 CHAPTER XIV. The lot of the favored guest of an Indian camp or village is idleness without repose, for he is never left alone with the repletion of incessant and inevitable feasts. Tired of this inane routine, Champlain, with some of his Frenchmen, set forth on a tour of observation. Journeying at their ease by the Indian trails, they visited, in three days, five palisaded villages. The country delighted them, with its meadows, its deep woods, its pine and cedar thickets, full of hairs and partridges, its wild grapes and plums, cherries, crab-apples, nuts, and raspberries. It was the seventeenth of August when they reached the Huron metropolis—Kahiag—in the modern township of Orillia, three leagues west of the River Severn, by which Lake Simcoe pours its waters into the bay of Matchdash. A shrill clamor of rejoicing, the fixed stair of wandering squaws, and the screaming flight of terrified children hailed the arrival of Champlain. By his estimate the place contained two hundred lodges, but they must have been relatively small, since, had they been of the enormous capacity sometimes found in these structures, Kahiag alone would have held the whole Huron population. Here was the chief rendezvous, and the town swarmed with gathering warriors. There was cheering news, for an allied nation, called currentonans, probably identical with the Andasties, had promised to join the Hurons in the enemy's country with five hundred men. Feasts and war-dance consumed the days, till at length the tardy bands had all arrived, and shouldering their canoes in scanty baggage the naked host set forth. At the outlet of Lake Simcoe they all stopped to fish, their simple substitute for a commissariat. Hence to the intrepid Etienne Brule, at his own request, was sent with twelve Indians to hasten forward the five hundred allied warriors, a dangerous venture, since his course must lie through the borders of the Iroquois. He set out on the eighth of September, and on the morning of the tenth, Champlain, shivering in his basket, awoke to see the meadows sparkling with early frost, soon to vanish under the bright autumnal sun. The Huron fleet pursued its course along Lake Simcoe, across the portage to Balsam or Sturgeon Lake, and down the chain of lakes which formed the sources of the river Trent. As the long line of canoes moved on its way, no human life was seen, no sign of friend or foe, yet at times to the fancy of Champlain the borders of the streams seemed decked with groves and shrubbery by the hands of men, and the walnut trees, laced with grapevines, seemed decorations of a pleasure ground. They stopped and encamped for a deer hunt. Five hundred Indians, in line, like the skirmishes of an army advancing to battle, drove the game to the end of a woody point, and the canoe men killed them with spears and arrows as they took to the river. Champlain and his men keenly relished the sport, but paid a heavy price for their pleasure. A Frenchman, firing at a buck, brought down an Indian, and there was need of liberal gifts to console the sufferer and his friends. The canoes now issued from the mouth of the Trent. Like a flock of venturous wildfowl, they put boldly out upon Lake Ontario, crossed it in safety, and landed within the borders of New York, on or near the point of land west of Hungry Bay. After hiding their light-craft in the woods, the warriors took up their swift and wary march, filing in silence between the woods and the lake, for four leagues along the strand. Then they struck inland, threaded the forest, crossed the outlet of Lake Onida, and after a march of four days were deep within the limits of the Iroquois. On the 9th of October some of their scouts met a fishing-party of this people, and captured them, eleven in order, men, women, and children. They were brought to the camp of the exultant Hurons. As a beginning of the jubilation, a chief cut a finger off of one of the women, but desisted from further torturing on the angry protests of Champlain, reserving that pleasure for a more convenient season. On the next day they reached an open space in the forest. The hostile town was close at hand, surrounded by rugged fields with a slovenly and savage cultivation. The young Hurons in advance saw the Iroquois at work among the pumpkins and maize, gathering their rustling harvest. Nothing could restrain the harebrained and ungoverned crew. They screamed their war cry and rushed in, but the Iroquois snatched their weapons, killed and wounded five or six of the assailants, and drove back the rest disconfitted. Champlain and his Frenchmen were forced to interpose, and the report of their pieces from the border of the woods stopped the pursuing enemy, who withdrew to their defenses, bearing with them their dead and wounded. It appears to have been a fortified town of the Anandagas, the central tribe of the Iroquois Confederacy, standing, there is some reason to believe, within the limits of Madison County, a few miles south of Lake Oneida. Champlain describes its defensive works as much stronger than those of the Huron villages. They consisted of four concentric rows of palisades, formed of trunks of trees thirty-five feet high, set a slant in the earth, and intersecting each other near the top, where they supported a kind of gallery, well defended by shopproof timber, and furnished with wooden gutters for quenching fire. A pond or lake, which washed one side of the palisade, and was led by sluices within the town, gave an ample supply of water, while the galleries were well provided with magazines of stones. Champlain was greatly exasperated at the dulcetorian futile procedure of his Huron allies. Against his advice they now withdrew to the distance of a cannon-shot from the fort, and encamped in the forest, out of sight of the enemy. I was moved, he says, to speak to them roughly and harshly enough, in order to incite them to do their duty, for I foresaw that if things went according to their fancy nothing but harm could come of it to their loss and ruin. He proceeded, therefore, to instruct them in the art of war. In the morning, aided doubtless by his ten or twelve Frenchmen, they set themselves with alacrity to their prescribed task. A wooden tower was made, high enough to overlook the palisade, and large enough to shelter four or five marksmen. Huge wooden shields, or movable parapets, like the mantleettes of the Middle Ages, were also constructed. Four hours suffice to finish the work, and then the assault began. Two hundred of the strongest warriors dragged the tower forward, and planted it within a pike's length of the palisade. Three arcboussiers mounted to the top, where, themselves well sheltered, they opened a raking fire along the galleries, now thronged with wild and naked defenders. But nothing could restrain the ungovernable Hurons. They abandoned their mantleettes, and deaf to every command, swarmed out like bees upon the open field, leaped, shouted, shrieking their war cries and shot off their arrows, while the Iroquois, yelling defiance from their ramparts, sent back a shower of stones and arrows in reply. A Huron, bolder than the rest, ran forward with firebrands to burn the palisade, and others followed with wood to feed the flame. But it was stupidly kindled on the leeward side, without the protecting shields designed to cover it, and torrents of water, poured down from the gutters above, quickly extinguished it. The confusion was redoubled. Champlain strove in vain to restore order. Each warrior was yelling at the top of his throat, and his voice was drowned in the outrageous din. Thinking, as he says, that his head would split with shouting, he gave over the attempt, and busied himself and his men with picking off the Iroquois along their ramparts. The attack lasted three hours, when the assailants fell back to their fortified camp, with seventeen warriors wounded. Champlain, too, had received an arrow in the knee, and another in the leg, which for the time disabled him. He was urgent, however, to renew the attack, while the Hurons, crestfallen and disheartened, refused to move from their camp unless the five hundred allies, for some time expected, should appear. They waited five days in vain, beguiling the interval with frequent skirmishes, in which they were always worsted, then began hastily to retreat, carrying their wounded in the center, while the Iroquois, sallying from their stronghold, showered arrows on their flanks and rear. The wounded, Champlain among the rest, after being packed in baskets made on the spot, were carried each on the back of a strong warrior. Bundled in a heap, says Champlain, doubled and strapped together after such a fashion that one could move no more than an infant in swaddling clothes. The pain is extreme, as I can truly say from experience, having been carried several days in this way, since I could not stand, chiefly on account of the arrow wound I had got in the knee. I never was in such torment in my life, for the pain of the wound was nothing to that of being bound and pinioned on the back of one of our savages. I lost patience, and as soon as I could bear my weight I got out of this prison, or rather out of hell. At length the dismal march was ended. They reached the spot where their canoes were hidden, found them untouched, embarked and recrossed to the northern shore of Lake Ontario. The Hurons had promised Champlain an escort to Quebec, but as the chiefs had little power in peace or war, beyond that of persuasion, each warrior found good reason for refusing to lend his canoe. Champlain too had lost prestige. The man with the iron breast had proved not inseparably wedded to victory, and though the fault was their own, yet not the less was the luster of their hero tarnished. There was no alternative. He must winter with the Hurons. The Great War Party broke into fragments, each band betaking itself to its hunting-ground. A chief named Durantel, or Durantel, offered Champlain the shelter of his lodge, and he was glad to accept it. Meanwhile Etienne Brule had found cause to rue the hour when he undertook his hazardous mission to the Carontan allies, three years past before Champlain saw him. It was in the summer of 1618 that, reaching the Sault Ste. Louis, he found there the interpreter, his hands and his swarthy face marked with traces of the ordeal he had passed. Brule then told him his story. He had gone, as already mentioned, with twelve Indians to hasten the march of the allies, who were to join the Hurons before the hostile town. Crossing Lake Ontario, the party pushed onward with all speed, avoiding trails, threading the thicket forests and darkest swamps, for it was the land of the fierce and watchful Iroquois. They were well advanced on their way when they saw a small party of them crossing a meadow, set upon them, surprised them, killed four and took two prisoners, whom they led to Carontanan, a palisaded town with a population of eight hundred warriors, or about four thousand souls. The dwellings and defenses were like those of the Hurons, and the town seems to have stood on or near the upper waters of the Susquehanna. They were welcomed with feasts, dances, and an uproar rejoicing. The five hundred warriors prepared to depart, but, engrossed by the general festivity, they prepared so slowly that though the hostile town was but three days distant, they found on reaching it that the besiegers were gone. Brule now returned with them to Carontanan, and with enterprise worthy of his commander, spent the winter in a tour of exploration. Descending a river, evidently the Susquehanna, he followed it to its junction with the sea, through territories of populous tribes, at war the one with the other. When in the spring he returned to Carontanan, five or six of the Indians offered to guide him towards his countrymen. Less fortunate than before he encountered on the way a band of Iroquois, who rushing upon the parties scattered them through the woods. Brule ran like the rest. The cries of pursuers and pursued died away in the distance. The forest was silent around him. He was lost in the shabby labyrinth. For three or four days he wandered, helpless and famished, till at length he found an Indian footpath, and choosing between starvation and the Iroquois desperately followed it to throw himself on their mercy. He soon saw three Indians in the distance laden with fish newly caught, and called to them in the Huron Tongue, which was radically similar to that of the Iroquois. They stood amazed, then turned to fly, but Brule, gaunt with famine, flung down his weapons and took in a friendship. They now drew near, listened to the story of his distress, lighted their pipes and smoked with him, then guided him to their village and gave him food. A crowd gathered about him. Once do you come! Are you not one of the Frenchmen, the men of iron, who make war on us? Brule answered that he was of a nation better than the French, and fast friend of the Iroquois. His incredulous captors tied him to a tree, tore out his beard by handfuls, and burned him with fire-brans, while their chief vainly interposed on his behalf. He was a good Catholic, and wore an agnes-state his breast. One of his torturers asked what it was and thrust out his hand to take it. If you touch it, exclaimed Brule, you and all your race will die. The Indian persisted. The day was hot, and one of those thunder-guests which often secede the fierce heats of an American Midsummer was rising against the sky. Brule pointed to the inky clouds as tokens of the anger of his God. The storm broke, and as the celestial artillery boomed over their darkening forests, the Iroquois were stricken with a superstitious terror. They all fled from the spot, leaving their victims still bound fast until the chief who had endeavored to protect him returned, cut the cords, led him to his lodge and dressed his wounds. Thenceforth there was neither dance nor feast to which Brule was not invited, and when he wished to return to his countrymen a party of Iroquois guided him four days on his way. He reached the friendly Hurons in safety, and joined them on their yearly descent made to meet the French traders at Montreal. Brule's adventures find in some points their counterpart in those of his commander on the winter hunting grounds of his Huron allies. As we turn the ancient, worm-eaten page which preserves the simple record of his fortunes, a wild and dreary scene rises before the mine, a chill November air, a murky sky, a cold lake, bare and shivering forests, the earth strewn with crisp brown leaves, and by the water side the bark sheds and smoking campfires of a band of Indian hunters. Champlain was of the party. There was ample occupation for his gun, for the morning was vocal with a clamour of wildfowl, and his evening meal was enlivened by the rueful music of the wolves. It was a lake north or northwest of the side of Kingston. On the borders of a neighbouring river, twenty-five of the Indians had been busy ten days in preparing for their annual deer hunt. They planted posts interlaced with boughs and two straight converging lines, each extending more than half a mile through forests and swamps. At the angle where they met was made a strong enclosure like a pound. At dawn of day the hunters spread themselves through the woods, and advancing with shouts, clattering of sticks and howlings like those of wolves, driving the deer before them into the enclosure, where others lay in wait to dispatch them with arrows and spears. Champlain was in the woods with the rest, when he saw a bird whose novel appearance excited his attention, and gun in hand he went in pursuit. The bird, flitting from tree to tree, lured him deeper and deeper into the forest, then took wing and vanished. The disappointed sportsman tried to retrace his steps, but the day was clouded and he had left his pocket compass at the camp. The forest closed around him, trees mingled with trees in endless confusion. Bewildered and lost he wandered all day, and at night slept fasting at the foot of a tree. Awaking he wandered on till afternoon, when he reached upon slumbering in the shadow of the woods. There were waterfowl along its brink, some of which he shot, and for the first time found food to allay his hunger. He kindled a fire, cooked his game, and exhausted, blanketless, drenched by a cold rain, made his prayer to heaven, and again lay down to sleep. Another day of blind wandering succeeded, and another night of exhaustion. He had found paths in the wilderness, but they were not made by human feet. Once more roused from his shivering repose, he journeyed on till he heard the tinkling of a little brook, and bethought him of following its guidance, in the hope that it might lead him to the river where the hunters were now encamped. With toilsome steps he followed the infant stream, now lost beneath the decaying masses of fallen trunks or the impervious intricacies of matted windfalls, now stealing through swampy thickets or gurgling in the shade of rocks, till it entered at length, not into the river but into a small lake. Circling around the brink he found the point where the brook ran out and resumed its course. Listening in the dead stillness of the woods, a dull, hoarse sound rose upon his ear. He went forward, listened again, and could plainly hear the plunge of waters. There was a light in the forest before him, and thrusting himself through the entanglement of bushes he stood on the edge of a meadow. Wild animals were here of various kinds, some skulking in the bordering thickets, some browsing on the dry and matted grass. On his right rolled the river, wide and turbulent, and along its bank he saw the portage path by which the Indians passed the neighboring rapids. He gazed about him. The rocky hills seemed familiar to his eye. A clue was found at last, and kindling his evening fire with grateful heart he broke a long fast on the game he had killed. With the break of day he descended at his ease along the bank, and soon described the smoke of the Indian fires curling in the heavy morning air against the gray borders of the forest. The joy was great on both sides. The Indians had searched for him without ceasing, and from that day forth his host, Durantel, would never let him go into the forest alone. They were thirty-eight days encamped on this nameless river, and killed in that time a hundred and twenty deer. Hard frosts were needful to give them passage over the land of lakes and marshes that lay between them and the Huron towns. Therefore they lay waiting till the fourth of December, when the frost came, bridged the lakes and streams, and made the oozy marshes firm as granite. Snow followed, powdering the broad waste with dreary white. Then they broke up their camp, packed their game on sledges or on their shoulders, tied on their snowshoes, and began their march. Champlain could scarcely endure his load, though some of the Indians carried away at five fold greater. At night they heard the cleaving ice uttering its strange groans of torment, and on the morrow there came a thaw. For four days they waded through slush and water up to their knees, then came the shivering northwest wind, and all was hard again. In nineteen days they reached the town of Cahiyag, and lounging around their smoky lodge fires the hunters forgot the hardship of the past. For Champlain there was no rest. A double motive urged him, discovery, and the strengthening of his colony by widening its circle of trade. First he repaired to Karhagwa, and here he found the friar in his hermitage still praying, preaching, making catechisms, and struggling with the manifold difficulties of the Huron tongue. After spending several weeks together they began their journeyings, and in three days reached the chief village of the Nation of Tobacco, a powerful tribe akin to the Hurons, and soon to be incorporated with them. The travellers visited seven of their towns, and then passed westward to those of the people whom Champlain calls the Chevorilev, and whom he commends for neatness and ingenuity no less than he condemns them for the nullity of their summer attire. As the strangers passed from town to town their arrival was everywhere the signal of festivity. Champlain exchanged pledges of amity with his hosts, and urged them to come down with the Hurons to the yearly trade at Montreal. Champlain was now advancing, and anxious for his colony he turned homeward, following that long circuit of Lake Huron and the Ottawa, which Iroquois hostility made the only practicable route. Scarcely had he reached the Nipissings, and gained from them a pledge to guide him to that delusive northern sea which never ceased to possess his thoughts, when evil news called him back in haste to the Huron towns. A band of those Algonquins who dwelt on the great island in the Ottawa had spent the winter in camp near Kahiag, whose inhabitants made them a present of an Iroquois prisoner, with a friendly intention that they should enjoy the pleasure of torturing him. The Algonquins, on the contrary, fed, clothed, and adopted him. On this the donors, in a rage, sent a warrior to kill the Iroquois. He stabbed him, accordingly, in the midst of the Algonquins' chiefs, who in requital killed the murderer. Here was a casus belly involving the most serious issues for the French, since the Algonquins, by their position on the Ottawa, could cut off the Hurons and all their allies from coming down to trade. Already, if I had taken place at Kahiag, the principal Algonquin chief had been wounded, and his band forced to purchase safety by a heavy tribute of Wampum, and a gift of two female prisoners. All eyes turned to Champlain as umpire of the quarrel. The great council-house was filled with Huron and Algonquin chiefs, smoking with that immobility of feature beneath which their race often hide a more than tiger-like ferocity. The umpire addressed the assembly, enlarged on the folly of falling to blows between themselves, when the common enemy stood ready to devour them both, extolled the advantages of the French trade and alliance, and with zeal not wholly disinterested urged them to shake hands like brothers. The friendly council was accepted, the pipe of peace was smoked, the storm dispelled, and the commerce of New France rescued from a serious peril. Once more Champlain turned homeward, and with him went his Huron host, Durantal. Le Coran had preceded him, and on the eleventh of July the fellow travellers met again in the infant capital of Canada. The Indians had reported that Champlain was dead, and he was welcomed as one risen from the grave. The friars, who were all here, chanted lands in their chapel, with a solemn mass in thanksgiving. To the two travellers, fresh from the hardships of the wilderness, the hospitable Board of Quebec, the kindly society of countrymen and friends, the adjacent gardens, always to Champlain an object of a special interest, seemed like the comforts and repose of home. The chief Durantal found entertainment worthy of his high estate. The fort, the ship, the armor, the plumes, the cannon, the marvelous architecture of the houses and barracks, the splendors of the chapel, and above all the good cheer outran the boldest excursion of his fancy, and he paddled back at last to his lodge in the woods, bewildered with astonishment and admiration. CHAPTER XIV HOSTILE SEX RIVAL INTERESTS XVI, XVI to XVI, 27 At Quebec the signs of growth were faint and few. By the water-side, under the cliff, the so-called habitation, built in haste eight years before, was already tottering, and Champlain was forced to rebuild it. On the verge of the rock above, where now are seen the buttresses of the demolished castle of St. Louis, he began, in 1620, a fort, behind which were fields and a few buildings. A mile or more distant, by the bank of the St. Charles, where the General Hospital now stands, the recolettes, in the same year, built for themselves a small stone house, with ditches and outworks for defense. And here they began a farm, the stock consisting of several hogs, a pair of asses, a pair of geese, seven pairs of fowls, and four pairs of ducks. The only other agriculturalist in the colony was Louis Eubere, who had come to Canada in 1617 with a wife and three children, and who made a house for himself on the rock at a little distance from Champlain's fort. Besides Quebec, there were the three trading stations of Montreal, three rivers, and Tadoussac, occupied during a part of the year. Of these, Tadoussac was still the most important. Landing here from France in 1617, the recolette, Paul Hewitt, said mass for the first time in a chapel built of branches, while two sailors standing beside him waved green bowels to drive off the mosquitos. Thither afterward came brother Gervais Mojire, newly arrived in Canada, and meeting a crowd of Indians in festival attire, he was frightened at first, and suspected that they might be demons. Being invited by them to a feast, and told that he must not decline, he took his place among a party of two hundred, squatted about four large kettles full of fish, bears meat, peas, and plums, mixed with figs, raisins, and biscuit procured at great cost from the traders. The whole boiled together and well stirred with a canoe paddle. As the guest did no honour to the portion set before him, his entertainers tried to tempt his appetite with a large lump of bears fat, a supreme luxury in their eyes. This only increased his embarrassment, and he took a hasty leave, uttering the ejaculation, ho, ho, ho, which, as he had been correctly informed, was the proper mode of acknowledgment to the master of the feast. A change had now begun in the life of Champlain. His forest rovings were over. To battle with savages in the elements was more congenial with his nature than to nurse a puny colony into growth and strength, yet to each task he gave himself with the same strong devotion. His difficulties were great. Quebec was half trading factory, half mission. Its permanent inmates did not exceed fifty or sixty persons, fur traders, friars, and two or three wretched families, who had no inducement and little wish to labour. The fort is facetiously represented as having two old women for garrison, and a brace of hens for sentinels. All was discord and disorder. Champlain was the nominal commander, but the actual authority was with the merchants, who held, accepting the friars, nearly everybody in their pay. Each was jealous of the other, but all were united in a common jealousy of Champlain. The few families whom they brought over were forbidden to trade with the Indians, and compelled to sell the fruits of their labour to the agents of the company at a low fixed price, receiving goods in return at an inordinate valuation. Some of the merchants were of Ronin, some of Sainte-Malo, some were Catholics, some were Huguenots, hence unceasing bickering. All exercise of the reformed religion on land or water was prohibited within the limits of New France, but the Huguenots set the prohibition at naught, roaring their heretical psalmody with such vigor from their ships on the river that the unhallowed strains polluted the ears of the Indians on shore. The merchants of Rochelle, who had refused to join the company, carried on a bold, illicit traffic along the borders of the St. Lawrence, endangering the colony by selling firearms to the Indians, eluding pursuit, or if hard-pressed, showing fight, and this was a source of perpetual irritation to the incensed monopolists. The colony could not increase. The company of merchants, though pledged to promote its growth, did what they could to prevent it. They were fur traders, and the interests of the fur trader always opposed to those of settlement and population. They feared, too, and with reason, that their monopoly might be suddenly revoked, like that of de Monts, and they thought only of making profit from it while it lasted. They had no permanent stake in the country, nor had the men in their employ, those who formed nearly all the scanty population of Canada. Few, if any, of these had brought wives to the colony, and none of them thought of cultivating the soil. They formed a floating population kept from starving by yearly supplies from France. Champlain, in his singularly trying position, displayed a mingled zeal and fortitude. He went every year to France, laboring for the interests of the colony. To throw open the trade to all competitors was a measure beyond the wisdom of the times, and he hoped only to bind and regulate the monopoly so as to make it subserve the generous purpose to which he had given himself. The imprisonment of Condé was a source of fresh embarrassment, but the young duo de Montmorency assumed his place, purchasing from him the profitable lieutenancy of New France for eleven thousand crowns, and continuing Champlain in command. Champlain had succeeded in binding the Company of Merchants with new and more stringent engagements, and in the vain belief that these might not be wholly broken, he began to conceive fresh hopes for the In this faith he embarked with his wife for Quebec in the spring of sixteen twenty, and as the boat drew near the landing the cannon welcomed her to the rock of her banishment. The buildings were falling to ruin, rain entering on all sides. The courtyard, says Champlain, was as squalid and dilapidated as a grange pillaged by soldiers. Madame de Champlain was still very young. If the Ursuline tradition is to be trusted, the Indians, amazed at her beauty and touched by her gentleness, would have worshipped her as a divinity. Her husband had married her at the age of twelve, when to his horror he presently discovered that she was infected with the heresies of her father, a disguised Huguenot. He addressed himself at once to her conversion, and his pious efforts were something more than successful. During the four years which she passed in Canada, her zeal, it is true, was chiefly exercised in admonishing Indian squaws and catechizing in her children, but on her return to France, nothing would content her but to become a nun. Champlain refused, but as she was childless, he at length consented to a virtual, though not formal, separation. After his death she gained her wish, became an Ursuline nun, founded a convent of that order at Mew, and died with her reputation almost saintly. At Quebec matters grew from bad to worse. The few immigrants, with no inducement to labour, fell into lazy apathy, lounging about the trading-houses, gaming, drinking when drink could be had, or roving into the woods on vagabond hunting excursions. The Indians could not be trusted. In the year sixteen-seventeen they had murdered two men near the end of the island of Orléans. Frightened at what they had done, and incited perhaps by other causes, the Monteneges in their kindred bands mustered at three rivers to the number of eight hundred, resolved to destroy the French. The secret was betrayed, and the childish multitude, naked and famishing, became suppliance to their intended victims for the means of life. The French, themselves at the point of starvation, could give little or nothing. An enemy far more formidable awaited them, and now were seen the fruits of Champlain's intermeddling in Indian affairs. In the summer of sixteen-twenty-two, the Iroquois descended upon the settlement. A strong party of their warriors hovered about Quebec, but still, fearful of the archbouces, were bore to attack it, and assailed the recollect convent on the St. Charles. The prudent friars had fortified themselves. While some prayed in the chapel, the rest with their Indian converts manned the walls. The Iroquois respected their palisades and demilunes, and withdrew after burning two Huron prisoners. Yielding at length to reiterated complaints, the Viceroy Montmorency suppressed the company of Saint Malo and Rouen, and conferred the trade of New France, burdened with similar conditions destined to be similarly broken, on two Huguenots, William M. Emery de Caen. The change was a signal for fresh disorders. The enraged monopolist refused to yield. The rival traders filled Quebec with their quarrels, and Champlain, seeing his authority said it not, was forced to occupy his newly built fort with a band of armed followers. The evil rose to such a pitch that he joined with the recollects, and better disposed among the colonists in sending one of the friars to lay their grievances before the king. The dispute was compromised by a temporary union of the two companies, together with a variety of arrettes and regulations, situated it was thought to restore tranquility. A new change was at hand. Montmorency, tired of his Viceroyalty, which gave him ceaseless annoyance, sold it to his nephew, Henri de Lévis, dupe de Ventador. It was no worldly motive which prompted this young nobleman to assume the burden of fostering the infancy of New France. He had retired from court and entered into holy orders. For trade and colonization he cared nothing. The conversion of infidels was his sole care. The Jesuits had the keeping of his conscience, and in his eyes they were the most fitting instruments for his purpose. The recollects, it is true, had labored with an unflagging devotion. The six friars of their order, for this was the number which the Calvinist Cain had bound himself to support, had established five distinct missions, extending from Acadia to the borders of Lake Huron, but the field was too vast for their powers. Ostensibly by a spontaneous movement of their own, but in reality it is probable, under influences brought to bear on them from without, the recollects applied for assistance of the Jesuits, who, strong in resources as an energy, would not be compelled to rest on the reluctant support of the Huguenots. Three of their brotherhood, Charles Lalmont, and Amande Mass, and Jean de Brabouf, accordingly embarked, and fourteen years after Beard and Mass had landed in Acadia, Canada beheld for the first time those whose names stand so prominent in her annals, the mysterious followers of Loyola. Their reception was most inauspicious. Champlain was absent. Cain would not lodge them in the fort. The traders would not admit them to their houses. Nothing seemed left for them but to return as they came, when a boat, bearing several recollects, approached the ship to proffer them the hospitalities of the convent on the St. Charles. They accepted the proffer and became guests of the charitable friars, who nevertheless entertained a lurking jealousy of these formidable co-workers. The Jesuits soon unearthed and publicly burnt a libel against their order belonging to some of the traders. Their strength was soon increased. The father's Noirot and Delanou landed, with twenty laborers, and the Jesuits were no longer houseless. Brabouf set forth for the arduous mission of the Hurons, but on arriving at Travrivier he learned that one of his Franciscan predecessors, Nicholas Viel, had recently been drowned by Indians of that tribe, in the rapid behind Montreal, known to this day as the So-Arricollet. Less ambitious for martyrdom than he afterwards approved himself, he postponed his voyage to a more auspicious season. In the following spring he renewed the attempt, in company with Delanou and one of the friars. The Indians, however, refused to receive him into their canoes, alleging that his tall and portly frame would overset them, and it was only by dint of many presents that their pretended scruples could be conquered. Brabouf embarked with his companions, and after months of toil reached the barbarous scene of his labours, his sufferings, and his death. Meanwhile the viceroy had been deeply scandalised by the co-tumaceous heresy of Emery de Cane, who not only assembled his Huguenot sailors at prayers, but forced Catholics to join them. He was ordered thenceforth to prohibit his crews from all praying and psalm singing on the River St. Lawrence. The crews revolted and a compromise was made. It was agreed that for the present they might pray, but not sing. A bad bargain, says the pious Champlain, but we made the best of it we could. Cane, outraged at the viceroy's reproofs, lost no opportunity to vent his spleen against the Jesuits, whom he cordially hated. Eighteen years had passed since the founding of Quebec, and still the colony could scarcely be said to exist but in the founder's brain. Those who should have been at support were engrossed by trade or propagandism. Champlain might look back on fruitless toils, hopes deferred, a life spent seemingly in vain. The population of Quebec had risen to a hundred and five persons, men, women, and children. Of these one or two families only had learned to support themselves from the products of the soil. All withered under the monopoly of the Canes. Champlain had long desire to rebuild the fort, which was weak and ruinous, but the merchants would not grant the men and means which, by their charter, they were bound to furnish. At length, however, his urgency in part prevailed, and the work began to advance. Meanwhile the Canes and their associates had greatly prospered, paying, it is said, an annual dividend of forty percent. In a single year they brought from Canada twenty-two thousand beaver-skins, though the usual number did not exceed twelve or fifteen thousand. While infant Canada was thus struggling into a half-stifled being, the foundation of a commonwealth destined to marvelous figure of development had been laid on the rock of Plymouth. In their character, as in their destiny, the rivals were widely different, yet at the outset New England was unfaithful to the principle of freedom. New England Protestantism appealed to liberty, then closed the door against her, for all Protestantism is an appeal from priestly authority to the right of private judgment, and the New England Puritan, after claiming this right for himself, denied it to all who differed with him. On a stock of freedom he grafted a sign of despotism, yet the vital juices of the root penetrated at last to the outermost branches, and nourished them to an irrepressible strength and expansion. With New France it was otherwise. She was consistent to the last. Root, stem and branch, she was the nursling of authority. Deadly absolutism blighted her early and her later growth. Friars and Jesuits, Aventador and Arieschelou shaped her destinies. All that conflicted against advancing liberty, the centralized power of the crown and the tiara, the ultra-montaine in religion, the despotic in policy, found their fullest expression in most fatal exercise. Her records shine with glorious deeds, the self-devotion of heroes and martyrs, and the result of all is disorder, imbecility, and ruin. The great champion of absolutism, Richelieu, was now supreme in France. His thin frame, pale cheek, and cold, calm eye, concealed an inexorable will and a mind of vast capacity, armed with all the resources of boldness and craft. Under his potent agency, the royal power, in the weak hands of Louis XIII, waxed and strengthened daily, triumphing over the factions of the court, the turbulence of the Huguenots, the ambitious independence of the nobles, and all the elements of anarchy which, since the death of Henry IV, had risen into fresh life. With no friends and a thousand enemies, disliked and feared by the pitiful king whom he served, making his tool by turns of every party and of every principle, he advanced by countless crooked paths toward his object, the greatness of France under a concentrated and undivided authority. In the midst of more urgent cares, he addressed himself to fostering the commercial and naval power. Montmorency then held the ancient charge of admiral of France. Richelieu bought it, suppressed it, and in its stead constituted himself grand master and superintendent of navigation and commerce. In this new capacity, the mists managed affairs of New France were not long concealed from him, and he applied a prompt and powerful remedy. The privileges of the Keynes were annulled. A company was formed to consist of a hundred associates and to be called the Company of New France. Richelieu himself was the head, and the Maréchal Defiant and other men of rank, besides many merchants and burgers of condition, were members. The whole of New France, from Florida to the Arctic Circle, and from Newfoundland to the sources of the St. Lawrence and its tributary waters, was conferred on them forever, with the attributes of sovereign power. A perpetual monopoly of the fur trade was granted them, with a monopoly of all other commerce within the limits of their government for fifteen years. The trade of the colony was declared free for the same period, from all duties and impoths. Nobles, officers, and ecclesiastics, members of the company, might engage in commercial pursuits without derogating from the privileges of their order, and, in evidence of his goodwill, the king gave them two ships of war, armed and equipped. On their part, the company were bound to convey to New France during the next year, 1628, two or three hundred men of all trades, and before the year 1643, to increase the number to four thousand persons of both sexes, to lodge and support them for three years, and this time expired, give them cleared lands for their maintenance. Every settler must be a Frenchman and a Catholic, and for every new settlement at least three ecclesiastics must be provided. Thus was New France to be forever free from the taint of heresy. The stain of her infancy was to be wiped away. Against the foreigner and the Huguenot, the door was closed and barred. England threw open her colonies to all who wished to enter, the suffering and the oppressed, the bold, active, and enterprising. France shut out those who wished to come and admitted only those who did not, the favored class who clung to the old faith and had no motive or disposition to leave their homes. English colonization obeyed a natural law, and sailed with wind and tide. French colonization spent its whole struggling existence and futile efforts to make head against them. The English colonists developed inherited freedom on a virgin soil. The French colonists was pursued across the Atlantic by a paternal despotism, better in intention and more withering in effect than that which he left behind him. If instead of excluding Huguenots, France had given them an asylum in the West, and left them there to work out their own destinies, Canada would never have been a British province, and the United States would have shared her vast domain with the vigorous population of self-governing Frenchmen. A trading company was now feudal proprietor of all domains in North America, within the claim of France. Fieldty and homage on its part, and on the part of the crown the appointment of supreme judicial officers, and the confirmation of the titles of dukes, marquises, counts, and barons were the only reservations. The king heaped favors on the new corporation. Twelve of the bourgeois members were ennobled, while artisans and even manufacturers were tempted by extraordinary privileges to immigrate to the new world. The associates of whom Champlain was one entered upon their functions with a capital of three hundred thousand leavers. The first care of the new company was to succour Quebec, whose inmates were on the verge of starvation. Four armed vessels, with a fleet of transports commanded by Roquemont, one of the associates, sailed from Dieppe with colonists and supplies in April 1628, but nearly at the same time another squadron, destined also for Quebec, was sailing from an English port. War had at length broken out in France. The Huguenot revolt had come to a head. Rochelle was in arms against the king, and Richelieu, with his royal ward, was beleaguering it with the whole strength of the kingdom. Charles I of England, urged by the heated passions of Buckingham, had to glared himself for the rebels and sent a fleet to their aid. At home Charles detested the followers of Calvin as dangerous to his own authority. Abroad he befriended them as dangerous to the authority of arrival. In France Richelieu crushed Protestantism as a curb to the house of Bourbon. In Germany he nursed and strengthened it as a curb to the house of Austria. The attempts of Sir William Alexander to colonize Acadia had of late turned attention in England towards the new world, and on the breaking out of the war an expedition was set on foot, under the auspices of that singular personage to seize on the French possessions in North America. It was a private enterprise undertaken by London merchants, prominent amongst whom was Gervais Kirk, an Englishman of Derbyshire, who had long lived at Dieppe, and had there married a French woman. Gervais Kirk and his associates fitted out three small armed ships, commanded respectively by his sons David, Louis, and Thomas. Letters of Mark were obtained from the King, and the adventurers were authorized to drive out the French from Acadia and Canada. Many Huguenot refugees were among the crews. Having been expelled from New France's settlers, the persecuted sect were returning as enemies. One Captain Michel, who had been in the service of the Kains, a furious Calvinist, is said to have instigated the attempt, acting it is affirmed under the influence of one of his former employers. Meanwhile, the famished tenants of Quebec were eagerly awaiting the expected sucker. Daily they gazed beyond Point Levy and along the Channel of Orléans, in the vain hope of seeing the approaching sales. At length, on the 9th of July, two men, worn with struggling through forests and over torrents, crossed the St. Charles and mounted the Rock. They were from Cape Torment, where Champlain had some time before established an outpost, and they brought news that, according to the report of Indians, six large vessels lay in the harbour of Tadoussac. The friar Le Caron was at Quebec, and, with a brother Recollette, he went in a canoe to gain further intelligence. As missionary scouts were paddling along the borders of the island of Orléans, they met two canoes advancing in hot haste, manned by Indians, who with shouts and gestures warned them to turn back. The friars, however, waited till the canoes came up. When they saw a man lying disabled at the bottom of one of them, his moustaches burnt by the flash of the musket which had wounded him. He proved to be Fouché, who commanded at Cape Torment. On that morning, such was the story of the fugitives, twenty men had landed at that post from a small fishing vessel. Being to all appearance French, they were hospitably received, but no sooner had they entered the houses than they began to pillage and burn all before them, killing the cattle, wounding the commandant, and making several prisoners. The character of the fleet at Tadoussac was now sufficiently clear. Quebec was incapable of defense. Only fifty pounds of gunpowder were left in the magazine, and the fort, owing to the neglect and ill will of the Keynes, was so wretchedly constructed that a few days before two towers of the main building had fallen. Champlain, however, assigned to each man his post and waited the result. On the next afternoon a boat was seen issuing from behind the point of Orléans and hovering hesitatingly about the mouth of the St. Charles. On being challenged the men on board proved to be basque fishermen, lately captured by the English, and now sent by Kirk unwilling messengers to Champlain. Climbing the steep pathway to the fort they delivered their letter, a summons couched in terms of great courtesy to surrender Quebec. There was no hope but encourage. A bold front must supply the lack of batteries and ramparts, and Champlain dismissed the basques with a reply, in which, with equal courtesy, he expressed his determination to hold his position to the last. All now stood on the watch, hourly expecting the enemy, when instead of the hostile squadron a small boat crept into sight, and one dead down, with ten Frenchmen landed at the storehouses. He brought stirring news. The French commander, Roquemont, had dispatched him to tell Champlain that the ships of the Hundred Associates were ascending the St. Lawrence, with reinforcements and supplies of all kinds. But on his way de Damme had seen an ominous sight, the English squadron standing under full sail out of Tartusac, and steering downwards as if to intercept the advancing sucker. He had only escaped them by dragging his boat up the beach and hiding it, and scarcely were they out of sight when the booming of cannon told him that the fight was begun. Racked with suspense, the starving tenants of Quebec waited the result, but they waited in vain. No white sail moved to thwart the green solitude of Orleans. Neither friend nor foe appeared, and it was not till long afterward that Indians brought them the tidings that Roquemont's crowded transports had been overpowered, and all the supplies destined to relieve their miseries sunk in the St. Lawrence are seized by the victorious English. Kirk, however, deceived by the bold attitude of Champlain, had been too discreet to attack Quebec, and after his victory employed himself in cruising for French fishing vessels along the borders of the Gulf. Meanwhile, the suffering at Quebec increased daily. Somewhat less than a hundred men, women, and children were cooped up in the fort, subsisting on a meager pittance of peas and Indian corn. The garden of the Heberes, the only thrifty settlers, was ransacked for every root or seed that could afford nutriment. Months wore on, and in the spring the distress had risen to such a pitch that Champlain had well nigh resolved to leave the women, children, and sick the little food that remained, and with the able-bodied men invade the Iroquois, seize one of their villages, fortify himself in it, and sustain his followers on the buried stores of maize with which the strongholds of these provident savages were always furnished. Seven ounces of pounded peas were now the daily food of each, and at the end of May even this failed. Men, women, and children betook themselves to the woods, gathering acorns and grubbing up roots. Those of the plant called Solomon's seal were most in request. Some joined the Hurons or the Algonquins, some wandered toward the Abinacches of Maine, some wandered towards the Abinacches of Maine, some descended in a boat to Gaspe, trusting to meet a French fishing vessel. There was scarcely one who would not have hailed the English as deliverers. But the English had sailed home with their booty, and the season was so late that there was little prospect of their return. Forgotten alike by friends and foes, that was on the verge of extinction. On the morning of the nineteenth of July an Indian, renowned as a fisher of eels, who had built his hut on the St. Charles, hard by the new dwelling of the Jesuits, came with his unusual imperturbability of visage to Champlain. He had just discovered three ships sailing up the south channel of Orléans. Champlain was alone. All his followers were absent, fishing or searching for roots. At about ten o'clock his servant appeared with four small bags of roots, and the tidings that he had seen the three ships allig off, behind Point Levy. As man after man hastened in, Champlain ordered the starved and ragged band, sixteen in all, to their posts. Once with hungry eyes they watched the English vessels anchoring in the basin below, and a boat with a white flag moving towards the shore. A young officer landed with his summons to surrender. The terms of capitulation were at length settled. The French were to be conveyed to their own country, and each soldier was allowed to take with him his clothes, and in addition a coat of beaver-skin. On this some murmuring arose, several of those who had gone to the Hurons having lately returned with peltry of no small value. Their complaints were vain, and on the twentieth of July, amid the roar of cannon from the ships, Louis Kirk, the admiral's brother, landed at the head of his soldiers, and planted the cross of St. George where the followers of Wolfe again planted it a hundred and thirty years later. After inspecting the worthless fort, he repaired to the houses of the Recolettes and Jesuits on the St. Charles. He treated the former with a great courtesy, but displayed against the latter a violent aversion, expressing his regret that he could not have begun his operations by battering their house about their ears. The inhabitants had no cause to complain of him. He urged the widow and family of the settler Ebert, the patriarch, as he has been styled of New France, to remain and enjoy the fruits of their industry under English alliance, and as beggary in France was the alternative his offer was accepted. Champlain, bereft of his command, grew restless and begged to be sent to Tutosac, where the admiral, David Kirk, lay with his maiden squadron, having sent his brothers Louis and Thomas to seize Quebec. Accordingly, Champlain, with the Jesuits, embarking with Thomas Kirk, descended the river. Off Mall Bay, a strange sail was seen. As she approached she proved to be a French ship. In fact, she was on her way to Quebec with supplies, which if earlier sent would have saved the place. She had passed the admiral's squadron in a fog, but here her good fortune ceased. Thomas Kirk bored down on her, and the cannonade began. The fight was hot and doubtful, but at length the French struck, and Kirk sailed into Tutosac with his prize. Here lay his brother the admiral with five ships. The admiral's two voyages to Canada were private ventures, and though he had captured nineteen fishing vessels, besides Roquemont's eighteen transports and other prizes, the result had not answered his hopes. His mood, therefore, was far from benign, especially as he feared, that owing to the declaration of peace, he would be forced to discourage a part of his booty. Yet accepting the Jesuits he treated his captives with courtesy, and often amused himself with shooting larks on shore and company with Champlain. The Huguenots, however, of whom there were many in his ships, showed in exceeding bitterness against the Catholics. Chief among them was Michelle, who had instigated and conducted the enterprise, the merchant admiral being but an indifferent seaman. Michelle, whose skill was great, held a high command and the title of rear admiral. He was a man of a sensitive temperament, easily peaked on the point of honour. His morbid and irritable nerves were wrought to the pitch of frenzy by the reproaches of treachery and profidity with which the French prisoners assailed him, while, on the other hand, he was in a state of continual rage at the fancy neglect and contumity of his English associates. He raved against Kirk, who, as he declared, treated him with insupportable arrogance. I have left my country, he exclaimed, for the service of foreigners, and they give me nothing but ingratitude and scorn. His fevered mind, acting on his diseased body, often excited him to transports of fury, in which he cursed indiscriminately the people of Scentmallow, against whom he had a grudge, and the Jesuits whom he detested. On one occasion Kirk was conversing with some of the latter. Gentlemen, he said, your business in Canada was to enjoy what belonged to Monsieur de Ken whom you dispossessed. Pardon me, sir, answered Brabouf, we came purely for the glory of God and exposed ourselves to every kind of danger to convert the Indians. Here, Michelle broke in. I, I, convert the Indians. You mean convert the beaver. That is false, retorted Brabouf. Michelle raised his fists, exclaiming, but for the respect I owe the general, I would strike you for giving me the lie. Brabouf, a man of powerful frame and vehement passions, nevertheless regained his practice self-command, and replied, You must excuse me. I did not mean to give you the lie. I should be very sorry to do so. The words I used are those we use in the school when a doubtful question is advanced, and they mean no offence. Therefore I ask you to pardon me. Despite the apology, Michelle's frenzied brain harped the presumed insult, and he raved about it without ceasing. Bon Dieu! said Champlain. You swear well for a reformer. I know it, returned Michelle. I should be content if I had but struck that Jesuit who gave me the lie before my general. At length one of his transports of rage ended in a lethargy from which he never awoke. His funeral was conducted with pomp suited to his rank, and amid discharges of cannon whose dreary war was echoed from the yawning gulf of the Saginae, his body was born to its rest under the rocks of Tadusac. Good Catholics and good Frenchmen saw in his faith the immediate finger of Providence. I do not doubt that his soul is in perdition, remarked Champlain, who, however, had endeavored to befriend the unfortunate man during the excess of his frenzy. Having finished their carousings, which were profuse, and their trade with the Indians, which was not lucrative, the English steered down the St. Lawrence. Kirk feared greatly a meeting with Rosalie, a naval officer of distinction, who was to have sailed from France with a strong force to succor Quebec. But peace having been proclaimed, the expedition had been limited to two ships under Captain Daniel. Thus Kirk, willfully ignoring the Treaty of Peace, was left to pursue his depredations unmolested. Daniel, however, thought too weak to cope with him, achieved a signal exploit. On the island of Cape Breton, near the side of Louisburg, he found an English fort, built two months before, under the auspices doubtless of Sir William Alexander. Daniel, regarding it as a bold encroachment on French territory, stormed it at the head of his pikemen, entered sword in hand, and took it with all its defenders. Meanwhile, Kirk with his prisoners was crossing the Atlantic. His squadron at length reached Plymouth, went Champlain set out for London. Here he had an interview with the French ambassador, who at his instance gained from the King a promise that in pursuance of the terms of the Treaty concluded the previous April, New France should be restored to the French crown. It long remained a mystery why Charles consented to a stipulation which pledged him to resign so important to conquest. The mystery is explained by the recent discovery of a letter from the King to Sir Isaac Wake, his ambassador at Paris. The promised dowry of Queen Henrietta Maria, amounting to eight hundred thousand crowns, had been but half paid by the French government, and Charles, then at issue with his parliament, and in desperate need of money, instructs his ambassador that, when he receives the balance due, and not before, he is to give up to the French both Quebec and Port Royal, which had also been captured by Kirk. The letter was accompanied by solemn instruments under our hand and seal, to make good the transfer on fulfillment of the condition. It was for a sum equal to about two hundred and forty thousand dollars that Charles entailed on Great Britain and her colonies a century of bloody wars. The Kirk's and their associates, who had made the conquest at their own cost, under the royal authority, were never reimbursed, though David Kirk received the honor of knighthood, which cost the King nothing. CHAPTER XVII. CHAPTER XVII. On Monday the 5th of July, 1632, Emery de Cane anchored before Quebec. He was commissioned by the French crown to reclaim the place from the English, to hold for one year a monopoly of the fur trade as an indemnity for his losses in the war, and when this time had expired, to give the place to the hundred associates of New France. By the convention of Souza, New France was to be restored to the French crown. Yet it had been a matter of debate whether a fulfillment of this engagement was worth the demanding. That wilderness of woods and savages had been ruinous to nearly all connected with it. The Canes, successful at first, had suffered heavily in the end. The associates were on the verge of bankruptcy. These deserts were useless and less people, and to people them would depopulate France. Thus argued the inexperienced reasoners of the time, judging from the wretched precedents of Spanish and Portuguese colonization. The world had not as yet the example of an island kingdom, which, vitalized by a stable and regulated liberty, has peopled a continent and spread colonies over all the earth, gaining constantly new vigor with the matchless growth of its offspring. On the other hand, honor it was urged, demanded that France should be reinstated in the land which she had discovered and explored. Should she, the center of civilization, remain cooped up within her own narrow limits, while rivals and enemies were sharing the vast regions of the West? The commerce and fisheries of New France would in time become a school for French sailors. Mines, even now, might be discovered, and the fur trade, well conducted, could not but be a source of wealth. Disbanded soldiers and women from the streets might be shipped to Canada. Thus New France would be peopled and old France purified. A power more potent than reason reinforced such arguments. Richelieu seems to have regarded it as an act of personal encroachment that the subjects of a foreign crown should seize on the domain of a company, of which he was the head, and it could not be supposed, that with power to eject them, the arrogant minister would suffer them to remain in undisturbed possession. A spirit far purer and more generous was active in the same behalf. The character of Champlain belonged rather to the middle age than to the seventeenth century. Long toil and endurance had calmed the adventurous enthusiasm of his youth into a steadfast earnestness of purpose, and he gave himself with a loyal zeal and devotedness to the profoundly mistaken principles which he had espoused. In his mind, patriotism and religion were inseparably linked. France was the champion of Christianity, and her honour, her greatness, were involved in her fidelity to this high function. Should she abandon to perdition the darkened nations among whom she had cast the first rays of hope? Among the members of the company were those who shared his zeal, and though its capital was exhausted, and many of the merchants were withdrawing in despair, these enthusiasts formed a subordinate association, raised a new fund, and embarked on the venture afresh. England then resigned her prize, and Cain was dispatched to reclaim Quebec from the reluctant hands of Thomas Kirk. The latter, obedient to an order from the King of England, struck his flag, embarked his followers, and abandoned the scene of his conquest. Cain landed with the Jesuits, Paul Lejeune, and Anne de Lanu. They climbed the steep stairway which led up the rock, and as they reached the top, the dilapidated fort lay on their left, while farther on was the stone cottage of the Heberes, surrounded with its vegetable gardens, the only thrifty spot amid a scene of neglect. But few Indians could be seen. True to their native instincts, they had at first left the defeated French and welcomed the conquerors. Their English partialities were, however, but short-lived. Their intrusion into houses and storerooms, the stench of their tobacco, and their importunate begging, though before born patiently, were rewarded by the newcomers with oaths and sometimes with blows. The Indians soon shunned Quebec, seldom approaching it except when drawn by necessity or craving for brandy. This was now the case, and several Algonquin families, maddened with drink, were howling, screeching, and fighting within their bark lodges. The women were frenzied like the men. It was dangerous to approach the place unarmed. In the following spring, 1633, on the 23rd of May, Champlain, commissioned anew by Richelieu, resumed command at Quebec in behalf of the company. Father Lejeune, superior of the mission, was wakened from his morning sleep by the boom of the saluting cannon. Before he could sally forth, the convent door was darkened by the stately form of his brother Jesuit, Brabouf, newly arrived, and the Indians who stood by uttered ejaculations of astonishment at the raptures of their greeting. The father hastened to the fort, and arrived in time to see a file of musketeers and pikemen mounting the pathway of the cliff below, and the heretic cane resigning the keys of the citadel into the Catholic hands of Champlain. Lejeune's delight exudes in praise of one not always a theme of Jesuit eulogy, but on whom, in the hope of a continuance of his favours, no praise could now be ill-bestowed. I sometimes think that this great man, Richelieu, who by his admirable wisdom and matchless conduct of affairs is so renowned on earth, is preparing for himself a dazzling crown of glory in heaven, by the care he evinces for the conversion of so many lost infidel souls in this savage land. I pray affectionately for him every day, etc. For Champlain too he has praises which, if more measured, are at least as sincere. Indeed, the father superior had the best reason to be pleased with the temporal head of the colony. In his youth Champlain had fought on the side of that, more liberal and national form of Romanism of which the Jesuits were the most emphatic antagonists. Now, as Lejeune tells us, with evident contentment, he chose him, the Jesuit, as director of his conscience. In truth there were none but Jesuits to confess and absolve him, for the recolettes, prevented to their deep chagrin from returning to the missions they had founded, were seen no more in Canada, and the followers of Loyola were soul masters of the field. The manly heart of the commandant, earnest, zealous and direct, was seldom charry of its confidence, or apt to stand too warily on its guard in presence of a profound art, mingled with a no less profound sincerity. A stranger visiting the Fort of Quebec would have been astonished at its air of conventional decorum. Black Jesuits and scarved officers mingled at Champlain's table. There was little conversation, but in its place, histories and the lives of saints were read aloud, as in a monastic refectory. Prayers, masses and confessions followed one another with an edifying regularity, and the bell of the adjacent chapel, built by Champlain, rang morning, noon and night. Godless soldiers caught the infection and whipped themselves in penance for their sins. Devodged artisans outdid each other in the fury of their contrition. Quebec was become a mission. Indians gathered thither as of old, from the baneful lure of Brandy, for the traffic in it was no longer tolerated, but from the less pernicious attraction of gifts, kind words, and politic blandishments. To the vital principle of propagandism both the commercial and the military character were subordinate, or to speak more justly, trade, policy and military power leaned on the missions as their main support, the grand instrument of their extension. The missions were to explore the interior, the missions were to win over the savage hordes at once to heaven and to France. Peaceful, benign, beneficent were the weapons of this conquest. France aimed to subdue, not by the sword but by the cross, not to overwhelm and crush the nations she invaded, but to convert, civilize, and embrace them among her children. And who were the instruments in the promoters of this proselytism at once so devout and so politic? Who can answer? Who can trace out the crossing and mingling currents of wisdom and folly, ignorance and knowledge, truth and falsehood, weakness and force, the noble and the base, can analyze a systematized contradiction, and follow through its sacred wheels, springs and levers, a phenomenon of moral mechanism? Who can define the Jesuits? The story of their missions is marvellous as a tale of chivalry, or legends of the lives of saints. For many years it was the history of New France and of the wild communities of her desert empire. Two years passed. The mission of the Hurons was established, and here the indominable Brabouf, with a band worthy of him, toiled amid miseries and perils as fearful as ever shook the constancy of man, while Champlain, at Quebec, in a life uneventful, yet harassing and laborious, was busied in the round of cares which his post involved. Christmas Day 1635 was a dark day in the annals of New France. In a chamber of the fort, breathless and cold, lay the hearty frame which war, the wilderness and the sea had buffeted so long in vain. After two months and a half of illness, Champlain, stricken with paralysis, at the age of sixty-eight, was dead. His last cares were for his colony, and the sucker of its suffering families. Jesuits, officers, soldiers, traders, and the few settlers of Quebec followed his remains to the church. Lejeune pronounced his eulogy, and the feeble community built a tomb to his honour. The colony could ill-spare him. For twenty-seven years he had laboured hard and ceaselessly for its welfare, sacrificing fortune, repose, and domestic peace to a cause embraced with enthusiasm and pursued with intrepid persistency. His character belonged partly to the past, partly to the present. The Proust Chevalier, the Crusader, the romance-loving explorer, the curious, knowledge-seeking traveller, the practical navigator, all claimed their share in him. His views, though far beyond those of the mean spirits around him, belonged to his age and his creed. He was less statesman than soldier. He leaned to the most direct and boldest policy, and one of his last acts was to petition Richelieu for men and munitions for repressing that standing menace to the colony, the Iroquois. His dauntless courage was matched by an unwirried patience, proved by lifelong vexations, and not wholly subdued even by the saintly follies of his wife. He is charged with credulity, from which few of his age were free, and which in all ages has been the foible of earnest and generous natures, too ardent to criticise and too honourable to doubt the honour of others. Perhaps the heretic might have liked him more if the Jesuits had liked him less. The adventurous explorer of Lake Huron, the bold invader of the Iroquois, befits but indifferently the monastic sobrieties of the Fort of Quebec, and his somber environment of priests. Yet Champlain was no formalist, nor was his an empty zeal. A soldier from his youth, in an age of unbridled licence, his life had answered to his maxims, and when a generation had passed after his visit to the Hurons, their elders remembered with astonishment the continence of the great French war chief. His books marked the man, all for his theme and his purpose, nothing for himself. Crude in style, full of the superficial errors of carelessness and haste, rarely diffuse, often brief to a fault, they bear on every page the palpable impress of truth. With the life of the faithful soldier closes the opening period of New France. Heroes of another stamp succeed, and it remains to tell the story of their devoted lives, their faults, follies, and virtues. End of Chapter 17 End of Pioneers of France in the New World by Frances Partman