"While passing some days at Montreal, where for the first time she saw the nuns, she was so charmed with their modesty and devotion that she informed herself most thoroughly with regard to the manner in which these holy sisters lived, and the virtues which they practised."
Kateri and Thérèse—for the two were inseparable—with other Indians from the Sault, probably laden with goods to barter, must have crossed over to Montreal in canoes. They paddled out into the broad smooth waters of the St. Lawrence below the great rapid, where the river widens out like a lake. They left far behind them their village, with its tall wooden cross on the river-bank, and the wild Isle-aux-Hérons, bearing up its sturdy clump of foliage in the midst of the splashing foam. They passed at a distance the Jesuit chapel at La Prairie, where a few Frenchmen had built houses and formed the nucleus of a settlement, and then moved quietly and rapidly on in their light canoes until they neared the Isle St. Paul. The southern shore of the river swept away in a great curve as they left the Sault, and the prairie lands stretched away towards Lake Champlain, while Mount Royal blocked the northern horizon. Finally, after rounding the Isle St. Paul, they approached near enough to the northern bank to see where the first French fort had been built by the Sieur de Maisonneuve on level land at the mouth of a little stream. The spot is now called Custom-House Square; and the wild Ilot Normandin has been transformed into Island Wharf. This fort had fallen into disuse, and a second one was built on higher ground. The great French guns that were pointed toward the river meant no harm to the Christian Indians, who passed safely by, and landed on vacant ground in the rear of a cluster of fortified buildings fronting on the Rue St. Paul. This was the principal thoroughfare of the infant city of Ville-Marie. Every house on the island of Montreal was strongly built for defence. Each farm in the vicinity was connected with the town by a chain of redoubts. Not only the fort and the governor's mansion, but the mills, the brewery, the Hospital or Hôtel Dieu, and the chief residences had high walls and outlying defences. These buildings were so placed along the Rue St. Paul that a cross-fire from them and from the bastioned fort across the little stream (which has since disappeared in the maze of modern streets) could be maintained in a way to render the position of the colonists impregnable against an Indian assault. This had all been done under the leadership of the first governor. At the time of Kateri's visit, the chivalric De Maisonneuve had been recalled to France, and De Courselles was Governor-General. The Sulpicians, whose seminary was centrally located on the principal street, were lords of the seigneurie of Montreal and could give grants of land, though the recently arrived officers of the King disputed their right to dispense justice, and to appoint the governor of Ville-Marie.
Marguerite Bourgeois was still a leading spirit in the colony, and was actively engaged in founding and conducting her schools for the Indian and Canadian children. Her convent of Sisters of the Congregation of Notre Dame, after much delay and many trials, was at last successfully established opposite the Hôtel Dieu on the Rue St. Paul. Monseigneur de Laval, Bishop of Quebec, on his visit to Ville-Marie in 1676, had formally recognized and approved her new order. There were at this time ten nuns in all associated with her in the work of teaching. They taught day-scholars free of charge, and worked diligently out of school-hours to support themselves. In 1657 the Sieur de Maisonneuve had given Marguerite Bourgeois a tract of land near the Hôtel Dieu, on which was a well-built stable, which she used for her first school-house. The classes were assembled in the lower part of the building, while this indefatigable schoolmistress and her first assistants slept in the loft, to which they ascended by an outside staircase. As her school and community increased, she built a house that would shelter twelve persons. This also had proved insufficient, and she was now established in a fine large stone building, where a number of girls were safely housed, and taught to read, write, and sew. The King of France allowed her a certain amount each year for the support of her Indian pupils. These were mostly at the school of the newly founded Sulpician mission on the mountain-side. There the number of Indians was daily increasing. M. Belmont, a Sulpician, taught the boys, and two of the Congregation sisters had charge of the girls. Their favorite pupil, Marie Thérèse Gannensagwas (meaning, "She takes the arm"), was in a few years to become herself a successful teacher in the Indian school, and a gentle, lovable nun. At this time she was about eleven years old. When still younger, she had come with her aged grandfather from the Seneca country. He was a Christian, having been baptized in the Huron country by the great missionary Brebeuf. The little Gannensagwas was adopted by Governor de Courselles, and placed under the care of Marguerite Bourgeois in the convent on the Rue St. Paul. When the school at the Mountain was opened, in 1676, she was sent there. In one or other of these two places she spent the remainder of her life, as pupil, novice, and then schoolmistress. Her memory has sometimes been confused with that of Kateri Tekakwitha, though she was ten years younger than the Mohawk, and led a very different sort of life. Gannensagwas grew up, lived and died in a convent, and was the first real Indian nun. A tablet to her memory is preserved in one of the towers of the old fort at the mission on Mount Royal. This stone tower stands in the same enclosure with the costly modern buildings of the Sulpicians in a beautiful part of the present city of Montreal. At the time of Kateri's visit, however, this same tower and fort was in the woods; for the buildings of the old town extended no farther from the river than the Rue St. Jacques. From there to the Indian schools of the Mountain was a lonely road leading past a solitary fortified farm belonging to the Sulpicians,—La ferme St. Gabriel. It was there that a priest, M. Le Maistre, had been tomahawked, in August 1661. He was on guard while the laborers gathered in the harvest. His tragic death warned them to withdraw at once from the fields, and defend themselves within the farm-house. Such incidents as this were then fresh in the minds of the people, and gave pathetic interest to many a spot near Ville-Marie.
In 1678 Rue Notre Dame was a new street, not yet built up, and the foundations of the parish church were uncompleted; but already the Hôtel Dieu had a long history. Just five years had passed since Mademoiselle Manse, the former friend of Marguerite Bourgeois, and the one who founded the Hôtel Dieu and brought the hospital nuns from France to conduct it, had been laid to rest. She died in 1673. Her last request was that her body might be buried at the Hôtel Dieu, and her heart be placed under the sanctuary lamp in the new church of the parish.[62] It was but right that this should be done, for she had given her whole life to founding not only the hospital but the city and colony at Mount Royal. Till the new church of Notre Dame should be finished, the heart of the brave lady, encased in a metal vase, was hung in the chapel of the Hôtel Dieu. It was there for many years; but the building of the church was delayed so long that the transfer of the precious deposit never took place. The relic was lost at the time of a fire that destroyed the old chapel and hospital in 1695. Kateri may have seen the metal vase in the chapel of the hospital, but could scarcely have had time to learn its significance. Mademoiselle Manse had fulfilled a twofold task. She had distributed guns and ammunition to the colonists, and had nursed the wounded soldiers and Indians. Her life was often in danger. At times she was quite alone in the hospital. Her courage, enthusiasm, and womanly care for the sick and suffering were a mainstay of the colony, all through what has well been called its heroic age. Founded in a spirit of religious zeal for the conversion of the savages, its struggle for existence in a wild country of warring races fills up a strange and interesting chapter in early American history. Quebec, Three Rivers, and Montreal were for a long time the only settlements of any consequence in Canada. Quebec was the great stronghold and starting-point of French trade and colonization. There too the Jesuit missionaries had their headquarters, and sent their reports, which were combined into the famous "Relations," so valuable now as history. Three Rivers, the next important trading-post, was a long stride up the St. Lawrence and into the wilderness. There, as elsewhere, the French sought to share their faith with the Indians. Kateri's Algonquin mother, it will be remembered, had been baptized at Three Rivers before her capture by the Iroquois. Beyond that point no permanent settlers had ventured until Montreal, the strange, solitary island city, was established for no other purpose than to convert the redmen to Christianity. The whole plan was made in France by a company of devout and wealthy persons. Two of the leading spirits, not yet mentioned, were M. Olier, an ecclesiastic, and M. de la Dauversière, a pious layman. The site for the city was chosen, and the island bought, by men who had no practical knowledge of the country. It was far inland, and dependent entirely on its own resources when the Indians were at war. The people of Quebec did not always know whether Montreal existed or not, so beset were its inhabitants at times by the unconverted, warlike kindred of Kateri. The raids of the Mohawks were checked by De Tracy, in 1666; but after all, they were only one of five unfriendly nations who were liable to brandish the tomahawk at any time against the French. In 1678 there was a general peace along the whole line, except for local and religious persecutions, such as Kateri had endured before coming to the Sault.
The worst days for Montreal had been about twenty years before, when their allies the Hurons were annihilated as a nation by the terrible Iroquois. At that time the French lived in a whirlwind of war and havoc. The remnant of Hurons that remained with them after the war, were gathered together in the mission village of Lorette near Quebec. Sillery, in the same vicinity, was a settlement of the Christian Algonquins. In Kateri's time these two missions nestled under the protecting guns of Quebec; just as the Indians of the Praying Castle where Kateri lived, and the Iroquois of the Sulpician mission on the slope of Mount Royal, felt bound to maintain a close friendship for defence, as well as through inclination, with their French neighbors at Montreal. The people of the Sault and the people of the Mountain were always welcomed and graciously received by the colonists of Ville-Marie. There were many things for them to see and learn there; but if the Hôtel Dieu and the convent were at one end of the town, the brewery and the fort were at the other, and on the whole the Jesuit Fathers at the Sault liked it better when their Indians stayed at the mission. The trader of Montreal was much the same sort of man as the trader of Fort Orange. The early colonial town of the Frenchman, however, differed in many respects from the town of the Dutchman. It will be interesting, therefore, to follow Kateri as she leaves her canoe on the pebbly shore, and wander with her through the strange, new streets of the Canadian town, just as we followed her uncle long ago on his journey to Albany on the shore of the Hudson. His pack of beaver-skins was examined and handled by the well-to-do traders of Handelaer Street. So do the companions of Kateri dispose of their Indian wares with equal ease in the long and important Rue St. Paul. Like the Dutch thoroughfare, it runs parallel with the river; all the dwellings on one side have their backs turned to the water, but their gardens do not extend all the way to the water's edge, as at Albany; there are vacant building lots in the rear on the river-bank.
"The houses built of wood, pièce sur pièce, or of rounded pebbles stuck together with cement, are all in the same style,—a rectangle covered with a steep roof slightly overtopped by the stone chimney; two skylights to admit light into the garret on the long sides; a door set between two windows, and the walls pierced with loop-holes for defence against the Iroquois. The interior is not less simple,—one large hall where all the family live, as in Bretagne; a bed or lounge, a sort of long coffer or chest with a cover that is opened out in the evening, into which a mattress is spread, and where the children sleep; some chairs or small benches; the extra clothing and the gun, hung up on the wall."[63]
This extra clothing was as unpretentious in style as the dwelling. A plain woollen garment, with capot, girdle, and tuque, was the uniform of the Canadian colonist. Even the first governor, Sieur de Maisonneuve, wore it the greater part of the year, except on state occasions. Of course, in the hottest weather this warm outer garment was exchanged for a cooler shirt and a broad-brimmed hat; then the woollen coats with snow-shoes and other winter belongings of the settler were hung on pegs against the wall.
The home-trained garrison of Montreal felt proud to hear the Viceroy de Tracy call them his "capots bleus," for they knew right well he could scarcely have triumphed over the Mohawks without their assistance. His veterans, scarred in the Turkish wars, were indeed a sorry sight to behold on the expedition of 1666, when they stumbled about in the snow, and lost their way in the forest of northern New York. Kateri remembered these soldiers well. She saw them in her childhood, when they were enemies and invaders of her home, and so she did not care to see them again. A glance at the fort and the fortified houses, the mills, the governor's house, and the seminaire was enough for her. Already she stood at the corner of the Rue St. Paul and the Rue St. Joseph. If she chose to follow up the latter street, it would take her to the great square where the foundations of the new church of Notre Dame had been laid. But the chapel of the Hôtel Dieu was right before her, and she entered there. The hospital Sisters were chanting their office behind a wooden grating. Why were they out of sight? What did it all mean? She questioned her comrades, and they told her what little they themselves knew about the nuns. Not content with visiting the chapel, they gained permission to enter the hospital. What Kateri saw at the entrance on the Rue St. Paul was a great, heavy wooden door, opening into a small building. Behind this was a large enclosure or yard surrounded by a high stockade wall for defence, and containing several buildings, mostly of wood and somewhat out of repair. The hospital Sisters, though chiefly of noble rank, were poorly lodged and suffered many privations. The hospital was endowed by a lady of fortune in Paris, but it had been built and equipped under the eyes of Mademoiselle Manse, who cared for the sick herself till the Sisters came from France. After that she had dwelt close by them, and continued in charge of their financial affairs until her death. The nuns possessed some cows and other domestic animals. There was also a little bakery in one part of the enclosure. In another place Sœur de Brésoles had a garden marked off, where she cultivated medicinal drugs. It was all very simple and primitive, but strange and marvellous to the eyes of Kateri. She saw how good the Sisters were to the sick, and how simply and poorly they lived themselves. Their own beds were in a rough attic above the wards for the sick. Their linen was spotless, but the observant Kateri could not fail to see that their dresses were patched in many places. Though each of these ladies brought a dot with her to the convent when she entered the order in France, they were often left with no resources save what their own industry brought them in the wilds of Canada, and even the hospital fund was lost to them through bad management over the sea; but no misfortune could daunt them in their work of curing and converting the Indians, and caring for the disabled colonists. They refused every overture to return to Europe, and shared in all the vicissitudes of the struggling colony, rich at least in the good-will of its people.
In the convent across the street from the Hôtel Dieu, Kateri and her friend were warmly welcomed by Marguerite Bourgeois and the Sisters of the Congregation. It is probable that the two young Indian girls stayed over night at the convent, for Sœur Bourgeois delighted in entertaining just such guests, to shield them from all harm while in the city, and to win them to the practice of virtue and piety. There is every reason to believe that Kateri was much influenced and stimulated in her spiritual aspirations by what she saw there, and above all by coming in contact with the strong and saintly character of the woman who had founded so useful an order. Marguerite Bourgeois and her companions were successful in doing good from the very first; and to-day the great Villa-Maria, which is the outgrowth of her humble but earnest efforts, is set like a queenly diadem on the brow of Mount Royal. There the young girls of America are still attracted, sheltered, taught, and incited by the nuns of her order to a life of virtue and good deeds, in much the same spirit that the early colonial belles and Indian maidens were gathered together long ago by Marguerite Bourgeois herself, the very first schoolmistress of the town. She was accustomed to wear a plain black dress, with a deep pointed linen collar, almost a little cape; besides this, something that might be called either a short veil worn like a hood or a large black kerchief was drawn over her head and knotted loosely under her chin. In her later days the edges of a white cap which she wore under this sombre head-dress, showed about her face. Her nuns still wear a costume which she prescribed for them. There is nothing peculiar about their black dress or the usual nun's veil which falls in loose folds from the head and shoulders, but they wear an odd linen head-dress with three points, which is drawn together under the chin and projects downward in a stiff fold. Some of the sweetest of faces may be seen framed in this ungainly gear. The hooded kerchief of Marguerite Bourgeois was more pleasing, but she did not choose that it should be very comfortable. A sister of hers discovered one day that the cap she wore under this kerchief was all bristling with bent pins. She was, perhaps, allowing them to prick her into a remembrance of her sins at the very time she received Kateri and her friend with a gracious smile and led them into the convent. Several of the nuns were teaching their classes. Most of the children at the school were Canadians, but there were also Indian girls under her care, younger than Kateri, who could read and write and spin. Several of these were boarding pupils, supported by pensions from the King, Louis XIV. These became, under the care of the Sisters, like demure little convent girls, scarcely to be distinguished from the Canadian children, except by their Indian features. The studious and modest little Gannensagwas, though now sent to the new school at the Mountain for a time, felt more at home in the Rue St. Paul, where she had spent four or five years. An Onondaga girl, Attontinon, called Mary Barbara at her baptism, was nearer Kateri's age. She also aspired to join the sisterhood, but was as yet too recently converted from heathenism to be admitted.
Kateri felt shy and out of place, no doubt, among the little scholars whom she saw at Ville-Marie, even though some of them were Indians. She felt, perhaps, as a wild deer of the forest might who chanced to stray into a park where petted fawns looked knowingly up at the half-frightened intruder, as they quietly nibbled grass from the hands of the keepers. If the young Mohawk girl did not turn suddenly about and take the nearest path to the woods and thickets, it was only because her timidity was held in check by a great eagerness to learn all she could about the life of those beautiful, quiet nuns. She knew they had come far away from their own country to teach the Iroquois and the Algonquins as well as the Canadian children to live like Christians. Kateri did not ask all the questions that came into her mind; but this much she certainly learned,—that the sisters lived unmarried, apart from the rest of the people, and spent much time in prayer. She had an opportunity also to observe some of their daily exercises and little practices of piety. It is more than likely that she went with them on a visit of devotion to the stone chapel of Bon Secours, a little way out of the town. It was just finished at that time; and a small statue of Our Lady, brought from France by Sœur Bourgeois, had been placed there. The officials of the town secured the garret of the church for a temporary arsenal to store their ammunition. There was no other place as yet in Ville-Marie that was fireproof. The Church of Bon Secours has always been a favorite shrine. Kateri's devotion to the Blessed Virgin would naturally lead her there before she left the city. She was both interested and attracted during her stay in Montreal by everything she saw at the Convent of Notre Dame and at the Hôtel Dieu. But she gave no intimation of a wish to remain with the nuns at either of these establishments. Her whole life had been the life of an untamed Indian. She had accepted Christianity in the only way in which under the circumstances it could possibly have been offered to her,—that is to say, Christianity pure and simple, with few of the trappings of European civilization. She was a living proof that an Indian could be thoroughly Christianized without being civilized at all in the ordinary sense of the word. She was still a child of the woods, and out of her element elsewhere. It was with scarce a regret, then, that she returned with her friend to the Sault, and resumed her usual life there. But her visit to Montreal had given her an intimation of something well known to the Christians of Europe, which had not been taught at the mission. The married state was frequently praised there, and always recommended to the Indians. The blackgowns did not venture to give the counsel of Saint Paul concerning virginity, to a people that were but just learning to walk in the way of the commandments. But Kateri had been struck by the example of the Jesuit Fathers themselves, and her penetrating mind had already guessed that something was withheld from her on this point; after her visit to the nuns at Montreal she was confirmed more than ever in her resolve to remain unmarried.