THE HEROIC AGE OF NEW FRANCE
The Indians with whom the French explorers first came in contact were
of the Algonquin family. Under different tribal names this race spread
itself over the Atlantic seaboard from Carolina to Hudson's Bay, and
farther west than the Great Lakes. In the comparatively small area now
forming northern New York lived the Iroquois, or Five Nation Indians,
who, like the Helvetii of old, out-stripped all the other tribes in
valour, and at the time of the arrival of the Europeans were engaged
in reducing their Algonquin foes to subjection. The Hurons, who figure
so prominently in early Canadian annals, were of Iroquois stock; but
owing to their situation in the Georgian Bay peninsula, and their
alliance with the neighbouring Algonquins, they became the especial
object of Iroquois enmity, and the feud went on till they were
exterminated.
The story of this conflict so closely concerns the history of Quebec,
that the period intervening between the death of Champlain and the
establishment of Royal Government has been described as the Heroic Age
of New France. Indeed, on looking back over the trials of that period,
it seems incredible that the colony was able to weather the storms of
Iroquois savagery by which it was swept. But this dark misery was so
clearly the outcome of French colonial policy, that a reference to the
underlying principles of that system is necessary.
The French idea of colonisation was propagandism. True, it was not
actually born of that deep principle, but rather of high adventure and
of the alluring mystery of discovery. Religion, however, very soon
became its prevailing impulse. The expedition of Verrazzano had its
_raison d'être_ in nothing higher than the cupidity of Francis I., who
was dazzled by legends of Mexican gold and Peruvian silver; but
religion inspired Cartier to his great adventure ten years later.
The Old World was in the throes of the Reformation. With shafts of
heresy, Luther in Germany and Calvin in France were assailing the
Catholic Church, and devout Catholics like Cabot had conceived the
idea of requiting the Church for her losses in the Old World by
religious conquests in the New. Roberval's voyage had been likewise
undertaken for discovery, settlement, and the conversion of the
Indians. The aged De Chastes, the patron of Champlain, had been
animated almost entirely by a religious motive, and the explorer's
own frequent declaration was that "the salvation of a single soul is
worth more than an empire."
Such sentiments alone were enough to explain the friendship of
Champlain with the Hurons and Algonquins, on whose lands he had
settled his colony, and to whom the French owed something at least in
the way of assistance or protection. But apart from sense of a
religious obligation, he was forced to depend on the Indians to guide
him through the country he wished to explore, and their goodwill was
also necessary to develop the fur trade for the great companies. It
was natural, therefore, that Champlain should enter into alliance with
the neighbouring tribes, whose amity meant so much to the struggling
settlement. But New France was destined to reap bitter fruits from
this seeding.
The offensive and defensive bond against the Iroquois almost cost the
colony its existence. It was, in fact, another Hundred Years' War with
a foe as implacable as death itself. The constant aim of the French
was to organise and harmonise the tribes against their common enemy,
and to establish a league of which Quebec would be the heart and head.
All this was in direct contrast with the English system, which took no
account whatever of the Indian tribes. The English colonists in
Connecticut, New Hampshire, and Virginia displaced the Indian; the
French made him part of their system. New France was a trading colony,
New England an agricultural colony. The French, with few exceptions,
did not go to the New World to make a home, but to secure fortunes;
the English colonists went to the New World to settle; they bore with
them their household gods.
For a hundred years or more, New France was dependent on Old France
for provisions; and even up to the death of Champlain, there were, in
fact, only two plots of ground under cultivation by French
settlers--that of Louis Hébert in Upper Town, and the small farm of
the Récollects on the St. Charles. In New England, the settlers first
of all cleared the land, laid out their farms, and stored their
provisions against the winter season. They traded with the Indians and
acquired wealth, and for their greater convenience they made purchases
in the Old World. Thus, from the first days almost, the New England
Colonies were self-contained, while New France depended on Europe to a
degree amazing and pathetic. This fact strikes the keynote of the
French _régime_, explaining, as it does, most of the trials and
tribulations of New France in its perennial warfare with the Iroquois,
and in the later friction with New England.
Nor is it astonishing that New France never became self-reliant. From
first to last her natural growth was throttled, either by the greed
of the fur companies or by the mistaken paternalism of the Bourbons.
The Company of One Hundred Associates, which Richelieu founded in
1624, was no improvement on the previous administrations of New
France, in spite of its elaborate charter and the fact that Richelieu
himself was at the head of it. The fur companies were doubly politic
in discouraging agriculture, for the purchase of peltries thus became
practically the sole industry of the colony, while at the same time
the people were left dependent upon the stores of the company for
food. The colonisation of New England was intensive, the colonisation
of New France extensive; New England cleared and built as occasion
demanded; New France merely established bases from which to penetrate
the wilderness. Before the death of Champlain, the white crosses which
her pioneers were wont to set up were to be found as far west as Lake
Huron, and before the close of the seventeenth century they dotted the
trackless forests from Michillimackinac to New Orleans. It is not
surprising, then, that the Indians became an important factor in the
history of Canada.
[Illustration: Cardinal de Richelieu
from the Versailles Gallery]
M. de Montmagny, Champlain's successor, arrived in the spring of 1636.
He was a Knight of Malta, a brave soldier, and a religious fanatic.
During the twelve years of his administration, Quebec was almost
constantly defending itself against the Iroquois. Redoubled efforts
to convert the Indians also mark this period. The first of these
efforts was the pious project of M. de Sillery, a Knight of Malta. De
Sillery had wearied of the gay court of Fontainebleau, and in 1637 he
supplied the means whereby the Jesuit Le Jeune established a hostel
for converted Algonquins. The site chosen was a few miles up the river
from Quebec; and although Iroquois hostility soon made havoc of the
mission, the spot is known to this day as Sillery Cove.
In the same year, 1637, the Jesuits began a wooden structure in the
rear of the fort, resolving to devote the six thousand crowns donated
by the Marquis de Gamache, to the founding of a school for Indian
children, and a college for French boys. Father Daniel brought down
the first pupil from the Huron country, when he returned to Quebec,
and the interpreter Nicollet skilfully induced several other Indian
families to send hostages to the Jesuit seminary. But the untamed
savage drank shyly at the fountain of learning, and Father Le Jeune
relates of the dusky scholars that one ran away, two ate themselves to
death, a fourth was kidnapped by his affectionate parent, and three
others stole a canoe, loaded it to the gunwale with such commodities
and food as they could lay hands upon, and escaped up the river. The
indefatigable Jesuits, however, were not to be discouraged, and they
still wrote with delight of their savage province. Their ardent
_Relations_ were sent regularly to France, and the hearts of
princesses in the Faubourg St. Germain, and of nuns in the convents of
Montmartre were alike fired with zeal for the Canadian mission.
"Is there no charitable and virtuous lady," pleaded Le Jeune, "who
will come to this country to gather up the blood of Christ by teaching
His word to the little Indian girls?" Thirteen nuns in a single
convent straightway vowed their lives to the far-off mission; but the
touching appeal of the Jesuit father sank deepest of all in the heart
of the fever-stricken Madame de la Peltrie.
A review of the early life of Madame de la Peltrie makes it easy to
understand how her mind was readily inflamed by the tearful _Relations
des Jesuits_. As a child religious ecstasy had possessed her ardent
mind; and her father, a gentleman of Normandy, was continually
striving against her inclinations for the cloister. Twice he carried
her back from a convent whither she had fled, and by a series of
devices at length contrived a happy marriage for her. At twenty-two
she was left a widow and childless, and once more the fervour of her
early years consumed her. She resolved afresh to be a nun. Her father
entreated and, under threat of disinheritance, commanded her to marry
again. Meanwhile, what was being done in Canada came to her
knowledge, and increased her ardour tenfold. A Jesuit, of whom she
sought counsel in her dilemma, suggested a casuistical compromise.
Through him a formal marriage was arranged, and the death of her
father soon afterwards left herself and her revenues free for pious
enterprise in New France.
[Illustration: MARIE DE L'INCARNATION]
Repairing to the Ursuline Convent at Tours, Madame de la Peltrie made
choice of three nuns to share with her the bliss of founding a convent
at Quebec. The most remarkable of these was the devout Marie de
l'Incarnation. At this time the latter was forty years of age, tall,
stately, and forceful in appearance, and with a history as romantic as
that of Madame de la Peltrie herself. At seventeen she had made an
unhappy marriage. Two years later her husband died, and left her with
an infant son. She gave the child into the charge of her sister, and
devoted herself to solitude and religious meditation. Visions,
ecstasies, rapture, and dejection took alternate possession of her
mind. Fastings and the severest forms of discipline henceforward made
up the melancholy routine of the life of the "holy widow." Love for
her child for a long time kept her from taking the veil, but at
length, by prayer and fasting, she emancipated herself from this
maternal weakness of the flesh, and was rapturously received by the
Ursulines of Tours. Yet in spite of the vagaries of her devout mind,
Madame de l'Incarnation possessed a singular aptness for practical
affairs. Several of her early years had been spent in the house of her
brother-in-law, where she had displayed an amazing talent for the
ordinary business of life. A knowledge of this trait had doubtless led
the Jesuits to press her appointment as Superior of the new Ursuline
Convent which Madame de la Peltrie proposed establishing at Quebec.
Meanwhile, the Duchesse d'Aiguillon, Richelieu's niece, had also been
moved by the pleadings from Quebec, and she determined to found a
Hôtel-Dieu. Three nuns of the Hospital were entrusted with this
project.
The ship bearing Madame de la Peltrie, the three Ursulines, and the
three Hospitalières set sail from Dieppe early in May, 1639. The
excitement and activity of the outer world must have contrasted
strangely with the peacefulness of their quiet cloisters; yet the
frail nuns were buoyed up by a marvellous enthusiasm and a noble
faith. This faith, however, was destined to be sorely tried. Winds and
waves beset them on the way, icebergs struck terror into their
spirits, and it was not till the middle of July that the leaking ship
came to anchor in the harbour of Tadousac. Thence they proceeded in
small boats up the river; and on the 1st of August the welcoming
cannon of Fort St. Louis boomed forth, and Quebec was _en fête_ in
honour of so notable an arrival.
Pending the erection of a suitable building at Quebec, the nuns of the
Hospital established themselves at the mission palisade of Sillery,
and the Ursulines began their work in the small wooden structure on
the river's brink below the rock. An outbreak of smallpox among the
Indians soon over-crowded their wretched tenement, and infected
savages came thither only to die. Worn out with labour, the
indefatigable nuns continued bravely to contend with the disease and
suffering around them, and the monuments of their high endurance and
beautiful devotion are to be found to-day in the ivy-clad cloisters in
Garden Street, where the gentle Ursulines still minister to the
maidens of French Canada; and in the pretentious hospital on Palace
Hill where nuns still care tenderly for the sick and dying, and read
the inspiring history of their order back to 1639.
About the middle of the seventeenth century a stranger in Quebec would
have been surprised to find that the city lacked nothing so much as
people. Reversing the natural law of supply and demand, it built
churches before it had worshippers, schools before it had scholars,
and hospitals before it had patients. The purpose was to attract
settlement by preparing beforehand for the wants of colonists. These
early establishments have, however, justified themselves by a
continuous and permanent history, and Quebec is now, as it was nearly
three centuries ago, a city of churches and convents. The bells rang
then, as now, from morning till night, Gregorian chants streamed out
through convent windows, and the black-robed priest was the soul of
all.
Montmagny rebuilt in stone the fort on the precipice, and spared
nothing to give the place a formidable appearance. For safety the
church and presbytery of the Jesuits stood close to the parapet. The
Ursulines, with less caution, began to build their tiny convent in the
neighbouring woods. The first Hôtel-Dieu was rising on the cliff
overlooking the valley of the St. Charles, and not far away was the
new farm of Louis Hébert, the chemist--all together making a picture
of progress. Champlain's first Habitation had fallen to ruin, but a
few wooden tenements still remained to mark the earliest settlement in
Lower Town, and the Church of the Récollets told the tale of past
perils and an unfailing faith. A league or so up the river was the
Algonquin mission of Sillery, with its clustered cabins and rude
oratory, surrounded by a palisade.
[Illustration: URSULINE NUNS OF QUEBEC (SALLE D'ÉTUDE, NOVICIAT>)]
Montmagny was a _dévoté_ surrounded by a suite as pious as himself.
Through these amenable spirits the Jesuits were supreme not only in
matters of religion, but in matters of state. Indeed, in this
ecclesiastically governed community there was little distinction
between sacred and secular matters. The church was the centre of
affairs. A stake was planted before the sacred edifice bearing a
placard of warning against blasphemy, drunkenness, and neglect of the
Mass. A pillory, with chain and iron collar, and a wooden horse, stood
close by--suggestive means of religious correction.
[Illustration: JESUITS COLLEGE AND CHURCH
(Latter destroyed by fire, 1807)]
Even the recreations of the people partook of a religious character.
The feast of St. Joseph, the patron saint of New France, was
celebrated with pious display. On May-Day the young people of Quebec
tripped about a maypole surmounted by a triple crown in honour of
Jesus, Maria, and Joseph. The annual visits of the Company's ships
from France, however, temporarily disturbed the calm of the monastic
city. The genuflexions of drunken sailors were seldom in honour of St.
Joseph; and the ribald humours of visiting mariners profaned for a
season the quiet rock of Quebec.
[Illustration: CHÂTEAU ST. LOUIS, 1694]
But throughout this missionary period the hatchet of the Iroquois was
suspended over the city. Their dreaded war-cry rang all too often
through the adjacent forests, and their stealthy tomahawks found
victims even under the guns of Fort St. Louis. So daring became the
incursions of the implacable savages that the settlers did not dare to
till their lands. To pass from one post to another without a strong
escort meant risk of death or capture; and capture was more dreaded
than death itself. Every year had its tale of surprises and
massacres. The sleepless sentries on the ramparts, and the staunch
palisades of the fort seemed insufficient protection against a foe as
silent as an arrow and as swift in speeding upon its victim. At this
time also the Jesuit missions among the distant Hurons were suffering
unknown horrors; but the tale of their disasters is for another
chapter.
Successive governors of Quebec--Montmagny, D'Ailleboust, and
D'Argenson--pleaded with the home authorities to send reinforcements
for their feeble garrison, by whom alone Quebec hoped to escape the
ever-dreaded catastrophe. Through press of home affairs, and official
neglect and indifference, these requests continued to be disregarded.
Reprisals were taken against the Iroquois whenever opportunities
occurred; but even these were all too rare.
In May, 1660, an Iroquois captive was brought to Quebec. A stake was
erected in the _Place d'Armes_, and in the sight of the populace the
Indian was burned to death. A deed of this nature, occurring with the
apparent sanction of the religious governor of a civilised community,
must be taken to reflect the terrible pressure of suffering which made
such inhuman reprisals possible. The savage nature of this vengeance
was softened to the eyes of many by the poor casuistry of the Jesuits,
who gave out, and believed, that the soul of the Mohawk would go
straight to Paradise on the wings of his unwelcome baptism.
This particular Indian met his fate with the wonderful fortitude of
his race, but not with their stoic silence. Instead, he breathed out
threatenings, and promised the fell destruction of the pale-faced
interlopers. Even now, he told them, hundreds of his kinsmen were
gathering upon the Ottawa and St. Lawrence for the final effacement of
Quebec, and with hideous fury the baptized savage called down upon
them the wrath of his gods.
Forthwith Quebec became deeply alarmed. The desultory attacks of the
Iroquois were now to be exchanged for a deliberate assault in which
the whole strength of the Five Nations should be thrown into the
struggle. The Ursulines and nuns of the Hôtel-Dieu forsook their
convents to take refuge in the fortified college of the Jesuits,
whither the fugitives from the surrounding settlements also fled. A
company of soldiers took up their quarters in the Ursuline Convent,
the redoubts of the fort were strengthened, and barricades were
erected in the streets of Lower Town. All night long sentries paced
the parapets, peering anxiously into the surrounding darkness, and
straining their ears for the creeping tread in the thicket.
After several days of watching, however, no Iroquois appeared, and the
inhabitants began to breathe freely again. The more courageous
returned to their deserted homes and farms, but the timid still clung
to the blockhouse. The panic had also spread to Ville Marie,[5] and
the imminence of this danger produced one of the most brilliant
exploits which Canadian history records--a feat of daring closely
resembling, and not surpassed by, the achievement of Leonidas in the
Pass of Thermopylæ.
The story is one of the finest in the picturesque pages of Parkman,
part of whose narrative is here transcribed.
[Footnote 5: Now Montreal.]
* * * * *
Adam Daulac, or Dollard, Sieur des Ormeaux, was a young man of good
family, who had come to the colony three years before, at the age of
twenty-two. He had held some military rank in France, and it was not
long before he set on foot a remarkable Indian enterprise. Sixteen
young men caught his spirit, struck hands with him, and pledged their
word. They bound themselves by oath to accept no quarter, made their
wills, confessed, and received the sacrament. After a solemn farewell,
they embarked in several canoes, well supplied with arms and
ammunition. Descending the St. Lawrence, they entered the mouth of the
Ottawa, crossed the Lake of Two Mountains, and slowly advanced against
the current of the river. A few days later they reached the foot of
the formidable rapid called the "Long Sault," where a tumult of waters
foaming among ledges and boulders barred their onward way. Besides, it
was needless to go farther. The Iroquois were sure to pass the Sault,
and could be fought here as well as elsewhere.
[Illustration: THE URSULINES' CONVENT]
Just below the rapid stood a palisade fort, the work of an Algonquin
war-party of the preceding autumn. It was a mere enclosure of trunks
of small trees planted in a circle, and was already ruinous. Such as
it was, the Frenchmen took possession. They made their fires and slung
their kettles on the neighbouring shore. Here they were soon
afterwards joined by a small party of friendly Indians, consisting of
about forty Hurons from Quebec, under their brave and wily chief
Étienne Annahotaha, and five Algonquins led by Mituvemeg. Daulac made
no objection to their company, so they all bivouacked together.
In a day or two their scouts came in with tidings that two Iroquois
canoes were coming down the Sault. Daulac had only time to set his men
in ambush before the advance canoes of the enemy swept down the river.
A few of the Iroquois escaped the Frenchmen's volley, and fleeing into
the forest, they reported their mischance to their main body, 200 in
number, on the river above. Thereupon a fleet of canoes suddenly
appeared, bounding down the rapids, filled with warriors eager for
revenge. The allies had barely time to escape to their fort, leaving
their kettles still slung over the fires. The Iroquois made a hasty
attack, but being repulsed, they withdrew and fell to building a rude
fort of their own in the neighbouring forest. This gave the French
breathing-time, and they used it for strengthening their defences.
They planted a row of stakes within their palisade, to form a double
fence, and filled the intervening space with earth and stones to the
height of a man, leaving twenty loopholes or more, at each of which
three marksmen were stationed.
Their work was still unfinished when the Iroquois were upon them
again. They had broken to pieces the birch canoes of the French and
their allies, and kindling the bark, rushed up to pile it blazing
against the palisade; but so brisk and steady a fire met them that
they recoiled, and at last gave way. Again and again, however, they
came on, each time leaving many of their bravest fighters dead upon
the ground. At length, their spirits dashed, the warriors drew back. A
canoe was hastily sent down the river to call to their aid five
hundred Iroquois who were mustered near the mouth of the Richelieu.
Meanwhile, the defenders of the fort were harassed night and day with
a spattering fire and a constant menace of attack. Thus five days
passed. Hunger, thirst, and want of sleep wrought fatally on the
strength of the French and their allies, who, pent up together in a
narrow prison, fought and prayed by turns. Deprived as they were of
water, they could not swallow the crushed Indian corn which was their
only food. Some of them, under cover of a brisk fire, ran down to the
river and filled such small vessels as they had. But this meagre
supply only tantalised their thirst, and they now dug a hole in the
fort, to be rewarded at last by a little muddy water oozing through
the clay.
On the fifth day an uproar of unearthly yells from seven hundred
savage throats, mingled with a clattering salute of musketry, told the
Frenchmen that the expected reinforcement had come. Soon a crowd of
warriors mustered for the attack. Cautiously they advanced,
screeching, leaping, and firing as they came on; but the French were
at their posts, and every loophole darted its tongue of fire. Besides
muskets, they had heavy musketoons of large calibre, which, scattering
scraps of lead and iron among the throng of savages, often maimed
several of them at one discharge. The Iroquois, astonished at the
persistent vigour of the defence, fell back discomfited. The fire of
the French had told upon them with deadly effect. Three days more wore
away in a series of futile attacks; and during all this time Daulac
and his men, reeling with exhaustion, fought and prayed, sure of a
martyr's reward.
At length the Iroquois determined upon a grand final assault. Large
and heavy shields, four or five feet high, were made by lashing
together three split logs with the aid of cross-bars, and covered with
these mantelets a chosen band advanced, followed by the motley throng
of warriors. In spite of a brisk fire they reached the palisade, and
crouching below the range of shot, hewed furiously with their hatchets
to cut their way through. Daulac had crammed a large musketoon with
powder, and lighting a fuse, he tried to throw it over the barrier, to
burst like a grenade among the savages without; but it struck the
ragged top of one of the palisades, fell back among the Frenchmen and
exploded, killing and wounding several of them. In the confusion which
followed, the Iroquois got possession of the loopholes, and thrusting
in their guns, fired on those within. In a moment they had torn a
breach in the palisade, then another and another. The brave Daulac was
struck dead, but the survivors kept up the now hopeless fight. With
sword, hatchet, or knife, they threw themselves against the throng of
enemies, striking and stabbing with the fury of madmen, till the
Iroquois, despairing of taking them alive, fired volley after volley
and shot them down. All was over, and a burst of triumphant yells
proclaimed the dear-bought victory.
To the colony it proved salvation. The Iroquois had had fighting
enough. If seventeen Frenchmen and a handful of Indian allies, behind
a picket fence, could hold seven hundred warriors at bay so long, what
might they expect from many such fighting behind walls of stone? For
that year they thought no more of capturing Quebec and Ville Marie,
but returned to their villages dejected and amazed, to howl over their
losses, and nurse their dashed courage for a day of vengeance.