wife, in a frenzy of terror, screamed murder. One of the neighbors, Monsieur Belêtre, was at table with Charles Le Moyne and a Rochelle merchant named Baston. He ran out with his two guests, and they tried to separate the combatants, who still lay on the ground foaming like a pair of enraged bull-dogs. All their efforts were useless. “Very well,” said Le Moyne in disgust, “if you won’t let go, then kill each other if you like.” A former military servant of Carion now ran up, and began to brandish his sword in behalf of his late master. Carion’s comrade, Morel, also arrived, and, regardless of the angry protest of Le Moyne, stabbed repeatedly at Lormeau as he lay. Lormeau had received two or three wounds in the hand and arm with which he parried the thrusts, and was besides severely mauled by the sword-hilt of Carion, when two Sulpitian priests, drawn by the noise, appeared on the scene. One was Fremont, the curé; the other was Dollier de Casson. That herculean father, whose past soldier life had made him at home in a fray, and who cared nothing for drawn swords, set himself at once to restore peace, upon which, whether from the strength of his arm, or the mere effect of his presence, the two champions released their gripe on each other’s throats, rose, sheathed their weapons, and left the field. *
Montreal, a frontier town at the head of the
* Requête de Lormeau a M. d'Aillebout. Dépositions de MM.
de Longueuïl (Le Moyne), de Baston, de Belêtre, et autres.
Cited by Faillon, Colonie Française, III. 393.
He made a jump at the guns, took them under his arm like so many feathers
colony, was the natural resort of desperadoes, offering, as we have seen, a singular contrast between the rigor of its clerical seigniors and the riotous license of the lawless crew which infested it. Dollier de Casson tells the story of an outlaw who broke prison ten or twelve times, and whom no walls, locks, or fetters could hold. “A few months ago,” he says, “he was caught again, and put into the keeping of six or seven men, each with a good gun. They stacked their arms to play a game of cards, which their prisoner saw fit to interrupt to play a game of his own. He made a jump at the guns, took them under his arm like so many feathers, aimed at these fellows with one of them, swearing that he would kill the first who came near him, and so, falling back step by step, at last bade them good-by, and carried off all their guns. Since then he has not been caught, and is roaming the woods. Very likely he will become chief of our banditti, and make great trouble in the country when it pleases him to come back from the Dutch settlements, whither they say he is gone along with another rascal, and a French woman so depraved that she is said to have given or sold two of her children to the Indians.” *
When the governor, La Barre, visited Montreal, he found there some two hundred reprobates gambling, drinking, and stealing. If hard pressed by justice, they had only to cross the river and place themselves beyond the seigniorial jurisdiction. The military settlements of the Richelieu
* Dollier de Casson, Histoire de Montréal, 1671, 72
were in a condition somewhat similar, and La Barre complains of a prevailing spirit of disobedience and lawlessness. * The most orderly and thrifty part of Canada appears to have been at this time the cote of Beaupré, belonging to the seminary of Quebec. Here the settlers had religious instruction from their curés, and industrial instruction also if they wanted it. Domestic spinning and weaving were practised at Beaupré sooner than in any other part of the colony.