MONTREAL AND THE ISLE-AUX-HERONS, 1678.
It is certain that Kateri Tekakwitha visited the French settlement on
the north side of the river; for Cholenec thus writes:--
"While passing some days at Montreal, where for the first time
she saw the nuns, she was so charmed with their modesty and
devotion that she informed herself most thoroughly with regard
to the manner in which these holy sisters lived, and the
virtues which they practised."
Kateri and Therese--for the two were inseparable--with other Indians
from the Sault, probably laden with goods to barter, must have crossed
over to Montreal in canoes. They paddled out into the broad smooth
waters of the St. Lawrence below the great rapid, where the river widens
out like a lake. They left far behind them their village, with its tall
wooden cross on the river-bank, and the wild Isle-aux-Herons, bearing up
its sturdy clump of foliage in the midst of the splashing foam. They
passed at a distance the Jesuit chapel at La Prairie, where a few
Frenchmen had built houses and formed the nucleus of a settlement, and
then moved quietly and rapidly on in their light canoes until they
neared the Isle St. Paul. The southern shore of the river swept away in
a great curve as they left the Sault, and the prairie lands stretched
away towards Lake Champlain, while Mount Royal blocked the northern
horizon. Finally, after rounding the Isle St. Paul, they approached near
enough to the northern bank to see where the first French fort had been
built by the Sieur de Maisonneuve on level land at the mouth of a little
stream. The spot is now called Custom-House Square; and the wild Ilot
Normandin has been transformed into Island Wharf. This fort had fallen
into disuse, and a second one was built on higher ground. The great
French guns that were pointed toward the river meant no harm to the
Christian Indians, who passed safely by, and landed on vacant ground in
the rear of a cluster of fortified buildings fronting on the Rue St.
Paul. This was the principal thoroughfare of the infant city of
Ville-Marie. Every house on the island of Montreal was strongly built
for defence. Each farm in the vicinity was connected with the town by a
chain of redoubts. Not only the fort and the governor's mansion, but the
mills, the brewery, the Hospital or Hotel Dieu, and the chief residences
had high walls and outlying defences. These buildings were so placed
along the Rue St. Paul that a cross-fire from them and from the
bastioned fort across the little stream (which has since disappeared in
the maze of modern streets) could be maintained in a way to render the
position of the colonists impregnable against an Indian assault. This
had all been done under the leadership of the first governor. At the
time of Kateri's visit, the chivalric De Maisonneuve had been recalled
to France, and De Courselles was Governor-General. The Sulpicians, whose
seminary was centrally located on the principal street, were lords of
the _seigneurie_ of Montreal and could give grants of land, though the
recently arrived officers of the King disputed their right to dispense
justice, and to appoint the governor of Ville-Marie.
Marguerite Bourgeois was still a leading spirit in the colony, and was
actively engaged in founding and conducting her schools for the Indian
and Canadian children. Her convent of Sisters of the Congregation of
Notre Dame, after much delay and many trials, was at last successfully
established opposite the Hotel Dieu on the Rue St. Paul. Monseigneur de
Laval, Bishop of Quebec, on his visit to Ville-Marie in 1676, had
formally recognized and approved her new order. There were at this time
ten nuns in all associated with her in the work of teaching. They taught
day-scholars free of charge, and worked diligently out of school-hours
to support themselves. In 1657 the Sieur de Maisonneuve had given
Marguerite Bourgeois a tract of land near the Hotel Dieu, on which was a
well-built stable, which she used for her first school-house. The
classes were assembled in the lower part of the building, while this
indefatigable schoolmistress and her first assistants slept in the loft,
to which they ascended by an outside staircase. As her school and
community increased, she built a house that would shelter twelve
persons. This also had proved insufficient, and she was now established
in a fine large stone building, where a number of girls were safely
housed, and taught to read, write, and sew. The King of France allowed
her a certain amount each year for the support of her Indian pupils.
These were mostly at the school of the newly founded Sulpician mission
on the mountain-side. There the number of Indians was daily increasing.
M. Belmont, a Sulpician, taught the boys, and two of the Congregation
sisters had charge of the girls. Their favorite pupil, Marie Therese
Gannensagwas (meaning, "She takes the arm"), was in a few years to
become herself a successful teacher in the Indian school, and a gentle,
lovable nun. At this time she was about eleven years old. When still
younger, she had come with her aged grandfather from the Seneca country.
He was a Christian, having been baptized in the Huron country by the
great missionary Brebeuf. The little Gannensagwas was adopted by
Governor de Courselles, and placed under the care of Marguerite
Bourgeois in the convent on the Rue St. Paul. When the school at the
Mountain was opened, in 1676, she was sent there. In one or other of
these two places she spent the remainder of her life, as pupil, novice,
and then schoolmistress. Her memory has sometimes been confused with
that of Kateri Tekakwitha, though she was ten years younger than the
Mohawk, and led a very different sort of life. Gannensagwas grew up,
lived and died in a convent, and was the first real Indian nun. A tablet
to her memory is preserved in one of the towers of the old fort at the
mission on Mount Royal. This stone tower stands in the same enclosure
with the costly modern buildings of the Sulpicians in a beautiful part
of the present city of Montreal. At the time of Kateri's visit, however,
this same tower and fort was in the woods; for the buildings of the old
town extended no farther from the river than the Rue St. Jacques. From
there to the Indian schools of the Mountain was a lonely road leading
past a solitary fortified farm belonging to the Sulpicians,--La ferme
St. Gabriel. It was there that a priest, M. Le Maistre, had been
tomahawked, in August 1661. He was on guard while the laborers gathered
in the harvest. His tragic death warned them to withdraw at once from
the fields, and defend themselves within the farm-house. Such incidents
as this were then fresh in the minds of the people, and gave pathetic
interest to many a spot near Ville-Marie.
In 1678 Rue Notre Dame was a new street, not yet built up, and the
foundations of the parish church were uncompleted; but already the Hotel
Dieu had a long history. Just five years had passed since Mademoiselle
Manse, the former friend of Marguerite Bourgeois, and the one who
founded the Hotel Dieu and brought the hospital nuns from France to
conduct it, had been laid to rest. She died in 1673. Her last request
was that her body might be buried at the Hotel Dieu, and her heart be
placed under the sanctuary lamp in the new church of the parish.[62] It
was but right that this should be done, for she had given her whole life
to founding not only the hospital but the city and colony at Mount
Royal. Till the new church of Notre Dame should be finished, the heart
of the brave lady, encased in a metal vase, was hung in the chapel of
the Hotel Dieu. It was there for many years; but the building of the
church was delayed so long that the transfer of the precious deposit
never took place. The relic was lost at the time of a fire that
destroyed the old chapel and hospital in 1695. Kateri may have seen the
metal vase in the chapel of the hospital, but could scarcely have had
time to learn its significance. Mademoiselle Manse had fulfilled a
twofold task. She had distributed guns and ammunition to the colonists,
and had nursed the wounded soldiers and Indians. Her life was often in
danger. At times she was quite alone in the hospital. Her courage,
enthusiasm, and womanly care for the sick and suffering were a mainstay
of the colony, all through what has well been called its heroic age.
Founded in a spirit of religious zeal for the conversion of the savages,
its struggle for existence in a wild country of warring races fills up a
strange and interesting chapter in early American history. Quebec, Three
Rivers, and Montreal were for a long time the only settlements of any
consequence in Canada. Quebec was the great stronghold and
starting-point of French trade and colonization. There too the Jesuit
missionaries had their headquarters, and sent their reports, which were
combined into the famous "Relations," so valuable now as history. Three
Rivers, the next important trading-post, was a long stride up the St.
Lawrence and into the wilderness. There, as elsewhere, the French sought
to share their faith with the Indians. Kateri's Algonquin mother, it
will be remembered, had been baptized at Three Rivers before her capture
by the Iroquois. Beyond that point no permanent settlers had ventured
until Montreal, the strange, solitary island city, was established for
no other purpose than to convert the redmen to Christianity. The whole
plan was made in France by a company of devout and wealthy persons. Two
of the leading spirits, not yet mentioned, were M. Olier, an
ecclesiastic, and M. de la Dauversiere, a pious layman. The site for
the city was chosen, and the island bought, by men who had no practical
knowledge of the country. It was far inland, and dependent entirely on
its own resources when the Indians were at war. The people of Quebec did
not always know whether Montreal existed or not, so beset were its
inhabitants at times by the unconverted, warlike kindred of Kateri. The
raids of the Mohawks were checked by De Tracy, in 1666; but after all,
they were only one of five unfriendly nations who were liable to
brandish the tomahawk at any time against the French. In 1678 there was
a general peace along the whole line, except for local and religious
persecutions, such as Kateri had endured before coming to the Sault.
The worst days for Montreal had been about twenty years before, when
their allies the Hurons were annihilated as a nation by the terrible
Iroquois. At that time the French lived in a whirlwind of war and havoc.
The remnant of Hurons that remained with them after the war, were
gathered together in the mission village of Lorette near Quebec.
Sillery, in the same vicinity, was a settlement of the Christian
Algonquins. In Kateri's time these two missions nestled under the
protecting guns of Quebec; just as the Indians of the Praying Castle
where Kateri lived, and the Iroquois of the Sulpician mission on the
slope of Mount Royal, felt bound to maintain a close friendship for
defence, as well as through inclination, with their French neighbors at
Montreal. The people of the Sault and the people of the Mountain were
always welcomed and graciously received by the colonists of Ville-Marie.
There were many things for them to see and learn there; but if the
Hotel Dieu and the convent were at one end of the town, the brewery and
the fort were at the other, and on the whole the Jesuit Fathers at the
Sault liked it better when their Indians stayed at the mission. The
trader of Montreal was much the same sort of man as the trader of Fort
Orange. The early colonial town of the Frenchman, however, differed in
many respects from the town of the Dutchman. It will be interesting,
therefore, to follow Kateri as she leaves her canoe on the pebbly shore,
and wander with her through the strange, new streets of the Canadian
town, just as we followed her uncle long ago on his journey to Albany on
the shore of the Hudson. His pack of beaver-skins was examined and
handled by the well-to-do traders of Handelaer Street. So do the
companions of Kateri dispose of their Indian wares with equal ease in
the long and important Rue St. Paul. Like the Dutch thoroughfare, it
runs parallel with the river; all the dwellings on one side have their
backs turned to the water, but their gardens do not extend all the way
to the water's edge, as at Albany; there are vacant building lots in the
rear on the river-bank.
"The houses built of wood, _piece sur piece_, or of rounded
pebbles stuck together with cement, are all in the same
style,--a rectangle covered with a steep roof slightly
overtopped by the stone chimney; two skylights to admit light
into the garret on the long sides; a door set between two
windows, and the walls pierced with loop-holes for defence
against the Iroquois. The interior is not less simple,--one
large hall where all the family live, as in Bretagne; a bed or
lounge, a sort of long coffer or chest with a cover that is
opened out in the evening, into which a mattress is spread,
and where the children sleep; some chairs or small benches; the
extra clothing and the gun, hung up on the wall."[63]
This extra clothing was as unpretentious in style as the dwelling. A
plain woollen garment, with capot, girdle, and _tuque_, was the uniform
of the Canadian colonist. Even the first governor, Sieur de Maisonneuve,
wore it the greater part of the year, except on state occasions. Of
course, in the hottest weather this warm outer garment was exchanged for
a cooler shirt and a broad-brimmed hat; then the woollen coats with
snow-shoes and other winter belongings of the settler were hung on pegs
against the wall.
The home-trained garrison of Montreal felt proud to hear the Viceroy de
Tracy call them his "capots bleus," for they knew right well he could
scarcely have triumphed over the Mohawks without their assistance. His
veterans, scarred in the Turkish wars, were indeed a sorry sight to
behold on the expedition of 1666, when they stumbled about in the snow,
and lost their way in the forest of northern New York. Kateri remembered
these soldiers well. She saw them in her childhood, when they were
enemies and invaders of her home, and so she did not care to see them
again. A glance at the fort and the fortified houses, the mills, the
governor's house, and the _seminaire_ was enough for her. Already she
stood at the corner of the Rue St. Paul and the Rue St. Joseph. If she
chose to follow up the latter street, it would take her to the great
square where the foundations of the new church of Notre Dame had been
laid. But the chapel of the Hotel Dieu was right before her, and she
entered there. The hospital Sisters were chanting their office behind a
wooden grating. Why were they out of sight? What did it all mean? She
questioned her comrades, and they told her what little they themselves
knew about the nuns. Not content with visiting the chapel, they gained
permission to enter the hospital. What Kateri saw at the entrance on the
Rue St. Paul was a great, heavy wooden door, opening into a small
building. Behind this was a large enclosure or yard surrounded by a high
stockade wall for defence, and containing several buildings, mostly of
wood and somewhat out of repair. The hospital Sisters, though chiefly of
noble rank, were poorly lodged and suffered many privations. The
hospital was endowed by a lady of fortune in Paris, but it had been
built and equipped under the eyes of Mademoiselle Manse, who cared for
the sick herself till the Sisters came from France. After that she had
dwelt close by them, and continued in charge of their financial affairs
until her death. The nuns possessed some cows and other domestic
animals. There was also a little bakery in one part of the enclosure. In
another place Soeur de Bresoles had a garden marked off, where she
cultivated medicinal drugs. It was all very simple and primitive, but
strange and marvellous to the eyes of Kateri. She saw how good the
Sisters were to the sick, and how simply and poorly they lived
themselves. Their own beds were in a rough attic above the wards for the
sick. Their linen was spotless, but the observant Kateri could not fail
to see that their dresses were patched in many places. Though each of
these ladies brought a _dot_ with her to the convent when she entered
the order in France, they were often left with no resources save what
their own industry brought them in the wilds of Canada, and even the
hospital fund was lost to them through bad management over the sea; but
no misfortune could daunt them in their work of curing and converting
the Indians, and caring for the disabled colonists. They refused every
overture to return to Europe, and shared in all the vicissitudes of the
struggling colony, rich at least in the good-will of its people.
In the convent across the street from the Hotel Dieu, Kateri and her
friend were warmly welcomed by Marguerite Bourgeois and the Sisters of
the Congregation. It is probable that the two young Indian girls stayed
over night at the convent, for Soeur Bourgeois delighted in entertaining
just such guests, to shield them from all harm while in the city, and to
win them to the practice of virtue and piety. There is every reason to
believe that Kateri was much influenced and stimulated in her spiritual
aspirations by what she saw there, and above all by coming in contact
with the strong and saintly character of the woman who had founded so
useful an order. Marguerite Bourgeois and her companions were successful
in doing good from the very first; and to-day the great Villa-Maria,
which is the outgrowth of her humble but earnest efforts, is set like a
queenly diadem on the brow of Mount Royal. There the young girls of
America are still attracted, sheltered, taught, and incited by the nuns
of her order to a life of virtue and good deeds, in much the same spirit
that the early colonial belles and Indian maidens were gathered
together long ago by Marguerite Bourgeois herself, the very first
schoolmistress of the town. She was accustomed to wear a plain black
dress, with a deep pointed linen collar, almost a little cape; besides
this, something that might be called either a short veil worn like a
hood or a large black kerchief was drawn over her head and knotted
loosely under her chin. In her later days the edges of a white cap which
she wore under this sombre head-dress, showed about her face. Her nuns
still wear a costume which she prescribed for them. There is nothing
peculiar about their black dress or the usual nun's veil which falls in
loose folds from the head and shoulders, but they wear an odd linen
head-dress with three points, which is drawn together under the chin and
projects downward in a stiff fold. Some of the sweetest of faces may be
seen framed in this ungainly gear. The hooded kerchief of Marguerite
Bourgeois was more pleasing, but she did not choose that it should be
very comfortable. A sister of hers discovered one day that the cap she
wore under this kerchief was all bristling with bent pins. She was,
perhaps, allowing them to prick her into a remembrance of her sins at
the very time she received Kateri and her friend with a gracious smile
and led them into the convent. Several of the nuns were teaching their
classes. Most of the children at the school were Canadians, but there
were also Indian girls under her care, younger than Kateri, who could
read and write and spin. Several of these were boarding pupils,
supported by pensions from the King, Louis XIV. These became, under the
care of the Sisters, like demure little convent girls, scarcely to be
distinguished from the Canadian children, except by their Indian
features. The studious and modest little Gannensagwas, though now sent
to the new school at the Mountain for a time, felt more at home in the
Rue St. Paul, where she had spent four or five years. An Onondaga girl,
Attontinon, called Mary Barbara at her baptism, was nearer Kateri's age.
She also aspired to join the sisterhood, but was as yet too recently
converted from heathenism to be admitted.
Kateri felt shy and out of place, no doubt, among the little scholars
whom she saw at Ville-Marie, even though some of them were Indians. She
felt, perhaps, as a wild deer of the forest might who chanced to stray
into a park where petted fawns looked knowingly up at the
half-frightened intruder, as they quietly nibbled grass from the hands
of the keepers. If the young Mohawk girl did not turn suddenly about and
take the nearest path to the woods and thickets, it was only because her
timidity was held in check by a great eagerness to learn all she could
about the life of those beautiful, quiet nuns. She knew they had come
far away from their own country to teach the Iroquois and the Algonquins
as well as the Canadian children to live like Christians. Kateri did not
ask all the questions that came into her mind; but this much she
certainly learned,--that the sisters lived unmarried, apart from the
rest of the people, and spent much time in prayer. She had an
opportunity also to observe some of their daily exercises and little
practices of piety. It is more than likely that she went with them on a
visit of devotion to the stone chapel of Bon Secours, a little way out
of the town. It was just finished at that time; and a small statue of
Our Lady, brought from France by Soeur Bourgeois, had been placed
there. The officials of the town secured the garret of the church for a
temporary arsenal to store their ammunition. There was no other place as
yet in Ville-Marie that was fireproof. The Church of Bon Secours has
always been a favorite shrine. Kateri's devotion to the Blessed Virgin
would naturally lead her there before she left the city. She was both
interested and attracted during her stay in Montreal by everything she
saw at the Convent of Notre Dame and at the Hotel Dieu. But she gave no
intimation of a wish to remain with the nuns at either of these
establishments. Her whole life had been the life of an untamed Indian.
She had accepted Christianity in the only way in which under the
circumstances it could possibly have been offered to her,--that is to
say, Christianity pure and simple, with few of the trappings of European
civilization. She was a living proof that an Indian could be thoroughly
Christianized without being civilized at all in the ordinary sense of
the word. She was still a child of the woods, and out of her element
elsewhere. It was with scarce a regret, then, that she returned with her
friend to the Sault, and resumed her usual life there. But her visit to
Montreal had given her an intimation of something well known to the
Christians of Europe, which had not been taught at the mission. The
married state was frequently praised there, and always recommended to
the Indians. The blackgowns did not venture to give the counsel of Saint
Paul concerning virginity, to a people that were but just learning to
walk in the way of the commandments. But Kateri had been struck by the
example of the Jesuit Fathers themselves, and her penetrating mind had
already guessed that something was withheld from her on this point;
after her visit to the nuns at Montreal she was confirmed more than ever
in her resolve to remain unmarried.
Kateri and Therese talked the matter over when she returned to the
Sault; and together they formed a plan for carrying out their idea of
living a perfect life. It was a romantic rather than a practical
project, but so quaint and beautiful that it is well worth telling. In
the first place Therese was discreet enough to recommend that they
should have an older woman with them who would know all about the affair
from the first. She said she knew just the right sort of a person,--a
good Christian, advanced in years, who had lived for some time at Quebec
and also at Lorette, the older Huron mission which was conducted on the
same plan as the Iroquois mission at the Sault. The name of this woman
was Marie Skarichions. Kateri agreed to what her friend suggested, and
on a certain day they all three assembled at the foot of the tall cross
on the river-bank, that they might consult together without
interruption. It was a quiet, dreamy spot, and always the favorite
resort of Kateri for prayer and meditation, or confidential interviews
with her friend. No sooner were they seated there, than the old woman
began to talk, and to tell them that she also would gladly live as they
wished to live; that she had been taken care of once by the Sisters at
Quebec when she was sick; that she knew just how they lived, for she had
noticed them particularly. She went on to say that she and Therese and
Kateri must never separate, that they must all dress just alike, and
live together in one lodge. Kateri listened eagerly to all this talk,
hoping to gather some profit from it, and begging the woman not to
conceal from her anything she knew that would make her soul more
pleasing to God. As their imaginations grew more and more excited in
picturing to one another the ideal life they would lead in their little
community, shut off from everything that might distract them from prayer
and holy thoughts, their eyes fell naturally enough upon the solitary
unfrequented Isle-aux-Herons which lay off in the midst of the rapids.
"There!" they said, with sudden enthusiasm, as they pointed to the
island,--"there is the place for our lodge of prayer!" and they began to
portion it off in their thoughts, and to plan an oratory with a cross
under the trees; they also tried to make out a rule of life for
themselves. But all at once they remembered Father Fremin, the head of
the mission, and wondered what he would think of their project. Kateri
had great respect for authority, and a true spirit of obedience. They
agreed to do nothing without the consent of the blackgown. One of them
went at once to find him and told him why they were assembled, asking
him at the same time if he did not approve of their plan. But alas! the
unfortunate messenger came back to the other two covered with confusion.
The blackgown, she said, had only laughed heartily at all their
beautiful projects, and made light of them, saying that they were too
young in the faith to think of such a thing as founding a convent. It
was too much out of the ordinary way, and quite unsuitable. The
Isle-aux-Herons was altogether too far from the village. The young men
going back and forth from Montreal would be always in their cabin. Upon
further consideration, they concluded that, after all, what the Father
said was reasonable, and _they thought no more of their convent of the_
"_Isle-aux-Herons_."
But Kateri, for her part, was determined to see the Father herself a
little later, and get from him, if possible, some further information
about the life she wished to lead. Unforeseen circumstances obliged her
much sooner than she expected to seek the counsel and advice of Father
Cholenec on this very subject, for the adopted sister of Kateri was even
then forming plans of her own for the disposal of her young relative.
FOOTNOTES:
[62] The parish church of Notre Dame, with its two square towers, is
often called by mistake the Cathedral. This title belongs to St.
Peter's,--a more modern structure, with a great dome shaped like that of
St. Peter's at Rome.
[63] Histoire et Vie de M. Paul de Chomedey, Sieur de Maisonneuve,
1640-1672, par P. Rousseau.