His biographer, Dollier de Casson, says he died "as a good soldier of Christ and the king." He was one of those chivalrous knights who looked upon the Montreal venture as a holy crusade against the infidels, and death to him was victory. "Gentlemen," he once explained, "I am not come here, except to die for God in the service of arms. If I did not believe I should die so, I should leave this land and go to fight against the Turk so as not to be deprived of this glory." He left behind his young widow of nineteen years, Elizabeth Moyen, and a child, Jeanne Cécile Closse, now two years old. Some colonists, being fallen upon in the fields by the Iroquois, Lambert ran, as was his wont, to their assistance. He would have saved them had he not been basely deserted by a cowardly Fleming, his serving man. The historian of the "Relations" for 1662 says, "He has justly merited the praise of having saved Montreal by his arms and his reputation."
On May 6, 1662, Picoté de Bélestre signalized that Montreal had still brave men to follow in his footsteps by the brilliant defense of the Fort Ste. Marie. This redoubt on the east, with the corresponding outlying one, on the west, of St. Gabriel, was a most valuable fortress, without which, as a writer has remarked, Montreal "would have been snuffed like a penny dip."
The Fort Ste. Marie was opposite the little rapid, down the harbour, still known as Ste. Marie's Current, and was placed among some fifty acres which had been cleared and cultivated in prehistoric days by the Indians. The site of the above event is recorded by a tablet on the corner of Campeau and Lagauchetière streets: "Here Trudeau, Roulier and Langevin-Lacroix resisted fifty Iroquois." The three men were returning to the habitation after their day's work in the fields, when suddenly one of them cried: "To arms! The enemy is upon us!" At the same moment a large party of Iroquois, who had been lurking here all day, rose and fired. Each Frenchman seized his musket and fled to a hole nearby, called "the redoubt." This they held stoutly till rescued by Bélestre, the commandant of Ste. Marie. After a brisk fight the enemy finally retired to the woods.
Apart from these alarms from the Iroquois, a new danger to life had arisen from the drunken fits of the Indian allies. On the night of June 23-24 Michel Louvard dit Desjardins had been slain before his door in Montreal by a savage, "Wolf." This produced the following ordinance from de Maisonneuve on June 24th:
"In consequence of the murder committed last night on the person of one named Desjardins by drunken savages, caused by the sale of intoxicating liquors, notwithstanding previous prohibitions given both by the Baron du Bois d'Avaugour, lieutenant general of His Majesty, and Mgr. the Bishop of Petrea, vicar apostolic; after having considered, in consequence of the sales of these drinks, the dangers of a general massacre of the inhabitants by the savages, for which there are weighty presumptions, having regard to the ordinary insolences of these latter, and considering, besides, the ordinary crimes committed on this subject by the French, of which we shall shortly inform the Baron d'Avaugour and the Bishop of Petrea, so that there shall be established good order on the subject of the sale of liquors, as well as for the good of the inhabitants and for the savages; we, while awaiting this order by virtue of the power we have received from His Majesty, have prohibited and do now prohibit all kinds of persons, of whatsoever quality and condition, from selling, giving or trading intoxicating drinks to the savages, under such pains and punishments as we shall judge proper to inflict, to procure the service of God and the good of this habitation."
This looks but just and wise; but it was also bold, seeing that the prohibition of the sale of liquor was at that moment a burning question at Quebec. It was especially bold, seeing that Maisonneuve adroitly challenged the governor general to stand by his own previous legislation, which he was now tacitly neglecting to enforce. It will be seen that de Maisonneuve made reference to powers "we have received from the king." Shortly after the publication of this ordinance the Baron d'Avaugour visited Montreal and he flatly doubted the right to introduce these words, especially as he had lately taken the stand of permitting liquor traffic with the Indians. As the governor of Montreal had been used slightingly and jealously of late by the governor general, he did not show him his documentary authority, although the reader will remember that the royal edict of March 7, 1657, warranted the words.
SIGNATURES TO MARRIAGE CONTRACT OF LAMBERT CLOSSE
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