France and England in North America, Part IV: The Old Régime In Canada

by Francis Parkman

“Everybody was in the streets; animals ran wildly about; children cried; men and women, seized with fright, knew not where to take refuge, expecting every moment to be buried under the ruins of the houses, or swallowed up in some abyss opening under their feet. Some, on their knees in the snow, cried for mercy, and others passed the night in prayer; for the earthquake continued without ceasing, with a motion much like that of a ship at sea, insomuch that sundry persons felt the same qualms of stomach which they would feel on the water. In the forests the commotion was far greater. The trees struck one against the other as if there were a battle between them; and you would have said that not only their branches, but even their trunks started out of their places and leaped on each other with such noise and confusion that the Indians said that the whole forest was drunk.” Mary of the Incarnation gives a similar account, as does also Frances Juchereau de Saint-Ignace; and these contemporary records are sustained to some extent by the evidence of geology. * A remarkable effect was produced on the St. Lawrence, which was so charged with mud and clay that for many weeks the water was unfit to drink. Considerable hills and large tracts of forest slid from their places, some into the river, and some into adjacent valleys. A number of men in a boat near Tadoussac stared aghast at a large hill covered with trees, which sank into the water before their eyes; streams were turned from their courses; water-falls were levelled; springs were dried up in some places, while in others new springs appeared. Nevertheless, the accounts that have come down to us seem a little exaggerated, and sometimes ludicrously so; as when, for example, Mother Mary of the Incarnation tells us of a man who ran all night to escape from a fissure in the earth which opened behind him and chased him as he fled.

It is perhaps needless to say that “spectres and phantoms of fire, bearing torches in their hands,” took part in the convulsion. “The fiery figure of a man vomiting flames” also appeared in the air, with many other apparitions too numerous to mention. It is recorded that three young men were on their way through the forest to sell brandy to the Indians, when one of them, a little in advance of the rest, was met by a hideous spectre which nearly

* Professor Sterry Hunt, whose intimate knowledge of
Canadian geology is well known, tells me that the shores of
the St. Lawrence are to a great extent formed of beds of
gravel and clay resting on inclined strata of rock, so that
earth-slides would be the necessary result of any convulsion
like that of 1663. He adds that the evidence that such
slides have taken place on a great scale is very distinct at
various points along the river, especially at Les
Eboulemcns. Professor Sterry Hunt, whose intimate knowledge of
Canadian geology is well known, tells me that the shores of
the St. Lawrence are to a great extent formed of beds of
gravel and clay resting on inclined strata of rock, so that
earth-slides would be the necessary result of any convulsion
like that of 1663. He adds that the evidence that such
slides have taken place on a great scale is very distinct at
various points along the river, especially at Les
Eboulemcns on the north shore.

killed him with fright. He had scarcely strength enough to rejoin his companions, who, seeing his terror, began to laugh at him. One of them, however, presently came to his senses, and said: “This is no laughing matter; we are going to sell liquor to the Indians against the prohibitions of the church, and perhaps God means to punish our disobedience.” On this they all turned back. That night they had scarcely lain down to sleep when the earthquake roused them, and they ran out of their hut just in time to escape being swallowed up along with it. *

With every allowance, it is clear that the convulsion must have been a severe one, and it is remarkable that in all Canada not a life was lost. The writers of the day see in this a proof that God meant to reclaim the guilty and not destroy them. At Quebec there was for the time an intense revival of religion. The end of the world was thought to be at hand, and everybody made ready for the last judgment. Repentant throngs beset confessionals and altars; enemies were reconciled; fasts, prayers, and penances filled the whole season of Lent. Yet, as we shall see, the devil could still find wherewith to console himself.

It was midsummer before the shocks wholly ceased and the earth resumed her wonted calm. An extreme drought was followed by floods of rain, and then Nature began her sure work of

* Marie de l’Incarnation, Lettre du 20 Aout, 1663. It
appears from Morton, Josselyn, and other writers, that the
earthquake extended to New England and New Netherlands,
producing similar effects on the imagination of the people.

reparation. It was about this time that the thorn which had plagued the church was at length plucked out. Avaugour was summoned home.

He took his recall with magnanimity, and on his way wrote at Gaspé a memorial to Colbert, in which he commends New France to the attention of the king. “The St. Lawrence,” he says, “is the entrance to what may be made the greatest state in the world;” and, in his purely military way, he recounts the means of realizing this grand possibility. Three thousand soldiers should be sent to the colony, to be discharged and turned into settlers after three years of service. During these three years they may make Quebec an impregnable fortress, subdue the Iroquois, build a strong fort on the river where the Dutch have a miserable wooden redoubt, called Fort Orange [Albany], and finally open a way by that river to the sea. Thus the heretics will be driven out, and the king will be master of America, at a total cost of about four hundred thousand francs yearly for ten years. He closes his memorial by a short allusion to the charges against him, and to his forty years of faithful service; and concludes, speaking of the authors of his recall, Laval and the Jesuits:

“By reason of the respect I owe their cloth, I will rest content, monseigneur, with assuring you that I have not only served the king with fidelity, but also, by the grace of God, with very good success, considering the means at my disposal.” * He had, in truth, borne himself as a brave and experienced