Montreal of today is perhaps the greatest educational centre on this continent. It receives its students from all parts. Let us then glance at the description given by Marguerite Bourgeoys, in her memoirs, of the humble beginnings of the first home of education in Montreal: "Four years after my arrival M. de Maisonneuve was good enough to give me a stone stable to make a school of it and to lodge there persons to conduct it. This stable has served as a dovecot and a home for cattle. It had a granary loft above to sleep in, to which it was necessary to ascend by an outside staircase. I had it cleaned and a chimney put in, and all that was necessary for schoolkeeping." School was opened on April 30. She was assisted by Marguerite Picard who on November 5 married Nicholas Godé and afterwards became Madame Lamontagne, Sieur de la Montague, son of Nicholas, the joiner, who came in 1642. The girls too old to go to school Marguerite formed, on July 2, 1658, into a pious girls' club, or sodality, on the lines of the Congregation of Externes at Troyes, of which she herself had been a member. Thus the house became known as the "Congregation."
The next date of interest this year (1658) is that of April 3rd, "when," says Dollier de Casson, "fifty Frenchmen reached here under the command of M. Dupuis, with the Jesuit fathers who had been forced to leave the mission of Onondaga for fear of being burned alive by the Iroquois. Several of their people, less disposed than they to death by being burned alive, as well as to any other kind which Providence might please to send, had such a fright that they were only cured when they came in sight of Montreal, a like miracle occurring here several times."
This is the sequel of the letters sent by Maisonneuve, and its story must be told. The letters were not delivered, but instead the treacherous Indian messenger told the Onondagas that the French had just allied themselves with the Algonquins to make war against them. This angering the Onondagans, they concerted with the Mohawks and a delegation went to Quebec, arriving on January 3, 1658, to demand the return of their twelve prisoners detained as hostages. But M. d'Ailleboust gave them little satisfaction and they departed in February.
In the same month a secret gathering was held, at Agnié of a few of the most influential heads of all the Iroquois nations, and there was sworn a war of extermination of the whites if their captives were not returned, and they would commence with the settlement of the black robes at Onondaga, which had been settled with them at their own invitation in 1656. A Christian Iroquois revealed this plot to the missionaries at Onondaga and these communicated it to Quebec. But how to escape from their own impending slaughter, the like of which had been witnessed on August 3, 1657, when seven Christians had been slain, by these same Onondagas before the horrified eyes of Father Ragueneau, then on his way, to be similarly repeated when, on reaching Onondaga, some of the Christian captives were burned, including several women and their infant children.
As Father Ragueneau was among the fugitives that came to Montreal with Zacharie Dupuis, we may take his story as substantially that which the terrified party told to the horror-stricken Montrealers but with more harrowing details. But first a note on the relater. Paul Ragueneau, born in Paris in 1605, came to Canada when he was thirty-one years of age. In 1646 he was superior of the Huron missions. He was an ideal superior and was very much valued by de Lauson and d'Avaugour on the supreme council. He left Canada in 1662 and acted as the procurator for the Canadian missions in Paris. He died in 1680, on September 3. A year after Father Dablon had sailed with his fifty Frenchmen over Lake Onondaga he was followed by Paul Ragueneau in August, 1657, with a band of thirteen or sixteen Senecas, thirty Onondagas and about fifty Christian Hurons. On the way there was a general butchery of the Hurons by the rest of the party which Ragueneau was forced to witness. When he reached Onondaga his practiced eye took in the unsettled situation. The lives of the French colonists were treacherously foresworn to Indian butchery. This plot became clearer as the autumn passed. In the early months of 1658, Ragueneau, who was superior, called in gradually the missionaries from the outstations and it was arranged with Dupuis, the French commandant, to make a secret flight on the night of March 21, 1658.
Ragueneau's official account of this, to be found in the "Relations" of this year, is as follows: "The resolution was taken to quit the country forthwith, even though the difficulties seemed unsurmountable. To supply the want of canoes we built, in secret, two boats of a novel structure to pass the rapids. They were flat-bottomed and could carry considerable freight, with fourteen or fifteen men on each. We had, besides, four Algonquin and four Iroquois canoes. The difficulty was to build and launch them without being detected, for without secrecy we could only expect a general massacre.
"After succeeding in finishing the boats we invited the savages in our neighbourhood to a solemn banquet, and spared neither the noise of drums nor instruments of music, to deceive them as to our purpose. At the feast, every one vied with each other in uttering the most piercing shrieks, now of revelry, now of war. The savages sang and danced in French fashion, and the French after the manner of the Indians. Presents were given and the greatest tumult was kept up to cover the noise of forty of our people outside, who were launching the boats. The feast was concluded, the guests retired and were soon overpowered by sleep, and we slipped out by the back way to the boats.
"The little lake on which we sailed in the darkness of the night froze as we advanced. God, however, delivered us and, after having advanced all night and all the following day, we arrived in the evening at Lake Ontario. The first day was the most dangerous. Ten or twelve Iroquois could have intercepted us, for the river was narrow, and ten leagues down the stream it leaped over a frightful precipice. It took us four hours to carry our boats around it, through a dense and unknown forest. The perils in which we walked made us shudder after we escaped them. We had no bed at night but the snow, after having passed entire days in icy water.
"Ten days after our departure we reached the St. Lawrence, but it was frozen and we had to cut a channel through the ice. Two days after our little fleet nearly foundered in the rapids. We were in the Long Sault without knowing it. We found ourselves in the midst of breakers, with rocks on all sides, against which the mountains of water flung us at every stroke of our paddles. The cries of our people, mingling with the roar of the waters, added to the horror of the scene. One of our canoes was engulfed in the breakers and barred the passage through which we all had to pass. Three Frenchmen were drowned there; a fourth fortunately saved himself by clinging to the canoe. He was picked up at the foot of the Sault just as his strength was giving out and he was letting go his hold. On the 3rd of April we landed at Montreal at the beginning of the night."