So passed the happy days unmolested by any foe. A friendly band of Algonquins visited the camp and after witnessing a religious procession on Assumption day, 1642, journeyed with the governor to the summit of Mount Royal. While there, it is related that two of their body, aged men, told the bystanders that they belonged to the race formerly inhabiting this island. Stretching out their arms to the slopes on the west and the south sides of the mountain they exclaimed: "Behold the places where once there were villages flourishing in numbers, whence our ancestors were driven by our enemies. Thus it is that this island became deserted and uninhabited." "My grandfather," said one old man, "tilled the earth at this place. The Indian corn grew well then." And taking up the soil in his hands: "See the richness of it," he cried, "how good it is!" Charmed with this discourse they were pressed to stay and live happily with their friends, the white men, but the wandering habits of these forest children finally prevailed.
In the month of December, the safety of the colony was threatened by the floods of the St. Lawrence which advanced over the low lying lands towards the fort. With simple faith, M. Maisonneuve planted a cross over against the invading waters, and the "Relations" of this year, tell how the floods receded on Christmas day.
In pious gratitude M. Maisonneuve would erect a permanent cross on the mountain. A trail was blazed and cut, and on the feast of the Epiphany, January 6, 1643, a procession formed, M. Maisonneuve leading, carrying the cross on his shoulders and followed by others bearing the wood for its pedestal. On reaching the summit, Père Duperon had an altar erected, and celebrated mass after the cross had been blessed and erected. At this time, there seemed to have been two priests attached to the mission. This was the origin of the annual pilgrimage, since discontinued. On the feast of St. Joseph, March 19, 1643, the main building, or the Habitation, containing the chapel of Notre Dame, the stores, and dwelling rooms for sixty persons, was completed. In front they placed the small pieces of artillery and then celebrated the occasion with a cannonade.
The life within resembled that of a religious community. For the most part they lived in common, offering a picture of the fervour and simplicity of the primitive church. Closed up for nearly eleven years for mutual safety within the fort, they learned to live a life of charity and holiness. The days were as yet uneventful, and the round of work and prayer and recreation bound them together in peace and comfort. Not only the governor and the leaders of the settlement, but all the rough soldiers and workmen led a fervent and exemplary life. The hand of obedience pressed lightly on them, and a willing service was granted by all. The "Relations" of the annals of this period are full of praise of the sanctity and peace of these early days. "One saw," says Sister Morin in the Annales of the Hôtel-Dieu, "no public sins, nor enmities, nor bitternesses; they were united in charity, ever full of esteem and affection one for another, and ready to serve one another on all occasions."
The ideal of the pious Associates of the Company of Notre Dame de Montreal at Paris was being fulfilled.
The governor, in his apostolic zeal, established confraternities among the men and women, for the conversion of the savages, for this was the motive that had inspired the foundation of this far off outpost of civilization.
The singleness of purpose of the settlers at Montreal was not lost upon the Hurons, who spoke of it to their different tribes, so that many now began to arrive. In February of 1643 a band of Algonquin braves came by, leaving their wives and children in camp while they went forth on the warpath against their enemies, the Iroquois. A few days later they were visited by Algonquin hunters, for there was much sport around. The chief of this band stayed behind with his wife, desirous to live a civilized life, and the parish register records their baptism and their Christian marriage, on March 7th, of that year, the first to be recorded in the marriage book. Soon, this was followed by the baptism of the wife and children of his uncle, a famous orator among the Algonquins, who was known as "Borgne de l'Ile." The registers finally record his baptism and his Christian marriage.
Montreal was soon to experience the effects of the alliance of the Hurons with the French, as well as some of the disasters prophesied by Montmagny to Maisonneuve at Quebec, from the war which had been declared a month before Maisonneuve's arrival. Other parts of the country had already been suffering. In 1642 Father Vimont in the "Relations" had written that the Iroquois had sworn a cruel war against the French. They blocked up all the passage of our great river, hindering commerce and menacing the whole country with ruin.
On the 2d of August, 1643, at Three Rivers, an attack was made by them on the fort and they killed or took prisoners a party of twenty-three to twenty-eight Huron allies, and with them the heroic and saintly Jesuit, Isaac Jogues, and two young Frenchmen. The saintly Jogues was subjected to much in treatment. After having cut off the thumb of his right hand and bitten off one of his fingers, they tore his nails out with their teeth, and put fire under the extremities of his mutilated fingers. Having done this they tore off his cassock and clothed him in the garb of a savage. Though he escaped, he was reserved for a martyr's death, on October 18, 1646, among the Onondagas. The year previously he had ministered to the infant church at Montreal.
At the new fort on the Iroquois River, designed by Montmagny, on August 13, 1643, the Iroquois swept down after seven days, and captured some prisoners whom they told that 700 of them were banding together and would fall upon the French colony in the beginning of next spring.