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OLD QUEBEC
The Fortress of New France
by
GILBERT PARKER and CLAUDE G. BRYAN
With Illustrations
[Illustration: _Major General James Wolfe
from a scarce contemporary print engraved by R. Houston_]
New York
The Macmillan Company
London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd.
1903
All rights reserved
Copyright, 1903,
by The Macmillan Company.
Set up, electrotyped, and published September, 1903. Reprinted
November, 1903.
Norwood Press
J. S. Cushing & Co.--Berwick & Smith Co.
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.
CONTENTS
PAGE
NOTE xvii
PRELUDE xix
CHAPTER I
EARLY VOYAGES 1
CHAPTER II
THE ERA OF CHAMPLAIN 19
CHAPTER III
THE HEROIC AGE OF NEW FRANCE 44
CHAPTER IV
"AD MAJOREM DEI GLORIAM" 66
CHAPTER V
ROYAL GOVERNMENT 85
CHAPTER VI
THE NOBLESSE AND THE PEOPLE 95
CHAPTER VII
FRONTENAC AND LA SALLE 110
CHAPTER VIII
FIRE, MASSACRE, AND SIEGE 134
CHAPTER IX
THE CLOSE OF THE CENTURY 159
CHAPTER X
BORDER WARFARE 175
CHAPTER XI
THE BEGINNING OF THE END 187
CHAPTER XII
LIFE UNDER THE _ANCIEN RÉGIME_ 218
CHAPTER XIII
DURING THE SEVEN YEARS' WAR 246
CHAPTER XIV
"HERE DIED WOLFE VICTORIOUS" 268
CHAPTER XV
MURRAY AND DE LÉVIS 299
CHAPTER XVI
THE FIRST YEARS OF BRITISH RULE 325
CHAPTER XVII
THE FIFTH SIEGE 342
CHAPTER XVIII
SOCIAL AND POLITICAL PROGRESS 364
CHAPTER XIX
THE STORY OF THE GREAT TRADING COMPANIES 394
CHAPTER XX
THE NEW CENTURY 422
CHAPTER XXI
THE MODERN PERIOD 443
APPENDICES 473
INDEX 479
LIST OF PLATES
Major-General James Wolfe _Frontispiece_
FACE PAGE
François-Xavier de Laval 16
Cardinal de Richelieu 48
The Earl of Chatham 187
General the Marquis Montcalm 271
General Sir Jeffrey Amherst 282
Admiral Earl St. Vincent 294
General Gage 301
The Hon. Robert Monckton 307
[1]General Sir A. P. Irving 317
General Townshend 327
Sir James Henry Craig 342
Sir John Cope Sherbrooke 355
The Fourth Duke of Richmond 368
Admiral Viscount Nelson 374
Lord Dalhousie 376
General Lord Aylmer 395
The Earl of Durham 407
Sir John Colborne 417
Lord Sydenham 424
Sir Charles Bagot 434
General Earl Cathcart 443
The Earl of Elgin 452
Lord Lisgar 458
The Marquis of Dufferin and Ava 466
[Footnote 1: Inscription on plate for 2nd Governor of Canada
1766, _read_ Lieutenant-Governor of Canada 1766.]
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
Jacques Cartier 7
Manoir de Jacques Cartier à Limoulon 11
Arrival of Jacques Cartier at Quebec, 1535 13
Cap Rouge 17
Champlain 21
Montmorency Falls 25
Bonne Ste. Anne (Old Church) 31
Marie de l'Incarnation 51
Ursuline Nuns of Quebec (Salle d'Étude, noviciat) 55
Jesuits' College and Church 56
Château Saint Louis, 1694 57
The Ursulines' Convent 61
Monument to the First Canadian Missionary 71
Brébeuf 74
Lalement 75
Colbert 87
Old Bishop's Palace 103
New Palace Gate 105
Intendant's Palace 107
Frontenac 113
Old St. Louis Gate 117
Robert Cavelier de la Salle 123
Sir William Phipps 147
Plan of Fort St. Louis, 1683 151
The Citadel To-day (from Dufferin Terrace) 153
Notre Dame de la Victoire 157
The Citadel in Winter 173
Lieut.-General Sir William Pepperell, Bart. 189
Bienville 193
De Bougainville 197
Ruins of Château Bigot 201
Le Chien d'Or 202
Plan of the City of Quebec, 1759 207
Major-General Sir Isaac Barre 209
Sir Hugh Palliser, Bart. 213
The City of Quebec in 1759 219
Baron Grant 221
Baroness de Longueil 223
Upper Town Market To-day 225
New St. John's Gate 227
Petit Champlain Street To-day 229
Old Prescott Gate 231
A Carriole 234
Village of Beauport 235
The Basilica 239
Jesuits' Barracks 241
Calèches 243
Quebec (from Lévi) 245
De Lévis 251
Sir George Bridges Rodney, Bart. (Governor of
Newfoundland, 1759) 263
Entrance to the Citadel To-day 270
Hope Gate 272
Admiral Sir Charles Saunders 274
The Manor-House at Beauport, Montcalm's Headquarters 277
General Hospital 284
Captain James Cook 290
New Kent Gate 301
Church of the Récollets and La Grande Place 309
Old French House, St. John Street 315
Manor House, Sillery 319
Montreal in 1760 329
General Richard Montgomery 345
Cape Diamond 357
Benjamin Franklin 365
Charles Carroll of Carrollton 367
Samuel Chase 369
Breakneck Steps To-day 371
Old Parliament House, Quebec 377
H.R.H. the Duke of Kent, K.B 379
St. Lawrence River from the Citadel 381
Percée Rock 387
Hon. William Osgoode 389
New St. Louis Gate 390
Old Market Square, Upper Town 391
Frontenac Terrace To-day 392
Mr. Samuel Hearne 397
Prince of Wales's Fort, Hudson's Bay, 1777 401
Prince Rupert 403
Sir Alexander Mackenzie 415
Simon McTavish 419
Earl of Selkirk 420
Ferry-Boat on the St. Lawrence 423
Sir Gordon Drummond 427
Major-General Sir Isaac Brock, K.B. 430
General de Salaberry 435
A Beggar of Côte Beaupré 437
St. Louis Street, Place d'Armes, and New Court House 440
City Hall, Quebec 444
Lieut.-Colonel John By, R.E. 445
Sir Peregrine Maitland 448
Trappists at Mistassini 449
The Hon. Louis Joseph Papineau 451
English Cathedral 455
The Marquis of Lorne (Duke of Argyll) 461
Sir George Cartier 465
Sir John A. Macdonald 467
Sir Wilfrid Laurier 469
MAPS
1. Canada and the North American Colonies,
1680-1782 _Face page_ 110
The Environs of Quebec, 1759.
Louisbourg, to show the Sieges of 1744 and 1758.
2. Plan of Quebec, 1759. From a Map published in
London in 1760 _Page_ 207
3. Plan of the River St. Lawrence _Face page_ 268
4. Map of Upper and Lower Canada,
illustrating events until the
Campaign of 1814 _Face page_ 378
5. The Territory of the Hudson's
Bay Company, 1670-1870 _Face page_ 399
NOTE
The student of the history of the ancient capital of Canada is
embarrassed, not by the dearth but by the abundance of material at his
disposal. The present volume, therefore, makes no claim to
originality. It is but an assimilation of this generous data, and a
simple comment upon the changing scenes which were recorded by such
ancient authorities as the Jesuit priests and pioneers in their
_Relations_, and by the monumental works of Francis Parkman, whose
researches occupied more than forty years, and whose picturesque pen
has done for Canada what Prescott's did for Mexico. Admiring tribute
and gratitude must also be expressed for the years of careful study
and the unfaltering energy by which the late Mr. Kingsford produced
his valuable _History of Canada_. Nor can any one, writing of Quebec,
proceed successfully without constant reference to the historical
gleanings of Sir James Le Moine, who has spent a lifetime in the
romantic atmosphere of old-time manuscripts, and who, with Monsieur
l'Abbé Casgrain, represents, in its most attractive form, that
composite citizenship which has the wit and grace of the old _régime_
with the useful ardour of the new.
THE AUTHORS.
PRELUDE
About the walled city of Quebec cling more vivid and enduring memories
than belong to any other city of the modern world. Her foundation
marked a renaissance of religious zeal in France, and to the people
from whom came the pioneers who suffered or were slain for her, she
had the glamour of new-born empire, of a conquest renewing the
glories of the days of Charlemagne. Visions of a hemisphere controlled
from Versailles haunted the days of Francis the First, of the Grand
Monarch, of Colbert and of Richelieu, and in the sky of national hope
and over all was the Cross whose passion led the Church into the
wilderness. The first emblem of sovereignty in the vast domain which
Jacques Cartier claimed for Francis his royal master, was a cross
whereon was inscribed--
_Franciscus Primus, Dei Gratiâ Francorum Rex, Regnat._
In spite of cruel neglect due to internal troubles and that European
strife in which the motherland was engaged for so many generations,
the eyes of Frenchmen turned to their over-sea dominions with
imaginative hope, with conviction that the great continent of promise
would renew in France the glories that were Greece and the grandeur
that was Rome. How hard the patriotic colonists strove to retain those
territories which Champlain, La Salle, Maisonneuve, Joliet, and so
many others won through nameless toil and martyrdom, and how at last
the broad lands passed to another race and another flag, not by fault
or folly or lack of courage of the people, but by the criminal
corruption of the ruling few, is the narrative which runs through
these pages.
For at least the first hundred years of its existence, Quebec was New
France; and the story of Quebec in that period is the story of all
Canada. The fortress was the heart and soul of French enterprise in
the New World. From the Castle of St. Louis, on the summit of Cape
Diamond, went forth mandates, heard and obeyed in distant Louisiana.
The monastic city on the St. Lawrence was the centre of the web of
missions, which slowly spread from the dark Saguenay to Lake Superior.
The fearful tragedies of Indian warfare had their birth in the early
policy of Quebec. The fearless voyageurs, whose canoes glided into
unknown waters, ever westward--towards Cathay, as they believed--made
Quebec their base for exploration. And as time went on, the rock-built
stronghold of the north became the nerve-centre of that half-century
of conflict which left the flag of Britain waving in victory on the
Plains of Abraham.
When Montcalm in his last hours consigned to the care of the British
conquerors the colonists he had loved and for whom he had fought, he
proclaimed a momentous epoch in the world's history--the loss of an
Empire to a great nation of Europe and the gain of an Empire to
another. Within a generation the Saxon Conquistador was to suffer the
same humiliation, and to yield up that colonial territory from which
Quebec had been assailed; but the fortress city was always to both
nations the keystone of the arch of power on the American continent.
When she was lost to France, Louisiana, that vast territory along the
Mississippi--a kingdom in itself--still remained, but no high memory
cherished it, no national hope hung over it, and a hundred years ago
Napoleon Bonaparte sold it to the new Western power--the United
States. As a nation the labours of France were finished in America on
the day that De Ramézay yielded up the keys of the city, and Wolfe's
war-worn legions marched through St. Louis Gate from the Plains of
Abraham.
Yet scores of thousands of the people of France remained in the city
and the province to be ruled henceforth by the intrepid race, with
which it had competed in a death-struggle for dominion through so many
adventurous and uncertain years. Victory, like a wayward imp of Fate,
had settled first upon one and then upon the other, and once before
1759 England had held the keys of the great fortress only to yield
them up again in a weak bargain; but the die was thrown for the last
time when Amherst securely quartered himself at Montreal, and Murray
at the Château St. Louis, where Frontenac and Vaudreuil had had their
day of virile governance. Never again was the banner of the golden
lilies to wave in sovereignty over the St. Lawrence, though the people
who had fought and toiled under its protection were to hold to their
birthright and sustain their language through the passing generations,
faithful to tradition and origin, but no less faithful to the Canadian
soil which their fame, their labour, and their history had made sacred
to them. Frenchmen of a vanished day they were to cherish their past
with an apprehensive devotion, and yet to keep the pact they made with
the conqueror in 1759, and later in 1774 when the Quebec Act secured
to them their religious liberty, their civic code, and their political
status. This pact, further developed in the first Union of the
English and French provinces in 1840, and afterwards in the
Confederation of 1867, has never suffered injury or real suspicion,
but was first made certain by loyalty to the British flag, in the War
of the American Revolution, and piously sealed by victorious duty and
valour in the war of 1812. The record of fidelity has been enriched
since that day in the north-west rebellion fomented by a French
half-breed in 1885, and in the late war in South Africa, where French
Canadians fought side by side with English comrades for the
preservation of the Empire.
These later acts of imperial duty are not performed by Anglicised
Frenchmen, for the pioneer race of Quebec are still a people apart in
the great Dominion so far as their civic and social, their literary
and domestic life are concerned. They share faithfully in the national
development, and honourably serve the welfare of the whole
Dominion--sometimes with a too careful and unsympathetic reserve--but
within their own beloved province they retain as zealously and more
jealously than the most devoted Highland men their language and their
customs, and faithfully conserve the civil laws which mark them off as
clearly from the English provinces as Jersey and Guernsey are
distinguished from the United Kingdom. They have changed little with
the passing years, and their city has changed less. In many respects
the Quebec of to-day is the Quebec of yesterday. Time and science have
altered its detail, but viewed from afar it seems to have altered as
little as Heidelberg and Coblenz. Lower Town huddles in artistic chaos
at the foot of the sheltering cliff, and, as aforetime, the
overhanging fort protrudes its protecting muzzles. Spires and antique
minarets which looked down upon a French settlement struggling with
foes in feathers and war-paint, still gleam from the towering rock on
which their stable foundations are laid; and after five sieges and the
passing of two and a half centuries the mother city of the continent
remains a faithful survivor of an heroic age, on historic ground
sacred to the valour of two great races.
OLD QUEBEC
CHAPTER I
EARLY VOYAGES
Living in the twentieth century, to which the uttermost parts of the
earth are revealed, and with only the undiscovered poles left to lure
us on, we cannot fully appreciate the geographical ignorance of the
Middle Ages. The travels of Marco Polo had only lately revealed the
wonders of the golden East, and in the West the Pillars of Hercules
marked earth's furthest bound. Beyond lay the _mare tenebrosum_, the
Mysterious Sea, girding the level world. England was not then one of
the first nations of the earth. She was not yet a maritime power, she
had not begun the work of colonisation and empire: the fulcrum of
Europe lay further south. But as our Tudor sovereigns were making
secure dominion in "these isles," the Byzantine Empire was moving
slowly to its end, and favouring circumstances were already making
Italy the centre of the world's commerce and culture. There the feudal
system, never deeply rooted, was declining slowly, and Italian energy
and enterprise now having larger opportunity, seized the commerce of
the East as it received vast impulse from the Crusades, and this trade
became the source of Empire.
Venice, Genoa, and Pisa were now great emporiums of Oriental wares,
were waxing rich on a transport trade which had no option but to use
their ports and their vessels. Inland Florence had no part in maritime
enterprise, but was the manufacturing, literary, and art centre of
mediæval Europe. Her silk looms made her famous throughout the world,
her banks were the purse of Europe, and among her famous sons were
Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio, Macchiavelli, Michael Angelo, Leonardo da
Vinci, Galileo, Amerigo Vespucci. For the development of their
commerce, the cities of the North had grouped themselves into the
great Hanseatic League, with branches in Bruges, London, Bergen, and
Novgorod. Commercialism had everywhere become the keynote of the
closing Middle Ages, inspiring that maritime enterprise which was soon
to outline a new map of the world.
The main route between the West and East had hitherto been by way of
the Red Sea and the Euphrates, and it was controlled by the Italian
cities. Italy had, therefore, no interest in finding a water route to
the East which would rob her of this profitable overland traffic. But
the experience of her sailors made them the most skilful of the
world's navigators and the readiest instruments of other nations in
expeditions of discovery. Thus Columbus of Genoa, Cabot of Venice, and
Verrazzano of Florence are found accepting commissions from foreign
sovereigns.
"The discoveries of Copernicus and Columbus," says Froude, "created,
not in any metaphor, but in plain language, a new heaven and a new
earth." The new theory of Copernicus was, indeed, one of the choicest
flowers of the Renaissance, and though timidly enunciated, it
revolutionised the world's geography. Further, the discovery of the
polarity of the magnet, and the invention of the astrolabe, gave to
the mariners of the fifteenth century a sense of security lacking to
their fathers, while the kindling flame of the New Learning led them
upon the most daring quests. The Portuguese were the first to enter on
the brilliant path of sea-going exploration which distinguishes this
century above all others. By 1486 they had already found Table
Mountain rising out of the Southern sea, and hoping always for a
passage to the East, had named it the Cape of Good Hope. Spain soon
followed her rival into these unknown regions, a policy due mainly to
the enthusiasm of Isabella of Castile, who, in spite of the
conservative apathy of the Council of Salamanca, was eager to become
the patroness of Christopher Columbus.
Although the Northmen of the tenth century had been blown almost
fortuitously upon the shores of Nova Scotia, by way of Iceland,
Greenland, and Labrador, the discovery of North America must always be
set to the credit of Christopher Columbus. From the age of fourteen he
had been upon the sea, and his keen mind was stored with all the
nautical science afforded by the awakened spirit of the time. To this
practical equipment he added a romantic temperament and a habit of
reflection which carried him to greater certainty in his convictions
than even that attained by his correspondent, the learned Toscanelli.
Assuming that the world was round--no commonplace of the time--he
determined forthwith to reach India by sailing westward. His bones lie
buried in the Western hemisphere, which his intrepidity revealed to an
astonished world.
As soon as Columbus, in the name of Ferdinand and Isabella, had opened
the gates of the New World, ships from England and France began to
hasten westward across the Atlantic. The Cabots, holding to the North,
discovered Newfoundland in 1497; Denis of Honfleur explored the Gulf
of St. Lawrence in 1506; and a few years later Verrazzano coasted
along the North Atlantic seaboard in four ships fitted out for him by
the youthful Francis of Angoulême. This voyage was practically the
beginning of French enterprise in the New World.
On Verrazzano's return to Dieppe, he sent the King a written account
of his travels, and France was presently burning with excitement over
the abundant riches of the New World. Spain, meanwhile, had been
reaping the wealth of the West Indies, and Hernando Cortés was laying
a stern hand upon the treasures of Mexico. And now disasters at home
were, for a time, to rob the fickle Francis of all ambition for
transatlantic glory. In the contest for the crown of the Holy Roman
Empire he had been worsted by Charles V., and shortly afterwards the
strength of France was hopelessly shattered at Pavia, the King being
carried back a prisoner to Madrid. But when, at last, the peace of
Cambrai had somewhat restored tranquillity to France, Philippe de
Brion-Chabot, a courtier at the Louvre, decided to follow up
Verrazzano's almost forgotten exploit of ten years before, and Jacques
Cartier became the instrument of this tardy resolution.
Jacques Cartier was born at St. Malo, the white buttress of Brittany.
Daring Breton fishing-boats had often sailed as far as the cod-banks
of Newfoundland, and it is not impossible that Cartier himself had
already crossed the Atlantic before he was commissioned by Chabot.
From a child he had lived upon the sea. He was forty years old when
he received his commission, and on the 20th of April, 1634, he set
sail from his native town. Holding a northern course he came at length
to Newfoundland, and having passed through the Straits of Belle Isle
and across the Gulf, he erected a white cross at Gaspé, and sailed on
westward till Anticosti came in sight. It was then August, and as
constant westerly winds delayed his further course, he decided to
return to France. Unfortunately, however, he did not leave until he
had lured on board his ships two young Indians, whom he carried back
as trophies, sowing thereby the seed of future trouble.
His countrymen were deeply stirred by his report. Beyond a doubt the
great Gulf up which he had sailed was the water route to Cathay, and
France could hardly await the arrival of spring before sending another
expedition. By the middle of May, 1635, Cartier was ready to embark on
a second voyage, and on this occasion no less than three ships were
equipped, numbering among their officers men of birth and
quality--gentlemen in search of adventure, others eager to mend broken
fortunes, and all bent on claiming new lands for France and for the
faith. Assembling in the old cathedral they confessed their sins and
heard the Mass; and on the 19th of May the dwellers of St. Malo saw
the sails of the _Hermine_, _La Petite Hermine_, and _Emerillon_ melt
into the misty blue of the horizon. Almost immediately a fierce storm
scattered the ships, and they only came together again six weeks later
in the Straits of Belle Isle. This time Cartier coasted along the
north shore of the Gulf; and to a bay opposite Anticosti he gave the
name of St. Lawrence, upon whose festival day it was discovered. Then
for the first time a white man entered "the great river of Canada."
[Illustration: JACQUES CARTIER]
With the kidnapped Indians for pilots, the three caravels passed by
the cañon of the Saguenay, mysterious in its sombre silence. Presently
the rocky cliff of Cap Tourmente towered above them, and at length
they glided into safe anchorage off the Isle of Bacchus.[2]
To the savage Indians the mighty vessels of France were marvels from
another world, and the river was soon swarming with their birch-bark
canoes. The story of the two braves who had been carried away to
France filled them with grave wonder, and the glittering costumes of
Cartier and his officers seemed like the garments of gods. The great
chief, Donnacona, waiving regal conventions, clambered upon the deck
of the _Hermine_, where Cartier regaled him with cakes and wine, and
with a few beads purchased the amity of his naked followers. Then
Cartier set out in a small boat to explore the river.
Above the Island of Bacchus he found himself in a beautiful harbour,
on the farther side of which the great river of Canada boomed through
a narrow gorge. On the left of the basin the broader channel of the
river passed out between the Isle of Bacchus and a range of wooded
heights; while on his right, a tower of rock rose majestically from
the foam-flecked water. Among the oak and walnut trees that crowned
the summit of this natural battlement clustered the bark cabins of
Stadaconé, whence, as wide as eye could range, the Lord of Canada held
his savage sway.
[Footnote 2: Now the Island of Orleans.]
This Algonquin eyrie seemed only accessible by a long detour through
the upland, in which the rocky heights gradually descended to the
little river of St. Croix. Thither Cartier and his companions made
their way, and then, for the first time, white men gazed upon the
green landscape spread beneath that high promontory. On the north and
east the blue rim of the world's oldest mountains, then as now, seemed
to shut off a mysterious barren land; on the south and west the eye
met a fairer prospect, for beyond a sea of verdure the sun's rays
glistened upon the distant hills of unknown, unnamed Vermont. Between
these half-points of the compass the broad St. Lawrence rolled outward
to the sea, and the discovering eye followed its bending course beyond
the Isle of Bacchus and past the beetling shoulder of Cap Tourmente.
In the summer of 1535 Cartier stood entranced on this magnificent
precipice; and to-day the visitor to Quebec gazes from the King's
Bastion upon the same panorama, hardly altered by the flight of nearly
four centuries.
But Quebec had yet for many years to await its founder. Cartier's
mission was one of discovery, not colonisation; and he resolved to
push further up the river to Hochelaga, an important village of which
the Indians had told him. But Donnacona soon repented of the
information he had given, and left nothing undone to turn Cartier from
his purpose. As a last resource the magicians of Stadaconé devised a
plan to frighten the obstinate Frenchman, but the crude masquerade
arranged for that purpose provoked nothing but amusement. A large
canoe came floating slowly down the river, and when it drew near the
ships the Frenchmen beheld three black devils, garbed in dogskins, and
wearing monstrous horns upon their heads. Chanting the hideous
monotones of the medicine men, they glided past the fleet, made for
the shore, and disappeared in the thicket. Presently, Cartier's two
interpreters issued from the wood and declared that the god Coudouagny
had sent his three chief priests to warn the French against ascending
the river, predicting dire calamities if they should persist.
Cartier's reply to the Indian deity was brief and irreverent, and he
forthwith made ready to depart.
The _Hermine_ and _Emerillon_ were towed to safer moorings in the
quiet St. Croix, and with the pinnace and a small company of men
Cartier set out for Hochelaga. The journey was long and toilsome, but
by the beginning of October they came to a beautiful island, the site
of Montreal. A thousand Indians thronged the shore to welcome the
mysterious visitors, presenting gifts of fish and fruit and corn.
Then, by a well-worn trail, the savages led the way through the forest
to the foot of the mountain, and into the triple palisades of
Hochelaga.
[Illustration: MANOIR DE JACQUES CARTIER À LIMOULON]
The early frosts of autumn had already touched the trees, and Cartier,
having accomplished his exploration, hastened back to Stadaconé, where
he set about making preparations for spending the winter. A fort was
hastily built at the mouth of the St. Croix. But the exiles were
unready for the violent season that soon closed in upon them, almost
burying their fort in drifting snow and casing the ships in an armour
of glistening ice. Pent up by the biting frost, and eking out a
wretched existence on salted food, their condition grew deplorable. A
terrible scurvy assailed the camp, and out of a company of one hundred
and ten, twenty-five died, while only three or four of the rest
escaped its ravages. The flint-like ground defied their feeble
spades, and the dead bodies were hidden away in banks of snow. To make
matters still worse, the Indians grew first indifferent, and then
openly hostile. Cartier was sorely beset to conceal from them the
weakness of his garrison. At last, however, a friendly Indian told him
of a decoction by which the scurvy might be cured. The leaves of a
certain evergreen were put to brew, and this medicine proved the
salvation of the decimated company.
By and by came the spring; and when at last sun and rain had loosed
the fetters of ice, Cartier determined to return to France. Before the
ships weighed anchor, however, Donnacona and four of his companions
were enticed on board, and with these sorry trophies the French
captain turned his prows homeward. At midsummer-time the
storm-battered ships glided once more into the rock-bound harbour of
St. Malo.
Five years elapsed before France sent another expedition into the New
World. The perennial conflict with Charles V. kept the French king's
mind fixed on his home dominions, and Chabot, Cartier's former patron,
had fallen upon evil times. At last, however, a new adventurer
appeared in the person of the Sieur de Roberval, a nobleman of
Picardy. The elaborate but almost incomprehensible text of the royal
patent described the new envoy as Lord of Norembega, Viceroy and
Lieutenant-General in Canada, Hochelaga, Saguenay, Newfoundland, Belle
Isle, Carpunt, Labrador, the Great Bay, and Baccalaos. Under him
Cartier was persuaded to take the post of Captain-General. The objects
of the enterprise were discovery, colonisation, and the conversion of
the Indians; albeit the instruments for this pious purpose were more
than doubtful, their five ships being freighted for the most part with
thieves and malefactors recruited from the prisons of France.
[Illustration: ARRIVAL OF JACQUES CARTIER AT QUEBEC, 1535]
An unexpected delay occurring at St. Malo, it was determined that
Cartier should sail at once, and that Roberval should follow as soon
as possible with additional ships and supplies. Accordingly, on the
23rd of May, 1541, Cartier again spread his sails for the West, and
after a stormy passage arrived in the St. Lawrence. The uncertain
attitude of the Indians, however, prompted him to establish his colony
further westward than Stadaconé, and he continued his course up the
river and dropped anchor at Cap Rouge.
Summer and autumn passed away and brought no sign of Roberval. A
gloomy winter further damped the spirits of the colonists at
Charlesburg-Royal; and when the ice had gone out of the river, Cartier
gathered his company back into the ships and set sail again for
France. At Newfoundland he encountered the belated Roberval. High
words were exchanged, and, as a result, the fiery Viceroy sailed alone
to New France; and Cartier, bidding Canada a last farewell, held on
his way to St. Malo.
Francis Parkman transcribes from the manuscript of Thevet the
following incident which marked Roberval's voyage:--"The Viceroy's
company was of a mixed complexion. There were nobles, officers,
soldiers, sailors, adventurers, with women, too, and children. Of the
women, some were of birth and station, and among them a damsel called
Marguerite, a niece of Roberval himself. In the ship was a young
gentleman who had embarked for love of her. His love was too well
requited, and the stern Viceroy, scandalised and enraged at a passion
which scorned concealment and set shame at defiance, cast anchor by
the haunted island (the Isle of Demons), landed his indiscreet
relative, gave her four arquebuses for defence, and with an old woman
nurse who had pandered to the lovers, left her to her fate. Her
gallant threw himself into the surf, and by desperate effort gained
the shore, with two more guns and a supply of ammunition. The ship
weighed anchor, receded, vanished; they were left alone. Yet not so,
for the demon-lords of the island beset them day and night, raging
round their hut with a confused and hungry clamouring, striving to
force the frail barrier. The lovers had repented of their sin, though
not abandoned it, and Heaven was on their side. The saints vouchsafed
their aid, and the offended Virgin, relenting, held before them her
protecting shield. In the form of beasts and other shapes abominably
and unutterably hideous, the brood of hell, howling in baffled fury,
tore at the branches of the sylvan dwelling; but a celestial hand was
ever interposed, and there was a viewless barrier which they might not
pass. Marguerite became pregnant. Here was a double prize--two souls
in one, mother and child. The fiends grew frantic, but all in vain.
She stood undaunted amid these horrors, but her lover, dismayed and
heart-broken, sickened and died. Her child soon followed; then the old
woman nurse found her unhallowed rest in that accursed soil, and
Marguerite was left alone. Neither reason nor courage failed her; and
when assailed by the demons, she shot at them with her gun. They
answered with hellish merriment, and thenceforth she placed her trust
in Heaven alone. There were foes around her of the upper, no less than
of the nether, world. Of these the bears were the most redoubtable,
yet as they were vulnerable to mortal weapons, she killed three of
them--all, says the story, 'as white as an egg.'
"It was two years and five months from her landing on the island,
when, far out at sea, the crew of a small fishing-craft saw a column
of smoke curling upward from the haunted shore. Was it a device of the
fiends to lure them to their ruin? They thought so, and kept aloof.
But misgiving seized them. They warily drew near, and descried a
female figure in wild attire waving signals from the strand. Thus, at
length, was Marguerite rescued, and restored to her native France,
where, a few years later, the cosmographer Thevet met her at Natron,
in Perigord, and heard the tale of wonder from her own lips."[3]
[Illustration: Francois Xavier de Laval,
First Bishop of Quebec.]
[Footnote 3: Parkman's _Pioneers of France_, p. 203.]
Meanwhile, Roberval sailed on up the St. Lawrence, and established
himself at Cap Rouge, in the deserted forts of Charlesburg-Royal built
by Cartier. But the inexperience and imprudence of the haughty
Viceroy soon put his establishment in sore straits. Ignorance of
physical conditions and disregard of natural laws of health had always
been the chief cause of suffering among these transatlantic exiles,
and Roberval now added a lamentable want of perception and solicitude.
Unlike Cartier, the inexorable Viceroy did not recognise his colonists
as companions in privation, but ruled them with a rod of iron. The
pillory, the whipping-post, and the scaffold were distressing features
in his system. Then came winter, famine, and the scurvy. Fifty of the
settlers died, and by spring even the headstrong Roberval was ready to
forsake his enterprise. His departure ends the earliest period of
French adventure in America.
[Illustration: CAP ROUGE]
Thenceforth, for more than half a century, France writhed in civil
war, and spared no vessel to explore the great river of Canada. For
all these years New France was left to its aboriginal inhabitants and
to fate.