur in the interior of the fort to
guard the grain of the hospital.
[Illustration: ST. GABRIEL'S FARM HOUSE]
[Illustration: THE ORIGINAL OR ACTUAL CHAPEL, ST. GABRIEL'S FARM HOUSE]
[Illustration: COMMUNITY HALL, ST. GABRIEL'S FARM HOUSE]
The war was now in full swing.
After the visit of the refugees from Onondaga, the Montrealers in 1658
were in daily fear, for while Three Rivers was being attacked about
June 13th by the Iroquois, a similar onslaught was valiantly repulsed
at Ville Marie. At Quebec the new governor general, Pierre de Voyer,
vicomte d'Argenson, who had arrived on July 11th, experienced his first
acquaintance with his hazardous position, when he was aroused at his
meal on the next day by the cry of "aux armes."
Such excitements added to his anxieties in settling the dispute as
to the ecclesiastical jurisdiction, occupied him constantly. These
being solved satisfactorily for a time, to the great delight of the
Montrealers, the "grand vicaire" of the district of Montreal, M. de
Queylus, arrived about the end of August, 1658.
"On August 21st, he had left Quebec 'aegre' (with chagrin)," wrote
Father Vimont in a later letter to the general: "but to the great joy
of the Jesuits, who had a stormy time with M. de Queylus during his
conflict there." On the 26th of August Father Pijart, now at Quebec,
writes to his superior in Rome, "Vivimus hic quieti, ex quo Dominus
Abbas de Queylus mandato Domini archiepiscopi Rhotomagensis alio
abiit--We are living here in peace since the Abbé de Queylus has gone
elsewhere by order of the archbishop of Rouen." (Arch. Gen. S. J.)
The Sulpician, Dollier de Casson's, account runs thus: "He went to
console Montreal by his presence and to dwell there to the great
happiness of all, especially to the lively satisfaction of MM. Souart
and Galinier, who did not fear to advance well in front in the wood
without any apprehension of the Iroquois, to get ahead of his bark
coming up the river to testify to the joy that they had at his return."
He was followed by six persons from Quebec who filled three chaloupes.
In this dangerous time such protection was necessary. M. Faillon, in
his history, says that it seems that the greater part of this company
"joined to do him honour."
Certainly his advent would have given no one at Montreal more
satisfaction than Marguerite Bourgeoys and Mademoiselle Mance, who were
waiting for him.
In the spring of 1657 Marguerite Bourgeoys became interested in
building a chapel in wood on land granted for the purpose by
Maisonneuve, at some distance from her home. The ecclesiastical
superior was then Père Pijart, who gave her permission and named it
in advance "Notre-Dame de Bon Secours." "Our Lady of Good Help," as
a standing prayer against the Iroquois. Père Siméon Le Moyne laid
the first stone in the spring of 1657, and Lambert Closse, acting
governor during the absence of M. de Maisonneuve, placed the necessary
inscriptions on a copper plate. Marguerite and her sisters laboured
themselves and were helped by the settlers; some carted sand, others
wood, and others acted as masons. Everyone was personally approached by
her for some service, however small. In the spring of 1658 she applied
to obtain the permission of M. de Queylus, then still in Quebec, but he
ordered her to suspend her work till his return, which was not until
the last week of August, for he did not wish any other enterprise
to conflict with the establishment of the parish church. Thus the
operations came to a standstill till 1659, when it was finished.[79]
The arrival, therefore, of M. de Queylus was awaited with anxiety by
Marguerite Bourgeoys and Jeanne Mance. The latter, having fallen on
the ice on January 28th, 1657, had been suffering with a dislocated
right wrist and had lost the use of her hand in spite of the efforts
of the local surgeons. She had found herself useless for her hospital
work. Thus she was desirous of the help of the Hospitalières of St.
Joseph, promised but not sent, since the buildings to accommodate them
had not yet been constructed. Besides, there were not enough funds to
maintain them, so that now Jeanne Mance approached M. Queylus with her
idea of visiting Madame de Bullion for the additional funds and then
to bring back the Hospitalières. In addition she could consult the
best physicians in France on the cure of her wrist. The grand vicaire
approved of her journey.
At the same time Marguerite Bourgeoys, seeing herself without workers
for the future development of her teaching institution, asked
permission to accompany Mademoiselle Mance, who needed assistance in
her crippled condition, and to seek teachers among her old friends of
the Congregation of Troyes.
But although M. de Queylus had consented to the plan of Jeanne Mance,
he nevertheless was desirous of seeing the hospital work undertaken by
a branch of the Quebec Hospitalières, whose acquaintance he had made.
Consequently under the pretext of change of air, he had two of them
sent on to Montreal, and these arrived two days before the departure of
Jeanne Mance and Marguerite Bourgeoys.
Jeanne Mance, however, had no intention of giving the control of the
hospital to any but the La Flèche Hospitalières, and being, by the act
of foundation, the administratrix of the Hôtel-Dieu, she appointed a
pious widow known as "Mademoiselle" de la Bardillère, to replace her,
and the continuance of the Quebec nuns in Montreal was only justified
by the acceptance of the invitation of Marguerite Bourgeoys to teach
school during her absence. The two foundresses left Ville Marie on
September 20, 1658, and embarked at Quebec on a merchant vessel on
October 14th. They proceeded to La Flèche to see M. de la Dauversière
and thence to Paris. At the touch of the casket containing the heart of
M. Olier, her biographers tell of the complete cure of Jeanne Mance's
helpless wrist and hand, the news of which spread among the pious
ladies and supporters of the Company of Montreal, and created a great
sensation in Paris.
FOOTNOTES:
[78] "A History of the Scotch Presbyterian Church, St. Gabriel Street,
Montreal," by the Rev. Robert Campbell, M. A., the last pastor, 1887.
[79] M. Huguet Latour in his note on L'église de Notre Dame de
Bonsecours in the Annuaire de Montreal, 1874, says that it was finished
in 1659. The second chapel, which was of stone, was also built by
Marguerite Bourgeoys and by her given to the Marguilliers of the parish
in June, 1678. The benediction of the first stone was given on June
30, 1673, by M. Gabriel Souart, Curé, and the church was blessed and
the first mass said there on August 15, 1675. This was the first stone
church in the whole of the island of Montreal. It was reduced to ashes
in 1754, but was rebuilt in 1771 and altered since several times.
CHAPTER XII
1659
THE NEW REINFORCEMENT FOR MONTREAL
THE COMING OF LAVAL
RETROSPECT OF MAISONNEUVE'S JUDICIAL SENTENCES--FIRST DEATH
SENTENCE--INJURIOUS LANGUAGE--CALUMNY--BANISHMENT--GAMES OF
CHANCE, DRUNKENNESS AND BLASPHEMY, ETC., FORBIDDEN--THE GOVERNOR
GENERAL AND THE LOCAL GOVERNOR OF MONTREAL--A PESSIMISTIC
PICTURE OF MONTREAL IN 1659--A BISHOP FOR NEW FRANCE--LAVAL,
CONSECRATED BISHOP OF PETREA IN ARABIA, ARRIVES AT QUEBEC AS
VICAR APOSTOLIC--DE QUEYLUS RECALLED TO FRANCE--THE REINFORCEMENT
ARRIVES WITH JEANNE MANCE AND MARGUERITE BOURGEOYS--THE STORY
OF ITS JOURNEY--DIFFICULTIES AT LA FLECHE--SHIP FEVER ON THE
ST. ANDRE--DIFFICULTIES AT QUEBEC--LAVAL WOULD RETAIN THE
HOSPITALIERES BROUGHT BY JEANNE MANCE--THEY ARE FINALLY ALLOWED TO
PROCEED TO THE HOTEL DIEU OF MONTREAL.
Before we narrate the outcome of the visit to France of Jeanne Mance
and Marguerite Bourgeoys, who returned on September 7th to Quebec, and
also the events leading up to the coming of Laval on June 16th, we
shall still keep the setting of Montreal as the background of our story.
So far we have considered Maisonneuve as a military governor. He was
also a judge. This was a special privilege superadded to his commission
as a "gouverneur particulier," which office, _per se_, did not include
the administration of justice. Several of his judgments being extant, a
study of them reveals a picture of the social life of Montreal hitherto
unconsidered.
The journal of the Jesuits relates that towards September, 1648, a
drummer had been condemned to death at Montreal for a detestable crime
not specified, but as the clergy were secretly opposed to the execution
of the sentence, it was arranged that he should be sent to Quebec to
use his right of appeal. There the sentence was commuted to service
in the galleys or, in exchange for his liberty, he should exercise
the duty of public executioner, which latter condition was accepted.
Heretofore there is no record of any condemnation to death.
Sometimes the cases coming before Maisonneuve were of a purely domestic
nature. On July 3, 1658, two women having quarrelled, each laid a
complaint against the other of bad language. The wrong appearing to
be on both sides, Maisonneuve gave each twenty-four hours, for their
anger to evaporate, and to declare before Basset, the greffier, and
two witnesses, that they had spoken in pure anger. If either of them
refused she should pay fifty _livres_ to the parish church and besides
be forcibly constrained to acknowledge her fault. Both wisely took the
cheaper course, as the acts of Basset prove.[80]
De Maisonneuve's skill had been shown in a judgment of July 13, 1656.
A brave soldier, Saint Jacques, one Sunday morning when coming out
of church after mass, had been attacked with a stick at the hands of
an irate woman. He gallantly did not retaliate but contented himself
with taking the case before the governor. The good lady was present,
confident in the justice of her cause, for she accused the soldier of
having got his deserts by her trouncing for having uttered a calumny
against her honour. On cross-examination it appears that she heard
the calumny, through another soldier, who related it to her as coming
from the lips of Saint Jacques. This witness being called, he now
owned that he had told the calumny to the woman but he had invented
the story himself out of frivolousness, and that Saint Jacques was
guiltless. This malicious meddler was ordered by Maisonneuve to pay a
fine of twenty _livres_ to the church, as his offence had been against
God, and fifty to the woman for her wounded honour. She, in turn, for
having struck an innocent man was condemned to pay twenty _livres_ to
the church for the offence against God, and to pay back to the wounded
victim of her misplaced energy, the fifty _livres_ received from the
meddler.
In the case of grave public scandals de Maisonneuve had recourse to
the sentence of banishment. A soldier of the garrison, having been
appointed to be on guard at Point St. Charles, was accused of daily
absenting himself from the guardhouse of the redoubt, and being found
annoying an honest woman with his unseemly and scandalous discourse. In
his sentence of November 4, 1658, Maisonneuve says: "We have cast him
out of the garrison and condemned him to pay a penalty of 200 _livres_,
applicable to some poor girls, to help them to get married at Ville
Marie." In 1660 Maisonneuve, who was no respecter of persons, ordered
perpetual banishment to one of the principal men of Montreal[81] for an
offence with a woman; and her he permitted the husband either to send
back to her father and mother, or to keep her shut up for the rest of
her days.
We have referred to an ordinance issued in 1658 to insure public
safety. He had now to issue proclamations to safeguard public morals.
Accordingly, as his short notice of July 9th forbidding, under pain
of confiscation, liquor to be smuggled from the boats arriving in
the harbour, and requiring his permission, had not apparently been
sufficiently observed, on the 18th day of January, 1659, he drew up a
long proclamation, that was posted up by Basset, the official clerk of
justice, at the parish church next day at the end of vespers, so that
no one might be ignorant of it.
Maisonneuve, forced by circumstances revealed in the proclamation,
was determined to put down the passion for games of chance, strong
drink and blasphemy, as soon as they should show themselves. It is
not difficult to imagine excesses creeping in during the long winter
evenings in a small enclosed garrison town, where there was no outlet
for higher forms of amusement, especially as fear of invasion kept the
inhabitants closely confined. Three of his garrison, Sébastien Dupuis,
Nicholas Duval and Pierre Papin, having, through drink and gambling,
found themselves unable to pay their debts, had deserted the garrison
and fled the neighbourhood. They were arrested at a distance of only
four leagues from Ville Marie, brought back and confined in irons in
the fort on January 8, 1659.
After stating the causes leading to his proclamation of January 18th
the governor continued: "In consequence we forbid (1) Any person
whatsoever, of whatever rank or condition, an inhabitant of this
place or elsewhere, to sell, wholesale or retail, under any pretext
whatsoever, without an order from us, expressed in writing, any
intoxicating liquor, under penalty of an arbitrary fine, the payment
of which will be rigidity and forcibly exacted (à lesquelles on sera
contraint par corps).
"(2) Moreover, we interdict all games of chance.
"(3) We rescind and annul any promise, written or verbal, direct or
indirect, made or to be made, as well for the aforesaid game or for any
other sort of game, with a prohibition to tavern keepers to sue in a
court of justice for the recovery of this kind of debts under a penalty
of twenty _livres'_ fine, and of the confiscation of the sums demanded.
"(4) As for those who shall be convicted of having taken to excess
wine, _eau de vie_, or other intoxicating liquors, or having sworn by
or blasphemed the holy name of God, they shall be chastised, either by
an arbitrary fine or by corporal punishment, according to the exigency
of the case.
"(5) To obviate the above mentioned desertions we declare, by the
present observance, that all the fugitives shall be by the same
convicted of the crime of desertion; and, moreover, that all who shall
abet them in their flight, whether by concealment or assistance of any
kind, shall be considered to be guilty of the same crime."
This vigilance and firmness had its results, for we do not find any
record of any contravention of any section of the above till February
22, 1663, when a man was severely punished for drunkenness and
blasphemy.
When spring was approaching this same year of 1659, by a decree of
April 5th, knowing the restlessness of the men to go fishing and
hunting, and thus risk their own individual lives besides hindering the
establishment of a lasting peace by provoking the enemy, he forbade
them, under pain of punishment, to go to any place for hunting or
fishing where they might be in danger of falling into the enemy's hands.
Later on in the year, on Pentecost Sunday, Maisonneuve published
a decree of His Majesty, already given in council March 9, 1657,
forbidding the sale of wine or _eau de vie_ to the Indians under pain
of corporal punishment.
A picture of Montreal of this year is preserved for us in the state
papers under date of March 4, 1659, by the new governor-general, the
young Vicomte d'Argenson, who had arrived less than a year ago in
Canada and who now came in the spring of 1659 to visit Montreal.
[Illustration: PIERRE DE VOYER D'ARGENSON]
He was a man of upright conduct, virtuous life and full of devotion
for the development of the colony. He came with great ideas of his
prerogatives as governor-general in relation to the subordinate
position of a local governor such as obtained in other provinces of
the kingdom of France. But he had to be made aware of the special
privileges granted to Maisonneuve as the representative of the Company
of Montreal.
Arriving at Montreal, he expected honours paid to him such as a
governor-general would receive in France, when on entering a fortress
he would have the keys given to him with other like signs of submission.
The governor of Montreal received him with politeness, but without
absolutely refusing the keys, put difficulties in the way lest he
should seem to acknowledge his inferior position to the representative
of the Company of One Hundred Associates. The case required diplomacy
and adroitness, and Maisonneuve acted tactfully. As for receiving the
"mot d'ordre" he only accepted this on the third day and then he sent
his major for it.
D'Argenson realized the situation which the independent Maisonneuve
had created, and doubtless it is in consequence of these painful
impressions that he penned the following pessimistic description of the
settlement.
After complaining of his reception he adds: "I must talk with you
about Montreal, a place which makes a deal of noise and is of little
consequence. I speak from knowledge; I have been there this spring,
and I can assure you that if I were a painter I should soon finish my
picture of it.
"Montreal is an island, difficult enough to land at, even in a
chaloupe, by reason of the great currents of the St. Lawrence river.
These meet each other at its landing place, and particularly at a half
league below. There is a fort where the chaloupes lay by, and which
is falling into ruins. A redoubt has been commenced and a mill has
been erected on a little eminence very advantageously situated for
the defence of the settlement. There are about forty houses, nearly
all facing one another, and in this they are well placed, since they
in part defend one another. There are fifty heads of families and one
hundred and sixty men in all. Finally, there are only two hundred
arpents of land tilled, belonging to the Gentlemen of the Company, of
which a half is appropriated to the hospital, so that no more than a
hundred remains to them; and the enjoyment of these is not entirely
theirs, these arpents having been cultivated by private individuals, to
whom have been given the fruits of their labour until these Gentlemen
of the Company of Montreal shall have furnished the equivalent of their
work on the concessions belonging to the habitants."
Governor d'Argenson's short stay in Montreal makes his account
slightly inaccurate for, besides the portion of the hundred acres
already cultivated, which were only lent temporarily, the habitants
were allowed, at a convenient time, to break land on the rest of the
Domain of the Seigneurs, in quantity they required according to their
concessions, whether it was land on which timber was still standing or
where it was simply felled and not cut.
If d'Argenson had arrived later, when the reinforcement of 109 men
sent out by the Sulpicians in the fall had built the fortified houses
of St. Gabriel and Ste. Marie, his picture would have taken longer to
paint; but he arrived at a time when the labourers had to abandon their
fields for fear of Iroquois ambuscades. Still the long stretch of land,
dotted with charred and blackened stumps, between which the few tilled
arpents could be seen sparse and thin in the early spring, would have
looked a barren and a gloomy sight to a jaundiced critic had he been
able to be unimpressed by the beauty of Mount Royal dignifying the
landscape. Moreover, the little progress made after seventeen years
must have surprised him. We must not, therefore, be too hard on the
young governor-general, then thirty-three years old. For his government
was one of the best of those yet sent to represent France, and his
bravery and good judgment did much to restrain the Iroquois; but he
was abandoned by the company he represented as well as by the French
government. He could not depend on the help of Montreal to share his
expenses, nor upon the poverty-stricken habitants of Quebec. The main
support of the colony, trade in peltry, was bad at Quebec. Living was
very expensive and no laughing matter. His own salary of 2,000 _écus_
and the grant of 2,000 others for the upkeep of the garrison were not
enough to sustain the situation. It is no wonder that we find him
writing, in August, that he did not see the advantage of continuing
in his office, especially as he urged the plea of bad health. Still
he was not recalled from his arduous and unremunerative position, but
continued to give fresh proof of his zeal for the good of the colony.
Meanwhile in France, steps were being taken which would bring M.
de Laval to the ecclesiastical rule of Canada, thus unifying the
ecclesiastical system, at present endangered by the presence of two
vicar generals of the diocese of Rouen.
We have related the early events of the Montreal Company to secure
a bishop for Canada as far back as 1645. But the contention of the
Jesuits that the time was not ripe in the then unprogressive state
of the colony, together with the unsettled times, with war nearly
always impending, had delayed such an appointment. We have seen the
agitation renewed by the Company on de Maisonneuve's late visit when
their candidate was M. de Queylus; while that of the Jesuits, who were
now more ready to admit the advisability of a bishop, was one of their
former students at the Collège Royal of La Flèche and now a secular
priest, François de Laval de Montmorency. They had not desired one of
themselves to be appointed, since it was not in accordance with their
constitution to seek dignities, and consequently in 1650 the names
of the Canadian Jesuits, Charles Lalemant, Ragueneau and Le Jeune,
submitted by the Company of the Hundred Associates, were withdrawn as
candidates by Goswin Nickel, the vicar general of the order.
We have seen sufficient of the ecclesiastical troubles between Père de
Quen, the ecclesiastical superior of Quebec, and M. de Queylus, that
of Montreal, both "grands vicaires" of the archbishop of Rouen, to see
that a bishop was necessary to restore the unity of government. The
experience that the Jesuits had had of M. de Queylus made them more
anxious than ever to push their candidate.
François de Laval was born on April 30, 1622, in the Château de
Montigny-sur-Aure in the diocese of Chartres, of the illustrious house
of Montmorency. At the age of nine years he was sent to the Royal
College of La Flèche, taught by the Jesuits, to commence his literary
studies. He finished his philosophy course in 1641, and during that
time he had made the acquaintance of many Jesuit priests who afterwards
joined the Canadian mission. The next four years he studied theology at
Paris, till 1645. It was thought that he would take priest's orders,
but on the death of his two brothers in 1644 and 1645 he was persuaded
by his cousin, the bishop of Evreux, to renounce his canonship in the
cathedral of Evreux and take his brother's place in the family in
caring for his mother, Madame de Montigny. The bishop died on July 22,
1646, not before repenting of his advice to François, whom he exhorted
to go back to the priesthood, and he named him archdeacon of the
church of Evreux. Laval now renounced his right of primogeniture and
his title to the Seigneury of Montigny in favor of his brother, Jean
Louis de Laval, and taking his degree in canon law, received priesthood
orders on September 22, 1647.
[Illustration: MGR. FRANÇOIS DE LAVAL DE MONTMORENCY]
Fur three years he remained in Paris and associated with the
congregation of pious laymen and others, mostly graduates from Jesuit
colleges. In 1650 he joined a small group of five of these earnest men
who lived in common in a kind of religious life under the direction
of the Jesuit, Père Bagot, and a society was formed under the title
of the "Society of Good Friends," with the purpose of charitable and
social work. These five men were increased to twelve, of whom some were
priests.
In 1652 the Jesuit, Père de Rhodes, one of the most remarkable men
of the Cochin-China missions, came to Paris in search of recruits to
form an ecclesiastical hierarchy, and it fell to the lot of three of
the priests of the Society of Good Friends to be chosen to have their
names sent to Rome as suitable bishops for the purpose, François
Paillu, canon of St. Martin de Tours; Bernard Picquet (or Piques),
doctor of the Sorbonne, and François de Laval, archdeacon of Evreux.
The long negotiations did not end till 1658, when Paillu was named
vicar apostolic of Tonkin, and two others of the above society vicars
apostolic of Cochin-China and China.
In the meantime in 1657, on the nomination of Queylus for the bishopric
of New France, the Jesuits made their overtures to Laval to adopt him
as their candidate for the same post, and he accepted. The curia at
Rome moved slowly and it was not till fifteen months later that the
bull naming the Abbé François de Laval de Montigny, bishop of Petrea
in Arabia and vicar apostolic of Canada was promulgated. On December
8th, the papal nuncio consecrated him in the church of the abbey of St.
Germain-des-Prés.
When the archbishop of Rouen, Mgr. de Harlay, who had looked upon New
France as a part of his diocese, heard of this, he resented it and
obtained a decree of the parliament of Rouen ordering word to all the
officers of the kingdoms and the subjects of the king, to refuse to
accept the new vicar apostolic.
Louis XIV on March 27, 1659, retorted by letters patent bidding
acceptance of Laval, but on the other side he wished "that these
episcopal functions should be exercised _without prejudice to the
rights of the jurisdiction of the Ordinary_, that is to say the
archbishop of Rouen; and that, while awaiting the erection of a
bishopric, of which the titulary occupant shall be the suffragan of the
archbishop."
Rome objected to the concession granted in the clause "without
prejudice to the rights of the jurisdiction of the Ordinary" because it
could not admit the pretensions of the archbishop of Rouen. However, M.
de Harlay, supported by Mazarin, maintained his position and Laval left
La Flèche on Easter Sunday, April 13, 1659, for Canada, accompanied by
the new superior of the Jesuit missions, Father Jérome Lalemant, who
had formerly worked in the missions and now came, sent by the general
of the Jesuits, Goswin Nickel, at the special request of Laval.
He arrived unannounced at Quebec, on June 16th, as a simple vicar
apostolic, a bishop indeed, but with his see in far-off Arabia,
and shorn of the dignity of canons and a chapter, and the external
emblems of a bishop in his own see. The colony could not support,
with its scanty revenues, such a position. Still he was the first
ecclesiastical superior, and thus he brought unity to the church
government, then split between the superior of the Jesuits at Quebec
and the Abbé de Queylus, at Montreal.
On arriving Laval found the colony in two divisions: on the one
side, the majority, composed of the missionaries, the communities of
religious women, and those colonists most sincerely devoted to the
church; on the other the governor, the partisans of the Abbé de Queylus
and a group of traders who scented trouble on the appearance of a man
whose unflinching character would not allow him to truckle his duty or
his conscience.
The situation was greatly cleared when, seven weeks after the arrival
of Laval, de Queylus went down from Montreal, reaching Quebec on
September 7th, and gave his submission and ceased to be grand vicaire.
At first he was uncertain whether his own powers as independent head of
the church in Montreal still held good, but the letters patent of the
king, dated March 27, 1659, received by d'Argenson, left no doubt on
the point.
Thus submission was made all the easier because de Queylus did not know
of the determination of the archbishop of Rouen to maintain him in his
function in Montreal. Indeed new letters patent, with a letter from the
king, dated May 11, 1659, were now on the way, confirming him in his
position without prejudice to the jurisdiction of the vicar apostolic.
On May 14, 1659, the king, repenting of his letter to Mgr. de Harlay,
sent two _lettres de cachet_, one to Laval and the other to Governor
d'Argenson, derogating the appointment of May 11th.
The king's letter to d'Argenson contained this: "The letter that I have
accorded to the archbishop of Rouen, it is my intention that neither
he nor the grands vicaires shall avail themselves of, until by the
authority of the church it has been declared if this archbishop is in
the right in his pretension that new France is in his diocese."
All these letters arrived by the St. André on September 8th, with the
reinforcement brought back by Marguerite Bourgeoys and Jeanne Mance.
After the conflicting nature of their contents were mastered the
position of de Queylus remained as after his submission.
Queylus returned to Montreal and later came back to Quebec, from which
he departed on October 2d on the St. André on its return voyage.
The causes of his departure are shrouded in silence, and in guarded
words d'Argenson writes: "I do not send you the reasons in writing for
fear lest the letter shall fall into other hands."
Dollier de Casson says: "After the arrival of the reinforcement and
of the Hospitalières at Ville Marie we witnessed the return of M. de
Queylus to France, which afflicted this place very much," adding as a
commentary: "Thus in this life are its sweets mixed with bitterness."
Laval in his letter to the Propaganda laconically says: "In Galliam
ipse transfretavit" (he sailed over to France).
This would look as if the voyage was of a voluntary nature. It was
otherwise. Laval feared the opposition of de Queylus; he looked upon
him as a rival, a disturber of the peace by his continued presence
in the country, and had written to France shortly after his arrival,
asking a _lettre de cachet_ for his removal. M. de Queylus was a
powerful personality and had the support of an active minority. Already
on his return to Montreal in the previous year the two other secular
priests, chaplains of the convent, at Quebec, had left Canada on this
account, and sixty persons had accompanied him on his journey back to
Montreal on that occasion.
After his recent visit to Laval and while he was welcoming new recruits
at Montreal, the _lettre de cachet_ arrived for his departure.
Speaking of the position of Laval after the receipt of the letter
of May 11th, the journal of the Jesuits on September 7th says that
"he disposed all things sovereignly at Quebec and Montreal." Laval's
critics would translate it "imperiously" or "high-handedly," for,
according to the history of Canada by M. Belmont, Laval, in acquainting
de Queylus of his recall persuaded the governor to assist the departure
of his friend from Montreal with a squad of soldiers; or rather, as M.
d'Allet, his secretary, reports in his _Mémoire_, "with a considerable
number of our men as for some military expedition." But may not this
escort have been one of honour and protection in war time rather
than one of ignominy? The governor general himself carried out this
order and this escort may therefore have been appropriate on such an
occasion, both for the governor and his friend. Two others were removed
with the late grand vicaire, M. d'Allet and another Sulpician, though
d'Allet got no further than Quebec, at which place sickness detained
him during the winter.
We can imagine the grief of the Montrealers watching their departure at
the little harbour at the mouth of the St. Peter River near the fort.
But though silenced at present, Queylus is not finally suppressed,
for we shall find him back again at Montreal before the end of two
years. In the meantime he was determined to clinch the matter of the
disputed jurisdiction. Before leaving, however, he had the satisfaction
of having received on September 7th at Quebec, and having accompanied
to Montreal, the new recruits led by Jeanne Mance and Marguerite
Bourgeoys, whose experiences, since leaving Ville Marie in the previous
year, must now be chronicled.
After the cure of her hand and wrist on February 2, 1659, Jeanne Mance
visited Madame de Bullion, who gave her 22,000 _livres_, of which
20,000 were to be set aside for the annual income to support four
Hospitalières at Montreal, from M. de la Dauversière's foundation at
La Flèche. In addition, this lady paid Jeanne's passage and gave her
presents for the church as well as money to assist struggling families
in Montreal. In all, Madame de Bullion had given 60,000 _écus_ or
1,000,000 _francs_ to the Montreal work.
At Troyes, Marguerite Bourgeoys had been equally successful, having
received the co-operation of three workers, Edmée Chastel (Aimée
Chatel), Catherine Crolo, and Marguerite Raisin. Mademoiselle Catherine
Gauchet de Belleville also joined the party. She was the cousin of M.
Souart and came from the parish of St. Sulpice in Paris. She was then
sixteen years old. In 1665 she married Migeon de Brausaat. At La Flèche
three Hospitalière Sisters of St. Joseph were chosen: Judith Moreau
de Brésoles, Catherine Massé and Marie Maillé, with Marie Polo, their
servant, and the departure of the party from La Flèche was fixed for
May 25th.
[Illustration: DEPARTURE OF THE THREE HOSPITALIERES FROM LA FLECHE FOR
CANADA]
But they did not leave peaceably, for there was a party at La Flèche,
which had resented the previous consignments of "pious young girls"
that had been previously taken to Montreal through the instrumentality
of M. de la Dauversière, it being alleged that this enthusiast, as
he was thought, had done it against the wishes of their parents.
Open persecution broke out against him. Dollier de Casson tells us
that there was a popular resentment; each one murmured, "M. de la
Dauversière is leading these girls away by force; we must stop it."
In their anxiety many could not sleep that night; but next morning,
May 26th, M. Robert Saint André, an admirer of M. de la Dauversière,
who, with his wife, was returning to Montreal, forced, with the
assistance of other gentlemen, a way on to the ship for the girls,
at the point of the sword. On reaching Rochelle M. Dauversière's
party was met by agents from Mgr. Laval, who wished to restrain their
departure on the ground that they were not wanted in Canada, as one
institute of Hospitalières was sufficient. We have seen that even M.
de Queylus was of this opinion. But M. de la Dauversière's resolution
was unshaken. "If they do not go this year they will never go." The La
Flèche institute had been founded for Montreal; the departure of the
Hospitalières had been delayed several years. He now carried his point.
New embarrassments arose. The owner of the ship, doubtless influenced
by the agents, refused to weigh anchor without the passage money being
paid in advance; he appears even to have profited by this circumstance
to raise the price. But Jeanne Mance, never to be taken by surprise,
immediately obtained the money from a merchant in consequence of a
contract which she made with a group of colonists who were coming "en
famille." These latter obliged themselves, on June 5th, before Notary
Demontreau, as a body to reimburse their debts to her in two years. In
addition they were indebted to Jeanne Mance for 199 _livres_ 8 _sols_,
which she turned over for hotel expenses to Daniel Guerry, mine host of
the Grâce-de-Dieu.[82]
The above money was not to be paid, however, till ten years after, when
Mademoiselle Mance gave them a deed of acquittance in 1669, made out by
Maître Basset, the town clerk.
At last the recruit force for Montreal was ready and it embarked on
the St. André (Captain Poulet) on June 29th. Besides the ladies with
the two foundresses, there were two Sulpicians, MM. de Vignal and
Le Maître, and a body of sixty-two men, and forty-seven women, or
marriageable girls honest families, most of whom were from Marans
in Saintonge and more or less interrelated, who were sent out at the
expense of the company and of the Hôtel-Dieu, the third of the trilogy
of religious institutions to minister at Montreal in this early period.
There were other settlers who paid their own expenses. In addition
there were sixteen or seventeen young women for Quebec.
The St. André, containing about two hundred souls, set sail for
Rochelle on July 2d. It was a veritable pesthouse of infection, having
been used as a hospital troop-ship two years ago, and it had never
been quarantined, so that hardly were they on their way when the
contagion declared itself. The food of the emigrants was the poorest;
the accommodations of the barest and most primitive description; the
supply of fresh water very limited. For two months sickness and furious
tempests and contrary winds afflicted the wretched vessel. Eight or
ten died, but most were sick, among them Marguerite Bourgeoys but
principally Jeanne Mance, who was reduced to the last extremity. The
ship became a hospital and among the devoted nurses none were more so
than the women for the Hôtel-Dieu of Montreal.
At last Quebec harbour was reached on September 7th but disembarkation
took place next day. Here the sick were landed, a work in which Mgr.
de Laval gave his personal service, "tending the sick and making their
beds," as the Annales of the Hôtel-Dieu relate. The hospital was filled
with the convalescents but the rest of the Montreal party put up at the
storehouse sheds of the "Magasin de Montréal."
Marguerite Bourgeoys was the first to be able to lead her party from
Quebec and she arrived at Montreal just a year after her departure, on
September 29th, carrying the little Thibaudeau baby (the three other
Thibaudeau children had died on the ocean) that she had tended on the
voyage and which she had allowed the father to nurse at Quebec, but he,
unlucky wight, having let it get burned, she had again taken care of
the poor sufferer on the journey up the river.
Mademoiselle Mance remained behind, still too sick to travel.
Moreover, the opposition of the vicar apostolic Monseigneur de
Laval, to the Hospitalières for Montreal, had to be met. He examined
their constitution, drawn up by a married man, M. de la Dauversière,
and found it different from other congregations. They wore secular
clothing. Though erected canonically in October, 1643, they only
took simple vows and they had not yet received the approbation of
Rome. He thought it would be better for them to go back to France or
seek admission to the Hospitalières of the Hôtel-Dieu of Quebec, a
constituted regular institution, which could form a branch to serve
Montreal. But their superior, Judith de Moreau de Brésoles, and her
companions, did not acquiesce with either suggestion.
Moreover, a practical difficulty of money matters prevented this, for
the Associates of Montreal had declared they would withdraw their alms
altogether, if any others went to the Hôtel-Dieu but those already
chosen, and in addition if the Quebec Sisterhood should take up the
Hôtel-Dieu at Montreal, that part of the foundation given by Madame
d'Aiguillon for Quebec should be diverted to Montreal. This solved the
difficulty for, as Mère Jucherau, in the Annales of the Hôtel-Dieu of
Quebec, says: "Monseigneur liked to keep up our community with its
revenue rather than to share our funds between two houses, neither of
which could support the other."
On October 2d the Hôtel-Dieu Sisters of Montreal left with full
authorization to exercise their work until ordered otherwise. On
October 20th they received from Maisonneuve the act of the "prise de
possession" of the Hôtel-Dieu, dated from the governor's house, which
was still in the fort. On October 26th the St. André returned to
France, bearing the Abbé de Queylus, as before related. Jeanne Mance
started a week later for Montreal but she was here on November 3d and
had the satisfaction of being present at the marriage of the widow,
"Miss" Bardillières, whom she had left in charge of the hospital and
who now wedded Jacques Testard, Sieur de la Forest. It was a notable
wedding, the witnesses' names including, besides Jeanne Mance, those
of Maisonneuve and the governor of Three Rivers and many notables.
Hospital work has since conduced to match-making in Montreal as
heretofore.[83]
FOOTNOTES:
[80] Records of punishment for injurious words are also to be found
on May 20, 1660; September 20, 1662; August, 1663; June, 1665. Women
figure largely in these cases.
[81] This man was afterwards allowed to return, perhaps on appeal. It
is certain he reformed and gave a perpetual foundation to the church.
[82] The original copies of these documents lately transcribed by Mr.
E. Z. Massicotte, city archivist, can be seen at the archives' office
or printed in the Numismatic and Antiquarian Journal, published at the
Château Ramezay, Third Series, No. 2, Vol. X.
[83] On the reinforcement of 1659 Mr. E. Z. Massicotte, city archivist
of Montreal, has recently published in the "Canadian Antiquarian and
Numismatic Society Journal, Third Series, No. 2, Vol X," a copy of the
statement of men, women and girls who crossed to Montreal in 1659,
found lately in the city archives of the courthouse. The contingent,
including those from Quebec and those who died from the ship fever,
consisted of about two hundred souls. Of those who arrived at Montreal
the list contains 102 names. The list made of those of Jeanne Mance's
party before sailing enumerates 109 persons. Two of these did not
embark and a note in the margin mentions that they were "hidden"; of
the remaining 107, there were 60 men and youths, 39 women--married
and single--and 8 children of tender age. Of the men there were two
priests--M. Jacques Le Maistre, slain by the Iroquois on the 29th of
August, 1661, and M. Guillaume, also slain by the Iroquois on the 25th
of October, 1661; 6 "soldiers for the fort," of whom one was Pierre
Picoté de Bélestre; 7 masons, 3 sawyers, 1 carpenter, 9 tillers, 2
woodcutters and tillers, 1 baker and tiller, 2 joiners, and 26 whose
occupations are unknown. Of the unmarried women the mother superior,
Judith Moreau de Brésoles, and Sisters Catherine Macé and Marie Maillet
came to found the "Hospitalières de St. Joseph," the religious order
to carry on the Hôtel-Dieu. These, with the addition of their servant,
Marie Polo, came with Jeanne Mance. With Marguerite Bourgeoys there
came the future sisters for the foundation of the "Congregation of
Notre Dame," Mademoiselles Catherine Croleau (or Crolo), Marie Raisin
and Anne Hiou (or Iou).
CHAPTER XIII
1660
HOW MONTREAL SAVED NEW FRANCE
DOLLARD'S EXPLOIT AT THE LONG SAULT
UNIVERSAL FEAR OF IROQUOIS IN THE COLONY--THE GARRISON
OFFICERS AT MONTREAL--ADAM DOLLARD, SIEUR DES ORMEAUX--THE
PERMISSION FROM THE GOVERNOR TO LEAD AN ATTACK UP COUNTRY--HIS
COMPANIONS--PREPARATIONS--WILLS AND THE SACRAMENTS--THE FLOTILLA
OF CANOES--THE LONG SAULT REACHED--THE DILAPIDATED IROQUOIS WAR
CAMP--ANONTAHA AND MITIWEMEG--THE AMBUSH AND ATTACK--THE RETREAT
TO THE STOCKADE--THE SIEGE--THIRST--THE ALGONQUINS DESERT--FIVE
HUNDRED IROQUOIS ALLIES ARRIVE--THE TERRIBLE ATTACK AND
RESISTANCE--A GLORIOUS DEFEAT--RADISSON'S ACCOUNT--THE INVENTORY
OF DOLLARD--UNPAID BILLS--THE NAMES OF THE "COMPANIONS"--NEW
FRANCE SAVED--A CONVOY OF BEAVER SKINS REACHES MONTREAL--A
REINFORCEMENT OF TROOPS FROM FRANCE ASKED FOR TO WIPE OUT THE
IROQUOIS.
Ever since the flight to Montreal of the French from Onondaga under
Dupuis on April 3, 1658, there had been constant fear of a concerted
attempt by the Five Nations to exterminate, by fire and slaughter, the
whole French population. In 1659 a Huron refugee to Quebec brought the
news of the preparation of a great allied army for this fell purpose.
This was confirmed at Quebec in the spring of 1660 by an Iroquois
captive ally; that 800 Iroquois had assembled at Roche Fondue, near
Montreal, to be joined by 400 more who were even then pouring down upon
Quebec by way of Montreal and Three Rivers. Believing that Montreal
and Three Rivers were besieged, Quebec was in the throes of alarm.
The outlying houses were abandoned. Most of the settlers were either
concentrated in the fort or in the Jesuit house, while the Ursulines
and Hospitalières and others were in Upper Town; the rest barricaded
themselves with many guards in the Lower Town. The monasteries, denuded
of their occupants, were also guarded, and the cries of "qui vive?" of
the patrol, each night warned the Iroquois lurking around that all were
on the alert, and restrained any attempt to set fire to the houses.
That the enemy never came, is due to the heroic venturesomeness of a
band of young Montrealers who had meanwhile bearded the lion in his
den, and diverted the attack from the French, thus saving New France.
The garrison of Montreal had thought long of how to meet the threatened
invasion, till at last the daring plan of a young officer of
twenty-five years of age, Adam Dollard, was accepted. In the spring of
1660 the officers were now, besides the governor, Major Raphael Lambert
Closse, M. Zacharie Dupuis, Pierre Picoté de Bélestre and the young
Adam Dollard, Sieur des Ormeaux. Major Lambert Closse had been married
on July 24, 1657, and he was now no longer living in the fort, for he
had been given by the Associates, in recognition of his bravery and his
merits, his own lands, the first fief granted in Montreal, a hundred
arpents, "à simple hommage et sans justice." He had now received
letters of nobility, for whereas before he has simply been styled
sergeant major of the garrison, in his marriage contract he is named
"écuyer" (esquire), on December 9th after the arrival of Maisonneuve
and that of the Sulpicians, he is called "noble homme, écuyer." We have
already mentioned that he was the commandant of the Island of Montreal.
On leaving the fort Lambert Closse still retained his office of major,
but he was replaced at the fort by M. Zacharie du Puis, the same who
had been received coldly at Quebec after the retreat under him from
Onondaga, but whose services were welcomed and esteemed at Montreal by
the governor, de Maisonneuve, who named him assistant major; and he
is also spoken of as "commandant of the Island of Montreal," a title
found ascribed also to Lambert Closse. Then we may class Charles Le
Moyne, the official interpreter and storekeeper, as in some way an
officer. Among the late arrivals two others had been at least adjoined
to the military staff. One of these was Picoté de Bélestre, a doctor
as well as a fighting man, and he proved of valuable assistance to the
settlement. Dollier de Casson says of him that "he adorned this place,
as well in war as in peace, on account of the advantageous qualities
he possessed for one and the other." He is spoken of sometimes as a
"commandant," sometimes as an officer of the garrison.
The other is Adam Dollard, Sieur des Ormeaux, a young man of
twenty-five years of age. There is little known of his antecedents.
The actual date of his arrival is not certain but, according to the
latest researches made by Mr. E. Z. Massicotte, city archivist of
Montreal (April, 1912), the first document, in which his name appears
as witnessing a land transfer, is dated September 10, 1658.
As he figures frequently in acts after this, it is not likely that he
came much before that date, for he was not present on December 29,
1657, at the marriage of Jeanne Le Moyne with Jacques Leber, a young
man of his own age, nor at that of Michel Messier and of Anne Le Moyne,
February 18, 1658; while after the above date, on September 15, 1658,
he was present at that of Jacques Mousseaux and of Marguerite Soviot,
and on October 3, 1658, he was godfather to Elizabeth Moyen, daughter
of Lambert Closse and Elizabeth Moyen, married the year previously, and
thenceforward he appeared frequently at public ceremonies.
In this act, Dollard is styled "_volontaire_," a volunteer, which may
signify that he was only as yet attached to the garrison or that he had
taken service freely and not on wages. The Notary Basset gives him,
sometimes, the title of "commandant"; at others that of "officer of the
garrison."
Mr. Massicotte proves, from the inventory of Dollard's effects after
his death, that he had intended to settle, having formed a building
society, explained before as then customary, with Picoté de Bélestre,
to break land and to cultivate it in view of a future homestead. We
have the record of de Bélestre's concession and of a debt to be paid
to the succession of "the late Adam Dollard" the sum of 79 _livres_, 10
_sols_, for fifty-three days' work, by men employed by the deceased to
work on the same concession.
It is therefore probable that Dullard was contemplating his own
homestead and that, in his turn, de Bélestre would assist, according to
the contracts before noticed.
Dollard was by no means wealthy; indeed the number of his personal
effects at his death was less than those shown in the inventories
of the greater part of the settlers dying before him, even of the
bachelors. The sum total of these possessions has been estimated at
eighty-five _livres_, or 1,700 _sous_! But we must remember that a
_sou_ would at that time buy five to ten times more than now.
The quality, however, of his varied but slight wardrobe and of the
articles of toilette not mentioned in other inventories gives ground
for the tradition that he was of a superior caste to the ordinary
colonist. The ordinary tradition is, following Dollier de Casson, that
this young man of good family had already had some command in the
army in France, but had done some foolish act, and that he had joined
Maisonneuve with the desire of doing some notable deed of valour or
self-sacrifice to rehabilitate himself in his own eyes, and those of
his friends.
The spelling of his name has been a subject of controversy. Mr.
Massicotte has established that there is no doubt, since we have his
signature at the city hall archives, that he signed himself "Dollard."
"Daulat" and "Daulac," the variant readings, are the mistakes of
copyists writing phonetically rather than orthographically, since
the three are pronounced practically the same. There is a scarcely
imperceptible nuance of sound differing.[84]
We have given these minute facts, since the exploit we are about to
relate is one of the most stirring and notable in Canadian history, and
the story of Montreal can well expatiate on one of its own heroes.
Adam Dollard it was who, by his boldness, persuaded de Maisonneuve
from his Fabian policy of defence which had, as we have seen, made
him, so far, content to drive the Iroquois away from the fort to their
ambuscades around. In April, 1660, he obtained permission from the
governor to take a band of volunteers up country and there do battle.
The fear of the Iroquois must have been indeed desperate for one so
young to have secured such a permission from Maisonneuve.
Dollard's enthusiasm, which had led the sixteen young men, two of whom
were thirty and thirty-one years of age and the rest between twenty-one
and twenty-seven, and most of whom had arrived in 1653, to strike
hands with him to follow him if the governor gave consent, now spurred
them on to make all the needful preparations. In order to purchase the
necessary arms, food and boats to man the expedition, we find records
extant of loans being sought as, for example, the following, signed by
Dollard with his own private _paraphe_, or flourish, after his name,
according to the custom of the time:
"I, the undersigned, acknowledge my indebtedness to Jean Haubichon
of the sum of forty _livres_ plus three _livres_ which I promise
to pay to him on my return. Done at Ville Marie, the fifteenth of
April, sixteen hundred and sixty.
Dollard (with paraphe)."
Major Closse, Picoté de Bélestre and Charles Le Moyne would gladly
have thrown in their lot with him, but prudence suggested to them that
they should finish the spring seeding, and then to lead forth a body
of forty men. The impetuous Dollard could not brook delay. Besides he
wanted the command, and this was his opportunity in life. Moreover, his
young men were eager to start. Before leaving on their perilous path
to glory, they swore a sacred oath of fidelity among themselves not to
ask for quarter, and the better to keep their plighted word and to face
death without fear, they resolved each to make his will and to clear
his consciences by a confession of his sins, and to approach in a body
the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist, the symbol of unity and fellowship.
Each point was faithfully carried out. The sight of these young men at
this last solemn event in the parish church must have been thrilling to
their friends and families, fearful, yet proud of the warriors who were
setting out, perchance to die for their king and their faith.[85]
At last, on April 19th the flotilla of canoes started up the stream,
but when nearby to an adjacent island (probably St. Paul) they heard
a cry of alarm. Thinking that, near at hand, was the quarry they
were going, so far, to seek, Dollard bore down upon the Iroquois,
repulsing them with such vigour that had they not taken to the woods,
leaving behind their canoes and spoils to save their lives, they would
assuredly all have been captured.
But this victory was attended by the loss of three of his men--Nicholas
Duval, a servant at the fort, killed by the Indians, and two others
who, unaccustomed to the management of their canoe, had been drowned in
the engagement. Dollard seized the spoils, left behind by the Iroquois,
and, moreover, a canoe which served him in good stead later in the
expedition. Meanwhile the party made their way back sadly to Ville
Marie with the dead body, without doubt to assist at the burial of
Nicholas Duval on April 20th, for the parish registers give this date.
The other bodies had not as yet been discovered.
They were joined by one of the young men who had failed in his oath
and penitently sought to redeem himself. Thus the seventeen was now
complete.
As men, who might never see their friends again, they bade a general
adieu to Ville Marie, and again embarked on the fateful journey whence
no one returned to tell the tale. Though bold of heart, many of them
were not expert at handling their canoes, so that they were delayed
eight days at a rapid (Ste. Anne's) at the end of the Island of
Montreal. But their indomitable courage surpassed their inexperience,
and they reached, on May 1st, the end of the tumultuous rapids of the
Long Leap, or the "Long Sault," at the foot of the Chaudières Fall, on
the Ottawa River, at a distance of about eight or ten leagues above
Montreal.
There Dollard found a dilapidated war camp abandoned by the
Iroquois, the previous autumn. It was not flanked, but defended only
by a wretched palisading. It was dangerously overlooked too by a
neighbouring wooden slope. Within this feeble fortress, for want of
better protection, he cantoned his men and there awaited the canoes of
the enemy who must come down the Sault in single file on their return
from the chase.
Soon, to their surprise, a body of forty Hurons and four Algonquins
came with credentials from the governor of Montreal, requesting Dollard
to admit them to a share in their glorious enterprise. These were
led by the chief, Anontaha, the Huron, and Mitiwemeg, the Algonquin.
Anontaha had descended from Quebec with his Hurons, the relics of a
once powerful nation, to waylay Iroquois returning from hunting, and at
Three Rivers he had met Mitiwemeg with his Algonquins on a like quest.
Having challenged each other's valour, they determined to push to
Montreal, where likely there would be an opportunity with the Iroquois
to test each other's courage in the fight. Arrived at Montreal the
French, "whose fault, it is," says Dollier de Casson, "to talk too
much," told them of the whereabouts of Dollard's expedition. Amazed at
the daring of so slight a force, and jealous of having been forestalled
in the work of falling upon the Iroquois, they sought permission
to join them; there the vaunting chiefs could show their valour.
Accordingly they arrived with de Maisonneuve's letter which warned
Dollard not to put his trust in their bravery, but to act as if he had
his Frenchmen alone to help him.
Dollard received their parties to his future sorrow. Thus reinforced
the anxious warriors bivouacked around the redoubt, near the
hoarse-sounding waters of the leaping rapids. At last, those on scout
duty reported the coming of the advance guard of 300 Iroquois down the
stream. These were on their way to join the 400 more at the Richelieu
Islands to attack Three Rivers, Quebec and then Montreal.
Down to the place where they would likely land, Dollard led his men and
ensconced them in ambush, till two canoes filled with Iroquois arrived,
and no sooner had these put foot on land than the land force fired into
their midst, but so precipitously that some escaped, and running across
the woods to meet their party on the shore above, cried out: "We have
been defeated at the little fort, which is quite near here. There is a
party of French and Indians there."
Their approach found the party in prayer from which they arose
hurriedly, seeking the shelter of the palisading and leaving in the
confusion their kettles slung over the camp fires preparing for their
meal.
The Iroquois quickly advanced towards the redoubt, thinking to reduce
it easily, but they were frequently repulsed, with much loss and
confusion. Driven back, and refused a parley, by which they sought
to entice the Frenchmen from the fort, the enemy began to construct
a retrenchment facing the redoubt, determined to begin the siege.
Meanwhile, during this delay, the brave defenders strengthened their
outworks (it would seem an obvious duty too long delayed) by building
a second palisading within and filling in the space between, with
stones and earth to a man's height, in such way, however, that they
were loopholes large enough to put three gunmen at each. When the enemy
began next to approach, they poured their scrap iron and lead into them
with deadly effect. To add to their rage and humiliation the Iroquois
saw the heads of their comrades placed on the tops of the stockade
palisades. They now broke up the French and Huron canoes, and putting
them into a blaze sought to fire the stockade with them. But finding
themselves unable, even with their numbers, to capture the fort, they
sent a canoe to warn the 500 at the Richelieu Islands to come to their
assistance. While delaying for their reinforcement they blockaded the
fort, thinking at least to force it to capitulate, through thirst.
For a week the enemy's fire could not be of avail. Thirst, consequent
on the dearth of water in the interior of the fort, might yet effect
their surrender. Water was so scarce that the defenders could hardly
swallow their hominy (rough Indian corn). Their efforts at digging were
rewarded only by a little trickling stream of muddy water, altogether
insufficient to quench their thirst. Thus they were forced to make
sudden sallies to the river, 200 feet away, under shelter of the guns
from the fort, to fill their small pots of water, since they had
already lost their kettles and tin pans.
The Iroquois now called upon the parched Hurons cooped up within the
wretched hole to give themselves up and receive good quarter. Else they
would surely die, since a reinforcement of 500 men was coming.
These perfidious weaklings, listening to the voice of the tempters,
yielded, and they were to be seen deserting stealthily by the gate
or scrambling over the palisadings. This heartbreaking sight was too
much for the brave chief Anontaha, who aimed his pistol at his fleeing
nephew, "The Fly," but missed his aim in his bitter rage.
There were now only twenty-three to guard the fort, Dollard and his
dauntless sixteen, Anontaha, and Mitiwemeg and his four faithful
followers.
On the fifth day the 500 allies arrived. On they came to the fort with
their frightful war cries but quickly they retired, leaving their dead
around the fort and many others escaping, having lead within them
that made them ill content. Thus for three days the fight was hourly
renewed by the Iroquois, sometimes attacking in a body, sometimes in
bands; sometimes they battered the fortress with trunks of trees;
still the defenders would not yield, resolved to die to a man first.
This obstinate and unexpected resistance made the enemy think that the
fugitive Hurons had given a false tale of the numbers within the fort.
So the time passed for the hungering and thirsting men within, weary
and sleepless, but full of resolution, which they renewed with prayer,
till called to fight again for dear life's sake.
On the eighth day, many Iroquois would fain have given up, but the eyes
of others blazed with rage at the immortal disgrace they foresaw if
they should be set to naught by a handful of whites. They determined to
carry the fort by main force or perish in the attempt.
But this was a hardy and dangerous deed courting death. On such an
occasion it was the custom when volunteers for the first ranks were
needed, that sticks were thrown on to the ground and those that dared
pick them up were considered the bravest, and took the foremost place
of danger; so now the self-elected braves led the way for a bloody
encounter, carrying each an impromptu shield or fence made of united
logs each four or five feet in height lashed together, under shelter
of which they moved with bowed heads and crouched forms. They crept
nearer and nearer the palisade under the shower of shot from arquebus
and musketoon that rained fire and shot upon them from the loopholes
of the fort. At the gates, and on the palisade wall, the good axe and
sabre of the Frenchmen dealt out death upon the stormers. At length,
they had reached the palisade and strove to break their way in with axe
and battering ram. As a last despairing act, Dollard, having loaded a
heavy musketoon to the muzzle, and having lit the fuse, attempted to
throw it over the palisading so that it would explode in the midst of
the foe clambering up the posts or pulling them down. By ill luck it
caught an obstacle on the inside of the palisading and it rebounded
back, exploding in the fort, blinding many with its charge and killing
several of the gallant whites. This gave great courage to the besiegers
and the piles were wrenched away, and the gates forced. Breaches were
made on all sides in the fortification and a fierce hand to hand fight
of axe and sword and pistol ensued, and in the mêlée the brave Dollard
fell at last. Their leader fallen, each survivor fought like a lion
brought to bay, dealing death around until his own turn came. With
sword or hatchet in one hand and a knife in the other, maddened with
hunger, thirst and exposure, and ablaze with religious and martial
enthusiasm, they turned each upon their enemies, like madmen. But,
unable to take them alive with their overpowering numbers, the Iroquois
shot them down mercilessly, to fall upon the camp enclosure already
heaped up high with their own dead.
[Illustration: DOLLARD'S EXPLOIT AT THE LONG SAULT, MAY, 1660
(By Henri Julien)]
At last not one of the defenders was standing and quickly the
revengeful Iroquois searched among the bodies to see if any Christian
lived and could be reserved for torture later. Three others were found
on the point of death. These they shortly consigned to the flames
but a fourth they took prisoner and reserved for cruel refinements
later. Among those fallen were Anontaha, the Huron, and Mitiwemeg, the
Algonquin, with his three faithful companions. As to the treacherous
Hurons, they did not keep their word to them as they promised, but
sent them to their Iroquois villages to be afterwards burned alive to
satisfy their baulked revenge at their rough handling by the heroic
seventeen.
Some five, however, escaped and it was through one of them Louis, "a
good Christian but a poor soldier"--that the first news was brought at
last to Montreal, on June 3d, that so many of the enemy had been killed
within and without the fort that the bodies served to make a path to
ascend the palisades and pass over into the fort. Gradually the news
was confirmed by others arriving, and the truth was sifted from the
conflicting accounts of these cowards, whose stories strove to shield
their shameful desertion of their friends.
Shortly after the disaster the fur trader, Radisson, passed down the
Long Sault after a brush with the Iroquois. He visited the palisaded
fort and saw the gaping wounds in the stockade burnt by the assailants
and saw the scalps of the Indians still flaunting from the pickets. In
the neighbourhood there was not a tree, he remarks, that was not shot
with bullets. "It was terrible," he says, "for we came there eight days
after the defeat." Not until he reached Montreal did he learn of the
full significance of what he had seen.
The dearly bought victory made the Iroquois shy for a time of engaging
with the French, for if, they said, but seventeen could hold out so
long in a paltry palisaded picket against such odds, and with such
great loss to their assailants, it would be better to leave them alone
in their own houses and settlements. Thus the tide of war was checked.
The threatened extermination of the whites was averted. Quebec and
Three Rivers breathed again. It was the voluntary sacrifice of the
picked flowers of the Montreal youth, that found its Thermopylae at the
Long Sault, and thus saved Canada!
"This was the common belief at the time," says Dollier de Casson,
who arrived in Montreal in the sixth year after this event and whose
relation is the basis of all modern accounts of this magnificent
disaster, "for otherwise the country would have been swept away
and lost, which leads men to say that even if the establishment of
Montreal had only had the advantage of having saved the country in
this adventure, and of having served as a public victim in the persons
of seventeen of its sons who then lost their lives, it ought, for all
posterity, if ever Canada comes to anything, to be accounted as of some
considerable importance since it has saved it on this occasion, without
mentioning others."[86]
"What though beside the foaming flood entombed their ashes lie,
All earth becomes the monument of men who nobly die."
We must now descend from the poetic to the commonplace of prose. In
doing so, we shall have an insight into the customs of the time.
The inventory of the belongings of Adam Dullard, then in the possession
of his partner, Picoté de Bélestre, is preserved in the city archives
dated October 6, 1660, as well as the record of the sale by auction
which took place November 9, 1661, before the door of the house of Jean
Gervaise. Every item is recorded, belonging to the deceased down to
his night cap. Such things as a sword with a broken handle; a baldric,
of English cow leather, with iron buckles; a poor jerkin of gray with
a poor lining in the same colour; a little packet of poor linen; a
poor black hat; a bad pair of Indian racquettes, and so on. The most
valuable article was a jerkin with breeches and white hose, the whole
of superior material, estimated at eighteen _livres_. But this apparel,
according to the note adjoined, was returned by order of the governor
to Sieur de Brigeac, to whom they belonged.
[Illustration: INVENTORY OF DOLLARD'S EFFECTS]
[Illustration: DOLLARD'S PROMISSORY NOTE]
In the inventory is added the following unpaid bill:
"Declared by Jacques Beauchamp, fourteenth September, 1660. Seven days'
work in the winter at 30 _sols_ a day, 10 _livres_ 10 _sols_; plus 2
days and a half at 40 _sols_, 5 _livres_; plus for his washing during
six months, 7 _livres_ 10 _sols_; plus for the making of 4 shirts
and other smaller linens 4 _livres_; plus the sale of a black hat 4
_livres_."
The names of Dollard's companions are to be found in the parish
register for June 3, 1660, as follows: 1. Adam Dollard (Sieur des
Ormeaux), commander, aged 25 years; 2. Jacques Brassier, aged 25
years; 3. Jean Tavernier dit la Lochetière, armourer, aged 25 years;
4. Nicholas Tillemont, sawyer, aged 25 years; 5. Laurent Hébert dit La
Rivière, aged 27 years; 6. Alonié des Lestres, lime burner, aged 31
years; 7. Nicolas Josselin, aged 25 years; 8. Robert Jurié, aged 24
years; 9. Jacques Boisseau dit Cognac, aged 23 years; 10. Louis Martin,
aged 21 years; 11. Christophe Augier dit des Jardins, aged 26 years;
12. Etienne Robin dit des Forges, aged 27 years; 13. Jean Valets, aged
27 years; 14. René Doussin (Sieur de Ste. Cécile), soldier of the
garrison, aged 30 years; 15. Jean Lecomte, aged 26 years; 16. Simon
Grenet; 17. François Crusson dit Pilote, aged 24 years.
[Illustration: The holograph will of Jean Tavernier, _armurier_
(gunsmith), another companion of Dollard, made on the 17th of April,
1660, two days before the departure of the ill-fated expedition. It
is also the first holograph will in the archives of Montreal and the
only holograph found of any of Dollard's companions. (Cf. "Canadian
Antiquarian and Numismatic Journal," 1913, No. 1, "Les Compagnons de
Dollard.")]
[Illustration: The will made by Bassit for Jean Valets, companion of
Dollard. This is the only notarial will found of the members of the
expedition. The translation of the deed is to found in the "Canadian
Antiquarian and Numismatic Journal" of 1913, No. 1, accompanying the
article "Les Compagnons de Dollard," by E. Z. Massicotte.]
The date of the heroic adventure of the Long Sault is put by Dollier de
Casson to May 26th or 27th, following the notice by M. Souart in the
parish register for June 3rd, which says, on the testimony of the Huron
Louis, that the exploit took place eight days before. But M. de Belmont
places it on May 21st. This is more likely to be correct, since we have
the records of the inventory of the goods of Jacques Boisseau, made on
May 25th, and of Jean Valets, on May 26th.
Similar sales were made of the goods of the other heroes. It is to be
noticed that nearly all left racquettes, or snowshoes, behind them, it
then being spring.
Though Montreal was for the moment the Saviour of New France, de
Maisonneuve had learned enough from the fugitives from the Long Sault
to make him fear the downpour of the revengeful Iroquois either that
autumn or the next spring. Consequently he put the town in a state of
defence--by fortifying the fort, the Hôtel-Dieu, the mill on the hill,
the lonely redoubts, St. Gabriel and Ste. Marie, recently constructed
by de Queylus and the Sulpicians, and then hastened to give the news of
the exploit of Dollard to Three Rivers and Quebec. The joyful tidings
gave Quebec pause to breathe again in peace. For five months public
prayers had been daily held in the churches for God's protection of the
country and for the five weeks preceding the news, there had been no
repose by day or by night.
Yet d'Argenson, the governor, also feared a descent upon Quebec before
the harvest, and there would then be utter famine. On July 4th he wrote
to France to have provisions sent back immediately, for "we are more
in war than ever and in still greater famine.... We have little or no
wheat, and there are three months to await for the harvest, which we
are in great danger of not gathering, if the Iroquois carry out their
resolution to ravage our lands."
Luckily there was no such disaster. Instead great joy was brought to
the colony, for on August 19th[87] sixty canoes, led by 300 friendly
Ottawan Indians, came to Ville Marie, laden with 200,000 _livres_'
worth of beaver peltry. A quarter of this was left at Montreal and the
rest taken to Three Rivers. This resumption of trade, so necessary for
the colony, gave courage, for many were thinking of leaving the country
on account of the continued warfare which crippled commerce. The
merchants were in great part recouped for their losses and the people
were enabled to buy from France the many necessities of life, which the
money from the sale of beaver skins could alone provide.
But trade and peace and the progress of Christianity could only be
secured by reinforcement from France, and this year we find d'Argenson
writing to France to show the necessity of sending troops. The Jesuit
"Relation" of this year urges the same. "Let France only say 'I wish
it,' and with this word it opens heaven to an infinity of heathens; it
gives life to this colony; it preserves for itself its New France and
acquires a glory worthy of a most Christian kingdom.
"Saint Louis formerly planted the _fleur-de-lys_ in the soil of the
crescent. Today it would be a no less glorious conquest to make a
country of infidels into a holy land than to wrest the Holy Land
from the hands of the infidel. Once more, let France's will destroy
the Iroquois and it is done. Two regiments of brave soldiers would
overthrow them."
Hope entered into the hearts of the colonists now, since France was
at peace, having concluded a treaty with Spain, and it was thought
that now was the acceptable hour, the time of salvation, and for this
purpose Father Le Jeune, then the procurator of the Jesuit missions in
Paris, before the end of the year 1660 was asked to present a petition
to Louis XIV and to plead for New France across the sea.
The king heard the "sighs and sobs of the poor afflicted colony," and
promised troops; but again New France was forgotten, except by the
Company of One Hundred Associates, inasmuch as they claimed the annual
rental of a thousand beaver skins.
The call was not to be heard for some years yet.
FOOTNOTES:
[84] To explain the "c" in Daulac it must be remembered that in French
manuscripts of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the final "t"
and final "c" were interchangeable, or rather written in the same
character which stood for a "t" or a "c." (Canadian Antiquarian and
Numismatic Journal, Third Series, No. 2, Vol. IX, April, 1912.)
[85] Parkman, speaking of this event in "The Old Régime in Canada,"
says: "The spirit of the enterprise was purely mediæval. The enthusiasm
of honour, the enthusiasm of adventure and the enthusiasm of faith were
its motive forces. Daulac (sic) was a knight of the early Crusades
among the forests and savages of the New World."
[86] It appears that thirty years after the famous defence of the
Long Sault, a band of a hundred Iroquois were fired upon as they
passed Bout de l'Isle to help Phipps in his attack on Quebec. Four of
the Indians were shot, and the remainder turned upon the attacking
band of twenty-five habitants recruited from the district about
Pointe-aux-Trembles and led by a certain Sieur Colombain. Sixteen of
the Frenchmen were killed, but the Indians abandoned their intended
voyage to Quebec. (Cf. The recent discovery by Mr. E. Z. Massicotte,
recorded in the Antiquarian and Numismatic Journal of August, 1914.)
[87] Cf. Faillon, "Histoire de Colonie Française." An act by Bénigne
Basset of July 22, 1660, is recorded of a "Société" or partnership
made by Médard Chod de Groseilliers with Charles Le Moyne. Cf. E. Z.
Massicotte in "Les Colons de Montréal de 1642-1667" and "Bulletin des
Reserches Historiques" (1904). The circumstances are as follows: In
1658 Chouard de Groseilliers and Pierre d'Esprit de Radisson started
from Three Rivers for an expedition for the west. They stopped at
Montreal and were joined by some Frenchmen. They were the first
Europeans to go as far as the south of Lake Superior, making Chouamigon
their headquarters, and thence brought down to Montreal the largest
convoy of furs hitherto known. They arrived shortly after Dollard's
disaster in the month of July. To make the convoy as profitable as
possible Chouard de Groseilliers made the act of "Société" with Charles
Le Moyne to divide the profits of the sales of the peltry brought down
by his Indians, at Montreal, Three Rivers and Quebec. This is doubtless
one and the same party as that of August 19th, mentioned above, who may
have reached Montreal later with de Groseilliers.
CHAPTER XIV
1661-1662
HOSTILITIES AND LOSSES
MONTREAL THE THEATRE OF IROQUOIS CARNAGE--THE FIRST SULPICIAN
SLAUGHTERED, M. LE MAITRE--THE SECOND, M. VIGNAL--THE FIRST
VISIT OF LAVAL TO MONTREAL--THE ABBE DE QUEYLUS AGAIN
APPEARS--ECCLESIASTICAL DISPUTES LEGAL, NOT PERSONAL--THE DEATH OF
LAMBERT CLOSSE--THE EXPLOIT OF PICOTE DE BELESTRE--MAISONNEUVE'S
ORDINANCE AGAINST SALE OF LIQUOR TO INDIANS--INDIAN ORGIES
AND BLOODSHED--THE GOVERNOR GENERAL AT QUEBEC DISAPPROVES OF
MAISONNEUVE'S ACTION--THE FAMOUS LIQUOR TRAFFIC DISPUTES--JEANNE
MANCE LEAVES FOR FRANCE.
The year 1661 saw the renewal of hostilities of the Iroquois from
Montreal to Cape Tourment, "but," says Marie de l'Incarnation writing
in September of this year, "Montreal has been the principal theatre of
their carnage."
On February 25th a party of Montrealers were going to work in the
fields unarmed, not fearing any ill, since there was usually no fear
of Iroquois attacks at this early season, when suddenly they found
themselves surrounded by sixty of their foes. There was only one weapon
among them and that a small pistol borne by Charles Le Moyne, and,
unable to defend themselves with their tools, they sought safety in
flight to the town, but not without thirteen being captured.
On March 24th 200 Iroquois fell upon a body of Montrealers and captured
ten. Had they not been now armed the numbers would have been more.
The "Relation" of this year, speaking of these losses says: "After
the capture of the thirteen in the month of February, ten others fell
into the same captivity. Then later more, and still more, in such sort
that, during the whole summer this island was constantly harassed by
these goblin imps who sometimes appeared on the outskirts of the woods,
contenting themselves with hurling insults at us; sometimes they glided
stealthily into the midst of the field, to fall upon the workmen by
surprise; sometimes they drew near our houses, ceaselessly annoying us,
and like unfortunate harpies or evil birds of prey, would swoop down on
us unawares."
Of the ten captured in March four were butchered in the neighbouring
woods; their bodies, brutally dismembered, hacked and burned, were
discovered by the dogs of the town, who came back each day glutted with
blood. This led to their being followed to their foul feasting place.
"Such disasters made the people turn their thoughts to eternity," says
the pious Dollier de Casson. "Vice was then almost unknown at Ville
Marie, and in the time of war, religion flourished there on all sides
in quite a different manner than it does today, in that of peace."
Three Rivers and Quebec suffered similarly. Near Quebec the sénéchal
of New France, M. Jean de Lauson, son of the former governor, fell a
victim on June 22nd. On this same day a picturesque scene occurred at
Montreal, when two canoes of Iroquois arrived under the protection of a
white flag of peace, and bringing with them four French prisoners. It
was an embassy of the two nations Onondaga and Oi8guere, who professed
to be neutral. They parleyed offering the release of the four prisoners
and twenty others at Onondaga; requesting that hospital sisters such
as those at Quebec should be sent them, and insisting as the main
condition of the release that a black robe be sent. M. Maisonneuve
sent this proposal on to Quebec with the result that Father Le Moyne,
the Jesuit, was deputed to accompany the ambassadors to Onondaga. On
the arrival of Father Le Moyne at Montreal the four Frenchmen were
exchanged for the eight Iroquois prisoners held, for a year past, in
Montreal.
After their departure other Iroquois onslaughts resulted in the death
of Jean Valets, at Point St. Charles, on August 14th, of the Sulpician
M. Lemaître, and that of Gabriel de Rée with him on August 29th, near
St. Gabriel's fortified farmhouse. M. Lemaître was saying his breviary
in the fields and acting as a lookout, somewhat apart from the fourteen
or fifteen workmen, when he suddenly came across an ambush of sixty
Iroquois. Seizing a cutlass and facing the savage crew, he called
out to the workers to hurry with their arms. He was now shot by the
Iroquois and running towards his friends he dropped down dead. These
managed to make their way to the farmhouse but left one man, Gabriel
de Rée, dead on the field. The Iroquois cut off the heads of each, and
one of them, a Christian renegade, put on the dead priest's soutane,
and wearing a shirt over it for a surplice, went stalking around the
body in mockery of the Christian burial service. The early memoirs of
this event further tell that the head of the murdered priest had spoken
after being severed from the body, and that when it had been carried
away in a white handkerchief, probably taken from the pockets of his
soutane, the features of the dead man became perfectly imprinted upon
it. This handkerchief had been seen in the camp by a French prisoner,
Lavigne, who tried in vain to obtain possession of it for, recognizing
the features of the dead priest, he had learned of his massacre. This
story he told to Dollier de Casson, who records it in his "Histoire de
Montréal."
Meanwhile the party that had taken Father Le Moyne to Onondaga with
the promise of leading back the twenty French prisoners in forty days
had not returned, and great fear was entertained at Montreal for
their safety. On October 5th, however, nine were brought back by the
intercession of the friendly chief named Garacontié, the rest having
been kept behind with Father Le Moyne during the coming winter.
On October 25th another disaster occurred in the little island à la
Pierre, above St. Helen's Island,[88] whither a party had gone the
day before to quarry stone for the new seminary, for up to this the
Sulpicians still dwelt in the Hôtel-Dieu. Along with the party, joining
them on the second day, was M. Lemaître's successor as "economus;"
another Sulpician priest, M. Vignal, who went to supervise the work.
Hardly had the party in the first boat, in which was M. Vignal, put
foot to land, when they fell into an ambuscade, and M. Vignal was
pierced with a sword, along with Sieur de Brigeac, a young soldier
of thirty years of age; M. Maisonneuve's private secretary, René
Cuillérier, and Jacques Dufresne. M. Vignal was thrown in the enemy's
canoes and taken to La Prairie de la Madeleine, facing Montreal. The
rest of the French escaped, except Jean Baptiste Moyen, who was left
mortally wounded.
After two days they put the priest to death, roasted his body on a
funeral pyre and ate it. His bones were never found. This death gave
great grief at Montreal as well as Quebec, for M. Vignal it will be
remembered had been the chaplain of the Hospitalières there.
After this cruel and horrible repast the party broke up; the Mohawks
took Jacques Dufresne with them, while the Oneidas led away the Sieur
de Brigeac and René Cuillérier. Both of these were condemned to be
burned and de Brigeac, after being horribly mutilated and slowly
burned, succumbed after twenty-four hours' torture, "praying," as the
Historian de Casson relates, "for the conversion of his tormentors
without uttering a cry of complaint."
The same fate awaited Cuillérier, but he had an intercessor in the
person of the sister of the chief, who wished to adopt him as her
brother. Eventually he escaped to the Dutch at Fort Orange, and he
finally made his way back to Montreal in the following year.
During the summer the Vicar Apostolic, Mgr. Laval, made his first visit
to Montreal. He was received with honour on the evening of August 21st.
On this occasion he showed great solicitude for the Hospitalières of
the Hôtel-Dieu, who, by the failure of M. Dauversière, now become a
bankrupt, had lost the funds entrusted to him, and had nothing to live
on, unless the one thousand _livres_' income, granted to the Company
of Montreal by Madame de Bullion for the support of a hospital, was
transferred to them. They were now thinking of going back to France,
but Mgr. Laval arranged, on the request of the inhabitants of Montreal,
that the income of the hospital could support them.
At the same time Montreal was visited again by the Abbé de Queylus. He
arrived at Quebec, incognito, on the third day of August. Since his
absence he had not been idle in pushing the ecclesiastical position
of Montreal, for on calling on the vicar apostolic, he astonished him
by communicating to him the results of his visit to Rome, viz., the
apostolic Bull of the Dateria, creating Montreal into an independent
parish, and a mandate from the archbishop of Rouen charging the
bishop of Petrea to preside at the installation of M. de Queylus as
the canonical "parochus." Finally the vicar general reminded M. de
Queylus of the _lettre de cachet_ of February 27, 1660, forbidding
his return. Queylus retorted by quoting a contradictory "_lettre de
cachet_" annulling it. The vicar general refused to accept the Bull of
the Dateria on the ground that it was obtained surreptitiously, and he
cancelled the jurisdiction of Rouen as incompatible with his own as
vicar apostolic. On August 4th he forbade Queylus to go to Montreal
under penalty of disobedience. This he communicated to d'Argenson,
but the night of the 5th or 6th of August saw de Queylus making for
Montreal furtively by canoe, with no obstacle placed in his way by the
sympathetic governor. M. de Queylus had large landed property interests
in Montreal, in fact he was one of the largest proprietors and one
of its chief mainstays. It was therefore argued that he could not, as
a private individual, be stayed from attending to his business there.
On the 6th, Laval issued the ecclesiastical suspension of de Queylus
unless he returned to Quebec. Meanwhile the abbé remained at Montreal
and no doubt received Laval on his official visit of August 21st,
already mentioned. On August 29th he grieved with his brethren over
the massacre of his fellow Sulpician, M. Lemaître, and he performed
several important business transactions as "Superior of Ecclesiastics
Associated for the Conversion of the Savages."
In the meantime Laval had written to Rome exposing his case. He
looked upon the peculiar pretensions for ecclesiastical monopoly of
Montreal and the presence of Queylus, as injurious to the interests
of the church in Canada, as menacing its unity and fostering schism.
Accordingly prevailing in this view, his protests brought letters
demanding the return to France of M. de Queylus, which took place
October 22d, from Quebec, the new Governor d'Avaugour being intrusted
with its execution.
It is well to avoid reading into these ecclesiastical disputes personal
hostility or the clash of rancour among high placed churchmen. Each
would have fought, lawyer-like, on principle, for a case of canonical
jurisdiction not yet settled in the ecclesiastical courts, owing to the
doubt remaining as to the validity of the overlordship of Rouen and
the acquiescence of Rome in its pretensions. Law at that time seems
also to have been unsatisfactorily managed, and the facility with which
"lettres de cachet" were sent to and fro, countermanding one another,
did not tend to simplify matters, as we have seen.
Add to these the difficulties inherent in the foundation of a young
French colony and the inevitable struggles for precedence and "locus
standi," especially among representatives of a nation that adored
etiquette and the preceding quarrel will be looked upon as an
interesting episode in a difficult period of history rather than as an
ecclesiastical scandal needlessly resuscitated by the historian, for
the purpose of opening old sores. Later on it will be seen that when
the archbishop of Rouen had relinquished his pretension, de Queylus
returned in 1668 as Laval's appointed vicar general at Montreal, and
the Sulpicians had no greater friend than the fighting bishop.
The same remarks could apply to the struggles that had been going on in
Quebec between Laval and d'Argenson in the matter of social precedence.
The relations of the church to the state had not been clearly
defined in a new country, primarily established for the promotion of
Christianity, and it would still take some time to straighten them out.
On September 11th of this year d'Argenson was formally succeeded in
the reins of office by the Baron du Bois d'Avaugour, arrived on August
31st, but it must not be understood that his quarrels with Laval
were the cause of this. The Vicomte's term of office, as we know,
had already been renewed for a second term, and he had sent in his
resignation more than once, urging ill health as an explanation. His
loss was, however, felt at Montreal by the Sulpicians, on whose side he
had ranged himself in the above disputes with Laval. His administration
would have been more successful if he could have been more impersonal
in such encounters.
M. d'Argenson was shortly followed to France by the founder of
Boucherville, Pierre Boucher, ex-governor of Three Rivers. He left on
October 31st on a mission as special agent to promote the recognition
of the need of national help from France, if Canada was to remain a
white man's land. He was sustained by the new governor, d'Avaugour, and
by d'Argenson, now in France; with what success we shall hear.
[Illustration: SEAL OF THE BOUCHERVILLE FAMILY]
1662
The parish register of Montreal has the following sad entry:
"1662-February 6. Le Sieur Lambert Closse, sergeant-major de la
garnison; Simon Le Roy, Jean Lecompte et Louis Brisson,[89] tué par les
Iroquois."
On this date, February 6th, the brave Lambert Closse met his death at
the hands of those he had so often withstood. The place of the combat
was somewhere near the corner of Craig Street and St. Lambert Hill. A
tablet placed by the Antiquarian Society erected on the south corner
of St. Lambert Hill and St. James Street, near the site of his house,
reads: "Near to this place Raphael Lambert Closse, first town major
of Ville Marie, fell bravely defending some colonists attacked by
Iroquois, 6th February, 1662. In his honour St. Lambert's Hill received
its name."
His biographer, Dollier de Casson, says he died "as a good soldier of
Christ and the king." He was one of those chivalrous knights who looked
upon the Montreal venture as a holy crusade against the infidels, and
death to him was victory. "Gentlemen," he once explained, "I am not
come here, except to die for God in the service of arms. If I did not
believe I should die so, I should leave this land and go to fight
against the Turk so as not to be deprived of this glory." He left
behind his young widow of nineteen years, Elizabeth Moyen, and a child,
Jeanne Cécile Closse, now two years old. Some colonists, being fallen
upon in the fields by the Iroquois, Lambert ran, as was his wont, to
their assistance. He would have saved them had he not been basely
deserted by a cowardly Fleming, his serving man. The historian of the
"Relations" for 1662 says, "He has justly merited the praise of having
saved Montreal by his arms and his reputation."
On May 6, 1662, Picoté de Bélestre signalized that Montreal had still
brave men to follow in his footsteps by the brilliant defense of the
Fort Ste. Marie. This redoubt on the east, with the corresponding
outlying one, on the west, of St. Gabriel, was a most valuable
fortress, without which, as a writer has remarked, Montreal "would have
been snuffed like a penny dip."
The Fort Ste. Marie was opposite the little rapid, down the harbour,
still known as Ste. Marie's Current, and was placed among some fifty
acres which had been cleared and cultivated in prehistoric days by the
Indians. The site of the above event is recorded by a tablet on the
corner of Campeau and Lagauchetière streets: "Here Trudeau, Roulier and
Langevin-Lacroix resisted fifty Iroquois." The three men were returning
to the habitation after their day's work in the fields, when suddenly
one of them cried: "To arms! The enemy is upon us!" At the same moment
a large party of Iroquois, who had been lurking here all day, rose and
fired. Each Frenchman seized his musket and fled to a hole nearby,
called "the redoubt." This they held stoutly till rescued by Bélestre,
the commandant of Ste. Marie. After a brisk fight the enemy finally
retired to the woods.
Apart from these alarms from the Iroquois, a new danger to life had
arisen from the drunken fits of the Indian allies. On the night of June
23-24 Michel Louvard dit Desjardins had been slain before his door in
Montreal by a savage, "Wolf." This produced the following ordinance
from de Maisonneuve on June 24th:
"In consequence of the murder committed last night on the person
of one named Desjardins by drunken savages, caused by the sale of
intoxicating liquors, notwithstanding previous prohibitions given both
by the Baron du Bois d'Avaugour, lieutenant general of His Majesty, and
Mgr. the Bishop of Petrea, vicar apostolic; after having considered,
in consequence of the sales of these drinks, the dangers of a general
massacre of the inhabitants by the savages, for which there are weighty
presumptions, having regard to the ordinary insolences of these latter,
and considering, besides, the ordinary crimes committed on this subject
by the French, of which we shall shortly inform the Baron d'Avaugour
and the Bishop of Petrea, so that there shall be established good order
on the subject of the sale of liquors, as well as for the good of the
inhabitants and for the savages; we, while awaiting this order by
virtue of the power we have received from His Majesty, have prohibited
and do now prohibit all kinds of persons, of whatsoever quality and
condition, from selling, giving or trading intoxicating drinks to the
savages, under such pains and punishments as we shall judge proper to
inflict, to procure the service of God and the good of this habitation."
This looks but just and wise; but it was also bold, seeing that
the prohibition of the sale of liquor was at that moment a burning
question at Quebec. It was especially bold, seeing that Maisonneuve
adroitly challenged the governor general to stand by his own previous
legislation, which he was now tacitly neglecting to enforce. It will
be seen that de Maisonneuve made reference to powers "we have received
from the king." Shortly after the publication of this ordinance the
Baron d'Avaugour visited Montreal and he flatly doubted the right to
introduce these words, especially as he had lately taken the stand of
permitting liquor traffic with the Indians. As the governor of Montreal
had been used slightingly and jealously of late by the governor
general, he did not show him his documentary authority, although the
reader will remember that the royal edict of March 7, 1657, warranted
the words.
[Illustration: SIGNATURES TO MARRIAGE CONTRACT OF LAMBERT CLOSSE]
KEY TO SIGNATURES ON OPPOSITE PAGE
_Paul de Chomedey_ _L. Closse_
_Issabelle Moyen_
_Paul Ragueneau_ _Jeanne Mance_
_Claude Pijart_ _Marie Moyen_
_François le Mercier_
_François Duperon_
_Marin Jannot_ _Jacques Vautié_
_P. Gadoys_ _N. G._ (_Nicolas Gadois_)
_R. Le Cavelier_ _Jehan Gervaise_
_Nicolas hubert_ _Marguerite_
_Gilbert barbier_ _Landreau_
_Jacques picot_ _Catherine primoit_
_Maturine Godé_ _Caterine de la vaux_
_Janne Lemoine_ _Chartier_
This marriage contract between Lambert Closse and Elizabeth Moyen must
have been signed by Jean de St. Père, the first notary of Montreal,
but his signature appears to have faded. The flourishes or _paraphes_
at the end of the names were customary at the period to insure against
imitation.
This is now the place to introduce the famous quarrels about the
liquor trade, which were of passionate interest in New France in the
seventeenth century.
It is claimed by the French that the English were the first to
introduce the liquor curse to the natives, in payment for furs. When
the French returned to Quebec the traders followed suit in spite of the
prohibitions of Champlain, Montmagny, d'Ailleboust, de Maisonneuve, de
Queylus and Laval.
The letters of the Jesuit missionaries and the contemporary
memorialists reveal a shameful story of vice, mingled with that of
the establishment of a Christian civilization. Drink made the savages
and the Christian neophytes yield to the most deplorable depths of
immorality and barbarous brutality. The delights of conviviality gave
way to disgusting debaucheries, quarrels and bloody fights. Fathers
slaughtered their children; husbands, their wives; and the women became
veritable furies. Children, boys and girls, were all demoralized. After
a night's carouse the cabins of the Indians were a gruesome sight,
heartbreaking to those responsible for the morality of the country.
The good nuns were shocked at naked men and women running amuck in the
streets of Quebec, clearing all before them at the point of the sword.
Notwithstanding prohibitions and ordinances, the scenes of carouses and
of carnage continued, because the minority, the traders, maintained
the right as necessary for trade alliances with the natives, asserting
that they were not responsible for the abuse. On his arrival Laval
fought the custom fiercely and finally found himself forced, on May 6,
1660, to fulminate the terrors of the church's excommunication "ipso
facto" against the traffickers, and in this he was supported by the
Jesuit missionaries. This had a decided effect, backed up by the severe
sanctions, even those of death, promulgated by the secular arm of the
state, represented by the Baron d'Avaugour.
An unfortunate incident, trivial in itself, destroyed this harmony. It
came from the characteristic inflexibility of the soldier governor. He
had all the qualities of a soldier who, having made up his mind, is
immovable, but he had the defects of these same qualities. What in a
good cause would have been constancy in maintaining a point of honour
became pigheadedness and impracticability in another. A woman of Quebec
had been taken, selling a bottle of wine to the Indians. Her friends
and relatives interceded for her to the priest, Father Lalemant, who
in turn approached the governor. The governor must have been in a bad
humour and not very philosophical, for he did not distinguish between
clemency and justice, between a general command and an extenuating
circumstance, or legitimate exemption. It was the priest's part to
urge clemency, the governor's to exercise justice. Father Lalemant
was answered brusquely: "Since the selling of _eau de vie_ is not
punishable for this woman, it shall not be so for anyone"--the answer
of the man of the sword and not of the lawyer or statesman. Soon the
word went around that the governor tolerated the liquor traffic. The
obstinate and headstrong soldier would not retract his hasty words and
disorders began again. The governor was inactive and shut his eyes,
but Laval levelled his threats again at the traders, who now openly
revolted, saying they would not be dictated to by bishop, priest,
preacher or confessor, since the viceroy was on their side.
It was under these circumstances that de Maisonneuve issued his
ordinance forbidding at Montreal what was known to be permitted at
Quebec. Hence the passage of arms between the two governors as
described. Maisonneuve was supported by the clergy of Montreal. Affairs
went from bad to worse at Quebec and on August 12, 1662, the vicar
apostolic went to France to place the liquor situation before the king.
Thither also went the secretary of the Baron d'Avaugour, Péronne de
Mazé, to justify his master and the traders.
Charge and countercharge, and recriminations, exercised the French
court. The bishop and the Jesuits were accused of too much severity and
clericalism, the governor and traders of too much laxity and avarice.
The problem of the relations of church and state had still to be worked
out in New France. In the meantime the bishop won; the Sorbonne in
1662 had justified his action; the liquor traffic was forbidden and
d'Avaugour was to be recalled. When Laval returned next year, the new
governor, de Mésy, accompanied him, the man of his own choice--an
unfortunate one as we shall see.
The month following, September, 1662, de Maisonneuve wished to go
to France, his object being to secure troops and to arrange for the
transfer of the seigneurship of the island from the nearly moribund
Company of Montreal to the Seminary of St. Sulpice. Before leaving he
appointed the town major, Zacharie Dupuis to take his place and an
ordinance to that effect was put up at the door of the parish church
dated September 10, 1662. On September 16th he started with Jeanne
Mance and the Abbé Souart, conducted by M. Jacques Leber. When at
Quebec d'Avaugour forbade Maisonneuve to depart on the ground that he
was needed in Montreal to quell the sedition that had arisen there in
July in reference to the establishment of a storehouse by the Company
of One Hundred Associates. This was but a pretext. Maisonneuve,
however, consented to return. Mademoiselle Mance set sail alone on
September 20th.
On his return to Montreal Maisonneuve busied himself in promoting
agriculture. There were four classes now living at Montreal:
The "habitants," or settlers, who took up the lands and were
self-supporting, these alone having the rights of trading in peltry;
the soldiers of the garrison; hired workers by contract for a definite
time; and day labourers.
By an ordinance of November 4, 1662, Maisonneuve gave permission to
soldiers and hired workers to cultivate four arpents on the seigneurs'
domain, till four others equally cultivated were given them elsewhere.
As a further inducement, those taking up land would be granted peltry
privileges like the habitants. Sixty-three responded to this before the
end of the year.
FOOTNOTES:
[88] Moffatt's island, five-eighths of a mile from the south shore, now
the wharf terminus of the Champlain branch of the Grand Trunk Railway.
[89] Two of these were "travailleurs ou volontaires," or day labourers.
In his ordinance of November 4, 1662, Maisonneuve showed no favour
to these who, for the most part, were rather a charge on the young
colony than a benefit. At Three Rivers they early became a considerable
nuisance. In 1653, on January 14, Pierre Boucher, the local governor,
ordered them to become habitants, or servants of habitants, and on
March 2, 1668, he made a new ordinance conceived in these terms: "On
the advice which has been given us that there are still labourers who
are neither habitants, nor servants of habitants, and who live under
the name of 'volontaires' (free workers), we forbid them to take more
than twenty sous a day and fifteen _livres_ a month with their food,
under penalty of prison and of the cat-o'-nine tails (fouet) at the
hands of the hangman, and it is forbidden them to trade any peltry
with the savages." At Montreal at this date the labourers were not
so troublesome, but out of them later developed many of the restless
"coureurs de bois."
CHAPTER XV
1663-1664
THE SOVEREIGN COUNCIL AND THE SEIGNEURS OF THE ISLAND
GREAT CHANGES, PHYSICAL AND POLITICAL
MILITIA SQUADS ESTABLISHED--THE FORMATION OF THE CONFRATERNITY
OF THE HOLY FAMILY--THE EARTHQUAKE AT MONTREAL--POLITICAL
CHANGES--THE RESIGNATION OF THE COMPANY OF ONE HUNDRED
ASSOCIATES--CANADA BECOMES A CROWN COLONY--THE TRANSFER OF THE
SEIGNEURY OF THE ISLAND FROM THE COMPANY OF MONTREAL TO THE
"GENTLEMEN OF THE SEMINARY"--ROYAL GOVERNMENT--THE APPOINTMENT
OF THE SOVEREIGN COUNCIL--CHANGE IN THE MONTREAL JUDICIAL
SYSTEM--FORMER HOME RULE PRIVILEGES RESCINDED--MONTREAL
UNDER QUEBEC--PIERRE BOUCHER'S DESCRIPTION OF CANADA AND
MONTREAL--SOCIAL LIFE OF THE PERIOD--MONTREAL SOLDIERY--THE
ELECTION OF POLICE JUDGES--ATTEMPT TO SUPPLANT MAISONNEUVE AS
LOCAL GOVERNOR--DISCORD IN THE SOVEREIGN COUNCIL.
Meanwhile the war was still in progress and news had come that the
Iroquois had determined to seize Montreal, by surprise or force, as
their own post, after putting the inhabitants to fire and sword. To
meet this threat, de Maisonneuve issued an ordinance, January 27, 1663,
inviting the colonists to form into militia squads of seven persons of
which one should be elected corporal, for the purpose of supplementing
the regular garrison soldiers. On February 4th "to the end that the
country may be saved," he established a _camp volant_, or flying
squadron, composed of twenty such squads, to be known under the title
of the Militia of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph, "since
this island is the property of the Holy Virgin." It will be remembered
that already de Maisonneuve had established his Military Confraternity,
or guard of sixty-two. In all things the religious character of the
foundation of Montreal is seen.
At Quebec the liquor traffic with the Indians went on more boldly,
owing to the absence of Mgr. Laval, and disorders were multiplied, such
as the burning of one of the houses on the night of January 23d.
An event, which is reported from many sources and was regarded as a
supernatural visitation was, however, more effective in putting the
fear of the Lord into the liquor traffickers than all the previous
thunderings of the clergy.
On February 5th, the eve of Carnival Monday, or "lundi gras," the first
hoarse rumblings of an earthquake which were noted all over Canada,
were heard at Ville Marie while M. Souart, the curé, was holding
prayers in the church, and after five or six minutes the earth began to
swell and move. The terror-stricken people left the church lest they
should perish in the ruins. At the Hôtel-Dieu, many of the sick ran out
and spent the night on the rolling snow-covered ground. The gayeties of
carnival were abandoned and fear fell upon the people. The tremblings
lasted for seven or eight minutes.
One direct effect of the earthquake was to make the ladies form, under
the suggestion of Père Chaumonot, the Jesuit, then on a visit to
Montreal, and with the co-operation of M. Souart, a pious association
under the name of the "Confraternity of the Holy Family." Its
formation, on July 31st, was greatly promoted by Madame d'Ailleboust,
widow of Louis d'Ailleboust, the former governor general, who, since
his death in 1660, had taken up her abode at the Hôtel-Dieu. It was
approved in March 1665, by Mgr. Laval. Subsequent associations spread
all over Canada for two centuries.
The pictures given of the earthquake are most graphically painted by
writers of the period, such as those in the "Relations." In the forest
the trees were apparently at war, being uprooted and cast against one
another, so that the Indians said the forest was intoxicated. The hills
and mountains were in the same confusion. Mountains were laid low and
the valleys were filled up. The ice beds of the rivers broke up and
the water, mingled with mud, poured up in jets on high. The streams
quitted their beds or changed the colours of their waters, some yellow,
others red; the great St. Lawrence was whitish for eight days. To the
affrighted people it seemed that the spirits of darkness and the powers
of the air were permitted to league themselves. But there was little
loss of life "and the harvest," says Sister Marie de l'Incarnation,
"was never more fruitful. There were no sicknesses. You see by this
that God only wounds to bless and that his inflictions which we have
experienced, are only the chastisement of a good Father." The effects
of this earthquake still are visible. From Cape Tourment to Tadoussac
there were changes in the contour of the land and of the banks of the
St. Lawrence. The picturesque name, Les Eboulements, in the Bay of St.
Paul, records the fall of a hill nearby into the river, thus forming
the present island. The earthquake spread to New England and the New
Netherlands, and similar terrors affected the minds of the people as in
Canada.
While these warlike physical changes were terrifying Canada, in France
the constitution of the bodies governing its temporal law and order
were also being overhauled in a more peaceful manner. On February
24th the few remaining rich members of the Company of One Hundred
Associates, which had the monopoly of New France since 1626, were
constrained, seeing impending dissolution by force, to offer the
resignation of their charters, by a renunciation pure and simple.
In the March following this was accepted by the king. The colony came
at last directly under the crown and happier times were in store for
it. Splendid colonizing ideas were being prepared by Louis XIV and Jean
Baptiste Colbert, the successor of Mazarin, which if carried out would
have prevented the necessity of the cession of 1760. The words of the
edict will not surprise our readers.
[Illustration: COLBERT]
"Since it has pleased God," says this prince, "to give peace to
our kingdom, we have nothing more strongly to heart than the
re-establishment of commerce, as being the source and the principle
of the abundance which we take upon ourselves to procure for our
people. This has led us to inform ourselves of the state of New France
which our king, our very honoured lord and father, had given over by
a treaty of 1626 to a company of one hundred persons. But in place
of learning that this country had been populated as it should be,
considering the long time of its possession, we have recognized with
regret that not only the number of its inhabitants is very small, but
that they are every day in danger of being driven out by the Iroquois.
Recognizing, besides, that this company of one hundred men is nearly
extinct owing to the voluntary retirement of a great number, and that
the few remaining are not powerful enough to maintain this country,
by sending forces and men necessary to swell and defend it, we have
resolved to take it from the hands of this company, which has resigned
it to our good purposes. For which reasons we declare that all the
rights of property, justice and _seigneurie_ granted by our most
honoured lord and father, by the charter of April 29, 1626, shall be
and do remain reunited to our crown, to be henceforth exercised in our
name by the officers whom we shall name to this effect."
Thus the future Canadian society was being thought out on the basis
of an over-parental feudalism, probably the best form for the times,
though it sadly crippled the initiative of the French-Canadian
population, with results seen to this day. Yet the population was no
more than twenty-five hundred souls, of which eight hundred were at
Quebec.
At the same time the negotiations for the transfer of the seigneury of
the island of Montreal were completed. During the visit of Mademoiselle
Mance several meetings of the Company of Montreal had been held, the
members of which, with the exception of some directors of the Seminary
of Paris, and M. de Maisonneuve, were reduced to five. On March 9th
the act of transfer, to be found in the Edicts and Ordinances of the
Province of Quebec, states that:
"Considering the great blessings, which God has poured upon the Island
of Montreal for the conversion of the savages and the edification of
the French, by the help of MM. Olier, de Renty and others, for twenty
years; and now, in later years the gentlemen of the Seminary of St.
Sulpice have laboured by their care and zeal to uphold this good work,
having exposed their persons and having made contributions for the
good of the colony and increase of the glory of God; the Associates
desiring moreover to contribute on their part by seconding the pious
designs of the Gentlemen of the Seminary, and in honour of the memory
of the founder and one of the promoters and benefactors of the work of
Montreal, they have, after several conferences on the subject, and in
furtherance of the greater glory of God, given to these gentlemen all
the proprietorial rights which they have in the Island of Montreal, as
also the seigneurial manor house, called the Fort, the farm, the tilled
lands and all the rights that they have in their island."[90]
In this donation special reference was made to the services of M. de
Maisonneuve. He was to continue, during his life, governor and captain
of the island and of the seigneurial manor house under, however, the
pleasure of the Gentlemen of the Seminary. He was to have, in place of
remuneration, half of the farm lands and the revenues of the mill.
He was to have his apartments in the seigneurial manor house, in which
the Gentlemen of the Seminary, as Seigneurs, shall henceforth have the
right to live.
After some hesitation, in view of the expense of the undertaking, the
Seminary of St. Sulpice at Paris, on March 31st, finally undertook the
work for which their founder had always intended them, and Montreal was
saved from the abandonment which at one time during the negotiations
looked imminent. There was a desire to have M. de Queylus sent back,
but Laval, then in Paris, was adamant in his firmness.
On his part, he was very well received at court. The king would have
Laval made "Bishop of Quebec" and he gave him the abbey revenues of
Maubec in the diocese of Bourges to sustain the position when the see
of Quebec should be erected, which was not to be for many years. The
most important preparation for the better government of New France, and
one in favor of Laval, was the edict, published in March by the king,
of the appointment of a Sovereign Council to sit at Quebec, unless
judged more convenient elsewhere. This was to consist of the governor
general, the bishop, or in default the highest ecclesiastic on the
spot, the intendant when appointed, five councillors and a _procureur
du roi_.
The nomination of these councillors was to be made conjointly by
the governor general and the bishop, and they could dismiss them or
continue them at pleasure. This gave Laval greater power than before,
for hitherto under d'Avaugour, he had only a right to be called to
the council with a "voix délibératrice," as a simple councillor among
creatures chosen by the governor general. The Baron d'Avaugour was
recalled,[91] and Laval was constrained to name his successor, his
choice falling unfortunately on M. Saffray de Mézy, then town major
of Caen, whom he had formerly met at the Hermitage of Caen, where M.
Bernières gathered his pious friends whom he thought he could rely on
to extend the glory of God. De Mézy's letters were signed on May 1st,
before d'Avaugour's second year of the usual term of three years was
completed. On March 26th Laval, in preparation for rearing a colonial
clergy, erected a seminary and united it with that of the Foreign
Missionaries of Paris, from whom he wished to draw some volunteers.
In the April following he obtained an edict from the king regulating
the "dime" for church support and the poor rate, to be fixed at the
thirteenth part of the income of each colonist. It was arranged also
that the curés should be removable at the will of the bishop and his
successors.
The bishop of Petrea reached Quebec on September 15th with the new
governor general, de Mézy, and M. Louis Gaudais, Sieur du Pont. The
latter had been sent by the king as an envoy to enquire into the
government of d'Avaugour, and in addition to report on the most
convenient means for the colonization and cultivation of the country.
The troops which the king had desired to send to subdue the Iroquois
were not as yet at liberty to come, but in their place, 100 families
containing 500 persons, with expenses defrayed for a year, were
dispatched this year.
By September 28th the new councillors, Rouer de Villeray, keeper of the
seals; Jucherau de la Ferté, M. Ruette d'Auteuil, Legardeur de Tilly,
d'Amours; and the new king's procurator, M. Bourdoin, with Gaudais, the
royal commissioner acting as intendant _ad interim_, had collaborated
with de Mézy and Laval and had issued a severe edict forbidding the
liquor traffic with the Indians.
There was now great stir under the new form of Royal Government. Mézy
and Laval were announced as Chiefs of the Council. The inhabitants made
offer of their "foi et hommage" for their land tenures. Officers for
the administration of justice, according to civil law, were appointed.
Regulations for commerce and social progress were promulgated. New
France was declared a province or a kingdom and Quebec a "town." A
mayor, Legardeur de Repentigny, and two aldermen, Jean Maudry and
Claude Charron, were elected, and municipal life seemed promised.
These officers met on October 6th, but by November 14th their election
was revoked by the council and the office of syndic again restored.
This abortive municipal life was apparently too great a stride in the
autocratic government then in vogue. Yet Canada was beginning to emerge
from its petty parish condition and its struggling state. The privilege
granted Laval of exacting one-thirteenth part of the fruits of the
earth and of a man's labour on the earth for church establishment was
not satisfactory, and finally it was reduced to one-twentieth for
the rest of monseigneur's life; later it was reduced by Laval to a
twenty-sixth.
The taking over of the colony as a royal possession began to affect
other places than Quebec. At Montreal, the assumption of the
seigneurial duties and privileges was not without difficulty. On
August 18th, the commission which had been privately given by M. de
Bretonvilliers to M. Souart was publicly ratified. But hardly had
the Sovereign Council been installed than it took away the right of
the Seigneurs to administer justice in civil and criminal cases, and
on September 28th appointed M. Arthur de Sailly as judge, Charles Le
Moyne, king's procurator, Bénigne Basset as chief clerk and notary of
the sénéchal's court, all of whom took the oath on October 19th.
Similar inferior courts of justice were also established at Three
Rivers; appeal could be made on trivial causes to the supreme council.
The customary law of Paris, or "_coutume de Paris_," based on the civil
law of Rome, was the fundamental law of Canada, and still governs the
civil rights of the people.
Hitherto Maisonneuve had acted as administrator of justice, but now the
seigneurs named Charles d'Ailleboust des Musseaux as judge and retained
Bénigne Basset as clerk of the Seigneurs.
The new appointments, made over their heads in defiance of their
rights, caused M. Souart, on behalf of the seigneurs, to go to Quebec
with M. de Maisonneuve, to protest. But while there, de Mézy dealt a
further blow by presenting Maisonneuve with his commission of governor
of Montreal, thereby intimating that the seigneurs had no right of
appointment. M. Souart, relying on the decree of 1644 giving this
power to the seigneurs, then the Company of Montreal, protested, and
he was ordered to produce the letters patent for proof; meanwhile de
Maisonneuve was to act as governor of Montreal, by the power just
granted by the governor general, till the king should order otherwise.
In the meantime de Maisonneuve acted on his new commission but always
without prejudice to the rights of the seigneurs. This loyalty was also
shared by Bénigne Basset for, in a contract of marriage for November
16, 1663, he signs himself as clerk in the royal sénéchal's court,
notary royal, and clerk for the seigneurs. It may be for this reason
that he was supplanted later in his office in the sénéchal's court by
Sieur de Mouchy, who had been appointed by the Sovereign Council "for
good reasons." Maisonneuve's position at Montreal was also getting
insecure. There was now an effort on foot to bring Montreal under
control of Quebec as the seat of the royal government and the veteran,
de Maisonneuve, as an adherent of the old ways, was jealously viewed
by de Mézy and perhaps by Laval. Certainly Montreal was now being
dominated by the newly-imported royal policy.
But the new colonial policy was to bring good results from the new
blood infused. If wisely handled, the new régime would have worked
permanent good.
The resignation of the Company of New France, on February 24, 1663, was
accepted by the king in March of the same year, and the edict on the
creation of the Supreme Council followed in the April following.
From the date of the establishment of the Supreme Council, September
18, 1663, Civil Government may be said to have begun. Hitherto no
deliberative board had sat to discuss the affairs of the colony. There
had been a vague and indefinite system of government by the chartered
companies, but there had been no constituted hierarchy, either in the
political or in the judicial order.
The council was modeled on that of the parliament of Paris. The terms
of the "ordonnance" of its creation indicated that the king wished to
create here, in Canada, an authority to supply what the parliament
of Paris, seeing its great distance away, could not provide for.
Yet the Sovereign Council was never a real parliament, although
it contained in germ, if not actually, all the power of one. The
dignity of the new body was so great later that when Frontenac came
as a governor he considerably astonished the simple burgesses of the
little fortress of Quebec with all the pomp at his command. He would
be in truth a "Viceroy," and Gascon that he was, he would play the
part. Others also in their sphere would reproduce the usages of the
Paris mother parliament; hence the troubles about "préséance," among
the counsellors, which seem so trivial to us, but not so to them,
punctilious in their observance of their high positions. With Paris
for an example, it is not surprising that Frontenac dismissed his
counsellors, when it suited him, for did not Louis le Soleil do the
same himself?
The "ordonnance" of the creation of the council, after indicating the
composition of its members and outlining its general powers, then
continues: "Moreover we give power to the said council to commission,
at Quebec, Montreal, Three Rivers and in all other places, as many, and
in the manner as it shall deem necessary, persons as shall judge in the
first instance without chicanery and delay, the procedures of different
proceedings which may arise between private persons, and shall name
clerks, notaries and scriveners, surgeons and other officers of justice
whom they shall judge proper, our desire being to drive all chicanery
as far as possible out of the said country of New France, with the end
that prompt and speedy justice may be rendered."
The Sovereign Council was held at Quebec but it ruled over Montreal,
not in broad lines of general policy only, but in what we would call
village politics. It went into very small details indeed and the parish
church portals were frequently posted with proclamations from Quebec.
There does not seem to have been much home rule for Montreal in those
days.
A picture of this period is presented in the "Histoire Véritable et
Naturelle de la Nouvelle France," dedicated to Colbert, the minister,
by a letter written from Three Rivers on October 8, 1663, by Pierre
Boucher, who had been sent to France by the inhabitants of La Nouvelle
France for help, in 1662, when he had conversed with Colbert personally.
His object was to explain the physical and natural history of the
country to encourage colonization. He expresses surprise that the
country still remained inadequately populated, but he warns Colbert
against any policy of sending criminals to this country. Tramps were
not wanted in Canada. If any insinuated themselves they knew, how to
hang them, as elsewhere. Doubtful women were not tolerated either.
Those women that came were vouched for by responsible persons or
relatives.
Speaking of the climate he says: "From the beginning of May, the heat
is extremely great, though we are only coming out of the depth of
winter. This is the reason why everything goes ahead and in less than
no time the earth is covered with verdure. It is remarkable that the
wheat sown at the end of April or as late as May 21st is harvested in
September. The winter is very cold, but it is a bright frost, and for
the most part the days are beautiful and serene.
"Mont Royal, the last of our settlements, is situated on a beautiful
and great island. The lands are very good and produce grain in
abundance; everything is going on well there; fishing and hunting are
also very good."
Montreal is described as having a rich soil, but requiring horses[92] to
till it. As these are expensive he hopes the "bon roi" would assist,
especially by exterminating the Iroquois, who killed the cattle. Most
of its trees were oak. There was no hemp, but the soil was suitable for
its cultivation.
Speaking of the caribous he says that the males have forked feet, which
in running, open so widely that they never sink in the winter snows no
matter how deep these may be. He speaks of the skill of the beavers in
constructing their dams, which the waters cannot break through, saying
that they thus arrest the courses of little streams, inundating a great
part of the country and forming pools for them in which to play and to
have their dwellings. The savages had the greatest difficulty on their
hunting expeditions in destroying these dams.
Describing social life, he says that the country produced strong boys
and girls, but they were led to study with difficulty. Wine was drunk
in the best houses, beer in others, and a favourite drink in common
use was "bouillon." Some houses were built of stone covered with pine
boards, some were built with upright posts filled in with masonry;
others were framework buildings of wood. There were no women servants
in Canada. Most of the men started as servants and in a few years
were at their ease working for themselves. He advised all who came to
Canada to be ready to put their hands to anything, building or land
clearing. They should bring provisions for two years, especially flour.
He gives many other details showing the value of money and the price of
things. The great difficulty beyond the mosquitoes and the length of
the winter was the fear of the stealthy Iroquois who were here, there
and everywhere, never attacking but when they were in strong force.
When discovered they take to flight, and as they are so agile in their
movements, it is difficult to pursue them. He trusted the "bon roi"
would assist in destroying them. "And," says Boucher, "it would not be
a difficult thing to get rid of them, for they consist but of eight to
nine hundred men capable of bearing arms. It required only prudence and
sufficient force to destroy them."
Boucher was accompanied from France by Dumont, an officer in charge of
100 soldiers. In Dumont's account of his visit, written in 1663 in the
"Relations," he says of Montreal that the inhabitants were the most
soldierly in the country--a remark made also by Boucher. Boucher's
mission to France helped to persuade the king to take over the colony
as a royal possession. When the king's forces came to exterminate the
Iroquois the Montreal fighting men did justice to their reputation, as
we shall see.
At this period the mode of living was very simple. The house was one
long room lighted by three windows, in which all the family ate, slept
and worked. At the bottom of the apartment was the bed of the parents,
against the wall; in a corner a contrivance which served as a bench by
day and a bed by night for the children. On the right, as you entered,
you would have seen the open chimney rising a little above the room,
and slung from a chain was the family cooking pot. Near the fireside
was a small staircase or ladder leading to the grain loft above lighted
by one or two small windows. A table and a few chairs or benches or a
collapsible chair and table in one, completed the primitive furniture
in the living room.
But we must not forget the old gun hanging over the bed, ready at hand
during the night should the Iroquois suddenly attack. This served also
as the family forager for meat, and game, both feathered and "red
skins." There was good shooting in the neighbourhood of Montreal,
with plenty of ducks and partridges. It is recounted that in 1663 a
hunter in Quebec brought down thirty-two grey turtle doves with one
shot. On the rivers they were so numerous that the rowers could hit
the troublesome birds with their paddles. The settlers, when they
had collected all they needed and salted there for the winter, had
abundance left over to give to the dogs and the pigs.
There was not much hunting in the woods by Montrealers, but the Indians
brought into the market near the fort, the original "place d'armes,"
a goodly amount of bear, elk, venison, wild cow, moose, beaver and
muskrats, and other meats.
On "fish days" the good Montrealer had no excuse for not keeping church
abstinence, for eels sold at an _écu_ a hundred, and sturgeons, shad,
dory, pike, carp, groundlings, brill and maskinongé abounded. From
Quebec they received the salmon and the herring, trout from Malbaie and
white fish from Three Rivers.
Provisions, clothing and property originally were exchanged by barter,
e. g., a small lot of land went for two cows and a pair of stockings; a
larger piece would go for two bulls, a cow and a little money.
Money became less rare when the troops arrived. Meanwhile the war
with the Iroquois was carried on with the usual incidents, as already
described.
At Montreal there seems to have been more fear of the exactions of
Quebec than of the incursions of Iroquois. Quebec had endeavoured to
restrain all trade to itself, and in consequence of this monopoly
prices were very high in Montreal, and many households were in want.
At the same time there were complaints as to the adequacy of the
police arrangement, so that there seemed to be ground for fearing some
sedition.
Accordingly on February 15, 1664, Paul de Chomedey published an
ordinance ordering the habitants to assemble on the Sunday following,
February 24th, to the place called the "hangar," to elect five of the
principal inhabitants to regulate the matters of police for the town.
This day, the weather being bad, saw very few at the voting place, and
we find the syndic, Urbain Bauderau, asking for a reannouncement of the
same ordinance for next Sunday, March 2d. This was done, and at least
226 were present, to judge by the votes recorded. The following were
elected police judges: Louis Prud'homme, 23 votes; Jacques Le Moyne,
23; Gabriel le Sel, Sieur du Clos, 19; Jacques Picot, Sieur de la Brie,
24; Jean Leduc, 19.
[Illustration: VOTES RECORDED OF AN ELECTION OF CIVIC OFFICERS]
Dated March 6th, another document of de Maisonneuve is preserved, in
which it is recorded that the above five had been ordered to appear
before the governor to take the oath, and had done so, but Le Sel and
Leduc, having said and declared that they did not know how to write or
sign, the three others signed the commission of appointment. Meanwhile
the position of de Maisonneuve as governor of Montreal was becoming
insecure and in June of this year he was called to Quebec by M. de Mézy
who named Captain Etienne Pézard, Sieur de la Touche, to succeed him in
his position. What the reason was, beyond the jealousy of the governor
general, or a possible secret instruction from the government, we do
not know. Yet this latter appointment never took place, for we find de
Maisonneuve still governor till his final removal by Tracy at the end
of 1665, and even then M. Dupuis, the town major, was only appointed as
commandant till Perrot was officially appointed in 1669.[93]
At Quebec the early months of 1664 were signalized by the outburst
in flame of the smouldering dissatisfactions and the growing discord
marring the harmony hitherto existing between Laval and de Mézy,
the joint chiefs of the Sovereign Council. The dual rule was found
impossible, especially as the council was considered by de Mézy to be
a packed one in favour of Laval. It came to a head on February 3d,
when the governor sent his major, the Sieur d'Angouville, to announce
to the bishop that he had forbidden three of the council, de Villeray,
d'Auteuil and Bourdon, the king's procurator, to appear at the council
until they had been justified by the king for the cabals he alleged had
been fomented against himself by them. He prayed the bishop to confirm
this interdiction of those "who had been named in his favour" and to
proceed in the nomination of three others. He did more: he proclaimed
the same interdiction at the sound of the drum by a proclamation signed
also by the three other councillors. Further, on February 13th, he
published another declaration forbidding several practices which he
said he felt bound to stop, so as not to betray the interests of the
king.
This rupture was inevitably the result of the impossible dual
government. In France the vesting of temporal power in a bishop was not
so likely to prove unsuccessful as in a new country needing a military
governor. But to place the spiritual and civil authorities "ex aequo"
in civil government was not the wise move for the good of the church it
had been intended to be.
M. de Mézy no doubt felt the weakness of his position. The moral
strength of government would be dominated by the bishop and in a
conflict the councillors and others would side with the bishop as vicar
apostolic, who was irremovable, except by the pope, until death, while
the governor general could be recalled even before his three years were
completed. Hence his patience was tried and his dignity hurt; thus he
lost his head and went beyond his powers. On the other hand, the bishop
would honestly not have been prepared for this outburst. With pain and
astonishment Laval replied, on February 16th, that he could not in
honour or in conscience ratify the suspension of the councillors until
they should be convicted of their alleged crimes against the governor.
The suspension of Bourdon, the king's procurator, held up the
administration of justice. This Mézy endeavoured to correct by
appointing, on March 10th, against the will of Laval, another, in the
person of the Sieur Chartier. He went further and arbitrarily dissolved
the council on September 18th, and on the 24th established another
without the consent and participation of the bishop.
On September 23d M. Bourdon sailed to France at the command of de Mézy
to render an account of his service to the king. In October de Mézy
published again, at the beat of the drum, another proclamation, which
incensed the ecclesiastical party.
The dissentions in Quebec could not but have a disquieting effect on
Montreal, now politically more dependent on Quebec than ever.
FOOTNOTES:
[90] The seigneury of St. Sulpice, already granted, is included in this
as part of the whole.
[91] D'Avaugour received the news as a magnanimous soldier. On his way
home he wrote from Gaspé a memorial to Colbert in which he commends
New France to the king. "The St. Lawrence," he says, "is the entrance
to what may be made the greatest state in the world." In his purely
military way he recounts the means of making this grand possibility by
a military colonization.
[92] One horse only had reached Canada previously. It arrived June 20,
1647, and was presented to the governor, Montmagny.
[93] Etienne Pézard de la Touche never acted as governor of Montreal
owing to the rigorous protestations raised by the Seigneurs of the
island. M. de la Touche seems to have arrived in Canada in 1661 and by
the 10th of October of that year he is to be found acting as lieutenant
of the garrison of Three Rivers, in which locality he remained till
1664, when he became a captain. On June 20th he married Madeleine
Mulois de la Borde and M. de Maisonneuve as governor assisted at the
ceremony. On the same day or the next by a curious irony of fate
there is found the nomination of the newly married captain, dated
from Quebec, as Maisonneuve's successor. When the news became known
at Montreal it was looked upon by the governor general de Mésy as an
arrogation of the powers of the Seigneurs of Montreal, and an attempt
on the part of the recently created Sovereign Council to test its
jurisdiction over Montreal. The triumph of the seigneurs was evident,
for on July 23d following, de Maisonneuve was accorded by the sovereign
council his emoluments for the upkeep of the garrison for the current
year, and on July 28th is found as governor granting a new concession
of land, a practice he continued till May, 1665. On the other hand,
on July 23d, de la Touche is recorded as in charge of the accounts of
the garrison of Three Rivers. On August 8th M. de Mésy apparently by
way of a consolation accorded him the seigneury of Batiscan and of
Cap de la Madeleine, and the new seigneur busied himself in his new
position. Meanwhile de Maisonneuve's days were numbered. (Cf. Canadian
Antiquarian and Numismatic Journal, 1914, No. 2, article by E. Z.
Massicotte.)
CHAPTER XVI
1665
THE RECALL OF DE MAISONNEUVE
THE GOVERNOR GENERAL DE COURCELLES AND THE INTENDANT TALON
ARRIVE--THE DUAL REIGN INHARMONIOUS--SIEUR DE TRACY,
LIEUTENANT GENERAL OF THE KING FOR NORTH AMERICA, ARRIVES--THE
CARIGNAN-SALLIERES REGIMENT--CAPTURE OF CHARLES LE MOYNE
BY IROQUOIS--BUILDING OF OUTLYING FORTS--PREPARATIONS FOR
WAR--THE DISMISSAL OF MAISONNEUVE--AN UNRECOGNIZED MAN--HIS
MONUMENT--MAISONNEUVE IN PARIS--A TRUE CANADIAN.
The strained relations at Quebec and Montreal were soon to be relieved
for a time by the death of de Mézy, who died on the night of May 5-6,
1665, thus being saved the painful investigations into his government
which were ordered by Louis XIV, and were to be conducted by the
new governor, M. de Courcelles, and the intendant, Jean Baptiste
Talon. They, having received their letters of appointment on March
23d, were now on their way with a secret commission to look into the
administration of the spiritual and temporal power of New France. M. de
Courcelles was given power over all the local governors of Canada, and
the Sovereign Council, to settle differences between its members, and
to have command over all His Majesty's subjects, ecclesiastics, nobles,
soldiers and others of whatever dignity or condition, but this under
the supervision of M. Alexandre de Pourville, Sieur de Tracy, who was
shortly expected to be in Canada. This latter had been appointed on
November 19, 1663, the lieutenant general of the king for _l'Amérique
Méridionale et Septentrionale_, and was to proceed to Canada as soon as
possible.
As for Talon, the Colbert of New France, and the first intendant in
Canada, he was given unlimited authority in police, civil, judiciary
and financial matters, independently of M. de Courcelles.
[Illustration: THE INTENDANT TALON]
This distribution of power was bound, in the beginning, to create
trouble. Perfect harmony could not be expected while the intendant,
though not of equal dignity with the governor, was treated with great
consideration and was looked upon to act as a check and spy on the
governor. This dual reign was as likely to cause friction as had that
of the governor and the bishop hitherto. Still it was a most valuable
and useful office in the progress of the country, and Talon used it
well.
Before the arrival of de Courcelles and Talon, on April 25th, an attack
had been made on the Hôtel-Dieu at Montreal, when four of their men
were fallen upon by the Indians; one was killed, another mortally
wounded and two others were taken prisoners. This made Montreal look
more eagerly for the arrival of the troops promised to exterminate the
Iroquois.
On June 17th and 19th, four companies of the Carignan-Sallières
regiment, which had sailed from Rochelle, arrived at Quebec, while
de Tracy himself, with the four others which had served with him in
the French Islands, reached Quebec on June 30th. In the train of
the tall and portly veteran of sixty-two, was a gay and glittering
throng of finely dressed young noblemen, and gentlemen adventurers,
eager to witness the wonders of New France. Never was such splendour
seen in Canada as that, when Laval received de Tracy and his bronzed
veterans recently come from Hungary, where they had fought the
Turks, and who now, with their picturesque soldiery accoutrements
and trained movements marched stately to the fort to the beat of the
drums. Assuredly at last the Iroquois would be exterminated by such
disciplined forces.
This infantry regiment, which at the conclusion of the war was to
leave many of its soldiers to settle down near Montreal and become the
founders of many of the best Canadian families, had originally been
raised in 1644 by Thomas François de Savoie, Prince of Carignan, the
head of the house of Carignan, who fought for France in Italy. His son,
after him, also commanded this regiment, which took henceforth the
name of Carignan. In 1659, after having joined the regiment of Colonel
Balthasar, he incorporated this with his own and it was handed over to
the French king, who placed M. Henri de Chapelais, Sieur de Sallières,
the colonel of another regiment incorporated with it, to command it
in the absence of the prince, under his orders. Hence the combination
became known as the Carignan-Sallières regiment and consisted of
about 1,000 men from the Carignan-Balthasar regiment and 200 of the
Sallières. The portion of the troop which returned to France became the
nucleus of a reconstructed regiment which under the name of Lorraine
existed till 1794.
The regiment had, however, not yet all arrived. That portion led by
Colonel de Sallières himself did not come till August 18th or 19th,
while the last companies reached New France with de Courcelles and
Talon, on September 12th. These latter added to the splendour of Quebec
"for," says Mother Jucherau, "M. de Courcelles, our governor, had a
superb train and M. Talon, who naturally loves glory, forgot nothing
which could do honour to the king." At last the numbers were complete,
but many were put into the hospitals, sick from disease, and from the
long voyage, which had taken M. Talon's party 117 days at sea. This
sickness was one of the reasons which delayed the war against the
Iroquois till next year.
Meanwhile at Montreal news had arrived of the capture on the Ile Ste.
Thérèse, of Charles Le Moyne who, in July, had been given leave by de
Maisonneuve to join the friendly "wolves" in a hunting expedition.
He, however, escaped death, for he threatened them with dire revenge.
"There will come a great number of French soldiers," he said, "who will
burn your villages; they are even now arriving at Quebec. Of that I
have certain information."
In preparation for the coming war, de Tracy, soon after his arrival,
determined to build forts at the entrances to the routes leading to and
from the Iroquois country. These were to be garrisoned by the soldiers
of the Carignan regiments so far arrived. The first fort was placed at
the mouth of the Richelieu River, to replace that originally built
by de Montmagny, and quickly ruined in 1642. It was built under the
direction of one of the officers, M. Sorel, whose name was afterwards
given to this place, A second was constructed at the foot of a rapid
of the Richelieu River and it received the name of Chambly, from
another Carignan officer. M. de Sallières constructed the third at
another rapid of the same river and it gained its name of Fort Ste.
Thérèse from the saint's day occurring on October 15th, the day of its
completion. A fourth, St. John, was built at the foot on another rapid
of the Richelieu. The fifth was built by another officer, M. Lamothe,
on an island of Lake Champlain, at a distance of four leagues from its
mouth and was named Ste. Anne.
After their completion, the soldiers were distributed for winter to
Quebec, Three Rivers and Montreal. Colonel de Sallières was in command
at the latter. As provisions were scarce in the storehouses of the
company, Talon wrote to Colbert on October 4, 1665:
"I have sent merchandise to Montreal and on the advice of M. de Tracy I
have added some ammunition from the king's stores to be distributed to
the inhabitants. But in return I expect to receive from them wheat and
vegetables, as well as elk skins, to make stronger canoes than those
covered with birch bark."
Hearing of the preparation for war, an embassy from the three upper
nations under Garacontié, the chief friendly to the French, met de
Tracy at Quebec, bringing back with them Charles Le Moyne unscathed,
and parleying for peace. But the two insolent lower tribes against
whose marauderings the forts had been built, were still contumacious
and to be punished presently.
By November, the forts were completed and the peace from Iroquois
attacks was so secure that the body of Father Duperon, the old Jesuit
missioner at Montreal, who had died at Chambly, was taken to Quebec to
be buried. This same month, on November 24th, another Jesuit well known
at Montreal, Simon Le Moyne, died at Cap de la Madeleine. He was a man
of remarkable courage, tact and ability, and his name will ever be
remembered in Canadian history as the first European recorded to have
ascended the St. Lawrence River.
[Illustration: LE MOYNE MEMORIAL AT SALINA, NEW YORK]
A greater sorrow than the imprisonment of Le Moyne was to afflict
Montreal in the enforced departure of "its father, and very dear
governor," who had served the colony for nearly twenty-four years,
and was now to be a sacrifice to the centralizing policy of the new
government, which had long looked with envy on the power of the
seigneurs of Montreal to name their governor. The policy pursued by de
Mézy, and temporarily checked, was now adopted by the Marquis de Tracy,
with no uncertain significance.
The joy at the arrival of the troops, now turned to bitterness. The
nature of de Maisonneuve's dismissal was conveyed in the appointment,
on October 23d, of his successor. "Having permitted," ran de Tracy's
letter, "M. de Maisonneuve, governor of Montreal, to make a journey to
France for his own private affairs, we have judged that we can make no
better choice for a commander in his absence than the person of Sieur
Dupuis, and this as long as we shall judge convenient." Under the glove
of velvet, can be seen the hand of iron.
This stroke of diplomacy, delicate enough in its way, cut deep enough
to wound de Maisonneuve's friends. The charge of inefficiency was
read into the veiled dismissal by Marguerite Bourgeoys, his faithful
adviser. "He was ordered to return to France," says Sister Morin, "as
being incapable of the place and rank of governor he held here; which
I could scarcely have believed, had not Sister Bourgeoys assured me of
it. He took the order as that of the will of God and crossed over to
France, not to make complaint of the bad treatment he had received but
to live simply and humbly, an unrecognized man."
De Maisonneuve was left a poor man; he had made no fortune in Canada,
as others had done. He had contented himself with being the father of
his people. His devotion and attachment to Montreal had stood in the
way of his acceptance of the governor generalship. He left under a
cloud, but his memory has been vindicated in the noble monument to him
in the Place d'Armes of Montreal. There is hardly to be found a higher
ideal of Christian knighthood in the whole history of our Canadian
heroes.
[Illustration: STATUE OF MAISONNEUVE IN PLACE D'ARMES
(By Philippe Hébert)]
On his return to France, he led a simple Christian life. His heart
was in Montreal, and in his modest home at the Fossé St. Victor, his
greatest delight was sometimes to receive a Canadian visitor, for whom
he felt a fatherly affection.
His retreat was visited in 1670 by Marguerite Bourgeoys, who thus
describes it in the account of her journey to obtain the letters patent
for her new institution: "The morning of my arrival I went to the
Seminary of St. Sulpice to learn where I could find M. de Maisonneuve.
He was lodged at the Fossé St. Victor, near the church of the Fathers
of Christian Doctrine, and I arrived at his house rather late. Only
a few days before he had constructed a cabin and furnished a little
room after the Canadian manner so as to entertain any persons who
should come from Canada. I knocked at the door and he himself came
down to open it, for he lived on the second floor with his servant,
Louis Frins, and he opened the door for me with very great joy." Many
other kindnesses did this simple gentleman do for her and for other
Canadians, for whom he acted as the kindly agent while they were in
Paris.
A true Canadian! May his memory remain forever green at Montreal! He
died on September 9, 1676, and his funeral obsequies were carried out
in the church hard by his home, above mentioned. Dollier de Casson, in
his history of the city, treats the painful incident of the governor's
departure thus:
"Speaking of the arrival of the ships and of the 'grand monde' which
came to Montreal this year, and of the extreme joy because of the
king's goodness in making his victorious arms glare and glitter, all
the same these joys were diluted for the more intelligent with much
bitterness when they saw M. Maisonneuve, their father and very dear
governor, depart this time for good, leaving them in the hands of
others, from whom they could not expect the same freedom, the same
love, and the same fidelity in putting down the vices, which have since
taken effect with those other disgraces and miseries, which had never
up to then appeared to the point at which they have since been seen."
It is commonly thought that Maisonneuve arrived at Montreal in his
fortieth year. He lived there twenty-three years. After that he spent
eleven in France, thus dying at the age of seventy-four years.
CHAPTER XVII
1666-1670
THE SUBDUAL OF THE IROQUOIS
THE END OF THE HEROIC AGE
PRIMITIVE EXPEDITIONS UNDER DE COURCELLES, SOREL AND DE TRACY--THE
ROYAL TROOPS AND THE MONTREAL "BLUE COATS"--DOLLIER DE CASSON, THE
SOLDIER CHAPLAIN--THE VICTORY OVER THE IROQUOIS--THE HOTEL-DIEU AT
MONTREAL RECEIVES THE SICK AND WOUNDED--THE CONFIRMATION OF THE
GENTLEMEN OF THE SEMINARY AS SEIGNEURS--THE LIEUTENANT GENERAL AND
INTENDANT IN MONTREAL--THE "DIME"--THE CENSUS OF 1667--MORE CLERGY
NEEDED--THE ABBE DE QUEYLUS RETURNS, WELCOMED BY LAVAL AND MADE
VICAR GENERAL--REINFORCEMENT OF SULPICIANS--THEIR FIRST MISSION
AT KENTE--THE RETURN OF THE RECOLLECTS--THE ARRIVAL OF PERROT AS
LOCAL GOVERNOR OF MONTREAL.
So eager was de Courcelles to carry on the war, for which the troops
had come, that they started from Quebec on January 9th, in the depth of
winter, a rash venture as de Maisonneuve could have told the Europeans.
Yet they marched out, each soldier with his unaccustomed snowshoes and
with twenty to thirty pounds of biscuits and provisions strapped on his
back, crossing the frozen streams and waterfalls, to the number of 300
of the Carignan regiment, and 100 French Canadians. They were joined
by others on the route, among them a party of 106 good Montrealers
under Charles Le Moyne. These latter were de Courcelles' most valued
men, being seasoned woodmen used to wars' alarms. He called them his
"blue coats," and found they served and obeyed him, better than the
rest. The expedition was an utter failure, for not counting the frozen
fingers, noses and limbs, they lost many men, sixty dying from want of
provisions, so that de Courcelles returned to Quebec disconsolate.
A second expedition, under Sorel, started in July. This time there
were only "thirty good Montrealers." When within twenty leagues of the
Iroquois camps, they were met by the famous chief, called the "Flemish
Bastard," with some European captives. He asked for peace, and Sorel,
believing him, marched back to Quebec with the Bastard.
De Tracy led the next expedition with de Courcelles on the feast of
the Exaltation of the Cross, September 14th. Never had so large an
army started out--600 Carignans, 100 friendly Indian allies from the
missions and 600 French Canadians, of which 110 were the "blue coats"
from Montreal under Le Moyne and Picoté de Bélestre, who led the van
to meet the brunt of all disasters as they were chosen to be at the
rear in retreat. The canoes and flat-bottomed boats started from Quebec
crossed Lake Champlain; then, they landed and portaged their boats on
their backs till they launched them again on Lake St. George (then
called Lake St. Sacrament), and proceeded up the narrows to where Fort
William Henry was afterwards built. There were 100 miles of marching
now to be endured, through forests, streams and marshes gleaming in
the Indian summer sun. Marie de l'Incarnation tells some adventures of
this journey. As each one, even the officers, had to carry his knapsack
of provisions, the fair Chevalier de Chaumont got a humour on his
shoulders. Others suffered likewise. General de Tracy was placed in a
dangerous predicament when crossing a ford. "He was one of the biggest
men I have ever seen," says the good sister, "and a Swiss soldier
was trying to carry him. When in the middle, de Tracy found himself
overthrown, but luckily clung to a rock and saved himself. From this
undignified position he was rescued by a hardy Huron, who conveyed him
safely to the other side."
But the character of this journey was the genial chaplain of the
Montreal forces, none other than Dollier de Casson, whom we have
quoted so often. Dollier had arrived in Canada on September 7th. His
venturesome spirit was enlisted at once in this expedition, in which he
was quite at home being, besides a "man of God," a "man of war," having
but ten years ago served and fought, as a cavalry officer under Marshal
de Turenne. He was a very large man, as tall as de Tracy, and stronger.
Grandet, who left a manuscript note on Dollier, says that he had such
extraordinary strength, that he could hold two men seated in his hands.
He was cheerful, courtly, courteous and genial. He had a merry and
quick jest to cheer up the "blue coats" and others, in many a tight
corner. He was doubtless the most popular man in camp.[94]
If he had lived in these days, the newspapers would have called him
the "fighting parson." Grandet, in his manuscript note on Dollier,
tells how on one occasion, being at prayer on his knees in an Algonquin
camp, an insolent savage came to interrupt him. Without rising from his
knees, the big burly missioner sent the astonished Indian sprawling
on the ground by a blow from his fist--a proceeding which gained
him admiration from the Algonquins, who exclaimed with pride in his
physical prowess: "This is indeed a man!" Probably this strength helped
him to become the great peacemaker he afterwards became at Montreal.
Dollier says little of himself in his account of the march, speaking
modestly and impersonally of himself. The big man seems to have
suffered hunger very much on the small rations dealt out to him, for he
says that "this priest made a good noviceship under a certain captain
who could be called the Grand Master of Fasting; at least this officer
could have served as novice master in this point to the Fathers of the
Desert." This "ecclesiastic of St. Sulpice," he says, "was strongly
built, but what enfeebled him was hearing the confessions of the men by
night while the others were asleep. He felt the marching pretty badly,
for his wretched pair of shoes gave way, so that having nothing left
but the uppers the sharp stones of the water beds and banks played
havoc with his bare feet. So weak and weary did he become that he could
not save a man drowning in the water into which he had plunged to the
rescue. This man happened to belong to the train of the Jesuits and
Dollier explained that it was hunger that had so enfeebled him, whereat
the good Jesuit took the good Sulpician aside and gave him a piece of
bread, made palatable with two different _sucres_, one of _Madeira_ and
the other of _appétit_."
We cannot pursue the story of the war, as it takes us too far from
Montreal. Suffice it to say that there was a complete victory, the
greatest that had ever been won against the Iroquois. After the capture
of the last stronghold of the Mohawk Iroquois, the warrior priest
chanted a Te Deum and said mass. After that, the cross was planted with
the arms of France and possession was taken of the country in the name
of Louis XIV. "Vive le roi!"
At Quebec, when the news arrived, on November 2d, there were great
rejoicings, and when de Tracy returned on the 5th the Te Deum boomed
out anew. But the army was sorely depleted; many had died from cold,
hunger and the chances of war, as also by accidents on the road,
whereas the Iroquois had lost little else than their birch bark cabins.
After the termination of the expedition, some of the soldiers were
picketed in the new forts. A chaplain was needed for Fort Ste. Anne,
and Dollier de Casson, now returned to Montreal, volunteered, although
he suffered from a swelling on the knee, to cure which he underwent a
severe bleeding at the hands of one of the local medicos of Montreal,
who did it so effectually that the big man fainted. However, he started
out in two days, accompanied by Jacques Leber, Charles Le Moyne and
Migeon de Branssat. At Ste. Anne's, he had busy work, with young
Forestier, a surgeon from Montreal, in attending the sick men who
suffered from famine and scurvy, while eleven died. Though himself sick
the cheery chaplain did good, self-sacrificing service, none the less
excellent, because it was seasoned with a plenteous fund of raillery
and bantering. Among the officers there was La Durantaye, famous
hereafter in Canadian annals. So the winter wore away at Ste. Anne's,
relieved by provisions sent by the good folks of Montreal.
That winter the Hôtel-Dieu of Montreal was filled to overflowing with
the sick and wounded, which it had received from the army under de
Courcelles after the terrible war of the early winter. During the next
year it continued its good work, for which Dollier de Casson says it
deserved unspeakable praise, receiving the sick from the forts of Ste.
Anne, St. Louis and St. Jean.
Before closing the narration of the events of this year we must not
forget the joy at Montreal caused by the news spread in September that
the king had settled all doubts of the rights of the Seigneurs of
Montreal by confirming the letters patent of 1644. This confirmation M.
Talon put into practice on September 17th when he received the fealty
and homage of the Seminary for the Seigneurs of Montreal "with high,
low and middle justice," and two days afterwards, in virtue of the
extraordinary powers granted him by the king, ordered the seigneurs to
be maintained in the possession of the administration of justice, thus
supplanting the royal court of the sénéchal already established, as
before mentioned.
The Seminary had right to name its own governor also, but no one was
appointed to the vacant post of Maisonneuve till 1669.
Thus the year closed in a peace to last for twenty years. The king's
arms had battered Iroquois insolence.
But the heroic age was at an end.[95]
After the successful war, de Tracy engaged himself before departing
in May for Montreal, in consolidating the paternal government lately
introduced and in conciliating the habitants on behalf of his royal
master. He came to Montreal to take cognizance of it as a place which
was most commonly resorted to by the savage as the most advanced point
on the river.
He left Quebec on May 4th, and two days later Talon, as intendant, set
out to pay his official visit to Montreal. He acquitted himself to the
satisfaction of the settlers on all the côtes "for," says Dollier de
Casson, "he went to the great edification of the public from house to
house, even to the poorest, asking if all were being treated according
to equity and justice, and when pecuniary assistance was needed, it was
forthcoming."
We shall speak later of many of the progressive movements initiated
through M. Talon at this time.
This year the Seigneurs of Montreal were given back the possession of
the storehouse at Quebec, about which there had been much contention.
The question of the "dime" had agitated Montreal as elsewhere.
Originally fixed by Laval at one-thirteenth it had been reduced to
one-twentieth and then to one-twenty-sixth. Even then in view of the
difficulties of a young country it was not payable for five years, to
allow the settler to cultivate his lands more easily. But at the same
time, it was arranged that in the future, better times might allow it
to be increased. This was regulated by an act of the clerk's office
at Montreal of August 23, 1667; but a further act of an assembly,
held on August 12, 1668, shows appreciation on the part of the syndic
and inhabitants of a desire to meet the seigneurs in the upkeep of
the church by fixing the dime at one-twenty-first part for wheat and
one-twenty-sixth for other grains.
The arrangements for the payment of the dime had been made jointly by
de Tracy, de Courcelles and Talon. De Tracy left Quebec on September
28th, to the great regret of Laval and the clergy.
[Illustration: PLAN OF MONTREAL, 1650-1672]
The census of Montreal for this year (1667) is given as 766 souls;
Three Rivers and its dependencies, 666; Côte de Beaupré, 656; Isle of
Orleans, 529; Quebec, 448; other settlements under the government of
Quebec, 1,011; Beauport, 123; Côte de Lauson (south shore), 113. In
this year there were 11,448 arpents under cultivation in New France.
There were 3,107 heads of cattle, besides 85 sheep. These latter
began to be imported in 1665, at the same time as the horses. In the
following year 15,649 arpents were cultivated and the production of
wheat amounted to 130,978 minots.
But more clergy was needed, so this year M. Souart, the curé of
Montreal, went over to France to seek new missioners for the work of
the Sulpicians. He left behind him M. Giles Pérot as curé and MM.
Galinier, Barthélemy and Trouvé. At the Hôtel-Dieu the venerable
superioress, Mother Macé, had five nuns under her direction, and at the
house of the "Congregation" Marguerite Bourgeoys, with three helpers,
continued her good work.
M. Souart brought back a most enthusiastic worker who was none other
than the redoubtable Abbé de Queylus. There was at last no opposition
on the part of Laval. The elements leading to this change of front are
twofold: firstly, the archbishop of Rouen had some time ago renounced
all pretension to jurisdiction in New France, and thus was removed
Laval's contentious attitude against de Queylus, for it was not a
question of persons with him, but of prerogatives. He had looked upon
de Queylus as the representative of a rival authority which might tend
to raise "altar against altar," and lead to schism and so destroy his
policy of church centralization. Secondly, de Queylus had received an
invitation from the king, who had been apprised of his good qualities
through the papal nuncio, Picolomini, now become a cardinal, and the
king's word went with Laval.
Accordingly, when de Queylus arrived in the spring with three
Sulpicians, M. René de Brébant de Galinée, M. François Saturnin
Lascares d'Urfé,[96] and his former secretary, M. Antoine d'Allet, Laval
received them most cordially and gave de Queylus letters patent as his
vicar general, a post held by him in Montreal during all his further
stay.
Laval has described this reception himself in a letter to his
friend, M. Poitevin, the curé of St. Fossé at Paris. Speaking of the
consolation in receiving M. de Queylus and the new workers he says:
"We have embraced them all in the name of Jesus Christ. What gives us
most sensible joy is that we see our clergy disposed, with one heart
and one soul, to procure the glory of God and the salvation of souls,
both French and Indian. The fatherly tenderness which the king has made
apparent to New France and the notable contributions he has made to
make it more numerous and flourishing, furnishes an ample harvest field
for all to employ their zeal and spend their lives for the love of
Jesus Christ, who has given them the first inspirations to consecrate
themselves to Him and His church."
This was not a diplomatic change of attitude with Laval. He was
incapable of dissimulation or subterfuge. He saw the glory of God in
the new situation and thenceforward the Sulpicians had a true friend
and admirer.
On their part the Jesuits were no less cordial in their welcome. The
"Relation" for 1668 speaks of the same powerful reinforcement of
the clergy for Montreal and hoped for much good from "these great
missionaries."
There were now about fifteen Sulpicians in Montreal when, in the month
of June, 1668, an embassy of Iroquois came from the Bay of Kenté, on
the banks of Lake Ontario, asking for a black robe to instruct their
people in the religion of the white man. Two young priests, M. Fénelon
and M. Trouvé, having offered themselves, on September 15th, Mgr.
Laval gave them letters to establish their mission, and they embarked
at Lachine on October 2d, and arrived at the Bay of Kenté (Quinté) on
October 28th. This was the first mission of the Sulpicians. Their good
work, begun at Montreal, was to stretch far and wide. If we do not
follow them in detail it is because we are sketching only the original
and cradle events of great movements in these annals. In the winter
M. de Queylus sent M. Dollier de Casson and M. Barthélemy to Lake
Nipissing.
The peace with the Iroquois left further opportunity for
self-sacrificing missioners to work among them, so that in 1669 the
clergy were glad to welcome the return of the Recollects. Not only
did Laval welcome them, but the Jesuits, who succeeded them on the
renewal of the French possession, after the occupation by the English
under Kirke, though they are represented by mischief-making historians
as having "supplanted" them, wrote as follows of their joy at their
coming, in the "Relations" of 1670:
"The Reverend Recollect Fathers, who have come from France to be a new
succour to the missionaries in the growth of this church, have given
us an excess of joy and consolation. We have received them as the
first apostles of this country, and in recognition of the obligation
due to them by the French colony, the inhabitants of Quebec have been
delighted to receive these good religious, now established on the same
ground where they dwelt forty years before the French were driven from
Canada by the English."
In fact, arrangements were made by those who had been put into
possession of the Recollects' former estates, held prior to 1629, to
cede them, and the friars now had an estate of ten by ten arpents, for
which the governor general gave them new titles by an act of October
23, 1670.
We have now to record the appointment of a new governor for Montreal,
left officially vacant since de Maisonneuve's departure, three and
a half years ago, although several commandants had represented
the Seigneurs. The choice fell upon M. Marie François Perrot, a
_gentilhomme_ by birth, and captain of an Auvergne regiment, who was
then on the point of crossing over with his regiment to establish
himself with his wife in Canada and doubtless make his fortune.
M. Perrot had married Talon's niece, Madeleine de Laguide, and it was
the former intendant, then about to revisit Canada for a second time,
who solicited the vacant post from M. de Bretonvilliers, the superior
of the Seminary of St. Sulpice in Paris who granted it by a letter
addressed to M. Perrot on June 13, 1669, being "duly informed of your
good life and character, talents, capacity and good qualities, we
have made choice of your person to fill and exercise the office of
governor ... without you at the same time being able to make pretensions
to any salary or remuneration other than the country has been accustomed
to give."
On the voyage, Perrot, his wife and Talon were shipwrecked, and they
saved their lives on a broken mast by having promised a large sum of
money to the sailors for having assisted them to it. Five hundred
emigrants came with this expedition.
But on Perrot's arrival in Montreal, where he and his wife were well
received, in pity for their shipwreck and out of interest in the
lady governor--for Maisonneuve had been a sorry bachelor--he sought
to have his commission made more certain by letters patent from
the king. Accordingly, this was finally effected through Talon and
Colbert, by letters dated March 14, 1671, and with the consent of M.
Bretonvilliers, whose rights seemed not to be infringed, since it
had been the custom for the governor generals named by the seigneur
companies, also to receive a royal commission.
FOOTNOTES:
[94] M. Jacques Viger, the antiquarian and mayor of Montreal, by
comparing Grandet's notice of Dollier de Casson with the "ecclesiastic"
spoken of in the "Histoire de Montreal," established in 1888 the
identity of Dollier with the "ecclesiastic," the writer and Sulpician
who came in 1666. Hence the "Histoire de Montreal" is now attributed to
Dollier de Casson.
[95] Abridged Family Roll of the Colony of New France--1666:
Quebec 555
Beaupré 678
Beauport 172
Island of Orleans 471
St. Jean, St. François and St. Michel 156
Sillery 217
Notre-Dame des Anges and Rivière St. Charles 118
Côte de Lauson 6
Montreal 584
Trois Rivières 461
----
3418
Number of males between the ages of 16 and 50 years of age, capable
of bearing arms 1344
There are doubtless some omissions in the above roll, which will be
supplied in the coming winter, this year.
(Signed) TALON.
[96] The "_Baie d'Urfé_," in the north of the island, is named after
this missionary, who had an Indian settlement there later.
CHAPTER XVIII
1671-1672
THE FEUDAL SYSTEM ESTABLISHED
THE SEIGNEURS OF THE MONTREAL DISTRICT
SUBURBAN GROWTH--THE EARLIEST OUTLYING FIEFS--PRAEDIA
MILITARIA--MILITARY SEIGNEURIES OF THE MONTREAL DISTRICT--THE
FEUDAL SYSTEM--THE "NOBLESSE"--THE "PARISHES"--"CENS ET
RENTES"--"LODS ET VENTES"--TRIBUTE TO THE FEUDALISM OF THE
CLERICAL "SEIGNEURS OF MONTREAL"--MUNICIPAL OFFICERS--ORDER IN
PROCESSIONS--THE CHURCH WARDENS--THE SOLDIER COLONISTS--CATTLE
BREEDING, HORSES, ASSES--AGRICULTURE--NEW CONCESSIONS--LAWS
REGULATING OPENING UP THE LAND--FIRST PUBLIC ROADS AND BRIDGES AT
MONTREAL--NOTE: FORTS AND REDOUBTS.
So far we have kept our attention on the little straggling Village of
Montreal, the home of de Maisonneuve and the seigneurs of the island.
We have left it occasionally for Quebec, to consider it, as affected
in its governmental relations with the headquarters of the governor
general, but as we have in view also the greater Montreal of today,
we must ask the reader's patience to allow us to record some vital
elements in the suburban growth of the latter, the seeds of which are
now being sown, and to watch the origins of the Canadian "noblesse" now
being manufactured by letters patent in the neighbourhood of Montreal.
For years the fear of the Iroquois had huddled the Montrealers within
narrow limits, and in the neighbourhood of the fort. There were few
outlying stations, save that of the fortified house of Lambert Closse,
who had been given on February 5, 1658, the first "noble fief" at
Montreal, and the two redoubts or strongholds established by M. de
Queylus for the seigneurs of the seminary. On the arrival of the troops
the _curé_, M. Souart, had created a second "noble fief" for his nephew
M. Hautmesnil between the River St. Lawrence and the Rivière des
Prairies, and a third followed on the return of M. Queylus, given to La
Salle.
Peace enabled the colonists to go further afield, and in 1671 the
seigneurs determined to establish seigneurial manors for further
protection against Iroquois incursions and to place on them, for
the most part, the officers of the regiments left behind. A debt of
gratitude was first paid to Sieur Picoté de Bélestre by a concession of
land at Pointe aux Trembles, taking in Bout de l'Isle and extending to
the Rivière des Prairies.
The northern part of the island facing the Rivière des Prairies and Ile
Jésus--a dangerous spot--was chosen for two contiguous "noble fiefs" by
Dollier de Casson on December 1, 1671 and given to Phillipe de Carion
de Fresnoy, lieutenant in Lamothe's company, and Paul de Morel, ensign
in the same company.
To strengthen the position of these seigneurs, Carion and de Morel,
smaller concessions were granted nearby in the early months of 1672. On
December 26th M. Zacharie Dupuis, the commandant of the town, received
the letters patent of his seigneury of Verdun.
The southwest of the island, facing the Lake of the Two Mountains, had
yet to be guarded, and on January 19th Dollier de Casson gave a fief to
M. Sidrac de Gué, now Sieur de Boisbriant, and added "the neighbouring
island and shallows" at a given denomination, which afterwards caused a
lawsuit.
M. de Gué shortly sold his fief to Charles Le Moyne, Sieur de
Longueuil, and Jacques Leber, his brother-in-law. It passed later to
the son of the latter and became the fief of the Sieur de Senneville,
as it was then named. In April[97] following, a seigneury was given to
Charles d'Ailleboust des Musseaux, the judge. On July 30th the fief
adjoining called "Belleville" was given to the brothers Louis de Bertet
de Chailly and Gabriel de Bertet de la Joubardière. Finally a fourth,
adjoining the latter, was assigned to M. Claude Robutel de Saint André.
The vulnerable points on the Island of Montreal thus being provided
for, Talon determined to revert, as he says, "to the ancient custom
of the Romans of distributing _proedia militaria_ to the soldiers of
a subjugated country," and the large distribution of "noble fiefs"
and patents of nobility of officers and others likely to guard a
country, dates mostly from the months of October and November of the
year 1672. In order to further strengthen Montreal and the entrance
of the Richelieu River,--both principal positions for Iroquois
descents,--fiefs were given to Sieurs de Laubia, de Labadie, de Moras,
de Normanville, de Berthier, de Comporte, de Randin, de la Valterie,
M. Jean Baptiste Legardeur de Repentigny, the son of Captain de
Saint Ours, and the Sieur de Berthelot, to whom was given Ile Jésus,
originally conceded to the Jesuits but not having been cultivated, was
yielded up by them on November 7, 1672.
All the above concessions were made on the left bank of the St.
Lawrence, from Lake St. Peter to the head of the island, ascending to
the Rivière des Prairies. From the mouth of the Richelieu and ascending
up stream on the other side of the river many other concessions were
made by Talon to de Sorel, du Pas, de Chambly, Chevalier Pierre de
Saint Ours (captain of the Carignan-Sallières regiment), Antoine
Pécaudy de Contrecoeur, de Vitré, de Verchères, de Varenne, de
Grandmaison, Michel Messier, of Montreal, to whom was given the
seigneury of St. Michel, and Jacques Le Moyne, also of Montreal, that
of Cap de la Trinité; to Sidzac du Gué de Boisbriant, was given the
Ile Thérèse facing Bout de l'Isle; to M. Boucher, the Seigneur de
Boucherville, to Charles Le Moyne, two fiefs, one of which he called
Longueuil, from his place of origin at Dieppe, in Normandy, and the
other Chateauguay. To Zacharie Dupuis was given Heron Island; to M.
Perrot the island below the southwest corner of the island, afterwards
named Ile Perrot, after him, as well as Ile á la Paix, Iles aux Pins,
Ste. Geneviève and St. Gilles.
This list of names has been given, since it is synonymous with that
of many of the parishes hereafter erected in these districts, for not
many of the seigneurs were as yet wealthy, and they could not fulfill
the double condition of providing a village mill and a village church.
Though noble in name, many were as poor as church mice. Having been
granted their lands, for a nominal sum, in return for "fealty and
homage," the new noble had to work hard to clear his land within a
limited time, else he would forfeit it, for few had capital to work
it. To make his claim permanent he had to subdivide his domain to
cultivators _en censive_, or _censitaires_ who tilled the land and
paid his "cens et rente" on St. Martin's day to the seigneur, as was
common at Montreal, in the shape of half a sou and a pint of wheat for
each arpent. There were, however, restrictions such as having to grind
his corn at the seigneur's mill, when there was one, for such was an
expensive luxury. This was practically the only one of the "banalités,"
as they were called, of the French feudal system introduced into
Canada, and it was not very much of a hardship. The "corvée" still
existed, by which the seigneur could demand personal labor. In Canada
this was about six days a year and was frequently remitted, as the
seigneur found that the expense of food for the workers, etc., made it
not worth his while to use their labour.
Not all the seigneurs were as diligent and as fortunate as Charles Le
Moyne, of Montreal, who, from being the son of an innkeeper at Dieppe,
founded the noble house of Longueuil and whose son Charles, Baron
Longueuil, built a fort and a home which Frontenac said, gave an idea
of the fortified châteaux of France.
Still many of these struggling nobles, with the revenue of a peasant,
but who did sell their seigneuries, became fairly wealthy in time, and
were the nucleus of the Canadian "noblesse" and "gentilhommes" for many
a long day, though it must not be understood that all seigneurs were
also ennobled, as in France.
Some of the lazier sort, who perchance looked to the "get rich quick"
method of peltry trading, rather than the laborious toil of tilling
the earth, were soon the victims of their own circumstances; for a
few years later, in 1679, Duchesneau, the intendant, writing to the
minister in France, says: "Many of our gentilhommes, officers and
other holders of seigneuries, lead what in France is called the life
of a country gentleman and spend most of their time in hunting and
fishing. As their requirements in food and clothing are greater than
those of the simple 'habitants' and as they do not devote themselves to
improving their land, they mix themselves up in trade, run into debt
on all hands, incite their young 'habitants' to range the woods and
send their own children there to trade for furs in the Indian villages
and in the depths of the forest, in spite of the prohibition of His
Majesty. Yet, with all this, they are miserably poor."[98]
"It is pitiable," says another intendant, Champigny, in 1687, "to see
their children, of which they have great numbers, passing all summer
with nothing on them but a shirt, and their wives and daughters working
in the fields."
Later, an intendant wrote to France not to create any more
_gentilhommes_, for it meant making "beggars."
But it must be remembered that later letters of patent of nobility were
not so easily granted as at this early tentative period, when noble,
habitant, and peasant had a hard struggle with the soil to make all
ends meet.
To form an idea of the establishment of a parish, it must be remembered
that each seigneur was required to build a mill and a chapel to be
served by a priest. The mill meant a heavy expense; the machinery
had all to come from France, and the miller's wages had to be paid;
the farmers, bringing grain, small in number. Beyond the three mills
belonging to the seigneurs of the island at this period there was the
one erected at Pointe aux Trembles and that erected by Jean Milot, a
toolmaker, at a cost of 1,000 _écus_, after purchasing on November 9,
1670, La Salle's lands at Lachine, and that was finally taken over by
the seminary also, on November 2, 1673. La Salle had been required to
construct a mill, since his concession was larger than the military
fiefs of 200 arpents granted to the other petty seigneurs. To these
latter, the necessity of erecting their own mills was foregone on the
stipulation that their grain and that of their _censitaires_, should be
ground in the seminary mill.
The building of a parish church and providing a priest, both difficult
tasks in this poverty-stricken time, were delayed for some time.
The seminary meanwhile sent out its missioners to conduct services
at Lachine and Pointe aux Trembles and the surrounding district. A
temporary chapel was made in the rooms of farmers' houses as is done
in country districts in the Northwest today. It was not till November
18, 1674, that the people of Pointe aux Trembles took definite steps
for church erection, which resulted in the church of L'Enfant Jésus,
blessed by the superior of the seminary on March 13, 1678, with the
assistance of the curé of the new church and M. Jean Cavelier, brother
of La Salle and a priest of the seminary.
The feudal system, prefigured by Richelieu long ago in his commission
to the Marquis de la Roche and "following the custom of Paris,"
based on the tenure of land, was established as soon as peace was
obtained, as the best method of building up the colony and of looking
after private interests. It was a most suitable method for the time.
The feudal absolutism then created, both of church and state, were
necessary for the French at a period when they had not learned the
first elements of self-government. The pity was that this system of
leading strings was too prolonged and overdone, especially as later the
French government did not do its duty by the people, thus preventing
its progress by ruining its initiative. Had not the bolder spirits
broken through it, we should not have had the redeeming point in the
history of these times--the brilliant geographical discoveries. But
in those early wild times the military civilization now forming and
the paternal influence of the clergy at Montreal, seigneurs and parish
priests, did much for that distinctively Canadian love of discipline
and order, which is the foundation of the great and mighty people
Canada is destined to be.
Talon, writing to Colbert on November 13, 1666, says: "I have already
commenced the enfiefments by Montreal, the principal fief of this
country, in receiving its 'foi et hommage' as also its 'aveux et
dénombrements.'" A _papier terrier_, or land roll, was ordered to
be made and a list of all the lands, houses and other properties
accurately defined and registered. Uncertain titles were made clear and
others made out that had been neglected.
The condition of land tenure was not onerous; the "cens and rentes"
paid annually were not an equivalent for value received but a simple
recognition of the legal primitive right of the seigneurs, on property
given. Thus at Montreal, land sites on the portion reserved for the
future town, had been given on the annual payment of five _sous_ an
arpent, while on those in the town itself all the annual revenue
demanded was a _liard_ for each fathom.
In all the Island of Montreal the tax for each arpent of land was two
liards and a half pint of wheat. Thus the receiver of 100 arpents only
paid fifty _sous_ and fifty pints of wheat. In the first years, as the
soil was not thought to be at its full value, he was relieved of all
taxation. Sometimes, even the above slight tax was, for sufficient
reason, modified. When any farm or small holding was sold or it passed
by inheritance to collaterals, the seigneurs were entitled to "lods et
ventes," a tax of one-twelfth of the estimated value of the land. This
was usually paid within forty days of the transfer and a rebate was
generally given of one-third, but not necessarily. If the farm was sold
at a price lower than the seigneur thought proper, he had the right to
purchase it back at the estimated value on which the tax of one-twelfth
had been demanded. This system was by no means unjust. The seigneur
gained very little, for during two centuries there were many lands
which passed from father to son, or were passed on by donation without
anything accruing to the seigneur who, it must be remembered, had
practically granted the lands free to the "censitaires." It was only in
later years when the lands became of substantial value that the "lods
et rentes" gave a real source of income to them.
The feudal system worked well. Being based on land tenure, it
centralized the people and made them powerful against attack, out of
proportion to their numbers, as New England found later. It was as wise
a system for New France as the introduction into Massachusetts "of free
and common soccage."
It was wisely handled, on a more democratic basis than that of France,
and there were no real grievances. The habitants and seigneurs moved
side by side; indeed they frequently exchanged places. The class
distinctions were never thus very arbitrarily defined as in France.
Whatever we may think of the military seigneuries, that of the
Sulpicians of Montreal was very beneficial. Their rule was progressive
and zealous. Speaking of such religious seigneurs William Bennett
Munroe, Ph. D., professor of government, Harvard University, in his
chapter in Volume II of "Canada and Its Provinces, 1912," entitled
"The Seigniorial System and the Colony," says: "The priests seem to
have had faith in the colony--which was more than could be said of all
the Carignan officers who took lands from the king. This faith and
optimism the priests often communicated to the people around them, and
the results were seen in the neighbouring farms. The church in New
France never lost, as at home, its grip on the confidence of those from
whom it drew its chief strength--the rural classes. While it may seem
that the crown was lavish to a fault in satisfying its claim to landed
property, yet the church really gave the colony far more than it took
away; for, if ever there abode on this earth labours worthy of their
hire, these were the pioneer priests whose loyalty and devotion to
France appear on every page of early Canadian history. The church owed
much to the seigniorial system, but it made ample repayment." (P. 566.)
The parish life of Montreal, as that also of subsequent parishes, was
that of an organized community or civil corporation. The head was the
seigneur. One section, composed of those able to bear arms, formed the
militia with its officers.
The seigneur could appoint its judge, and if unable to provide one,
he could turn the cases arising to a neighbouring court, such as at
Montreal. In addition, there would be the _greffier_, or clerk of the
court, sergeants and the gaoler.
Municipal affairs were, at this time, managed at the "hangar," on the
common of Montreal, through the syndic who had been appointed by a
plurality of votes of the inhabitants in council, summoned thither by
church bell. At these elections the judge was present as presiding
officer, replacing the _greffier_, as mentioned in a previous chapter,
and he was accompanied by the _procureur fiscal_ and the _greffier_.
Sometimes this election, for greater formality, was made in the hall
of the seigneurs or at the château of the fort, as in the case of the
election of syndic, Louis Chevalier, on May 15, 1672.
The syndic controlled the general law and order, and when necessary,
called in the judge to his assistance, as on April 8, 1674, when the
judge fined some delinquents, on the complaint of Louis Chevalier, then
syndic, for damage done by straying cattle.
In order to surround the officers of the community with some dignity,
various ranks were assigned, so that there should be an order of
procedure in church or elsewhere, and notably in processions. In
the latter the order was as follows: the governor general, the
local governor, the officers of justice, the churchwardens. In the
processions and in other religious ceremonies the military could claim
no rank.
The _marguilliers_, or churchwardens, for their election needed an
official document drawn up by the public notary, since they were an
important body, being empowered to make contracts in the name of the
_Fabrique_, and to make acquisitions and alienations. Zacharie Dupuis,
major of the island, in 1666 is mentioned in such an act as honorary
churchwarden. Up to 1676 these officers were elected by a general
gathering, but at this date Laval ordered that the system, obtaining
at Quebec since 1660, of election by secret votes, certified by past
and present churchwardens, should be adopted in other parishes. In some
localities, besides the _marguilliers_ there was appointed a treasurer,
or receiver of gifts or of fines made applicable to the _Fabrique_
by the judge and other magistrates. According to custom, the parish
church of each place was maintained by the inhabitants, as well as the
establishment of the cemetery, and the preservation of its enclosure
from damage. On one occasion we find at Montreal that cattle had broken
into the enclosure, and the palisading had to be repaired.
No general taxation was made but it was ordered, in a general assembly,
that M. Frémont, one of the priests of the cemetery, should go
accompanied by one of the parishioners to canvass all the sections of
the parish for a subscription for the purpose. Nevertheless we find
that if the parishioners neglected their Easter duty of providing
"blessed bread" for the church or chapel, an ordinance of Quebec of
January 13, 1670, condemned them to an arbitrary fine.
As to the soldiers remaining after Tracy's departure, they had
other duties beside the peopling of the colony. According to the
feudal system incorporated by Talon, they were to take up land and
incidentally be thus, by their presence, a safeguard for others against
Iroquois attack. Montreal district, being the head and front of
Iroquois invasion, consequently welcomed these colonists, and from Lake
St. Peter to Lachine, on both sides of the St. Lawrence, fiefs were
granted large and small to officers and men. Chambly, Sorel, Saint
Ours, Contrecoeur, de Berthier, de la Valterie, Varenne, Verchères,
soldiers' names, mark military seigneuries established about this time.
Thus strong sentinel posts were, by Talon's masterly statesmanship,
gradually linked together by this band of soldiers now turned
husbandmen after the fashion prevailing since the Roman invasions of
Gaul and Britain. The holdings were near one another and were called
"côtes." We have named several of them as already existing in the
vicinity of Montreal.
The work of opening up the land was the great hope of the king. About
this time horses began to be employed, for up to July 16, 1665, they
were unknown to the Indians, and great was their astonishment to see
the twelve French "elks" that arrived that day, and the docility with
which they obeyed their masters. It was a great honour indeed to
possess one of these. Of the consignment of one stallion and twelve
mares in 1670, the following distribution was made: the stallion and
a mare to M. Chambly, two to M. Lachenaye, and one each to MM. Talon
the intendant, Saint Ours, Sorel, Contrecoeur, Varenne, Latouche,
Repentigny, La Chesnaye, and Leber. They were given with a view to
their multiplication and, indeed, of all the other animals sent, the
horses were the most prolific and successful. The conditions to be
observed were: they should be kept in condition for three years; if
any died during that time through the fault of the "donné," he should
pay the king's receiver the sum of 200 _livres_. After the expiration
of three years he might sell it and the foals, one of which he was
to keep for the king's receiver, as well as the sum of 100 _livres_.
It was further ordered that when these foals, given to the king's
receiver, had reached the third year, they were to be given to private
individuals as before on the same terms. Thus the stock breeding was
merrily continued.
Cattle were sent to New France at this period, thus: 1665, 12 mares,
2 stallions, 7 sheep; 1667, 12 mares, 2 stallions, 29 sheep; 1668, 15
horses, 44 sheep; 1669, 14 horses, 50 sheep; 1670, 13 horses; 1671,
horses and asses.
The asses sent in 1671 were distributed as follows: Sieur Marsollet,
a male ass; Sieur Neveau, a female ass; the Jesuit Fathers, one male
and one female ass; M. Dudouyt, a female; M. Damours, a female; M.
de Villieu, a female; Sieur de Longchamps, a female; Bourg Royal,
a female; Sieur Morin, a female. These did not suit the climate so
readily.[99]
The cost of these horses and sheep was great. Each mare cost 120
_livres_, each stallion, 200, the sheep, about 6 _livres_ apiece.
In 1665 the transportation and feed of the consignment cost 11,200
_livres_. By November, 1671, Talon wrote that there were enough horses.
Cows and pigs had already become as familiar as in France. It will be
remembered that in 1647 a horse was sent for M. Montmagny, the governor
general. In these early days the birch bark canoe was more useful than
the horse, for the rivers were then the only highways.
Later on Montrealers became so interested in horse rearing that,
"ignorant of their true interests," they had to be forbidden by
Intendant Raudot in 1709 to possess more than two horses or mares, and
one foal, for fear of neglecting the rearing of horned cattle.
But it must not be supposed that these seigneuries and small holdings
grew up like mushrooms. The farmer's initiation for the first two
or three years was a rough one. It was only by very patient labour,
and, little by little, that the lands were cleared, tilled, and the
modest house put up, and an assured means of easy livelihood secured.
The cultivators had to follow the same strenuous methods that those,
opening their concessions in the Northwest, employ today.
At Montreal, while there was still fear of the Iroquois, we have
seen how difficult it was to work the fields, and how, for mutual
protection, they had temporarily to till small portions of the
seigneur's domain till they could safely go farther afield. But in
1664, when it was known that the king's troops were coming, many
obtained new concessions on Côte St. Louis, some towards the mountain,
some at the foot of the current near the fortified farm of Ste. Marie.
In 1665 many resolved to go below the foot of the current and beyond
the River St. Peter, for the lands on this side of the river, and
especially those at Point St. Charles, had already been conceded, and
although abandoned during the wars, were still claimed. East and west,
the colonists now went afield to Côte St. Martin, Côte St. François
(later called Longue Pointe), Côte St. Anne, Côte St. Jean (later
called Pointe aux Trembles). At the latter place in 1669, land was
given to Jean Oury with the intention of a village church and mill,
being erected thereon.
These côtes were restricted to their river neighbourhood to guard the
settlements from Iroquois descents by the stream.
This same plan was adopted along the whole length of the St. Lawrence.
"It is pleasant to see at present," says the "Relation" of 1668,
"nearly all the banks of our River St. Lawrence peopled with new
colonies, with new villages rising, which facilitate navigation and
render the journey, more agreeable by the sight of the houses, and more
convenient by the frequent resting places offered."
All were not as diligent as could be desired in putting up within the
year stipulated hearth and home (_feu et lieu_), or in clearing their
concessions. Consequently when Talon was in Montreal in May, 1670, in
consequence of just complaints he ordered that in future no copyholder
should be granted land unless, in addition to building his homestead,
he should put two arpents under cultivation yearly under penalty of
forfeiting his grant, unless he could prove illness or other strong
cause restraining him. Moreover, in the new contract, it was to be
stipulated that no one could claim title to his land until he had put
up his buildings and had placed two arpents in cultivation, with a
pickaxe, for up to this, as seen by the concessions preserved in the
archives up to 1657, a man had been thought to have tilled his ground
if he had felled the trees and had uprooted all the roots which were a
foot in diameter or upwards, and had used the others in such a way that
a cart could pass along without obstacle.
Yet there were still difficulties, for on January 12, 1675, the
Seigneurs put up the following public notice at the parish church, the
fort, and the different mills:
"We have learned from many complaints, that several of our tenants
take no trouble, not only to establish their homes on their lands and
to put them to use, but even neglect to fell the timber, or to keep in
order the little space they have cleared on taking possession. This
negligence retards the advancement of the colony and prevents many
strangers coming to take up land in this island and to dwell here. It
causes a dearth of wheat and grain from which the people have suffered
during the past two years. Finally it entirely ruins the adjoining
lands already tilled, both because of the continued shadows which the
standing woods cast on them, and because the squirrels and other small
animals left on these uncultivated lands leave them to eat and destroy
the greater part of the grain to the ruin of other lands."
To remedy this the seigneurs gave their tenants four months to put
their lands in order and to cut down all standing timber on pain of
forfeiture to the seigneurial domain.
Even in cutting down the timber there were abuses at Montreal. To
provide against the carelessness of riverside cultivators, as all were
at this time, in dumping their lumber into the river, Talon issued the
following order in October, 1670: "Whereas it has been pointed out to
us that the inhabitants of Montreal between Ste. Marie and La Petite
Chine (Lachine) have cut their timber so that, having fallen into the
river, it prevents navigation and blocks communication, we order them
to cut their wood into logs and to place them on the stream in such a
way that they may be carried away with the ice when it melts this year."
These logs could then be sold at Quebec in return for the necessities
of life.
The history of the first public roads and bridges at Montreal now
begins as the outcome of all this clearing and passing of carts to and
fro. In the _procès verbal_ of the road from Pointe aux Trembles to
the stream, Jean des Roches gives us an insight into the formalities
usually pursued. When the habitants had asked for a road, the Seigneurs
or their representatives would meet them at the place indicated, when
the projected road was traced and landmarks placed at intervals stamped
with the lead seal of the Seigneurs. After the new road was clearly
defined, a statement was drawn up, and then each proprietor set to work
to clear the road space running through his property; if a bridge was
necessary, one of logs was constructed; if a stream had to be crossed,
being common property, all contributed to the construction of this as
a public work. Thus the first bridge was thrown over the St. Pierre by
order of M. Talon, dated October 24, 1670.
Several roads had already been partially made, e. g., from the redoubt
of L'Enfant Jésus to Petit Lac (or the marsh which is now occupied
by Place Viger and a part of St. Denis and Craig Streets); from the
Coteau St. Louis to that of Ste. Marie; and provisional roads were
made through the woods on either side of the River St. Pierre, and the
marshy roads made practicable by log foundations or log bridges.
All these roads were eighteen feet broad, with the exception of the
road bordering the River St. Lawrence, which Talon fixed at twenty
feet; but the Seigneurs raised it to thirty-six feet seeing that it
was used as a towing path for the horses drawing the bateaux between
the currents and the rapids, and as it was the principal means of
communication and circulation between the lower and higher parts of
the island, they ordered the riverside owners to keep it in order.
To indemnify them for the loss of this extra space, other land was
added to the other extremity of their concessions. As most of these
improvements took place under Intendant Talon, Abbé de Queylus and
Dollier de Casson, city planners may know to whom honour is due.
[Illustration: ERRONEOUSLY CALLED "OLD LA SALLE HOMESTEAD"
(La Salle never built in stone)]
[Illustration: LEBER'S MILL]
[Illustration: KING'S FORT AND POWDER HOUSE (AS STANDING TODAY) FORT
CALLERIER]
[Illustration: OLD WINDMILL, LOWER LACHINE ROAD]
[Illustration: WINDMILL POINT]
NOTE
FORTS AND REDOUBTS BUILT ON THE ISLAND OF MONTREAL
(According to H. Beaugrand and P. L. Morin "Le Vieux Montréal.")
Ste. Marie (Barriere), fort in wood, 1658; St. Gabriel, fort in wood,
1659; Verdun, fort in wood, 1662; Rolland, fort in wood, 1670; Rémy,
redoubt in wood, 1671; Lachine, redoubt in wood, 1672; Cuillérier,
redoubt in wood, 1672; Gentilly (afterwards La Présentation), redoubt
in wood, 1674; Pointe aux Trembles, fort in wood, 1675; The Mountain,
fort in stone, 1677; Ste. Anne (Bellevue), redoubt in wood, 1683;
Rivière des Prairies, redoubt in wood, 1688; Mission de Lorette,
redoubt in wood, 1689; Senneville, fort in stone, 1692; Pointe St.
Charles, redoubt in wood, 1695; Bout de l'isle, redoubt in wood, 1697;
Longue Pointe, redoubt in wood, 1724; Sault-au-Récollet, redoubt in
wood, 1736.
OUTSIDE THE ISLAND OF MONTREAL
St. Lambert, redoubt in wood, 1665; Boucherville, redoubt in wood,
1668; La Prairie, fort in wood, 1670; Varennes, redoubt in wood, 1693;
Ste. Thérèse (Island), redoubt in wood, 1699; Brucy (Ile Perrot),
redoubt in wood, 1708; Longueuil, fort in stone, 1715; Le Tremblay,
redoubt in wood, 1716; St. Laurent, redoubt in wood, 1720; Lake of
Two Mountains, fort in stone, 1721; St. Louis, redoubt in wood, 1735;
Chateaugay, redoubt in wood, 1736; Beauharnois, redoubt in wood, 1737;
Ste. Geneviève, redoubt in wood, 1758.
NAMES OF FIEFS ERECTED IN THE ISLAND OF MONTREAL
Carion, Morel, Verdun, Boisbriant, St. André, d'Ailleboust, Bellevue,
St. Augustine, Lachine, Lagauchetière, St. Joseph, Nazareth,
Hôtel-Dieu.
[Illustration: Historical map of the Island of Montreal showing the
position of forts, redoubts and missionary chapels with the dates of
their construction. Carion, Morel, Verdun, Boisbriant, St. André,
d'Ailleboust, Bellevue, St. Augustin, Closse, Lachine, Lagauchetière,
St. Joseph, Nazareth, Hôtel-Dieu.]
FOOTNOTES:
[97] These dates mark the actual conferring of the patents of the noble
fief. In many instances, concessions had been granted and worked, in
anticipation of the honour.
[98] Quoted by Parkman, Old Régime, page 257.
[99] Etat de la distribution des anesses et anons envoyés de France en
Canada en l'année 1671.
CHAPTER XIX
1666-1672
ECONOMICAL PROGRESS
INDUSTRIES, TRADE AND LABOUR
COMMERCE--MINING--SHIP BUILDING--INDUSTRIES--A "MUNICIPAL"
BREWERY--THE FIRST MARKET--PRICES--LABOUR--MEDICAL MEN
Farming is the backbone of a nation's prosperity. Hence Louis XIV,
through Colbert and Talon, made this as we have seen their first
solicitude. Commerce comes next, and in May, 1664, the king gave
letters patent to the Company of the Western Indies, which should equip
vessels to trade with the French colonies, giving it the exclusive
right of trading with America. He gave it extensive backing, but in
spite of his sacrifices he had to suppress it in 1674, ten years after
its formation. It was accused of abuses of power, like the preceding
monopolies.
Talon turned his attention to the exploitation of mines, which might
give many an occupation. In the month of October, 1669, Mère de
l'Incarnation writes: "They have discovered a fine lead or tin mine
forty leagues beyond Montreal, with a slate quarry and a coal mine.
Copper mines were also discovered near Lake Superior."
In 1672 the first ship built in Canadian waters was launched. Its
capacity was four to five hundred tons. Previously Canadian wood had
been sent to France for the royal dockyards. Perhaps some of the
Montreal oaks that had been sent floating down stream to Quebec found a
destination in the wooden walls of France.
General industries were favoured by the king, and Talon was told
to spare no effort in opening out its various branches. Soon the
enterprising intendant was accredited by Marie l'Incarnation and the
historians of the "Relations" with initiating hemp, cloth, serge,
soap, woolen, tanning, shoe, pots and brewing industries. The latter
was especially encouraged as an offset against the dangerous evil
dimensions of the strong liquor traffic in Canada.
The records of the city archives for June 23, 1672, give the details
of a general assembly of the principal representatives of Montreal to
build a large brewery to supplant that already in existence, and now
found by experience, after the advent of the soldiers to be too small
for the needs of the growing community. The money for this apparently
municipal venture was borrowed from the Gentlemen of the Seminary, the
only bankers of the time. Two water mills now began to be constructed,
since with the advent of the soldiers, the old windmill at the fort and
that of the "Côteau" no longer sufficed.
The manufacture of homespun materials was encouraged by Talon, but
as yet it did not make much headway. Still Talon, writing in 1671
to Colbert, could report that he had caused drugget, coarse camlet,
étamine, serge, woolen cloth and leather to be manufactured in Canada,
adding: "I have, of Canadian make, the wherewithal to clothe myself
from head to foot."
The first market place was opened in 1676 opposite the seigneurial
manor house, which was established on St. Paul Street, and its site
was the land now occupied today by the Inland Revenue and that running
down to the river. Up to its opening, all sales had been conducted in
private houses. The market was held every Tuesday and Friday from 8
o'clock A. M. in summer and 9 A. M. in winter to 11 o'clock A. M., and
as there was no public clock then in the city the hour of commencing
and closing were sounded by the parish church bell.
Some market prices of the period may be cited. M. Boucher, in his
"Natural History of New France," written about 1663, says that a minot
of wheat (French measure, 39 litres) cost 20 sous and sometimes 6
francs. After the arrival of the troops it sold for no more than 3
_livres_. In 1669, creditors were bound to receive the wheat of their
debtors at 4 _livres_ the minot. Under M. d'Argenson a barrel of 500
eels was sold for 25 to 30 francs. A hundred planks, 10 feet long,
10 inches broad and 1 inch thick, were worth 50 _livres_. Butter was
sold at 12 to 16 sous a pound. An ox of seven to eight years, good for
slaughter, went for 200 _livres_; an ordinary sow, 30 _livres_; a pig,
good for killing, from 45 to 50 _livres_.
The day's work of a mason, a carpenter and a joiner was paid at the
rate of 40 sous; that of a good manual labourer, 30 sous. Hired
servants, after their time of service was completed, obtained 30 to
45 écus yearly, although their board cost their masters 200 _livres_,
and in bad times 300. In 1663, day labourers, when boarded, were paid
in winter at the rate of 2 sous and 30 in the summer. But after the
arrival of the soldiers and the increase of population, prices were
raised accordingly. By a judgment of the court of Montreal in 1667 the
daily wage of manual labourers was valued at 40 sous and of artisans at
3 _livres_.
The master and apprentice system was not in vogue in Canada in these
days, and everyone could set up for himself. Let us hope it was not
so with the doctors, of whom there were from July 8, 1669, to the end
of the following year, at least five, practicing in Montreal: Etienne
Bouchard and Forestier, partners; René Sauvageau de Maisonneuve and
Jean Rouxelle de la Rousillière, partners; and Jean Martinet de
Fontblanche. The latter, later, had an "apprentice," for in the act of
January 15, 1674, by Notary Basset, we find him promising to teach his
brother-in-law, Paul Prud'homme, in the three years and a half with
him, his art of surgeon and everything connected with that profession.
In these days the first health officers of Canada were surgeons,
pharmacists, doctors, dentists, apothecaries, all in one. They were
officially mentioned as "surgeons" probably because the art of surgery
in the time of hostility with the Iroquois was more in demand than that
of any other department of medicine.
Montreal was a small enough place to support five medical men,
especially as the treatment at the Hôtel-Dieu was gratuitous. In 1669,
in the month of August, the letters patent confirming this body as a
permanent and authorized corporation were granted.
CHAPTER XX
1666-1672
COLONIZATION AND POPULATION
ENCOURAGEMENT OF MARRIAGE--BACHELORS TAXED--"FILLES DU
ROI"--DOWRIES--PENSIONS FOR LARGE FAMILIES--MONTREAL HEALTHY FOR
WOMEN--NOTE ON IMMIGRATION.
One of the outstanding failures in New France so far had been that
of inadequate attempts to increase the number of colonists. This the
king was now anxious to remedy. To this end, when the war was over,
through the efforts of Colbert and Talon and before Tracy had left with
his glittering train, he offered inducements to the Carignan soldiers
to remain as colonists and to take up land. To each such concessions
of land were granted with a bonus of 100 _livres_, or fifty _livres_
and provisions for one year. The sergeants would receive a year's
provisions and one hundred to one hundred and fifty _livres_. Thus 400
of the Carignan regiment remained to swell the population.
To increase this number six infantry companies of fifty-three men each
were sent back in 1669. To each of the six captains he gave a bonus of
1,000 _livres_, with another 6,000 to be divided among the lieutenants
and ensigns. This military colonization largely influenced the future
of Canada.
To encourage permanent settlement efforts were now redoubled to provide
wives for the men. In 1665, 100 girls were sent over. In 1666, twice as
many; in 1667, and 1668, still more; in 1669, 150 and the same in 1670.
An ordinance published in Montreal November 30, 1670, shows the efforts
of the government to promote match-making--all _volontaires_ and others
not married being forbidden the privilege of hunting, fishing and
trading with the savages[100] and even of entering the bush under any
pretext whatever, the latter prohibition probably being intended to
prevent a bachelor finding a temporary Indian substitute for a French
wife. Bachelors had a hard time. Colbert, writing to Talon on February
20, 1668, says: "It will be appropriate that those, who seem to have
renounced wedlock, shall have to bear additional charges and to be
deprived of all honours and even to have some marks of infamy added to
them."
To press the execution of these commands, all those soldiers and
unattached workers not having taken up land, were ordered to marry
within fifteen days of the arrival of the ships bearing the girls.
Thus, Marie de l'Incarnation tells us, in 1669, that no sooner are the
vessels arrived than the young men go wife hunting, and marriages are
celebrated thirty at a time.
Among the children of those already settled, early marriages were
encouraged. "I pray you," wrote Colbert to Talon on February 20, 1668,
"to command it to the consideration of the whole people that their
property, their subsistence, and all that is dear to them, depend on
a general resolution, never to be departed from, to marry youths at
eighteen or nineteen years, and girls at fourteen or fifteen; since
abundance can never come to them except through the abundance of men."
And for this purpose the "king's present" of twenty _livres_ to each
of the contracting parties was given. Fathers of families, according
to the decrees of the state council of this period, who did not marry
their boys and girls when they had reached the ages of twenty-one and
sixteen were fined, and following this up, they had to appear every six
months after before the clerk of the court to give reason for further
delays under penalty of fines to be made applicable to the hospitals.
We have already given indication of the extreme care that had been
exercised at Montreal in the reception of such prospective mothers of
the colony; how Marguerite Bourgeoys had herself brought over on her
different voyages girls of noted virtue, whom she trained to become
good housewives, and for many she found eligible partners in life.
At Quebec a similar work was carried on, by a Madame Bourdon, with
motherly skill and devotion. If she was not as successful as Marguerite
Bourgeoys this was not surprising, since the latter was singularly
endowed by nature for such a task.
These girls were chaperoned, across the ocean, by the nuns or pious
persons, or by Madame Bourdon herself, and then placed under her charge
until marriage. We find an item of expense for 1671 paid by the king to
a Demoiselle Etienne for the care she had taken in taking girls from
the general hospital to Canada and in looking after them till they were
married. These were received by Madame Bourdon.
Human nature, being very much the same then as now, we can imagine that
some of these girls, drawn from the orphanages of Paris and Lyons, and
carefully trained by the nuns, were rude and difficult to handle, but
on the whole the venture was a great success. There was, of course,
as Marie de l'Incarnation says, in 1668, "mixed goods," and in 1689,
"along with honest people a great deal of 'canaille,' of both sexes who
cause a great deal of scandal."
But such care was taken from the very beginning of colonization,
since New France was viewed in the nature of a mission field, only to
send persons of good repute and to deport undesirables, that French
Canadians have no need to blush at their parentage. The families
descending from the Carignan soldiers may point with pride to their
origins. A caustic writer, La Hontan, writing twenty years after, by
his amusing, witty, and scurrilous descriptions of the matrimonial
market of this period, has done much to slander these early marriages,
but he is discredited, and his version is regarded as a caricature and
maliciously untrue, as Parkman points out.
These girls were called "les filles du roi," since they were maintained
at the charge of the king's bounty in the philanthropic orphanages of
France. At Montreal, under Marguerite Bourgeoys, they were lodged
with her in a house bought by Saint Ange, since the old stable was too
small. There, they were carefully instructed in religion and practical
affairs to become good mothers of families, and they did not leave her
till the day of their marriages. At this time, a pious congregation
of lay women was formed by Marguerite Bourgeoys; these met on Sundays
for the practice of virtue and many of the newly arrived girls were
kept in touch with the gentle and motherly Marguerite, long after
their marriages. It was from this date that her home began to be
affectionately spoken of as "The Congregation."
In addition to girls of a humble class, _demoiselles_ of a more
superior station were also encouraged to come to provide wives for the
officers and others, of whom Colbert wished to form the nucleus of
a Canadian _noblesse_. Several others, who first thought of passing
through the noviceship at the Hôtel-Dieu and joining the Hospitalières
Sisters, found their vocation otherwise, like Perrine de Bélestre,
sister of Picoté, who married Michel Godefroy, Sieur de Linlot, at
Three Rivers.
When the king's daughters married, they were given the king's dowry,
varying in form and value. Sometimes it was a house with provisions for
eight months, more often, fifty _livres_ in household supplies, besides
a barrel or two of salted meat.[101] And when they were married they
were encouraged to rear up a fruitful progeny, for in the "Edits et
Ordonnances" of the Province of Quebec, p. 67, a decree is found that
"in future all inhabitants of the said country of Canada, who shall
have living children to the number of ten, born in lawful wedlock, not
being priests, monks or nuns, shall each be paid out of the moneys
sent by His Majesty to the said country a _pension_ of 300 _livres_
a year, and those who shall have twelve children a pension of 400
_livres_; and that to this effect they shall be required to declare the
number of their children every year, in the months of June or July,
to the intendant of justice, police and finance, established in the
same country, who having verified the same, shall order the payment of
the said pensions, one-half in cash, and the other half at the end of
eight years." Furthermore, he ordered that fathers of large families
should have preference over others unless there was strong contrary
reason. The decreasing birth rate in France at that period prompted
such regulations in New France. The king's activity through Colbert in
peopling his colony is seen in numerous letters to his officials. In an
instruction to the Intendant Bouteroue in 1668 Colbert writes: "The end
and rule of all your conduct should be the increase of the colony; and
on this point I should never be satisfied, but labour without ceasing
to find every imaginable expedient for preserving the inhabitants,
attracting new ones and multiplying marriages."
These encouragements bore fruit. Laval, writing in 1668, says: "The
families of our French people in this country are very numerous; for
the most part they consist of eight, ten, twelve, and sometimes as many
as fifteen or sixteen children. The savages, on the contrary, have only
two or three and rarely do they go beyond four."
The Abbé de Queylus, now superior of the seminary at Montreal, wrote
to Colbert on May 15, 1669, that owing to the efforts of the king "the
number of the inhabitants of New France has increased two-thirds."
The population propaganda at Montreal was left largely to the seigneurs
of the seminary. In 1666, there were 582 persons; in 1667, there were
766; in 1672, the population was doubled to 1,500 or 1,600 souls, as
Dollier de Casson relates in his account of this year, which is the
concluding chapter of his "History of Montreal."
We may fitly conclude this chapter by giving two of the worthy
Dollier's reflections:
"First reflection, on the advantage that the women have in this
place (Montreal) over men, which is, that although the cold climate
is very healthy for the one and the other sex, it is incomparably
to the advantage of the feminine, which finds itself here almost
immortal--this is what everyone says since the birth of this settlement
and what I myself have remarked for six years, for although there are
fourteen to fifteen thousand souls here, there has only been the death
of one woman for the last six years."
"The second reflection will be on the facility which people of this
sex have of marrying here, a fact which is apparently clear to all the
world since it is practiced every year, but which is admirably shown by
an example I am going to tell you of one _qui sera assez rare_. It is
of a woman who, having this year lost her husband, has had one of the
bans published, and being dispensed of the two others had her marriage
performed and consummated before her first husband was buried. These
two reflections in my opinion will be sufficiently strong to thin out
the _Hôpital de la Pitié_ and to secure a good party of girls from all
the Paris orphanages if only they are desirous, to live long, or to
cultivate a devotion to the seventh of our sacraments."
NOTE
IMMIGRATION--1665-1670
The Compagnie des Indes Occidentales, which had been granted the domain
of New France from May 16, 1664, one year after the forced retirement
of the Hundred Associates, brought over on the king's account, in
1665,[3] 429 men and 100 women and girls; in 1667,[3] 184 men and 92
women and girls; and in 1668,[102] 244 of both sexes.
In addition, during the above period 422 officers and soldiers of
Carignan regiment were established in the colony. In 1666 the company
sent out on its own account 35 hired men (engagés); in 1669,[4] 200 men
and 150 women; in 1670,[4] 100 men and 100 women; in 1671,[103] 100 men
and 150 women; in 1672, the war in Holland stopped the movement.
In 1670 there came five companies of fifty men each, making with their
officers an effective force of 266. Thus for the first period we have
sent at the king's account about one thousand four hundred persons,
and for the second 1,116 about two thousand five hundred and sixteen
in all. But there was a certain number of others who came to find
a position, or were brought over by the owners of fiefs or by the
seigneurs of Montreal.
Talon encouraged marriages so that with the establishments of the
officers and the soldiers, joined to the activity of the emigration
movement from 1665 to 1668, the families had more than doubled their
numbers, and the population was also almost doubled during this period.
In 1665 the first census under Talon shows, at the commencement of
1666, 3,215 souls and 533 families; at the commencement of 1668, 6,282
souls and 1,132 families.
Yet the official report of Frontenac in 1673 after the departure of
Talon gave only a population of 6,705. This seems incredible and
Colbert expressed surprise. From 1669 to 1672 the king had sent over
820 persons without counting the soldiers arriving in 1670. Add to
this the material increase, the six to seven hundred births of 1671
and those of 1672, estimated in advance by Laval at 1,100, and it
is difficult to admit that the population had only increased by 423
souls from 1668 to 1673. The census of 1675 gives 7,833. This is more
reasonable and leads to the conclusion that the returns of 1673 were
too small.
The population of Montreal, according to Morin "Le Vieux Montreal," was
as follows: 1642, 72; 1650, 196; 1660, 472; 1665, 525; 1667, 760; 1662,
830; 1680, 1,400; 1690, 1,567; 1700, 2,100; 1710, 3,492; 1720, 5,314;
1730, 6,351; 1740, 7,710; 1750, 8,224; 1760, 8,321.
FOOTNOTES:
[100] François Le Noir was summoned before the judge at Montreal in
December, 1670, for breaking this ordinance.
[101] In the manuscript notes by Jacques Viger kept in St. Mary's
College, Montreal, the writer mentions one extract from the
deliberations of the "Conseil Souverain," held at Quebec on October
27, 1663, showing how these marriageable girls were disposed of, and
the dowry given by His Most Christian Majesty. "_Des filles arrivées
cette année par les vaisseaux du roy il en sera envoyé dix à Montréal
et quatre aux Trois Rivières, et leur sera donné à chacune une barrique
de farine, une paire de souliers, une paire de bas, une couverte, un
just'a corps, cinquante livres de lard, dix pots d'eau de vie pour
aider à marier, comme on a fait à celles qui ont été envoyées icy à
Québec._
(_Signé_) _PEUVRET_."
[102] See letters of Marie l'Incarnation, Vol. II.
[103] See letters of Colbert.
CHAPTER XXI
1667-1672
EXPEDITIONS FROM MONTREAL
LA SALLE--DOLLIER DE CASSON--DE COURCELLES
A FEUDAL VILLAGE AND ITS YOUNG SEIGNEUR--LA SALLE'S JESUIT
TRAINING--AN EX-JESUIT--THE SEIGNEURY OF ST. SULPICE--SOLD--THE
FEVER FOR EXPLORATION--LA SALLE, DOLLIER DE CASSON AND
GALINEE--SOLDIER OUTRAGES ON INDIANS--THE EXPEDITION TO LAKES
ERIE AND ONTARIO--LA SALLE RETURNS--HIS SEIGNEURY NICKNAMED
"LA CHINE"--THE SULPICIANS TAKE POSSESSION OF LAKE ERIE FOR
LOUIS XIV--RETURN TO MONTREAL--DE GALINEE'S MAP--THE SUBSEQUENT
EXPEDITION OF THE GOVERNOR GENERAL, DE COURCELLES.
One of the feudal villages rising at this period was that now known
as Lachine. Its original name was St. Sulpice. It was granted
provisionally in 1667 as a fief to René Robert Cavelier de La Salle, a
brother of M. Jean Cavelier, a young doctor in theology and a Sulpician
who had joined the seminary at Montreal on September 7, 1666.
[Illustration: RENE-ROBERT CAVELIER DE LA SALLE]
La Salle, as the former is known to us, became afterwards the
celebrated discoverer of the Mississippi down to the sea and as a
Montrealer deserves special notice here.
He was born at Rouen, November 21, 1643, and was educated at the Jesuit
College there. In his fifteenth year he entered the Jesuit noviceship,
on October 5, 1658. During the two years of noviceship, the père
maître, or novice master, had a difficult task to train the impetuous,
vigorous, impressionable, headstrong, exuberant, healthy youth of
fifteen, to the calm regularity of obedience, and the soldierly,
intellectual routine demanded by the Jesuit traditions; but it is just
this type of strong character, so powerful for good, if brought under
wise subjection, that the Jesuits love to mould; and so the young man
was allowed to take the simple vows of Evangelical Poverty, Chastity
and Obedience on October 10, 1660. The next two years he spent as a
Jesuit scholastic at the Royal College of La Flèche studying philosophy
and the physical sciences, showing ability in the latter courses.
Instead of finishing the third year, the restless young man went out
to teach as a Jesuit professor at Alençon for a year. He then resumed
his delayed third year. From October, 1664, to October, 1665, he taught
at Tours, and from 1665 to 1668 at Blois. In the September of 1666 he
returned to La Flèche to study theology. He was then only twenty-three
years of age, and had been promoted to the theology course seven or
eight years ahead of the usual Jesuit course, because his inability
to stay long in any one place and his want of success in a humdrum
professorship for which he had no taste, and which was irritating
to him and his students, forced his superiors to allow him to hurry
through his studies, thinking doubtless that this ardent spirit might
find congenial work in the distant mission fields with every facility
for exercising his fiery zeal, with less restraint, and under less
conventional circumstances than in France.
This resolution was brought about by Cavelier's own insistency in
demanding immediately the foreign missions, in a letter of April 5th,
written from Blois, to the general of the Jesuits, Jean Paul Oliva.
The general on May 4, 1666, answered temporizingly to the young man,
advising him to continue his studies and prepare himself usefully for
the sacred ministry, and in the meantime maintain that most "perfect
indifference," which is one of the most striking characteristics of
the Jesuit philosophical training and has been subjected to so much
criticism of praise or blame. To this Cavelier replied that he had
still the same desire, but the general wrote that he could give no
different reply. To understand Cavelier's nature he is described in the
Jesuit informations of the time as "inquietus" and "scrupulosus," which
words are very nearly English. Hardly had the theological studies at
La Flèche commenced than he wrote to the general, on December 1, 1666,
asking to be sent to Portugal for his studies. No doubt the restless
Cavelier was undergoing a nervous strain of scrupulosity and doubt as
to his fitness for religious and priestly life, and he thought that
he could find peace of mind again in a change of scene. The general
replied kindly, bidding him remain quietly in his own "Province,"
to conclude his studies, and after the third year of probational
novitiate, which all Jesuits undergo after being ordained and before
taking their final "solemn" vows, his zealous desire for the foreign
missions would be satisfied.
This answer brought to a head Cavelier's doubts as to his fitness
for the calmer repose of a studious life. On the one hand there were
holding him his three simple vows, not lightly to be laid down, and to
which he had been doubtless substantially faithful; on the other, he
felt that his natural character was impelling him to a freer life than
that of restrained self-sacrifice he had honourably tried to follow
up. So that making use of the privilege of a Jesuit scholastic, not
irrevocably bound to the Society till the taking of the last vows,
and after laying his conscience open to his superior and not "hiding
his moral infirmities," and probably exaggerating them, he applied,
canonically, for his letters of release. By January 28th, in the year
following, the final application was sent to Rome by the Jesuit rector
of La Flèche, and on March 1st, the general, Jean Paul Oliva, wrote
to the Jesuit provincial of France: "After a serious examination of
the informations which you have sent us, we authorize you to accept
the resignation of Robert Ignatius Cavelier, approved scholastic."
Ignatius was a name taken by Cavelier on taking his simple vows in 1660
in admiration of Ignatius Loyola, the soldier saint and founder of the
Society of Jesus.
Robert Ignatius Cavelier left the College of La Flèche on March 28,
1667, an ex-Jesuit. Before his final letters of freedom were given him
he received a kind letter from the general, in which he was told that
the French provincial had been instructed by him "to absolve you from
your vows and set you free." He added in Latin, "But do you, dearest
brother, wheresoever and in whatever state you shall find yourself, be
ever mindful of the state from which you have gone forth, and attend
to the rock from which you have been hewed, and although you may be
separated from us in time and place, strive always to be in heart with
us and to live in Christ with us. May His grace be always with you!"
(Archives General S. J.) Cf. Rochemonteix "Les Jésuites et la Nouvelle
France."
Circumstances in later life separated him largely from intercourse
with the Jesuits, as his career took him across the Sulpicians and the
Recollects.
Cavelier de La Salle is free! Where will he turn his steps? He has no
position and very little of a fortune, for on becoming a Jesuit he had
yielded up his inheritance to others of his family. Canada calls him,
for his brother François, the priest, had gone there in the September
of 1666. Canada, therefore, had doubtless been luring him during his
late mental struggles at La Flèche, and the summer of 1667 found the
ex-Jesuit with his brother, the Sulpician, at Montreal.
The Abbé de Queylus received the young man of twenty-four years kindly,
and doubtless for his brother's sake gave him a "_fief noble_" of great
extent opposite the Sault St. Louis. To encourage him to make good, the
title was not given in writing to him till January 9, 1669, when he
paid a medal of fine gold, which was to be repaid to the Seminary at
every subsequent change of seigneur.
The adventurous Sieur de La Salle set whole-heartedly to work in his
new vocation. He gratefully called the seigneury "St. Sulpice" and,
commencing the clearing of the land, he mapped out the borders of his
future village and subdivided his land as grants to his feudal tenants
in lots of sixty arpents, with half an arpent in the village itself.
He relieved them of any seigneurial dues till the year 1671, provided
they had built their homes by the feast of St. John, 1669. He gave
them the right of hunting on their lands and of fishing in front. He
took off 200 arpents of land from his fief towards Lake St. Peter for
a "common," whereon each could feed his beasts at a feudal fine of
five sous a year, while he reserved 400 arpents for his seigneurial
manor. This, however, he sold in 1670, when the passion for travel and
discovery seized him, as shall be later described.
We have ventured to give the romantic details of the history of one of
the early seigneurs because they illustrate the adventuresome period
and also because many of these facts surrounding the life of La Salle
were not generally known, even by many of the leading historians
of Canada. They will help as a key to explain the temperament and
character of the celebrated discoverer, in his Canadian life, his
enterprises and his misfortunes, his extreme need of movement, his
uncertainty, his passion for travel, his reputation for learning, and
also his active and ardent faith deepened by his Jesuit training.
His robust health and his commanding figure were of powerful avail
to him in his adventurous tasks. The generous blood of Normandy
flowed freely in his veins and, like his countrymen, he was active,
intelligent, industrious, resourceful and self-regarding. He made a
better pioneer than a patient, plodding land owner, as we shall see,
and the defects of an untractable youth made the success of the man as
an explorer.
We left the young La Salle organizing his seigneury, but before long
he is to be found, gun on his shoulder and knapsack on his back,
traversing the woods and in his canoe exploring all the rivers and
lakes around the neighbourhood. Trading his merchandise for beaver
skins with the Indians and coming in contact with the _coureurs de
bois_, he learns the directions of the rivers and the products of the
countries through which they pass, and soon there seizes him the great
desire to discover the long-sought-for northwest passage to China and
Japan and thus to open out a fruitful field for commerce for France,
and glory and fortune for himself.
During the autumn of 1668 some Seneca (Tsonnontouan) Indians stopped at
St. Sulpice and from them he learned that the river he called the Ohio
entered into the Mississippi, which emptied its waters into the "River
of the Sault," which he thought to be the Pacific.[104] With the aid of
these he started to master the Iroquois language.
Meanwhile, a similar idea of exploring and evangelizing the Shawnee
district had presented itself to Dollier de Casson who was now at
Quebec, making arrangements with M. de Queylus for his departure.
Dollier had spent the winter of 1668 in the woods with the Indians at
Lake Nipissing, learning an Algonquin dialect from a Nipissing chief
named Nitaukyk. This latter had a Shawnee slave who, on a visit to
Montreal, so enthused Queylus, that he sent a letter back by the slave,
telling M. de Casson of his desire to convert the Shawnee people who
seemed to provide special aptitude for Christianity, and offering this
mission to the zealous Dollier, who hastened to his superior at once
and thence to Quebec.
To raise the money for La Salle's expedition the seigneurs bought back
a great part of his land for 1,000 _livres_, payable in merchandise
to arrive by the vessels at Quebec. But he still wished to retain his
seigneurial domain of 400 arpents. Indeed on January 11th he received
the written titles of these from the seminary.
But on February 9th, following, La Salle, still in need of funds,
sold his seigneurial domain for 2,800 _livres_ to Jean Milot--a very
good bargain considering that he had been granted it for very little,
and that the documents of the transaction reveal that he had only
cleared nine or ten arpents; and that, on the other part, the wood
had only been felled, and not logged, and buildings had only been
commenced.[105] Then he set out to Quebec to interest M. de Courcelles,
the governor, in his project and to obtain all the necessary passports
and authorizations to range the woods and lakes.
De Courcelles warmly approved of his enthusiasm, seeing glory for his
own administration at no cost to himself, and he even allowed soldiers
to quit their companies and join La Salle. He also persuaded Dollier de
Casson, then in Quebec, consulting de Queylus on the Shawnee mission,
to combine with La Salle's expedition, thus giving it a certain
governmental éclat and public importance. Dollier de Casson received
his letters from Laval on May 15, 1669. On returning to Montreal,
preparations were made for departure. La Salle engaged four canoes and
fourteen men, among whom was the Sieur Thoulonnier and the surgeon,
La Roussillière. To meet additional expenses he had to sell another
piece of land above St. Sulpice to Jacques Leber, for 600 _livres_
_tournois_, on July 6, 1669, the day of departure.
De Casson had three canoes and seven men, and with them M. de Galinée,
a Sulpician deacon, an astronomer and mathematician, who joined only
three days before the departure. They took a Hollander to interpret the
Iroquois language.
Before leaving Montreal the party witnessed the execution of three
French soldiers of the Carignan Regiment, who were put to death for
the assassination, near Point Claire on Lake St. Louis, of an Iroquois
chief of the Senecas (Tsonnontouans). On the eve of this date it was
found out, by a confession to La Salle, that three other Frenchmen had
committed, near Montreal, on the River Mascouche, a more atrocious
assassination of six Oneida Iroquois (Onneiouts), three of whom
were a woman and two children. Yet the bodies were never found, so
this remains a mystery. Rewards were offered for the capture of the
prisoners, but they were never taken. Both of these horrible slaughters
had been caused by a desire of seizing the peltry belonging to the
Indians. Such treachery was likely to rekindle war with the natives. On
this occasion, therefore, M. de Courcelles came up to conciliate the
assembled Indians and to assure them, by presents, of the governmental
displeasure at these acts. Under these critical and dangerous
circumstances, the expedition of seven canoes containing twenty-two
Frenchmen and guided by two other canoes of those Tsonnontouans who had
lived with La Salle, left Montreal.
They made their way to the great village of Tsonnontouan and stayed
there a month, trembling in fear of their lives, for the chief, lately
murdered at Montreal, came from this place. Added to this one of
those drunken bouts, the results of the liquor traffic, seized the
inhabitants and threatened the Europeans' safety. While here Dollier
de Casson, worn out by the unaccustomed hardships of the journey,
fell into a great fever and was near his end, but happily recovering,
the explorers left and arrived at a river whose cataracts marked the
descent of the waters of Lake Erie into those of Lake Ontario.
Five days' journey brought them to the other side of Lake Ontario.
While here a fever also fell upon La Salle which in a few days
imperilled his life. On September 22d, they journeyed again and on the
24th reached a village named Tenaoutoua, where they met the explorer,
Joliet, arrived there the evening before. He had previously set out
from Montreal with canoes and merchandise, under instructions from
M. de Courcelles, to seek the whereabouts of a copper mine said to
be situated on Lake Superior. Finding the winter coming on, he had
relinquished this project and was about to return to Montreal. He gave
a description of the places he had visited and Galinée, the Sulpician
geographer, entered them on his map.
La Salle now determined that he also would return to Montreal, urging
for excuse the state of his health and the inexperience of his men
to stand a winter in the woods, where they were likely to perish of
hunger. But the missionary party was firm in its resolution to proceed
to the Mississippi Indians. Thus it was that some of La Salle's party
arrived the autumn of 1669 in Montreal alone. Whether La Salle returned
with them is doubted, for his traces for two years are hard to follow.
The failure of his expedition to discover La Chine was commemorated in
derision by the wags of Montreal who henceforth dubbed his seigneury
of St. Sulpice, as that of "La Chine." Such it soon began to be named,
even in the official documents, as for example one of June 10, 1670,
"this place La Chine, so called." So La Chine it has remained to this
day.
Meanwhile the Montreal missionaries, after leaving Tenaoutoua on
October 1, 1669, arrived, the 13th or 14th, on the banks of Lake
Erie, which seemed to them like a great sea lashed and tossed by the
tempestuous winds. At the mouth of a pleasant river, after three days
they built their cabin and there they remained for fifteen days, till
the fierce lake winds drove them to a more sheltered place in the
woods, about a quarter of a league away, on a bank of a stream. There
they reconstructed their cabin, but more strongly, and wintered for
five months and eleven days.
When spring came, they determined to push on to the Mississippi
Indians, but before doing so, an event is to be chronicled in the
history of discovery, from Montreal. On March 23d, on Passion Sunday,
descending to the banks of Lake Erie, the explorers took possession of
the country in the name of Louis XIV.
The following _procès verbal_, then drawn up and preserved in the
marine archives of France, fully explains the picturesque ceremony:
"We, the undersigned, certify having affixed the arms of the king of
France, on the lands of the lake named Erie, with this inscription:
"In the year of salvation 1669, Clement IX being seated on the chair
of St. Peter, Louis XIV reigning in France, M. de Courcelles being
governor of New France and M. Talon intendant there for the king,
two missionaries of the Seminary of Montreal, arrived at this spot
accompanied by seven other Frenchmen, who are the first Europeans to
have wintered on this lake, the lands of which being unoccupied, they
take possession of in the name of their king, by placing up his arms
which they have affixed to this cross.
"In testimony of which we have signed the present certification.
"François Dollier,
"Priest of the Diocese of Nantes, in Brittany;
"De Galinée,
"Deacon of the Diocese of Rennes, in Brittany."
On the 26th of March they proceeded further on their journey, but in
Easter week, having halted by the side of Lake Erie, and drawn some
of their canoes onto the land, leaving others on the sandy shore near
the water's edge, wearied out with fatigue after a day's journey of
twenty leagues, the party fell asleep. A great wind arose and heaped
up the waters so that the awakened sleepers had difficulty in rescuing
their canoes. One they utterly lost, as well as apparel and chapel
accoutrements. A barrel of gunpowder floating on the waves was saved
but the ammunition was lost. This disaster made them resolve to turn
back to Montreal.
They chose for their return voyage the route passing by the mission of
Sault Ste. Marie. On their way, after 100 leagues' navigation, they
destroyed a rude Indian idol, and after entering Lake Huron arrived on
May 25th at Sault Ste. Marie Fort, where they were joyously received by
the Jesuits, Dablon and Marquette, with the little colony of twenty to
twenty-five Frenchmen.
Thence they started on May 28th, with a guide from the fort, and after
a strenuous journey of twenty-two days reached Montreal on June 18,
1670.
[Illustration: OLD MAP OF MONTREAL]
M. de Galinée on his return made a corrected copy of his map, which he
sent to M. Talon, with a copy of the "_prise de possession_," already
described, and these were of great use later, to the French government,
which sent them to London in 1687 as evidences of the pretensions which
the French claimed over Lakes Erie and Ontario, and the neighbouring
countries.
[Illustration: GALINEE'S MAP, 1669]
Dollier de Casson wrote a history of this voyage but no copy has been
found. Though the journey was unsuccessful in the conversion of the
Indians, yet it paved the way to succeeding explorations which were
quickly sent by Talon, and to the eventual evangelization of these
parts.
Of La Salle's experience, after leaving the Sulpicians, we have little
to record, as he was lost to civilization; but we see him coming
back at intervals to Montreal as his base to obtain supplies for his
explorations. On the 6th of August, 1671, he received on credit "in
his great need and necessity" from the hands of Migeon de Branssat,
procureur fiscal of Ville Marie, merchandise to the sum of 454 _livres_
_tournois_. Again on December 18, 1672, being in Montreal, there is
an "obligation" recorded at the city _greffe_ of a promise to pay, on
the August following, the same sum in peltry or money, either at the
house of Jacques Leber, where he lived, or at Rouen at the house of his
relative, M. Nicholas Crevêt, king's councillor and master of accounts.
Montreal, being at the head of navigation, became the starting point of
many subsequent expeditions. We may add here the expedition of Governor
General de Courcelles to Lake Ontario, which left Montreal on June 2,
1671. The object of the voyage was to conciliate the Indians who had
made peace but who were in danger of breaking it, irritated as they
had been by such breaches of faith as that related to have recently
occurred at Montreal, by the brutal assassinations, and to show them by
a dignified appearance among them not, in canoe, but "en bateau" that
their waters were not inaccessible, and that the French knew how to
punish and keep them in check. Another motive was to explore the lands
bordering on Lake Ontario with the view of establishing a fort and
colony and of diverting the peltry trade into French instead of English
hands, and of claiming those lands for the French.
Accordingly de Courcelles arrived at Montreal with a specially
constructed bateau of two or three tons under the management of
Sergeant Champagne and eight other soldiers. The governor's daring
expedition was joined at Montreal by M. Perrot, the local governor of
Montreal; M. de Varennes, that of Three Rivers; Charles Le Moyne, M. de
Laubia, M. de La Vallière, M. de Normanville and several others, as a
mark of esteem for the governor; finally the genial Dollier de Casson
as chaplain. It is from him that we have the history of the expedition.
The party of fifty-two went by road to La Chine and embarked above St.
Louis Rapids on the governor's barque and thirteen birch bark canoes.
On June 12th it reached the mouth of Lake Ontario. On the way a party
of Iroquois had been met and impressed with fear and respect. These
were now sent with letters to the missionaries to publish around news
of the mission of the governor general. The Iroquois were overwhelmed
by the dignity of the governor and his party, and for a time they kept
dumb with their hands and their mouths, in astonishment. Of the French
they said that they were demons and brought to a conclusion everything
they wanted. The governor, they thought an incomparable man. He made
capital of his success and menaced destruction to those who should
revolt, whose settlements he would take and destroy at will.
The party returned on June 14th and soon arrived in Montreal, the whole
expedition having taken only fifteen days. It was most successful with
the Indians and restrained their trade with the Dutch and English,
and even the latter, according to Marie l'Incarnation (letter No. 89)
feared lest they should be driven from their trading posts.
FOOTNOTES:
[104] La Salle wondered where the Ohio emptied itself. His mind wavered
between the Gulf of Mexico or the Vermillion River (the Gulf of
California). He seems to have favoured the latter hypothesis.
[105] The Abbé Véreault says La Salle hired a small house in Montreal
in November, 1668. At the southeast corner of St. Peter and St. Paul
Streets a tablet commemorates such a house. On January 9th he was again
in Montreal. Probably he found Lachine lonely and naturally sought the
town.
CHAPTER XXII
1667-1672
EDUCATION
AT QUEBEC: JACQUES LEBER, JEANNE LEBER, CHARLES LE MOYNE (OF
LONGUEUIL), LOUIS PRUDHOMME--MARGUERITE BOURGEOYS' SCHOOL AT
MONTREAL--"GALLICIZING" INDIAN CHILDREN--GANNENSAGONAS--THE
SULPICIANS AT GENTILLY--THE JESUITS AT MADELEINE LA PRAIRIE.
Another effort of Louis XIV, through his minister Colbert, was the
furtherance of education in the colony. It was naturally of a very
rudimentary character in these early days of scarce population. To
help, Colbert sent from the king, 6,000 _livres_ on April 5, 1667. The
work of education was in the hands of the clergy and religious with the
exception of that done at Montreal by Marguerite Bourgeoys, who had
not yet established her order. At Quebec, the Jesuits had since 1635
commenced a college for boys at which later young Joliet, who afterward
with Père Marquette, was the discoverer of Illinois, was taught to
defend philosophical theses. The Ursulines had a _pensionnat_ of thirty
girls, of whom Marie l'Incarnation, writing in 1668, says: "They gave
more trouble than sixty in France. The _externes_ give us some more
trouble." Still she says that there is a great desire to educate the
French girls and "they learn to read and write, to say their prayers,
learn Christian morals and all that a girl ought to know." Among the
_pensionnaires_ was Jeanne Leber, the daughter of Jacques Leber, the
Montreal merchant, and she was pious, and clever at elocution and lace
work.
[Illustration: JACQUES MARQUETTE]
At Montreal, as the population began to grow, Marguerite Bourgeoys
now handed over the boys, who were beginning to be educated with the
girls in the little primary school in the stable, to M. Souart, who,
since the return of M. de Queylus, had been supplanted as curate by
M. Gilles Pérot, and we find him styled in the documents of the time
"former curé--schoolmaster." In this occupation he was assisted by M.
Rémy, a deacon, who was afterwards entrusted for some time with the
primary education of the town. The education was given gratuitously,
but to maintain the schoolmaster, the syndic, accompanied by the clerk
of the court, canvassed subscriptions from private individuals. In
the fall, the Seminary made up the deficit. Marguerite Bourgeoys, and
her four companions, still taught during the day for nothing, without
any assistance as before, but during the night they worked at manual
labour for their support. "Thus," says Dollier de Casson writing of
1652, "what I admire most about these young women, is that being
without goods and willing to teach gratuitously, they have nevertheless
acquired by the grace of God and without being a charge to anyone,
houses and lands in the island of Montreal." In fact on August 29,
1668, Marguerite Bourgeoys bought a house thirty-six feet square
adjoining the "Congregation" from the widow of Claude Fézeret. On
September 21, 1668, she acquired from François Leber a grant of land,
with a house on it, at Pointe St. Charles. The site of this house, with
its buildings, can be seen to this day.
In 1669, she acquired, from Maturin Roulier, another piece of land with
a granary and a meadow, situated in the direction of Sault St. Louis.
All this, added to the original donation from M. de Maisonneuve, and
sixty arpents and more granted through the Seigneurs, out of which
she had put thirty-two under cultivation and on which she had placed
a granary, went in great part to support her community of pious lay
associates. In addition, on July 6, 1672, she bought an arpent of land
adjoining the "Congregation" and built on it a larger establishment,
as the number of her pupils surpassed the limited space of her stable
school.
On October 9, 1668, Laval at Quebec started his "petit séminaire," out
of the boys of which he hoped to draw the nucleus of a Canadian clergy.
He started with six Hurons, to whom were added eight French boys. In
1669 there were three Montrealers being educated there, probably on a
_bourse_ from the king's bounty, viz., Charles Le Moyne, de Longueuil;
Jacques Leber, brother of Jeanne, and Louis Prud'homme. The French
boys, supported by the king's bounty, boarded, however, at the Jesuit
College. Soon others joined, but as it was found that many of them
did not care for study, they were sent to Cap au Tourment, where they
learned mechanical trades and arts suitable to young colonists.
In 1670, there were only five teachers for the many calls on the
education of the girls, so Marguerite Bourgeoys went to France for
assistance, and after six months she saw Colbert, who promised to
assist her so that her congregation in May, 1671, received the approval
of the "Roi Soleil," Louis XIV, who was then with his brilliant court
at Dunkerque. She returned to Quebec in 1672, on August 14th, bringing
back a miraculous oaken statue of the Blessed Virgin, of some eight
inches in height for the church of Bonsecours, already projected in
1651 and to be built shortly. With her came several novices to join her
order, some of noble families, Elizabeth de la Bertache, Madeleine de
Constantin, Thérèse Soumillard, Pierrette Laurent, Geneviève Durosoy,
Marguerite Soumillard, and Marguerite Sénécal, who was the bursar of
the very slender funds of the party.
In addition to the _externes_ the congregation was beginning to have
boarders and was reaching such a point of utility, when she might
extend her work throughout the colony, that she had been persuaded to
ask for the above royal letters patent of incorporation. Her eventual
aim was to establish a regular congregation, with religious vows
of its own. For the present, Laval did not favour such a plan; he
rather wished to avoid a multiplicity of religious congregations in a
poor country, and he would have preferred her companions to join the
Ursulines at Quebec, becoming if necessary a branch establishment.
To this the independent Marguerite Bourgeoys was opposed. The Ursulines
was an enclosed order and the Montreal _congréganistes_ wished indeed
to live in community, but to circulate freely among the people--a new
idea then among religious congregations of women, very untried
and to which consequently the conservative bishop of Petrea was
not favourable. Yet, in 1689, on a visit of Laval to Montreal, the
foundress was authorized to spread her fellow workers over his diocese,
and it was about this time that they began to adopt a form of dress
based on an Acadian model.
The education of Indian children was greatly promoted under the new
policy of Louis XIV, and Laval, in the intention of "Gallicizing" the
natives in language, religion and customs, and eventually of allying
them in marriage with the colonists from France. This had been one
of Laval's objects in founding the "petit séminaire" of Quebec. He
persuaded the Jesuits and the Ursulines to start Indian schools for
Algonquin boys and Huron and Algonquin girls at Quebec. On September
27, 1670, Marie de l'Incarnation announced the marriage of some of her
girls to Frenchmen, with domestic success.
Laval also induced the Sulpicians at Montreal to undertake the work for
the children of those Algonquin and Huron parents who had been captured
by the Iroquois. The city archives contain the contracts of July 16,
1669, by which Jacques Akimega, thirteen years of age, and Louise
Resikouki, an Algonquin girl of twelve years, bind themselves to be
lodged and educated like French people till eighteen years of age, at
the seminary on a gift of 500 _livres_, provided by Dollier de Casson
on the stipulation that if the contract was broken the money shall go
for the education of other savage children.
Other Indian girls being forthcoming, Marguerite Bourgeoys undertook
their training at the congregation, and on November 14, 1672, we have
the contract of marriage between one of them, Marie Magdalene Catherine
Nachital, and Pierre Hogue, born at Belle-Fontaine, near Amiens.
One of the pupils of the congregation, called Gannensagouas and
baptized Marie Thérèse, after the queen of France, later in 1681 made
her religious profession as a nun in the congregation order, by that
time erected.
But the work of Gallicizing and civilizing these wayward,
liberty-loving, capricious children of the woods was an ungrateful
task. Most of those who entered the cloister of the Ursulines were like
birds of passage and they flew over the cloister walls to escape the
melancholy of their restrained lives, even when their parents did not
take them away. Nor did the Jesuits succeed any better. The Sulpicians
made a bold attempt by taking their Indian school into the country. M.
de Fénelon, one of their number, was charged to form an establishment
under the name of La Présentation at Gentilly, situated on the bank of
the St. Lawrence above Lachine, and in addition he secured a concession
on January 9, 1673, of the three islands opposite between Lachine and
Cap St. Gilles, which had been granted originally to Picoté de Bélestre
and were now exchanged for land on the island. These islands were then
named the Iles de Courcelles, after the governor general, and on one of
them at a place called the Baie d'Urfé, after the name of one of the
Sulpician missionaries, an Indian mission was established. We may here
mention the Jesuit missions, on the south shore facing Montreal of the
seigneuries of Madeleine la Prairie and St. Lambert, which commenced
with a few savages in 1669, the progenitor of the fifth site, the
Caughnawaga reservation, as known today.
NOTE
Caughnawaga, or Sault St. Louis, an Iroquois reservation, situated on
the south bank of the St. Lawrence, about ten miles above Montreal.
Area, 12,327 acres. Population in 1905, 2,100, all Catholics except
five or six families. The language is the Mohawk dialect. The sault (or
rapids) was an old seigniory, or concession, granted to the Jesuits
in 1680. To Père Ruffeix, S. J., is due the idea of thus grouping the
Iroquois neophytes on the banks of the St. Lawrence to guard them
from the persecution and temptation to which they were subject amid
the pagan influences of their own villages. In 1667 the missionary
prevailed upon seven communities to take up their residence at La
Prairie, opposite Montreal. Other Christian Iroquois from different
localities soon came to join the settlement, and in 1670 there were
twenty families. As the proximity of the whites was prejudicial to
the Indians, the mission was transferred, in 1676, several miles
higher up the river. This second site is memorable as the scene of the
saintly life and death of Catherine Tekakwitha (died 1680). In 1890
a granite monument was erected on the site, in memory of the humble
Iroquois virgin. In 1689, to escape the threatened attacks of their
pagan tribesmen, the Christian Iroquois sought refuge in Montreal,
where they remained eight or nine months. When the danger had passed
they founded another settlement a mile or two above the last. In 1696
another migration took place to a fourth site. Here it was that Père
Lafitau, S. J., discovered the famous "ginseng" plant, so valuable in
the eyes of the Chinese. The discovery created a great sensation, and
was for a time the source of lucrative commerce. The fourth site still
proving unsatisfactory, the settlement was moved to the present site
of Caughnawaga in 1716. From 1667 to 1783 the mission was conducted
by the Jesuits; from 1783 to 1903 by secular priests and oblates.
In 1903 it was again confided to the Jesuits. Among the more noted
missionaries were Fathers Bruyas, S. J.; Chauchetière, S. J.; Lafitau,
S. J.; Burtin, O. M. I.; Marcoux, who composed an Iroquois dictionary
and grammar; and Forbes, who drew up complete genealogical tables of
the settlement. The Indians are intelligent and industrious. Some are
engaged in farming, others take rafts down the Lachine rapids. The
industries are principally bead work and the making of lacrosse rackets
and snowshoes. Besides the presbytery, dating from 1716, and the church
built in 1719 and restored in 1845, there are in the village the ruins
of a French fort of 1754, two schools and a hospital. The government by
chiefs was, in 1889, replaced by that of a mayor and council. Note by
Joseph Gras, S. J.
N. B.--Joseph Gras, S. J., the writer of this monograph, is assistant
missionary at Caughnawaga.
[Illustration: LA TORTUE
The old flour mill about 1676. Walls of solid stone]
[Illustration: LA TORTUE
Another view of the same house showing stream running underneath]
[Illustration: THE SITES OF THE SOUTH SHORE INDIAN SETTLEMENT, SAULT
ST. LOUIS VILLAGE, IN ITS VARIOUS REMOVALS FROM LA PRAIRIE TO THE
PRESENT CAUGHNAWAGA]
CHAPTER XXIII
1666-1672
GARRISON LIFE--SLACKENING MORALS
SIEUR DE LA FREDIERE--LIQUOR TRAFFIC WITH THE INDIANS--SOLDIERS
MURDER INDIANS--THE CARION-DE LORMEAU DUEL--THE FIRST BALL IN
CANADA--LARCENIES, ETC.--A CORNER IN WHEAT--THE "VOLUNTAIRES," OR
DAY LABOURERS--THE TAVERNS--A POLICE RAID--"HOTEL" LIFE--BLASPHEMY
PUNISHED--THE LORDS' VINEYARDS RUINED.
The history of garrison towns, sad to relate, seems always to be
besmirched with scandals having their origin among the soldiers. So it
was with Montreal after the settlement of the officers and men of the
Carignan and other regiments, in marked contrast with the times of de
Maisonneuve and his brave "milice," who had been especially trained
under religious influences and had not been reared in the atmosphere of
camp or barrack life.
Among the officers sent to Montreal, after the war of 1666, to command
the garrison, was the Sieur de la Fredière, a nephew of M. de Sallières
and a major in the Sallières-Carignan Regiment. This man, disfigured by
the loss of an eye, has left a name as one who was repulsive alike in
mind, in conscience, and in honour. He was banished to France after the
visit of Talon in 1667, who heard from the inhabitants such a catalogue
of acts of tyranny, injustice, and immorality against this officer of
the king that, having referred the charges to de Tracy, the latter
ordered the expulsion of the offender.
On de Sallières' remonstrance at the severity of the sentence, Talon
ordered on September 1, 1667, a judicial investigation into the charges
so that they might be presented in legal form.
Accordingly the copies of records of the judicial archives of Montreal
of September 17-19, preserved in the _greffe_ of the city, containing
these informations against la Fredière before M. d'Ailleboust, remain
as standing evidence produced by Jean Beaudoin, Mathurin Marsta, André
Demers, Claude Jaudoin, Anne Thomasse, his wife, and Marie Anne Hardye,
wife of Pierre Malet, of the justice of the above charges. Those who
wish to read the scandalous details can do so at will.
One of the charges against la Fredière had been that of selling liquor
to the savages, and of fraudulently diluting it, at that. He was not
without imitators among the officers who, not content with selling them
liquor in their settlements, followed them to their hunting fields,
so that through their continual drunken orgies, the savages brought
back but few skins, and thus the habitants of Montreal, who had gone to
great expense in advancing them on credit, arms, powder and provisions,
were reduced to great want. Dollier de Casson, contrasting the
singlemindedness of M. de Maisonneuve with the new régime of avaricious
officers, says that if things went on so, the country would be ruined.
"It is impossible that it can hold together," he says in his account of
the year 1667, "if individuals have not the wherewith to buy utensils,
linen, clothes, in a country where wheat has no value. Owing to the
cupidity of the officers, the inhabitants, not having any peltry for
exchange, are forced to sell their arms to provide the wherewith
to cover themselves, and having only their feet and arms to defend
themselves, they will become the prey of the Iroquois, should they wish
to begin to war again."
Speaking of this period Marie l'Incarnation (letter of October, 1669)
says "that it would have been better to have less inhabitants and
better Christians," and Dollier de Casson in his history of the year
1664, bewailing the departure of M. de Maisonneuve, says that "since
Montreal had fallen into other hands, vices unknown before had crept
in."
The common soldiers followed the licenses of their betters and were
within an ace of endangering the safety of the colony by rekindling
the smouldering embers of Iroquois hatred. In their greed the soldiers
of the Montreal garrison had killed a Seneca chief for his peltry,
having plied him with brandy and killed him. His body they loaded with
weights to sink it, but it was found floating by some Iroquois who
brought it to Montreal, and thus the murder was out. As we have related
they were put to death, on the day of the departure of La Salle for
the West. About the same time, in the winter of 1668-69, three other
scamps who had left the Carignan Regiment and settled at Montreal
cruelly massacred six Oneidas (Onneiouts) on the banks of the River
Mascouche, first intoxicating them in their cabin, and then during
the night falling on them, not even sparing the woman and her young
children. And this for a load of fifty elk and beaver skins! One of
the assassins confessed the brutal deed to La Salle, as we have said,
before departing.
The first armed attack on life at Montreal among Frenchmen was also
committed by a soldier, viz., by Carion, a lieutenant of La Motte's
regiment, on the person of M. de Lormeau, an ensign of M. de Gué's
company, in payment of a grudge. The case was brought up before M.
d'Ailleboust in May, 1671, and the records of the _greffe_ giving
the depositions of the witnesses, tell an exciting story, of how, on
Pentecost evening, after vespers and just before the first sound of
the "salut" pealed, the Sieur de Lormeau was walking with his wife
towards the common and had passed the seminary enclosure, apparently
on the way to his dwelling, when nearing the house of Charles Le
Moyne, of Longueuil, who was at table entertaining Picoté de Bélestre
and a merchant of Rochelle named Baston, they saw M. de Carion coming
to meet them. They advanced towards him and they were near Migeon de
Branssat's house when Carion, seeking a pretext for provocation, called
out, "Coward! Why have you struck this child? Why don't you attack me?"
"Coward yourself!" was the reply. "Go away!" On the instant Carignan's
sword is out and de Lormeau follows suit. Three or four blows are
struck and they clinch one another. In the struggle Carion, taking
his sword by the blade, tries to plunge its point into de Lormeau's
stomach. De Lormeau's péruque now falling to the ground, Carion takes
the opportunity of seizing his sword by the hilt and deals blows with
its pommel on de Lormeau's unprotected head till the blood began to
flow. Whereupon de Lormeau's lady, Marie Roger Lepage, terror-stricken
and beside herself, runs back to Charles Le Moyne's house and disturbs
the supper party by crying, "Murder! Murder! M. de Bélestre, come
out!" The three, leaving the table, rushed to separate the struggling
officers but in vain. Picoté de Bélestre then exclaimed in indignation:
"Since you won't separate, then kill yourselves if you want to." And
now, one called Gilles, a former servant of M. Carion, comes on the
scene with drawn sword, brandishing it in defence of his master, but
doing no damage. M. Morel, an ensign in the same company as Carion
and a partner in the same quarrel against de Lormeau, also comes on
with naked sword and makes a thrust at de Lormeau, much to Charles Le
Moyne's disgust strongly expressed, at seeing an unarmed man so struck.
By this time de Lormeau had received three wounds, when two priests
from the seminary ran out to separate them, M. de Frémont and M.
Dollier de Casson, the strapping soldier priest, whose presence soon
acted as a peacemaker. But de Lormeau took the affair to the court, as
we have seen.
The military introduced a love of gayety, good cheer and dissipation
into the colony. In Quebec in 1667, on February 4th, the first ball was
held and the Jesuit journal of the period adds this reflection: "May
God grant that there are no sad consequences."
At Montreal, larcenies, breaches of respect for authority, blasphemies
and Sabbath breaking are now recorded.
In 1670 an attempt was made for the first time, in Montreal to make a
corner in wheat to the detriment of the poor. By an act of January 26,
1671, Talon fixed the price at three _livres_ and two sous the bushel,
and punished a refractory miller, de la Touche-Champlain who, profiting
by the dearth of wheat, sold it at twenty sous, and even then it was
mixed with Indian corn.
The "_volontaires_," or day labourers, began to be a trouble, as they
were more numerous at Montreal than elsewhere. Many of these were lazy
and wanderers, and would not hire themselves out or take up land, and
doubtless many of the petty larcenies now commencing, were due to these
gentlemen living on their wits. The woods appealed to them and the
"_coureurs de bois_" would soon be recruited from them. The simplicity
of primitive manners was going. An ordinance of the "_procureur fiscal_"
in the records of the city for March 9, 1670, shows that precautions
had to be now taken to prevent sacks of wheat and flour from being
willfully changed at the mill, and their amounts from being falsified.
Theft was severely punished, according to the "_greffe_" of April 15,
1667. A man who had stolen thirteen bushels of wheat was condemned
to be marked with the royal "_fleur de lys_" and to be sent to the
Canadian galleys for three years. On December 20, 1668, another was
sentenced to stand outside the parish church for a quarter of an hour,
as the people were leaving after mass on Sunday. The town clerk read
his sentence out to the people and an officer of justice affixed to the
culprit's breast a notice in large characters so that all might read
the legend, "_voleur de blé_" (wheat thief).
Again, on March 8, 1670, a man convicted of stealing from a store by
night was condemned by M. d'Ailleboust, under the good pleasure of the
sovereign council, to be hanged on a market day, so that by "this dire
example, the evil disposed might be intimidated and prevented from
committing greater larcenies and other crimes." The condemned man,
however, appealed to the sovereign council, and the execution does not
appear to have taken place.
Tavern frequentation was also a source of dissipation and trouble. The
cabarets became the rendezvous of Montrealers, although they were only
licensed for strangers and marketers. In 1669, the intendant came to
town and on this occasion at the request of the Seigneurs brought about
a special ordinance dated April 2, 1669, which ran as follows:
"Desirous of doing all in our power to stop these dissipations and
debaucheries, which serve only for the corruption of morals and the
destruction of families and of the colony, we, in execution of this
ordinance of the king, very expressly forbid all those who shall keep
cabarets or taverns, in the town as well as in the bourgs, villages
or other places, to open them to receive any person on Sundays and
holy days and during divine service, under a penalty of a fine for the
first offence, and of prison for the second. We forbid, under the same
penalties, all those domiciled in towns, bourgs and villages where
there are cabarets or taverns, even those who are married and have
families or households, to go to eat or to drink in these places, and
those who keep these cabarets or taverns to give them food or drink, or
gaming, under any pretext whatever. They can only sell them wine by the
pot, which they shall take home to drink.
"We forbid them also, under the same penalties, to receive in these
places any dissolute or lewd men or women, or to give them food or
'aliment' of any kind, or likewise to give to any _engagé_ (hired man)
or 'volontaire' food or drink.
"They shall, however, be allowed to give drink in moderation to
travelers and to give board and lodging to those who shall be obliged
to reside in this town to manage their affairs. Finally we forbid
all innkeepers to give credit for their dues or to exact any promise
or obligation of payment under the penalty of loss of their stock,
for which they shall not take any action of recovery, conformably to
Article 128 of the 'Custom of Paris.'"
This ordinance appears to have been strictly enforced for some time,
for we find the syndic himself on August 19, 1670, appearing before
M. d'Ailleboust to answer a charge of eating and drinking at an inn
on a Sunday or a feast day during divine service. The syndic owned up
to having contravened the law on a week day, but brought witnesses to
prove that he had not broken the ordinance of the Sunday and feast day
observance. The innkeeper was condemned to pay the law expenses of the
case and to pay a fine to the church.
Even those who broke the ecclesiastical abstinence in these cabarets
seem to have been in danger of the secular arm.
A watch was kept by the Seigneurs on the weights and measures and they
had them stamped with their seal. In order to see that innkeepers did
not substitute others, the _procureur fiscal_, or his substitute,
accompanied by the clerk of the justices and two sergeants, went on a
tour of inspection from time to time. (Greffe de Ville Marie, June 11,
1673.)
In 1676, on a surprise visit after vespers one Sunday,--"on information
received" doubtless,--these officers found four men being entertained
at one of the cabarets, now beginning to open up without authorization
and apparently contravening all the above-quoted ordinance. One June
11th the four men and the innkeeper were fined. On September 27th the
judge of the seigneurs, forced to cut down the growing abuses, ordered
all inns to be closed under penalty of a 100 _livres_, provided that
the autumn then ending and the forthcoming winter did not bring any
strangers to Montreal. He declared at the same time that in the spring
there would be established one or two "cabaretiers hôteliers," which we
may translate as "hostelry innkeepers," to board and lodge traveling
merchants coming to Montreal. Shall we consider this the first
indication of the hotel life of Montreal, the commercial metropolis of
Canada?
The crime of blasphemy was severely punished. On Ascension Day, 1668,
the new royal edict, supplementing a former one of 1651, was placarded
at the door of the parish church at Montreal.[106] Various fines and
imprisonments are meted out to those who shall sin. At the sixth
offence it is ordered that the blasphemer's upper lip shall be cut with
a hot iron, the lower lip on the seventh, and if after this he still
continues his blasphemy, his tongue is to be cut out.
A man near Lachine, having attempted outrage on two young girls of
eleven and seven years, was fined and banished, on June 2, 1672, from
the Isle of Montreal, for seven years.
Evil livers were punished even after death. A former corporal, who had
been killed by accident by an Ottawan at the "Little" River, was, in
July, 1674, refused burial in holy ground but was allowed to be buried
on the commons by one who offered to do that service on the condition
that the clothing covering the deceased man should be left him.[107]
We may sum up the history of the transition of morals from the pristine
fervour of the early days of Maisonneuve to the early years of royal
colonization, in the words of Sister Morin in her annals: "But this
happy time is past. The war with the Iroquois having obliged our good
king to send us troops at several times, the officers and soldiers have
ruined the Lord's vineyards, and vice and sin are almost as common in
Canada as in Old France. This it is that makes good people grieve,
especially the missioners who wear themselves out in preaching and
exhortation almost without fruit, regretting with tears and sobs those
happy bygone years, when virtue flourished, as it were, without any
labour on their part."
FOOTNOTES:
[106] Edits et Ordonnances, page 62-63.
[107] The "Greffe" of Montreal, dated July, 1674.
CHAPTER XXIV
1671-1673
NOTABLE LOSSES
DE QUEYLUS FINALLY LEAVES VILLE MARIE--DE COURCELLES AND TALON
RECALLED--TRIBUTE TO THEIR ADMINISTRATION--MGR. DE LAVAL
ABSENT FOR THREE YEARS--THREE DEATHS--MADAME DE PELTRIE--MARIE
L'INCARNATION--JEANNE MANCE--HER LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT.
In the autumn of 1671 the Abbé Queylus left Montreal with M. d'Allet
and M. de Galinée, the cartographer. It was his hope to further the
interests of his beloved Ville Marie, but his failing health kept him
in France, where he died on March 20, 1677.
Towards the end of 1671 de Courcelles was recalled, to be followed
by Talon in the following year. This was the result of the growing
estrangement between the governor and the intendant. Both had wisely
written asking for their recalls and each had urged the plea of ill
health. Both received characteristic letters from the king accepting
their resignations, and Colbert wrote to Talon: "As you are both
returning to France, the little difficulties that have arisen between
M. de Courcelles and yourself will have no consequences."
All's well that ends well! The administration of both had been
excellent and their influence on Montreal was productive of great
good. On April 6, 1672, Louis Buade, Comte de Frontenac, was appointed
governor general.
On his arrival Talon and de Courcelles left together, towards the end
of 1672. We cannot do better than repeat the skillful appreciation
of the "Relation" for that year which gracefully ignored in silence
the blamable acts of their administrations and remembered the good,
so that, commenting on the chagrin felt at the sight of the vessels
in the harbour bearing M. de Courcelles and Talon away, it said:
"'Eternellement,' we shall remember the first, who has so well reduced
the Iroquois to their duty, and 'éternellement' we shall desire the
return of the latter to put the finishing touches to the projects he
has begun so profitably for the good of the country."
This same year Mgr. de Laval went to France to settle the long deferred
question of the establishment of a bishopric of Quebec and was absent
for three years, as we shall relate.
But although the king created Talon Comte d'Orsainville in 1675, having
already made him Baron des Islets in 1671, he never returned, and
Canada was without an intendant for three consecutive years, when on
June 5, 1675, M. Duchesneau was appointed to succeed him.
Various griefs fell upon the colony at this time. On November 18, 1671,
Madame de la Peltrie, one of the earliest pioneers of Montreal, died at
the Ursuline Convent at Quebec, where she had dwelt in humble seclusion
for eighteen years, in charge of the linen of the community.
Six months later another, Marie de l'Incarnation, whose valuable
letters of this early period, from 1639-72, we have frequently quoted,
also went to her reward.
But a greater grief fell upon Montreal on June 18, 1673, when the
beloved and venerable Jeanne Mance, now aged sixty-six to sixty-seven
years[108] passed away at 6 o'clock in the evening in the quiet of
the Hôtel-Dieu which she had so lovingly founded and administered.
According to her wish, made verbally to M. Souart, the executor of
her last will and testament, her body was buried in the church of the
Hôtel-Dieu and her heart was encased in a double vase of metal and
placed "en dépôt" under the lamp of the tabernacle of the Blessed
Sacrament until the new parochial church, then being built, should be
ready to receive it. Unfortunately it never reached its destination,
for during the delay of the church erection a fire, breaking out in the
Hôtel-Dieu, consumed the venerable relic.
[Illustration: MONUMENT TO JEANNE MANCE]
FOOTNOTE:
[108] Her friend, Marguerite Bourgeoys, did not die until June 12,
1700, in her eightieth year and the forty-seventh since her arrival in
Montreal.
CHAPTER XXV
1672-1675
TOWN-PLANNING AND ARCHITECTURE
THE FOUNDATION OF THE PARISH CHURCH AND BON SECOURS CHAPEL
THE FIRST STREET SURVEY--"LOW" TOWN AND "UPPER" TOWN--THE ORIGIN
OF THE NAMES OF THE STREETS--COMPLAINTS AGAINST CITIZENS STILL
CULTIVATING THE STREETS--ORDERS TO BEGIN BUILDING--THE NEW PARISH
CHURCH--THE FOUNDATION STONES AND PLAQUES--THE DEMOLITION OF THE
FORT FORBIDDEN--THE CHURCH OF BON SECOURS--THE POWDER MAGAZINE IN
ITS GARRET--A PICTURE OF MONTREAL.
In 1672, peace prospects being bright, town planning received its
first conscious impetus. Hitherto "Low Town," the neighbourhood of the
fort and principally the portion near the Hôtel-Dieu and Maisonneuve's
house, now the manor of the Seigneurs of the Seminary, with the small
collection of houses around the fortified redoubts at Ste. Marie and
St. Gabriel, had housed the slender population, fearful of attack. The
advent of the troops enabled them to think of opening up higher land,
and of forming a future "Upper Town," on which some had already taken
concessions. There it was intended to build a parish church; for at
present the chapel of the Hôtel-Dieu served the purpose.
Accordingly, following the _procès verbal_, of March 12, 1672, we find
Dollier de Casson, representing the Seigneurs, accompanied among others
by Bénigne Basset, at once town clerk and town surveyor, tracing the
first streets,[109] starting from the site of the land reserved for the
projected parish church of Notre-Dame, and making out the limits of the
concessions granted. Notre-Dame Street was first marked out, starting
from a well opened by a former syndic, Gabriel le Sel _dit_ Duclos,
and extending eastward to the mill redoubt on the elevated portion of
ground called afterwards "Citadel hill."[110] Notre-Dame Street, then
the greatest street of the city, was thirty feet broad. Bénigne Basset
placed a post at intervals on either side of this road, affixing the
leaden stamp of the seminary to each. St. Joseph Street, now known
as St. Sulpice, having been already named and used as a trail and in
some sort a street, had a breadth of eighteen feet assigned it, and
the property lines marked out. A similar breadth was given to St.
Peter Street, in honour of St. Peter, the Prince of the Apostles, the
patron saint of M. Pierre Chevrier, Baron de Fanchamp, one of the first
founders of the Company of Montreal.
[Illustration: PLAN OF FIRST STREETS LAID OUT IN VILLE MARIE]
St. Peter Street ran down to the common and the street skirting this
common was named St. Paul Street, after the patron saint of Paul de
Chomedey de Maisonneuve. This was now formally traced, because the
line of houses already built on the north side of this common had been
constructed along it.
A fourth street was named St. James, the patron saint of M. Jacques
Olier. This was north beyond Notre-Dame, beginning with Calvary Street
and terminating with St. Charles Street, of which we shall speak later.
A fifth street, eighteen feet broad, was that of St. Francis Xavier,
parallel to St. Peter. It was called by Dollier de Casson St. Francis,
after his own name, Francis, in honour of St. Francis d'Assissi.
Later on, Xavier was added in deference to St. Francis Xavier, the
apostle of the Indies. Calvary Street, at the extremity of St. James
Street, was given a breadth of twenty-four feet; it went north towards
the mountain. Another street of twenty-four feet, going in the same
direction from Notre-Dame Street, was called St. Lambert, in honour of
the brave Lambert Closse. These streets were broader than the rest, for
they were meant for carriage service.[111]
A ninth street, eighteen feet broad, parallel to that of St. Joseph,
and abutting on St. James Street, de Casson called St. Gabriel, after
the patron saint of Gabriel de Queylus and Gabriel Souart.
Finally the tenth street, parallel to the latter and also abutting St.
James Street, was named St. Charles, after Charles Le Moyne, Sieur
de Longueuil. The city plan being made, it was necessary to carry it
out. Some of the streets afterwards formally laid out, had already
been marked out by pathways that had grown up. Thus, that running
from the fort to the Hôtel-Dieu, became St. Paul Street; that to St.
Jean-Baptiste Street, opened in 1684, was started as early as 1655. St.
Dizier Street, opened in 1691, was traced as a path in 1664. Another
pathway was traced from the fort to Bon Secours Chapel in 1657. The
original Place d'Armes, opposite the fort, was opened in 1650.[112]
Those who had taken land adjoining these streets were, by their
contract, obliged to build houses, this same year. But some of the
proprietors of lands crossed by these traced roads seemed to have
neglected the landmarks placed by Dollier de Casson and went on
cultivating and sowing as before. This was resented by those anxious
to build, as it blocked the way to the hauling of their building
materials. Accordingly in March and June of 1673 there are records of
an assembly of inhabitants, including Mademoiselle Jeanne Mance and M.
d'Ailleboust, addressing a request to M. Dollier de Casson that as he
had himself mapped out the boundaries of the streets, apportioning to
each its line, length, breadth, angles, and its name for the building
and decoration of the town, he should take means to prevent individuals
tilling and sowing any of these streets. To this just demand, Dollier
acceded, and he forbade any further cultivation of the roadways,
leaving each one free to enclose his lot with stakes or quick-thorn
hedges. The offending parties submitted, especially so as they saw
that the roads crossing their properties increased their value--an
elementary principle of city planning.[113]
By 1675, some had neglected to enclose their ground, and in consequence
of the complaint of those that had done so, the seigneurs put up a
notice, dated January 12, 1675, warning the tardy ones that if they
did not bring the necessary building materials immediately after the
following spring seeding, "to rear their buildings, destined for the
ornamentation and decoration of their town and to facilitate trade both
with the inhabitants and the strangers, the seigneurs would reclaim
these concessions, redistribute them, on demand, to others presenting
themselves."
One of the delays leading to the erection of houses on the streets,
of the upper town section, traced in 1671 was the interruption of the
building of the new parish church determined on, on the occasion of a
pastoral visit of Mgr. Laval, when at an assembly of the inhabitants,
held on May 12, 1669, it was settled that operations should begin on
June 8th under the direction of Bénigne Basset at a monthly honorarium
of thirty _livres_. But though stones were brought to commence the
work at once, two years elapsed before the site could be agreed upon.
That which had been chosen, once the property of Jean Saint-Père,
was considered as being too low down. Two years later, the naming of
Notre-Dame Street indicated the resolution arrived at by the seminary
to build the church of Notre-Dame higher up, at the head of St. Joseph
Street and facing Notre-Dame Street. At a meeting held on June 6, 1672,
the proposition to build on such land bought by the seminary from
Nicholas Godé and the wife of Jacques Le Moyne, was accepted.
Besides, a promise of the grant of the land, the sum of a 1,000
_livres_ _tournois_ for three years was offered in the name of M. de
Bretonvilliers, the superior of the Sulpicians in Paris. On June 19th,
at a new assembly, it was agreed upon to engage François Bailli, a
master mason, to take charge of the construction and to receive one écu
for every day's work and thirty _livres_ a month while the operations
lasted. If there had hitherto been delay, the next steps were very
swift.
Next day, on June 20th, the land transfer was made, the contour of the
new church traced, and on June 21st the foundations were laid. On June
29th, the feast of SS. Peter and Paul, after vespers, a procession
formed from the Hôtel-Dieu Chapel at the foot of St. Joseph Street,
to the head of the street, and Dollier de Casson, as superior of
the seminary, planted the cross, with a great gathering of people
witnessing the ceremony.
Next day, June 30th, after high mass the same gathering repaired
thither again in procession. The first five stones were placed, each
bearing the following inscription on a leaden plate:
"D. O. M.
et
Beatae Mariae Virginis sub titulo Purificationis."[114]
These five stones were each accompanied by the arms of the persons
placing them. The first was placed in the middle of the _rondpoint_ by
the governor general of Canada, Daniel Rémy, Seigneur de Courcelles,
being one of his last public acts before being succeeded by Comte
Frontenac in the September following. The second bore the arms of Jean
Talon, intendant, inscribed in advance, for being unable to be present
he was represented in the ceremony by Phillipe de Carion, lieutenant
of M. de La Motte--Saint Paul's regiment. The third was placed by the
governor of Montreal, Chevalier François Marie Perrot, Seigneur of St.
Geneviève.[115]
The fourth was placed by Dollier de Casson in the name of M.
Bretonvilliers, superior general of the congregation of St. Sulpice
in Paris. The last was fittingly placed by Jeanne Mance, the
administratrix of the Hôtel-Dieu, who had seen Montreal grow from its
earliest infancy and had been so long the mother of the colony.[116]
[Illustration: FOUNDATION STONE PLACQUES]
There was great desire to have the church soon completed. Divers
persons imposed voluntary assessments on themselves, some in money,
others in materials and labour.
The priests of the seminary resolved to demolish the ancient fort,
now being allowed to fall into ruins, so as to employ the wood of
the buildings and the stone bastions of the enclosure, in the church
construction. Indeed in their eagerness they started the demolition
before waiting to receive M. de Bretonvilliers' consent from France.
Eventually he disapproved, fearing that it was premature, for if the
Iroquois renewed their attacks they would repent their action. The
officers of the king also forbade them to proceed further, and thus the
final demolition of the battered old fort of de Maisonneuve and his
harassed and beleaguered veterans, did not take place till ten years
later, in 1682 or 1683.
In 1676 a meeting was held, on January 26th, to raise funds for the
completion of the church, and it was determined to hold a canvass
in the island, which resulted in a collection of 2,070 _livres_;
and finally, although M. Souart had engaged himself to furnish the
necessary wood, all this assistance was insufficient, and the church
building, dragging on for two years, was not finished till 1678. The
church was in the form of a Latin cross, with "bas côtés," terminated
by a circular apse; its front entrance at the south end, built of cut
stone, was composed of two orders, Indian and Doric, the last being
surmounted by a triangular pediment. The beautiful entrance, erected
after the plans of the king's engineer, Chaussegros de Léry, in 1722,
was flanked on the right by a square tower with a square belfry tower,
surmounted by a fleur-de-lys cross twenty-four feet high. The church
was built directly in the middle of Notre-Dame Street and projected
into Place d'Armes Square, measuring 140 feet long, 96 broad, while the
tower was 144 feet high. This first church of Notre-Dame was of rough
stone pointed with mortar.[117]
The erection of the parish church now being on its way permitted funds
for the long deferred church of Bon Secours, also to be gathered. The
miraculous statute brought from France was meanwhile housed in the
little wooden chapel raised in 1657 by Marguerite Bourgeoys before
leaving for France and there it remained till the new stone building
was commenced. It was not, however, till June 29th, the feast of SS.
Peter and Paul, in the year 1675, that M. Souart placed the first stone
in the name of M. de Fanchamp, bearing a medal of the Blessed Virgin
and a leaden tablet bearing the inscription:
D. O. M.
Beatae Mariae Virginis
et sub titulo Assumptionis[118]
The bell was cast from the metal of a broken cannon used against the
Iroquois and given some time previously by M. de Maisonneuve. It
weighed a little less than 100 _livres_ and the casting was paid for by
M. Souart.[119]
The site chosen was still thought to be far from the town, but near
enough for easy pilgrimages. In order to secure its perpetuity the
sisters requested the bishop to make it an inseparable annex to the
parish church, to be served by the parish clergy. To this the bishop of
Quebec[120] acceded in the _mandement_ of November 6, 1678. In addition
he imposed upon the _curé_ the duty of having mass celebrated there
each Feast of the Visitation, the principal feast of the new order, and
of going thither in procession every Assumption Day. These conditions
still obtain. A Sulpician of Notre Dame Church today is known as the
Chaplain of Notre Dame de Bon Secours, the first being M. Frémont.
[Illustration: The Church of Notre Dame de Bonsecours dates from three
different periods. The first chapel was erected in 1657. It was built
of oak and the foundations were in stone and it measured only forty
feet in length by thirty feet in width. In the basement of this chapel
a school was kept (the first in Montreal, in 1659) for the education
of little children. This small chapel was replaced in 1676 by a stone
building which measured seventy-five feet in length by forty feet in
width. The latter was destroyed by fire with a part of the town in
1754. The present Church of Notre Dame de Bonsecours dates from 1772.
It measures one hundred and twenty feet in length by forty-six feet in
width. It was reconstructed in 1888.]
As the chapel was at some distance from the chief buildings, its garret
was used for the storage of powder for the safety of Ville Marie, there
being no other magazine. M. de Denonville, governor general, writing
on November 13, 1685, to the minister said: "At Montreal I have found
the powder in the top of a chapel towards which the people have great
devotion. The bishop has strongly urged me to take it away, but this I
have not been able to do since I have found no other place where to put
it without danger of fire." The church was burned down in 1754.[121]
To give the reader a comprehensive view of the outlook for Montreal
at this period (1674-76) we may quote from Parkman's "Old Régime,"
where he imagines a journey up the river to inspect the lines of
communication by the formation of settlements and villages resting
under the newly established feudal system:
"As you approached Montreal, the fortified mill built by the Sulpicians
at Pointe aux Trembles towered above the woods; and soon after the
newly built chapel of the Infant Jesus more settlements followed, till
at length the great fortified mill of Montreal rose in sight, then the
long row of compact wooden houses, the Hôtel-Dieu and the rough masonry
of the Seminary of St. Sulpice. Beyond the town the clearings continued
at intervals till you reached Lake St. Louis, where young Cavelier
de La Salle had laid out his seigniory of Lachine and abandoned it
to begin his hard career of western exploration. Above the Island of
Montreal the wilderness was broken only by a solitary trading station
on the neighbouring Ile Pérot."--Parkman, "Old Régime," p. 241.
FOOTNOTES:
[109] A description of the first thoroughfares has already been given.
[110] This hill has been removed since to add to the extension of the
Champ de Mars, and the site, once Dalhousie Square, is now covered by
the southeastern portion of the Canadian Pacific Railway yardage at
Place Viger Station.
[111] The widow of Lambert Closse, Elizabeth Moyen, was, on June 27th
of this year (1672) given a new seigneurial fief.
[112] The early streets of Montreal, according to H. Beaugrand and P.
L. Morin "Le Vieux Montreal":
The first pathway, 1645, was replaced by St. Paul Street in 1674;
second pathway, 1655, was replaced by Jean Baptiste Street in 1684;
third pathway, 1660, was replaced by St. Claude Street in 1690; fourth
pathway, 1664, was replaced by Capitol Street in 1666; fifth pathway,
1668, was replaced by St. Vincent Street in 1689; first Place d'Armes
was opened in 1650.
Notre Dame Street was opened in 1672; St. Joseph (St. Sulpice) in
1673; St. Peter Street in 1673; St. Paul Street in 1674; St. Charles
Street in 1677; St. James Street in 1678; St. François Xavier Street in
1678; Dollard Street in 1679; St. Lambert Street in 1679; St. Gabriel
Street in 1680; St. Victor Street in 1681; St. Jean Baptiste Street in
1684; St. Vincent Street in 1689; St. Thérèse Street in 1689; St. Eloi
Street in 1690; St. Giles Street (Barracks) in 1691; St. Francis Street
in 1691; Frippone Street in 1691; Hospital Street in 1702; St. John
Street in 1711; St. Alexis Street in 1711; St. Denis Street (Vaudreuil)
in 1711; St. Sacrement Street in 1711; St. Augustine Street (McGill)
in 1722; St. Nicholas Street in 1739; St. Anne Street (Bonsecours)
in 1758; Callières Street in 1758; Port Street in 1758. St. Helen,
Récollets, Le Moine, St. William, Common, Commissioners and Gosford
Streets were opened shortly after 1760. Some of the earliest lanes
were: St. Dizier, Donnacona, Chonamigon and Capitale.
[113] About this time a road was constructed from Montreal along the
river to Pointe aux Trembles, and another from Sorel to Chambly, a
distance of six miles. (Kingsford History of Canada I, page 364).
[114] "To the Almighty and Good God, and to the Ever Blessed Virgin
Mary, under the title of the Purification."
[115] The old church, of which the first stone was placed in honour of
St. Joseph on the 28th of August, 1656, now became exclusively destined
to the service of the Sisters of the Hôtel-Dieu and their sick.
[116] These plaques were found in September, 1830, during the work of
demolition.
[117] It stood till 1830, when it was demolished at the completion of
the present Notre-Dame Church begun in 1824 and opened on July 15,
1829. The belfry tower, however, remained standing till 1843.
[118] "To the Almighty and All Good God and to the Blessed Virgin Mary
under the title of the Assumption."
[119] Cf. Autobiographical Notes by Sister Bourgeoys.
[120] In 1674 Quebec was erected into a bishopric and the erstwhile
Bishop of Petrea became the titular of the see on October 1st.
[121] The Bon Secours Church was rebuilt between 1771 and 1773. It
has been several times restored, but it still stands a venerable link
connecting the old and the new Montreal.
CHAPTER XXVI
1672-1682
ALTERCATIONS
FRONTENAC'S FIRST TERM OF GOVERNORSHIP
I. THE RIVAL GOVERNORS
II. CHURCH AND STATE
III. THE GOVERNOR, THE INTENDANT AND THE SOVEREIGN COUNCIL
I. THE TWO GOVERNORS--PERROT--ILE PERROT--REMONSTRANCES OF
CITIZENS--FRONTENAC--A "VICE-ROI"--GENEROUS ATTEMPT TO GRANT
REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT RESTRAINED--FORT FRONTENAC (OR
KINGSTON)--CORVEES--THE GOVERNOR GENERAL--EXPEDITION STARTS FOR
MONTREAL--LA SALLE--THE FRONTENAC-PERROT DUEL COMMENCES--PERROT
IMPRISONED--COUREURS DE BOIS--DULUTH--CHICAGO--FRONTENAC RULES
MONTREAL.
II. THE FRONTENAC-FENELON DUEL--THE EASTER SERMON IN THE
HOTEL-DIEU--LA SALLE PRESENT IN THE CHAPEL--M. FENELON RESIGNS
FROM THE SULPICIANS--THE TRIAL BEFORE THE SOVEREIGN COUNCIL--THE
MONTREAL PARTY PRESENT THEIR CASE IN FRANCE--FRONTENAC AND FENELON
REPRIMANDED, PERROT IN PRISON--PERROT QUICKLY RELEASED AND SENT
BACK AS LOCAL GOVERNOR OF MONTREAL.
III. THE MONTREAL COMPLAINTS HAVE A RESULT--THE REARRANGEMENT OF
THE POSITIONS OF HONOUR IN THE SOVEREIGN COUNCIL--THE GOVERNOR AND
THE INTENDANT, DUCHESNEAU--RIVAL FACTIONS--CENTRALIZATION AND HOME
RULE THE CAUSE OF FRENCH FAILURE IN CANADA--PERROT MADE GOVERNOR
OF ACADIA.
We have now to consider the fortunes of Montreal under the reign of
Frontenac, as governor general, and M. Perrot, as local governor.
Louis de Buade, Count de Pallua et de Frontenac, arrived in Canada in
September of 1672, whereas M. Perrot had been in Montreal since 1670
as governor, by the goodwill of the seigneurs, and by the letters
patent of March 14, 1671, he held the rank also by royal commission.
He considered himself in a strong position, but Frontenac was also a
strong man, and when the clash came in the autumn of next year, the
old opposition of Quebec and Montreal was renewed. Both antagonists
had powerful protectors at court. Unfortunately Perrot's character was
haughty and violent, and his unworthy attempts to enrich himself by
engaging in the nefarious liquor trade, leaves us unable to sympathize
with his case, as we did with that of the gentle and single-minded
de Maisonneuve. To illustrate this, Perrot, as governor of Montreal,
could not openly engage in the trade, yet he chose a situation on an
island given to him by Talon as his seigneury and named after him,
"Ile Perrot," lying at the toe of Montreal, between the seigneuries of
Bellevue and Vaudreuil and at the western end of Lake St. Louis, an
excellent spot for a receiving station for peltry from the Indians,
descending from above. There, he placed a former lieutenant of his
company, Antoine de Fresnay, Sieur de Brucy, who acted as his agent and
gave protection to the deserting _volontaires_ now illegally becoming
_coureurs de bois_, who were growing numerous around Montreal and were
being more or less openly encouraged by the local government. These
were given liquor and merchandise in exchange for the products of
their hunting expeditions. The consequence was that frequent disorders
occurred through their irregularities.
A delegation consisting of the foremost citizens called on M. Perrot,
respectfully remonstrating on this situation. Among them were Migeon
de Branssat, Charles Le Moyne, Picoté de Bélestre, Jacques Leber,
and Vincent de Hautmesnil. The haughty governor received them with
insult and he imprisoned their spokesman, Migeon de Branssat, who as
_procureur fiscal_ was acting as judge in place of M. d'Ailleboust,
then absent. "I am not like M. de Maisonneuve," said he, "I know how
to keep you in your proper places." Next day, Dollier de Casson as a
representative of the seigneurs expostulated at such imprisonment,
especially as the course of justice was being held up; but to no avail
at the moment. Perrot was governor by royal commission, and he meant to
show it. Eventually, however, the _procureur fiscal_ was freed and the
court sittings continued.
It will be remembered that Marie François Perrot had espoused Madeleine
de La Guide, niece of Talon, and under the régimes of Courcelles and
his uncle, Talon, the illicit commerce had either passed unperceived or
authority had closed its eyes. But he was to meet his match under the
new government.
Let us now turn to Frontenac, who was soon to cross swords with Perrot
of Montreal. The new governor general, now a man of fifty, having
been born in 1622, was a very complex character with high qualities
and serious defects. He was every inch a Gascon, a boastful talker,
an exaggerator, fond of posing and a little of a bully. Yet he could
be gay, was a lover of a good table, a man of the world, brilliant,
communicative, and generous with his friends, as he was haughty and
distant with those he disliked.
[Illustration: STATUE OF FRONTENAC
(By Philippe Hébert)]
From the age of fifteen he followed camp life, serving at first under
Maurice, Prince of Orange, and his reputation for bravery was sound. He
was placed at the head of a Norman regiment and distinguished himself
in Flanders, Germany and Italy; at the battle of Orvietto he broke
his arm. In 1664, while at St. Gothard, Turenne sent him to fight
against the Turks, to the Island of Candia, whence he returned to
Paris, covered with glory. He rose to the rank of a _maréchal de camp_
or brigadier general. His married life was not too domestic. Himself,
the godchild of Louis XIII, his father being the chief majordomo
and captain of the Château de St. Germain-en-Laye, he married the
daughter of one of his neighbours in Paris, Lagrange Trianon, a master
of accounts. Madame de Frontenac was handsome, gallant, witty, fond
of high society, imperious, and very independent. In these qualities,
she resembled monsieur and after a time Frontenac found warring more
to his taste than the fireside, and madame lived with Mademoiselle
Montpensier, and together these two "divines" held a kind of court of
their own in their "apartment," in which they set the tone for the best
society of Paris. It was, therefore, no doubt through her influence,
combined with his services as a distinguished soldier to the king, that
the office of governor general of Canada was secured for him, to help
him in his poverty.
As a governor he had high gifts of administration; according to
Charlevoix, "his work and his capacity were equal; ... his views for
the development of the country were great and just." He knew how
to maintain his position, and even to gain the affection of those
he ruled, especially the Indians. But he was absolute, dominating,
despotic, violent, headstrong, ambitious, jealous, choleric and
impatient of opposition. He also came full of prejudice against the
clergy and especially the Jesuits.
On arriving at Quebec, this "High and Puissant Seigneur," as he
prefixed to his title of "Governor, Lieutenant-General for the King
in France," introduced a gayety and high style of living, somewhat
surprising and unaccustomed to the Canadian _bourgeoisie_. In official,
governmental life he assumed the reins with a high hand. He was, as
he thought himself, a "vice-roi" and he would model the colony on the
lines of France. Thus his preliminary act was to call a representative
convocation of the people in three several orders or estates, the
clergy, the noblesse, and the third estate, to receive the oath of
fealty from them, a proceeding which Colbert evidently disapproved of
as too democratic, and opposed to the centralizing policy, then in
favour in France, a policy which eventually ruined the initiative and
delayed the progress of the colony. The minister wrote on June 13,
1673: "It is good for you to know that in the government of Canada you
always ought to follow the forms practiced in France, where the kings
have for some time considered it better for their service, not to
assemble the 'Etats Généraux.' Also, you ought but rarely, or better
say, never, give this form to the body of habitants of your country;
it will even be necessary, in a little time, and when the colony is
stronger than it is now, gradually to suppress the office of the
syndic, who presents the requests in the name of all the inhabitants;
it being good that each speaks for himself and not one for all." What
is everybody's business is no one's, was evidently Colbert's view. Thus
the people never learned the art of self-government.
The new governor very soon showed his desire to be sole master of
the situation. Of his own responsibility he had made several police
regulations and had established aldermen at Quebec and, contrary to
the rights of the Company of the West Indies, then still existing, he
had attributed to them the power of administering police regulations.
This brought a letter from Colbert, dated May 17, 1674: "His Majesty
orders me to tell you, that you have therein passed the limits of the
power given by him. Besides, the police regulations ought to be made by
the Sovereign Council, and not by you alone. The power which you have
been given by the king gives you entire authority in the command of the
army, but with regard to what concerns the administration of justice,
your authority consists in presiding at the Sovereign Council. The
intention of His Majesty is that you take the advice of the councillors
and that it is for the council, to pronounce on all matters which
belong to its jurisdiction."
On his arrival he quickly turned his gaze on Lake Ontario, lately
visited by M. de Courcelles, and already the construction of a fort was
in his mind, to divert the fur trade towards Montreal, and on to Quebec
in place of it descending to Albany. Writing to Colbert, on November 2,
1672, two months after his arrival, he says: "You will have heard from
M. de Courcelles of a post which he has projected on Lake Ontario and
which he believes to be of the utmost necessity, in order to prevent
the Iroquois taking peltry to the Dutch and to force them to trade with
us, as it is but just, seeing that they hunt on our lands.
"The establishment of such a post will strengthen the mission at
Kenté, already settled there by the _Messieurs de Montréal_. I beg you
to believe that I will spare no trouble or pains or even my life to
attempt to do something to please you."
It is alleged by the Duke de St. Simon in his mémoires (Paris 1829,
Vol. II), that Frontenac came to France a "ruined man," that he was
given the governorship for his means of living, and that he would
sooner go to Quebec than die of hunger in Paris. His disinterestedness
in setting up a trading post for the good of the colony is therefore
somewhat discounted.
Frontenac determined to construct this fort before the return of the
vessels from France. In order to obtain the necessary men, boats and
canoes, he relied on the precedent of M. de Courcelles' official visit
as governor general to Lake Ontario. To impress the Indians with the
dignity of the French conquerors, he called a _corvée_ from Quebec,
Montreal, Three Rivers and other places to supply the above at their
own expense. In the meantime he had built two bateaux to face the
rapids and currents and mounted on them two pieces of cannon. These he
had painted, which was considered a novelty.
At Montreal there was no little murmuring at his novel and burdensome
_corvées_, for to avoid the Rapids of St. Louis, he made the
inhabitants repair the road leading to Lachine. He requisitioned about
200 canoes and 400 men and kept them at work until he finished his fort
there.
La Salle was then in Montreal, and Frontenac, seeing an ally in this
already experienced traveler, wrote to him to proceed to Onondaga, the
ordinary rendezvous of the Iroquois nation, and there to explain, that
the projected expedition was a visit of courtesy to the Mission of
Kenté and to the neighbouring tribes. La Salle, nothing loath, set out
ahead, leaving Montreal in the beginning of May, 1673. Frontenac left
Quebec on June 3d and arrived at Montreal on June 15th, having delayed
his journey, being received in the other towns on his way. Arriving at
5 o'clock that evening, the governor general was met at the wharf by
Perrot, the governor of Montreal--no doubt with some jealousy and some
resentment at the _corvées_ demanded by his superior--and the principal
citizens, with their military companies. After the volleys of musketry
and cannon, there came the addresses of the officers of justice and
that by Sieur Chevalier, the syndic of the people. Then they made their
way to the temporary parish church attached to the Hôtel-Dieu and there
the clergy held their reception and also harangued him. After which the
Te Deum was sung in thanksgiving for his happy voyage and the governor
retired to the hospitality of Fort Maisonneuve, not as yet demolished
as we know.
For thirteen days, there was a great bustle at Montreal, fixing up
canoes and loading them, and arranging the men in companies,--all
requisitioned in the name of the king. The last preparations for the
important journey were broken, however, by the celebration of feast
of St. Jean Baptiste; on this occasion M. de Salignac Fénelon, the
brother of the famous archbishop of Cambrai, returned from Kenté with
M. Durfé, and about to return together, with the expedition, pronounced
an elegant eulogium on the governor-general. At last all to join the
vice-regal party had left the town and gone by road to Lachine, whence
on June 28th, all being reunited, the expedition started--two flat
bateaux, nearly one hundred and twenty canoes and about four hundred
men, among them being Charles Le Moyne, who was a skilled interpreter.
We cannot follow its progress. For us, it is interesting to record it
in connection with Montreal as resulting in the establishment of Fort
Frontenac, or Cataracqui, the modern Kingston, the construction and
management of which was now entrusted to a Montrealer, Sieur de la
Salle to whom, on May 13, 1675, on the occasion of his visit to France,
letters of nobility were given with the property and government of the
new fort and some adjacent leagues of land. La Salle had gone to France
in 1674, well recommended by Frontenac. His family, seeing a fortune in
the new trading station, procured the necessary funds for him to pursue
his career, and presented a memorial of La Salle's discoveries and his
good actions, which secured the above privilege. La Salle named his
seigneury Fort Frontenac in honour of his patron. His enemies say that
he became Frontenac's agent, as de Brucy was that of Perrot.
On returning from Lake Ontario, Frontenac and Perrot soon began their
duel. Towards the end of autumn, 1673, Frontenac, receiving Perrot at
Quebec, reprimanded him severely for the continued disturbances already
mentioned at Montreal. Perrot respectfully promised better care, in
regard to the observances of the king, for the future, and returned to
Montreal. But hardly had he been back eight days, when trouble began.
Two _coureurs de bois_ had returned and gone to lodge with M. Carion,
the officer of whom we have spoken. Charles D'Ailleboust, the judge,
sent Sergeant Bailly to arrest him, whereupon Carion obstructed and
ill treated the sergeant. Instead of punishing Carion, Perrot sent
for D'Ailleboust and reprimanded him for having sent the sergeant to
the house of an officer, without warning him, and threatened him with
prison himself, if he repeated his conduct, notwithstanding any orders
from the governor-general.
The astonished D'Ailleboust acquainted Frontenac with this incident,
and he, scenting rebellion, immediately dispatched three of his guards
with their lieutenant, Sieur Bizard, to arrest Carion. Bizard did this
faithfully, leaving a guard over him. But he had made a grave error
in etiquette in so doing. Before leaving Quebec he had received from
Frontenac a letter for Perrot, acquainting him of the intended arrest
in his jurisdiction, but fearful of the wrath of the local governor,
Bizard sought the house of Jacques LeBer, to leave the letter there, so
that it might be delivered to Perrot after the departure of the guard
from the town. Meanwhile Madame Carion had quickly acquainted Perrot
of her husband's arrest and immediately the indignant governor, with
a sergeant and a guard from the garrison, angrily confronted Bizard
at LeBer's house and threw Frontenac's letter, presented him, back in
Bizard's face.
"Take it back," he said, "to your master and warn him to teach you
your official duties, better, a second time." He then put him into
prison but released him the next day with a letter to M. Frontenac.
Bizard, however, had a statement of his arrest made out which was
signed by Jacques LeBer, La Salle and a domestic, the witnesses of
it. Four or five days later, Perrot, coming to hear of this, sent
LeBer to prison without any form of justice; but La Salle he left
alone, keeping him under watch during the day. But by night the nimble
explorer, with Norman adroitness, leaped the enclosure of the house and
hurried secretly to Quebec to tell his patron Frontenac of his flouted
authority. Thither also journeyed later the friends of M. LeBer to make
their protestation.
If Frontenac's officer had erred in trespassing on the prerogatives
of the governor of Montreal, the latter, by imprisoning Bizard, had
similarly encroached on those of the governor-general. They could have
cried quits, but it is alleged that Frontenac was eager to deprive
Montreal of its autonomy, and herein was his excuse. It was Frontenac's
policy to appear to smoothen out the situation. He wrote to Perrot
inviting him to set LeBer at liberty and to come himself to Quebec
to render an account of his conduct, and to M. de Salignac Fénelon,
the Sulpician, who had eulogized him in the parish church of Montreal
before departing to Fort Frontenac, he wrote another, saying that he
wished to terminate amicably the differences between himself and M.
Perrot. Both fell into the trap. M. Fénelon, determined to accompany
M. Perrot, started with him on the ice of the river in the heart of
winter, and they arrived at nightfall in Quebec on the 28th of January,
1674.
The next morning M. Perrot made his call on the governor and hardly
had he set his foot across his threshold than he was arrested by
Lieutenant Bizard, his sword being taken from him and then led to
prison in solitary confinement in the Château St. Louis without any
formal process, and there he remained till the following November. The
simplicity of M. Fénelon was rudely shocked by this "_volte face_."
He sought the governor to intercede for his friend and when he strove
to obtain a pass to see the prisoner he only angered Frontenac, who
accused him of wishing to corrupt his guards.
Back went Fénelon on the St. Lawrence on his snowshoes. Hardly had
he reached Montreal when Dollier de Casson received several letters
from the governor-general, complaining of the conduct of M. Fénelon
"as unworthy of a man of his character and birth." There is reason
from after-events to believe that Fénelon's zeal was not sufficiently
tempered with discretion. Montreal having now need of a governor,
Frontenac speedily appointed on the 4th of February, as commandant
in his absence, one of his devoted friends, M. de la Nouguère,[122] an
ensign in a cavalry regiment. In the act, making this appointment, he
explains his superseding of the town major, Sieur Dupuis, as due to
the advanced stage of his age, but he bids him to have de la Nouguère
recognized by the officers of the garrison. (Vide this document in the
City Hall Archives, dated February 10, 1674.) He then ordered the new
commandant to arrest Sieur de Brucy and two of his servants, and to
send M. Gilles de Boisvinet, the judge of Three Rivers, to conduct the
trial and to inform against all _coureurs de bois_ in Montreal--an
insult to M. Charles D'Ailleboust, whose faith and sympathy he
distrusted. Certainly Frontenac had made himself master of Montreal.
These actions, derogatory to the privileges of the Seigneurs granted
in 1644, were borne with wise moderation, though under protest, to
avoid undue friction in a difficult position. A document of Dollier
de Casson, dated March 22, 1674, on the occasion of a protest against
Boisvinet, who had gone beyond the limits of his commission, following
a former juridical protestation against the infringement of their right
to appointment of a governor, dated March 10, 1674, shows this clearly
and explains the neutral policy now adopted.
Meanwhile in his prison at Quebec, the deposed governor of Montreal
refused to be judged by Frontenac and the Sovereign Council, and asked
to have his case tried by the king. In justification of his firm action
at Montreal, Frontenac wrote to Colbert some months later, that he
had hanged one of the _coureurs de bois_, the same that had lodged
with Carion, and that the others, to the number of thirty, had been
thus intimidated and had submitted to fines and had taken up lands as
habitants. "I can assure you," he says, "with certainty, that there
are now not more than five _coureurs de bois_ in Canada, of whom three
belong to M. Perrot's garrison, whom he allowed to desert; the fourth
is a farmer on the island bearing his name. You will gather from this
whether I have reason or not, in retaining him as a prisoner."
That there were only five _coureurs de bois_ in Canada seems an
exaggeration unless we take it that they were dispersed over the North
American continent. For from Montreal there wandered many an expedition
which left its mark there. Accompanying these were the "voyageurs,"
"coureurs de bois" and "_bois brulés_," as they were variously named.
These often allied themselves with women of the Indian tribes and
united the vices of both races. Restlessly they pursued their vagabond
life, and it would be impossible to find a northern Indian tribe
unaffected by these wanderers. In 1678 David Greysolon Duluth or the
Sieur Du Luth built the first trading post at the western end of Lake
Superior. The only post of Minnesota bears his name. He was by no means
a saint--he was a worthy gentleman of the wild woods--a knight of the
fur trade--a great leader of the coureurs de bois, and he enhanced his
fortunes with illicit trading in spirits. But he was a power among the
Indians in the land of the Dakotas (Minnesota), which was the name
of one of the principal tribes formed into a league, or Dakota, and
given to the general body. They were called the Ojibways north of Lake
Superior and Nadowaysioux, the last syllable of which, "Sioux," being
used as a nickname for them by the French. Other historical sites as
that of Chicago were first visited by those who started from Montreal,
such as Marquette, the Jesuit, and Joliet, who arrived at the site of
modern Chicago in August, 1673.
[Illustration: VOYAGEURS RUNNING THE RAPIDS]
Meanwhile Frontenac was exercising a control and overlordship over
Montreal as the following document will indicate:
"Count Frontenac, king's councillor, governor and lieutenant general
for His Majesty in Canada, Acadia, Newfoundland and other countries in
Western France.
"Being necessary to create and establish a captain of militia in the
Town and Island of Montreal, under the authority of its local governor,
to exercise and manoeuvre with army, and to put it in a better state
of defence, in the event of an attack from enemies. We have appointed
and do establish, the Sieur Le Moyne in the said position of captain,
under the authority of its local governor, commandant of the militia of
the said town and island. To whom we ordain, that he must be careful
that he drills the said inhabitants of the said place as often as he
can, and at least once or twice a month; to take care that they keep
their arms in good condition; to prevent as much as in his power, that
they trade or do away with their arms, and to execute all orders that
we may give to him, being assured of his fidelity to the service of the
king, of which he has given many proofs in numerous engagements, as
well as of his bravery and experience in drill. This warrant is given
to Sieur de la Nougère, present commandant in the said Town and Island
of Montreal, that he may make the appointment known to the inhabitants
of the said island, to whom we commend that they must obey in all
duties appertaining to his functions, on penalty of disobedience, and
we give him full power and authority to command the same, in virtue of
powers confided to us by His Majesty. On proof of which we have signed
these presents and have appended the seal of our arms and have further
signed by one of our secretaries.
"Given at Quebec, the 24th day of April, 1674.
"Frontenac.
"By His Lordship's orders,
"B. Chasseur."
The Sieur de la Nougère, above mentioned, is M. Th. X. Tarieu de
Lanaudière. The spelling of the period was not as hidebound as today.
Frontenac's secretary spelled phonetically like so many of his
contemporaries--a source of embarrassment to historians.
[Illustration: PLAN DE MONTREAL
de
1673 A 1687
EARLY MAP OF MONTREAL]
CHURCH AND STATE
The difficult equipoise of neutrality, aimed at by the Seigneurs in
the Frontenac-Perrot dispute, was rudely jolted on Easter Day, little
more than a month later, in a most dramatic manner. The scene was
the crowded Hôtel-Dieu chapel, then being used as a parish church,
while the new parish church higher up the street was being slowly
raised, and all the notables of Montreal were present at the High
Mass. The celebrant was M. Perrot, the curé, in the absence of the
superior of the seminary, Dollier de Casson, who was confined to his
bed in the hospital from the effects of fever, after an accident
on the St. Lawrence, when the ice having broken he had almost lost
his life through cold from the long immersion in the water, before
rescue came. The deacon was M. de Cavelier, La Salle's brother, and
the subdeacon M. Rémy, the lawyer Sulpician. After the gospel, M. de
Fénelon, the same who had preached the eulogium of Frontenac the year
previously, mounted the pulpit. The preacher announced that he would
speak on the Christian's double necessity, of dying with Christ, and
of rising with him. Following the scholastic divisions of St. Thomas
Acquinas he divided the life of man into the vegetative, sensitive and
rational states. The sinful vices, destroying the vitality of this
threefold life, must die in Christ and the new man must arise with
Christ, purified and reestablished in his threefold life. In pursuing
this second point the preacher entered into the details of the various
dispositions that risen Christians of different conditions should
manifest as a sign of the new Easter life in them. Turning to those
vested with temporal authority, he said, "that the magistrate,
animated with the spirit of the risen Christ, should have as much
diligence in punishing those faults committed against the person of
the prince, as he had of readiness in pardoning those against his own
person...."
La Salle, who had been sitting towards the back of the chapel, near the
door, and had listened with approbation to the familiar doctrine of St.
Thomas, which as a Jesuit he had studied in his philosophical course,
began now to show unusual interest in the preacher's application. In
order to get a better view of the speaker, he rose from his seat. He
saw that M. de Fénelon, a man who was known to have been in sympathy
with Perrot and to have had trouble with his own patron, Frontenac, was
treading on delicate ground and might commit himself. La Salle had,
what journalists call, the reportorial instinct for "news." Besides,
since the famous expedition of 1669, his relations with the Sulpicians
were cold. As the preacher proceeded, La Salle's face flushed with
anger, and casting his eyes around, he drew the special attention of
several to what the preacher was saying. Among these was Jean Baptiste
Montgaudon de Bellefontaine, the brigadier of de Frontenac's guard.
Soon La Salle's gestures attracted the attention of the celebrant,
seated in the sanctuary, to what was being said; but he shrugged his
shoulders in return, as though to convey that no personal allusions
were being made. The preacher had also noticed La Salle, "and changed
colour," said Bellefontaine later in giving his _procès verbal_. The
preacher went on: "The Christian magistrate should be full of respect
for the ministers of the altar, and should not maltreat them, when
in the exercise of their duty, they strove to reconcile enemies and
to establish peace everywhere; that he should not make creatures to
praise him, nor oppress under specious pretexts persons also vested
with authority and who, serving the same prince, were opposed to his
enterprises; that he should make use of his power to maintain the
authority of the monarch and not to further his own interests; that
looking upon his subjects as his own children and treating them as a
father, he should be content with the rewards which he received from
the prince, without troubling the commerce of the country and without
ill using those who did not share their profits with him; and, that in
fine, he should not harass the people with extraordinary and unjust
_corvées_ for his own interests, under cover of the king's name, who
was unaware of their extent and that they bore so heavily on them."
These phrases were shortly afterwards attested to, in the official
declarations of MM. de la Salle, Jean Baptiste Montgaudon de
Bellefontaine, Jacques LeBer, de la Nouguère, commandant of Montreal,
Rémy, and Jean Baptiste Migeon de Branssat, procurator fiscal of the
seigneury of Montreal and others, before Commissioners Legardeur de
Tilly and Dupont, sent from Quebec as the court of investigation which
opened on May 2d and lasted for a fortnight.
To La Salle, every phrase appeared leveled at the conduct of the
governor general, especially as the preacher was M. de Fénelon. Jacques
LeBer testified that the curé, who came to visit him the same day,
declared that the words of the preacher appeared to him so imprudent
and out of place that he was very near intoning the Credo to cut
the sermon short. Others saw in them only generalities within the
legitimate sphere of a preacher. The Sulpicians took immediate steps
to disclaim to M. de la Nouguère all responsibility for the utterance
of one of its members. It was in no way authorized or foreseen, and
Dollier de Casson left his sick bed to confirm this and to assure the
commandant that M. de Fénelon should never preach again. They also
wrote immediately to Frontenac a similar disclaimer. That afternoon
M. de Fénelon, before his fellow clergy, gave his word of honour as a
man and a priest, that he had meant no conscious personal allusion,
but had spoken in general terms of all bearing authority. There is
no doubt, however, that M. de Fénelon, though a virtuous and zealous
missionary, had been "blazingly indiscreet." In his want of prudence,
he had also but recently personally canvassed the householders of the
Island of Montreal for signatures to a petition to be sent to court,
on behalf of Madame Perrot, in which the subscribers stated that they
had no complaint to make against her husband. The memorial was signed
by many prominent men, such as Louis Chevalier, the syndic, Zacharie
Dupuis, Sieur de Verdun and Mayor of the Isle of Montreal, Philippe de
Hautmesnil, Picoté de Bélestre and others. Madame Perrot had previously
approached d'Ailleboust to make the canvass, but the judge, already in
hot water, was too wary. M. de Fénelon fell an easier victim, and his
action was not calculated to prejudice M. de Frontenac in favour of
his pretentious of absence of _malice prepense_, in his Easter sermon.
La Salle communicated the details of the latter to Frontenac. On April
23d, in his anger, the governor wrote, ordering the Sulpicians to expel
the offending preacher from their community. This they could not do,
without a formal conviction of rebellion, as required by canon and
civil law. M. de Fénelon, however, resigned from the "congregation,"
using his right to do so, as the Sulpicians was not a "religious
order," and thus saved the situation. In this way, there was no
acquiescence to any claim of jurisdiction of the governor general over
ecclesiastics. M. de Fénelon retired to Lachine as a secular priest,
and is reckoned one of the first _curés_ of this place.
With the above letter M. de Frontenac sent out a set of questions to
be answered by each of the Sulpicians. This was equivalent to giving
evidence against M. de Fénelon in a civil court, whereas they claimed
the right of trying such a case in a prior ecclesiastical court,
according to precedent. They, therefore, refused, but later consented
when assured that their information would not be used juridically.
Commissioners Legardeur de Tilly and Dupont accordingly arrived at
Montreal, and opened a court of investigation, beginning on May 2d.
On August 21st M. de Fénelon appeared by command before the Sovereign
Council at Quebec. He came determined to protest against the competency
of the civil court to try him, relying on the privileges granted by
the kings of France. "Clericus, si cogatur ad forum laici, debet
protestari," was an axiom of many jurisconsults of the period, such as
Aufrerius, president of the parliament of Rouen.[123]
Among other privileges, a cleric summoned before the lay court, unless
sent there for misdemeanour by his bishop, could reply seated and
uncovered. On entering the hall of justice, M. de Fénelon, uncovered,
made for a seat. The governor reproved him, and Fénelon quoted his
canonical privilege. The heated head of the council then told him,
he might walk out if he would not take the attitude ordered. M. de
Fénelon demanded rather that M. de Frontenac should leave the council,
as he was acting not as his judge and the head of the council, but as
his opponent. The council, however, sustained the governor and M. de
Fénelon was taken as prisoner to the brewery under the conduct of an
usher.
On August 23d M. de Fénelon again appeared, presenting his protest in
writing, and refusing to be tried till sent by his bishop, when he
would give his reasons for alleging that the governor was his opposing
party and was not acting as the president of the council. Again the
recalcitrant de Fénelon went back to his prison. The council, however,
began to doubt their power to try the case, and it sent to the king
the judgment on M. de Fénelon, with the statement that there remained
only three judges whom he did not refuse. Similar action was taken in
M. Perrot's case. The unfortunate governor of Montreal had been kept
a close prisoner since January 26th and had not ceased sending to the
council protest upon protest,[124] refusing to accept his judges, and
demanding, without avail, to have his case concluded and sent to be
tried before the king in France.
In the month of September some of the council wavered and M. de
Villeray refused to act against either, alleging that there was such
a natural connection between the affairs of M. de Fénelon and M.
Perrot that having refused to act in the case of M. Perrot, fearing
to displease the late Intendant Talon, the uncle of Madame Perrot,
who had given him his own nomination to the council, he could do not
less for M. de Fénelon, and his reasons were accepted by the council.
(Archives de la Marine, October 22, 1674.) Thus it was that Frontenac
had to allow M. Perrot and M. de Fénelon to go for a time to France by
the last vessels sailing in November. With them went Dollier de Casson,
now broken in health and suffering from the loss of sight in one of
his eyes since his fall on the ice, and M. l'Abbé d'Urfé, on important
business to the country. The latter intended to complain at court of
the vexatious conduct of M. de Frontenac in regard to the missionaries,
whose letters to France he opened and to whom he handed, among those
arriving for them, only such as he pleased. Perhaps it was knowledge of
his intention, added to his displeasure at M. d'Urfé's friendship for
Fénelon, that made the governor refuse to allow M. d'Urfé's servant to
accompany him on the voyage. Thus the Montreal party sailed, hoping for
redress in France.
At the same time M. de Frontenac, scenting recrimination, wrote, on
November 14, 1674, to Colbert: "I am sending M. Perrot to France and
with him M. l'Abbé Fénelon, so that you may judge of their conduct. On
my part, I submit mine to everything that it shall please His Majesty
to impose on me; if I have been found wanting, I am ready to accept
the correction pleasing to him. A governor would be very much to be
pitied, if he was not sustained, having no one in whom he can trust,
and being ever obliged to distrust everybody; and when he should commit
any fault, it should assuredly be very pardonable, since there are not
wanting snares stretched for him, so that having to avoid a hundred of
them, it would be difficult not to fall into one. The distance, too,
from the court and the impossibility of receiving new orders, except
after a long interval, make his faults necessarily no short ones. Thus,
Monseigneur, if it shall have happened that I have made any false step,
which may displease His Majesty, he will have the goodness to pass it
over and to believe that it has occurred rather by an excess of zeal to
do my duty and to carry out His intentions, than from any other motive."
But Colbert was likely to be sympathetic to the Montrealers. When M.
d'Urfé arrived he was warmly welcomed by the minister, for on the 8th
of February following, his son, the Marquis de Seignelay contracted
a marriage with M. d'Urfé's cousin-germain, the rich and youthful
heiress, the Marquise Marie-Marguerite d'Allègre, only daughter of
Claude-Ives d'Allègre. The chosen intermediary in the marriage was also
M. de Bretonvilliers, the superior general of the Sulpicians at Paris.
Hence M. d'Urfé's mémoire on the conduct of M. de Frontenac, received
by Colbert and communicated to the king, on April 22, 1675, brought
from the latter the following series of counsels to guide the governor
in his future conduct: "I have noted with attention," wrote the king,
"all that is contained in your dispatches of February 16th and November
14th last, and to explain to you my designs and all they contain, I
will tell you that in a feeble colony, such as yours, your principal
and almost sole employment ought to be, to maintain and conserve all
the inhabitants there and to induce others to come thither. You ought
then to use the power I give you, only with the greatest moderation and
gentleness, more particularly with regard to the ecclesiastics whom
it is your duty to uphold in their functions, in peace and concord,
without giving them any trouble: being assured, as I am, that they will
never be wanting in the obedience due me, nor in their readiness to
inspire my people with the same sentiments.[125] Although I do not attach
importance to all that has been told me of many petty annoyances, given
by you to the ecclesiastics, I deem it necessary all the same for
the good of my government, to warn you of them, so that you correct
what is amiss, if they are true. But my present order is, that you
make known to no one, that I have written to you about them; and that
even when the bishop or the ecclesiastics speak of them, you will not
cherish any resentment against them.... They say, then here, that you
are not willing to allow the ecclesiastics power to attend to their
missions and their other functions, or to leave their stations without
passports, even to go from Montreal to Quebec; that you cause them to
journey to you often for very slight reasons; that you intercept their
letters and do not allow the liberty of writing; that you have not been
willing to allow M. d'Urfé's valet to cross over to France with his
master; nor permitted the grand vicar of the bishop of Petrea to take
his place at the Sovereign Council, in accordance with the regulation
of the month of April, 1673. If any part of the things is true, or even
the whole, you must make amends."
In a similar delicate strain Colbert wrote on May 13, 1675, adding that
he wished Frontenac to pay some mark of consideration to M. d'Urfé, now
that he had become allied to him as his daughter-in-law's first cousin.
The conduct of M. de Fénelon at Montreal, both for his sermon and
his support of M. Perrot, was blamed, and caused a letter dated May
7, 1675, to be written by M. de Bretonvilliers to the Sulpicians at
Montreal: "I exhort you all to profit by the example of M. de Fénelon.
For being too much mixed up with the world, and with affairs which did
not concern him, he has mismanaged his own affairs, and has done wrong
to those of his friends, while wishing to serve them. In these kinds of
affairs, which have regard only to personal quarrels, neutrality is to
always be approved...."
The upshot was that M. de Fénelon was not allowed to return to Canada
by the king, on recommendation of M. de Bretonvilliers. The criminal
procedure instituted by de Frontenac was not allowed to proceed. A
letter from the king to Frontenac, dated April 22, 1675, explains
this: "I have blamed the action of M. de Fénelon and I have ordered
him not to return to Canada. But I must tell you that it was difficult
to institute criminal procedure against this cleric and also to oblige
the priests of the Seminary of Montreal to testify against him; at
least, he should have been left in the hands of the bishop or the grand
vicar. Besides, the differences between you and the priests of the
Seminary of Montreal are entirely settled and can have no consequences.
As, moreover, the superior of the Seminary of St. Sulpice (M. de
Bretonvilliers) has assured me that all the priests of his community,
who are at Montreal, live in the respect and obedience due to me,
and to your dignity, I desire that you forget all that has passed.
Strive then, assiduously to reunite to yourself all minds, that these
differences may have divided."
On the 14th of May a characteristic letter of Colbert followed this
up: "It is to the good estate and good government of the king and the
colony, that you show particular consideration for the community of the
Seminary of St. Sulpice at Montreal, of which M. de Bretonvilliers, the
superior, is one of my best friends."
M. Perrot did not escape as easily as did M. de Fénelon, at the hands
of the king, being sent to the Bastille Prison for three weeks. On the
same April 22d as above, the king writing to Frontenac said: "I have
seen, and examined with care, all that you have sent me concerning the
Sieur Perrot; and after having also seen the memoirs, which he has put
in for his defense, I have condemned his action in having imprisoned
the officer of the guards sent to Montreal. To punish him, I have put
him for some time in the bastille, in order that this punishment may
not only render him more circumspect in the future regarding his duty
but will serve moreover as an example to restrain others. But having
given this satisfaction to my authority, which has been violated in
your person, I must tell you, to direct you in my views, that you ought
not, without absolute necessity, carry out an order in the territory of
a local governor, without having apprised him of it, and also that the
punishment of ten months, accorded him, has appeared to me too great in
proportion to the fault committed. This is why I have made him undergo
the punishment in the bastille only long enough to repair publicly the
violation of my authority. Another time, I direct that in a like fault,
you must be content with the satisfaction offered you, or with some
months in prison, or to transfer the case for decision to me, sending
over to France the defaulting officer; imprisonment for ten months
being a little too rigorous."
But thanks doubtlessly to M. Talon's interest in his relative, M.
Perrot was confirmed by the king in the government of Montreal, as the
above letter continues: "After having left M. Perrot some days in the
bastille I will send him back to his government and I will order him
to call on you and to offer you his apologies for all that has passed.
After which I desire that you will not retain any resentment against
him, but that you will treat him in accordance with the power I have
given him. Finally you ought to punish the _habitants_ only for capital
faults, avoiding lengthy punishments, because minds are thus divided,
and embittered and are diverted from their principal work, which is to
provide for the surety and subsistence of the family."
Colbert's letter of May 13th begged Frontenac to live in good harmony
with M. Perrot, urging his family alliance "with persons for whom I
have great consideration," of whom, no doubt, Talon was one.
THE GOVERNOR, THE INTENDANT AND THE SOVEREIGN COUNCIL
One of the gravest charges alleged against Frontenac, by the
Montrealers now in France, was that he had usurped the powers of the
council and that he had rendered himself absolute and all powerful.
This brought about that, at Colbert's instigation, the king himself
named the councillors and fixed the rank they should hold in the
Sovereign Council. In consequence, on April 25th of this year, Louis
XIV named M. Denis-Joseph Ruette d'Auteuil as his _procureur général_;
on May 10th following, the seven councillors in order of rank: Louis
Rouer de Villeray, first councillor, Charles Legardeur de Tilly,
Mathieu d'Amours, Nicholas Dupont, René-Louis Chartier de Lothbinière,
Jean Baptiste de Peyras and Charles Denys. To render them the more
independent of the governor, the king named on June 5th M. Jacques
Duchesneau, then treasurer of France at Tours, as the intendant, making
him the real president of the council and reserving for the governor
general only a simple presidency of honour. He arrived on September
25th. He further endowed the new intendant[126] with full powers
concerning the administration of justice, police and finance, with the
order, to see to it that all the inferior judges and other officers of
justice should be upheld in the exercise of their functions without
any interference--a privilege often demanded by the Montrealers. He
arranged that the intendant should judge conjointly with the Sovereign
Council all civic and criminal cases, in conformity with the _coutume
de Paris_ and that the council should make all police regulations;
with this clause, however, that the intendant could, if he deemed it
opportune, act alone as supreme judge in civil matters, and could make
all police regulations and ordinances.[127]
At this time the remuneration of the governor general was 3,000
_livres_, of the local governors of Montreal and Three Rivers 1,200,
and the members of the Sovereign Council 300 each. This was small, but
there were not many inhabitants as yet. A letter of the minister to
Duchesneau, dated April 15, 1675, showing surprise that there are only
7,832 persons in Canada, 1,120 guns and 5,117 horned cattle helps us
to understand the situation. The smallness of salaries would certainly
tempt the governors to engage in commerce.
Finally the king, on June 5th, by a new declaration confirmed the
establishment of the Sovereign Council, reserving the right to name the
councillors after a place fell vacant. The council was to be composed
as before, of the governor general, the bishop of Quebec or in case
of his absence in France, of his representative, the grand vicar, the
intendant and seven councillors. To take away from the governor general
every pretext of mixing himself in the transactions of the council, the
king ordered that in conformity with the custom of the sovereign or
supreme courts of the kingdom of France, the intendant, although only
holding the third place of honour, should, however, as president of the
council, consult the opinions of the councillors, count their votes,
pronounce their resolutions and enjoy the same advantages as the first
presidents of the courts of the kingdom. (Edits et Ordonnances, Quebec,
1854, pp. 83, 84.)
Still, four years later, bitter animosities continued in the council
for some months to the exclusion of all other business, as to the
exact position of the governor and the intendant. In spite of the
ordinance of 1675, Frontenac claimed to be entered in the minutes as
the chief and president of the council, in that the intendant was only
the acting president. Thus was the governor general "cribbed, cabined
and confined." His wings were cut and his powers more closely defined
and limited than ever. Moreover, a rival was placed by his side,
to be a thorn in it for many a long day. He was no longer absolute
in the council chamber. Thence began the long series of vexatious
complaints of Frontenac and Duchesneau of encroachment on one another's
authority,--this intolerable bickering eventually ending in the recall
of both, by the instructions of the king on May 10, 1682. The new form
of legislation, however, was a marked improvement, and since it was
the outcome of Montreal agitation for clearly defined and responsible
government, hence, the length of treatment that has been accorded to
its constitutional history of this picturesque period may be not out of
place.
Letters went to and fro; one from the minister to Duchesneau on April
25th severely blames him, that in relying on the great power given
him and by his title of president, he was wrong in thinking himself
nearly equal to the governor, and that the latter can do nothing
without consulting him. The reverse should be the position. When the
governor interdicts any affair at the council, he had only to submit.
The council can only make representations and if the governor does not
listen to them, let the matter be submitted to the king. Even then
the governor should be shown the complaints, so that he may be in a
position to make his reply. This would seem to show that Frontenac's
position was upheld. Still the trouble went on and finally produced on
May 20, 1679, a decision of the Council of State, that in the minutes
of the Sovereign Council M. de Frontenac shall be solely intitled, the
governor and lieutenant general of His Majesty in New France and M.
Duchesneau as the intendant of justice, police and finance, but that
he should also exercise the functions of the first president of the
council--a re-affirmation of the declaration of His Majesty of June 5,
1675,--a victory for the Intendant Duchesneau.
In a letter from the king to Frontenac this latter had been styled,
"Chief and President of the Council," and relying on this, Frontenac
wished to force the recording clerk to inscribe this intitulation. On
the other side it was argued, that a private letter giving incidentally
this title to the governor, could not prevail against the formal
ordinance of June 5, 1675, not revoked. The quarrel became so envenomed
that all the business of the council was paralyzed during many months.
For as surely as the time came for the minutes to be read and the
titles of those present to be enumerated, the pother began anew. The
clerk received contrary orders, and nothing was done. Finally he was
sent to prison by M. de Frontenac. Some of the councillors, opposing
this, came also under his condemnation, and M. de Villeray, M. de Tilly
and M. d'Auteuil were sent to "rusticate" with their friends while
awaiting the order to go to France to answer for their conduct. Rival
factions were also created in the colony, and Montreal was divided.
Even with this new restatement of the position, the spheres of
authority of the governor and of the intendant were still ill-defined.
There were apparently two independent heads, yet overlapping; still
one was supposedly subordinate to the other. Consequently harmony was
impossible and the history of the French régime up to the final fall
is one continual attempt to harmonize contradictions. Had the French
government been less paternal, less desirous of centralization and less
jealous of delegating its powers; had it given a measure of home rule
or representative government, the rulers in Canada would have found
a way to solve their difficulties, even those of church and state,
without having to recur, like children in every trivial dispute, to
the jealously guarded center of authority at headquarters, thousands
of miles away. "_L'état c'est moi_," said Louis XIV, Le Soleil, in
his brilliant court at Versailles, while Canada was a big growing boy
confined to petticoats. If the French Government had even given the
governor and intendant some real initiative power, instead of expecting
them to be the mere executive arm of a not too well informed directing
mind, far away, the sense of responsibility would have kept things
in order, with less friction and with more progress. If only it had
trusted its own appointed official advisers, instead of encouraging
every subordinate Jack-in-office to write to His Majesty criticizing,
misrepresenting, and offering suggestions on the administration of
colonial affairs, there might have been some unity. The policy of
_espionage_ of the departments, on one another, encouraged by the
mother country, only provoked tale bearing, tittle-tattle, suspicion,
jealousy, cabals, intrigues, discord and infringement on one another's
privileges, and was one of the chief causes leading to the slow
development of colonization, the paralyzation of the trade and the
delay of the progress of New France.
It must not be imagined that M. Perrot was entirely free from further
trade arrangements and scandals at Montreal. A document, believed to
have been written by Duchesneau in 1681 to the king, speaks of the
ill-treatment meted out by him or his employés to many persons. He is
accused of ruining the country, of trading publicly, of having a store
on the "Common" and holding open market there, of trading himself and
through his representatives and soldiers, in the camp of the Indians,
and of monopolizing the market by having a guard at the end of the
bridge leading to it which allowed only his friends to pass. Thus the
_habitants_ had only the fringes of the trade with the Indians. He
still encouraged the _coureurs de bois_ and had fitted out a great
number of them. His avidity is thus described: "He has been seen
filling barrels of brandy with his own hands and mixing it with water
to sell to the Indians. He bartered with one of them his hat, sword,
coat, ribbons, shoes and stockings and boasted that he had made thirty
_pistoles_ by the bargain, while the Indian walked about town equipped
as 'governor.'" It is further stated that last year his commerce was
valued at 40,000 _livres_. In his reply in March, 1682, to the above
mémoire, he states that he has made little trade since, the result
of his business transactions reaching only 13,325 _livres_. The money
of the country being the beaver, trading in peltry was one of the
necessities of life. He continued to have troubles with the seminary
and in August, 1682, he was removed during the first year of M. de La
Barre's governorship and given the government of Acadia!
FOOTNOTES:
[122] The real name was Thomas Tarieu de la Naudière. His son, Pierre
Thomas de la Naudière, married the heroine Madeleine de Verchères.
[123] A subplot in this drama is the refusal of M. Trancheville and
M. Rémy, Montreal Sulpicians, to appear against de Fénelon before
secular judges. M. Rémy, who was fined several times for not appearing,
claimed exemption on the same ground that as a son is not obliged
to witness against a father, a brother against a brother, similarly
an ecclesiastic is not obliged to face a situation which would make
him fall into sin and ecclesiastical irregularity. They pleaded the
privilege of canon law, recognized in France.
[124] August 17, 27. September 6, 22. October 15, 22.
[125] Archives de la Marine, Registre des Dépêches, 1674-5, Vol. QQ, 12.
[126] Duchesneau arrived on September 25th.
[127] Complément des Ordinances, Quebec, 1856, pp. 42, 43.
CHAPTER XXVII
1672-1683
TRADE AT MONTREAL UNDER FRONTENAC AND PERROT
WEST INDIA COMPANY SUPPRESSED--MONTREAL HEAD OF FUR
INDUSTRY--EXPEDITIONS--MARQUETTE--JOLIET--THE ANNUAL
FAIRS--LAVAL RETURNS--THE "CONGREGATION" CONFIRMED--THE
INDIAN MISSIONS--CATHERINE TEKAKWITHA--THE "FORT DES
MESSIEURS"--EXPLORATIONS--LA SALLE, DULUTH, HENNEPIN--LOUISIANA
NAMES--THE GOVERNOR GENERAL AND THE INTENDANT--FACTIONS AT
MONTREAL, "A PLAGUE ON BOTH YOUR HOUSES!"--FRONTENAC AND
DUCHESNEAU RECALLED.
Trade at Montreal was prospering. In 1674 the West India Company,
which had fulfilled none of its obligations, was suppressed, being
succeeded by that of Oudiette and others, till 1707. Speaking of this
period, Garneau (I, 262) in his "Histoire du Canada" says: "The new
impulses which had been given to Canada by Colbert and Talon began
to bear fruits. Commerce revived, immigration increased and the
natives, dominated by the genius of civilization, feared and respected
everywhere the power of France."
Montreal was to share in this prosperity. It was the centre of the
fur trade and the starting place and base of expeditions such as the
one of Joliet and Marquette, who had set out in 1673 to discover the
Mississippi. La Salle frequently made Montreal his home at this period,
as well as Duluth. At the east corner of the present Royal Insurance
Building on the Place d'Armes, a tablet placed by the Antiquarian
Society records the dwelling of another explorer: "Here lived in 1675
Daniel de Greysolon, Sieur Duluth, one of the explorers of the Upper
Mississippi, after whom the city of Duluth was named."
Meanwhile, on May 18th, Father Marquette died on the west shores of
Michigan. In 1776 the "Place du Marché" was granted by the seigneurs
of the seminary to the people. It was situated where now stands the
Place Royale and faced the historic landing place of the first pioneers
arriving with de Maisonneuve. The growing trade needed a regular market
and on this site subsequently were held the annual fairs in June,
the first recorded being held in 1680. The picturesque description
of Francis Parkman in his "Old Régime in Canada," dealing with this
period, may be here introduced:
"To induce the Indians to come to the colonists, in order that the fur
trade might be controlled by the government, a great annual fair was
established, by order of the king, at Montreal. Thither every summer a
host of savages came down from the lakes in their bark canoes. A place
was assigned them a little distance from the town. They landed, and
drew up their canoes in a line up the bank, took out their packs of
beaver skins, set up their wigwams, slung their kettles and encamped
for the night.
"On the next day there was a grand council on the common, between St.
Paul street and the river. Speeches were made amid a solemn smoking of
pipes. The governor was usually present, seated in an armchair, while
the visitors formed a ring about him, ranged in the order of their
tribe. On the next day the trade began in the same place. Merchants
of high and low degree brought up their goods from Quebec, and every
inhabitant of Montreal of any substance, sought a share in the profits.
Their booths were set up along the palisades of the town and each had
an interpreter to whom he usually promised a certain portion of his
gains. The scene abounded in those contrasts, which mark the whole
course of French Canadian history. Here was a throng of Indians, armed
with bows and arrows, war clubs, and the cheap guns of the trade, some
of them, completely naked, except for the feathers on their heads and
the paint on their faces; French bush rangers, tricked out with savage
finery; merchants and _habitants_ in their coarse and plain attire, and
the grave priests of St. Sulpice robed in black."
In June, 1676, Monseigneur Laval, on his return from France as bishop
of Quebec, visited Montreal to receive postulants into the new
religious communicants of the "Congregation," which approved by him in
1669 and later confirmed by royal letters, was now confirmed by him
in an authentic act, shortly after his arrival at Quebec--but whose
rules were still to be examined and approved, which did not occur until
January 24, 1698. Historians date from the above epoch the adoption of
the religious habit, worn by the Sisters of the Congregation of Notre
Dame to this day. In order to prepare her rules wisely Marguerite
Bourgeoys determined to go to France for advice and experience, having
been previously elected as the first superior. The opportunity was
offered her in November as a companion to the wife of the governor,
Madame Perrot, who had been advised to go to France for the good of
her health. On her return she was followed to Montreal by Louis Frins,
the servant of M. de Maisonneuve, who had died in Paris on September
9, 1676, as well as by several young girls, who were sent out to the
colony at the expense of the seminary.
In 1676 the Mountain Mission was commenced.[128] To encourage the Indians
to settle with the Europeans, various attempts had already been made.
This nomadic people could not be civilized as long as the trail, by the
lakes and rivers and through the forest, called them to the pursuit
of the chase or the lust of battle. Thus we have seen the Jesuits
had already formed their Christian Indian settlements at Madeleine
la Prairie on the south shore across the St. Lawrence. But now the
Sulpicians would do the same on the island, on the slope of Mount
Royal, and today the site of Montreal College, on Sherbrooke Street,
with its old-time Martello towers, marks the scene of the Mountain
Mission. Quarrels had arisen among the chiefs at La Prairie and thus
the dissentients joined the Christian band at the mountain, while the
La Prairie Mission was transferred to the Sault St. Louis, known as the
Caughnawaga Reservation. By 1681, it was determined to conduct schools
for the children of redskins, and M. François Vachon de Belmont,
who came as a deacon to Canada in this year, was named director of
the boys' school. That for the girls was to be under the care of
the Sisters of the Congregation. Marguerite Bourgeoys says that the
Mountain Mission was the first place on the island where the Indians
came for instruction. On arriving, M. de Belmont began to build a
little chapel, dedicated to Notre Dame des Neiges, and a straggling
village of a few irregularly built bark huts clustered round it. In
these lived the missionaries and the sisters, and round them were the
wigwams of their neophytes, Huron and Iroquois. Fearing attack from the
non-Christian tribes, M. de Belmont, a priest since September 14, 1681,
had built by 1685 a palisade surrounding his settlement which boasted
of four bastions. These fortifications were gradually strengthened.
The schools were soon in operation. "In the Mountain Mission and that
of the Sault de la Prairie de la Madeleine (Sault St. Louis); in those
of Sillery and Lorette, the only Indian villages we have, boys are now
being taught to read and write. In the Mountain Mission of Montreal
the Congregation nuns apply themselves to the instruction of the
little girls and make them do needle work," is the description of M.
Duchesneau in a letter to the minister of finance, dated November 13,
1681. Later on these children were taught to knit, spin and do lace
work, the government providing grants of money for women to instruct
them. In 1685 Monseigneur de St. Vallier, Laval's successor, visited
the Mountain Mission and gave this account of its success: "The
daughters of the Congregation, now spread over the different parts of
Canada, have in the Mountain Mission a school of about forty Indian
girls, whom they clothe and bring up 'à la Française.' They are also
taught the mysteries of faith, manual labour, the hymns and prayers of
the church, not only in their own tongue, but also in ours, that they
may be brought little by little to our manners and customs."
[Illustration: PLAN OF THE FORT OF THE LAKE OF TWO MOUNTAINS
A. Church.
B. Missionaries' dwelling.
C. The "Congregation Sisters."
D. Farm workers.
E. Entrance to fort.
F. Towers.
Part of the Lake of Two Mountains.]
[Illustration: PLAN OF THE MOUNTAIN FORT ERECTED IN 1677
A. Residence of the missionaries. B. Chapel. C. Village of Catholic
Indians. D. Vegetable garden. E. Towers and walls in stone. F. Bastions
and palisades in woods. G. Redoubts and palisades in woods.]
[Illustration: THE PRIEST'S FORT]
[Illustration: 1694
Two old watch towers built in 1694 by M. de Belmont, a Sulpician
Missionary at the "Mountain Fort." In the western tower Marguerite
Bourgeoys taught the Indian children. In the eastern tower, which was
used afterward as a chapel, an Indian brave and his grandchild are
buried. These towers still stand on Sherbrooke Street, West, in the
grounds of the Grand Seminary.]
Two of the Indian maidens of the Mountain Mission stand out, Marie
Barbe Attontinon and Marie Thérèse Gannensagouas. Both were received
into the congregation community. The latter was one of the first pupils
of the mission, receiving baptism on the 28th of June, 1681, at the age
of fourteen, and was a teacher in the mission until her saintly death
at the age of twenty-seven.
The chapel at Caughnawaga preserves the bones of the holy Mohawk
maiden, Catherine Tekakwitha, born in 1656 of an Iroquois father, a
pagan, and an Algonquin mother, a Christian, who both died in her
infancy. On Holy Wednesday, 1678, she died, leaving behind her the
reputation of sanctity. The anniversary of "La bonne Catherine" is kept
each year with great devotion by the Caughnawaga Indians. Charlevoix,
the historian, speaking of the appearance of the face of this holy
maiden, says: "Nothing could be more beautiful, but with that beauty,
which the love of virtue inspires. The people were never weary of
gazing at her." The latter's grandfather, the warrior, François
Thoronhiongo, who had been baptized by the Martyr Jesuit, Père de
Brébeuf, lived at the Mountain Mission. In 1824 the east Martello
tower, now standing on Sherbrooke Street, wherein the Sisters of the
Congregation had lived while teaching, was transferred into a chapel
and the bodies of the grandfather and grandchild, which had rested
there since 1796, were allowed to remain. The tower on the west was a
school for the Indian girls. These towers, still remaining, are all
that is left to mark the site of the Priests' Fort and Jacques Viger's
manuscripts tell us that this fort was so called to distinguish it from
the enclosure next to it and which, being surrounded by a palisade,
was known as "The Indian's Fort." Both structures formed part of the
same outwork and are mentioned under the common title of "The Mountain
Fort." The Priests' Fort was built in 1694 by the Sulpician, François
Vachon de Belmont, at his own expense. It was, first a square enclosed
by a stone wall with portholes and flanked by a tower at each angle;
secondly, the fort proper or manor, in the middle of the enclosure
where the missionaries lived; thirdly, the chapel which was opposite
the manor and between the two towers. In 1844 the erection of the vast
edifice now used as a college and as a seminary was begun on this very
site. The two towers still standing and the wall connecting them are
over two hundred years old and are after the Seminary of St. Sulpice
on Notre Dame Street the oldest building in Montreal. Long may the
towers stand as sentinels guarding the traditions of the past!... The
Sulpicians accompanied the Indians when the mission was transplanted to
Sault-au-Récollet and thence later to the Lake of the Two Mountains.
Leaving the Mountain Mission whose commencement we have placed in 1676
and traversing the streets down town, we notice the unpaved state
of the streets. In this year, 1676, an ordinance stipulated that
proprietors should pave to the middle of the roadway every street
passing in front of their dwellings. But it seems that up to the
cession, these regulations had fallen into desuetude.
The year of 1678 saw great preparations at Montreal for new ventures
on the part of La Salle and Duluth, in which the governor general was
reported by Intendant Duchesneau to be commercially interested. In
July, 1678, La Salle left France armed with a royal patent allowing
him "to build forts through which it would seem that a passage to
Mexico can be found." He had made good friends in France since his
previous visit in 1674 and found financial supporters, "bringing with
him about thirty artisans and labourers, with much of the gearing and
equipment necessary for rigging a vessel, including anchors, with the
usual assortment of the articles required for his intercourse with the
Indians." With him was Henri de Tonti, an Italian officer, who was to
prove a most devoted and loyal lieutenant to La Salle. At the siege of
Gaëta, de Tonti had had a hand blown off and it was now replaced with
a metal substitute, which, though covered with a glove, could deal a
heavy blow, as the surprised Indians afterwards learned. A third was
with them, the Sieur de la Motte. Arriving at Quebec on September
15th, La Salle was shortly afterwards joined by the Recollect Father,
Hennepin, eager to explore the Mississippi.
While at Quebec, La Salle was named one of the twenty commissioners,
then sitting to investigate the murders and other crimes reported to
have arisen during the past six years from the use of liquors. In
consequence, the old dispute was arising again as to the propriety of
preventing liquors being taken to the Indians, to encourage traffic
with the French instead of the Dutch. It was urged that the fur trade
would leave Montreal for Albany, as beaver skins, if they got there,
would fetch a higher price. For prohibition, were Laval and the
Intendant Duchesneau, whilst against it was Frontenac backed up by
Colbert, who supported Talon, one of whose last actions in Canada had
been to permit the use of spirits as an article of commerce. The report
of the commission to France was in favour of the traffic in spirits as
necessary for the support of the fur trade, which was the one source
of wealth for the country. M. Laval started for France with a counter
memorial. Finally a compromise was arranged to the effect that strong
liquors might not be taken to the woods openly, and if clandestinely,
punishment was to follow. But as liquor was permitted in the houses of
the French and those houses could be built anywhere, the law was easily
evaded, so that in reality liquor became to be recognized currency in
the trade for fur.
Shortly after the above event La Salle left Montreal, doubtless with
a good supply of "eau de vie," for his fief, Mount Cataracqui, and in
the second week of November he started thence to make his way to the
Mississippi, returning at intervals to Montreal for supplies. At last
after thrilling and hazardous adventures La Salle and his men reached
the mouth of the Mississippi, where he declared the basin of the river
to be the territory of Louis the Great and named it Louisiana. All
honour to Montreal, the fruitful home of discoverers!
David Greysolon du Luth left Montreal on the 1st of September, 1678,
with seven Frenchmen on a similar adventure. It was he who built the
fort at the entrance of the Kaministiquia, Lake Superior, known under
Hudson Bay rule as Fort William, and who strove persistently to foil
the rival English traders of this company. He was a man equally at
home in camp, in society, or in the Indian wigwams--a type of the many
roving adventurers, fighters, traders and explorers, whom Canada was
then alluring and who were little removed from the _coureurs de bois_,
at whom so many ordinances were leveled, but whose number was steadily
increasing.[129]
Meanwhile relations had become more and more strained between Frontenac
and Duchesneau. As early as 1676 the troubles began with the questions
of precedence and of the degrees of courtesy that should be paid to
the governor and the intendant. On May 1, 1677, Colbert wrote to the
intendant warning him not to take sides against the governor and on May
18th he wrote to the governor exhorting him to live amicably with the
intendant. On April 30, 1681, the king wrote to Frontenac complaining
of his arbitrary conduct and threatening to recall him unless he mended
his ways. He was accused of being too lenient with the _coureurs de
bois_ and in consequence the king ordered that whoever went to the
woods without a license should be branded and whipped for the first
offence, and sent to the galleys for life, for the second.
Every ship to France carried complaints from Duchesneau and Frontenac
against one another. The rivalry was intense. The last official act
of Frontenac in the _Registre du Conseil Supérieur_ is a formal
declaration that his rank in that body is superior to the intendant's.
Finally the untenable position was relieved by the king, who recalled
them by an act of May 1st. Before leaving and early in the August of
this year Frontenac was at Montreal to meet the Ottawas and the Hurons
on their yearly descent from the lakes and there he met the famous
Huron Iroquois chief, the Rat, and at a solemn council succeeded in
averting, for the time, the war then brewing about Michillimackinac,
when the Illinois and some of the tribes of the lakes were in likely
danger of speedy and complete destruction at the hands of the Iroquois.
This would have been fatal to the trade of Canada.
Shortly afterwards, Frontenac sailed for France, leaving Canada when
he was most needed. When he sailed, "it was a day of rejoicing to more
than half of the merchants of Canada" (who were not in his ring), says
Parkman ("Frontenac," p. 71), "and excepting the Recollects, to all the
priests; but he left behind him an impression, very general among the
people, that if danger threatened the colony, Count Frontenac was the
man for the hour."
Montreal was no little concerned with this division between the
disputants, for whereas the merchants, traders and _habitants_ over the
country took sides with either party, those of Montreal, such as Le
Moyne and his sons, Jacques LeBer, and left many more of the leading
men sided with Duchesneau, while Perrot, the local governor, seems
to have come to a mutual understanding with Frontenac and carried on
illicit trade as before. "Frontenac had," as the intendant wrote to
the minister on November 16, 1679, "gradually made himself master of
the trade of Montreal; as soon as the Indians arrived, he sets guard
in his camp, which would be very well, if these soldiers did their
duty and protected the savages from being annoyed and plundered by
the French, instead of being employed to discover how many furs they
have brought with a view to future operations. Monsieur, the governor,
then compels the Indians to pay his guards for protecting them; and he
has never allowed them to trade with the inhabitants till they have
first given him a certain number of packs of beaver skins, which he
calls his presents. His guards trade with them openly at the fair,
with their bandoliers on their shoulders." Moreover, Duchesneau in the
same communication accused Frontenac of sending up goods to Montreal
to be traded in his behalf, so that with the presents exacted and his
trading, only little ever reached the people of the colony of what the
Indians brought to market. It is only fair to add that Frontenac made
similar charges against the intendant for engaging in trade. Meanwhile
partisan spirit ran high and the streets of Quebec and Montreal
witnessed brawls such as those between the Capulets and Montagues
of Romeo and Juliet. "A plague on both your houses!" The Count de
Frontenac and the Intendant Duchesneau were respectively replaced on
May 1, 1680, by M. de La Barre and M. de Meulles, although they did not
enter upon their functions until Friday, October 9th, of the same year.
NOTE
A writer who visited Quebec in 1683 in his "Memoirs of North America"
tells us that the merchant who had carried on the greatest trade in
Canada was the Sieur Samuel Bernon of Rochel, who had great warehouses
at Quebec, from which the inhabitants of the other towns were supplied
with such commodities as they wanted.
"There is no difference," he says, "between the pirates that scour
the seas and the Canada merchants, unless it be this, that the former
sometimes enrich themselves all of a sudden by a good prize; and the
latter cannot make their fortune without trading for five or six
years, and that, without running the hazard of their lives. I have
known twenty little peddlers that had not above a thousand crowns stock
when I arrived at Quebec in the year 1683, and when I left that place,
had got to the tune of 12,000 crowns. It is an unquestioned truth that
they get 50 per cent upon all goods they deal in, whether they buy
them up, upon the arrival of the ships at Quebec, or have them from
France by way of commissions: but over and above that, there are some
gaudy trinkets, such as ribbands, laces, embroideries, tobacco-boxes,
watches, and an infinity of other baubles of iron ware, upon which they
get 150 per cent, all costs clear.
"As soon as the French ships arrive at Quebec the merchants of that
city, who have their factors in other towns, load their barks with
goods in order to transport them to these other towns. Such merchants
as act for themselves at Trois Rivières, or Montreal, come down in
person to Quebec to market for themselves, and then put their effects
on board of barks to be conveyed home. If they pay for their goods in
skins, they buy cheaper than if they made their payments in money or
letters of exchange; by reason that the seller gets considerably by the
skins, when he returns to France. Now you must take notice, that all
these skins are bought up from the inhabitants, or from the savages,
upon which the merchants are considerable gainers. To give you an
instance of this matter, a person that lives in the neighbourhood of
Quebec, carries a dozen of marten skins, five or six fox skins, and as
many skins of wild cats, to a merchant's house, in order to sell them
for woolen cloth, linen, arms, ammunition, etc. In the trade of those
skins, the merchant draws a double profit, one upon the score of his
paying no more for these skins than one-half of what he afterwards
sells them for, in the lump, to the factors, for the Rochel ships; and
the other, by the exorbitant rate he puts upon the goods which the poor
planter takes in exchange for his skins. If this be duly weighed, we
will not think it strange that these merchants have a more beneficial
trade than a great many tradesmen in the world."--Canadian Antiquarian
and Numismatic Journal, 1872, p. 130.
FOOTNOTES:
[128] Some authors have supposed that the Mountain Mission began as
early as 1657, but this appears impossible, when we recollect that for
twenty-seven years or more settlers scarcely dared to leave the town
for fear of the Iroquois, who tracked them to their very doorsteps!
Moreover, the first registrations of the Mountain Mission date from
1688, and, note, that all previous baptisms had been set down in the
Ville Marie registre. The latter before 1677 makes no mention of the
aforesaid mission. (Cf. Note by Mary Drummond in the "Life and Times of
Marguerite Bourgeoys.")
[129] In 1680 Duchesneau reported on November 13th the population
of Canada at 9,400; of this number there were five or six hundred
coureurs de bois. "There is not a family," wrote the Intendant, "of any
condition or quality soever, who have not children, brothers, uncles
and nephews among them."
CHAPTER XXVIII
1683-1687
WAR AGAIN. THE IROQUOIS. NEW YORK AND HUDSON'S BAY
THE GOVERNMENTS OF DE LA BARRE AND DENONVILLE
GOVERNOR DE LA BARRE OPPOSES LA SALLE--THE POW-WOW IN THE NEW
PARISH CHURCH--WAR PREPARATIONS AT MONTREAL--THE DISEASE-STRICKEN
EXPEDITIONS RETURN--LAVAL LEAVES FOR FRANCE--THE PIONEER PAPER
MONEY INVENTED TO PAY THE SOLDIERS--NOTES ON "CARDS" AND CURRENCY
DURING FRENCH REGIME--GOVERNOR DENONVILLE AND MGR. DE ST. VALLIER
ARRIVE--CALLIERES BECOMES GOVERNOR OF MONTREAL--A GLOOMY REPORT
ON THE "YOUTH" AND DRAMSHOPS--MGR. DE ST. VALLIER'S MANDEMENT OF
THE VANITY OF THE WOMEN--THE FORTIFICATIONS REPAIRED--SALE OF ARMS
CONDEMNED--THE STRUGGLE FOR CANADA BY THE ENGLISH OF NEW YORK--THE
STRUGGLE FOR HUDSON'S BAY--THE PARTY FROM MONTREAL UNDER THE
SONS OF CHARLES LE MOYNE--THE DEATH OF LA SALLE--OTHER MONTREAL
DISCOVERERS--A PSYCHOLOGICAL APPRECIATION OF LA SALLE'S CHARACTER.
The recall of Frontenac had great influence on La Salle's career, for
the new governor, de La Barre, an aged man wanting in firmness and
decision, intended to enrich himself[130] and had accordingly connected
himself with a clique of merchants in the colony, intent on the
monopoly of the western fur trade. He believed in their representations
that by acting with them, he would be enabled to obtain large profits.
The principals in this arrangement were Aubert de la Chesnaye, Jacques
Leber and Charles Le Moyne, the latter two of Montreal.
Accordingly, when on April 3, 1683, after hearing that his protector,
Frontenac, had sailed for France, La Salle wrote the new governor,
telling of his success in the expedition to the mouth of the
Mississippi, and dwelling on the necessity of establishing colonists
along the route which he had opened, and asked that such of his men
as were sent to Montreal for supplies should not be arrested, he
little knew how poorly his exploration was valued by the governor. In
a second letter he speaks of the threatened rising of the Iroquois in
the Michillimackinac district, and of the danger he was in, at his Fort
St. Louis, on the River Illinois, on the top of "Starved Rock" (as it
was afterwards called after Pontiac's war in 1764), with but twenty
men, and only 100 pounds of powder. He asks that his men should not
be detained, as he was in need of reinforcements; likewise, that no
seizure of his property in Montreal should be permitted as he was in
want of munitions and supplies.
No supplies were sent him and his men were made prisoners in Montreal
as transgressors of the law. Moreover, on pretense that the conditions,
on which his fort at Frontenac had been granted, had not been carried
out, the governor sent Leber and de la Chesnaye to seize it in the
royal name. La Salle determined to appeal in person to the minister
in France and coming down the lakes he met the Chevalier de Baugis,
who had been sent by de La Barre to seize his Fort St. Louis. In the
next year, 1684, the king wrote to the governor and the intendant, de
Moules, commanding them to make restitution to La Salle for the injury
done him at Fort Frontenac and Fort St. Louis.
Hardly had La Barre arrived in Canada than he learned of the
declaration of war by the Iroquois against the Illinois, the allies of
the French. A deliberation of the highest in the land resulted in a
request to the king for help to restrain the Iroquois, which brought
the promise of a convoy of 200 soldiers to be sent without delay from
France! Wishing, however, to compromise with the Iroquois and to make
peace rather than war which would damage his personal trade relations
at Cataracqui, the governor sent Charles Le Moyne as envoy to Onondaga
to invite a deputation of their chiefs to visit Montreal. This was
fixed for June, but it was not till August that a meagre delegation
from but five cantons arrived, and the grand council was held in the
newly built church of Montreal.
Parkman tells the story thus: "Presents were given to the deputies
(forty-three Iroquois chiefs) to the value of more than two thousand
crowns. Soothing speeches were made them and they were urged not
to attack the tribes of the lakes, nor to plunder French traders,
_without permission_. They assented and La Barre then asked, timidly,
why they made war on the Illinois. 'Because they deserve to die,'
haughtily returned the Iroquois orator. La Barre dared not answer.
They complained that La Salle had given guns, powder and lead to the
Illinois; or in other words, that he had helped the allies of the
colony to defend themselves. La Barre, who hated La Salle and his
monopolies, assured them that he should be punished. It is affirmed on
good authority that he said more than this, and told them that they
were welcome to plunder and kill him. The rapacious old man was playing
with a two-edged sword." ("Frontenac," p. 84).
Montreal that summer witnessed the preparations of La Barre and
his 200 men, who left Quebec on July 10th ostensibly to fight the
Iroquois around Fort Frontenac; among them was de la Chesnaye. The
new intendant, Jacques de Meulles, Sieur de la Source, grieving no
doubt that he had to finance this new war, has the lowest opinion of
this enterprise and writes to the minister (July 8-11): "In a word,
Monseigneur, this war has been decided upon in the cabinet of monsieur,
the general (La Barre) along with six of the chief merchants of the
country," and in a postscript he added, "I will finish this letter,
Monseigneur, by telling you that he set out yesterday, July 10th, with
a detachment of 200 men. All Quebec was filled with grief to see him
embark on an expedition of war, _tête à tête_ with the man La Chesnaye.
Everybody says that the war is a sham, that these two will arrange
everything between them and in a word do whatever will help their
trade. The whole country is in despair to see how matters are managed."
(Quoted by Parkman, "Frontenac," p. 103.)
After a long stay at Montreal the little army of 130 regular soldiers,
700 Canadians and 200 savages, principally Iroquois from Caughnawaga
and Hurons from Lorette near Quebec, embarked at Lachine. The party
from Montreal landed under the palisades of Fort Frontenac or
Cataracqui, on a low, damp plain and became the victims of a malarial
fever of which the men sickened. On the 3d of September Le Moyne was
sent to La Famine at the mouth of the Salmon River, bringing with
him the wily and astute orator of the Iroquois, Big Mouth, Latinized
by La Hontan, who was present, as "Grangula." At the council which
followed at La Famine, whither La Barre with such of his men who were
well enough to move, had crossed to meet the Iroquois in their own
territory, Big Mouth had all the honours and the ending was humiliating
for the French. He declared the Iroquois could fight the Illinois to
the death, and La Barre dared not utter a word in behalf of his allies.
"He promised to decamp," says Parkman, "and set out for home on the
following morning, being satisfied with the promise that the Iroquois
would repair the damage done the French traders in the war against the
Illinois--a promise never realized. La Barre embarked and hastened
home in advance of his men. His camp was again full of the sick. Their
comrades placed them, shivering with ague fits, on board the flatboats
and canoes; and the whole force, scattered and disordered, floated
down the current to Montreal. Nothing had been gained but a thin and
flimsy peace, with new troubles and dangers plainly visible behind it."
("Frontenac," p. 111).
At Montreal, as a consequence of this disease-stricken expedition, the
Hôtel-Dieu was filled with the sick, as was that of Quebec. The end
was humiliating to La Barre; the honour was with the Iroquois and the
Illinois allies had been shamefully abandoned. The treaty of La Famine
was received by the colony with contumely and shortly afterwards the
inefficient governor received his recall, polite, but unmistakable in
its import.
On November 14th, Monseigneur de Laval left for France, sixty-one years
of age, but broken down by his austere duties and unremitting labours.
He attended the Sovereign Council on August 28th, and fought against
the making of the secular clergy into "irremovable curés"--a policy
which has been continued to this day. On November 2d, he established
the Chapter of Quebec Cathedral, consisting of twelve canons and four
chaplains. He came back to Quebec again on August 15, 1688, and took
up his quarters at his beloved seminary founded by him, not any longer
with the burdens and honours of the Episcopate, but as a simple retired
prelate, the father-in-God of his seminarists--till nearly his death on
May 6, 1708. He was a man who was a sign for contradiction to many, yet
always firm, zealous, unbending and of upright principles, which even
his enemies recognized, though they might have quailed before him and
have withstood him.
De Meulles still continued as intendant, not being recalled till 1686.
He was endowed with much initiative and executive ability, which La
Barre wanted, so that he nearly brought the country to ruin. After the
disgraceful treaty with the Iroquois, on September 4th, de Meulles
found that the drain on the exchequer was so great that he was at his
wits' end to pay the soldiers who belonged to "le détachement in French
de la marine"--in spite of the name, purely a land body, supported
by the department "of the marine," there being no colonial office to
France. This detachment was organized in France about the year 1682,
from among the disbanded soldiers who had taken part in the Dutch
or other wars, to protect the inhabitants of New France from the
relentless raids of ever-roving bands of ruthless Iroquois, which had
become so persistent as almost to paralyze the agricultural pursuits as
well as the trade and commerce of the country.
How was the intendant, de Meulles, to pay these soldiers? There was
little or no coin currency. Beaver skins and wheat were legal tender,
but very bulky and very inconvenient for small accounts. The dearth
of currency may be explained as follows: In New France currency
difficulties had always prevailed because any few doles of coin that
came from the home government were returned as remittances by the
importers as the balance of trade was always against the colony and
therefore exchange was necessarily high. In 1670 a special coinage of
15 and 5 _sol_ pieces of silver and _doubles_ in copper were struck at
Paris and sent out with a proviso that they should not be circulated in
the mother country. But notwithstanding this interdiction these also
were sent as remittances. Thus there was little or no coin currency in
the country with which to trade. The ready witted intendant therefore
invented the pioneer paper money, which originally circulated in the
form of a note, on the back of an ordinary playing card signed by de
Meulles, in 1685. It was the beginning of the paper money which is
now so largely used all over the world. De Meulles hit upon the plan
of using whole, or cutting up, ordinary playing cards into halves or
quarters, with the word "_bon_" inserted on each, for a certain sum,
signed and sealed in wax with his own hand and countersigned by the
clerk of the treasury as they were issued. This emergency card money is
claimed by Mr. R. W. McLachlan as the first regular paper money issued
in any Caucasian nation. He claims that the Massachusetts paper money,
issued first five years after that of Canada, for the similar purpose
of paying soldiers, was an imitation.
[Illustration: CARD MONEY]
A new supply of these cards was issued in October, 1711. The old issue
disappeared and there is not one left even for antiquarian collections.
Further issues were made in 1714 and 1717, but in this latter year the
total withdrawal of the old cards was ordered. By 1720 these cards had
all been redeemed by the government.
In 1721 a copper currency was struck for the colony at the mint of
La Rochelle and Rouen of nine denier pieces. Though issued with a
proclamation throughout New France they were never acceptable to the
Canadians and were at last withdrawn. There was then after the issue
of the cards of 1717 a lull of about ten years, when in 1729 recourse
was again had to the convenient paper money, but the playing card was
superseded by a plain white card with clipped edges and with various
other changes in stamps and signatures. This system was continued until
Intendant Bigot's time and the fall of New France. The inventory of
Jacques LeBer of Montreal, dated June 7, 1735, showing coins to the
value of 84 _livres_ 8 _sols_ 3 _deniers_, and card money to the value
of 2833.3.0, indicates the early predominance of card money. About 1750
Bigot introduced, as a new currency, an unauthorized note called an
"ordonnance," which, unlike the card issue, did not seek the governor's
approval by seal or signature. They were more than twice as large, on
forms printed in France on ordinary writing paper, with blank spaces
for filling in the amount, the date, and number in writing. These
"ordonnances" were orders on the treasury of Quebec or, in the case
of the fall of the capital, of Montreal, which could pass as cash and
were redeemable in bulk, either in card money, or by drafts on the
treasurer of the marine in France. This method afforded ample scope for
peculation both from the government and the people. At first Bigot's
issue of "ordonnances" was slight but by the end of the French régime,
it exceeded 80,000,000 _livres_ or nearly $14,000,000. This was a large
sum for an impoverished country to refund. It was years after it was
redeemed and some never so by the French Government, after the fall of
the French régime in Canada. The cards and "ordonnances" were a drug
on the market for many years pending redemption, so that the original
holders gained very little. The introduction of specie did much to
reconcile the French to the British régime.[131]
1685
La Barre's successor was the Marquis of Denonville, a pious colonel
of dragoons, who had seen much active service, and who could act when
occasion required with firmness and vigour. In the same boat with him
and his wife there arrived at Quebec in the beginning of August, 1685,
Laval's successor, the bishop-elect, the young, impetuous, zealous and
rigid Monseigneur de Saint-Vallier--and a lasting friendship was then
cemented. Denonville's instructions ordered him to uphold the allies
of France, to humiliate the Iroquois and to establish peace on a solid
basis. He was to spare no effort to maintain a good understanding
with the English but should they and the Iroquois be allied in their
battles, they were to be treated as enemies. On the 6th of August he
presided at the Sovereign Council. After staying a short time at Quebec
he went to Montreal and there set up the Chevalier de Callières, a
former captain of the Navarre Regiment, as the governor in place of M.
Perrot, who had been sent to Acadia (being appointed in 1684), where as
governor he pursued the same tactics as at Montreal and was replaced in
1687. Denonville's reign with the English and the Iroquois was stormy,
but he was singularly peaceful in his relations with the bishop, the
intendant and the governor of Montreal.
[Illustration: MGR. J. B. DE LA CROIX CHEVRIERES DE SAINT-VALLIER]
[Illustration: MARQUIS JACQUES-RENE DE BRISAY DENONVILLE]
A gloomy picture of Canadian life, which applies equally to Montreal,
was sent by Denonville to France in his letters of August 20, September
3 and November 12, 1685. "The youths," he says, "are so badly trained
that the moment they are able to shoulder a gun their fathers dare not
speak reprovingly to them. They do not take kindly to labour, having
no occupation but hunting; they prefer the life of the _coureur de
bois_, where there is no curé or father to restrain them, and in which
they adopt the life of the Indian even to going about naked. The life
has great attractions for them, for on carnival days and other days of
feasting and debauchery they imitate the Indian in all things, their
company being frequently lawless and unruly. The noblesse of Canada
is in a condition of extreme poverty. To increase their number is to
multiply a class of lounging idlers. The sons of the councillors are
not more industrious than the other youths. The men are tall, well
made, well set up, robust, active, accustomed to live on little.
They are wayward, lightminded and inclined to debauchery but have
intelligence and veracity; the women and girls, pretty, but idle from
want of occupation in the minor work of the sex.
"Nothing," says Denonville, "can be finer or better conceived than the
regulations formed for the government of this country; but nothing,
I assure you, is so ill-observed as regards both the fur trade and
the general discipline of the colony. One great evil is the infinite
number of drinking shops, which makes it almost impossible to remedy
the disorders resulting from them. All the rascals and idlers of the
country are attracted to this business of tavern keeping. They never
dream of tilling the soil, but on the contrary they deter the other
inhabitants from it, and end with ruining them. I know seignories
where there are but twenty houses, and more than half of them dram
shops. At Three Rivers there are twenty-five houses and liquor may be
had at eighteen or twenty of them. Ville Marie (Montreal) and Quebec
are on the same footing. The villages governed by the Jesuits and
Sulpicians are models. Drunkenness there is not seen. But it is sad to
see the ignorance of the population at a distance from the abodes of
the _curés_, who are put to the greatest trouble to remedy the evils,
traveling from place to place through the parishes in their charges."
(Denonville au ministre, Parkman, "Old Régime," pp. 375-6-7; vide,
résumé of Kingsford, I, 65.)
The clergy, however, did their work manfully and unflinchingly and
it was their devotion to their work of upbuilding the morality and
character of the French Canadians that assured them the prestige
which is enjoyed by them to this day. Bishop St. Vallier confirms
Denonville, La Barre, Duchesneau and other contemporary writers when
he says that, "the Canadian youths are for the most part demoralized,"
and although previously, in 1688, he had written very favourably on
the religious state of Canada, in a pastoral mandate of October 31,
1690, he says: "Before we first knew our flock we thought that the
English and the Iroquois were the only wolves we had to fear; but God
having opened our eyes to the disorders of this diocese and made us
feel more and more the weight of our charge, we are forced to confess
that our most dangerous foes are drunkenness, impurity, and slander."
The Canadian drank hard and many a man was old at forty. "But," says
Parkman ("Old Régime," p. 378), "nevertheless the race did not die out.
The prevalence of early marriages and the birth of numerous offspring
before the vigour of the father had been wasted ensured the strength
and hardihood which characterized the Canadians." Bishop St. Vallier
soon visited Montreal and his description of the mountain settlement we
have already given.
Here we may add a scathing picture which occurs in the ordinance of
Monseigneur Jean Baptiste de Saint-Vallier, dated October 22, 1686,
touching modesty and the want of veneration in the churches. It may
justly apply to the Montreal ladies of the period, since it complains,
"of the luxury and the vanity reigning, throughout _the whole country_
among the girls and grown-up women, with more licence and scandal than
ever. They are not content to have on them habits, the price and style
of which are much above the means or the condition of life of those
wearing them, but they affect moreover immodest head-dresses within
and without their homes, and often even in the churches, leaving heads
uncovered or only decked with a transparent veil and with an assemblage
of ribbons, lace work, curls and other vanities. But what is still more
to be deplored, and what pierces our soul with sorrow, is that they
have no difficulty in rendering themselves the instruments of the demon
and in cooperating with the loss of souls, bought by the blood of
Jesus Christ, by uncovering the _nudités_ of their neck and shoulders,
the sight of which makes an infinite number of persons to fall." The
good bishop might be similarly shocked if he visited Montreal today.[132]
In the spring of 1685, M. de Callières, the governor of Montreal,
employed 600 men under the direction of M. du Luth, royal engineer,
to erect a palisade around the town.[133] It was made of wood stakes
furnished by the citizens and had to be constantly repaired. This
palisade, with curtains and bastions, was 13 feet in height and there
were five gates, those of Lachine, the Recollects, the Port, St. Martin
and St. Lawrence; and five posterns, de Maricourt, the barracks, the
General Hospital, the Hôtel-Dieu and de Callières.
About this time there was apparently laxity in the retention of
arms. For one cause or another many households were very scantily
accommodated, through sale or truck, or on account of seizure for debt.
Accordingly a notice of the supreme council was affixed to the door of
the parish church of Montreal by the sergeant, Quesneville, on February
18, 1686. After emphasizing the importance of the obligation which the
Marquis de Denonville had laid upon every house-holder in the colony of
being well armed, the council forbade all persons of whatever quality
or condition to deprive themselves of their arms by sale or otherwise,
unless they had weapons beyond what was necessary, to arm each father
of the family, and his children and domestics, who shall have attained
to the age of fourteen years; it forbade all "huissiers and sergeants
of justice to seize these arms, all tavern keepers and others to buy
them, or truck them, under penalties named."
With Denonville's advent as the representative of Louis XIV, the
struggle for supremacy between Canada and the English, under Thomas
Dongan, the Irish Catholic governor of New York representing James II,
of England, began to assume warlike proportions. The English of New
York were laying claim to the whole country south of the Great Lakes
and were anxious to control the great western fur trade. The northern
fur trade was being bid for by the Hudson's Bay Company, and the
fisheries of New Acadia were being seized upon by the New Englanders.
In the regions of Michillimackinac the English were striving to
alienate the Hurons, Ottawas and other like tribes; they had already
on their side, the Iroquois, whose arrogance to the French, especially
that of the Senecas, was so galling that it seemed necessary for French
prestige to humble them. Such were de Denonville's instructions. This
was one of the reasons why he wished to build his fort at Niagara
as early as May, 1685--a project highly displeasing to Dongan--to
counteract the English desire for the same purpose, namely to obtain
supremacy over the tribes in that direction and to be masters of the
trade, for that was what most mattered.[134]
This was de Denonville's motive also for his projected forts at
Toronto, or Lake Erie, and that at Détroit, for which latter enterprise
he commissioned du Luth of Montreal. The intense rivalry showed itself
in 1686 in the organized attempt of the French to dispute the supremacy
claimed by the Hudson's Bay Company, then in its infancy, on the
western shore of that dreary inland sea. As so many Montrealers joined
in this effort, it may be recorded more fully than could otherwise be
permitted.
Let us, then, turn to the rivalry existing between the English and
French in Hudson's Bay, represented by the great company of that name
and the Canadian rival body, "La Compagnie du Nord." The English firm
had discovered the bay under Hudson and, with the help of the two
renegade Frenchmen, Médard Chouart des Groseilliers and Pierre Esprit
de Radisson,[135] both well known at Montreal, as bold and unscrupulous
_coureurs de bois_ and fur traders, had formed a company with English
capital from London and had established Fort Nelson near the mouth of
the Nelson River, and then other forts, Albany, Rupert and Monsipi or
Monsoni (Fort Hayes) on the southern end of the bay. But the French had
a grant of the fur industry from Louis XIV and had done some trading
there before the advent of the English. It had been taken possession
of, in 1672, in the name of Louis XIV by the Jesuit Albanel (one of the
early Montreal missionaries) and M. de St. Simon, and the French had
built Fort Thérèse, which, on being taken from them by the English, was
named Fort Nelson.
The French merchants desiring to oust their competitors appealed to
Denonville and he commissioned the Chevalier de Troyes, a captain of
infantry, to chase the English from the bay and retake their own. With
him went the young d'Iberville (then twenty-four years of age) and
his brothers Maricourt and St. Hélène, seventy Canadians and thirty
soldiers, "all," says Ferland, "accustomed to long marches, able to
manage canoes, to withstand the most piercing colds and well versed in
'la petite guerre.'" Their chaplain was the Jesuit Silvy. The party
left Montreal in the month of March, 1686, when the rivers were still
frozen and the snow was on the ground. They mounted the rivers and
lakes on their snowshoes, dragging their provisions, arms and materials
for canoe construction on their sleds, reaching the River Monsipi,
near Fort Hayes, the first English fort, in June or so, which shortly
afterwards fell with Forts Rupert and Albany, largely on account of the
brilliant exploits of d'Iberville, whose reputation was established on
this occasion. The whole expedition lasted only two months.
This brave buccaneering angered the English. A treaty of neutrality
intervening between the two powers of France and England left them
helpless for the moment, but in 1693 the Hudson's Bay Company were
again in possession. In 1697, as we shall see, d'Iberville will again
be in their waters and attacking these forts.
The year 1687 marks the tragic death of La Salle. In 1684 his last
expedition had sailed from La Rochelle directly for the Mississippi,
carrying three priests at least, his brother, the Sulpician, Jean
Cavelier, and the Recollects, Zendbre Membre and Anastase Douay; twelve
gentlemen of France and also soldiers, artisans and labourers, in all
to the number of 144 persons, with a full supply of provisions and
implements. There were four vessels, Le Joly, a frigate of thirty-six
cannons; La Belle, six cannons; St. François, a transport; and
l'Aimable, a fluke of 300 tons. M. de Beaujean, sailing in Le Joly, was
commander of the squadron and La Salle led the land forces.
Disaster after disaster befell the expedition. M. de Beaujean passed
the mouth of the Mississippi without noticing it, it being reserved for
Le Moyne d'Iberville in 1699 to be the first white man to descend it by
the sea. One vessel ran aground, another was captured by the Spaniards,
with those that carried the greater part of the ammunition, implements
and provisions. Beaujean in consequence of serious disagreements with
La Salle returned to France with Le Joly and the luckless explorer
found himself reduced, by these losses and by sickness, to the number
of thirty-six despairing colonists. In this plight La Salle conceived
the plan of reaching Canada on foot. Sixteen of his party consented
to follow him, among them his brother Jean, his nephew Moranget,
the faithful Joutel, du Hault and his servant Larchevêque, Hiens of
Wurtembourg a buccaneer, Ruter Liotot or Lanquetot, the surgeon of the
expedition, Sager and Nika, and the faithful Recollect, Père Douay, who
accompanied La Salle to his last hour.
On March 17, 1687, two months after the departure from the Bay of
Matagorda, on the coast of Texas, which the expedition had reached at
the end of January, the surgeon, Liotot, slew with his axe Moranget,
Sager and Nika. He was but the cowardly executor of the order of a band
of assassins of the rest of the party, consisting of Hiens, Larchevêque
and their leader du Hault. Fearing the vengeance of La Salle, two days
later, the mutineers determined to make away with him, and on March
19th, between the rivers, San Jacinto and La Trinité, Robert René de
Cavelier, at the age of forty-three years and four months, fell a
victim to the musket of the treacherous du Hault.[136]
Joutel, who accompanied the expedition and whom Charlevoix met in Rouen
in 1713 and described as a very honest man and one of the few of his
troop that La Salle could count on, says of his friend in the "_Journal
historique du dernier voyage que feu M. de la Salle fit dans le Golfe
du Mexique, Paris, 1713_," written on the notes taken from 1684-1687:
"Thus unhappily ended the life of M. de la Salle, at the time when he
had all to hope for from his great labours. He had the intelligence
and talent to crown his enterprise with success--firmness, courage, a
great knowledge of sciences and arts, which rendered him capable of
anything, and an indefatigable perseverance which made him surmount
every obstacle. These fine qualities were balanced by too haughty
manners, which made him sometimes unsupportable, and by a harshness
towards those who were under him, which drew upon him their implacable
hatred and was the cause of his death." Ferland (Cours d'Histoire t.
II, p. 172) has a similar judgment. We have different writings on the
death of La Salle: first, the story of Father Douay, the eye witness of
the assassination; he gave the details to Joutel, who was not present
at the moment of the crime; second, "La Relation of the death of Sieur
de la Salle, following the report of one named Couture." This Couture
of Rouen, who had remained with Tonti, had learned the circumstances
of the assassination of La Salle from a Frenchman. This description
shows animosity to La Salle; third, the "Mémoire" of Henry Tonti. The
"Relation" of Abbé Cavelier stops before the death of his brother.
All the assassins perished miserably. Liotot and du Hault died at the
hands of Ruter, a Breton sailor. Hiens and Ruter were also slain by one
of their accomplices. (Parkman, Great West, p. 461.) Larchevêque was
discovered in Texas by the Spaniards and was sent to Mexico to work in
the mines as a galley slave. Père Douay, l'Abbé Cavelier, Joutel and
others finished by arriving at Arkansas and from there they went to
Fort St. Louis on the Illinois.
Thus ended the career of one of the most remarkable men of this
continent. The lights and shades of this man's story are fascinating
but we cannot pursue them. For Montrealers he is interesting in that
he, one of their predecessors, it was who discovered by land the Ohio
and the mouth of the Mississippi, and the vast district of Louisiana,
of which he had taken solemn possession on April 9, 1682, in the name
of Louis XIV. It remained for another Montrealer, Le Moyne d'Iberville,
to build a stockade fort at Biloxi in 1699 to hold the country for the
king, thus laying the first foundations of Louisiana in Mississippi,
which soon saw also the forts of Mobile Bay and Dauphin Island. The
first governors of Louisiana the brothers d'Iberville and de Bienville,
are also proudly remembered as of Montreal origin. It is foreign to
the scope of this history to settle the dispute as to how far La Salle
discovered the Mississippi.[137] But granting that Father Marquette and
Louis Joliet commenced the discovery in 1673, of the upper inland
reaches, its completion to the mouth by land must be conceded to La
Salle, its discovery from the sea having been made a century before by
de Soto.
In many ways La Salle differed very much from the type of men exploring
North America at this time. He had little of the traditional gayety
and insouciance of the leader of _coureurs de bois_; he did not seek,
primarily, wealth or glory; nor is his life marked with any of the
excesses of a scandalous time. This silent and uncommunicative man,
of a hardy and uncommon physiognomy, active in body and restless in
mind, with those powerful and tyrannical instincts, ever latent, which
push strong and energetic natures to the arduous search after the
unknown and the vague was one of those characters that feel the need
of fleeing from society to go out of themselves and to lose themselves
in movement and action. Repose is to them irksome and wearisome. Such
men are the victims of the perpetual tempests agitating them and it is
no wonder that sometimes they break forth impetuously into anger or
brutality against friend or foe alike. Such a one was La Salle; and the
above psychological explanation of his career, it seems, is the key of
understanding to this original personality.
FOOTNOTES:
[130] Kingsford, History of Canada, II, p. 3.
[131] See R. W. McLachlan, The Canadian Card Money, Montreal, 1911.
[132] To the student of morals and to social reformers, we draw
attention to a "mémoire" of the King on March 30, 1687, to Denonville
and Champigny, the new Intendant, in which His Majesty does not approve
of their proposition to send back to France the women of evil life;
that, he says, would not be a punishment great enough. "It would be
better to employ them by force on the public works, to draw water, saw
wood and serve the masons."
[133] The citadel was also built in 1685. The wooden fortifications
were demolished in 1722.
[134] Speaking of the Hurons of Michillimackinac, Denonville wrote to
the minister on June 12, 1686: "They like the manners of the French
but they like the cheap goods of the English better." In a letter to
Dongan in October he expostulated with him for furnishing the Indians
with rum: "Certainly," replied Dongan on December 1st, "our rum does
as little hurt as your brandy and in the opinion of Christians is much
more wholesome."
[135] Radisson was in Montreal as early as July, 1657, and frequently
afterwards started his wanderings from Montreal. Other early
references are found in documents of 1658, 1660 and 1661. Chouart des
Groseilliers, was here in 1658. In 1660 he entered into a partnership
with Charles Le Moyne. (Cf. See Massicotte "Les Colons de Montreal," p.
27.)
[136] On August 20, 1688, Père Douay related to the Marquis de
Seignelay the details of the unhappy expedition of the discoverer.
[137] According to a recent writer, Pierre d'Esprit Radisson, and
Médard Chouart, Sieur de Groseilliers, of Three Rivers, but both
well known at Montreal, whence they drew members of their party, had
in their wide wanderings traversed the Ottawa, the St. Lawrence,
the Great Lakes, Labrador, the return west of the Mississippi, the
great northwest and the overland route to Hudson's Bay, the west, the
northwest and the west. In 1659 it is stated Radisson and Groseilliers
discovered the upper Mississippi and the lands of the great northwest
ten years before Marquette Joliet, twenty years before La Salle, a
hundred years before La Vérendrye. Radisson's manuscripts being rescued
from oblivion in 1885 are alleged to prove their claims. The course
of the first exploration of Radisson seems to have circled over the
territory now known as Wisconsin, perhaps eastern Iowa and Nebraska,
South Dakotas, Montana and back over North Dakota and Minnesota to the
north shore of Lake Superior. This was the southwest. On his return he
passed by the scene of Dollard's exploit at the Long Sault. At Quebec
they were feted but when afterwards it had leaked out that they had
heard of the famous sea of the north and they had asked to continue
their explorations, the French governor refused except on condition of
receiving half the profits. On this the adventurers with two Indian
guides for the upper country, who chanced to be in Montreal and whom
they had taken to Three Rivers, stole out thence to the north country
and in 1662 discovered Hudson's Bay by the overland route with the aid
of friendly Crees. By the spring of 1663 they were back to the Lake
of the Woods region, accompanied by 700 Indians of the upper country.
Eventually they made their way to Quebec and were received with salvos
of canon. Their fortune of pelts was valued in modern money at $30,000,
of which the governor claimed for the revenue so much that but $20,000
worth was left. They then turned their allegiance elsewhere. The
stories of their various changes of allegiance to and fro, from the
French both in the New and Old France to the English, does not concern
us. This has blackened their name but does not gainsay their claims to
a share in the great discoveries mentioned. At the same time as they
never appear to have made a formal claim or took a formal "prise de
possession" for France, it is not to be wondered that historians will
continue to give the credit to the already accredited discoverers.
The five writers who according to the author we are noticing, have
attempted to redeem Radisson's memory from ignominy are: Dr. N. G.
Dionne, of the Parliament Library of Quebec; Mr. Justice Prud'homme,
of St. Boniface, Manitoba; Dr. George Bryce, of Winnipeg; Mr. Benjamin
Sulte, of Ottawa, and Judge J. Z. Brower, of St. Paul. (Vide the
"Pathfinders of the West," Toronto, 1904, by A. C. Laut.)
CHAPTER XXIX
1687-1689
IROQUOIS REVENGE
DENONVILLE'S TREACHERY AND THE MASSACRE OF LACHINE
ST. HELEN'S ISLAND A MILITARY STATION--FORT
FRONTENAC--DENONVILLE'S TREACHERY--THE FEAST--INDIANS FOR THE
GALLEYS OF FRANCE--THE WAR MARCH AGAINST THE SENECAS--THE
RETURN--MONTREAL AN INCLOSED FORTRESS--DE CALLIERES' PLAN
FOR THE INVASION OF NEW YORK--THE STRUGGLE FOR TRADE
SUPREMACY--MONTREAL BESIEGED--KONDIARONK, THE RAT, KILLS THE
PEACE--DENONVILLE RECALLED--CALLIERES' PLAN FAILS--THE MASSACRE AT
LACHINE--DENONVILLE'S TREACHERY REVENGED. NOTE: THE EXPLOIT AT THE
RIVIERE DES PRAIRIES.
[Illustration: VIEW OF ISLAND OF STE. HELEN]
In the commencement of the summer of 1687, Denonville, who had made
his preparations secretly and had received reinforcements of 800 men
with 168,000 _livres_ in money or supplies from France, determined to
carry to a finish his long projected war policy against the Iroquois
supported by the English under Dongan, by stealing upon them unawares.
St. Helen's Island opposite Montreal was the scene of a great military
camp. Thither the new intendant, de Champigny-Noroy--the successor
of de Meulles, who had been recalled upon the complaints of the
governor--had gone on June 7th with the Chevalier de Vaudreuil, lately
arrived in the colony with the title of commander of the forces. The
army of four battalions, commanded by the Governor de Denonville in
person, was composed, says Bibaud, of 800 regular soldiers, about a
thousand Canadians and 300 Indians, mostly from the missions of Sault
St. Louis and the Mountain. M. de Callières, the governor of Montreal,
also was there. It started on June 11th on 200 flatboats and as many
birch bark canoes, and struggling against the rapids made its way for
Fort Frontenac. Just after the departure the 800 regulars arrived
from France and were left at Montreal to protect the settler. We have
not usually related the details of these expeditions from Montreal
and its vicinity, but the opening incident on this occasion, known as
Denonville's treachery, resulting in the massacre of Lachine on August
25, 1689, was so fateful in its dire results for Montreal that it must
be told.
[Illustration: PLAN OF MONTREAL, 1687-1723]
Arriving at Fort Frontenac, it was found that there were in the
neighbourhood a number of Iroquois of the two neutral villages of
Kenté (Quinté) and Ganneious or Ganeyout, on the north shore of Lake
Ontario, forming a sort of colony, where the Sulpicians of Montreal
had established their mission. They were on excellent terms with the
garrison of Fort Frontenac and hunted and fished for them. These
Denonville determined to seize, partially because of the fear that they
might communicate with their relatives, the hostile Seneca Iroquois,
but principally because he wished to satisfy the desire of Louis XIV
that the Iroquois prisoners of war should be sent to France to be put
in the galleys, "because," said the royal letters, "the savages being
strong and robust, they will serve usefully on our convict gangs."
Accordingly by various artifices, such as by the invitation to a feast,
the unsuspecting and friendly Indians were enticed to the fort by the
advances of the new intendant, Champigny, and then seized, the men
being sent to Quebec and then deported to the galleys in France.[138]
This was a breach of faith, unjustifiable according to the natural law
of nations; these men could in no way have been called prisoners of
war. The other Indians were deeply incensed at this treason and they
brooded over it long and deeply. A sad incident in the story is that
the Jesuit missionary Lamberville was unwittingly the instrument used
to induce the Onondaga chief to accept the invitation to a parley at
Fort Frontenac. When the news of the capture was made known, he was
summoned before a council of the angry Iroquois. The magnanimity of the
Iroquois saved his life. One of them addressed him thus: "You cannot
but agree that all sorts of reasons, authorize us to treat you as an
enemy, but we cannot agree to that; we know you too well not to be
persuaded that your heart has had no part in the treason against us in
which you have shared, and we are not unjust enough to punish you for
a crime of which we believe you are innocent, and for which without
doubt you are in despair for having been the instrument. But it is not
fitting that you should remain here, for when once our young men have
sung the war cry, they will see in you for the future nothing but a
traitor, who has delivered our chiefs to the most disgraceful slavery.
Then fury will fall on you and we shall not be able any longer to save
you."[139] They gave him guides and sent him back to Denonville.[140]
Meanwhile La Durantaye arrived with news of the capture of the Dutch
and English traders under Rosenboom and Major Patrick McGregor, who had
been carried to Niagara and afterward to Quebec, a proceeding which
mightily angered the English governor of New York, Dongan. The war soon
began; the rendezvous was at Irondequoit Bay on the borders of the
Seneca country. There were gathered the armies of Denonville, joined
by the flotilla of La Durantaye, with Duluth and his cousin Tonti, who
had come from Niagara, the Ottawas from Michillimackinac and savages of
every nation. There were the regulars from France, the Canadian militia
under de Callières of Montreal, the Jesuit chaplains, the Sulpician, de
Belmont, from Montreal, the noblesse, the Christian Indians from the
Montreal district, the hardy explorer Nicholas Perrot and others, such
as Le Moyne de Longueuil. Nearly three thousand men, red and white,
were under Denonville on July 12, when the march against the Senecas
began and most men of note in the colony seemed to be there. On the
24th of July the army returned to the fortified fort at Irondequoit Bay
and shortly descended to Montreal, victorious in name. But the Senecas
were only scotched, not killed.
The expedition returned to Montreal in August. In October the Iroquois,
to the number of 200, attacked the upper part of Montreal, where they
burned five houses and killed six _habitants_. The consequence was
that de Callières (the governor) caused a redoubt to be constructed in
each seignory, so that the troops quartered there and the inhabitants
could find refuge in the hour of attack. A contemporary writer says
that there were twenty-eight such forts in the government of Montreal.
A corps of 120 men picked from the _coureurs de bois_ was placed at
Lachine, but the great massacre there was not to occur till 1689. Thus
Montreal was virtually enclosed in de Callières' palisaded picket. "New
troops were called for from France and the plan of the next campaign
was to advance with two columns in distinct expeditions against the
Iroquois.
"The possession of New York by the French as a desirable acquisition
was advocated by the leading men in Canada more than ever." De
Callières, the governor of Montreal, was conceiving a plan for such an
invasion.[141]
This became more popular as James II, on November 10, 1687, formally
claimed the Iroquois as subjects and ordered Dongan to protect them.
This was the beginning of the long struggle between the two powers,
the supremacy of the west being the bone of contention, for the
trade of which the English were always "itching." As this trade was
Montreal's support we may realize the anxiety present during the
next year, 1688. For two years the trade had been stopped. Montreal
was again in a siege. The Iroquois moved about mysteriously in small
bands, and paralyzed agriculture. The early history of Montreal was
being reproduced; yet the country had far more troops than formerly.
At the head of the Island of Montreal a large body of militia under
Vaudreuil was on guard. In the midst of this anxiety negotiations took
place with the great and crafty diplomatist, Big Mouth, the chief
of the Onondagas, who on the promise of Denonville to return the
prisoners captured up west, made his way to Montreal, in spite of the
prohibitions of Sir Edward Andros, who had now succeeded Dongan, with
six Onondaga, Cayuga and Oneida chiefs; but, it is said, he had sent
ahead a force of 1,200 men. He arrived at Montreal on June 8, 1688. A
declaration of neutrality was drawn up and he promised that within a
certain time the whole confederacy should come to Montreal to conclude
a general peace. They never came. For, although they were on their
way, Kondiaronk, surnamed the Rat, the renowned chief of the Hurons
at Michillimackinac, a most astute man, treacherously "killed" the
peace as he boasted, by intercepting and firing on them, pretending he
had been prompted to this action by Denonville. Thus he aroused the
Iroquois against the French. For his fear was that should peace be
concluded with the Iroquois, the French allies, such as the Hurons,
would not be protected against their hereditary enemies, the Iroquois.
Hence Montreal never saw the delegation. But the danger still hovered
around, although Denonville with false security still wrote to France
that there was hope of peace. The Iroquois, however, had not forgotten
his treachery at Fort Frontenac. Their brethren in the galleys of
France called for vengeance.
The winter of 1688 and part of the summer of 1689 passed quietly
enough. Changes had occurred in the government. Denonville received his
recall by a letter of May 31, 1689, being needed for the war in Europe.
St. Vallier had been consecrated bishop of Quebec on January 25th.
Count Frontenac was named governor for a second time. De Callières, the
governor of Montreal, being replaced in his absence by de Vaudreuil,
was in France communicating his ambitious plans of conquering New York
as the only means of preserving the colony.[142] Incidentally he was
to be New York's new governor. It could be done, he argued, with the
forces in Canada, 1,000 regulars and 600 militia, and two royal ships
of war. The king modified the scheme and adopted it, but it never
came into execution. The long delay in the preparation of the ships
and the unexpectedly long passage of Callières and Frontenac across
the Atlantic, caused by head winds, ruined the enterprise. The two
governors did not reach Quebec until October 12th, bringing back with
them from the galleys of France the remnant of the Iroquois. Thence
they left on October 20th and arrived at Montreal on October 27th,
where Denonville, with Duluth in charge of the garrison, was still
making the last arrangements for maintaining the peace of Montreal
before departing for France. But this was not to be till after the
horrible massacre of reprisal, so long threatened, that fell upon the
island at Lachine on the night of August 5, 1689.
The story of the disaster at Lachine, saddening the last days
of Denonville, must now be told in the graphic words of Parkman
(Frontenac, pp. 177-181).
"On the night before the 4th and 5th of August a violent hailstorm
burst over Lake St. Louis, an expansion of the St. Lawrence, a little
above Montreal. Concealed by the tempest and the darkness, 1,500
warriors landed at Lachine and silently posted themselves about the
houses of the sleeping settlers, then screeched the war whoop and
began the most frightful massacre in Canadian history. The houses were
burned and men, women and children indiscriminately butchered. In the
neighbourhood were three stockade forts, called Rémy, Rolland and La
Présentation; and they all had garrisons. There was also an encampment
of 200 regulars about three miles distant, under an officer named
Subercasse, then absent from Montreal on a visit to Denonville, who
had lately arrived with his wife and family. At four o'clock in the
morning the troops in this encampment heard a cannon shot from one of
the forts. They were at once ordered under arms. Soon after, they saw
a man running toward them just escaped from the butchery. He told
his story and passed on with the news to Montreal, six miles distant.
Then several fugitives appeared, chased by a band of Iroquois who gave
up the pursuit at sight of the soldiers but pillaged several houses
before their eyes. The day was well advanced before Subercasse arrived.
He ordered the troops to march. About a hundred armed inhabitants had
joined them and they moved together toward Lachine. Here they found the
houses still burning and the bodies of the inmates strewn among them
or hanging from the stakes where they had been tortured. They learned
from a French surgeon, escaped from the enemy, that the Iroquois were
all encamped a mile and a half further on, behind a tract of forest.
Subercasse, whose force had been strengthened by troops from the forts,
resolved to attack them; and had he been allowed to do so, he would
probably have punished them severely, for most of them were hopelessly
drunk with brandy taken from the houses of the traders. Sword in hand,
at the head of his men, the daring officer entered the forest; but
at that moment a voice from the rear commanded him to halt. It was
that of the Chevalier de Vaudreuil, just come from Montreal, with
positive orders from Denonville to run no risks and stand solely on the
defensive. Subercasse was furious. High words passed between him and
Vaudreuil, but he was forced to obey.
[Illustration: ALGONQUINS
(From the Hébert group before the Palais Legislatif, Quebec.)]
[Illustration: WAR DANCE]
"The troops were led back to Fort Rolland, where about five hundred
regulars and militia were now collected under command of Vaudreuil. On
the next day eighty men from Fort Rémy attempted to join them, but the
Iroquois had slept off the effects of their orgies and were again on
the alert. The unfortunate detachment was set upon by a host of savages
and cut to pieces in full sight of Fort Rolland. All were killed or
captured except Le Moyne de Longueuil, and a few others who escaped
within the gate of Fort Rémy.
"Montreal was wild with terror. It had been fortified with palisades
since the war began and though there were troops in the town under the
governor himself, the people were in mortal dread. No attack was made
either on the town or on any of the forts, and such of the inhabitants
who could reach them were safe while the Iroquois held undisputed
possession of the open country, burned all the houses and barns over
an extent of nine miles, and roamed in small parties pillaging and
scalping over more than twenty miles. There is no mention of their
having encountered opposition, nor do they seem to have met with any
loss but that of some warriors killed in the attack on the detachment
from Fort Rémy, and that of three drunken stragglers who were caught
and thrown into a cellar in Fort La Présentation. When they came to
their senses they defied their captors and fought with such ferocity
that it was necessary to shoot them. Charlevoix says that the invaders
remained in the neighbourhood of Montreal till the middle of October,
or for more than two months. But this seems incredible, since troops
and militia enough to drive them all into the St. Lawrence might easily
have been collected in less than a week. It is certain, however, that
their stay was strangely long. Troops and inhabitants seemed to have
been paralyzed with fear. At length the most of them took to their
canoes and recrossed Lake St. Louis in a body, giving ninety yells
to show that they had ninety prisoners in their clutches. This was
not all, for the whole number carried off was more than a hundred
and twenty, besides about two hundred who had the good fortune to be
killed on the spot. As the Iroquois passed the forts they shouted:
'Onontio! You deceived us! And now we have deceived you!' Towards
evening they encamped on the farther side of the lake and began to
torture and devour their prisoners. On that miserable night, stupefied
and speechless groups stood gazing from the strand of the Lachine at
the lights that gleamed along the distant shore of Chateauguay, where
their friends, wives, parents or children agonized in the fires of
the Iroquois and scenes were enacted of indescribable and nameless
horror. The greater part of the prisoners were, however, reserved to be
distributed among the towns of the confederacy and there tortured for
the diversion of the inhabitants. While some of the invaders went home
to celebrate their triumph others roamed in small parties through all
the upper parts of the colony, spreading universal terror."[143]
NOTE
THE EXPLOIT AT THE RIVIERE DES PRAIRIES, 1690
Since writing the last chapter important facts almost forgotten
concerning the brilliant exploit against the Iroquois at the Rivière
des Prairies, which almost rivals that of Dollard's companions at
the Long Sault, have been made public by Mr. E. Z. Massicotte in
the "Canadian Antiquarian and Numismatic Journal" No. 3, 1914. The
intendant, Champigny, had officially and briefly reported it and
it had been also commented on sparsely or inaccurately by Ferland,
"Histoire du Canada," Volume II, pp. 209-210, by de Belmont, "Histoire
du Canada," and by Tanguay in his "Dictionnaire" and in a mémoire
attributed to deLery. From these authorities and the study of the
registers of Pointe aux Trembles for 1690 and 1694 Mr. Massicotte
has been enabled to reconstruct the story and identify the heroes.
Four days after the horrible hecatomb of Lachine, i.e., on the 9th of
August, 1689, the Iroquois, emboldened by their success, spread over
the island of Montreal and below it they massacred Pierre Dagenets dit
Lespine and probably burned his wife, Anne Brandon, whose disappearance
is recorded at this time. They also besieged the mill of Rivière des
Prairies recently constructed. But this was only by way of prelude.
In the spring of 1690 the Indians, who had sown terror the preceding
year, now probably on their way to combine with Phipps in the attack
on Quebec, invaded anew the neighbourhood of Montreal and committed
several acts of brigandage. On the 2d of July, warned of the presence
of Iroquois on the Rivière des Prairies, some inhabitants of Pointe aux
Trembles, under the command of Sieur de Colombet, a former lieutenant,
went to meet the enemy. Posted near the river, they fired on the
marauders and killed four of their men in a canoe. The Iroquois,
numbered a hundred, and as the opposing force of _habitants_ formed
only a little group of twenty to twenty-five, Champigny's account "le
combat fut rude" was very descriptive. Sixteen of the French remained
on the field dead or taken prisoners. The rest in all haste partook
themselves for safety to the little fort not far distant. The enemy
lost thirty warriors and made their way to Ile Jésus to burn some
of their captives; the rest they carried away to suffer the like
fate, with the exception of one, whom Father Pierre Millet, himself
a prisoner among the Onneyouts at the time, records as having been
spared. Such was the fear of the lurking Iroquois that the eight bodies
were buried in all haste on the field of glory, but on November 2,
1694, the registry of Pointe aux Trembles tells us the bodies were
exhumed and reburied together in consecrated ground.
The list of the slain is as follows: (1) De Colombet, commandant; (2)
Joseph de Maintenon, Sieur de la Rue; (3) Jean Gallot, surgeon; (4)
Guillaume Richard, dit Lafleur, Captain, "de la Milice" de Pointe aux
Trembles; (5) Joseph Cartier, dit Larose; (6) Jean Baudoin (fils); (7)
Pierre Marsta (fils); (8) Jean Delpne, dit Parisot; (9) Nicholas Joly;
(10) A hired man of one Beauchamp; (11) Isaac, a soldier.
Made prisoners and burnt: (12) Jean Rainaud, dit Planchard; (13) Jean
Grou; (14) Paschange; (15) Le Bohême.
Made prisoners and released: (16) Pierre Payet, dit St. Amour; (17)
Wounded, probably, Antoine Chaudillon, surgeon.
FOOTNOTES:
[138] On October 31 Dongan wrote to Denonville demanding that these
Iroquois should be surrendered to the English ambassador at Paris. On
August 10, 1689, Denonville wrote to France begging the King to send
back the captured Indians to Canada, and on October 15, 1689, thirteen
Iroquois returned with Frontenac--all that remained of those sent to
the galleys.
[139] Bibaud, "Histoire du Canada," following Charlevoix.
[140] This scandalous act of treachery on the part of a Christian
nation was bewailed by the Abbé de Belmont, the Montreal Sulpician
and historian who was present on this expedition. "It is pitiable,"
he wrote, "that the Indians under our protection were thus seized,
pillaged and chained, seduced under the bait of a feast." And he adds,
"If in the beginning we were too violent, we were too weak and humble
at the close."
[141] Kingsford, History of Canada, Vol. II, 87.
[142] This expedition was meant to be a serious check to the English
pretensions of supremacy over the Iroquois. A memoir of this period
shows the claims of the French as follows: That the Iroquois had
submitted in 1604; that Champlain had taken possession of their lands
in the name of the King; that they had declared themselves to be the
subjects of France in the treaty with M. de Tracy in 1655-6, and that
the subsequent treaty of the Iroquois with the English in 1684 could
not prevail against rights already acquired. Frontenac and de Callières
were to attack Orange and if that expedition succeeded, they were to
attack Manhattan and M. de Vaudreuil was to undertake the government in
their absence.
[143] Bibaud, in his "Histoire du Canada," says that "the Island of
Montreal was not free from the presence of these ferocious enemies
(the Iroquois) until the middle of October when Denonville sent Duluth
and de Mantet, well accompanied, to the Lake of Two Mountains to make
certain whether the retreat of the Iroquois was real or only simulated.
These officers met twenty-two Iroquois in two canoes, who came to
attack them with much determination. They withstood the first gunshots
without firing but after that they boarded them and killed eighteen. Of
the few that remained, one saved himself by swimming, but the others
were taken prisoners and given over to the fire of the Indian allies."
CHAPTER XXX
1689-1698
MONTREAL PROWESS AT HOME AND ABROAD
FRONTENAC'S SECOND TERM OF GOVERNMENT
FRONTENAC RETURNS--REVIEW AT MONTREAL--INDIANS FROM THE GALLEYS
SENT WITH PEACE OVERTURES--NEW ENGLAND TO BE ATTACKED--THE
MONTREAL LEADERS--THREE SUCCESSFUL EXPEDITIONS--RETALIATION
MEDITATED BY THE ENGLISH--TRADE FLOWING BACK TO MONTREAL--THE
GRAND COUNCIL IN THE MARKET--FRONTENAC LEADS THE WAR DANCE--JOHN
SCHUYLER'S PARTY AGAINST MONTREAL RETIRES--SIR WILLIAM PHIPPS
SEIZES QUEBEC--THE MONTREAL CONTINGENT--PETER SCHUYLER DEFEATED AT
LA PRAIRIE--THE COLONY IN DIRE DANGER--MADELEINE DE VERCHERES, HER
DEED OF ARMES--THE EXPEDITION VIA CHAMBLY--ARRIVAL OF FURS FROM
MICHILLIMACKINAC--FRONTENAC, THE SAVIOUR OF THE COUNTRY--MONTREAL
PROWESS EAST AND WEST--A PLEIAD OF MONTREAL NAMES--THE LE MOYNE
FAMILY--NEWFOUNDLAND--HUDSON'S BAY--FORT FRONTENAC AGAIN--THE
DEATH OF FRONTENAC.
On arriving at Quebec on October 25, 1689, Frontenac, learning that the
colony was seized with a sort of paralysis caused by discouragement and
stupor, set out by the boats for Montreal in spite of the incessant
rains, and he found it a scene of desolation and dejection,[144] after
the disaster of Lachine. Frontenac was now a man of seventy years,
but it was felt that with all his imperious failings, now mellowed by
age, he possessed in a high degree, military knowledge and valour and
was the man to meet the desperate state of affairs. Encouraged by the
consciousness of this, he accordingly left the gay court of Louis XIV,
_le Soleil_, determined to prove his loyal attachment to his prince. On
his arrival he was ostensibly welcomed on all hands. And on his part
he was mindful of his charge dated June 7, 1689, to forget his former
dissensions and to govern with moderation and wisdom and to favour the
clergy, although he was to keep an eye on the Jesuits.
At Montreal he reviewed the troops, seven or eight hundred of whom were
in garrison, the rest being scattered in the forts. Having restored
confidence, he turned his attention quickly toward conciliating or
subduing the Iroquois. His first move was to send a deputation to
Onondaga from "the great Onontio, who as you all know has come back
again." With it he sent three of the released Indians whom he had
brought back from the galleys of France, to invite them to meet the
Onontio at Fort Frontenac and to give back allegiance. These overtures
were spurned.
Later came news to Montreal from Father Carheil, the Jesuit, saying
that the Huron and Ottawa tribes, their allies, around Michillimackinac
were on the point of revolt, going over to the Iroquois and the
English. Nicholas Perrot was sent with a haughty message. "I am strong
enough," says Onontio, "to kill the English, destroy the Iroquois and
whip you if you fail in your duty." A temporary peace was secured by
the adroitness of Nicholas Perrot.
Frontenac now turned his attention to the English and planned his
descent on Albany and the border settlements of New Hampshire and
Maine. Of the three war parties of picked men, organized at Quebec,
Three Rivers and Montreal, the latter, which was to attack Maine, was
first ready, consisting of 210 men, ninety-six of whom were Christian
Iroquois from Sault St. Louis or the Mountain settlement, and the rest
being hardy and venturesome bush rangers skilled in woodcraft and
Indian warfare. Their leaders were men equal to the task, d'Ailleboust
de Mantet and Le Moyne de St. Hélène. Other brave sons of Charles Le
Moyne also supported them, Le Moyne d'Iberville, Le Moyne de Bienville
and others of the _noblesse_, men of nerve, and adventurous.
"It was the depth of winter," says Parkman, "when they began their
march, striding on snowshoes over the vast white field of the frozen
St. Lawrence, each with the hood of his blanket coat drawn over his
head, a gun in his mittened hand, a knife, a hatchet, a tobacco pouch
and a bullet pouch at his belt, a pack over his shoulders and his
inseparable pipe hung at his neck in a leather case. They dragged their
blankets and provisions over the snow on Indian sledges."
They crossed to Chambly. How on February 8, 1690, this party (Montreal
losing but two men) put Corlaer (Schenectady), about fifteen miles from
Albany and the furthest outpost of the colony of New York, to massacre
and ashes, and finally, although victorious, had to retreat to Montreal
across the ice of Lake Champlain, worn out and closely pursued almost
to the very gates of the town by Iroquois and fifty men from Albany,
so that fifteen or more of a party of stragglers were killed or taken
prisoners, it is not necessary to relate in detail, nor is it necessary
to recount the furthest story of the universal war now kindled like
wildfire. The three expeditions were, however, victorious.
Retaliation was being prepared by the Iroquois and the English during
the spring. A combined attack was to be made on Canada. The colonial
militia of New York were to meet at Albany and thence advance on
Montreal by way of Lake Champlain; Massachusetts and the other New
England states were to attack Quebec under Sir William Phipps, the
former coarse ship-carpenter, rough sailor-captain and brusque governor
of Massachusetts, proud of his obscure origin and his career as a
self-made man, blunt in speech and manner, doubtfully honest in private
dealing, but believing that all was fair in war and business, patriotic
and devoted withal to New England.
While these hostile preparations against Quebec and Montreal were being
matured, Frontenac was at Quebec, sparring with the council as to the
degree of dignity with which he was to be received at the meetings
of the Supreme Council when he should visit it for the first time.
Then he turned his attention to _saving_ the country, which was his
_forte_, strengthening the rear of Quebec, fortifying the settlements
and keeping strong scouting parties in Montreal to guard the settlers,
who were being occasionally broken in upon and burned and butchered as
of old, by the war parties of their hereditary enemies, the Iroquois.
Then, late in July, he left for Montreal, the chief point of danger,
and with him went the Intendant Champigny, leaving Town Major Prevost
to finish the fortifications of Quebec.
Montreal was reached on July 31st. A few days of August had passed when
the commandant of Fort Lachine came in hot haste to report that Lake
St. Louis was "full of canoes," as Frontenac wrote to the minister on
November 9th and 12th. Fright gave way to pleasure when it was found
that it was a friendly party of 300 Indians coming with 110 canoes,
laden with beaver skins to the value of nearly a hundred thousand
crowns from the upper lakes, descending from Michillimackinac to trade
at Montreal. A few days later La Durantaye, the recent commander of
Michillimackinac, arrived with fifty-five more canoes loaded with
valuable furs and manned by French traders. The trade was flowing back
from the English market to Montreal.[145] Frontenac was in high feather
at the success of his policy, at least with the lake tribes.
Soon a grand council was prepared to precede the market, according to
custom. Such a crowd there was of painted, greased and befeathered
Hurons, Ottawas, Ojibways, Pottawattomies, Crees and Nipissings,
mingling with the officials and traders around Frontenac. They talked
of trade and war and politics, and they exhorted one another to fight
the English and the Iroquois to the death. Then old Frontenac took a
hatchet and brandishing it sang the war song and led the war dance, in
which all the motley crowd joined, like a screeching mass of frenzied
madmen, possessed by devils it would seem to judge by their wild
contortions. Nor did Onontio lose caste with the Indians; he knew his
people and he gained in estimation with them. Then came the solemn war
feast--two oxen and six large dogs chopped into pieces and basted with
prunes, and two barrels of wine and plenty of tobacco.
During the market days following there was an alarm of Iroquois and
English coming down the Richelieu to attack Montreal. To La Prairie
went Frontenac with 1,200 men to meet the attack. But he did not find
the expected assailants; so leaving a small force he returned to
Montreal and paid the final courtesies to his Indian guests, with whom
he had ingratiated himself.
Hard on their departure, news came from La Prairie that the expected
assailants had arrived and fallen on the soldiers and inhabitants as
they were reaping in the fields, twenty-five being killed or captured,
cattle being destroyed and houses burned. The news was quickly boomed
around by the answering guns of Chambly, La Prairie and Montreal.
Little damage was done, for it was but a small remnant, under Captain
John Schuyler, of the vaunted expedition against Montreal, which had
been reduced by dissension and disease; it soon retired.
On the 10th of October Major Prevost sent a note from Quebec telling of
the advance of Sir William Phipps' navy against Quebec. That evening
Frontenac departed for Quebec by canoe, ordering 200 men to follow
him. On the next day a fresh message from Prevost confirmed the former
saying that the English fleet was already above Tadoussac. Frontenac
sent back Captain de Ramezay to de Callières, the governor of Montreal,
bidding him to descend to Quebec with all the force at his disposal,
and to beat up the inhabitants on the way to join the muster. He
arrived in Quebec on October 14th and on the 16th Phipps entered the
harbour.
We must resist the temptation to describe the defence of Quebec. One
incident in the siege, which must be related, is the arrival, on the
evening of October 16th, of the Montreal contingent, the noise of
the welcome in Upper Town being heard by Phipps as his vessels were
lying idly at their moorings down below. The officers asked a French
prisoner, Granville, the meaning of the noise. "Ma foi! Messieurs,"
said he, "You have lost the game. It is the governor of Montreal
arriving with the people from the country above. There is nothing for
you now but to pack and go home."
The Montreal contingent was a powerful body of 800 men, regulars and
_coureurs de bois_ and gay young volunteers spoiling for the fight.
Nearly all the manhood of Canada was gathered in the precincts of the
fortressed rock of Quebec. Finally, on October 24th, Phipps retired
behind the Island of Orleans to mend his rigging and repair his ships.
His expedition was a failure. To this the Montrealers had largely
contributed. Among their noblesse were the gallant sons of Le Moyne,
who distinguished themselves, although Jacques Le Moyne de Ste.
Hélène died of the wounds received in the siege, a great loss to the
colony, for he was, says Charlevoix, one of its bravest knights and
citizens. When Louis XIV wrote on the 7th of May, 1691, to Frontenac
and Champigny, the intendant, the king gave Le Moyne de Longueuil,
and his brother, de Maricourt, commands of companies and a promise of
good things in store for d'Iberville and a commission to undertake the
enterprise of Fort Nelson and Hudson Bay to drive the English away.
Later de Callières and others were to be remembered by the king for
their good services. Frontenac himself received a gratification of
6,000 _livres_, which no doubt he needed, for he had consumed all his
property.
Next spring, that of 1691, the Iroquois, after the winter hunting,
gathered at the mouth of the Ottawa, and parties went forth to harass
the settlements. Soon Pointe aux Trembles and the Mountain Mission were
attacked. Near Fort Repentigny, young François de Bienville, one of Le
Moyne's sons, was killed in an attack of the marauders.
In midsummer, a detachment of 266 men--120 English and Dutch and the
rest Iroquois allies--under Major Peter Schuyler, advancing upon
Montreal, met the French at La Prairie de la Madeleine, opposite
Montreal. Thither, de Callières had moved. At first the English had the
day, but owing to the intrepid conduct of Valrennes they were forced
to flee. For before reaching their canoes on the Richelieu they were
intercepted by Valrennes, who gave Schuyler's party, according to
Frontenac's statement, "the most hot and stubborn fight ever known in
Canada."
Thus, was Montreal and Canada in a state of great trial in the summer
of 1691 and the year of 1692. Frontenac wrote home, "What with fighting
and hardship, our troops and militia are wasting away. The enemy is
upon us by sea and land. Send us a thousand men next spring, if you
want the country to be saved. We are perishing by inches; the people
are in the depth of poverty; the war has doubled prices, so that nobody
can live; many families are without bread. The inhabitants desert the
country and crowd into the towns."
The fortifications of Montreal and Quebec needed strengthening but
there was little money to further the work. Still something was done.
The country round Montreal during these years of 1691 and 1692 was in
fear and trembling. The farmers worked in the fields with sentinels,
and a guard of regulars protected them, and at night they shivered
in their huts in the rudely fashioned palisaded stockades reared to
protect them. Their anger was so great that fearful reprisals took
place. At Montreal a number of Iroquois captured by Vaudreuil were
burned at the demand of the Canadians and the Mission Indians.
It was a troublous time around Montreal and even the women and children
were called upon to fight. A picture has been preserved to us in the
heroic story of the defence, of Fort Verchères, eight leagues from
Montreal, by Madeleine de Verchères, the fourteen-year-old daughter
of the seigneur of the place, who by her wonderful presence of mind,
coolness and courage saved the lives of a number of women and children,
two soldiers, her young brothers, aged twelve and ten, and an old man
and kept the Iroquois at bay holding the fort for a week in the absence
of her father at Quebec and her mother at Montreal. Then help arrived
after the firing had been heard from Montreal and the Iroquois were
driven off by the relief force from Montreal under M. de la Monnerie at
the head of forty men.[146]
This deed of arms, beginning at eight o'clock in the morning of October
22, 1696, deserves to be commemorated among the noblest actions of
heroic womanhood. There is room for the painter, the romancist, or
the sculptor, justly to celebrate the glory of a national heroine in
Marie-Madeleine de Verchères.
In 1693, in January, a great expedition which was largely followed
by the Mission Indians of Sault St. Louis (Caughnawaga) and the
Mountain, those from Lorette at Quebec, Abenakis from the Chaudière
and Algonquins from Three Rivers, left Chambly on snowshoes for the
Iroquois towns--a party of 625 men under Mantet, Courtemanche and Noue.
On February 16th they took three of these towns.
This year, there was again great rejoicing in Montreal. Frontenac
had planned to escort the Indians with their furs to Montreal from
Michillimackinac, and he came to Montreal to witness their arrival with
canoes plentifully filled with beaver skins, the escort being under
Commandant de Louvigny. Frontenac was the hero of the hour. "It is
impossible," says the Chronicle, "to conceive the joys of the people
when they beheld these riches. Canada had awaited them for years. The
merchants and the farmers were dying of hunger. Credit was gone and
everybody was afraid that the enemy would waylay and seize this last
resource of the country. Therefore, it was that none could find words
strong enough to praise and bless him, by whose care all the wealth had
arrived. _Father of the people, Preserver of the Country_, seemed terms
too weak to express their gratitude."[147]
We are not writing the history of Canada or of Frontenac, consequently
we must pass over much contemporary history of this period. But we
may be rightfully concerned with the history of notable Montrealers
then consolidating New France. During the latter administration of
Frontenac, Montreal's sons reached the height of their careers. These
latter were here, there, and everywhere, engaging in the struggle for
mastery in the West or for that of Hudson's Bay, or of Newfoundland or
lastly of Acadia--these four regions all coming under the government
of Frontenac and each of them being largely influenced by the Canadian
noblesse whose center was at Montreal.
In the West, on the banks of the Mississippi, among the Illinois,
there were to be found men who had at one time or other made Montreal
their headquarters, and who had taken their share in the discovery
of the Great River and had founded posts and cities and colonies and
had become the governors of provinces such as that of Louisiana,
which from 1678 to 1754 was ruled by d'Iberville, de Bienville, La
Motte-Cardillac, and de Vaudreuil. Men like La Salle, the sons of
Charles Le Moyne, the Montreal interpreter, viz., d'Iberville, de
Bienville, de Sérigny, de Chateauguay; de Tonti, du Luth, de la Forêt
and others--a pleiad of illustrious Montreal names--men of courage
and audacity--are not only captains of whom any city may be proud but
they belong to the history of the Continent of North America. Their
discoveries, their adventures, their exploits, oftentimes heroic, are
recorded in the pages of history, dealing with regions stretching from
Hudson's Bay and Newfoundland to the Gulf of Mexico.
[Illustration: CHATEAU DE LONGUEUIL]
[Illustration: HUDSON BAY]
It is often forgotten that Montreal is the Mother of the West. These
men, living in a time of faith, hope, and romantic chivalry, held their
lives in daily peril, exposed themselves to unheard of privations led
on by the desire, for glory or for gain, of conquering the unknown and
acquiring territories for their beloved France and for the expansion
of Christendom.[148] Thus they rose above the ranks of mere soldiers
of fortune, vulgar adventurers, or careless _coureurs de bois_. We
are fascinated by the story of their wanderings accompanied by their
Jesuit, Récollet or Sulpician chaplains,[149] to primeval forests and
plains, over lofty mountain peaks and through deep dales, nowploring
mines of copper or land on the Mississippi or restlessly crossing
the mighty rivers and lakes in their birch bark canoes or their flat
bottomed bateaux; now as hunters or fishermen, sometimes in want and
disease, but always gay; now trading in skins or acting as captains
of vessels of war, or as commanders defending their far off posts,
or attacking the Iroquois or the rival English. An atmosphere of the
marvelous and heroic surrounds these makers of Canada and creates
in one the desire to relate their histories and their wanderings by
land and water, in detail. Out of all these one family stands out
preëminently--that of Charles Le Moyne, settled in Montreal since 1646.
He was the father of eleven sons, of whom the third, Pierre Le Moyne,
d'Iberville (born in Montreal in 1662), was the most famous. Others
were de Longueuil, de Sérigny, de Maricourt, d'Assigny, Ste. Hélène,
the two Chateauguays, the two Bienvilles and Antoine Le Moyne, who died
young--types of the hardy Canadian _noblesse_.
[Illustration: FRANÇOIS LE MOYNE DE BIENVILLE]
[Illustration: LE MOYNE D'IBERVILLE]
Seven of these sons lived long enough to die heroically on the field
of battle or to become distinguished administrators of the colonies.
These were native born and of obscure parentage, yet they aspired to
positions which were in those days rarely given but to those of noble
birth coming from France. From all these notable sons, d'Iberville
stands out giantlike; his actions being almost legendary in their
records of heroism.
We now treat of his invasion of Newfoundland made conjointly with de
Sérigny, his brother, after he had seized a frigate of twenty-four
cannons at the entrance of the River St. Jean and captured Pemaquid
on August 15, 1696, whither he had sailed in command of the Envieux;
thence he sailed again to Placentia in Newfoundland. There he set
out to take St. John, the chief port of the English, which he burned
to the ground. During the winter he led a hardy party through hamlet
after hamlet--each man provided with a musket, a battle axe, a dagger
knife and snowshoes, and when the spring of 1697 opened all the
English posts were destroyed according to orders received from the
minister dated March 31, 1696, except those of Bona Vista and the
Island of Carbonnière. Thus the safety from invasion of Canada by
the English was hoped to be rendered secure. When d'Iberville had
returned to Placentia, of which he had been appointed governor in
advance, as well as of all the posts seized by him, and was preparing
to attack the two remaining British strongholds, his brother de Sérigny
arrived, commissioner by the king in the March previously to thrust
the English from Hudson's Bay. With him came five ships of war, the
Pelican, the Palmier, the Profond, the Violent and the Wasp; the
latter with the Dragon, not arrived apparently, was for d'Iberville.
Sérigny's instructions were to take the advice of his brother, who
was undertaking the expense of the expedition. He was to destroy all
the English forts in the bay and to leave no vestiges of them; the
prisoners were to be sent to France or even England. It was to be a war
of extermination of English influence and a strife for the possession
by New France of the fur trade. Fort Bourbon (Fort York of today),
or Fort Nelson, as the English called it, was the chief object of
attack. Already the two brothers had captured it, three years before,
but it had been retaken by the English, to whom it was valuable as it
commanded the fur trade of the interior. How d'Iberville, sailing on
the Pelican, and Sérigny on the Palmier after storms arrived at the
bay and steered mid the threatening ice of the bay into the open sea
to Fort Nelson, 300 miles of those bleak inland waters, and how he
triumphed over ice and storms and the English, this also takes us too
far from Montreal to describe with justice.
Suffice it to say, this glorious campaign assured France for many
years of the possession of the countries of the north and the intrepid
sailor commandant left in a few days for Europe, leaving his brother
de Sérigny in command of the bay. On November 7th he reached the
shores of France and having obtained from the government permission to
reconnoitre the mouths of the Mississippi, he left in 1698 and never
saw Canada again.
Léon Guérin in his "Histoire Maritime de France," draws this picture
of d'Iberville: "He was a hero in the full significance of the
expression." He adds, "If his campaigns, prodigious in their results,
obtained by the most feeble materials, had had Europe for their
witness, instead of the echoless seas bounding the neighbourhood of the
pole, he would have had, in life and after death, a name as celebrated
as those of Jean Bart, Duguay, Trouin and des Tourvilles."
We must now turn to the conquest of the West which was being planned
by Frontenac and the success of which meant continued prosperity
for Montreal as the centre of the paltry trade rather than Albany.
La Motte-Cardillac at Michillimackinac, Tonti and La Forêt at the
fortified rock of St. Louis on the Illinois, Nicholas Perrot, the
_voyageur_, among the Mississippi tribes--all were trying to keep
their allies at peace with one another and the French. Frontenac was
determined to strike a blow up west against the resolute Iroquois who
were the scourge of Canada, supplied with arms from Albany. Things
had been going so badly that a memoir to Champigny and Frontenac on
May 26th tells how the king for the present had decided to abandon
Michillimackinac and all the posts of the West, to withdraw all the
congés to the _coureurs de bois_ and to return to the ancient custom of
relying on the savages themselves to bring their peltries to Montreal.
On April 21, 1697, the king wrote to Frontenac from Marly, arranging
for him to attack Boston and perhaps Manhattan; but on April 27th,
while still outlining the same offensive measures against the English,
he allowed the posts of Michillimackinac, St. Louis and Frontenac to
be continued but forbade the soldiers to trade there. Meanwhile he
had been considering Frontenac's plan of attacking the Iroquois, and
it had his entire approval, expressed in his letter written next day.
These conflicting instructions probably arrived by the same ship.
Champigny and others had been writing to the king and directing his
various policies. Fort Frontenac--his darling first love--it was the
cherished hope of the governor to re-establish and repair. Others
opposed him and wrote to the minister, who informed Frontenac that
Fort Frontenac "must absolutely be abandoned." The letter arrived the
day after the governor had sent 700 men to Lake Ontario to repair it.
The Intendant Champigny wanted their early recall, but the inflexible
Frontenac refused and the fort was repaired, garrisoned and victualed
for a year. It would have been a blunder to give up these forest posts.
They were necessary for the trade and the growth of the country. The
early isolation of the colony could never be repeated. On July 4,
1697, 200 men set out with Frontenac from Montreal and on July 19th
he reached Frontenac. With him was de Callières, suffering from the
gout and mounted on a horse, commanding the first line, and Vaudreuil
the second, as they marched to Onondaga, with the aged governor
carried in an armchair when they reached it; they found it burned by
the inhabitants, who had saved themselves by flight. The campaign was
not successful. Frontenac had not delivered his blow; but it was the
forerunner of the peace of 1701 with the Iroquois, for they feared the
old indefatigable man.
Early in May, 1698, a party of Dutch with "Sieur Abraham," an Iroquois,
arrived in Montreal with the news that peace had been declared in
Europe and at the end of May, Major Peter Schuyler arrived accompanied
by Delius, the minister of Albany, with a copy of the treaty of
Ryswick[150] in French and Latin and bringing back French prisoners in
exchange for English, who nearly all preferred to remain. But the
Iroquois free nations still remained unpacified and Frontenac was again
prepared to direct his force against them to press the French claims to
sovereignty over them as opposed to those of the British.
On November 22d the aged governor, now in his seventy-eighth year and
seized with a mortal illness, was strong enough to make his last will
and testament. On the 28th he died, having become reconciled to the
Intendant Champigny, who wrote that the governor had died with the
sentiments of a true Christian. He was buried by his desire on the
Friday after his death in the church of the Recollects at Quebec, whom
he had favoured so considerably. His great faults were overtowered
by his many eminent qualities. He was the greatest captain in the
seventeenth century in Canada. The Jesuit historian, Charlevoix, says:
"New France owed to him all that it was at his death," "He found the
colony enfeebled," says another cleric historian, Abbé Gauthier,
"attacked on all sides, despised by its enemies; he left it in peace,
increased and respected; again he has been called the Saviour of New
France." He had succeeded in suppressing the Iroquois and had warred
successfully against the English. He had encouraged and upheld the
expedition of that brave son of Montreal, d'Iberville, in Acadia,
Newfoundland and at Hudson's Bay and the enterprises of that intrepid
explorer, La Salle, in the West; surely, he merits a tribute in the
history of Montreal!
NOTE
We are indebted for the story of Madeleine de Verchères to a document
found in the "Collection Moreau Saent-Mery," Vol. 6, entitled,
"Relation des faits Héroïques de Mademoiselle Marie Madeleine de
Verchères (âgée de 14 ans) contre les Iroquois en l'année 1692, le 22
Octobre à huit heures du matin." This description was made by Madeleine
Verchères herself on the request of the intendant (named April 1,
1702), M. le Marquis de Beauharnois, arriving from France to take
possession of his office. The event it seems had caused a stir at court
and therefore a more detailed account was desired. In a previous letter
written on October 15, 1699, a modest account of the story had been
told accompanying a petition to Madame la Comtesse de Maurepas, wife
of the secretary of the marine department, requesting a pension of 50
crowns, as was commonly given to the widows of officers, in view of her
father's poverty--"he has been fifty-five years in the King's service."
In default she asked the promotion of one of her brothers, a cadet in
the army, to be an ensign. "He knows service, he has been engaged in
several expeditions against the Iroquois. I have even had one of my
brothers burned by them." Thus even the very young fought. This young
cadet was then only about nineteen years of age. At this period many
of the sons of the noblesse were sent to France to enter the army or
navy as cadets. There are to be found complaints from the ministers of
these departments that youths as young as thirteen and fifteen years
are being sent. These youths were early accustomed to bear arms; hence
the haste to get into the regular service and to obtain commissions.
D'Iberville was only fourteen years of age when he entered the French
navy, and only twenty-five when he was sent by Denonville to Hudson's
Bay.
The following version of the story of Madeleine de Verchères, based on
her own description above, may be fitly recorded here. Not far from
Montreal and the St. Lawrence stands the Village of Verchères, near
which was the scene of Madeleine Jarret's heroism. In early years that
countryside had been erected into a seigneury and at the time of the
exploit, Madeleine Jarret's father was the Seigneur of Verchères. The
defence of Verchères took place during the last week of October, 1692.
At the time Seigneur Jarret was in Quebec on official business and
his wife was in Montreal. The head of the household was the daughter
Madeleine, a girl of fourteen years, the other members of the family
in the fort being two brothers of Madeleine, who were mere lads, both
younger than herself. On the morning of October 22d, the inhabitants of
the seigneury went as usual to their work in the adjacent fields--and
most of them never to return--leaving in the fort Madeleine, her two
brothers, an old man of eighty and a number of women and children. Such
were the conditions at the Seigneury of Verchères when the Iroquois
suddenly burst upon the place.
[Illustration: MLLE. DE VERCHERES]
During the forenoon, Madeleine went down to the little wharf, or
landing place, not far from the fort, accompanied by a hired man named
La Violette. Suddenly the sounds of firing came from the direction of
the field where the settlers were at work, and the next instant the
servant, La Violette, cried out, "Run, run, here come the Iroquois!"
Turning, she saw forty or fifty Iroquois at a distance of a pistol
shot. She and the man made a dash for the fort, and seeing that they
could not overtake her, the Iroquois fired at the fleeting girl and
man, but missed both. Reaching the fort, she caused the gates to be
closed and fastened, and then set about making the place as secure as
possible. A few palisades had fallen, through which an Indian could
enter the enclosure. She helped to carry palisades, or pickets, to the
places where they were required, and assisted in setting them up.
Then Madeleine went to the blockhouse where the ammunition was kept and
here she said, "I found two soldiers, one hiding in a corner and the
other with a lighted fuse in his hand. 'What are you going to do with
that?' I asked. He answered: 'Light the powder and blow us all up.'
'You are a miserable coward,' said I, 'go out of this place.' I spoke
so resolutely that he obeyed. I then threw off my bonnet and, after
putting on a hat and taking a gun, I said to my brothers: 'Let us fight
to the death. We are fighting for our country. Remember that our father
has taught you that gentlemen are born to shed their blood for the
service of God and the King."
To understand fully the courage of this girl of fourteen, it must
be remembered that these words were addressed to mere lads, twelve
and ten years of age respectively. The brothers were worthy of their
heroic sister. They responded to the call, which also inspired the
two soldiers with some courage, for they took up their guns and began
firing from the loopholes upon the Iroquois, who, ignorant of the
weakness of the garrison, and always reluctant to attack a fortified
place, occupied themselves with chasing and butchering the people in
the neighbouring fields.
Shortly after the appearance of the Iroquois, a settler with his family
in a canoe, was seen approaching the landing. The soldiers would not
venture from the fort, so Madeleine went to the landing alone, and with
a musket in hand, escorted the family to the fort. The very boldness
of the affair caused the Iroquois to think it was a ruse to draw them
near the fort, so that the garrison could rush out upon them, and they
did not dare to attack Madeleine and those she was conducting to the
fort. The arrival of the settler added one to the fighting strength of
the garrison, and Madeleine now gave orders that the Iroquois should be
fired upon whenever seen within range. When night came on a gale began
to blow, accompanied by snow and hail; and the Iroquois hoped to be
able to climb into the fort under cover of darkness. Madeleine now made
the distribution of her small force, upon whose vigilance the lives
of all depended. The two soldiers she stationed in the blockhouse,
and as it was the strongest part of the post, she led there the women
and children. "If I am taken," she said to the two soldiers, "do not
surrender, even if I am cut to pieces and burned before your eyes. The
enemy cannot hurt you in the blockhouse, if you make the least show of
fight."
The outer and chief defence of the fort was a wooden wall, or palisade,
at each corner of which stood a small tower, or bastion. In two of
these towers Madeleine placed her two young brothers, in the third
tower she placed the old man of eighty, while she took the fourth tower
herself. All night long, through the howling wind and driving snow, the
cries of "All's Well" were kept up from the fort to the blockhouse.
"One would have thought," related Madeleine to Governor Beauharnois,
"that the place was full of soldiers. The Iroquois thought so, and were
completely deceived, as they confessed afterwards." They had held a
council to make a plan for capturing the fort in the night, but had
done nothing because such a constant watch was kept.
"At last, the daylight came again; and, as the darkness disappeared,
our anxiety seemed to disappear with it. Everybody took courage, except
the wife of Sieur Fontaine, who, being extremely timid, asked her
husband to carry her to another fort. He said: 'I will never abandon
this fort while Mademoiselle Madeleine is here.' I answered him that
I would never abandon it; that I would rather die than give it up to
the enemy; and that it was of the greatest importance that they (the
Iroquois) should never get possession of any French fort, because if
they got one, they would think that they could get others and would
grow more bold and presumptuous than ever. I may say with truth that I
did not eat or sleep for twice twenty-four hours, but kept always on
the bastion, or went to the blockhouse to see how the people there were
behaving. I always kept a cheerful and smiling face and encouraged my
little company with hope of speedy succour."
Seven days passed, and although the weather continued to be raw and
cold, the Iroquois kept the field, still hoping to be able to capture
the fort and scalp its garrison. "We were a week in constant alarm,
with the enemy always about us," relates Madeleine in her narrative to
Governor Beauharnois. "At last M. de la Monnerie, a lieutenant, sent
by M. de Callières (then commanding at Montreal), arrived in the night
with forty men. As he did not know whether the fort was taken or not,
he approached as silently as possible. One of our sentinels, hearing a
strange sound, cried out, 'Qui Vive?' I was at the time dozing, with
my head on a table and my gun lying across my arms. The sentinel told
me he heard a voice from the river. I went up at once to the bastion
to see whether it was Indians or Frenchmen. I asked, 'Who are you?'
One of them answered, 'We are Frenchmen, it is La Monnerie, who comes
to bring you help.' I caused the gate to be opened, placed a sentinel
there and went down to the river to meet them. As soon as I saw M. de
la Monnerie, I saluted him and said, 'Monsieur, I surrender my arms to
you.' He answered gallantly, 'Mademoiselle, they are in good hands.'
'Better than you think,' I returned. He inspected the fort and found
everything in order and a sentinel on each bastion. 'It is time to
relieve them, Monsieur,' I said, 'We have not been off our bastions for
a week.'"
So ended the siege of Verchères, for learning that the garrison had
received reinforcements, the Iroquois abandoned the undertaking, and
sneaked away to try their fortunes at other little posts, where there
might be a garrison numerically stronger.
FOOTNOTES:
[144] Montreal had now about 2,000 inhabitants.
[145] INDIAN TRADE IN MONTREAL IN 1689.
Differences of prices in the Indian trade at Montreal and Orange
(Albany), New York, in 1689:
_The Indian pays for_ _at Albany_ _at Montreal_
Eight-pounds of powder 1 beaver 4 beavers
A gun 2 " 5 "
Forty pounds of lead 1 " 3 "
A blanket of red cloth 1 " 2 "
A white blanket 1 " 2 "
Four shirts 1 " 2 "
Six pairs of stockings 1 " 2 "
"The English have no black or Brazilian tobacco, they sell that of
Virginia at discretion to the Indians.
"The other small wares, which the French truck with the Indians, are
supplied by the English in the market.
"The English give six quarts (pots) of _eau de vie_ for one beaver. It
is rum or spirits or, in other words, liquor distilled from the sugar
cane, imported from the West Indies. The French have no fixed rate in
trading brandy, some give more, some give less, but they never give as
much as a quart for a beaver. It depends on places and circumstances
and on the honesty of the French trader.
"Remark:--the English do not discriminate in the quality of the beaver;
they take all at the same rate, which is more than 50 per cent higher
than the French, there being besides more than 100 per cent difference
in the price of their trade and ours."
[146] Marie Madeleine Jarret de Verchères was born in April, 1678;
married Pierre Thomas Tarieu de la Naudière and M. de la Pérade
or Prade in 1722. A pension for life was given to her through the
intervention of Madame de Pontchartrain, wife of the minister. For the
story of the heroic defence and the relief from Montreal see note at
the end of the chapter.
[147] See Parkman, Frontenac, p. 316, and Parkman's note "Relation
de ce que s'est passé de plus remarquable au Canada, 1692, 1693,"
attributed to de Callières. Compare La Potherie, III, 185.
[148] On the Duluth building, at the southeast corner of Place d'Armes
Square, is a tablet:
"Here lived, in 1675, Daniel de Grésolon, Sieur Duluth, one of the
explorers of the Upper Mississippi, after whom the city of Duluth was
named." This was a rented house.
Duluth also lived on St. Paul Street South Side. The house was bought
by de Vaudreuil when constructing his _château_ hard by.
[149] 1640, June 28th, Hudson's Bay discovered by land by Albanel, a
Jesuit, afterward stationed at Montreal. 1647, July 16th, St. Johns
was discovered by de Quen, a Jesuit, afterwards stationed at Montreal.
1669, Dollier de Casson and de Galinée, both Sulpicians of Montreal,
take possession of lands on Lake Erie for Louis XIV. 1673, June
17th, the northern part of the Mississippi discovered by Joliet and
Marquette, a Jesuit, who started from Montreal. 1678, Niagara Falls
described by Hennepin, a Recollect, who started from Montreal.
[150] Treaty of Ryswick. This ended the great Anglo-French struggles
known as King William's War, which started in 1685.
CHAPTER XXXI
1688-1698
SOCIAL, CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS PROGRESS
THE PICKET ENCLOSURE--FORTIFICATIONS STRENGTHENED--GARRISON
JEALOUSIES--PRESEANCE--THE "CONGREGATION" BURNT DOWN--A POOR
LAW BOARD--TO QUEBEC ON FOOT--THE CHURCH OF THE "CONGREGATION"
ON FIRE--THE ENCLOSING OF A RECLUSE--THE JESUIT RESIDENCE--THE
RECOLLECTS--THE "PRIE DIEU" INCIDENT--MGR. DE ST. VALLIER'S
BENEFACTIONS--THE FRERES CHARON--FIRST GENERAL HOSPITAL--TECHNICAL
EDUCATION--THE SEMINARY BEING BUILT--SULPICIAN ADMINISTRATION--THE
MARKET PLACE. NOTE: THE GENTLEMEN OF THE SEMINARY.
The last chapter has treated of Montreal as the base of many military
operations under Frontenac and Callières and has followed the history
of some of its celebrated citizens. We must now survey the town at
closer range. As said, the inhabitants were virtually confined to the
picket enclosure, constructed by de Callières in 1687, yet the king
did not approve of enclosing Montreal with fortifications, thinking
that this expense would be better employed by strengthening the forts
in the West. (Vide mémoire du Roi à M. de Denonville et à Champigny,
Mars 5, 1688.) It is not till May 8, 1694, that the minister wrote to
de Callières saying he might repair the palisades.[151] In the garrison
petty jealousies and struggles for precedence were being maintained.
By an ordinance of Intendant Champigny of June 10, 1688, confirming
a previous one, it was decided that the officers of justice should
hold _préséance_ over the church wardens, both without and within the
church, such as the first places in receiving the _pain bénit_ and
the offertories on Sundays, the receiving of tapers on Candle-Mass
day and palms on Palm Sunday. The time was one of unsettlement and
of terrorized conditions, yet the religious communities were growing
stronger. In 1683 the home of the congregation founded by Marguerite
Bourgeoys had been burned down. Writing to the minister, Denonville
says: "They have lost everything. It would be necessary for them to
build, but they have not a penny to begin with." Yet they started
again, for, says Sister Juchereau in her "Histoire de Quebec:" "They
were so full of confidence in God, they began to build with only
forty _sous_ in their possession." Sister Morin, the historian of
the Hôtel-Dieu says: "After their second house, a stone one, had
been destroyed by fire, the Congregation nuns built a convent on the
site they still occupy; their house touches our enclosure, making us
neighbours; the house is large and spacious, and one of the best built
in town."
Monseigneur de St. Vallier, having seen the nuns some time after the
fire, remarks: "How they subsisted, since the accident befell them
three or four years ago, is truly a marvel. Their entire house was
burned in one night; they saved neither their furniture nor their
wardrobes, happy enough in this that they were themselves rescued; even
then two of their number perished in the flames. The courage of the
survivors bore them up in their extreme poverty." Again he wrote to
the minister of marine in this same year of a group of grown-up girls
to the number of twenty, called the Daughters of Providence, who were
trained and prepared for work by Sister Bourgeoys. He recommended that
a gratuity should be given them to undertake some manufacture.
In 1688 their mission of free and popular education was extended by
Marguerite Bourgeoys' trained workers to Quebec, at the invitation of
St. Vallier, who had bought a house with a yard and garden on November
13, 1686, as the initial step of a foundation and in 1688 the free
schools were opened for the smaller girls.
Those concerned with the history of the birth of philanthropic agencies
in city life will find of interest a decree of the Supreme Council
of Thursday, April 18, 1688, ordering a "Bureau des Pauvres," a Poor
Law Board, to be established in the towns of Quebec, Montreal and
Three Rivers, and other parishes dependent on them, and also in the
country parishes. The object was to discriminate between the honest
poor and the lazy shirkers and the ne'er-do-wells of the period. The
lengthy decree gives elaborate instructions for this purpose and
would delight modern charity organizers. It insists that work should
be carried on by the poor applying for relief. The directors should
be the curé; an executive director of the poor, to do the research
work by investigating into the real state and cause of the poverty
and to find work and to supervise the hiring of the poor and fixing
the remuneration; a third was to be the treasurer, who should keep
account of all the revenues coming from church collections, or public
canvasses for money or gifts in kind; a fourth should be the secretary,
who should keep the records and lists of those applying to the bureau
for assistance. These directors were to be on an equal footing, the
secretary to count their votes and the decisions to be signed by all
the directors present, two to form a _quorum_.
There does not seem to be any grant from the government for the support
of this voluntary charity organization society established by order
of the council, Christian charity and alms giving being, seemingly,
considered to suffice in providing its funds. The directors could,
according to circumstances, chastise the poor by imprisonment in the
dungeon on a bread and water diet, or by retrenchment on their victuals
for a time, according to the enlightenment of the said directors, to
whom the council, under the good pleasure of His Majesty, gives the
power for the case required. Prohibitions were also issued to all
the poor and necessitous against begging under any pretext whatever,
on pain of such punishment as should be adjudged by the council.
The directors were to put themselves in touch with the procurator
general or his substitutes in each jurisdiction. Thus the volunteer
and official sides of civic philanthropy were brought together--an
admirable combination to be more widely imitated these days.
In order to start the new bureau, the council chose directors from out
of its own members, appointing as the first _directeur des pauvres_ the
procurator general of the king, François Madaleine Ruette d'Auteuil;
for the post of treasurer Paul Dupuy, his substitute on the _prévôté_;
and for secretary the clerk of the Supreme Council, Jean Baptiste
Peuvret de Mesnu.
Though admirably mapped out the organization of the Bureaux des Pauvres
in Quebec, Three Rivers and Montreal, ordered by the Sovereign Council
in 1688, appears to have grown weak shortly. Ten years later, in
1698, as the zeal of the citizens needed new inspiration, the order
was renewed and the Rev. Father Leblanc, a Jesuit, was charged by the
bishop of the diocese of Quebec, Mgr. de St. Valier, to preach in the
towns the reorganization of the bureaux. He came for this object to
Montreal on June 1, 1698. In consequence of his sermon two days later
a meeting of the most notable citizens met in one of the halls of the
seminary to form a bureau composed of priests and lay people. Its
business was to place poor children as apprentices to learn a trade,
to put the sick poor into hospitals or to place them with relations in
easier circumstances, to distribute wheat, bread, boots and merchandise
to the poor. The voluntary contributions necessitated a house-to-house
canvass, which was started in June by Madame de Maricour, the
Mademoiselles de Repentigny, and followed in December by Madame
Jucherau de St. Denis and Madame d'Argenteuil. The ladies kept to the
town and immediate suburbs while the men collected in the outlying
districts.
In 1689 St. Vallier called Sister Bourgeoys to Quebec to execute a
project, by him, of the establishment of a home where the poor could
be usefully employed in work. It was early spring; the shifting ice on
the river would not allow a vehicle on the St. Lawrence; there were
no roads to Quebec for carriages, and the aged woman, now sixty-nine
years of age, traveled the whole distance of 180 miles, thither, on
foot through the slushy snow of the woods and across melting ice-bound
streams. Arriving at Quebec, she found that the bishop had changed his
mind and he asked her to undertake a "General Hospital," instead of the
more humble House of Providence originally contemplated. This hospital
her companions directed till it was transferred to the Hospitalières de
St. Joseph in 1692.
In 1693 the "Congregation" started to build a church in their own
grounds with the help of Jeanne LeBer, who offered to share the
expenses, and of her brother, Pierre LeBer, who promised to furnish
all the stone required. It was finished in February, 1695. "During the
night of the 24th of February," says one of the latest historians of
the congregation,[152] "a lurid flame leaped up in the steeple of the
Hôtel-Dieu church. Fiercely it blazed, until the pealing of alarm bells
roused the townspeople and brought them, half dressed, into the ruddily
illuminated streets. As the tumult of a terrified crowd filled the air,
and the red signal of destruction spread over the sky, a panic seized
on many hearts. Each man looked on the white face of his neighbour,
ghastly in the fire's glare, and there read the same question, 'Will
the town be saved?' Then it was that Dollier de Casson, followed by
the priests from the Seminary, came to the place of danger, bearing
the Blessed Sacrament. A passionate prayer went up, 'Lord, save us,
have mercy on us.' The wind veered suddenly, and carried the roaring
flame away from the town. At that manifestation of Divine clemency, a
mighty shout of thanksgiving rent the air. But the maddened element
had to find some fuel. A moment later, the hospital itself was a mass
of flames and smoke. Père Denys, a Récollet, went fearlessly into the
burning church, took out the Blessed Sacrament and carried it, at
first, to the house of a certain merchant named Arnaud." At dawn of
day it found its home in the new church. Later in the day the homeless
Hôtel-Dieu Sisters were brought to the house of the congregation by
Dollier de Casson, and there they lived and worshipped side by side
with the Daughters of Marguerite Bourgeoys, thus carrying on the
friendship begun between Jeanne Mance and Marguerite, the two founders.
A solemn spiritual alliance was drawn up by the two communities, "to
love one another," and years have not severed this friendship.
This new church, the original Notre Dame de Pitié, witnessed, on
August 5th of 1695, a curious and reverent ceremony--the enclosing
of a recluse in a little room behind the altar. This was none other
than Jeanne LeBer, the daughter of the rich trader, Jacques LeBer, of
Montreal, who was a brother of Jean LeBer du Chesne, wounded mortally
at Prairie la Madeleine. She was now in her thirty-third year, being
born on January 4, 1662. After her school days at Quebec were ended in
1677, she led an austere life--practically that of an enclosed nun, in
her own home--scarcely seeing anyone, not even her parents--and this
with her parents' permission. This craving for solitude is hard to
understand for moderns, and we tell the story to give an indication of
the intense religious faith of those days. _Autre temps, autres moeurs._
In 1693 Jeanne LeBer promised to build the church, as said, if she
were to be received as a sister of the congregation and allowed a cell
behind the altar. "She wished the church to be as near as possible a
reproduction of the holy house of Nazareth, oblong in shape, with the
altar placed in the most conspicuous part, between the doors opening
right and left. Her apartment, behind the altar, was to be about ten or
twelve feet in depth, consisting of three stories. The first was to be
a vestry; the second and third reserved for her use."
[Illustration: MADAME LEBER]
"On the evening of August 5th, solemn vespers were chanted in the
parish church, after which a procession was formed, headed by the
clergy. It wended its way to M. LeBer's house, where Jeanne was
absorbed in prayer. She wore a woolen gown of light grey, confined to
the waist by a black belt. Quitting forever the home of her childhood,
breaking asunder the last and closest ties that bound her to earth,
she followed the clergy accompanied by her father and several other
relatives. It was a striking scene. Along the crowded street they
passed: the recluse, clad in penitential garb, with downcast eyes,
quiet bearing and firm step; and the white-haired man, bowed down by
age and sorrow, who seemed, like Abraham and Jeptha, to be leading
the victim to sacrifice. Scarce had the procession reached the church
before Jacques LeBer, no longer master of his anguish, turned back and
went to hide his grief in the now deserted home.[153]
"Dollier de Casson blessed the cell, and as she knelt before him,
exhorted Jeanne LeBer to persevere therein like Magdalen in the Grotto.
He then led her to the threshold and she calmly passed into her new
abode, closing and fastening the door while the choir chanted the
litany of the Blessed Virgin. The following morning, Feast of the
Transfiguration, Dollier de Casson celebrated mass for the first time
in the Congregation Church. Among the faithful knelt M. LeBer, strong
in his heroic resignation."[154] She lived in that cell for nineteen
years, until her death in October, 1714.
Between 1692 and 1694 another block of buildings, consisting of a
residence and flanked by a public church and a private chapel, was
being erected by the Jesuits, now returning. Its site is today covered
by a portion of the city hall and the Court of Justice of Notre Dame
Street, facing Jacques Cartier Square. These buildings of the Jesuits
were destroyed by fire in 1803.[155]
We have to take notice of a new community that is now arising. It
is that of the Recollects, so long absent from the neighbourhood of
Montreal. The letters patent of the king confirming their permission
to continue their establishments at Quebec, Montreal, Plaisance
(Newfoundland) and the Isle of St. Peter, and to extend them to other
places with the consent of the governor, were issued from Versailles
in March, 1692. By 1694 they had their church built, and this, with
their monastery and farm, occupied the large space now covered by Notre
Dame Street from St. Peter to McGill streets and extending south. The
street called Recollect today marks their home, and between this and
the corner of McGill and Notre Dame streets was the western gate of the
city, known as that of the "Recollects."
[Illustration: CHURCH OF THE RECOLLETS]
A ridiculous event occurred in this church in 1694, which is recorded
as the "_prie dieu_ incident," and which caused a certain amount of
taking of sides and dissension and scandal at Montreal and Quebec,
and was the subject of dispatches to France; it illustrates how very
human men were at this time. M. De Callières, the governor of Montreal,
was present with all the _élite_ of Montreal, at the ceremony of
the initiation of two Recollect novices into the order and he was
kneeling at a _prie dieu_, or kneeling desk, in the middle of the
church, "near the altar," in the place of honour. Mgr. de St. Vallier,
who was present, notified him--"in a low voice," says the Intendant
Champigny, who was present--that such a position was reserved for the
governor general and too honourable for a local governor and requested
him to relinguish it, otherwise he would leave the church and take no
further part in the ceremony. "It is my right," said the obstinate de
Callières, who retook the _prie dieu_, and the prelate withdrew so as
not to create a public scandal. Before the entrance of de Callières
the bishop had already noticed the position of the _prie dieu_ and
ordered the Récollets to remove it, but, although they obeyed, two of
de Callières' officers and a soldier replaced it, and it was allowed to
remain. Next day the bishop wrote to the superior to have the obnoxious
_prie dieu_ removed, as with his own, until the governor general came.
The superior "reluctantly" obeyed, but de Callières had his taken
back. On the refusal of the superior to have it again removed, the
bishop interdicted the church on May 13, 1694, forbidding the use of
the church for any ceremonies or the administration of the Sacraments,
"until His Majesty's intentions were learned." This was followed on
July 6th, by a further monition and was later followed by two others
full of more serious charges against de Callières and the superior of
the Recollects.[156]
The orders were obeyed for two months by the Recollects and then,
influenced by the government party, with whom they were popular, and
refusing to obey any longer, they opened their church again with
public ceremonies more solemn than before, urging that the form of
interdict was null. The disagreement went before the Sovereign Council
at Quebec, whiceclared that the bishop had gone beyond his powers,
and that with regard to the further charges against de Callières, he
had acted without collecting sufficient information. It decided to
refer the decision to His Majesty. On the 13th of June, 1695, the
case was called to the notice of the privy council to be settled. At
the same meeting the several other subsequent interdicts, for use of
the Sacraments, issued by the bishop were discussed, as well as the
Tartuffe interdict, which was against Mareuil, a half-pay officer, who
La Motte-Cardillac--himself no lover of the clergy--owns was not an
exemplary character, indeed he had been two years before accused of
using language capable of making heaven blush. This man was reported to
be cast to play the part of Tartuffe in Molière's play, in Frontenac's
private theatricals at Quebec--it being thought that this was meant to
be a scurrilous skit on the clergy and in revenge on the bishop for
the Montreal affair. Mareuil and his friends insulted the bishop and
Mareuil was ordered to prison. The council, however, decided that the
bishop had not gone beyond his legitimate sphere in his mandate against
the "Tartuffe" performance. Many clerics and laymen asked for Mgr. de
St. Vallier's recall. Even Laval in his retirement expressed himself
strongly on his successor, who had gone to France to defend himself
against his enemies, and did not return for three years. After that he
lived in peace with de Callières and de Frontenac.
The above calm description of the scene is that following the Intendant
Champigny's account to the minister on October 27, 1694, and "le
mémoire pour M. l'Evêque de Québec concernant l'interdit prononcé
contre les Récollets de Ville Marie, 1694." La Motte-Cardillac's
bantering account, which is splenetic and bitter, must be read with
caution, as he never shows any mercy to the clerics, whom he whips with
fine scorn for what we should call their "Puritanism." Witness has oft
quoted attack on their condemnation of plays.
Parkman, commenting on these troubles of the austere and overzealous
bishop, says: "An adjustment was effected: order, if not harmony, was
restored; and the usual distribution of advice, exhortation, reproof
and menace was made to the parties in the strife. Frontenac was
commended for defending the royal prerogative, censured for violence
and admonished to avoid future quarrels.... Callières was mildly
advised not to take part in the disputes of the bishop and the
Recollects. Thus was conjured down one of the most bitter, as well as
the most needless, trivial and untimely of the quarrels that enliven
the annals of New France," ("Frontenac," p. 333.) Parkman tries to make
out a case, that "Tartuffe" was never meant to be acted and that it was
an elaborate joke on the part of Frontenac to frighten and annoy the
bishop. He does not succeed.
The unfortunate Mgr. de St. Vallier deserves not to be forgotten
at Montreal. He was most liberal with his private fortune, having
expended over 600,000 _livres_, of which 20,000 went to the Seminary
of Montreal. This side of his character has not been sufficiently
recognized. We have seen his interest in the establishment of the
Montreal schools; we have now to record his approval of the first
general hospital at Montreal, initiated by the Frères Charron or the
Hospitaliers of St. Joseph de la Croix. In 1692, on August 31, he wrote
to Frontenac and Champigny informing them of his intention to allow the
establishment of a hospital at Montreal following the authorization
and letters patent which he had already received from His Majesty. Its
object was to cope with the increased needs of the poor and sick of
the growing town. "In 1692," says Ferland, t. I-II, p. 267, "the Sieur
François Charron offered his fortune, which was considerable, for the
foundation of a general hospital.... Several persons, animated with the
same spirit, joined him, consecrated their wealth to the good work and
devoted themselves to the services of the poor.... On the request of
the Bishop of Quebec, the Governor and the Intendant, the King approved
in 1694 of this institution, which received the name of the 'Frères
Hospitaliers de St. Joseph de la Croix.'"[157]
Montreal is noted for its citizen charities. This may be reckoned one
of its first. In 1699 (May 30th) this hospital had letters patent to
establish manual instruction in trades and in arts. Later, in 1699, in
their collective letter of October 20th, addressed to the minister,
Callières and Champigny speak in high terms of this establishment. "A
house which will be very useful to the colony is that of the hospital
brothers established at Montreal. It has not yet cost the King or
country anything. However, it has done much good work. It has a hall
filled with the poor. They have commenced to draw here some persons
of distinction, of reduced and necessitous circumstances. They have
private rooms which are well looked after.... His Majesty is prayed to
accord them the exemption of duty on three tuns of _eau de vie_ and six
tuns of wine.... If His Majesty would have the goodness to add 1,000
_livres_ to aid them more easily to establish the _manufactures_ which
they have commenced, this will procure a great advantage to them and
the colony, because they will attract a number of poor young people to
receive employment." (Arch, Col. Canada Corresp. Gen., Vol. 17, fol.
3-17.)
This may be considered the first attempt at technical education
in Montreal and the origin of the "écoles des arts et métiers."
Unfortunately this establishment fell upon evil days in later days
and it was replaced by the Grey Sisters, who were founded by Madame
de Youville in 1748, to administer the General Hospital as shall be
told in its place. The site for the hospital was granted by Dollier de
Casson near Windmill Point, on the spot where the lately demolished
Grey Nuns' building stood. Its nine _arpents_ (acres) thus covered the
property adjoining the lower part of the present St. Peter Street, east
and west.
A glance around the town in the latter years of Frontenac's rule will
see the Sulpician Seigneurs consolidating their work, ministering to
the parishes on the island, providing chaplains to the Hôtel-Dieu and
the Congregation of Notre-Dame and instructing the Indians of the
mountain settlement and making good Frenchmen of their dark charges,
of whom there were 222 dwelling in their thirty-two _cabanes_.[158]
Meanwhile their seminary was being built, its foundations being laid
in 1685; it was not, however, completed till 1712. It was doing for
education in a smaller degree what the seminary was accomplishing at
Quebec.
[Illustration: GROUND PLAN OF THE SEMINARY OF MONTREAL]
[Illustration: SEMINARY OF MONTREAL
Residence seigneuriale and curiate of the Gentleman of the Seminary.
The erection of this residence dates from 1684. The principal side
of the building faces partly on Notre Dame Street and Place d'Armes
Square. It is ornamented by a clock (supposed to be the oldest in North
America), which is regulated by a chronometer and kept perfect time.
The building measures 178 feet front by 84 in depth.]
In the meantime the Sulpicians administered the island as its
seigneurs, though their duties as judges were gradually being
undertaken by the king's officers. By order of the king, March 15,
1693, "Royal Justice" was established; a "juge royal" was appointed
in the person of Jean Baptiste Migeon de Branssat, the nominee of
the seminary, and chosen as a mark of respect to the seigneurs. Four
_procureurs postulants_ with minor officers were also appointed by
the king to administer justice but there was still reserved to the
seigneurs within their enclosures of the seminary and the St. Gabriel
Farm the privileges of _haute, moyenne et basse_ justice. Nine years
later this decree was explained by an order of July, 1714, as not
meant to take away _basse_ justice from the ecclesiastics in the Isle
of Montreal; in addition it explained that in future they shall have
the same privilege in the newly established Côte St. Sulpice, the
Iles Courcelles and their other dependencies. This was to allow the
ecclesiastical seigneurs to create inferior judges for the recovery of
debts, _cens_ and _rentes_, fines, _lods_ and _ventes_, and all the
other rights and duties of feudal seigneurs, apart from the rights
relinquished as above noted.
The market place was busy and prosperous. Owing to the great number of
skins, the king, by a declaration of May 21, 1696, determined to limit
the number of permissions to trade with the Indians and gave order to
have delinquents condemned to the galleys. The number of beaver skins
now being taken to France exceeded the demand and to avoid too large a
quantity of inferior skins being sent, he gave orders that skins should
not be sold outside of the public market. About this time, there was
a general recall of officers, soldiers and _coureurs de bois_, and a
great desire to concentrate the people in the chief settlements and to
encourage the Indians to bring their peltries to Montreal.
The market place no doubt saw some strange sights. About 1695, in the
official record sent home to France, "Relation of the most remarkable
things," in that year, we are told that Frontenac once invited a band
of Ottawas who came to trade at Montreal to roast an Iroquois "newly
caught by the soldiers," but as they had hamstrung him to prevent his
escape he bled to death before the torture began. Next spring Callières
abandoned four Iroquois to be burned by the soldiers, _habitants_ and
Indian allies, in reprisal for the similar fate that befell two of the
Sault Indians at Michillimackinac. (Callières to the minister, October
20, 1696.) This now seems cruel, but at the time it appeared necessary
to thus impress the Iroquois with "the fear of the Lord." It was done
all over the country and thought righteous. La Motte-Cardillac, writing
on August 5, 1695, says: "If any more prisoners are brought me, I
promise you that their fate will be no sweeter."
NOTE
THE GENTLEMEN OF THE SEMINARY
The early superiors of the seminary before the canonical erection of
the parish were: M. Gabriel de Thubières de Lévis de Queylus, July 29,
1657, to October 22, 1661; M. Gabriel Souart, October 22, 1661, to
autumn, 1668; M. Gabriel de Queylus, autumn, 1668, to autumn, 1671; M.
François Dollier de Casson, autumn, 1671, to autumn, 1674; M. Gabriel
Souart, autumn, 1674, to autumn, 1676; M. François Lefebre, autumn,
1676, to autumn, 1678.
Missionary curés: M. Gabriel Souart, September 3, 1657, to November 11,
1666; M. Giles Pérot, November 23, 1666, to October 30, 1678.
First titular curé as superior of the seminary (after the canonical
erection of the parish, on October 28, 1678): M. François Dollier de
Casson, October 30, 1678, to September 27, 1701.
Curés d'office (actual parish priests): M. Giles Pérot, October 30,
1678, to July 17, 1680; M. Pierre Rémy, July 17, 1680, to November 4,
1680; M. Jean Frémont, November 9, 1680, to October 5, 1682; M. Etienne
Guyotte, October 10, 1692, to October 5, 1693; M. Jean Frémont, October
9, 1693, to June 17, 1694; M. Michel Caille, June 17, 1694, to October
29, 1696; M. René de Breslay, November 3, 1696, to September 27, 1701.
Second titular curé as superior of the seminary: François Vachon de
Belmont, September 28, 1701, to May 22, 1732.
Curés d'office: M. de Breslay (continued), September 28, 1701, to
November 19, 1703; M. Yves Priat, November 20, 1703, to April 26, 1717;
M. Jentien Rangeard, June 2, 1717, to July 9, 1721; M. Benoit Baret,
July 22, 1721, to October 22, 1721; M. Yves Priat, October 28, 1721, to
August 8, 1725; M. Jn. Gab. Marie Le Pape du Lescöat, August 12, 1725,
to February 11, 1730; M. Antoine Deat, February 20, 1730, to May 22,
1732.
Third titular curé as superior of the seminary: M. Louis Normant, May
25, 1732, to June 18, 1759.
Curé d'office: M. Antoine Deat (continued). May 25, 1732, to June, 1759.
Fourth titular curé as superior of the seminary: M. Etienne
Montgolfier, June 21, 1759, to August 27, 1791.
Curé d'office: M. Antoine Deat (continued), June 21, 1759, to September
3, 1760.
FOOTNOTES:
[151] This tardiness in city planning and city improvement seems to be
one of the heritages of the Montreal of today.
[152] Marguerite Mary Drummond--1906--"The Venerable Marguerite
Bourgeoys."
[153] Madame LeBer had died on November 8, 1682.
[154] "The Venerable Marguerite Bourgeoys," by Marguerite Mary
Drummond, 1906.
[155] Superiors of the Jesuits of Montreal from 1692-1789; François
Vaillant, Jacques Lamberville, Claude Chauchetière, Pierre Cholenec,
François Vaillant, Pierre LaGrenée, Louis d'Avaugour, Jacques d'Heu, J.
B. Saint Pé, René Hoquet. Father J. B. Well, the last Montreal Jesuit,
died in 1791.
[156] This angered de Callières so much that he had a "writing
injurious to Mgr. l'Evêque" affixed to the church door, says the
"mémoire pour l'Evêque," and had it published with the roll of the drum.
[157] The ordonnance of April 15, 1694, reveals the broad character
of this "General" Hospital. Its charter authorized it to look after
"poor children, orphans, cripples, aged men, the sick and needy of
the same sex, to be lodged and boarded and assi