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The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century

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




[ 1 Thus, when Bressani, tortured by the tightness of the cords that
bound him, asked an Indian to loosen them, he would reply by mockery,
if others were present; but if no one saw him, he usually complied. ]

The perils which beset the missionaries did not spring from the fury of
the Iroquois alone, for Nature herself was armed with terror in this
stern wilderness of New France. On the thirtieth of January, 1646,
Father Anne de Nouë set out from Three Rivers to go to the fort built by
the French at the mouth of the River Richelieu, where he was to say mass
and hear confessions. De Nouë was sixty-three years old, and had come to
Canada in 1625. [ See "Pioneers of France," 393. ] As an indifferent
memory disabled him from mastering the Indian languages, he devoted
himself to the spiritual charge of the French, and of the Indians about
the forts, within reach of an interpreter. For the rest, he attended the
sick, and, in times of scarcity, fished in the river or dug roots in the
woods for the subsistence of his flock. In short, though sprung from a
noble family of Champagne, he shrank from no toil, however humble,
to which his idea of duty or his vow of obedience called him. [ He was
peculiarly sensitive as regarded the cardinal Jesuit virtue of obedience;
and both Lalemant and Bressani say, that, at the age of sixty and upwards,
he was sometimes seen in tears, when he imagined that he had not
fulfilled to the utmost the commands of his Superior. ]

The old missionary had for companions two soldiers and a Huron Indian.
They were all on snow-shoes, and the soldiers dragged their baggage on
small sledges. Their highway was the St. Lawrence, transformed to solid
ice, and buried, like all the country, beneath two or three feet of snow,
which, far and near, glared dazzling white under the clear winter sun.
Before night they had walked eighteen miles, and the soldiers, unused to
snow-shoes, were greatly fatigued. They made their camp in the forest,
on the shore of the great expansion of the St. Lawrence called the Lake
of St. Peter,--dug away the snow, heaped it around the spot as a barrier
against the wind, made their fire on the frozen earth in the midst,
and lay down to sleep. At two o'clock in the morning De Nouë awoke.
The moon shone like daylight over the vast white desert of the frozen
lake, with its bordering fir-trees bowed to the ground with snow; and the
kindly thought struck the Father, that he might ease his companions by
going in advance to Fort Richelieu, and sending back men to aid them in
dragging their sledges. He knew the way well. He directed them to
follow the tracks of his snow-shoes in the morning; and, not doubting to
reach the fort before night, left behind his blanket and his flint and
steel. For provisions, he put a morsel of bread and five or six prunes
in his pocket, told his rosary, and set forth.

Before dawn the weather changed. The air thickened, clouds hid the moon,
and a snow-storm set in. The traveller was in utter darkness. He lost
the points of the compass, wandered far out on the lake, and when day
appeared could see nothing but the snow beneath his feet, and the myriads
of falling flakes that encompassed him like a curtain, impervious to the
sight. Still he toiled on, winding hither and thither, and at times
unwittingly circling back on his own footsteps. At night he dug a hole
in the snow under the shore of an island, and lay down, without fire,
food, or blanket.

Meanwhile the two soldiers and the Indian, unable to trace his footprints,
which the snow had hidden, pursued their way for the fort; but the Indian
was ignorant of the country, and the Frenchmen were unskilled. They
wandered from their course, and at evening encamped on the shore of the
island of St. Ignace, at no great distance from De Nouë. Here the Indian,
trusting to his instinct, left them and set forth alone in search of
their destination, which he soon succeeded in finding. The palisades of
the feeble little fort, and the rude buildings within, were whitened with
snow, and half buried in it. Here, amid the desolation, a handful of men
kept watch and ward against the Iroquois. Seated by the blazing logs,
the Indian asked for De Nouë, and, to his astonishment, the soldiers of
the garrison told him that he had not been seen. The captain of the post
was called; all was anxiety; but nothing could be done that night.

At daybreak parties went out to search. The two soldiers were readily
found; but they looked in vain for the missionary. All day they were
ranging the ice, firing their guns and shouting; but to no avail, and
they returned disconsolate. There was a converted Indian, whom the
French called Charles, at the fort, one of four who were spending the
winter there. On the next morning, the second of February, he and one of
his companions, together with Baron, a French soldier, resumed the
search; and, guided by the slight depressions in the snow which had
fallen on the wanderer's footprints, the quick-eyed savages traced him
through all his windings, found his camp by the shore of the island,
and thence followed him beyond the fort. He had passed near without
discovering it,--perhaps weakness had dimmed his sight,--stopped to rest
at a point a league above, and thence made his way about three leagues
farther. Here they found him. He had dug a circular excavation in the
snow, and was kneeling in it on the earth. His head was bare, his eyes
open and turned upwards, and his hands clasped on his breast. His hat
and his snow-shoes lay at his side. The body was leaning slightly
forward, resting against the bank of snow before it, and frozen to the
hardness of marble.

Thus, in an act of kindness and charity, died the first martyr of the
Canadian mission.

[ Lalemant, Relation, 1646, 9; Marie de l'Incarnation, Lettre, 10 Sept.,
1646; Bressani, Relation Abrégée, 175.

One of the Indians who found the body of De Nouë was killed by the
Iroquois at Ossossané, in the Huron country, three years after. He
received the death-blow in a posture like that in which he had seen the
dead missionary. His body was found with the hands still clasped on the
breast.--Lettre de Chaumonot à Lalemant, 1 Juin, 1649.

The next death among the Jesuits was that of Masse, who died at Sillery,
on the twelfth of May of this year, 1646, at the age of seventy-two.
He had come with Biard to Acadia as early as 1611. (See "Pioneers of
France," 262.) Lalemant, in the Relation of 1646, gives an account of him,
and speaks of penances which he imposed on himself, some of which are to
the last degree disgusting. ]




CHAPTER XVIII.

1642-1644.

VILLEMARIE.


INFANCY OF MONTREAL.--THE FLOOD.--VOW OF MAISONNEUVE.--PILGRIMAGE.--
D'AILLEBOUST.--THE HÔTEL-DIEU.--PIETY.--PROPAGANDISM.--WAR.--
HURONS AND IROQUOIS.--DOGS.--SALLY OF THE FRENCH.--BATTLE.--
EXPLOIT OF MAISONNEUVE.


Let us now ascend to the island of Montreal. Here, as we have seen,
an association of devout and zealous persons had essayed to found a
mission-colony under the protection of the Holy Virgin; and we left the
adventurers, after their landing, bivouacked on the shore, on an evening
in May. There was an altar in the open air, decorated with a taste that
betokened no less of good nurture than of piety; and around it clustered
the tents that sheltered the commandant, Maisonneuve, the two ladies,
Madame de la Peltrie and Mademoiselle Mance, and the soldiers and
laborers of the expedition.

In the morning they all fell to their work, Maisonneuve hewing down the
first tree,--and labored with such good-will, that their tents were soon
inclosed with a strong palisade, and their altar covered by a provisional
chapel, built, in the Huron mode, of bark. Soon afterward, their canvas
habitations were supplanted by solid structures of wood, and the feeble
germ of a future city began to take root.

The Iroquois had not yet found them out; nor did they discover them till
they had had ample time to fortify themselves. Meanwhile, on a Sunday,
they would stroll at their leisure over the adjacent meadow and in the
shade of the bordering forest, where, as the old chronicler tells us,
the grass was gay with wild-flowers, and the branches with the flutter
and song of many strange birds. [ Dollier de Casson, MS. ]

The day of the Assumption of the Virgin was celebrated with befitting
solemnity. There was mass in their bark chapel; then a Te Deum; then
public instruction of certain Indians who chanced to be at Montreal; then
a procession of all the colonists after vespers, to the admiration of the
redskinned beholders. Cannon, too, were fired, in honor of their
celestial patroness. "Their thunder made all the island echo," writes
Father Vimont; "and the demons, though used to thunderbolts, were scared
at a noise which told them of the love we bear our great Mistress; and I
have scarcely any doubt that the tutelary angels of the savages of New
France have marked this day in the calendar of Paradise." [ Vimont,
Relation, 1642, 38. Compare Le Clerc, Premier Etablissement de la Foy,
II. 51. ]

The summer passed prosperously, but with the winter their faith was put
to a rude test. In December, there was a rise of the St. Lawrence,
threatening to sweep away in a night the results of all their labor.
They fell to their prayers; and Maisonneuve planted a wooden cross in
face of the advancing deluge, first making a vow, that, should the peril
be averted, he, Maisonneuve, would bear another cross on his shoulders up
the neighboring mountain, and place it on the summit. The vow seemed in
vain. The flood still rose, filled the fort ditch, swept the foot of the
palisade, and threatened to sap the magazine; but here it stopped,
and presently began to recede, till at length it had withdrawn within its
lawful channel, and Villemarie was safe.

[ A little MS. map in M. Jacques Viger's copy of Le Petit Registre de la
Cure de Montreal, lays down the position and shape of the fort at this
time, and shows the spot where Maisonneuve planted the cross. ]

Now it remained to fulfil the promise from which such happy results had
proceeded. Maisonneuve set his men at work to clear a path through the
forest to the top of the mountain. A large cross was made, and solemnly
blessed by the priest; then, on the sixth of January, the Jesuit Du Peron
led the way, followed in procession by Madame de la Peltrie, the artisans,
and soldiers, to the destined spot. The commandant, who with all the
ceremonies of the Church had been declared First Soldier of the Cross,
walked behind the rest, bearing on his shoulder a cross so heavy that it
needed his utmost strength to climb the steep and rugged path. They
planted it on the highest crest, and all knelt in adoration before it.
Du Peron said mass; and Madame de la Peltrie, always romantic and always
devout, received the sacrament on the mountain-top, a spectacle to the
virgin world outstretched below. Sundry relics of saints had been set
in the wood of the cross, which remained an object of pilgrimage to the
pious colonists of Villemarie. [ Vimont, Relation, 1643, 52, 53. ]

Peace and harmony reigned within the little fort; and so edifying was the
demeanor of the colonists, so faithful were they to the confessional,
and so constant at mass, that a chronicler of the day exclaims, in a
burst of enthusiasm, that the deserts lately a resort of demons were now
the abode of angels. [ Véritables Motifs, cited by Faillon, I. 453,
454. ] The two Jesuits who for the time were their pastors had them well
in hand. They dwelt under the same roof with most of their flock,
who lived in community, in one large house, and vied with each other in
zeal for the honor of the Virgin and the conversion of the Indians.

At the end of August, 1643, a vessel arrived at Villemarie with a
reinforcement commanded by Louis d'Ailleboust de Coulonges, a pious
gentleman of Champagne, and one of the Associates of Montreal.
[ Chaulmer, 101; Juchereau, 91. ] Some years before, he had asked in
wedlock the hand of Barbe de Boulogne; but the young lady had, when a
child, in the ardor of her piety, taken a vow of perpetual chastity.
By the advice of her Jesuit confessor, she accepted his suit, on
condition that she should preserve, to the hour of her death, the state
to which Holy Church has always ascribed a peculiar merit. [ 1 ]
D'Ailleboust married her; and when, soon after, he conceived the purpose
of devoting his life to the work of the Faith in Canada, he invited his
maiden spouse to go with him. She refused, and forbade him to mention
the subject again. Her health was indifferent, and about this time she
fell ill. As a last resort, she made a promise to God, that, if He would
restore her, she would go to Canada with her husband; and forthwith her
maladies ceased. Still her reluctance continued; she hesitated, and then
refused again, when an inward light revealed to her that it was her duty
to cast her lot in the wilderness. She accordingly embarked with
d'Ailleboust, accompanied by her sister, Mademoiselle Philippine de
Boulogne, who had caught the contagion of her zeal. The presence of
these damsels would, to all appearance, be rather a burden than a profit
to the colonists, beset as they then were by Indians, and often in peril
of starvation; but the spectacle of their ardor, as disinterested as it
was extravagant, would serve to exalt the religious enthusiasm in which
alone was the life of Villemarie.

[ 1 Juchereau, Histoire de l'Hôtel-Dieu de Québec, 276. The confessor
told D'Ailleboust, that, if he persuaded his wife to break her vow of
continence, "God would chastise him terribly." The nun historian adds,
that, undeterred by the menace, he tried and failed. ]

Their vessel passed in safety the Iroquois who watched the St. Lawrence,
and its arrival filled the colonists with joy. D'Ailleboust was a
skilful soldier, specially versed in the arts of fortification; and,
under his direction, the frail palisades which formed their sole defence
were replaced by solid ramparts and bastions of earth. He brought news
that the "unknown benefactress," as a certain generous member of the
Association of Montreal was called, in ignorance of her name, had given
funds, to the amount, as afterwards appeared, of forty-two thousand
livres, for the building of a hospital at Villemarie. [ Archives du
Séminaire de Villemarie, cited by Faillon, I. 466. The amount of the
gift was not declared until the next year. ] The source of the gift was
kept secret, from a religious motive; but it soon became known that it
proceeded from Madame de Bullion, a lady whose rank and wealth were
exceeded only by her devotion. It is true that the hospital was not
wanted, as no one was sick at Villemarie and one or two chambers would
have sufficed for every prospective necessity; but it will be remembered
that the colony had been established in order that a hospital might be
built, and Madame de Bullion would not hear to any other application of
her money. [ Mademoiselle Mance wrote to her, to urge that the money
should be devoted to the Huron mission; but she absolutely refused.
Dollier de Casson, MS. ] Instead, therefore, of tilling the land to
supply their own pressing needs, all the laborers of the settlement were
set at this pious, though superfluous, task. [ 1 ] There was no room in
the fort, which, moreover, was in danger of inundation; and the hospital
was accordingly built on higher ground adjacent. To leave it unprotected
would be to abandon its inmates to the Iroquois; it was therefore
surrounded by a strong palisade, and, in time of danger, a part of the
garrison was detailed to defend it. Here Mademoiselle Mance took up her
abode, and waited the day when wounds or disease should bring patients to
her empty wards.

[ 1 Journal des Supérieurs des Jésuites, MS.

The hospital was sixty feet long and twenty-four feet wide, with a
kitchen, a chamber for Mademoiselle Mance, others for servants, and two
large apartments for the patients. It was amply provided with furniture,
linen, medicines, and all necessaries; and had also two oxen, three cows,
and twenty sheep. A small oratory of stone was built adjoining it.
The inclosure was four arpents in extent.--Archives du Séminaire de
Villemarie, cited by Faillon. ]

Dauversière, who had first conceived this plan of a hospital in the
wilderness, was a senseless enthusiast, who rejected as a sin every
protest of reason against the dreams which governed him; yet one rational
and practical element entered into the motives of those who carried the
plan into execution. The hospital was intended not only to nurse sick
Frenchmen, but to nurse and convert sick Indians; in other words, it was
an engine of the mission.

From Maisonneuve to the humblest laborer, these zealous colonists were
bent on the work of conversion. To that end, the ladies made pilgrimages
to the cross on the mountain, sometimes for nine days in succession,
to pray God to gather the heathen into His fold. The fatigue was great;
nor was the danger less; and armed men always escorted them, as a
precaution against the Iroquois. [ Morin, Annales de l'Hôtel-Dieu de
St. Joseph, MS., cited by Faillon, I. 457. ] The male colonists were
equally fervent; and sometimes as many as fifteen or sixteen persons
would kneel at once before the cross, with the same charitable petition.
[ Marguerite Bourgeoys, Écrits Autographes, MS., extracts in Faillon,
I. 458. ] The ardor of their zeal may be inferred from the fact, that
these pious expeditions consumed the greater part of the day, when time
and labor were of a value past reckoning to the little colony. Besides
their pilgrimages, they used other means, and very efficient ones,
to attract and gain over the Indians. They housed, fed, and clothed them
at every opportunity; and though they were subsisting chiefly on
provisions brought at great cost from France, there was always a portion
for the hungry savages who from time to time encamped near their fort.
If they could persuade any of them to be nursed, they were consigned to
the tender care of Mademoiselle Mance; and if a party went to war,
their women and children were taken in charge till their return. As this
attention to their bodies had for its object the profit of their souls,
it was accompanied with incessant catechizing. This, with the other
influences of the place, had its effect; and some notable conversions
were made. Among them was that of the renowned chief, Tessouat, or Le
Borgne, as the French called him,--a crafty and intractable savage, whom,
to their own surprise, they succeeded in taming and winning to the Faith.
[ Vimont, Relation, 1643, 54, 55. Tessouat was chief of Allumette Island,
in the Ottawa. His predecessor, of the same name, was Champlain's host
in 1613.--See "Pioneers of France," Chap. XII. ] He was christened with
the name of Paul, and his squaw with that of Madeleine. Maisonneuve
rewarded him with a gun, and celebrated the day by a feast to all the
Indians present.

[ It was the usual practice to give guns to converts, "pour attirer leur
compatriotes à la Foy." They were never given to heathen Indians.
"It seems," observes Vimont, "that our Lord wishes to make use of this
method in order that Christianity may become acceptable in this
country."--Relation, 1643, 71. ]

The French hoped to form an agricultural settlement of Indians in the
neighborhood of Villemarie; and they spared no exertion to this end,
giving them tools, and aiding them to till the fields. They might have
succeeded, but for that pest of the wilderness, the Iroquois, who hovered
about them, harassed them with petty attacks, and again and again drove
the Algonquins in terror from their camps. Some time had elapsed,
as we have seen, before the Iroquois discovered Villemarie; but at length
ten fugitive Algonquins, chased by a party of them, made for the friendly
settlement as a safe asylum; and thus their astonished pursuers became
aware of its existence. They reconnoitred the place, and went back to
their towns with the news. [ Dollier de Casson, MS. ] From that time
forth the colonists had no peace; no more excursions for fishing and
hunting; no more Sunday strolls in woods and meadows. The men went armed
to their work, and returned at the sound of a bell, marching in a compact
body, prepared for an attack.

Early in June, 1643, sixty Hurons came down in canoes for traffic, and,
on reaching the place now called Lachine, at the head of the rapids of
St. Louis, and a few miles above Villemarie, they were amazed at finding
a large Iroquois war-party in a fort hastily built of the trunks and
boughs of trees. Surprise and fright seem to have infatuated them.
They neither fought nor fled, but greeted their inveterate foes as if
they were friends and allies, and, to gain their good graces, told them
all they knew of the French settlement, urging them to attack it, and
promising an easy victory. Accordingly, the Iroquois detached forty of
their warriors, who surprised six Frenchmen at work hewing timber within
a gunshot of the fort, killed three of them, took the remaining three
prisoners, and returned in triumph. The captives were bound with the
usual rigor; and the Hurons taunted and insulted them, to please their
dangerous companions. Their baseness availed them little; for at night,
after a feast of victory, when the Hurons were asleep or off their guard,
their entertainers fell upon them, and killed or captured the greater
part. The rest ran for Villemarie, where, as their treachery was as yet
unknown, they were received with great kindness.

[ I have followed Dollier de Casson. Vimont's account is different.
He says that the Iroquois fell upon the Hurons at the outset, and took
twenty-three prisoners, killing many others; after which they made the
attack at Villemarie.--Relation, 1643, 62.

Faillon thinks that Vimont was unwilling to publish the treachery of the
Hurons, lest the interests of the Huron mission should suffer in
consequence.

Belmont, Histoire du Canada, 1643, confirms the account of the Huron
treachery. ]

The next morning the Iroquois decamped, carrying with them their
prisoners, and the furs plundered from the Huron canoes. They had taken
also, and probably destroyed, all the letters from the missionaries in
the Huron country, as well as a copy of their Relation of the preceding
year. Of the three French prisoners, one escaped and reached Montreal;
the remaining two were burned alive.

At Villemarie it was usually dangerous to pass beyond the ditch of the
fort or the palisades of the hospital. Sometimes a solitary warrior
would lie hidden for days, without sleep and almost without food, behind
a log in the forest, or in a dense thicket, watching like a lynx for some
rash straggler. Sometimes parties of a hundred or more made ambuscades
near by, and sent a few of their number to lure out the soldiers by a
petty attack and a flight. The danger was much diminished, however,
when the colonists received from France a number of dogs, which proved
most efficient sentinels and scouts. Of the instinct of these animals
the writers of the time speak with astonishment. Chief among them was a
bitch named Pilot, who every morning made the rounds of the forests and
fields about the fort, followed by a troop of her offspring. If one of
them lagged behind, she hit him to remind him of his duty; and if any
skulked and ran home, she punished them severely in the same manner on
her return. When she discovered the Iroquois, which she was sure to do
by the scents if any were near, she barked furiously, and ran at once
straight to the fort, followed by the rest. The Jesuit chronicler adds,
with an amusing naïveté, that, while this was her duty, "her natural
inclination was for hunting squirrels."

[ Lalemant, Relation, 1647, 74, 75. "Son attrait naturel estoit la
chasse aux écurieux." Dollier de Casson also speaks admiringly of her
and her instinct. Faillon sees in it a manifest proof of the protecting
care of God over Villemarie. ]

Maisonneuve was as brave a knight of the cross as ever fought in
Palestine for the sepulchre of Christ; but he could temper his valor with
discretion. He knew that he and his soldiers were but indifferent
woodsmen; that their crafty foe had no equal in ambuscades and surprises;
and that, while a defeat might ruin the French, it would only exasperate
an enemy whose resources in men were incomparably greater. Therefore,
when the dogs sounded the alarm, he kept his followers close, and stood
patiently on the defensive. They chafed under this Fabian policy,
and at length imputed it to cowardice. Their murmurings grew louder,
till they reached the ear of Maisonneuve. The religion which animated
him had not destroyed the soldierly pride which takes root so readily and
so strongly in a manly nature; and an imputation of cowardice from his
own soldiers stung him to the quick. He saw, too, that such an opinion
of him must needs weaken his authority, and impair the discipline
essential to the safety of the colony.

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