Old Quebec: The Fortress of New France Part 3

After several days of watching, however, no Iroquois appeared, and the inhabitants began to breathe freely again. The more courageous returned to their deserted homes and farms, but the timid still clung to the blockhouse. The panic had also spread to Ville Marie,[5] and the imminence of this danger produced one of the most brilliant exploits which Canadian history records--a feat of daring closely resembling, and not surpa.s.sed by, the achievement of Leonidas in the Pa.s.s of Thermopylae.

The story is one of the finest in the picturesque pages of Parkman, part of whose narrative is here transcribed.

[Footnote 5: Now Montreal.]

Adam Daulac, or Dollard, Sieur des Ormeaux, was a young man of good family, who had come to the colony three years before, at the age of twenty-two. He had held some military rank in France, and it was not long before he set on foot a remarkable Indian enterprise. Sixteen young men caught his spirit, struck hands with him, and pledged their word. They bound themselves by oath to accept no quarter, made their wills, confessed, and received the sacrament. After a solemn farewell, they embarked in several canoes, well supplied with arms and ammunition. Descending the St. Lawrence, they entered the mouth of the Ottawa, crossed the Lake of Two Mountains, and slowly advanced against the current of the river. A few days later they reached the foot of the formidable rapid called the "Long Sault," where a tumult of waters foaming among ledges and boulders barred their onward way. Besides, it was needless to go farther. The Iroquois were sure to pa.s.s the Sault, and could be fought here as well as elsewhere.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE URSULINES' CONVENT]

Just below the rapid stood a palisade fort, the work of an Algonquin war-party of the preceding autumn. It was a mere enclosure of trunks of small trees planted in a circle, and was already ruinous. Such as it was, the Frenchmen took possession. They made their fires and slung their kettles on the neighbouring sh.o.r.e. Here they were soon afterwards joined by a small party of friendly Indians, consisting of about forty Hurons from Quebec, under their brave and wily chief etienne Annahotaha, and five Algonquins led by Mituvemeg. Daulac made no objection to their company, so they all bivouacked together.

In a day or two their scouts came in with tidings that two Iroquois canoes were coming down the Sault. Daulac had only time to set his men in ambush before the advance canoes of the enemy swept down the river.

A few of the Iroquois escaped the Frenchmen's volley, and fleeing into the forest, they reported their mischance to their main body, 200 in number, on the river above. Thereupon a fleet of canoes suddenly appeared, bounding down the rapids, filled with warriors eager for revenge. The allies had barely time to escape to their fort, leaving their kettles still slung over the fires. The Iroquois made a hasty attack, but being repulsed, they withdrew and fell to building a rude fort of their own in the neighbouring forest. This gave the French breathing-time, and they used it for strengthening their defences.

They planted a row of stakes within their palisade, to form a double fence, and filled the intervening s.p.a.ce with earth and stones to the height of a man, leaving twenty loopholes or more, at each of which three marksmen were stationed.

Their work was still unfinished when the Iroquois were upon them again. They had broken to pieces the birch canoes of the French and their allies, and kindling the bark, rushed up to pile it blazing against the palisade; but so brisk and steady a fire met them that they recoiled, and at last gave way. Again and again, however, they came on, each time leaving many of their bravest fighters dead upon the ground. At length, their spirits dashed, the warriors drew back. A canoe was hastily sent down the river to call to their aid five hundred Iroquois who were mustered near the mouth of the Richelieu.

Meanwhile, the defenders of the fort were hara.s.sed night and day with a spattering fire and a constant menace of attack. Thus five days pa.s.sed. Hunger, thirst, and want of sleep wrought fatally on the strength of the French and their allies, who, pent up together in a narrow prison, fought and prayed by turns. Deprived as they were of water, they could not swallow the crushed Indian corn which was their only food. Some of them, under cover of a brisk fire, ran down to the river and filled such small vessels as they had. But this meagre supply only tantalised their thirst, and they now dug a hole in the fort, to be rewarded at last by a little muddy water oozing through the clay.

On the fifth day an uproar of unearthly yells from seven hundred savage throats, mingled with a clattering salute of musketry, told the Frenchmen that the expected reinforcement had come. Soon a crowd of warriors mustered for the attack. Cautiously they advanced, screeching, leaping, and firing as they came on; but the French were at their posts, and every loophole darted its tongue of fire. Besides muskets, they had heavy musketoons of large calibre, which, scattering sc.r.a.ps of lead and iron among the throng of savages, often maimed several of them at one discharge. The Iroquois, astonished at the persistent vigour of the defence, fell back discomfited. The fire of the French had told upon them with deadly effect. Three days more wore away in a series of futile attacks; and during all this time Daulac and his men, reeling with exhaustion, fought and prayed, sure of a martyr's reward.

At length the Iroquois determined upon a grand final a.s.sault. Large and heavy shields, four or five feet high, were made by lashing together three split logs with the aid of cross-bars, and covered with these mantelets a chosen band advanced, followed by the motley throng of warriors. In spite of a brisk fire they reached the palisade, and crouching below the range of shot, hewed furiously with their hatchets to cut their way through. Daulac had crammed a large musketoon with powder, and lighting a fuse, he tried to throw it over the barrier, to burst like a grenade among the savages without; but it struck the ragged top of one of the palisades, fell back among the Frenchmen and exploded, killing and wounding several of them. In the confusion which followed, the Iroquois got possession of the loopholes, and thrusting in their guns, fired on those within. In a moment they had torn a breach in the palisade, then another and another. The brave Daulac was struck dead, but the survivors kept up the now hopeless fight. With sword, hatchet, or knife, they threw themselves against the throng of enemies, striking and stabbing with the fury of madmen, till the Iroquois, despairing of taking them alive, fired volley after volley and shot them down. All was over, and a burst of triumphant yells proclaimed the dear-bought victory.

To the colony it proved salvation. The Iroquois had had fighting enough. If seventeen Frenchmen and a handful of Indian allies, behind a picket fence, could hold seven hundred warriors at bay so long, what might they expect from many such fighting behind walls of stone? For that year they thought no more of capturing Quebec and Ville Marie, but returned to their villages dejected and amazed, to howl over their losses, and nurse their dashed courage for a day of vengeance.

CHAPTER IV

"AD MAJOREM DEI GLORIAM"

If on its material side French colonial policy took account of the Indian, it did so much more on its religious side. Quebec was the farthest outpost of Catholicism. New France was for ever to be free from the taint of heresy, allowing none but Catholic settlers within her gates; and Huguenots, as we have seen, were specifically excluded.

The Indians were to be rescued from heathen darkness and led into the sacred light of the Church. Jesuit missions thus became a salient feature in the early history of Quebec, the nerve centre of the movement being the palisaded convent on the little St. Charles.

To go back in review. On the retrocession of Quebec by the English, under the Treaty of St. Germain-en-Laye, in the time of Champlain, the influence of the Jesuits was sufficient to secure for themselves the undivided control of the Canadian mission. Returning to Quebec in 1632, Father Le Jeune and his two companions had established themselves in the half-ruined convent of Notre Dame des Anges, built by the Recollets sixteen years before. The log stockade enclosed two buildings, the smaller of which served as storehouse, stable, and workshop, and the larger as chapel and refectory. Four tiny cells opened off the latter, and in these the fathers lodged, while the lay brothers and the workmen found apartments in the garret and the cellar. The regimen of this crude establishment was severely ascetic.

The day began with early Ma.s.s and closed with evening prayers. The intervening time was spent by the laymen in cultivating the little clearing, and by the fathers in hearing confessions at the fort a mile away, or in struggling with the Algonquin idiom, by the vague a.s.sistance of one Pierre, an Indian proselyte, who, in weakness of flesh, ran away when the season of Lent drew near.

The strength of the Jesuits was increased in the spring of 1633 by the arrival of four new priests. Of these the most remarkable was Jean de Brebeuf, the descendant of a n.o.ble family in Normandy, and destined to prove his own n.o.bility by an intrepid zeal and an almost incredible courage.

Le Jeune's distressful experiment with a band of wandering Algonquins had convinced the Jesuits that their schemes of mission-conquest could not bear much fruit if they were confined to the vagrant tribes of the north. Farther west in the peninsula of the great lakes lived Indians of fixed habits and domicile, and otherwise further advanced towards civilisation than the improvident hunting tribes round about Quebec. Of these the most notable were the Hurons. As long before as 1615 the Recollet Le Caron had gone among them, and several years later Brebeuf had made the perilous lodges of Ihonatiria his habitation, but had at length returned to France. On his coming to Quebec again in the spring of 1633, Brebeuf anxiously turned his thoughts towards his former mission, awaiting only a favourable opportunity to forsake the comparative safety of the city of Quebec for the gloomy sh.o.r.es of Lake Huron and "the greater glory of G.o.d."

Midsummer brought the annual swarm of Hurons to the trading fair at Quebec. For a week the all but naked savages overran the little settlement, their animal curiosity almost driving the French to distraction, and their casual peculations causing much annoyance. But their presence was a necessary evil, if the Fur Company was to declare its dividends. Hence long-suffering courtesy became essential both to the peace of the city and to future interests so much at stake.

A powerful consideration with the community was the anxiety of the Jesuits to go back with the Indians to their villages on Lake Huron.

Champlain, when governor, had espoused this project in the most seductive of his speeches. "These are our fathers," he had announced to the sixty chiefs gathered for the nonce in the quadrangle of the Fort. "We love them more than we love ourselves. The whole French nation honours them. They do not go among you for your furs. They have left their friends and their country to show you the way to the happy hunting-grounds. If you love the French, as you say you do, then love and honour these our fathers, and care for them in your distant villages."

But the wind bloweth where it listeth, and the Indian mind was no more sure. Above all else it lacked definiteness; it was touched by rhetoric. Champlain's auditors had been thrilled with deep emotion.

They were for embarking at once with the Jesuits. Then they had faltered, and by the next day they had decided to depart without them.

For another year, therefore, the fathers had remained at Notre Dame des Anges, studying the Huron language for future use, and caring meantime for the spiritual welfare of the half-hundred French residents of Quebec.

The summer of 1634 once more saw the city given over to the visiting Hurons. The old persuasive palaver was repeated, and this time with more success. When the trading fair was over, Brebeuf, Daniel, and Davost set off with the savage fleet, each in a different canoe, facing a journey of nine hundred miles fraught with many perils, but with none so ominous as the sullen and menacing mood of their heathen conductors.

Week after week they pressed toilfully up the St. Lawrence and Ottawa; barefooted they struggled over the rocky portages, with a pittance of pounded maize for their daily ration, and mother-earth for their nightly couch. Davost's guide robbed and abandoned him at an island in the Upper Ottawa. Daniel was likewise deserted; but the giant Brebeuf yielded to no hardships, and surpa.s.sed even the seasoned savages in strength and endurance. On the sh.o.r.e of the Georgian Bay, however, his guide at length abandoned him. But Brebeuf had been here in a former year, and his instinctive woodcraft guided him twenty miles through the forest to the palisaded village of Ihonatiria.

"Echom has come again," cried the inhabitants, as they recognised the towering figure of the Jesuit who had departed from them five years before; and they opened again their lodges to the missionary.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MONUMENT TO THE FIRST CANADIAN MISSIONARY]

After days of anxious waiting, Brebeuf had the joy of seeing Daniel and Davost arrive at Ihonatiria. The hardships and dangers they had endured, and the indignities they had suffered from their brutal guides, were only outweighed by their zealous delight in reaching at length the scene of their devoted labours. The Hurons aided them in the construction of a log mission-house; and when the fathers had decorated the interior with highly-coloured pictures of the saints and the glittering regalia of the Church, the red men filled it to overflowing. A striking clock and a magnifying gla.s.s, however, were the chief objects of wonderment, and the credulous Indians regarded the priests as the workers of miracles. This awe and respect the fathers turned to good account, gathering the children into the mission-house for daily instruction. With a mind also to the physical welfare of their flock, they succeeded in reconstructing the palisades and fort of the Huron village.

Yet with all the outward respect in which the Jesuits were held, their doctrines made little or no impression upon the Indian mind. The adult Hurons had a superst.i.tious fear of baptism, and shunned the sign of the cross as a spell. Under these difficulties the Jesuits laboured, saving stricken children from a dark hereafter by the furtive administration of the dreaded sacrament.

With what boldness they dared to a.s.sume, Brebeuf and his companions condemned the infernal practices of the so-called medicine-men, whose accomplishments ranged from the curing of snake-bites to the casting out of devils. To them all diseases of the body called for much the same treatment, varied only in the proportion of vehemence allowed in their incantations and at medicine-feasts. The disgraceful orgies attending these "cures" led the priests to interfere: a policy which enraged the sorcerers of the tribe, and presently put the lives of the missionaries in jeopardy.

The summer of 1635 was marked by a great drought. The maize and beans withered in the sun; and in spite of the hoa.r.s.e invocations of the medicine-men and the fierce efforts of the tribal rain-maker the sky stayed cloudless. Thereupon the Jesuits were accused. The cross upon the mission-house had frightened the bird of thunder[6] away from Ihonatiria. Such were the charges which the sorcerers brought against the Jesuits; and the superst.i.tious Hurons believed that they were true. However, a timely vow was made to St. Joseph, the chosen protector of the Hurons, and in answer to their ardent prayers the rain fell in welcome torrents--so Brebeuf writes--and calamity was averted for a time.

Meanwhile the work of the Jesuits extended. With headquarters still at Ihonatiria, they made visits to the neighbouring villages; and for the greater success of the mission, new priests were drawn from Quebec. By 1640 those labouring among the Hurons and the neutral nation further south numbered thirteen.

[Footnote 6: The Indian belief regarding thunder was as follows: "It is a man in the form of a turkey-c.o.c.k. The sky is his palace, and he remains in it when the air is clear. When the clouds begin to grumble, he descends to the earth to gather up snakes and other objects which the Indians call _okies_. The lightning flashes wherever he opens or closes his wings. If the storm is more violent than usual, it is because his young are with him and aiding in the noise as well as they can."--_Relation des Jesuits_, 1636.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: BReBEUF]

It is not possible within the limits of a single chapter to portray the character and follow the fortunes of all those heroic souls, who gave up home and country and worldly ambition to bury themselves in the unknown wilds of the West, and to walk with their lives in their hands among the cannibal tribes of New France. The motto which Ignatius Loyola had adopted for his order was, "Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam," and in their perilous missions its members practised absolute obedience to quasi-military discipline. To name but four, Brebeuf, Lalement, Garnier, and Jogues were all destined to tragic deaths, and the story of their martyrdom is one of the most sorrowful in the history of the land.

[Ill.u.s.tration: LALEMENT]

The suffering caused by the pestilence of 1637 was much more severe than those periodical afflictions by which the Indians were visited.

Virulent smallpox was a feature of the plague, and the pious offices of priests and the incantations of the medicine-men alike proved unavailing. Clearly, some black spell had been cast upon the nation.

First it was ascribed to a serpent, then to a spotted frog, then to a demon in the muskets of the French. The Jesuits were accused of compa.s.sing death by magic. The striking clock, which aforetime had merely astonished them, was now an engine of calamity; and the litanies floating out through the windows of the mission-house were fatal incantations. Yet the Indians were afraid to lay hands upon these dealers in death. Awe held them back from wreaking their sinister designs upon the fearless men who went as ever into the pestilential tepees, that through the mystic drop and sign they might rescue the poor victims from an eternity of woe.

At length it became clear to the Jesuits that fear alone would not much longer stay the hatchets of the now hopeless Hurons. Daily they expected to meet a violent death, and a letter, still extant, drawn up by five priests in the form of a last testament, shows the unfaltering fort.i.tude of men whose dearest ambition was a martyr's death. The intervention of a squaw saved Du Peron from the tomahawk uplifted to brain him; an unseen hand delivered Ragueneau; Le Mercier and Brebeuf confounded their a.s.sailants with the courage of their demeanour; and only Chaumont suffered, being a.s.saulted and severely wounded. Knowing, however, that their death had been finally decided upon, the Jesuits gave a _festin d'adieu_--one of those farewell feasts which Huron custom enjoined on those about to die; and the courageous resignation of this band of martyrs filled even the tents of the unG.o.dly with a superst.i.tious awe. Once more the annihilating blow was averted; and from this time forward the peril threatening the Jesuit mission came not from the Hurons themselves, but from their implacable enemies, the Iroquois.

The year 1640 was drawing to a close when, after a few years' respite, the terrible war-whoop of the Five Nation Indians again rang through Canadian woods. Quebec was continually threatened by the Mohawks, whose highway of attack was the river Richelieu; and the Hurons were a.s.sailed by the Western tribe of the Iroquois confederacy. The pestilence of 1637 had ruined Ihonatiria, and for greater security the Jesuits resolved upon a large central establishment, in lieu of small missions in the several Huron villages. They chose for a site the mouth of the river Wye, which empties into Matchedash Bay. Here, in 1639, they built the mission of Ste. Marie. In the extreme peril of Indian warfare, the Hurons fled thither for food and baptism; and the hunger of three thousand neophytes and refugees soon put the fortified mission on short rations.

Isaac Jogues and a score of Huron warriors were despatched to Quebec for food and clothing. They reached the city in safety, although the St. Lawrence was closely beset by hostile Iroquois. Returning in twelve canoes laden with necessaries for the dest.i.tute Ste. Marie, Father Jogues and his companions fell into the hands of a Mohawk war-party. Some were killed on the spot, and the others were carried up the Richelieu and across Lake Champlain to a more awful fate. First they were made to run a gauntlet of Mohawk war-clubs; then they were placed upon a scaffold, where the women lacerated them with knives and clam-sh.e.l.ls, and the children applied fire-brands to their naked bodies. This torture was repeated in each of the three Mohawk villages. Goupil, a lay brother, was soon afterwards murdered, and Jogues lived the life of a slave until some Dutch settlers on the Hudson effected his ransom and put him on board a ship bound for France.

In the following year, however, Jogues came back to Quebec, and on behalf of the suffering city he undertook to negotiate a peace with the Mohawks. Armed with gifts and belts of wampum, he set out fearlessly to face his former tormentors. For a short time the wampum saved him, but he was soon obliged to return to Quebec. The French, however, were determined to win the Iroquois, politically and religiously, and no danger was great enough to check them.

Accordingly, in the late summer of 1646, Jogues was again despatched to the post which by this time had come to be known as the Mission of the Martyrs; and at last, on the 18th of October, he was foully murdered in the lodge of a Mohawk chief.

In the preceding winter Anne de Noue, a Jesuit of n.o.ble descent and frail physique, set off from Quebec to minister to the garrison at Fort Richelieu. In spite of his sixty-three years, he did not shrink from the perils of frost and snow which lay before him. On his snow-shoes and with a few days' provisions he set forth upon the path of sacrifice. A blizzard overtook him on the frozen river, he lost his way, and some days later his martyred body was discovered kneeling in the snow.

Meanwhile the dangers farther west were not decreasing. Iroquois attacks and Huron reprisals were ever threatening the Jesuit missions, and the last great blow was soon to fall. In the summer of 1648 an Iroquois war-party crept up to the gates of St. Joseph. Most of the warriors had gone to Quebec, but the palisade still contained Father Daniel and close upon a thousand women and children and old men. An early Ma.s.s had crowded the chapel, and the priest, clothed in full vestments, was exhorting the neophytes to be strong in the faith, when the dreaded war-cry rang through the village. The panic-stricken Hurons sought in vain to save themselves from stark slaughter, but Daniel met his death calmly at the door of his burning church. Seven hundred prisoners were taken, and the retiring Iroquois left of St.

Joseph only a heap of ruins.