Count Frontenac / Makers of Canada, Volume 3

by William Dawson LeSueur

It was from these narratives, so carefully and skilfully edited for purposes of edification, that the impulse proceeded which moved pious souls to contribute, in some cases their labours, in others their wealth, to the advancement of the cause of religion in the wilds of Canada. The fathers told of their difficulties and discouragements; but they told also of the many signs vouchsafed that Heaven was interested in their self-sacrificing efforts. Sometimes they made direct appeals for assistance. A Jesuit school for boys had been established, as already mentioned, as early as 1635. A few years later Father Le Jeune writes in the Relations: "Is there no charitable and virtuous lady who will come to this country to gather up the blood of Christ by teaching His word to the little Indian girls?" The call was answered in the establishment of the Ursuline Convent. It is not easy, in these days of swift, safe, and luxurious travel, to imagine what it was in the earlier part of the seventeenth century for women of delicate nurture to leave friends and home and civilized surroundings, and, braving the Atlantic storms in small, ill-equipped and comfortless vessels, to set their faces towards a continent lost in the distant west, amid whose forests a handful of pioneers were doubtfully holding their ground against the scowling hordes of savagery. The historian, Parkman, devotes two chapters of his Jesuits in North America to an account of these enterprises, and of the holy women whose names are inseparably connected with them. In Madame Guyard, Mère de l'Incarnation, who became Superior of the convent, he recognizes a very true woman, full of tender feeling, yet endowed with practical abilities of the first order. Of Margaret Bourgeoys, founder of the Congrégation de Notre Dame at Montreal, he speaks with equal enthusiasm. "Her portrait," he says, "has come down to us; and her face is a mirror of frankness, loyalty, and womanly tenderness. Her qualities were those of good sense, conscientiousness, and a warm heart. Her religion was of the affections, and was manifested in an absorbing devotion to duty." He recognizes "in the martial figure of Maisonneuve, and the fair form of this gentle nun, the true heroes of Montreal."[4]

Maisonneuve was the true type of the Christian warrior. An association of religious persons at Paris, of whom M. Jean Olier, founder of the Seminary of St. Sulpice, and M. Royer de la Dauversière were chief, had obtained from the Company of New France a grant of the greater portion of the Island of Montreal, and a considerable block of land to the east thereof on the north shore of the river St. Lawrence. To effect this it had been necessary to pay a considerable sum of money to extinguish a prior claim of one M. de Lauson, an officer of the company, to the same territory. Marvellous stories are told of the supernatural communications received by MM. Olier and Dauversière, by which the duty was laid upon them of sending a colony for purposes of evangelization to the Island of Montreal, of the existence of which, it is averred, they had no previous knowledge. However this may have been—natural means of knowledge, it may be observed, were available in the Relations of the Jesuits—an association was formed under the title of the Associates of Montreal; money was liberally subscribed; the island was purchased; and the members of the projected colony were brought together. A "Greatheart" was needed to conduct the little band; and Maisonneuve, who was home from the wars of the Low Countries, hearing of the holy enterprise, placed his sword and his life at the service of the association. In the month of May 1641 two small vessels sailed from La Rochelle, one bearing M. de Maisonneuve and twenty-five men, the other Mdlle. Mance, a Jesuit priest, and twelve other men. Both arrived safely at Quebec in the month of August. Governor Montmagny wished to keep what he regarded as a valuable reinforcement at Quebec; but Maisonneuve insisted on carrying out his mission. He went up to Montreal accordingly before the navigation closed, in company with the governor, to take formal possession of the island, but returned to winter in Quebec. In the spring he took his whole party up the river, arriving at Montreal on the 18th of May. Madame de la Peltrie leaving her own work at Quebec accompanied him, only to return, however, after a short stay. An altar was erected on the riverside, and mass was celebrated by the Jesuit father, Vincent, who afterwards delivered an address, in which he said he doubted not that the grain of mustard seed they were then sowing was designed by Providence to become a mighty tree.

The prophecy has been amply fulfilled, but many anxious years had to pass before the destiny of the tree was at all assured. The position of Montreal was far more precarious than that of Quebec, as it was so much more accessible to the sworn enemies of the colony, the Iroquois. For twenty-four years Maisonneuve held the post of military governor, edifying all by his piety, and inspiring confidence in all by his bravery and vigilance. The story of his trials and of his prowess, is it not told, with a rich blending of supernatural elements, in the naïve record of Dollier de Casson, and the more comprehensive and systematic, but equally naïve, history of the learned and unfailingly interesting Abbé Faillon? And yet—such is the irony of human events—when a very pious governor, the Marquis de Tracy, came out in 1665 as the king's lieutenant-general for all his North American possessions, one of his first acts, inspired, it is said, by the council at Quebec, was to dismiss this veteran warrior as being unfit for his position. Making no demur, attempting no self-justification, but bowing to the stroke, which he regarded as an intimation of the will of Providence, the brave Maisonneuve retired quietly to France, where he spent the remainder of his days.

After a service of twelve years as governor M. de Montmagny was relieved in 1648, and replaced by M. d'Ailleboust, who had previously exercised judicial functions at Montreal in close association with M. de Maisonneuve, whom he resembled in the exalted and ascetic character of his piety. The name of Montmagny had been translated by the Indians into "Onontio," signifying "Great Mountain"; and henceforth all French governors were, in Indian parlance, "Great Mountains." M. d'Ailleboust retained office only three years. During his administration, as during that of his predecessor, the Iroquois were incessant in their depredations, which they would sometimes carry on under the very palisades of Montreal. They succeeded during this period in all but exterminating the Hurons, their traditional foes and now allies of the French. One or two treaties were made with the aggressive savages, and once or twice they were repelled with loss; but the treaties were not to be depended on, nor were the defeats such as to give them serious check. One event which marked the latter part of M. de Montmagny's administration must not be overlooked. The Company of New France, or of the Hundred Associates, had, as we have seen, begun operations upon the retrocession of the colony by England in 1632. According to their charter their work was to be one of colonization as well as of trading; but ten years later the total French population of Canada, Montreal included, did not exceed two hundred souls. The country, instead of being developed, was being strangled, the company having absolute control, not only of the fur trade, but of its commerce generally, which it hampered in every possible way. Meantime the company itself was losing money. Negotiations were therefore entered into between the inhabitants, represented by M. de Repentigny, who went to France for the purpose, and the officers of the company. The result being that, in the month of January 1645, a treaty, as it was called, was made between the company on the one hand, and the inhabitants, through their delegate, on the other, by which the former, while retaining all their sovereign proprietary and feudal rights, with power of nominating the governor and the judges, threw open to the latter, not individually but as a community, the fur trade of Canada on condition that they should assume all expenses of civil administration and military defence, pay the salaries of the clergy, bring into the country every year twenty new colonists, and finally hand over to the company annually one thousand pounds weight of assorted beaver skins. The inhabitants were, by this arrangement, which received the royal sanction on the 6th March 1645, formed into a corporation, afterwards called the "New Company," to distinguish it from the Company of New France or the "Old Company." It was understood that the New Company would elect its own managers; while the Old Company reserved the right to keep certain officials of its own in the country to watch over its interests, throwing the cost of their maintenance, however, on the inhabitants in their corporate capacity.

This arrangement was received at the time with some satisfaction by the colonists, but in reality it was a most illiberal one, under which it was impossible for the country to thrive. Its immediate effect was to send nearly all the men of the settlement into the woods, and to turn the wilder and more daring spirits into coureurs de bois, a class of men who will figure largely in our subsequent narrative. Two years later we find the inhabitants complaining to the king that the new scheme was working very badly, and giving rise to serious "abuses and malversations." The king did not know very well what to do about it; but by the advice of certain of his ministers he decided to place the government of the colony on a slightly wider basis, with just the least particle in it of a representative element. To this end he created a council which was to consist of the governor, the ex-governor, if he were in the country, the superior of the Jesuits, pending the appointment of a bishop, and two inhabitants to be selected by the council, or three if the ex-governor were not residing in the country. In addition, the three settlements of Quebec, Montreal, and Three Rivers could each elect a "syndic," to hold office for three years, and to have a deliberative voice in the council, but no vote.

The effect of this measure, which seems to have been adopted without consulting the Company of New France, was to give the council full control of the fur trade of the country. That trade had to bear all the expenses of government, as well as provide for the toll to be paid to the Old Company; and it rested with the council to fix the proportion which the inhabitants should contribute out of the gross proceeds of the furs they either bought from the Indians or procured by the chase. If they bought from the Indians they would have to pay for them with goods purchased at the general stores, which again were controlled by the council or its nominees; and it was a constant matter of complaint that the prices of these goods were so high that it was impossible to trade with the Indians on any favourable terms; the latter, as a rule, having sense enough to put up their prices accordingly. A more burdensome system, or one more liable to abuse, could not easily be imagined.

In 1651, M. de Lauson was sent to replace M. d'Ailleboust. The question at this time was seriously debated whether the colony would not have to be abandoned. The settlement at Montreal was in imminent danger of extinction. Maisonneuve saw clearly that, with the scanty force he had, it was only a matter of time when the place would be at the mercy of the foe. He therefore sailed in this year for France, determined, if he could not obtain reinforcements, to return to Canada and bring all his people back to France. The position of matters at Quebec was little better. Mère de l'Incarnation writes: "The Iroquois have made such ravages in this part of the country that for a time we thought we should all have to return to France." Maisonneuve succeeded in his mission; but he was two years absent from the country, and meantime anxiety both at Quebec and at Montreal was at the highest pitch. He arrived in the month of September 1653, bringing with him over one hundred soldiers carefully chosen and well equipped, furnished, not by the government or the Hundred Associates, who were tolerably indifferent to the fate of Montreal, but by the company which had sent him out in the first place. The governor was anxious to keep the whole force at Quebec; and Maisonneuve had to exercise considerable firmness in order to be permitted to take them all with him to Montreal. It was in the vessel which brought out this detachment that Margaret Bourgeoys, whose name has already been mentioned, came to Canada. She was struck on her arrival by the desperately poverty-stricken look of the country. "There were at the time in the Upper Town" (of Quebec), she says, "only five or six houses, and in the Lower Town only the storehouse of the Jesuits and that of the Montreal people. The hospital nuns were dressed in grey. The poverty on all sides was something pitiable." The Quebec Ursulines were desirous that Sister Bourgeoys should join their community, and afterwards perhaps assist them in establishing a branch of their convent in Montreal; but the future foundress of the Congrégation de Notre Dame knew her own mind. Her purpose in coming to Canada was to establish a school for girls at Montreal, and to Montreal she would go.

The weakness of the colony was painfully exhibited about this time in its dealings with the Iroquois. The principal remnant of the Huron nation, whose original settlements occupied the country between the Georgian Bay and Lake Simcoe, had taken refuge from their cruel enemies in the Island of Orleans just below Quebec. Even here, they were not left in peace. In the month of February 1654 a number of Iroquois came down to Quebec ostensibly to negotiate for peace, but secretly nourishing deadly designs against the unfortunate Hurons. What they proposed was that those who were settled on the Island of Orleans should leave their habitations there, go to the Iroquois country, and incorporate themselves, as a portion of their nation had already done, with the Iroquois confederacy. They also asked that a French colony, including a certain number of priests—"black robes," as they called them—should be planted in their territory. Although these propositions were believed to mask the most murderous intentions, it was considered imprudent to reject them, as the colony was in no condition to withstand the general attack which it was feared would in that case ensue. After some delay, therefore, a colony consisting of over fifty French left Quebec in the early summer of 1656, the understanding being that the Hurons would follow later.

The Iroquois nation or confederacy comprised, as is generally known, five separate tribes, occupying the central and north-western portion of what is now the state of New York, and known—to mention them in geographical order from east to west—as Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, and Senecas. There was a keen competition between the Mohawks and the Onondagas, both for the French colony and for the possession of the remnant of the Hurons. The colony was sent to the Onondagas; and the Mohawks in a spirit of revenge made a descent on the Island of Orleans, killed a number of Hurons, and carried over eighty into captivity. In their retreat they also committed various depredations under the very walls of Quebec—in so deplorable a condition of helplessness was even the citadel of French power in Canada. Two years later the French colony established among the Onondagas made its escape from impending massacre in a manner little short of miraculous; but meantime, in defiance and contempt of French authority, numbers of unfortunate Hurons had been slaughtered or carried into captivity.

M. de Lauson, the governor, does not seem to have been a man of any great force of character. Moreover he was now over seventy years of age, and, considering the helpless condition in which he was left—practically abandoned by the Old Company and very feebly supported by the New—it is scarcely surprising that he should have anticipated the conclusion of his term of office, and returned to France in the summer of 1656. His son, M. de Charny-Lauson, replaced him for a year, when he too sailed for France without awaiting the arrival of his successor, M. d'Argenson. At his request M. d'Ailleboust consented to act as interim governor.