The Montreal contingent was a powerful body of 800 men, regulars and coureurs de bois and gay young volunteers spoiling for the fight. Nearly all the manhood of Canada was gathered in the precincts of the fortressed rock of Quebec. Finally, on October 24th, Phipps retired behind the Island of Orleans to mend his rigging and repair his ships. His expedition was a failure. To this the Montrealers had largely contributed. Among their noblesse were the gallant sons of Le Moyne, who distinguished themselves, although Jacques Le Moyne de Ste. Hélène died of the wounds received in the siege, a great loss to the colony, for he was, says Charlevoix, one of its bravest knights and citizens. When Louis XIV wrote on the 7th of May, 1691, to Frontenac and Champigny, the intendant, the king gave Le Moyne de Longueuil, and his brother, de Maricourt, commands of companies and a promise of good things in store for d'Iberville and a commission to undertake the enterprise of Fort Nelson and Hudson Bay to drive the English away. Later de Callières and others were to be remembered by the king for their good services. Frontenac himself received a gratification of 6,000 livres, which no doubt he needed, for he had consumed all his property.
Next spring, that of 1691, the Iroquois, after the winter hunting, gathered at the mouth of the Ottawa, and parties went forth to harass the settlements. Soon Pointe aux Trembles and the Mountain Mission were attacked. Near Fort Repentigny, young François de Bienville, one of Le Moyne's sons, was killed in an attack of the marauders.
In midsummer, a detachment of 266 men—120 English and Dutch and the rest Iroquois allies—under Major Peter Schuyler, advancing upon Montreal, met the French at La Prairie de la Madeleine, opposite Montreal. Thither, de Callières had moved. At first the English had the day, but owing to the intrepid conduct of Valrennes they were forced to flee. For before reaching their canoes on the Richelieu they were intercepted by Valrennes, who gave Schuyler's party, according to Frontenac's statement, "the most hot and stubborn fight ever known in Canada."
Thus, was Montreal and Canada in a state of great trial in the summer of 1691 and the year of 1692. Frontenac wrote home, "What with fighting and hardship, our troops and militia are wasting away. The enemy is upon us by sea and land. Send us a thousand men next spring, if you want the country to be saved. We are perishing by inches; the people are in the depth of poverty; the war has doubled prices, so that nobody can live; many families are without bread. The inhabitants desert the country and crowd into the towns."
The fortifications of Montreal and Quebec needed strengthening but there was little money to further the work. Still something was done. The country round Montreal during these years of 1691 and 1692 was in fear and trembling. The farmers worked in the fields with sentinels, and a guard of regulars protected them, and at night they shivered in their huts in the rudely fashioned palisaded stockades reared to protect them. Their anger was so great that fearful reprisals took place. At Montreal a number of Iroquois captured by Vaudreuil were burned at the demand of the Canadians and the Mission Indians.
It was a troublous time around Montreal and even the women and children were called upon to fight. A picture has been preserved to us in the heroic story of the defence, of Fort Verchères, eight leagues from Montreal, by Madeleine de Verchères, the fourteen-year-old daughter of the seigneur of the place, who by her wonderful presence of mind, coolness and courage saved the lives of a number of women and children, two soldiers, her young brothers, aged twelve and ten, and an old man and kept the Iroquois at bay holding the fort for a week in the absence of her father at Quebec and her mother at Montreal. Then help arrived after the firing had been heard from Montreal and the Iroquois were driven off by the relief force from Montreal under M. de la Monnerie at the head of forty men. [146]
This deed of arms, beginning at eight o'clock in the morning of October 22, 1696, deserves to be commemorated among the noblest actions of heroic womanhood. There is room for the painter, the romancist, or the sculptor, justly to celebrate the glory of a national heroine in Marie-Madeleine de Verchères.
In 1693, in January, a great expedition which was largely followed by the Mission Indians of Sault St. Louis (Caughnawaga) and the Mountain, those from Lorette at Quebec, Abenakis from the Chaudière and Algonquins from Three Rivers, left Chambly on snowshoes for the Iroquois towns—a party of 625 men under Mantet, Courtemanche and Noue. On February 16th they took three of these towns.