La Saussaye was within the fort, Lieut. la Motte on board with Father du Thet, an ensign, and a sergeant. Argall bore down amid a bewildering din of drums and trumpets. “Fire!” cried La Motte. Alas! the gunner was on shore. Father du Thet seized and applied the match.
Another scathing discharge of musketry, and the brave priest lay dead. He had his wish; for the day before he left France he prayed with uplifted hands that he might not return, but perish on that holy enterprise. He was buried the following day at the foot of the rough cross he had helped to erect.
La Motte, clear-sighted enough to see the utter uselessness of any farther attempt at defence, surrendered, and Argall took possession of the vessel and of La Saussaye’s papers, from among which he abstracted the royal commission. On La Saussaye’s return from the woods, where he had retreated with the colonists, he was met by Argall, who informed him that the country belonged to his master, King James, and finally asked to see his commission. In vain did the French nobleman search for it. Argall’s courtesy changed to wrath; he accused the officer of piracy, and ordered the settlement to be given up to pillage, but offered to take any of the settlers who had a trade back to Virginia with him, promising them protection. Argall counted, however, without his host; for on reaching Jamestown the governor swore that the French priests should be hung. Useless were Argall’s remonstrances, and finally, seeing no other way to save the lives of the fathers, he produced the commission and acknowledged his stratagem.
The wrath of Sir Thomas Dale was unappeased, but the lives of the priests were, of course, safe. He despatched Argall with two additional ships back to Mt. Desert, with orders to cut down the cross and level the defences.
Father Biard was on board, as well as Father Massé; they, with refined cruelty, being sent to witness the destruction of their hopes.
This work of destruction completed, Argall set sail for Virginia. Again a storm arose, and the vessel on which were the ecclesiastics was driven to the Azores. Here the Jesuits, who had been so grossly ill-treated, had but a few words to say to be avenged. The captain of the vessel was not without uneasiness, and entreated the priests to remain in concealment when the vessel was visited by the authorities. This visit over, the English purchased all they needed, and weighed anchor for England. Arrived there, a new difficulty occurred; for there was no commission to show. The captain was treated as a pirate, thrown into prison, and released only on the testimony of the Jesuit Fathers, who thus returned good for evil.
Father Biard hastened to France, where he became professor of theology at Lyons, and died at Avignon on the 17th of November, 1622. Father Massé returned to Canada, where he labored without ceasing until his death, in 1646.
With the destruction of St. Sauveur, the pious designs of Mme. de Guercheville seem to have perished. At any rate, the most diligent research fails to find her name again in the annals of that time. Probably the troubled state of France made it impossible for her to provide the sinews of war, or of evangelization. Nevertheless, the good seed was planted, and zeal for the mission cause again revived in Europe, particularly in the Society of Jesus. Young men left court and camp to share the privations and life of self-denial of the missionaries. Even the convents partook of the general enthusiasm, and Ursuline Nuns came to show the Indians Christianity in daily life, ministering to the sick and instructing the young.
Many years after the melancholy failure of the mission at Mt. Desert, an apparent accident recalled the Jesuit Fathers to the coast of Maine.
In 1642 there was a mission at Sillery, on the St. Lawrence, where had been gathered together a large number of Indian converts, who lived, with their families about them, in peace and harmony under the watchful care of the kind fathers. Among these converts was a chief who, to rescue some of his tribe who had been taken prisoners, started off through the pathless wilderness, and finally reached the English at Coussinoe, now known as Augusta, on the Kennebec.