Father Brébeuf, who possessed a powerful frame and commanding figure, stood unmoved and unruffled. But he did not rely upon these qualities of the man, though he knew no fear, but illustrated by his example on this as on every other occasion the virtues of a Christian and a minister of peace. With a humility and charity that showed how well the strong and naturally impulsive man had subdued his passions, he endeavored to appease the anger of his assailant by an apology, which, while it was justly calculated to remove all cause of offence, was accompanied with a solemn vindication of himself and companions from the unjust imputation just cast upon them. He said:
"You must excuse me. I did not mean to give you the lie. I should be very sorry to do so. The words I used are those we use in the schools when a doubtful question is advanced, and they mean no offence. Therefore, I ask you to pardon me."
"Bon Dieu," said Champlain, "you swear well for a reformer!"
"I knew it," replied Michel; "I should be content if I had struck that Jesuit who gave me the lie before my general."
The unfortunate Michel continued in this way unceasingly to rave over the pretended insult, which no apologies could obliterate. He died shortly afterward in one of his paroxysms of fury, and was interred under the rocks of Tadoussac. It was not permitted to him to execute his threatened vengeance on the Jesuit, whom he was the first to insult, and whom he never forgave, though himself forgiven.
Father Brébeuf, together with the truly great and Catholic Champlain, the governor of Quebec, and with the other missionaries, were carried prisoners to England, whence they all made their way to France.
Sad at this interruption of their work of love among the benighted sons of the Western wilds, the missionaries did not despair, but only awaited the restoration of Canada to France in order to resume their labors. In the volume of his travels published by Champlain in 1632, is embraced the treatise on the Huron language which Father Brébeuf had prepared during his three years' residence with that tribe, and which, in our own times, has been republished in the Transactions of the American Antiquarian Society, as a most precious contribution to learning.
The English government disavowed the conduct of Kirk, and Canada was restored to France during the year 1632. As the conversion of the native tribes was ever one of the leading features in the policy of Catholic statesmen in the colonization of this continent, it was determined to renew the missions which we have seen interrupted. In selecting missionaries for this task, the choice fell not upon the Jesuits, nor the Recollects, as might have been expected, but upon the Capuchins; and it was only when these good fathers represented to Cardinal Richelieu that the Jesuits had already been laboring with fidelity and success in that vineyard, and requested that the missions might be again confided to them, that Fathers Paul Lejeune and Anne de Nouë, with a lay brother, were sent out in 1632. They arrived at Tadoussac on the twelfth of July. It soon became Father Brébeuf's great privilege and happiness to follow them. On the twenty-second of May, 1633, to the great joy of Quebec, Champlain returned to resume his sway in Canada, and Father Brébeuf accompanied him together with Fathers Massé, Daniel, and Devost. Though Father Brébeuf was not inactive about Quebec, still his heart longed for the Huron homes and council-fires, and still more for Huron souls. Shortly afterward, he had the consolation of beholding the faithful Louis Amantacha, a Christian Huron, arriving at Quebec, followed by the usual Indian flotilla of canoes. A council was held, sixty chiefs sat in a circle round the council-fire, and the noble Champlain, the intrepid Brébeuf, and the zealous Lallemant, stood in their midst. A treaty of friendship was concluded between the French and the Hurons, and, in confiding the missionaries to his new allies, Champlain thus addressed the latter: "These we consider as fathers, these are dearer to us than life. Think not that they have left France under pressure of want; no, they were there in high esteem: they come not to gather up your furs, but to open to you the doors of eternal life. If you love the French, as you say you love them, then love and honor these our fathers." This address was responded to by two of the chiefs, who were followed by Father Brébeuf in his broken Huron, "the assembly jerking in unison, from the bottom of their throats, repeated ejaculations of applause." The members of the council then crowded round him, each claiming the privilege of carrying him in his canoe. And the Indians from the different towns began now to contend among themselves for the honor of possessing Father Brébeuf for their respective settlements. The contest was soon decided in favor of Rochelle, the most populous of the Huron villages. On the eighth of August, the effects of Father Brébeuf and of his companions, Fathers Daniel and Devost, were already on board the canoes, when another more serious difficulty arose: an Indian murderer had been arrested by order of Champlain, in consequence of which an enraged Algonquin chief declared that no Frenchman should enter the flotilla. The Hurons were ready and anxious to convey the fathers, but they feared the consequences of a rupture with the Algonquins. The fathers were thus constrained, to the common sorrow of themselves and their Hurons, to behold the flotilla depart without them. But the last scene in this separation was yet more touching. The faithful and pious Louis Amantacha, overwhelmed with sorrow at the loss of the fathers, lingered in their company to the last moment, humbly made his confession, and, for the last time for him, this Christian warrior received the holy communion from the hands of Father Brébeuf. Then, having rejoined his companions, the flotilla quickly glided from the view of those who would have laid down their lives to save the souls of those benighted and thoughtless voyagers.
Father Brébeuf and his companions returned to labor for a time longer among the French and Indians in and about Quebec, where their labors were full of zeal and not without success. It was here that Father Brébeuf baptized Sasousmat, the first adult upon whom he conferred that sacrament. While in health, Sasousmat had requested that he might be sent to France for instruction in the faith, but he was now overtaken by a dreadful illness, which deprived him of reason. Father Brébeuf visited him while in this state, and, returning from his couch to the altar, he offered up for his benefit the holy sacrifice of the Mass in honor of St. Joseph, the glorious patron of the country; his prayer of sacrifice was heard in heaven, and Sasousmat was restored to his mind. Father Brébeuf then instructed him, and the joyful neophyte ardently and touchingly entreated the father to baptize him. But the cautious and conscientious priest deferred the sacrament, to the astonishment of the Indians, whose habit was to refuse nothing to the sick. One of Sasousmat's Indian friends said to the father, with great impatience: "Thou hast no sense; pour a little water on him, and it is done." "No," replied the priest of God, "I would involve myself in ruin were I to baptize, without necessity, an infidel and unbeliever not fully instructed." The patient was afterwards removed to the residence of Notre Dame des Anges, where he continued to receive the instructions of the father, and where he grew desperately ill, and was finally in an hour of danger baptized. At the moment of his decease, a resplendent meteoric light illumined the death-room, and shone far around about the country. There was afterwards another adult, named Nassé, a steadfast friend of the missionaries, who fell dangerously ill, and was nursed by Father Brébeuf. He too made earnest entreaties to be baptized, but the father subjected the convert to long delays and probations, and finally only bestowed the sacrament when death was imminent. Instances are related in which baptism was refused to adults, even in extremis, where the requisite dispositions were wanting. Such examples, of which there are not a few recorded in the Jesuit Relations, besides exhibiting the zeal and self-sacrificing labors of the Catholic missionaries for the salvation of souls, furnish us with a complete refutation of the wanton calumny that those early missionary priests were in the habit of bestowing the sacrament upon entire multitudes of savages without previous instruction or probation—a calumny now fully refuted by the Relations and letters of the fathers themselves, who, while they penned the humble story of their labors, to be transmitted to their superiors in Europe, knew not that the same would serve as evidence for their own vindication.
With the return of spring, the time again drew near for the appearance of the usual flotilla of Indian canoes at the trading post of Three Rivers. On the 1st of July, Fathers Brébeuf and Daniel repaired to Three Rivers, to procure a passage in the flotilla for the Huron country, and Father Devost joined them in a few days. But the canoes were slow in coming in; the Hurons had sustained a terrific defeat, losing two hundred braves, and the gallant Christian warrior Louis Amantacha was among the slain. No sooner, however, had a few canoes arrived, than Father Brébeuf pressed forward to secure a passage; but the hostile Algonquin and the cautious Huron discovered innumerable obstacles in the way of his going with them, and it seemed that he was again to be disappointed in his hopes of reaching his beloved mission. At length, by the influence of the French commanders, which was supported as usual by presents, it was arranged that a passage should be given to one missionary and two men, and even then Father Brébeuf was left out. He thus describes his difficulties: "Never did I see voyage so hampered and traversed by the common enemy of man. It was by a stroke of heaven that we advanced, and an effect of the power of the glorious St. Joseph, in whose honor God inspired me to promise twenty masses, in the despair of all things." At the moment that this vow was made, a Huron, who had agreed to carry one of the Frenchmen in his canoe, was suddenly inspired to take Father Brébeuf in his stead. Thus a passage was secured. But such were the hurry, confusion, and want of accommodation, that the missionaries were compelled to leave behind them all their effects, except such as were necessary for saying Mass. Too glad to be admitted into this vineyard which they had so long sought, they cheerfully made every sacrifice. With light and joyous hearts and ready hands, they plied the oar from morning till night; they recited the sacred office by the evening fire; they nursed all who fell sick on the voyage with so much charity and tenderness as to melt the hearts of those savage sons of the wilderness; at fifty different points, where the passage was dangerous or obstructed, they volunteered to carry the packages, and even the canoes, on their shoulders around the portages; and at one place Father Brébeuf barely escaped a watery grave at a rapid where his canoe was hurried over the impetuous current. At length, after much suffering, they reached the shores of the Huron country on the 5th of August, 1634.