Unfortunately, as we have said, these Iroquois were divided into five nations, who often acted without concert, so that protestations of peace by wampum belts had always to be taken for what they were worth. Montreal was soon to be in daily dread of assault. Thus in the autumn, when in fancied security, owing to the recent renewal of peace, the ordinary precautions were being neglected at Montreal in the busy building and farming operations, a band of Iroquois were in ambuscade around. The sentinel was standing on a tree stump, leisurely surveying the country around, when an Iroquois who had stealthily approached, hiding at intervals behind other stumps, suddenly pounced upon him and seizing him by the legs, threw him over his shoulders and set off in flight with the bewildered soldier shrieking for his life and fighting as best he could. His cries aroused the men in the field and they pursued them until they came up to the Iroquois band with their chief at their head. They would have fared badly had not Lambert Closse come up with his men. Recognizing the chief, who was known by the French as "La Barrique," or "The Hogshead," because of his barrel-like corpulency, he ordered one of his best shots cautiously to get within fighting distance, and pick him off.
Meanwhile Hogshead, unaware of impending disaster, was standing on a stump haranguing his men and urging them to the attack, when he received a charge of heavy lead full in his body and he fell to the ground bathed in blood. Thinking him dead, his followers fled incontinently.
But he did not die, for under the skillful care of the doctors and Jeanne Mance, he was tended at the hospital and recovered, though he was seriously crippled for the rest of his days. Their charity changed his fierce disposition. When he left he promised never to go on the warpath against them again but that he would return later to conclude a peace, as indeed he did, though not so easily as he could have wished.
For a time the Iroquois left Montreal severely alone. "Let us not go thither," they would say. "They are devils there." They turned to attack the settlement of the Ile des Oies below Quebec instead. But later, on May 31, 1655, they attacked the colony and killed one Dabigeon.
Then they passed over to the other side of the St. Lawrence and pretended to be another tribe, and sent delegates to parley with the fort. Charles Le Moyne, who had just come from Quebec, recognized them as the assailants at the Ile des Oies and, suspecting treachery, they were told to come the next day. Finally, an engagement took place and five Iroquois were taken prisoners to the camp, among them Chief La Plume (or "The Feather"). Another parley now took place, and a peace was agreed upon on the proposition of Chief La Grande Armée, on condition that all the captives on both sides should be exchanged, and that peace with the Hurons and Algonquins should be observed as long as they should not advance above Three Rivers. Among the French restored were the captives taken at Ile des Oies, one of whom, Elizabeth Moyen, then a child, married Lambert Closse in 1657, and her sister Marie who remained with Jeanne Mance twenty years.
Peace concluded, the work of agriculture was pushed on although, taught by sad experience, the men went to the fields armed as usual. In order to pursue this in greater safety, de Maisonneuve, by a permission given on August 25, 1655, in the name of the Company allowed the colonists to cultivate and enjoy the fruits of the lands on the "domain of the Seigneurs," which were nearer to the fort than their own concessions. When the time came for them to be able to till the latter, the lands on the domain should be handed back. These negotiations were put into the hands of Lambert Closse, for de Maisonneuve had chosen him to hold the reins of government while he himself made a third journey to France this autumn, as the next chapter will relate.
These peace arrangements at Montreal always meant the interchange of presents which were a burden on the community instead of on the governor of Quebec, whom the early historians, with M. de Belmont, accuse of "persecuting Montreal."
In addition to what we know, de Lauson wanted to levy a tax on all imports to Montreal. He took it ill that Montreal had its storehouse at Quebec, wishing it to purchase its necessities from Quebec. He also wanted the Company of Montreal to send out more men than they found convenient. All this brought him a letter of Louis XIV in favour of Montreal.
Misfortunes clouded the last days of de Lauson. He left for France in the summer of 1656 and died in Paris on February 16, 1666, at the age of eighty-two years. His sons, for whom he had planned great possessions in Canada, did not live long after their father's departure from Canada, and he saw nearly all his family extinct before his death and all their properties reverting to the king on account of their conditions of grant not being fulfilled. His ineffectual tenure of office was due to his inefficiency, aggravated by the cruel abandonment of the French colony by the great Company.
M. de Lauson was succeeded in the post of governor general by his son, Charles de Lauson-Charny. But his administration was no more successful than that of his father. Indeed the office was not to his taste and he prevailed upon M. d'Ailleboust, who had arrived from France on September 12, 1657, to take his place, and six days after he sailed back home, disgusted with the vanities of the world, so that he entered the ecclesiastical state, returning later to work in the sacred ministry in Canada.