ROYAL GOVERNMENT
In the year 1660 the French population of Quebec numbered something
over six hundred. The fur company continued to drive a fair trade in
peltries, but the prosperity of the city itself was woefully retarded
by the constant menace of the Iroquois. The Baron d'Avaugour held the
office of Governor, and his strong sense of military authority brought
him into conflict with the Church, by this time become the real
controller of the State. This revered power was still further to
impose its authority and influence through and by the person of
François-Xavier Laval, the first Bishop of Canada, a man of as great
ability as piety, an ecclesiastical statesman trained in the school of
Mazarin. His career gives significance to a later epoch.
The fur traders had always found brandy their most attractive
commodity in dealing with the thirsty savage; and Père Lalement gives
a sad picture of the misery entailed. "They have brought themselves
to nakedness," he writes, "and their families to beggary. They have
even gone so far as to sell their children to procure the means of
satisfying their raging passion. I cannot describe the evils caused by
these disorders to the infant Church. My ink is not black enough to
paint them in proper colours. It would require the gall of the dragon
to express the bitterness we have experienced from them. It may
suffice to say that we lose in one month the fruits of the toil and
labour of thirty years." Accordingly, the Church now decided to
prohibit it entirely, and a law was passed making it a capital
offence. Two men paid the extreme penalty; and a woman also was
condemned to the scaffold. When, however, the clergy interfered to
save her, the rigorous but consistent D'Avaugour declared he would
punish no more breaches of this law. Brandy now flowed like water, and
the thunder of the pulpit was henceforth disregarded. Exasperated by
this treatment, the priests carried their grievance to the Louvre,
where they received little satisfaction.
[Illustration: COLBERT]
In the same year a deputy of another sort journeyed to France. Pierre
Boucher's mission was to lay before the King the desperate condition
of the colony, particularly in the matter of defence. Louis XIV. had
but recently ascended the throne of the Bourbons, and Richelieu and
Mazarin had been in turn succeeded by Colbert as the royal adviser.
The envoy from Quebec was presently received at the Court, and the
tale of suffering and neglect which he unfolded convinced Colbert that
the Company of One Hundred Associates was scandalously evading the
obligations imposed by its charter. Accordingly, in 1663, a royal
edict went forth revoking its powers and privileges. This was a
turning-point in the history of New France; for although the company
founded by Richelieu was succeeded by an unwieldy corporation of
Colbert's design, from this time forward the Crown itself took over
the control of the distant colony.
The Grand Monarch, indeed, took a finely comprehensive view of his
position. He held himself in every sense the father of his people, and
by a nice condescension the citizens of Quebec were included in the
patriarchal fold. The far-away city on the borders of the world was no
longer to be abandoned to the avaricious whims of a trading company:
the King himself would now take it under his royal care. Daniel de
Rémy, Sieur de Courcelles, was appointed Governor, with Jean Baptiste
Talon as Intendant; and the valorous Marquis de Tracy was commissioned
to New France as the King's personal representative, with instructions
to settle the domestic friction of the colony, and to deal a fatal
blow to the Iroquois, the "scourge of Canada."
* * * * *
On the 30th of June, 1665, De Tracy's caravels cast anchor in the
basin of Quebec, the ships of De Courcelles and the Intendant being
still at sea. The cannon of Fort St. Louis boomed a welcome down the
gorge of the St. Lawrence, while the eager burghers crowded the
ramparts and prepared to welcome the most distinguished company in the
most brilliant pageant yet seen upon the soil of New France.
The royal pennant flew at the flag-ship's masthead, and the decks were
thronged with the brilliant uniforms of the regiment of
Carignan-Salières, whom the King had sent to destroy the enemies of
New France. In the midst stood the stately Marquis, gorgeous in
vice-regal robes and attended by a suite of nobles and gallants from
the court of Fontainebleau. The mysteries and wonders of the West had
stirred the romantic minds of the volatile courtiers, and the mission
to convert New France to the Catholic faith gave to De Tracy's
expedition the complexion of a mediæval crusade.
Presently the gaily-decked pinnace drew in to the landing-stage of the
Cul-de-sac, where stood the notables of the New World city. Bishop
Laval in pontificals, surrounded by the priests of his diocese,
awaited the royal envoy at the top of Mountain Hill, which was then
the only practicable highway between the Lower and the Upper Town.
To-day the visitor landing at the quay reaches the terrace by the same
route; but the present graceful declivity of Mountain Hill is little
like the tortuous pathway of corduroy by which De Tracy and his
glittering retinue made their toilsome way to the public square by the
Jesuits' College. First came a company of guards in the royal livery,
then four pages and six valets, and by the side of the King's
Lieutenant-General, resplendent in gold lace and gay ribbons, walked
the young nobles of his train. The cathedral bells pealed forth
joyously, and the _Te Deum_ began a day of public rejoicing.
The vessels bearing the new Governor and Intendant, however, suffered
the most hapless violence. Talon's ship was 117 days at sea, and De
Courcelles' was hardly more fortunate; but at length they, too, cast
anchor beneath the rocky battlement, and Quebec was now flooded with
soldiers of the regiment of Carignan-Salières. These bronzed veterans
of Savoy came to New France fresh from the Turkish wars, and the sight
of their plumed helmets and leathern bandoleers, as they marched
through the narrow streets, promised the colonists a speedy riddance
of their enemies. The health of Louis XIV. was nowhere in his broad
dominions drunk more heartily than in Quebec.
At the close of the year extensive preparations were made for the
chastisement of the Iroquois. De Courcelles had determined upon a
stroke of almost foolhardy boldness: to march over the snow into the
country of the Mohawks, a distance of three hundred leagues. Thick ice
had formed on the St. Lawrence, and on the 9th of January the
audacious Governor set off at the head of his fiery columns.
Officers and men alike shared the burdens of transport, but the
soldiers of Europe were embarrassed by the unaccustomed snow-shoes
which the deep snow forced them to use. Some got no farther than
Three Rivers, but the more hardy held their way up the valley of the
Richelieu to Lake Champlain and across the Hudson. An unfortunate
circumstance, however, had deprived them of guides, and all efforts to
find and surprise the Mohawk towns proved unsuccessful. Wandering by
mistake beyond Saratoga Lake, they came near to the Dutch village of
Corlaer,[7] where, half-frozen and half-starved, they bivouacked in
the neighbouring woods. A few days later envoys appeared from Albany
to demand why the French had invaded the territories of the Duke of
York; and then, for the first time, De Courcelles learned that the New
Netherlands had passed into English hands.
De Courcelles' explanation was courteously accepted, and having been
supplied with provisions, he prepared to retrace his steps to Quebec.
His intended victims, the Mohawks, harassed the retreat, killing and
taking prisoners; while sixty of his men perished from hunger and
exposure before he came in sight of the St. Lawrence, and many more
fell before he reached Quebec.
In spite of apparent failure, however, this expedition, like that
undertaken by Daulac, had a good effect upon the Iroquois, who had
come to regard themselves as too remote for French assault.
[Footnote 7: Now Schenectady.]
They now sent embassies to Quebec seeking a treaty of peace, an idea
to which, naturally, the French were not opposed. But the occasion was
too much for Iroquois malice and lust of blood; for even whilst terms
were under discussion, a band of French hunters was set upon by the
Mohawks. The Marquis de Tracy, now thoroughly aroused to the
sufferings of his countrymen, determined to strike a sudden and
crushing blow. The Iroquois deputies, still in Quebec praying for
peace, were seized and imprisoned, and a formidable force once more
prepared to invade the country of the Five Nations.
It was in early October, 1666, that De Tracy and De Courcelles left
Quebec at the head of thirteen hundred men. Of these, six hundred were
regulars of Carignan-Salières, an equal number were irregulars from
Quebec, under command of Répentigny, and a hundred Indian scouts from
the missions ranged the woods. A hundred rugged colonists, commanded
by the brave Charles le Moyne, joined the advancing column at
Montreal. With confidence this imposing force swept on to annihilate
the enemies of New France.
At the mysterious sound of the French drum-beat the Mohawks of the
first village fled in terror, and the invaders pressed on to the
second, third, and fourth towns, to find them also deserted. At
Andaraqué, their largest village, the Mohawks prepared to make a final
stand; but the first appearance of the French army and the roll of
their "devil-drums" as they emerged from the forest put the savages to
instant flight. Andaraqué, the last native stronghold, being thus
abandoned, with its stores of corn and winter supplies, the French
took what provisions they needed for their return journey, set fire to
the town, and having planted on the site a white cross in the name of
the King, they turned their faces homeward. The remaining Indian
villages were given to the flames, and although the Mohawks had
escaped with their lives, the French were content to leave them to the
severities of coming winter.
This policy was successful, for by the time spring came again, not
only the Mohawks, but their four confederate nations, were anxious to
make a sincere peace with the avenging soldiers of New France.
Hostages were exchanged, several representative chiefs remaining in
Quebec. The Jesuits again undertook the Mission of the Martyrs,
desiring both to win the savages into the fold of the Church and at
the same time to wean the Iroquois from their friendliness towards the
colonies of England, with whom the French were soon to enter into
deadly conflict for the mastery of the North American continent.
The Marquis de Tracy, having in due time fulfilled the King's
commission, embarked for France, and with him departed the glittering
_entourage_ which for almost two years had cast upon the court of
Quebec some reflection of the glories of Versailles. The regiment of
Carignan-Salières was disbanded, but its officers, for the most part,
elected to remain in Canada and accept the gift of seigneuries which
the King distributed on conditions of fealty and homage. The soldiers
settled on the fiefs as _censitaires_ and became the retainers of the
seigneurs. The feudal system, with all its antique forms, was thus
imported into French Canada, further to cripple her progress in the
race with the English colonies, where the individual was allowed to
develop freely, evolving his own laws, and creating conditions best
suited to his new estate. Talon became the royal instrument of a
system which had its beginning and end in the maintenance of kingly
authority.