Louis XIV. commanded that eighteen thousand unoffending persons should be stripped of all that they possessed, and cast out to the mercy of the wilderness. The atrocity of the plan is matched by its folly. The king gave explicit orders, but he gave neither ships nor men enough to accomplish them; and the Dutch farmers, goaded to desperation, would have cut his sixteen hundred soldiers to pieces. It was the scheme of a man blinded by a long course of success. Though perverted by flattery and hardened by unbridled power, he was not cruel by nature; and here, as in the burning of the Palatinate and the persecution of the Huguenots, he would have stood aghast, if his dull imagination could have pictured to him the miseries he was preparing to inflict. [6]
[6] On the details of the projected attack of New York, Le Roy à Denonville, 7 Juin, 1689; Le Ministre à Denonville, même date; Le Ministre à Frontenac, même date; Ordre du Roy à Vaudreuil, même date; Le Roy au Sieur de la Caffinière, même date; Champigny au Ministre, 16 Nov., 1689.
With little hope left that the grand enterprise against New York could succeed, Frontenac made sail for Quebec, and, stopping by the way at Isle Percée, learned from Récollet missionaries the irruption of the Iroquois at Montreal. He hastened on; but the wind was still against him, and the autumn woods were turning brown before he reached his destination. It was evening when he landed, amid fireworks, illuminations, and the firing of cannon. All Quebec came to meet him by torchlight; the members of the council offered their respects, and the Jesuits made him an harangue of welcome. [7] It was but a welcome of words. They and the councillors had done their best to have him recalled, and hoped that they were rid of him for ever; but now he was among them again, rasped by the memory of real or fancied wrongs. The count, however, had no time for quarrelling. The king had told him to bury old animosities and forget the past, and for the present he was too busy to break the royal injunction. [8] He caused boats to be made ready, and in spite of incessant rains pushed up the river to Montreal. Here he found Denonville and his frightened wife. Every thing was in confusion. The Iroquois were gone, leaving dejection and terror behind them. Frontenac reviewed the troops. There were seven or eight hundred of them in the town, the rest being in garrison at the various forts. Then he repaired to what was once La Chine, and surveyed the miserable waste of ashes and desolation that spread for miles around.
[8] Instruction pour le Sieur Comte de Frontenac, 7 Juin, 1689.
To his extreme disgust, he learned that Denonville had sent a Canadian officer by secret paths to Fort Frontenac, with orders to Valrenne, the commandant, to blow it up, and return with his garrison to Montreal. Frontenac had built the fort, had given it his own name, and had cherished it with a paternal fondness, reinforced by strong hopes of making money out of it. For its sake he had become the butt of scandal and opprobrium; but not the less had he always stood its strenuous and passionate champion. An Iroquois envoy had lately with great insolence demanded its destruction of Denonville; and this alone, in the eyes of Frontenac, was ample reason for maintaining it at any cost. [9] He still had hope that it might be saved, and with all the energy of youth he proceeded to collect canoes, men, provisions, and arms; battled against dejection, insubordination, and fear, and in a few days despatched a convoy of three hundred men to relieve the place, and stop the execution of Denonville's orders. His orders had been but too promptly obeyed. The convoy was scarcely gone an hour, when, to Frontenac's unutterable wrath, Valrenne appeared with his garrison. He reported that he had set fire to every thing in the fort that would burn, sunk the three vessels belonging to it, thrown the cannon into the lake, mined the walls and bastions, and left matches burning in the powder magazine; and, further, that when he and his men were five leagues on their way to Montreal a dull and distant explosion told them that the mines had sprung. It proved afterwards that the destruction was not complete; and the Iroquois took possession of the abandoned fort, with a large quantity of stores and munitions left by the garrison in their too hasty retreat. [10]
[9] Frontenac au Ministre, 15 Nov., 1689.
[10] Frontenac au Ministre, 15 Nov., 1689; Recueil de ce qui s'est passé en Canada depuis l'année 1682.
There was one ray of light through the clouds. The unwonted news of a victory came to Montreal. It was small, but decisive, and might be an earnest of greater things to come. Before Frontenac's arrival, Denonville had sent a reconnoitring party up the Ottawa. They had gone no farther than the Lake of Two Mountains, when they met twenty-two Iroquois in two large canoes, who immediately bore down upon them, yelling furiously. The French party consisted of twenty-eight coureurs de bois under Du Lhut and Mantet, excellent partisan chiefs, who manœuvred so well that the rising sun blazed full in the eyes of the advancing enemy, and spoiled their aim. The French received their fire, which wounded one man; then, closing with them while their guns were empty, gave them a volley, which killed and wounded eighteen of their number. One swam ashore. The remaining three were captured, and given to the Indian allies to be burned. [11]
[11] Frontenac au Ministre, 15 Nov., 1689; Champigny au Ministre, 16 Nov., 1689. Compare Belmont, whose account is a little different; also N. Y. Col. Docs., IX. 435.