1678.
PARTY STRIFE.
LA SALLE AND HIS REPORTER.--JESUIT ASCENDANCY.--THE MISSIONS
AND THE FUR-TRADE.--FEMALE INQUISITORS.--PLOTS AGAINST LA
SALLE.--HIS BROTHER THE PRIEST.--INTRIGUES OF THE JESUITS.--
LA SALLE POISONED.--HE EXCULPATES THE JESUITS.--RENEWED INTRIGUES.
One of the most curious monuments of La Salle's time is a long memoir,
written by a person who made his acquaintance at Paris, in the summer of
1678, when, as we shall soon see, he had returned to France, in
prosecution of his plans. The writer knew the Sulpitian Galinée,
[Footnote: _Ante_, p. 11.] who, as he says, had a very high opinion of La
Salle; and he was also in close relations with the discoverer's patron,
the Prince de Conti. [Footnote: Louis-Armand de Bourbon, second Prince de
Conti. I am strongly inclined to think that this nobleman himself is
author of the memoir.] He says that he had ten or twelve interviews with
La Salle, and becoming interested in him and in that which he
communicated, he wrote down the substance of his conversation. The paper
is divided into two parts,--the first, called "Mémoire sur Mr. de la
Salle," is devoted to the state of affairs in Canada, and chiefly to the
Jesuits; the second, entitled "Histoire de Mr. de la Salle," is an account
of the discoverer's life, or as much of it as the writer had learned from
him. [Footnote: Extracts from this have already been given in connection
with La Salle's supposed discovery of the Mississippi. _Ante_, p. 20.]
Both parts bear throughout the internal evidence of being what they
profess to be; but they embody the statements of a man of intense partisan
feeling, transmitted through the mind of another person, in sympathy with
him, and evidently sharing his prepossessions. In one respect, however,
the paper is of unquestionable historical value; for it gives us a vivid
and not an exaggerated picture of the bitter strife of parties which then
raged in Canada, and which was destined to tax to the utmost the vast
energy and fortitude of La Salle. At times the memoir is fully sustained
by contemporary evidence; but often, again, it rests on its own
unsupported authority. I give an abstract of its statements as I find
them.
The following is the writer's account of La Salle: "All those among my
friends who have seen him find in him a man of great intelligence and
sense. He rarely speaks of any subject except when questioned about it,
and his words are very few and very precise. He distinguishes perfectly
between that which he knows with certainty and that which he knows with
some mingling of doubt. When he does not know, he does not hesitate to
avow it, and though I have heard him say the same thing more than five or
six times, when persons were present who had not heard it before, he
always said it in the same manner. In short, I never heard anybody speak
whose words carried with them more marks of truth." [Footnote: "Tous ceux
de mes amis qui l'ont vu luy trouve beaucoup d'esprit et un très grand
sens; il ne parle guères que des choses sur lesquelles on l'interroge; il
les dit en très-peu de mots et très-bien circonstanciés; il distingue
parfaitement ce qu'il scait avec certitude, de ce qu'il scait avec quelque
mélange de doute. Il avoue sans aucune façon ne pas savoir ce qu'il ne
scait pas, et quoyque je lui aye ouy dire plus de cinq ou six fois les
mesme choses à l'occasion de quelques personnes qui ne les avaient point
encore entendues, je les luy ay toujours ouy dire de la mesme manière. En
un mot je n'ay jamais ouy parler personne dont les paroles portassent plus
de marques de vérité."]
After mentioning that he is thirty-three or thirty-four years old, and
that he has been twelve years in America, the memoir declares that he made
the following statements,--that the Jesuits are masters at Quebec; that
the Bishop is their creature, and does nothing but in concert with them;
[Footnote: "Il y a une autre chose qui me déplait, qui est l'entière
dépendence dans laquelle les Prêtres du Séminaire de Québec et le Grand
Vicaire de l'Evêque sont pour les Pères Jésuites, car il ne fait pas la
moindre chose sans leur ordre; ce qui fait qu'indirectement ils sont les
maîtres de ce qui regarde le spirituel, qui, comme vous savez, est une
grande machine pour remuer tout le reste."--_Lettre de Frontenac à
Colbert_, 2 Nov. 1672.] that he is not well inclined towards the
Récollets, [Footnote: "Ces réligieux (les Récollets) sont fort protégés
partout par le comte de Frontenac, gouverneur du pays, et à cause de cela
assez maltraités par l'évesque, parceque la doctrine de l'évesque et des
Jésuites est que les affaires de la Réligion chrestienne n'iront point
bien dans ce pays-là que quand le gouverneur sera créature des Jésuites,
ou que l'évesque sera gouverneur."--_Mémoire sur Mr. de la Salle_.] who
have little credit, but who are protected by Frontenac; that in Canada the
Jesuits think everybody an enemy to religion who is an enemy to them;
that, though they refused absolution to all who sold brandy to the
Indians, they sold it themselves, and that he, La Salle, had himself
detected them in it; [Footnote: "Ils (les Jésuites) réfusent l'absolution a
ceux qui ne veulent pas promettre de n'en plus vendre (de l'eau-de-vie),
et s'ils meurent en cet étât, ils les privent de la sépulture
ecclésiastique; au contraire ils se permettent à eux-memes sans aucune
difficulté ce mesme trafic quoique tout sorte de trafic soit interdit à
tous les ecclésiastiques par les ordonnances du Roy, et par une bulle
expresse du Pape. La Bulle et les ordonnances sont notoires, et quoyqu'ils
cachent le trafic qu'ils font d'eau-de-vie, M. de la Salle prétend qu'il
ne l'est pas moms; qu' outre la notoriété il en a des preuves certaines,
et qu'il les a surpris dans ce trafic, et qu'ils luy ont tendu des pièges
pour l'y surprendre ... Ils ont chasse leur valet Robert à cause qu'il
révéla qu'ils en traitaient jour et nuit."--_Ibid_. The writer says that
he makes this last statement, not on the authority of La Salle, but on
that of a memoir made at the time when the Intendant, Talon, with whom he
elsewhere says that he was well acquainted, returned to France. A great
number of particulars are added respecting the Jesuit trade in furs.] that
the Bishop laughs at the orders of the king when they do not agree with
the wishes of the Jesuits; that the Jesuits dismissed one of their
servants named Robert, because he told of their trade in brandy; that
Albanel, [Footnote: Albanel was prominent among the Jesuit explorers at
this time. He is best known by his journey up the Saguenay to Hudson's Bay
in 1672.] in particular, carried on a great fur-trade, and that the
Jesuits have built their college in part from the profits of this kind of
traffic; that they admitted that they carried on a trade, but denied that
they gained so much by it as was commonly supposed. [Footnote: "Pour vous
parler franchement, ils (les Jésuites) songent autant à la conversion du
Castor qu'à celle des âmes."--_Lettre de Frontenac à Colbert_, 2 Nov.
1672.
In his despatch of the next year, he says that the Jesuits ought to
content themselves with instructing the Indians in their old missions,
instead of neglecting them to make new ones, in countries where there are
"more beaver-skins to gain than souls to save."]
The memoir proceeds to affirm that they trade largely with the Sioux, at
Ste. Marie, and with other tribes at Michillimackinac, and that they are
masters of the trade of that region, where the forts are in their
possession. [Footnote: These forts were built by them, and were necessary
to the security of their missions.] An Indian said, in full council, at
Quebec, that he had prayed and been a Christian as long as the Jesuits
would stay and teach him, but since no more beaver were left in his
country, the missionaries were gone also. The Jesuits, pursues the memoir,
will have no priests but themselves in their missions, and call them all
Jansenists, not excepting the priests of St. Sulpice.
The bishop is next accused of harshness and intolerance, as well as of
growing rich by tithes, and even by trade, in which it is affirmed he has
a covert interest. [Footnote: François Xavier de Laval-Montmorency, first
bishop of Quebec, was a prelate of austere character. His memory is
cherished in Canada by adherents of the Jesuits and all ultramontane
Catholics.] It is added that there exists in Quebec, under the auspices of
the Jesuits, an association called the Sainte Famille, of which Madame
Bourdon [Footnote: This Madame Bourdon was the widow of Bourdon, the
engineer, (see "Jesuits in North America," 299). If we may credit the
letters of Marie de l'Incarnation, she had married him from a religious
motive, in order to charge herself with the care of his motherless
children; stipulating in advance that he should live with her, not as a
husband, but as a brother. As may be imagined, she was regarded as a most
devout and saint-like person.] is superior. They meet in the cathedral
every Thursday, with closed doors, where they relate to each other--as
they are bound by a vow to do--all they have learned, whether good or
evil, concerning other people, during the week. It is a sort of female
inquisition, for the benefit of the Jesuits, the secrets of whose friends,
it is said, are kept, while no such discretion is observed with regard to
persons not of their party. [Footnote: "Il y a dans Québec une
congrégation de femmes et de filles qu'ils [_les Jésuits_]
appellent la sainte famille, dans laquelle on fait voeu sur les Saints
Evangiles de dire tout ce qu'on sait de bien et de mal des personnes
qu'on connoist. La Supérieure de cette compagnie s'appelle Madame
Boudon; une Mde. D'Ailleboust est, je crois, l'assistante et une Mde.
Charron, la Trésorière. La Compagnie s'assemble tous les Jeudis dans la
Cathédrale, à porte fermée, et là elles se disent les unes aux autres
tout ce qu'elles on appris. C'est une espèce d'Inquisition contre toutes
les personnes qui ne sont pas unies avec les Jésuites. Ces personnes
sont accusées de tenir secret ce qu'elles apprennent de mal des
personnes de leur party et de n'avoir pas la mesme discretion pour les
autres."--_Mémoire sur Mr. de la Salle_.
The Madame d'Ailleboust mentioned above was a devotee like Madame
Bourdon, and, in one respect, her history was similar. See "The Jesuits
in North America," 360.
The association of the Sainte Famille was founded by the Jesuit
Chaumonot at Montreal in 1663. Laval, Bishop of Quebec, afterwards
encouraged its establishment at that place; and, as Chaumonot himself
writes, caused it to be attached to the cathedral. _Vie de
Chaumonot_, 83. For its establishment at Montreal, see Faillon,
_Vie de Mlle. Mance_, i. 233.
"Ils [_les Jésuites_] ont tous une si grande envie de savoir tout
ce qui se fait dans les familles qu'ils ont des Inspecteurs à gages dans
la Ville, qui leur rapportent tout ce qui se fait dans les maisons,"
etc., etc.--_Lettre de Frontenac au Ministre_, 13 Nov., 1673.
Here follow a series of statements which it is needless to repeat, as they
do not concern La Salle. They relate to abuse of the confessional,
hostility to other priests, hostility to civil authorities, and over-hasty
baptisms, in regard to which La Salle is reported to have made a
comparison, unfavorable to the Jesuits, between them and the Récollets
and Sulpitians.
We now come to the second part of the memoir, entitled "History of
Monsieur de la Salle." After stating that he left France at the age of
twenty-one or twenty-two, with the purpose of attempting some new
discovery, it makes the statements repeated in a former chapter,
concerning his discovery of the Ohio, the Illinois, and possibly the
Mississipi. It then mentions the building of Fort Frontenac, and says that
one object of it was to prevent the Jesuits from becoming undisputed
masters of the fur-trade. [Footnote: Mention has been made
of the report set on foot by the Jesuit Dablon, to prevent
the building of the fort.] Three years ago, it pursues, La
Salle came to France, and obtained a grant of the fort; and it
proceeds to give examples of the means used by the party opposed to him to
injure his good name, and bring him within reach of the law. Once, when he
was at Quebec, the farmer of the king's revenue, one of the richest men in
the place, was extremely urgent in his proffers of hospitality, and at
length, though he knew him but slightly, persuaded him to lodge in his
house. He had been here but a few days when his host's wife began to enact
the part of the wife of Potiphar, and this with so much vivacity, that on
one occasion La Salle was forced to take an abrupt leave, in order to
avoid an infringement of the laws of hospitality. As he opened the door,
he found the husband on the watch, and saw that it was a plot to entrap
him. [Footnote: This story is told at considerable length, and the
advances of the lady particularly described.]
Another attack, of a different character, though in the same direction,
was soon after made. The remittances which La Salle received from the
various members and connections of his family were sent through the hands
of his brother, the Abbé Cavelier, from whom his enemies were, therefore,
very eager to alienate him. To this end, a report was made to reach the
priest's ears, that La Salle had seduced a young woman, with whom he was
living, in an open and scandalous manner, at Fort Frontenac. The effect of
this device exceeded the wishes of its contrivers; for the priest, aghast
at what he had heard, set out for the fort, to administer his fraternal
rebuke; but, on arriving, in place of the expected abomination, found his
brother, assisted by two Récollet friars, ruling, with edifying propriety,
over a most exemplary household.
Thus far the memoir. From passages in some of La Salle's letters, it may
be gathered that the Abbé Cavelier gave him at times no little annoyance.
In his double character of priest and elder brother, he seems to have
constituted himself the counsellor, monitor, and guide of a man, who,
though many years his junior, was in all respects incomparably superior to
him, as the sequel will show. This must have been almost insufferable to a
nature like that of La Salle; who, nevertheless, was forced to arm himself
with patience, since his brother held the purse-strings. On one occasion,
his forbearance was put to a severe proof, when, wishing to marry a damsel
of good connections in the colony, the Abbé Cavelier saw fit, for some
reason, to interfere, and prevented the alliance. [Footnote: Letter of La
Salle in possession of M. Margry.]
To resume the memoir. It declares that the Jesuits procured an ordinance
from the Supreme Council, prohibiting traders from going into the Indian
country, in order that they, the Jesuits, being already established there
in their missions, might carry on trade without competition. But La Salle
induced a good number of the Iroquois to settle around his fort; thus
bringing the trade to his own door, without breaking the ordinance. These
Iroquois, he is farther reported to have said, were very fond of him, and
aided him in rebuilding the fort with cut stone. The Jesuits told the
Iroquois on the south side of the lake, where they were established as
missionaries, that La Salle was strengthening his defences, with the view
of making war on them. They and the Intendant, who was their creature,
endeavored to embroil the Iroquois with the French, in order to ruin La
Salle; writing to him at the same time that he was the bulwark of the
country, and that he ought to be always on his guard. They also tried to
persuade Frontenac that it was necessary to raise men and prepare for war.
La Salle suspected them, and, seeing that the Iroquois, in consequence of
their intrigues, were in an excited state, he induced the Governor to come
to Fort Frontenac, to pacify them. He accordingly did so, and a council
was held, which ended in a complete restoration of confidence on the part
of the Iroquois. [Footnote: Louis XIV. alludes to this visit, in a letter
to Frontenac, dated 28 April, 1677. "I cannot but approve," he writes, "of
what you have done in your voyage to Fort Frontenac, to reconcile the
minds of the Five Iroquois Nations, and to clear yourself from the
suspicions they had entertained, and from the motives that might induce
them to make war." Frontenac's despatches of this, as well as of the
preceding and following years, are missing from the archives.
In a memoir written in November, 1680, La Salle alludes to "le désir que
l'on avoit que Monseigneur le Comte de Frontenac fist la guerre aux
Iroquois." See Thomassy, _Géologie Pratique de la Louisiane_, 203.] At
this council they accused the two Jesuits, Bruyas and Pierron, [Footnote:
Bruyas was about this time stationed among the Onondagas. Pierron was
among the Senecas. He had lately removed to them from the Mohawk country.
--_Relation des Jésuites_, 1673-9, p. 140 (Shea). Bruyas was also for a
long time among the Mohawks.] of spreading reports that the French were
preparing to attack them. La Salle thought that the object of the intrigue
was to make the Iroquois jealous of him, and engage Frontenac in expenses
which would offend the king. After La Salle and the Governor had lost
credit by the rupture, the Jesuits would come forward as pacificators, in
the full assurance that they could restore quiet, and appear in the
attitude of saviors of the colony.
La Salle, pursues his reporter, went on to say, that about this time a
quantity of hemlock and verdigris was given him in a salad; and that the
guilty person was a man in his employ, named Nicolas Perrot, otherwise
called Solycoeur, who confessed the crime. [Footnote: This puts the
character of Perrot in a new light, for it is not likely that any other
can be meant than the famous _voyageur_. I have found no mention elsewhere
of the synonyme of Solycoeur. Poisoning was the current crime of the day;
and persons of the highest rank had repeatedly been charged with it. The
following is the passage:--
"Quoiqu'il en soit, Mr. de la Salle se sentit quelque temps aerés
empoissonné d'une salade dans laquelle on avoit meslé du ciguë, qui est
poison en ce pays là, et du verd de gris. Il en fut malade à l'extrémité,
vomissant presque continuellement 40 ou 50 jours après, et il ne réchappa
que par la force extrême de sa constitution. Celuy qui luy donna le poison
fut un nominé Nicolas Perrot, autrement Solycoeur, l'un de ses
domestiques.... Il pouvait faire mourir cet homme, qui a confessé son
crime, mais il s'est contenté de l'enfermer les fers aux pieds."--
_Histoire de Mr. de la Salle_.] The memoir adds that La Salle, who
recovered from the effects of the poison, wholly exculpates the Jesuits.
This attempt, which was not, as we shall see, the only one of the kind
made against La Salle, is alluded to by him, in a letter to the Prince de
Conti, written in Canada, when he was on the point of departure on his
great expedition to descend the Mississippi. The following is an extract
from it:
"I hope to give myself the honor of sending you a more particular account
of this enterprise when it shall have had the success which I hope for it;
but I have need of a strong protection for its support. It traverses the
commercial operations of certain persons, who will find it hard to endure
it. They intended to make a new Paraguay in these parts, and the route
which I close against them gave them facilities for an advantageous
correspondence with Mexico. This check will infallibly be a mortification
to them; and you know how they deal with whatever opposes them.
_Nevertheless, I am bound to render them the justice to say that the
poison which was given me was not at all of their instigation._ The person
who was conscious of the guilt, believing that I was their enemy because
he saw that our sentiments were opposed, thought to exculpate himself by
accusing them; and I confess that at the time I was not sorry to have this
indication of their ill-will: but having afterwards carefully examined the
affair, I clearly discovered the falsity of the accusation which this
rascal had made against them. I nevertheless pardoned him, in order not to
give notoriety to the affair; as the mere suspicion might sully their
reputation, to which I should scrupulously avoid doing the slightest
injury, unless I thought it necessary to the good of the public, and
unless the fact were fully proved. Therefore, Monsieur, if any one shared
the suspicion which I felt, oblige me by undeceiving him." [Footnote: The
following words are underlined in the original: "_Je suis pourtant obligé
de leur rendre une justice, que le poison qu'on m'avoit donné n'éstoit
point de leur instigation_."--_Lettre de la Salle au Prince de Conti_, 31
_Oct_. 1678.]
This letter, so honorable to La Salle, explains the statement made in the
memoir, that, notwithstanding his grounds of complaint against the Jesuits
he continued to live on terms of courtesy with them, entertained them at
his fort, and occasionally corresponded with them. The writer asserts,
however, that they intrigued with his men to induce them to desert;
employing for this purpose a young man named Deslauriers, whom they sent
to him with letters of recommendation. La Salle took him into his service;
but he soon after escaped, with several other men, and took refuge in the
Jesuit missions. [Footnote: In a letter to the king, Frontenac mentions
that several men who had been induced to desert from La Salle had gone to
Albany, where the English had received them well.--_Lettre de Frontenac au
Roy_, 6 _Nov_. 1679. MS. The Jesuits had a mission in the neighboring
tribe of the Mohawks, and elsewhere in New York.] The object of the
intrigue is said to have been the reduction of La Salle's garrison to a
number less than that which he was bound to maintain, thus exposing him to
a forfeiture of his title of possession.
He is also stated to have declared that Louis Joliet was an impostor,
[Footnote: This agrees with expressions used by La Salle in a memoir
addressed by him to Frontenac in November, 1680, and printed by Thomassy.
In this he plainly intimates his belief that Joliet went but little below
the mouth of the Illinois.] and a _donné_ of the Jesuits,--that is, a man
who worked for them without pay; and, farther, that when he, La Salle,
came to court to ask for privileges enabling him to pursue his
discoveries, the Jesuits represented in advance to the minister Colbert,
that his head was turned, and that he was fit for nothing but a mad-house.
It was only by the aid of influential friends that he was at length
enabled to gain an audience.
Here ends this remarkable memoir; which, criticise it as we may,
undoubtedly contains a great deal of truth.