A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P R S T U V W X Z

The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century

F >> Francis Parkman >> The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century




"Some days before, the missionary had used the same device (_industrie_)
for baptizing a little boy six or seven years old. His father, who was
very sick, had several times refused to receive baptism; and when asked
if he would not be glad to have his son baptized, he had answered, No.
'At least,' said Father Pijart, 'you will not object to my giving him a
little sugar.' 'No; but you must not baptize him.' The missionary gave
it to him once; then again; and at the third spoonful, before he had put
the sugar into the water, he let a drop of it fall on the child, at the
same time pronouncing the sacramental words. A little girl, who was
looking at him, cried out, 'Father, he is baptizing him!' The child's
father was much disturbed; but the missionary said to him, 'Did you not
see that I was giving him sugar?' The child died soon after; but God
showed His grace to the father, who is now in perfect health."

[ Le Mercier, Relation des Hurons, 1637, 165. Various other cases of the
kind are mentioned in the Relations. ]

That equivocal morality, lashed by the withering satire of Pascal,--a
morality built on the doctrine that all means are permissible for saving
souls from perdition, and that sin itself is no sin when its object is
the "greater glory of God,"--found far less scope in the rude wilderness
of the Hurons than among the interests, ambitions, and passions of
civilized life. Nor were these men, chosen from the purest of their
Order, personally well fitted to illustrate the capabilities of this
elastic system. Yet now and then, by the light of their own writings,
we may observe that the teachings of the school of Loyola had not been
wholly without effect in the formation of their ethics.

But when we see them, in the gloomy February of 1637, and the gloomier
months that followed, toiling on foot from one infected town to another,
wading through the sodden snow, under the bare and dripping forests,
drenched with incessant rains, till they descried at length through the
storm the clustered dwellings of some barbarous hamlet,--when we see them
entering, one after another, these wretched abodes of misery and darkness,
and all for one sole end, the baptism of the sick and dying, we may smile
at the futility of the object, but we must needs admire the self-
sacrificing zeal with which it was pursued.




CHAPTER IX.

1637.

CHARACTER OF THE CANADIAN JESUITS.


JEAN DE BRÉBEUF.--CHARLES GARNIER.--JOSEPH MARIE CHAUMONOT.--
NOËL CHABANEL.--ISAAC JOGUES.--OTHER JESUITS.--NATURE OF THEIR FAITH.--
SUPERNATURALISM.--VISIONS.--MIRACLES.


Before pursuing farther these obscure, but noteworthy, scenes in the
drama of human history, it will be well to indicate, so far as there are
means of doing so, the distinctive traits of some of the chief actors.
Mention has often been made of Brébeuf,--that masculine apostle of the
Faith,--the Ajax of the mission. Nature had given him all the passions
of a vigorous manhood, and religion had crushed them, curbed them,
or tamed them to do her work,--like a dammed-up torrent, sluiced and
guided to grind and saw and weave for the good of man. Beside him,
in strange contrast, stands his co-laborer, Charles Garnier. Both were
of noble birth and gentle nurture; but here the parallel ends. Garnier's
face was beardless, though he was above thirty years old. For this he
was laughed at by his friends in Paris, but admired by the Indians,
who thought him handsome. [ "C'est pourquoi j'ai bien gagne quitter la
France, où vous me fesiez la guerre de n'avoir point de barbe; car c'est
ce qui me fait estimes beau des Sauvages."--Lettres de Garnier, MSS. ]
His constitution, bodily or mental, was by no means robust. From boyhood,
he had shown a delicate and sensitive nature, a tender conscience,
and a proneness to religious emotion. He had never gone with his
schoolmates to inns and other places of amusement, but kept his
pocket-money to give to beggars. One of his brothers relates of him,
that, seeing an obscene book, he bought and destroyed it, lest other boys
should be injured by it. He had always wished to be a Jesuit, and,
after a novitiate which is described as most edifying, he became a
professed member of the Order. The Church, indeed, absorbed the greater
part, if not the whole, of this pious family,--one brother being a
Carmelite, another a Capuchin, and a third a Jesuit, while there seems
also to have been a fourth under vows. Of Charles Garnier there remain
twenty-four letters, written at various times to his father and two of
his brothers, chiefly during his missionary life among the Hurons.
They breathe the deepest and most intense Roman Catholic piety, and a
spirit enthusiastic, yet sad, as of one renouncing all the hopes and
prizes of the world, and living for Heaven alone. The affections of his
sensitive nature, severed from earthly objects, found relief in an ardent
adoration of the Virgin Mary. With none of the bone and sinew of rugged
manhood, he entered, not only without hesitation, but with eagerness,
on a life which would have tried the boldest; and, sustained by the
spirit within him, he was more than equal to it. His fellow-missionaries
thought him a saint; and had he lived a century or two earlier, he would
perhaps have been canonized: yet, while all his life was a willing
martyrdom, one can discern, amid his admirable virtues, some slight
lingerings of mortal vanity. Thus, in three several letters, he speaks
of his great success in baptizing, and plainly intimates that he had sent
more souls to Heaven than the other Jesuits.

[ The above sketch of Garnier is drawn from various sources.
Observations du P. Henri de St. Joseph, Carme, sur son Frère le
P. Charles Garnier, MS.--Abrégé de la Vie du R. Père Charles Garnier, MS.
This unpublished sketch bears the signature of the Jesuit Ragueneau,
with the date 1652. For the opportunity of consulting it I am indebted
to Rev. Felix Martin, S. J.--Lettres du P. Charles Garnier, MSS. These
embrace his correspondence from the Huron country, and are exceedingly
characteristic and striking. There is another letter in Carayon,
Première Mission.--Garnier's family was wealthy, as well as noble.
Its members seem to have been strongly attached to each other, and the
young priest's father was greatly distressed at his departure for Canada. ]

Next appears a young man of about twenty-seven years, Joseph Marie
Chaumonot. Unlike Brébeuf and Garnier, he was of humble origin,--his
father being a vine-dresser, and his mother the daughter of a poor
village schoolmaster. At an early age they sent him to Châtillon on the
Seine, where he lived with his uncle, a priest, who taught him to speak
Latin, and awakened his religious susceptibilities, which were naturally
strong. This did not prevent him from yielding to the persuasions of one
of his companions to run off to Beaune, a town of Burgundy, where the
fugitives proposed to study music under the Fathers of the Oratory.
To provide funds for the journey, he stole a sum of about the value of a
dollar from his uncle, the priest. This act, which seems to have been a
mere peccadillo of boyish levity, determined his future career. Finding
himself in total destitution at Beaune, he wrote to his mother for money,
and received in reply an order from his father to come home. Stung with
the thought of being posted as a thief in his native village, he resolved
not to do so, but to set out forthwith on a pilgrimage to Rome; and
accordingly, tattered and penniless, he took the road for the sacred
city. Soon a conflict began within him between his misery and the pride
which forbade him to beg. The pride was forced to succumb. He begged
from door to door; slept under sheds by the wayside, or in haystacks; and
now and then found lodging and a meal at a convent. Thus, sometimes
alone, sometimes with vagabonds whom he met on the road, he made his way
through Savoy and Lombardy in a pitiable condition of destitution, filth,
and disease. At length he reached Ancona, when the thought occured to
him of visiting the Holy House of Loretto, and imploring the succor of
the Virgin Mary. Nor were his hopes disappointed. He had reached that
renowned shrine, knelt, paid his devotions, and offered his prayer, when,
as he issued from the door of the chapel, he was accosted by a young man,
whom he conjectures to have been an angel descended to his relief,
and who was probably some penitent or devotee bent on works of charity or
self-mortification. With a voice of the greatest kindness, he proffered
his aid to the wretched boy, whose appearance was alike fitted to awaken
pity and disgust. The conquering of a natural repugnance to filth,
in the interest of charity and humility, is a conspicuous virtue in most
of the Roman Catholic saints; and whatever merit may attach to it was
acquired in an extraordinary degree by the young man in question.
Apparently, he was a physician; for he not only restored the miserable
wanderer to a condition of comparative decency, but cured him of a
grievous malady, the result of neglect. Chaumonot went on his way,
thankful to his benefactor, and overflowing with an enthusiasm of
gratitude to Our Lady of Loretto.

[ "Si la moindre dame m'avoit fait rendre ce service par le dernier de
ses valets, n'aurois-je pas dus lui en rendre toutes les reconnoissances
possibles? Et si après une telle charité elle s'étoit offerte à me
servir toujours de mesme, comment aurois-je dû l'honorer, lui obéir,
l'aimer toute ma vie! Pardon, Reine des Anges et des hommes! pardon de
ce qu'après avoir reçu de vous tant de marques, par lesquelles vous
m'avez convaincu que vous m'avez adopté pour votre fils, j'ai eu
l'ingratitude pendant des années entières de me comporter encore plutôt
en esclave de Satan qu'en enfant d'une Mère Vierge. O que vous êtes
bonne et charitable! puisque quelques obstacles que mes péchés ayent pu
mettre à vos graces, vous n'avez jamais cessé de m'attirer au bien;
jusque là que vous m'avez fait admettre dans la Sainte Compagnie de Jésus,
votre fils."--Chaumonot, Vie, 20. The above is from the very curious
autobiography written by Chaumonot, at the command of his Superior,
in 1688. The original manuscript is at the Hôtel Dieu of Quebec.
Mr. Shea has printed it. ]

As he journeyed towards Rome, an old burgher, at whose door he had begged,
employed him as a servant. He soon became known to a Jesuit, to whom he
had confessed himself in Latin; and as his acquirements were considerable
for his years, he was eventually employed as teacher of a low class in
one of the Jesuit schools. Nature had inclined him to a life of
devotion. He would fain be a hermit, and, to that end, practised eating
green ears of wheat; but, finding he could not swallow them, conceived
that he had mistaken his vocation. Then a strong desire grew up within
him to become a Récollet, a Capuchin, or, above all, a Jesuit; and at
length the wish of his heart was answered. At the age of twenty-one,
he was admitted to the Jesuit novitiate. [ 1 ] Soon after its close,
a small duodecimo volume was placed in his hands. It was a Relation of
the Canadian mission, and contained one of those narratives of Brébeuf
which have been often cited in the preceding pages. Its effect was
immediate. Burning to share those glorious toils, the young priest asked
to be sent to Canada; and his request was granted.

[ 1 His age, when he left his uncle, the priest, is not mentioned.
But he must have been a mere child; for, at the end of his novitiate,
he had forgotten his native language, and was forced to learn it a second
time.

"Jamais y eut-il homme sur terre plus obligé que moi à la Sainte Famille
de Jésus, de Marie et de Joseph! Marie en me guérissant de ma vilaine
galle ou teigne, me délivra d'une infinité de peines et d'incommodités
corporelles, que cette hideuse maladie qui me rongeoit m'avoit causé.
Joseph m'ayant obtenu la grace d'être incorporé à un corps aussi saint
qu'est celui des Jésuites, m'a preservé d'une infinité de misères
spirituelles, de tentations très dangereuses et de péchés très énormes.
Jésus n'ayant pas permis que j'entrasse dans aucun autre ordre qu'en
celui qu'il honore tout à la fois de son beau nom, de sa douce présence
et de sa protection spéciale. O Jésus! O Marie! O Joseph! qui méritoit
moins que moi vos divines faveurs, et envers qui avez vous été plus
prodigue?"--Chaumonot, Vie, 37. ]

Before embarking, he set out with the Jesuit Poncet, who was also
destined for Canada, on a pilgrimage from Rome to the shrine of Our Lady
of Loretto. They journeyed on foot, begging alms by the way. Chaumonot
was soon seized with a pain in the knee, so violent that it seemed
impossible to proceed. At San Severino, where they lodged with the
Barnabites, he bethought him of asking the intercession of a certain poor
woman of that place, who had died some time before with the reputation of
sanctity. Accordingly he addressed to her his prayer, promising to
publish her fame on every possible occasion, if she would obtain his cure
from God. [ "Je me recommandai à elle en lui promettant de la faire
connoître dans toutes les occasions que j'en aurois jamais, si elle
vn'obtenoit de Dieu ma guérison."--Chaumonot, Vie, 46. ] The
intercession was accepted; the offending limb became sound again, and the
two pilgrims pursued their journey. They reached Loretto, and, kneeling
before the Queen of Heaven, implored her favor and aid; while Chaumonot,
overflowing with devotion to this celestial mistress of his heart,
conceived the purpose of building in Canada a chapel to her honor,
after the exact model of the Holy House of Loretto. They soon afterwards
embarked together, and arrived among the Hurons early in the autumn of
1639.

Noël Chabanel came later to the mission; for he did not reach the Huron
country until 1643. He detested the Indian life,--the smoke, the vermin,
the filthy food, the impossibility of privacy. He could not study by the
smoky lodge-fire, among the noisy crowd of men and squaws, with their
dogs, and their restless, screeching children. He had a natural
inaptitude to learning the language, and labored at it for five years
with scarcely a sign of progress. The Devil whispered a suggestion into
his ear: Let him procure his release from these barren and revolting
toils, and return to France, where congenial and useful employments
awaited him. Chabanel refused to listen; and when the temptation still
beset him, he bound himself by a solemn vow to remain in Canada to the
day of his death. [ Abrégé de la Vie du Père Noël Chabanel, MS. This
anonymous paper bears the signature of Ragueneau, in attestation of its
truth. See also Ragueneau, Relation, 1650, 17, 18. Chabanel's vow is
here given verbatim. ]

Isaac Jogues was of a character not unlike Garnier. Nature had given him
no especial force of intellect or constitutional energy, yet the man was
indomitable and irrepressible, as his history will show. We have but few
means of characterizing the remaining priests of the mission otherwise
than as their traits appear on the field of their labors. Theirs was no
faith of abstractions and generalities. For them, heaven was very near
to earth, touching and mingling with it at many points. On high, God the
Father sat enthroned: and, nearer to human sympathies, Divinity incarnate
in the Son, with the benign form of his immaculate mother, and her spouse,
St. Joseph, the chosen patron of New France. Interceding saints and
departed friends bore to the throne of grace the petitions of those yet
lingering in mortal bondage, and formed an ascending chain from earth to
heaven.

These priests lived in an atmosphere of supernaturalism. Every day had
its miracle. Divine power declared itself in action immediate and direct,
controlling, guiding, or reversing the laws of Nature. The missionaries
did not reject the ordinary cures for disease or wounds; but they relied
far more on a prayer to the Virgin, a vow to St. Joseph, or the promise of
a _neuvaine_, or nine days' devotion, to some other celestial personage;
while the touch of a fragment of a tooth or bone of some departed saint
was of sovereign efficacy to cure sickness, solace pain, or relieve a
suffering squaw in the throes of childbirth. Once, Chaumonot, having a
headache, remembered to have heard of a sick man who regained his health
by commending his case to St. Ignatius, and at the same time putting a
medal stamped with his image into his mouth. Accordingly he tried a
similar experiment, putting into his mouth a medal bearing a
representation of the Holy Family, which was the object of his especial
devotion. The next morning found him cured. [ Chaumonot, Vie, 73. ]

The relation between this world and the next was sometimes of a nature
curiously intimate. Thus, when Chaumonot heard of Garnier's death,
he immediately addressed his departed colleague, and promised him the
benefit of all the good works which he, Chaumonot, might perform during
the next week, provided the defunct missionary would make him heir to his
knowledge of the Huron tongue. [ 1 ] And he ascribed to the deceased
Garnier's influence the mastery of that language which he afterwards
acquired.

[ 1 "Je n'eus pas plutôt appris sa glorieuse mort, que je lui promis
tout ce que je ferois de bien pendant huit jours, à condition qu'il me
feroit son héritier dans la connoissance parfaite qu'il avoit du
Huron."--Chaumonot, Vie, 61. ]

The efforts of the missionaries for the conversion of the savages were
powerfully seconded from the other world, and the refractory subject who
was deaf to human persuasions softened before the superhuman agencies
which the priest invoked to his aid.

[ As these may be supposed to be exploded ideas of the past, the writer
may recall an incident of his youth, while spending a few days in the
convent of the Passionists, near the Coliseum at Rome. These worthy
monks, after using a variety of arguments for his conversion, expressed
the hope that a miraculous interposition would be vouchsafed to that end,
and that the Virgin would manifest herself to him in a nocturnal vision.
To this end they gave him a small brass medal, stamped with her image,
to be worn at his neck, while they were to repeat a certain number of
Aves and Paters, in which he was urgently invited to join; as the result
of which, it was hoped the Virgin would appear on the same night.
No vision, however, occurred. ]

It is scarcely necessary to add, that signs and voices from another world,
visitations from Hell and visions from Heaven, were incidents of no rare
occurrence in the lives of these ardent apostles. To Brébeuf, whose deep
nature, like a furnace white hot, glowed with the still intensity of his
enthusiasm, they were especially frequent. Demons in troops appeared
before him, sometimes in the guise of men, sometimes as bears, wolves,
or wildcats. He called on God, and the apparitions vanished. Death,
like a skeleton, sometimes menaced him, and once, as he faced it with an
unquailing eye, it fell powerless at his feet. A demon, in the form of a
woman, assailed him with the temptation which beset St. Benedict among
the rocks of Subiaco; but Brébeuf signed the cross, and the infernal
siren melted into air. He saw the vision of a vast and gorgeous palace;
and a miraculous voice assured him that such was to be the reward of
those who dwelt in savage hovels for the cause of God. Angels appeared
to him; and, more than once, St. Joseph and the Virgin were visibly
present before his sight. Once, when he was among the Neutral Nation,
in the winter of 1640, he beheld the ominous apparition of a great cross
slowly approaching from the quarter where lay the country of the
Iroquois. He told the vision to his comrades. "What was it like?
How large was it?" they eagerly demanded. "Large enough," replied the
priest, "to crucify us all." [ 1 ] To explain such phenomena is the
province of psychology, and not of history. Their occurrence is no
matter of surprise, and it would be superfluous to doubt that they were
recounted in good faith, and with a full belief in their reality.

[ 1 Quelques Remarques sur la Vie du Père Jean de Brébeuf, MS. On the
margin of this paper, opposite several of the statements repeated above,
are the words, signed by Ragueneau, "Ex ipsius autographo," indicating
that the statements were made in writing by Brébeuf himself.

Still other visions are recorded by Chaumonot as occurring to Brébeuf,
when they were together in the Neutral country. See also the long notice
of Brébeuf, written by his colleague, Ragueneau, in the Relation of 1649;
and Tanner, Societas Jesu Militans, 533. ]

In these enthusiasts we shall find striking examples of one of the morbid
forces of human nature; yet in candor let us do honor to what was genuine
in them,--that principle of self-abnegation which is the life of true
religion, and which is vital no less to the highest forms of heroism.




CHAPTER X.

1637-1640.

PERSECUTION.


OSSOSSANÉ.--THE NEW CHAPEL.--A TRIUMPH OF THE FAITH.--
THE NETHER POWERS.--SIGNS OF A TEMPEST.--SLANDERS.--
RAGE AGAINST THE JESUITS.--THEIR BOLDNESS AND PERSISTENCY.--
NOCTURNAL COUNCIL.--DANGER OF THE PRIESTS.--BRÉBEUF'S LETTER.--
NARROW ESCAPES.--WOES AND CONSOLATIONS.


The town of Ossossané, or Rochelle, stood, as we have seen, on the
borders of Lake Huron, at the skirts of a gloomy wilderness of pine.
Thither, in May, 1637, repaired Father Pijart, to found, in this, one of
the largest of the Huron towns, the new mission of the Immaculate
Conception. [ The doctrine of the immaculate conception of the Virgin,
recently sanctioned by the Pope, has long been a favorite tenet of the
Jesuits. ] The Indians had promised Brébeuf to build a house for the
black-robes, and Pijart found the work in progress. There were at this
time about fifty dwellings in the town, each containing eight or ten
families. The quadrangular fort already alluded to had now been
completed by the Indians, under the instruction of the priests.
[ Lettres de Garnier, MSS. It was of upright pickets, ten feet high
with flanking towers at two angles. ]

The new mission-house was about seventy feet in length. No sooner had
the savage workmen secured the bark covering on its top and sides than
the priests took possession, and began their preparations for a notable
ceremony. At the farther end they made an altar, and hung such
decorations as they had on the rough walls of bark throughout half the
length of the structure. This formed their chapel. On the altar was a
crucifix, with vessels and ornaments of shining metal; while above hung
several pictures,--among them a painting of Christ, and another of the
Virgin, both of life-size. There was also a representation of the Last
Judgment, wherein dragons and serpents might be seen feasting on the
entrails of the wicked, while demons scourged them into the flames of
Hell. The entrance was adorned with a quantity of tinsel, together with
green boughs skilfully disposed.

[ "Nostre Chapelle estoit extraordinairement bien ornée, . . nous auions
dressé vn portique entortillé de feüillage, meslé d'oripeau, en vn mot
nous auions estallé tout ce que vostre R. nous a enuoié de beau," etc.,
etc.--Le Mercier, Relation des Hurons, 1637, 175, 176.--In his Relation
of the next year he recurs to the subject, and describes the pictures
displayed on this memorable occasion.--Relation des Hurons, 1638, 33. ]

Never before were such splendors seen in the land of the Hurons. Crowds
gathered from afar, and gazed in awe and admiration at the marvels of the
sanctuary. A woman came from a distant town to behold it, and, tremulous
between curiosity and fear, thrust her head into the mysterious recess,
declaring that she would see it, though the look should cost her life.
[ Ibid., 1637, 176. ]

One is forced to wonder at, if not to admire, the energy with which these
priests and their scarcely less zealous attendants [ 1 ] toiled to carry
their pictures and ornaments through the most arduous of journeys,
where the traveller was often famished from the sheer difficulty of
transporting provisions.

[ 1 The Jesuits on these distant missions were usually attended by
followers who had taken no vows, and could leave their service at will,
but whose motives were religious, and not mercenary. Probably this was
the character of their attendants in the present case. They were known
as _donnés_, or "given men." It appears from a letter of the Jesuit
Du Peron, that twelve hired laborers were soon after sent up to the
mission. ]

A great event had called forth all this preparation. Of the many
baptisms achieved by the Fathers in the course of their indefatigable
ministry, the subjects had all been infants, or adults at the point of
death; but at length a Huron, in full health and manhood, respected and
influential in his tribe, had been won over to the Faith, and was now to
be baptized with solemn ceremonial, in the chapel thus gorgeously
adorned. It was a strange scene. Indians were there in throngs, and the
house was closely packed: warriors, old and young, glistening in grease
and sunflower-oil, with uncouth locks, a trifle less coarse than a
horse's mane, and faces perhaps smeared with paint in honor of the
occasion; wenches in gay attire; hags muffled in a filthy discarded
deer-skin, their leathery visages corrugated with age and malice, and
their hard, glittering eyes riveted on the spectacle before them.
The priests, no longer in their daily garb of black, but radiant in their
surplices, the genuflections, the tinkling of the bell, the swinging of
the censer, the sweet odors so unlike the fumes of the smoky lodge-fires,
the mysterious elevation of the Host, (for a mass followed the baptism,)
and the agitation of the neophyte, whose Indian imperturbability fairly
deserted him,--all these combined to produce on the minds of the savage
beholders an impression that seemed to promise a rich harvest for the
Faith. To the Jesuits it was a day of triumph and of hope. The ice had
been broken; the wedge had entered; light had dawned at last on the long
night of heathendom. But there was one feature of the situation which in
their rejoicing they overlooked.

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