Transcriber's Note
The text is given here as printed with the exception of several
punctuation errors, which have been corrected and are noted in the
End Notes. French titles are generally printed without accents, and are
retained as such.
Text in italics is rendered here as '_italic_. The 'oe' ligature is
printed as separate characters.
THE STORY OF TONTY
THE STORY OF TONTY
BY
MARY HARTWELL CATHERWOOD
Illustrated
[Illustration]
CHICAGO
A. C. McCLURG AND COMPANY
1890
COPYRIGHT,
BY A. C. MCCLURG AND CO.
A.D. 1889.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
INTRODUCTION 7
Book I.
A MONTREAL BEAVER FAIR.
I. FRONTENAC 11
II. HAND-OF-IRON 20
III. FATHER HENNEPIN 28
IV. A COUNCIL 39
V. SAINTE JEANNE 48
VI. THE PROPHECY OF JOLYCOEUR 57
Book II.
FORT FRONTENAC.
I. RIVAL MASTERS 71
II. A TRAVELLED FRIAR 81
III. HEAVEN AND EARTH 87
IV. A CANOE FROM THE ILLINOIS 96
V. FATHER HENNEPIN'S CHAPEL 109
VI. LA SALLE AND TONTY 118
VII. AN ADOPTION 128
VIII. TEGAHKOUITA 136
IX. AN ORDEAL 146
X. HEMLOCK 155
Book III.
FORT ST. LOUIS OF THE ILLINOIS.
I. IN AN EAGLE'S NEST 167
II. THE FRIEND AND BROTHER 176
III. HALF-SILENCE 188
IV. A FÊTE ON THE ROCK 200
V. THE UNDESPAIRING NORMAN 210
VI. TO-DAY 224
INTRODUCTION.
No man can see all of a mountain at once. He sees its differing sides.
Moreover, it has rainy and bright day aspects, and summer and winter
faces.
[Illustration]
The romancer is covered with the dust of old books, modern books, great
books, and out of them all brings in a condensing hand these pictures of
two men whose lives were as large as this continent.
La Salle is a definite figure in the popular mind. But La Salle's
greater friend is known only to historians and students. To me the
finest fact in the Norman explorer's career is the devotion he
commanded in Henri de Tonty. No stupid dreamer, no ruffian at heart, no
betrayer of friendship, no mere blundering woodsman--as La Salle has
been outlined by his enemies--could have bound to himself a man like
Tonty. The love of this friend and the words this friend has left on
record thus honor La Salle. And we who like courage and steadfastness
and gentle courtesy in men owe much honor which has never been paid to
Henri de Tonty.
Book I.
A MONTREAL BEAVER FAIR.
1678 A. D.
THE STORY OF TONTY.
I.
FRONTENAC.
Along the entire river front of Montreal camp-fires faded as the
amphitheatre of night gradually dissolved around them.
Canoes lay beached in one long row as if a shoal of huge fish had come
to land. The lodges made a new street along Montreal wharf. Oblong
figures of Indian women moved from shadow to shine, and children stole
out to caper beside kettles where they could see their breakfasts
steaming. Here and there light fell upon a tranquil mummy less than a
metre in length, standing propped against a lodge side, and blinking
stoical eyes in its brown flat face as only a bark-encased Indian baby
could blink; or it slept undisturbed by the noise of the awakening camp,
looking a mummy indeed.
The savage of the New World carried his family with him on every
peaceable journey; sometimes to starve for weeks when the winter hunting
proved bad. It was only when he went to war that he denied himself all
squaw service.
The annual beaver fair was usually held in midsummer, but this year the
tribes of the upper lakes had not descended with their furs to Montreal
until September. These precious skins, taken out of the canoes, were
stored within the lodges.
Every male of the camp was already greasing, painting, and feathering
himself for the grand council, which always preceded a beaver fair.
Hurons, Ottawas, Crees, Nipissings, Ojibwas, Pottawatamies, each jealous
for his tribe, completed a process begun the night before, and put on
what might be called his court dress. In some cases this was no dress at
all, except a suit of tattooing, or a fine coat of ochre streaked with
white clay or soot. The juice of berries heightened nature in their
faces. But there were grand barbarians who laid out robes of beaver
skin, ample, and marked inside with strange figures or porcupine quill
embroidery. The heads swarming in this vast and dusky dressing-room were
some of them shaven bare except the scalp lock, some bristling in a
ridge across the top, while others carried the natural coarse growth
tightly braided down one side, with the opposite half flowing loose.
Montreal behind its palisades made a dim background to all this early
illumination,--few domestic candles shining through windows or glancing
about the Hôtel Dieu as the nuns began their morning devotions. Mount
Royal now flickered a high shadow, and now massed inertly against stars;
but the river, breathing forever like some colossal creature, reflected
all the camp-fires in its moving scales.
The guns of the fort had fired a salute to Indian guests on their
arrival the evening before. But at sunrise repeated cannonading, a
prolonged roll of drums, and rounds of musketry announced that the
governor-general's fleet was in sight.
Montreal flocked to the wharf where already the savages were arrayed in
solemn ranks. Marching out of the fortress with martial music, past the
Hôtel Dieu to the landing-place where Frontenac must step from his boat,
came the remnant of the Carignan regiment. Even the Sulpitian
brotherhood, whose rights as seigniors of Montreal island this governor
had at one time slighted, appeared to do him honor. And gentle nuns of
St. Joseph were seen in the general outpour of inhabitants.
This governor-general, with all his faults, had a large and manly way of
meeting colonial dangers, and was always a prop under the fainting heart
of New France.
His boats made that display upon the St. Lawrence which it was his
policy and inclination to make before Indians. Officers in white and
gold, and young nobles of France, powdered, and flashing in the colors
of Louis' magnificent reign, crowded his own vessel,--young men who had
ventured out to Quebec because it was the fashion at court to be skilled
in colonial matters, and now followed Frontenac as far as Montreal to
amuse themselves with the annual beaver fair. The flag of France, set
with its lily-like symbol, waved over their heads its white reply to
its twin signal on the fort.
Frontenac stood at the boat's prow, his rich cloak thrown back, and his
head bared to the morning river breath and the people's shouts. Being
colonial king pleased this soldier, tired of European camps and the full
blaze of royalty, where his poverty put him to the disadvantage of a
singed moth.
He came blandly gliding to the wharf, Louis de Buade, Count of
Frontenac, and Baron of Palluau, and the only governor of New France who
ever handled the arrogant Five Nations of the Iroquois like a strong
father,[1]--a man who would champion the rights of his meanest colonist,
and at the same time quarrel with his lieutenant in power to his last
breath.
Merchants of Quebec followed him with boat-loads of Indian supplies.
Even Acadia had sent men to this voyage, for the Baron de Saint-Castin
appeared in the fleet, with his young Indian Baroness. It is told of
Saint-Castin that he had kept a harem in his sylvan principality of
Pentegoet; but being a man of conscience, he confessed and reformed. It
is also told of him that he never kept a harem or otherwise lapsed into
the barbarisms of the Penobscots, among whom he carried missionaries and
over whom he was a great lord. Type of the Frenchman of his day, he came
to New France a lad in the Carignan regiment, amassed fortunes in the
fur trade, and holding his own important place in the colony, goaded
like a thorn the rival colony of New England along his borders.
But most conspicuous to the eyes of Montreal were two men standing at
Frontenac's right hand, a Norman and an Italian. Both were tall, the
Italian being of deeper colors and more generous materials. His large
features were clothed in warm brown skin. Rings of black hair thick as a
fleece were cut short above his military collar. His fearless, kindly
eyes received impressions from every aspect of the New World. There
dwelt in Henri de Tonty the power to make men love him at
sight,--savages as well as Europeans. He wore the dress of a French
lieutenant of infantry, and looked less than thirty years old, having
entered the service of France in his early youth.
The other man, Robert Cavelier,--called La Salle from an estate he had
once owned in France,--explorer, and seignior of Fort Frontenac and
adjacent grants on the north shore of Lake Ontario, was at that time in
the prime of his power. He was returning from France, with the king's
permission to work out all his gigantic enterprises, with funds for the
purpose, and one of the most promising young military men in Europe as
his lieutenant.
Montreal merchants on the wharf singled out La Salle with jealous eye,
which saw in the drooping point and flaring base of his nose an endless
smile of scorn. He was a man who had only to use his monopolies to
become enormously rich, cutting off the trade of the lakes from
Montreal. That he was above gain, except as he could use it for hewing
his ambitious road into the wilderness, they did not believe. The
merchants of Montreal readily translated the shyness and self-restraint
of his solitary nature into the arrogance of a recently ennobled and
successful man.
La Salle had a spare face, with long oval cheeks, curving well inward
beside the round of his sensitive prominent chin. Gray and olive tones
still further cooled the natural pallor of his skin and made ashen brown
the hair which he wore flowing.
The plainness of an explorer and the elegance of a man exact in all his
habits distinguished La Salle's dress against that background of
brilliant courtiers.
He moved ashore with Frontenac, who saluted benignly both the array of
red allies and the inhabitants of this second town in the province.
The sub-governor stepped out to escort the governor-general to the fort,
bells rang, cannon still boomed, martial music pierced the heart with
its thrill, and the Carignan squad wheeled in behind Frontenac's moving
train.
"Sieur de la Salle! Sieur de la Salle!" a little girl called, breaking
away from the Sisters of St. Joseph, whose convent robes had enclosed
her like palisades, "take me also in the procession!"
This demand granted itself, so nimbly did she escape a nun's ineffectual
grasp and spring between Tonty and La Salle.
Frontenac himself had turned at the shrill outcry. He laughed when he
saw the wilful young creature taking the explorer by the wrist and
falling into step so close to his own person.
A pursuing nun, unwilling to interrupt the governors train, hovered
along its progress, making anxious signs to her charge, until she
received an assuring gesture from La Salle. She then went back
dissatisfied but relieved of responsibility; and the child, with a proud
fling of her person, marched on toward the fort.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Frontenac was the only man the Iroquois would ever allow to
call himself their father. All other governors, English or
French, were simply brothers.
II.
HAND-OF-IRON.
"Mademoiselle the tiger-cat," said La Salle to Tonty, making himself
heard with some effort above the din of martial sound.
The young soldier lifted his hat with his left hand and made the child a
bow, which she regarded with critical eyes.
"I am the niece of Monsieur de la Salle," she explained to Tonty as she
marched; "so he calls me tiger-cat."
"Mademoiselle Barbe Cavelier is the tiger-cat's human name," the
explorer added, laughing. "It is flattering to have this nimble animal
spring affectionately on one from ambush; but I should soon have
inquired after you at the convent, mademoiselle."
"I did not spring affectionately on you," said Barbe; "I wanted to be in
the procession."
"Hast thou then lost all regard for thy uncle La Salle during his year
of absence?"
Barbe's high childish voice distinctly and sincerely stated, "No,
monsieur; I have fought all the girls at the convent on your account.
Jeanne le Ber said nothing against you; but she is a Le Ber. I am glad
you came back in such grandeur. I was determined to be in the grandeur
myself. But it is not a time to give you my cheek for a kiss."
La Salle smiled over her head at Tonty. The Italian noted her marked
resemblance to the explorer. She had the same features in delicate
tints, the darkness of her eyelashes and curls only emphasizing the
type. Already her small nose drooped at the point and flared at the
base. As La Salle and his young kinswoman stepped together, Tonty gauged
them alike,--two self-restraining natures with unmeasured endurance and
individual force like the electric current.
Montreal's square bastioned fort, by the mouth of a small creek flowing
into the St. Lawrence, was soon reached from the wharf. It stood at the
south end of the town.
"My dear child," said La Salle, stating his case to Barbe, "it is
necessary for me to go into the fort with Count Frontenac, and equally
necessary you should go back at once to the Sisters. I will bring you
out of the convent to-morrow to look at the beaver fair. This is
Monsieur de Tonty, my lieutenant; let him take you back to the nuns. I
shall be blamed if I carry you into the fort."
Barbe heard him without raising objections. She looked at Tonty, who
gave her his left hand and drew her out of the train.
It swept past them into the fortress gates,--gallant music, faces
returning her eager gaze with smiles, plumes, powdered curls, and laces,
gold and white uniforms, soldiers with the sun flashing from their
gun-barrels.
Barbe watched the last man in. To express her satisfaction she then
rose to the tip of one foot and hopped three steps. She was lightly and
delicately made, and as full of restless grace as a bird. Her face and
curls bloomed above and strongly contrasted with the raiment her convent
guardians planned for a child dependent, not on their charity, but on
their maternal care.
The September morning enveloped the world in a haze of brightness, like
that perfecting blue breath which we call the bloom upon the grape. A
great landscape with a scarf of melting azure resting around its
horizon, or ravelling to shreds against the mountain's breast, or
pretending to be wood-smoke across the river, drew Tonty's eye from the
disappearing pageant.
That fair land was a fit spot whereon the most luxurious of
civilizations should touch and affiliate with savages of the wilderness.
Up the limpid green river the Lachine Rapids showed their teeth with
audible roar. From that point Mount Royal could be seen rising out of
mists and stretching its hind-quarters westward like some vast mastodon.
But to Tonty only its front appeared, a globe dipped in autumn colors
and wearing plumes of vapor. The sky of this new hemisphere rose in
unmeasured heights which the eye followed in vain; there seemed no
zenith to the swimming blinding azure.
A row of booths for merchants had been built all along the outside of
Montreal's palisades, and traders were thus early setting their goods in
array.
At the north extremity of the town that huge stone windmill built by the
seigniors for defence, cast a long dewy shadow toward the west. Its
loopholes showed like dark specks on the body of masonry.
Sun-sparkles on the river were no more buoyant and changeable than the
child at Tonty's side. Dimples came and went in her cheeks. Her blood
was stirred by the swarming life around her.
"Monsieur," she confided to her uncle's lieutenant, "I am meditating
something very wicked."
"Certainly that is impossible, mademoiselle," said Tonty, accommodating
his step to her reluctant gait.
"I am meditating on not going back to the convent."
"Where would you go, mademoiselle?"
"Everywhere, to see things."
"But my orders are to escort you to the nuns. You would disgrace me as a
soldier."
Barbe lifted her gaze to his face and was diverted from rebellion. Tonty
put out his arm to guard her, but a tall stalking brave was pushed
against her in passing and immediately startled by the thud of her
prompt fist upon his back. The Indian turned, unsheathing his knife.
"Get out of my way, thou ugly big warrior," said Barbe, meeting his eye,
which softened from fierceness to laughter, and holding her fist ready
for further encounter.
[Illustration]
The Indian made some mocking gestures and menaced her playfully with
his thumb. Tonty threw his arm across her shoulder and moved her on
toward the convent. Barbe escaped from this touch, an entirely new
matter filling her mind.
"Monsieur, even old Jonaneaux in our Hôtel Dieu hath not such a heavy
hand as thou hast. Many a time hath he pulled me down off the palisade
when I looked over to see the coureurs de bois go roaring by. But thou
hast a hand like iron!"
Tonty flushed, being not yet hardened to his misfortune.
"It is a hand of iron. I am called Main-de-fer."[2]
Barbe took hold of it in its glove. Of all the people she had ever met
Tonty was the only person whose touch she did not resent.
"The other hand is not like unto it, monsieur?"
He gave her the other also, and she compared their weight. With a
roguish lifting of her nostrils she inquired,--
"Will every bit of you turn to metal like this heavy hand?"
"Alas, no, mademoiselle; there is no hope of that."
Tonty stripped his gauntlet off. With half afraid fingers she examined
the artificial member. It was of copper.
"Where is the old one, monsieur?"
"It was blown off by a grenade at Messina last year."
"Does it hurt?"
"Not now. Except when I think of the service of Monsieur de la Salle,
and of my being thus pieced out as a man."
Barbe measured his height and breadth and warm-toned face with satisfied
eyes. She consoled him.
"There is so much of you, monsieur, you can easily do without a hand."
FOOTNOTES:
[2] "Henri de Tonty, surnommé Main-de-fer." Notes Sur Nouvelle
France.
III.
FATHER HENNEPIN.
"Thou art a comfort to a soldier, mademoiselle," said Tonty, heartily.
"But not to a priest," observed Barbe. "For last birthday when I was
eleven my uncle Abbé stuck out his lip and said I was eleven years bad.
But my uncle La Salle kissed my cheek. There goeth François le Moyne."
Her face became suddenly distorted with grimaces of derision beside
which Tonty could scarcely keep his gravity. A boy of about her own age
ran past, dropping her a sneer for her pains.
"Monsieur, these Le Moynes and Sorels and Bouchers and Varennes and
Joliets and Le Bers, they are all against my uncle La Salle. The girls
talk about it in the convent. But he hath the governor on his side, so
what can they do? I have pinched Jeanne le Ber at school, but she will
never pinch back and it only makes her feel holier. So I pinch her no
more. Do you know Jeanne le Ber?"
"No," said Tonty, "I have not that pleasure."
"Oh, monsieur, it is no pleasure. She says so many prayers. When I have
prayers for penances they make me so tired I have to get up and hop
between them. But Jeanne le Ber would pray all the time if her father
did not pull her off her knees. My father and mother died in France. If
they were alive they would not have to pull me off my knees."
"But a woman should learn to pray, even as a man should learn to fight,"
observed Tonty. "He stands between her and danger, and she should stand
linking him to heaven."
"I can fight for myself," said Barbe. "And everybody ought to say his
own prayers; but it makes one disagreeable to say more than his share. I
wish to grow up an agreeable person."
They had reached the palisade entrance which fronted the river, Barbe's
feet still lagging amid the lively scenes outside. She allowed Tonty to
lead her with his left hand, thus sheltering her next the booths from
streams of passing Indians and traders.
Beside this open gate she would have lingered indefinitely, chattering
to a guardian who felt her hatred of convent restraint, and gazing at
preparations for the council: at prunes and chopped pieces of oxen being
put to boil for an Indian feast; at the governor's chair from the
fortress, where the sub-governor lived, borne by men to the middle of
that space yearly occupied as the council ring. But a watchful Sister
was hovering ready inside the palisade gate, and reaching forth her arm
she drew her charge away from Tonty, giving him brief and scandalized
thanks for his service.
Barbe looked back. It was worth Tonty's while to catch sight of that
regretful face smeared about its warm neck by curls, its lips parted to
repeat and still repeat, "Adieu, monsieur. Adieu, monsieur."
But two men had come between the disappearing child and him, one man,
dressed partly like an officer and partly like a coureur de bois,
throwing both arms around Tonty in the eager Latin manner.
"My cousin Henri de Tonty, welcome to the New World. I waited with my
gouty leg at the fortress for you; but when you came not, like a good
woodsman, I tracked you down."
"My cousin Greysolon du Lhut! Glad am I to find you so speedily. This
cold and heavy hand belies me."
"I heard of this hand. But the other was well lost, my cousin. Take
courage in beholding me; I had nearly lost a leg, and not by good powder
and shot either, but with gout which disgracefully loads up a man with
his own dead members. But the Iroquois virgin, Catharine Tegahkouita,
hath interceded for me."
"Monsieur de Tonty will observe we have saints among the savages in New
France," said the other man.
He was a Récollet friar with sandalled feet, wearing a gray capote of
coarse texture which was girt with the cord of Saint Francis. His
peaked hood hung behind his shoulders leaving his shaven crown to
glisten with rosy enjoyment of the sunlight. A crucifix hung at his
side; but no man ever devoted his life to prayer who was so manifestly
created to enjoy the world. He had a nose of Flemish amplitude depressed
in the centre, fat lips, a terraced chin, and twinkling good-humored
eyes. The gray capote could not conceal a pompous swell of the stomach
and the strut of his sandalled feet.
"My cousin Tonty," said Du Lhut, "this is Father Louis Hennepin from
Fort Frontenac. He hath come down to Montreal[3] to meet Monsieur de la
Salle and engage himself in the new western venture."
"Venture!" exclaimed a keen-visaged man in the garb of a
merchant-colonist who was carrying a bale of goods to one of the
booths,--for no man in Montreal was ashamed to get profit out of the
beaver fair. "Where your Monsieur de la Salle is concerned there will be
venture enough, but no results for any man but La Salle."
He set his bale down as if it were a challenge.
Points of light sprung into Tonty's eyes and the blood in his face
showed its quickening.
"Monsieur," he spoke, "if you are a gentleman you shall answer to me for
slandering Monsieur de la Salle."
"Jacques le Ber is a noble of the colony," declared Du Lhut, with the
derisive freedom this great ranger and leader of coureurs de bois
assumed toward any one; "for hath he not purchased his patent of King
Louis for six thousand livres? But look you, my cousin Tonty, if the
king allowed not us colonial nobles to engage in trade he would lose us
all by starvation; for scarce a miserable censitaire on our lands can
pay us his capon and pint of wheat at the end of the year."
[Illustration: "Monsieur," spoke Tonty, "if you are a gentleman you
shall answer to me for slandering Monsieur de la Salle."--_Page 32._]
"I will answer to you, monsieur," said Jacques le Ber to the soldier,
"that La Salle is the enemy of the colony, and the betrayer of them that
have been his friends."
Father Hennepin and Du Lhut caught Tonty's arms. Du Lhut then dragged
him with expostulations inside the palisade gate, repeating Frontenac's
strict orders that all quarrels should be suppressed during the beaver
fair, and as the young man's furious looks still sought the merchant,
reminding him of the harm he might do La Salle by an open quarrel with
Montreal traders.
"I, who am not bound to La Salle as close as thou art,--I tell you it
will not do," declared Du Lhut.
"Let the man keep his distance, then!"
"Why, you hot-blooded fellow! why do you take these Frenchmen so
seriously?"
"Sieur de la Salle is my friend. I will strike any man who denounces
him."
"Oh, come out toward the mountain. Let us make a little pilgrimage,"
laughed Du Lhut. "We must cool thee, Tonty, we must cool thee; or La
Salle's enemies will lie in one heap the length of Montreal, mowed by
this iron hand!"
As Jacques le Ber carried forward his bale, Father Hennepin walked
beside him dealing forth good-natured remonstrance with fat hands and
out-turned lips.
"My son, God save me from the man who doth nurse a grievance. Your case
is simply this: our governor built a fort at Cataraqui, and it is now
called Fort Frontenac. He put you and associates of yours in charge, and
you had profit of that fort. Afterward, by his recommendation to the
king, Sieur de la Salle was made seignior of Fort Frontenac and lands
thereabout. This hast thou ever since bitterly chewed to the poisoning
of thy immortal soul."
"You churchmen all,--Jesuits, Sulpitians, or Récollets,--are over
zealous to domineer in this colony," spoke Jacques le Ber, through the
effort of carrying his bale.
"My son," said Father Hennepin, swelling his stomach and inflating his
throat, "why should I enter the mendicant order of Saint Francis and
live according to the rules of a pure and severe virtue, if I felt no
zeal for saving souls?"
"I spoke of domineering," repeated the angry merchant.
"And touching Monsieur de la Salle," said Father Hennepin, "I exhort
thee not to love him; for who could love him,--but to rid thyself of
hatred of any one."
"Father Hennepin has not then attached himself to La Salle's new
enterprise?"
"I have a grand plan of discovery of my own," said the friar, deeply,
rolling his shaven head, "an enterprise which would terrify anybody but
me. The Sieur de la Salle merely opens my path. I will confess to thee,
my son, that in youth I often hid myself behind the doors of
taverns,--which were no fit haunts for men of holy life,--to hearken
unto sailors' tales of strange lands. And thus would I willingly do
without eating or drinking, such burning desire I had to explore new
countries."
The Father did not observe that Jacques le Ber had reached his own booth
and was there arranging his goods regardless of explorations in strange
lands, but walked on, talking to the air, his out-thrust lips rounding
every word, until some derisive savage pointed out this solo.
Jacques le Ber made ready to take his place in the governor's council,
thinking wrathfully of his encounter with Tonty. He dwelt, as we all do,
upon the affronts and hindrances of the present, rather than on his
prospect of founding a strong and worthy family in the colony.
FOOTNOTES:
[3] The romancer here differs from the historian, who says Father
Hennepin met La Salle at Quebec.
IV.
A COUNCIL.
The North American savage, with an unerring instinct which republics
might well study, sent his wisest men to the front to represent him.
A great circle of Indians, ranged according to their tribes, sat around
Frontenac when the stone windmill trod its noon shadow underfoot. Te
Deum had been sung in the chapel, and thanks offered for his safe
arrival. The principal men of Montreal, with the governor's white and
gold officers, sat now within the circle behind his chair.
But Frontenac faced every individual of his Indian children, moving
before them, their natural leader, as he made his address of greeting,
admonition, and approval, through Du Lhut as interpreter. The old
courtier loved Indians. They appealed to that same element in him which
the coureurs de bois knew how to reach. The Frenchman has a wild strain
of blood. He takes kindly and easily to the woods. He makes himself an
appropriate and even graceful figure against any wilderness background,
and goes straight to Nature's heart, carrying all the refinements of
civilization with him.
The smoke of the peace pipe went up hour after hour. By strictest rules
of precedence each red orator rose in his turn and spoke his tribe's
reply to Onontio.[4] An Indian never hurried eloquence. The sun might
tip toward Mount Royal, and the steam of his own deferred feast reach
his nose in delicious suggestion. He had to raise the breeze of
prosperity, to clear the sun, to wipe away tears for friends slain
during past misunderstandings with Onontio's other children, and to open
the path of peace between their lodges and the lodges of his tribe.
Ottawa, Huron, Cree, Nipissing, Ojibwa, or Pottawatamie, it was
necessary for him to bury the hatchet in pantomime, to build a great
council-fire whose smoke should rise to heaven in view of all the
nations, and gather the tribes of the lakes in one family council with
the French around this fire forever.
[Illustration: "Each red orator rose in his turn and spoke his tribe's
reply."--_Page 40._]
Children played along the river's brink, and squaws kept fire under the
kettles. A few men guarded the booths along the palisades from
pilferers, though scarce a possible pilferer roamed from the centre of
interest.
Crowds of spectators pressed around the great circle; traders who had
brought packs of skins skilfully intercepted by them at some station
above Montreal; interpreters, hired by merchants to serve them during
the fair; coureurs de bois stretching up their neck sinews until these
knotted with intense and prolonged effort. In this standing wall the
habitant was crowded by converted Iroquois from the Mountain mission,
who, having learned their rights as Christians, yielded no inch of room.
The sun descended out of sight behind Mount Royal, though his presence
lingered with sky and river in abundant crimsons. Still the smoke of the
peace pipe rose above the council ring, and eloquence rolled its periods
on. That misty scarf around the horizon, which high noon drove out of
sight, floated into view again, becoming denser and denser. The pipings
of out-door insects came sharpened through twilight, and all the
camp-fires were deepening their hue, before a solemn uprising of
Frenchmen and Indians proclaimed the council over.
La Salle had sat through it at the governor's right hand, watching those
bronze faces and restless eyes with sympathy as great as Frontenac's.
He, also, was a lord of the wilderness. He could more easily open his
shy nature to such red brethren and eloquently command, denounce, or
persuade them, than stand before dames and speak one word,--which he was
forced to attempt when candles were lighted in the candelabra of the
fort.
There was not such pageantry at Montreal as in the more courtly society
of Quebec. The appearance of the governor with his train of young nobles
drew out those gentler inhabitants who took no part in the bartering of
the beaver fair.
Perrot, the sub-governor, had known his period of bitter disagreement
with Frontenac. Having made peace with a superior he once defied, he was
anxious to pay Frontenac every honor, and the two governors were united
in their policy of amusing and keeping busy so varied an assemblage as
that which thronged the beaver fair. Festivity as grand as colonial
circumstances permitted was therefore held in the governor's apartments.
The guarded fortress gates stood open; torches burned within the walls,
and blanketed savages stalked in and out.
Yet that colonial drawing-room lacked the rude elements which go to
making most pioneer societies. Human intercourse in frontier towns
exposed to danger and hardship, though it may be hearty and innocent, is
rarely graceful.
But here was a small Versailles transplanted to the wilderness.
Fragments of a great court met Indian-wedded nobles and women with
generations of good ancestors behind them. Here were even the fashions
of the times in gowns, and the youths of Louis' salon bowed and paid
compliments to powdered locks. These French colonial nobles were poor;
but with pioneer instinct they decorated themselves with the best
garments their scanty money would buy. Here thronged Dumays, Le Moynes,
Mousniers, Desroches, Fleurys, Baudrys, Migeons, Vigers, Gautiers, all
chattering and animated. Here stood the Baroness de Saint-Castin like a
statue of bronze. Here were those illustrious Le Moynes, father and
sons, whose deeds may be traced in our day from the St. Lawrence to the
Gulf of Mexico. Here Frontenac, with the graciously winning manner which
belonged to his pleasant hours, drew to himself and soothed disaffected
magnates of his colonial kingdom.
All these figures, and the spectacles swarming around the beaver fair,
like combinations in a kaleidoscope to be seen once and seen no more,
gave Tonty such condensed knowledge of the New World as no ordinary days
could offer.
La Salle alone, though fresh from audiences at court and distinguished
by royal favor, stood abashed and annoyed by the part he must play
toward civilized people.
"Look at the Sieur de la Salle," observed Du Lhut to Tonty. "There is a
man who stands and fights off the approach of every other creature."
"There never was a man better formed for friendship," retorted Tonty.
"Touching his reserve, I call that no blemish, though he has said of it
himself, it is a defect he can never be rid of as long as he lives, and
often it spites him against himself."
La Salle turned his shoulder on these associates, uneasily conscious
that his weakness was observed, and put many moving figures between
himself and them. He had the free gait of a woodsman tempered by the air
of a courtier. More than one Montreal girl accusing gold-embroidered
young soldiers of finding the Quebec women charming, turned her eyes to
follow La Salle. Possible lord of the vast and unknown west, in the
flower of his years, he was next to Frontenac the most considerable
figure in the colony.
Severe study in early youth and ambition in early manhood had crowded
the lover out of La Salle. His practical gaze was oppressed by so many
dames. It dwelt upon the floor, until, travelling accidentally to a
corner, it rose and encountered Jacques le Ber's daughter sitting beside
her mother.
FOOTNOTES:
[4] "This name was in Huron and Iroquois the translation of the
name of M. de Montmagny (Mons maguns, great mountain). The
savages continued calling the successors of Governor
Montmagny by the same name, and even to the French king they
applied the title 'Great Ononthio.'" Translated from note on
page 138, tome 1, Garneau's Histoire du Canada.
V.
SAINTE JEANNE.
When La Salle was seignior of Lachine, before the king and Frontenac
helped his ambition to its present foothold, he had been in the habit of
stopping at Jacques le Ber's house when he came to Montreal.
The first day of the beaver fair greatly tasked Madame le Ber. She sat
drowsily beside the eldest child of her large absent flock, and was not
displeased to have her husband's distinguished enemy approach Jeanne.
The wife of Le Ber had been called madame since her husband bought his
patent of nobility; but she held no strict right to the title, even
wives of the lesser nobles being then addressed as demoiselles. In that
simple colonial life Jacques le Ber, or his wife in his absence, served
goods to customers over his own counter. Madame le Ber was an excellent
woman, who said her prayers and approached the sacraments at proper
seasons. She had abundant flesh covered with dark red skin, and she
often pondered why a spirit of a daughter with passionate longings after
heaven had been sent to her. If Sieur de la Salle could draw the
child's mind from extreme devotion, her husband must feel indebted to
him.
La Salle's face relaxed and softened as he sat down beside this
sixteen-year-old maid in her colonial gown. She held her crucifix in her
hands, and waited for him to talk. Jeanne made melody of his silences.
As a child she had never rubbed against him for caresses, but looked
into his eyes with sincere meditation. Having no idea of the explorer's
aim, Jeanne le Ber was yet in harmony with him across their separating
years. She also could stake her life on one supreme idea. La Salle was
formed to subdue the wilderness; she was dimly and ignorantly, but with
her childish might, undertaking that stranger region, the human soul.
She looked younger than other girls of her age; yet La Salle was moved
to say, using the name he had given her,--
"You have changed much since last year, Sainte Jeanne."
"Am I worse, Sieur de la Salle?" she anxiously inquired.
"No. Better. Except I fear you have prayed yourself to a greater
distance from me."
"I name you in my prayers, Sieur de la Salle. Ever since my father
ceased to be your friend I have asked to have your haughty spirit
humbled."
La Salle laughed.
"If you name me at all, Sainte Jeanne, pray rather for the humbling of
my enemies."
"No, Sieur de la Salle. You need your enemies. I could ill do without
mine."
"Who could be an enemy to thee?"
"There are many enemies of my soul. One is my great, my very great
love."
La Salle's face whitened and flushed. He cast a quick glance upon the
dozing matron, the backs of people whose conversation buzzed about his
ears, and returned to Jeanne's childlike white eyelids and
crucifix-folding hands.
"Whom do you love, Sainte Jeanne?"
"I love my father so much, and my mother; and the children are too dear
to me. Sometimes when I rise in the night to pray, and think of living
apart from my dear father, the cold sweat stands on my forehead. Too
many dear people throng between the soul and heaven. Even you, Sieur de
la Salle,--I have to pray against thoughts of you."
[Illustration]
"Do not pray against me, Sainte Jeanne," said the explorer, with a
wistful tremor of the lower lip. "Consider how few there be that love me
well."
Her eyes rested on him with divining gaze. Jeanne le Ber's eyes had the
singular function of sending innumerable points of light swimming
through the iris, as if the soul were in motion and shaking off
sparkles.
"If you lack love and suffer thereby," she instructed him, "it will
profit your soul."
La Salle interlaced his fingers, resting his hands upon his knees, and
gave her a look which was both amused and tender.
"And what other enemies has Sainte Jeanne?"
"Sieur de la Salle, have I not often told you what a sinner I am? It
ridicules me to call me saint."
"Since you have grown to be a young demoiselle I ought to call you
Mademoiselle le Ber."
"Call me Sainte Jeanne rather than that. I do not want to be a young
demoiselle, or in this glittering company. It is my father who insists."
"Nor do I want to be in this glittering company, Sainte Jeanne."
"The worst of all the other enemies, Sieur de la Salle, are vanity and a
dread of enduring pain. I am very fond of dress." The young creature
drew a deep regretful breath.
"But you mortify this fondness?" said La Salle, accompanying with
whimsical sympathy every confession of Jeanne le Ber's.
"Indeed I have to humiliate myself often--often. When this evil desire
takes strong hold, I put on the meanest rag I can find. But my father
and mother will never let me go thus humbled to Mass."
"Therein do I commend your father and mother," said La Salle; "though
the outside we bear toward men is of little account. But tell me how do
you school yourself to pain, Sainte Jeanne? I have not learned to bear
pain well in all my years."
Jeanne again met his face with swarming lights in her eyes. Seeing that
no one observed them she bent her head toward La Salle and parted the
hair over her crown. The straight fine growth was very thick and of a
brown color. It reminded him of midwinter swamp grasses springing out of
a bed of snow. A mat of burrs was pressed to this white scalp. Some of
the hair roots showed red stains.
"These hurt me all the time," said Jeanne. "And it is excellent torture
to comb them out."
She covered the burrs with a swift pressure, tightly closing her mouth
and eyes with the spasm of pain this caused, and once more took and
folded the crucifix within her hands.
The explorer made no remonstrance against such self-torture, though his
practical gaze remained on her youthful brier-crowned head. He heard a
girl in front of him laugh to a courtier who was flattering her.
"Hé, monsieur, I have myself seen Quebec women who dressed with odious
taste."
But Jeanne, wrapped in her own relation, continued with a tone which
slighted mere physical pain,--
"There is a better way to suffer, Sieur de la Salle, and that is from
ill-treatment. Such anguish can be dealt out by the hands we love; but I
have no friend willing to discipline me thus. My father's servant
Jolycoeur is the only person who makes me as wretched as I ought to
be."
"Discipline through Jolycoeur," said La Salle, laughing, "is what my
proud stomach could never endure."
"Perhaps you have not such need, Sieur de la Salle. My father has many
times turned him off, but I plead until he is brought back. He hath this
whole year been a means of grace to me by his great impudence. If I say
to him, 'Jolycoeur, do this or that,' he never fails to reply, 'Do it
yourself, Mademoiselle Jeanne,' and adds profanity to make Heaven blush.
Whenever he can approach near enough, he whispers contemptuous names at
me, so that I cannot keep back the tears. Yet how little I endure, when
Saint Lawrence perished on a gridiron, and all the other holy martyrs
shame me!"
"Your father does not suffer these things to be done to you?"
"No, Sieur de la Salle. My father knows naught of it except my pity. He
did once kick Jolycoeur, who left our house three days, so that I was
in danger of sinking in slothful comfort. But I got him brought back,
and he lay drunk in our garden with his mouth open, so that my soul
shuddered to look at him. It was excellent discipline,"[5] said Jeanne,
with a long breath.
"Jolycoeur will better adorn the woods and risk his worthless neck on
water for my uses, than longer chafe your tender nature," said La Salle.
"He has been in my service before, and craved to-day that I would enlist
him again."
"Had my father turned him off?" asked Jeanne, with consternation.
"He said Jacques le Ber had lifted a hand against him for innocently
neglecting to carry bales of merchandise to a booth."
"I did miss the smell of rum downstairs before we came away," said the
girl, sadly. "And will you take my scourge from me, Sieur de la Salle?"
"I will give him a turn at suffering himself," answered La Salle. "The
fellow shall be whipped on some pretext when I get him within Fort
Frontenac, for every pang he hath laid upon you. He is no stupid. He
knew what he was doing."
"Oh, Sieur de la Salle, Jolycoeur was only the instrument of Heaven.
He is not to blame."
"If I punish him not, it will be on your promise to seek no more
torments, Sainte Jeanne."
"There are no more for me to seek; for who in our house will now be
unkind to me? But, Sieur de la Salle, I feel sure that during my
lifetime I shall be permitted to suffer as much as Heaven could
require."
Man and child, each surrounded by his peculiar world, sat awhile longer
together in silence, and then La Salle joined the governor.
FOOTNOTES:
[5] The asceticism here attributed to Mademoiselle Jeanne le Ber
was really practised by the wife of an early colonial noble.
See Parkman's Old Régime, p. 355.
VI.
THE PROPHECY OF JOLYCOEUR.
By next mid-day the beaver fair was at its height, and humming above the
monotone of the St. Lawrence.
Montreal, founded by religious enthusiasts and having the Sulpitian
priests for its seigniors, was a quiet town when left to itself,--when
the factions of Quebec did not meet its own factions in the street with
clubs; or coureurs de bois roar along the house sides in drunken joy; or
sudden glares on the night landscape with attendant screeching proclaim
an Iroquois raid; or this annual dissipation in beaver skins crowd it
for two days with strangers.
Among colonists who had thronged out to meet the bearers of colonial
riches as soon as the first Indian canoe was beached, were the coureurs
de bois. They still swarmed about, making or renewing acquaintances,
here acting as interpreters and there trading on their own account.
Before some booths Indians pressed in rows, demanding as much as the
English gave for their furs, though the price was set by law. French
merchants poked their fingers into the satin pliancy of skins to search
for flaws. Dealers who had no booths pressed with their interpreters
from tribe to tribe,--small merchants picking the crumbs of profit from
under their brethren's tables. There was greedy demand for the first
quality of skins; for beaver came to market in three grades: "Castor
gras, castor demi-gras, et castor sec."
The booths were hung with finery, upon which squaws stood gazing with a
stoical eye to be envied by civilized woman.
The cassocks of Sulpitians and gray capotes of Récollet
Fathers--favorites of Frontenac who hated Jesuits--penetrated in
constant supervision every recess of the beaver fair. Yet in spite of
this religious care rum was sold, its effects increasing as the day
moved on.
A hazy rosy atmosphere had shorn the sun so that he hung a large red
globe in the sky. The land basked in melting tints. Scarcely any wind
flowed on the river. Ste. Helen's Island and even Mount Royal, the
seminary and stone windmill, the row of wooden houses and palisade tips,
all had their edges blurred by hazy light.
Amusement could hardly be lacking in any gathering of French people not
assembled for ceremonies of religion. In Quebec the governor's court
were inclined to entertain themselves with their own performance of
spectacles. But Montreal had beheld too many spectacles of a tragic
sort, had grasped too much the gun and spade, to have any facility in
mimic play.
Still the beaver fair was enlivened by music and tricksy gambols.
Through all the ever opening and closing avenues a pageant went up and
down, at which no colonist of New France could restrain his shouts of
laughter,--a Dutchman with enormous stomach, long pipe, and short
breeches, walking beside a lank and solemn Bostonnais. The two youths
who had attired themselves for this masking were of Saint-Castin's
train. That one who acted Puritan had drawn austere seams in his face
with charcoal. His plain collar was severely turned down over a black
doublet, which, with the sombre breeches and hose, had perhaps been
stripped from some enemy that troubled Saint-Castin's border. The
Bostonnais sung high shrill airs from a book he carried in one hand,
only looking up to shake his head with cadaverous warning at his roaring
spectators. One arm was linked in the Dutchman's, who took his pipe out
of his mouth to say good-humoredly, "Ya-ya, ya-ya," to every sort of
taunt.
These types of rival colonies were such an exhilaration to the traders
of New France that they pointed out the show to each other and pelted it
with epithets all day.
La Salle came out of the palisade gate of the town, leading by the hand
a frisking little girl. He restrained her from farther progress into the
moving swarm, although she dragged his arm.
"Thou canst here see all there is of it, Barbe. The nuns did well to
oppose your looking on this roaring commerce. You should be housed
within the Hôtel Dieu all this day, had I not spoken a careless word
yesterday. You saw the governor's procession. To-morrow he will start on
his return. And I with my men go to Fort Frontenac."
[Illustration: "The beaver fair was enlivened by music and tricksy
gambols."--_Page 59._]
"And at day dawn naught of the Indians can be found," added Barbe,
"except their ashes and litter and the broken flasks they leave. The
trader's booths will also be empty and dirty."
"Come then, tiger-cat, return to thy cage."
"My uncle La Salle, let me look a moment longer. See that fat man and
his lean brother the people are pointing at! Even the Indians jump and
jeer. I would strike them for such insolence! There, my uncle La Salle,
there is Monsieur Iron-hand talking to the ugly servant of Jeanne le
Ber's father."
La Salle easily found Tonty. He was instructing and giving orders to
several men collected for the explorer's service. Jolycoeur,[6] his
cap set on sidewise, was yet abashed in his impudence by the mastery of
Tonty. He wore a new suit of buckskin, with the coureur de bois' red
sash knotted around his waist.
"My uncle La Salle," inquired Barbe, turning over a disturbance in her
mind, "must I live in the convent until I wed a man?"
"The convent is held a necessary discipline for young maids."
"I will then choose Monsieur Iron-hand directly. He would make a good
husband."
"I think you are right," agreed La Salle.
"Because he would have but one hand to catch me with when I wished to
run away," explained Barbe. "If he had also lost his feet it would be
more convenient."
"The marriage between Monsieur de Tonty and Mademoiselle Barbe Cavelier
may then be arranged?"
She looked at her uncle, answering his smile of amusement. But curving
her neck from side to side, she still examined the Italian soldier.
"I can outrun most people," suggested Barbe; "but Monsieur de Tonty
looks very tall and strong."
"Your intention is to take to the woods as soon as marriage sets you
free?"
"My uncle La Salle, I do have such a desire to be free in the woods!"
"Have you, my child? If the wilderness thus draws you, you will sometime
embrace it. Cavelier blood is wild juice."
"And could I take my fortune with me? If it cumbered I would leave it
behind with Monsieur de Tonty or my brother."
"You will need all your fortune for ventures in the wilderness."
"And the fortunes of all your relatives and of as many as will give you
credit besides," said a priest wearing the Sulpitian dress. He stopped
before them and looked sternly at Barbe.
The Abbé Jean Cavelier had not such robust manhood as his brother. In
him the Cavelier round lower lip and chin protruded, and the eyebrows
hung forward.
La Salle had often felt that he stooped in conciliating Jean, when Jean
held the family purse and doled out loans to an explorer always kept
needy by great plans.
Jean had strongly the instinct of accumulation. He gauged the discovery
and settlement of a continent by its promise of wealth to himself. His
adherence to La Salle was therefore delicately adjusted by La Salle's
varying fortunes; though at all times he gratified himself by handling
with tyranny this younger and distinguished brother. Generous admiration
of another's genius flowering from his stock with the perfect expression
denied him, was scarcely possible in Jean Cavelier.
"The Sisters said I might come hither with my uncle La Salle," replied
Barbe, to his unspoken rebuke.
"Into whose charge were your brother and yourself put when your parents
died?"
"Into the charge of my uncle the Abbé Cavelier."
"Who brought your brother and you to this colony that he might watch
over your nurture?"
"My uncle the Abbé Cavelier."
"It is therefore your uncle the Abbé Cavelier who will decide when to
turn you out among Indians and traders."
"You carry too bitter a tongue, my brother Jean," observed La Salle.
"The child has caught no harm. My own youth was cramped within religious
walls."
"You carry too arrogant a mind now, my brother La Salle. I heard it
noted of you to-day that you last night sat apart and deigned no word
to them that have been of use to you in Montreal."
La Salle's face owned the sting. Shy natures have always been made to
pay a tax on pride. But next to the slanderer we detest the bearer of
his slander to our ears.
"It is too much for any man to expect in this world,--a brother who will
defend him against his enemies."
As soon as this regret had burst from the explorer, he rested his look
again on Tonty.
"I do defend you," asserted Abbé Cavelier; "and more than that I
impoverish myself for you. But now that you come riding back from France
on a high tide of the king's favor, I may not lay a correcting word on
your haughty spirit. Neither yesterday nor to-day could I bring you to
any reasonable state of humility. And all New France in full cry against
you!"
Extreme impatience darkened La Salle's face; but without further reply
he drew Barbe's hand and turned back with her toward the Hôtel Dieu. She
had watched her uncle the Abbé wrathfully during his attack upon La
Salle, but as he dropped his eyes no more to her level she was obliged
to carry away her undischarged anger. This she did with a haughty
bearing so like La Salle's that the Abbé grinned at it through his
fretfulness.
He grew conscious of alien hair bristling against his neck as a voice
mocked in undertone directly below his ear,--
"Yonder struts a great Bashaw that will sometime be laid low!"
The Abbé turned severely upon a person who presumed to tickle a priest's
neck with his coarse mustache and astound a priest's ear with threats.
He recognized the man known as Jolycoeur, who had been pushed against
him in the throng. Jolycoeur, by having his eyes fixed on the
disappearing figure of La Salle, had missed the ear of the person he
intended to reach. He recoiled from encountering the Abbé, whose wrath
with sudden ebb ran back from a brother upon a brother's foes.
"You are the fellow I saw whining yesterday at Sieur de la Salle's
heels. What hath the Sieur de la Salle done to any of you worthless
woods-rangers, except give you labor and wages, when the bread you eat
is a waste of his substance?"
Jolycoeur, not daring to reply to a priest, slunk away in the crowd.
FOOTNOTES:
[6] Several historians identify Jolycoeur with the noted
coureur de bois and writer, Nicolas Perrot. But considering
the deed he attempted, the romancer has seen fit to portray
him as a very different person.