Chapter XXVIII
1683-1687
WAR AGAIN. THE IROQUOIS. NEW YORK AND HUDSON'S BAY
THE GOVERNMENTS OF DE LA BARRE AND DENONVILLE
GOVERNOR DE LA BARRE OPPOSES LA SALLE--THE POW-WOW IN THE NEW PARISH CHURCH--WAR PREPARATIONS AT MONTREAL--THE DISEASE-STRICKEN EXPEDITIONS RETURN--LAVAL LEAVES FOR FRANCE--THE PIONEER PAPER MONEY INVENTED TO PAY THE SOLDIERS--NOTES ON "CARDS" AND CURRENCY DURING FRENCH REGIME--GOVERNOR DENONVILLE AND MGR. DE ST. VALLIER ARRIVE--CALLIERES BECOMES GOVERNOR OF MONTREAL--A GLOOMY REPORT ON THE "YOUTH" AND DRAMSHOPS--MGR. DE ST. VALLIER'S MANDEMENT OF THE VANITY OF THE WOMEN--THE FORTIFICATIONS REPAIRED--SALE OF ARMS CONDEMNED--THE STRUGGLE FOR CANADA BY THE ENGLISH OF NEW YORK--THE STRUGGLE FOR HUDSON'S BAY--THE PARTY FROM MONTREAL UNDER THE SONS OF CHARLES LE MOYNE--THE DEATH OF LA SALLE--OTHER MONTREAL DISCOVERERS--A PSYCHOLOGICAL APPRECIATION OF LA SALLE'S CHARACTER.
The recall of Frontenac had great influence on La Salle's career, for the new governor, de La Barre, an aged man wanting in firmness and decision, intended to enrich himself[130] and had accordingly connected himself with a clique of merchants in the colony, intent on the monopoly of the western fur trade. He believed in their representations that by acting with them, he would be enabled to obtain large profits. The principals in this arrangement were Aubert de la Chesnaye, Jacques Leber and Charles Le Moyne, the latter two of Montreal.
Accordingly, when on April 3, 1683, after hearing that his protector, Frontenac, had sailed for France, La Salle wrote the new governor, telling of his success in the expedition to the mouth of the Mississippi, and dwelling on the necessity of establishing colonists along the route which he had opened, and asked that such of his men as were sent to Montreal for supplies should not be arrested, he little knew how poorly his exploration was valued by the governor. In a second letter he speaks of the threatened rising of the Iroquois in the Michillimackinac district, and of the danger he was in, at his Fort St. Louis, on the River Illinois, on the top of "Starved Rock" (as it was afterwards called after Pontiac's war in 1764), with but twenty men, and only 100 pounds of powder. He asks that his men should not be detained, as he was in need of reinforcements; likewise, that no seizure of his property in Montreal should be permitted as he was in want of munitions and supplies.
No supplies were sent him and his men were made prisoners in Montreal as transgressors of the law. Moreover, on pretense that the conditions, on which his fort at Frontenac had been granted, had not been carried out, the governor sent Leber and de la Chesnaye to seize it in the royal name. La Salle determined to appeal in person to the minister in France and coming down the lakes he met the Chevalier de Baugis, who had been sent by de La Barre to seize his Fort St. Louis. In the next year, 1684, the king wrote to the governor and the intendant, de Moules, commanding them to make restitution to La Salle for the injury done him at Fort Frontenac and Fort St. Louis.
Hardly had La Barre arrived in Canada than he learned of the declaration of war by the Iroquois against the Illinois, the allies of the French. A deliberation of the highest in the land resulted in a request to the king for help to restrain the Iroquois, which brought the promise of a convoy of 200 soldiers to be sent without delay from France! Wishing, however, to compromise with the Iroquois and to make peace rather than war which would damage his personal trade relations at Cataracqui, the governor sent Charles Le Moyne as envoy to Onondaga to invite a deputation of their chiefs to visit Montreal. This was fixed for June, but it was not till August that a meagre delegation from but five cantons arrived, and the grand council was held in the newly built church of Montreal.
Parkman tells the story thus: "Presents were given to the deputies (forty-three Iroquois chiefs) to the value of more than two thousand crowns. Soothing speeches were made them and they were urged not to attack the tribes of the lakes, nor to plunder French traders, without permission. They assented and La Barre then asked, timidly, why they made war on the Illinois. 'Because they deserve to die,' haughtily returned the Iroquois orator. La Barre dared not answer. They complained that La Salle had given guns, powder and lead to the Illinois; or in other words, that he had helped the allies of the colony to defend themselves. La Barre, who hated La Salle and his monopolies, assured them that he should be punished. It is affirmed on good authority that he said more than this, and told them that they were welcome to plunder and kill him. The rapacious old man was playing with a two-edged sword." ("Frontenac," p. 84).
Montreal that summer witnessed the preparations of La Barre and his 200 men, who left Quebec on July 10th ostensibly to fight the Iroquois around Fort Frontenac; among them was de la Chesnaye. The new intendant, Jacques de Meulles, Sieur de la Source, grieving no doubt that he had to finance this new war, has the lowest opinion of this enterprise and writes to the minister (July 8-11): "In a word, Monseigneur, this war has been decided upon in the cabinet of monsieur, the general (La Barre) along with six of the chief merchants of the country," and in a postscript he added, "I will finish this letter, Monseigneur, by telling you that he set out yesterday, July 10th, with a detachment of 200 men. All Quebec was filled with grief to see him embark on an expedition of war, tête à tête with the man La Chesnaye. Everybody says that the war is a sham, that these two will arrange everything between them and in a word do whatever will help their trade. The whole country is in despair to see how matters are managed." (Quoted by Parkman, "Frontenac," p. 103.)
After a long stay at Montreal the little army of 130 regular soldiers, 700 Canadians and 200 savages, principally Iroquois from Caughnawaga and Hurons from Lorette near Quebec, embarked at Lachine. The party from Montreal landed under the palisades of Fort Frontenac or Cataracqui, on a low, damp plain and became the victims of a malarial fever of which the men sickened. On the 3d of September Le Moyne was sent to La Famine at the mouth of the Salmon River, bringing with him the wily and astute orator of the Iroquois, Big Mouth, Latinized by La Hontan, who was present, as "Grangula." At the council which followed at La Famine, whither La Barre with such of his men who were well enough to move, had crossed to meet the Iroquois in their own territory, Big Mouth had all the honours and the ending was humiliating for the French. He declared the Iroquois could fight the Illinois to the death, and La Barre dared not utter a word in behalf of his allies. "He promised to decamp," says Parkman, "and set out for home on the following morning, being satisfied with the promise that the Iroquois would repair the damage done the French traders in the war against the Illinois--a promise never realized. La Barre embarked and hastened home in advance of his men. His camp was again full of the sick. Their comrades placed them, shivering with ague fits, on board the flatboats and canoes; and the whole force, scattered and disordered, floated down the current to Montreal. Nothing had been gained but a thin and flimsy peace, with new troubles and dangers plainly visible behind it." ("Frontenac," p. 111).
At Montreal, as a consequence of this disease-stricken expedition, the Hôtel-Dieu was filled with the sick, as was that of Quebec. The end was humiliating to La Barre; the honour was with the Iroquois and the Illinois allies had been shamefully abandoned. The treaty of La Famine was received by the colony with contumely and shortly afterwards the inefficient governor received his recall, polite, but unmistakable in its import.
On November 14th, Monseigneur de Laval left for France, sixty-one years of age, but broken down by his austere duties and unremitting labours. He attended the Sovereign Council on August 28th, and fought against the making of the secular clergy into "irremovable curés"--a policy which has been continued to this day. On November 2d, he established the Chapter of Quebec Cathedral, consisting of twelve canons and four chaplains. He came back to Quebec again on August 15, 1688, and took up his quarters at his beloved seminary founded by him, not any longer with the burdens and honours of the Episcopate, but as a simple retired prelate, the father-in-God of his seminarists--till nearly his death on May 6, 1708. He was a man who was a sign for contradiction to many, yet always firm, zealous, unbending and of upright principles, which even his enemies recognized, though they might have quailed before him and have withstood him.
De Meulles still continued as intendant, not being recalled till 1686. He was endowed with much initiative and executive ability, which La Barre wanted, so that he nearly brought the country to ruin. After the disgraceful treaty with the Iroquois, on September 4th, de Meulles found that the drain on the exchequer was so great that he was at his wits' end to pay the soldiers who belonged to "le détachement in French de la marine"--in spite of the name, purely a land body, supported by the department "of the marine," there being no colonial office to France. This detachment was organized in France about the year 1682, from among the disbanded soldiers who had taken part in the Dutch or other wars, to protect the inhabitants of New France from the relentless raids of ever-roving bands of ruthless Iroquois, which had become so persistent as almost to paralyze the agricultural pursuits as well as the trade and commerce of the country.
How was the intendant, de Meulles, to pay these soldiers? There was little or no coin currency. Beaver skins and wheat were legal tender, but very bulky and very inconvenient for small accounts. The dearth of currency may be explained as follows: In New France currency difficulties had always prevailed because any few doles of coin that came from the home government were returned as remittances by the importers as the balance of trade was always against the colony and therefore exchange was necessarily high. In 1670 a special coinage of 15 and 5 sol pieces of silver and doubles in copper were struck at Paris and sent out with a proviso that they should not be circulated in the mother country. But notwithstanding this interdiction these also were sent as remittances. Thus there was little or no coin currency in the country with which to trade. The ready witted intendant therefore invented the pioneer paper money, which originally circulated in the form of a note, on the back of an ordinary playing card signed by de Meulles, in 1685. It was the beginning of the paper money which is now so largely used all over the world. De Meulles hit upon the plan of using whole, or cutting up, ordinary playing cards into halves or quarters, with the word "bon" inserted on each, for a certain sum, signed and sealed in wax with his own hand and countersigned by the clerk of the treasury as they were issued. This emergency card money is claimed by Mr. R. W. McLachlan as the first regular paper money issued in any Caucasian nation. He claims that the Massachusetts paper money, issued first five years after that of Canada, for the similar purpose of paying soldiers, was an imitation.
A new supply of these cards was issued in October, 1711. The old issue disappeared and there is not one left even for antiquarian collections. Further issues were made in 1714 and 1717, but in this latter year the total withdrawal of the old cards was ordered. By 1720 these cards had all been redeemed by the government.
In 1721 a copper currency was struck for the colony at the mint of La Rochelle and Rouen of nine denier pieces. Though issued with a proclamation throughout New France they were never acceptable to the Canadians and were at last withdrawn. There was then after the issue of the cards of 1717 a lull of about ten years, when in 1729 recourse was again had to the convenient paper money, but the playing card was superseded by a plain white card with clipped edges and with various other changes in stamps and signatures. This system was continued until Intendant Bigot's time and the fall of New France. The inventory of Jacques LeBer of Montreal, dated June 7, 1735, showing coins to the value of 84 livres 8 sols 3 deniers, and card money to the value of 2833.3.0, indicates the early predominance of card money. About 1750 Bigot introduced, as a new currency, an unauthorized note called an "ordonnance," which, unlike the card issue, did not seek the governor's approval by seal or signature. They were more than twice as large, on forms printed in France on ordinary writing paper, with blank spaces for filling in the amount, the date, and number in writing. These "ordonnances" were orders on the treasury of Quebec or, in the case of the fall of the capital, of Montreal, which could pass as cash and were redeemable in bulk, either in card money, or by drafts on the treasurer of the marine in France. This method afforded ample scope for peculation both from the government and the people. At first Bigot's issue of "ordonnances" was slight but by the end of the French régime, it exceeded 80,000,000 livres or nearly $14,000,000. This was a large sum for an impoverished country to refund. It was years after it was redeemed and some never so by the French Government, after the fall of the French régime in Canada. The cards and "ordonnances" were a drug on the market for many years pending redemption, so that the original holders gained very little. The introduction of specie did much to reconcile the French to the British régime.[131]
1685
La Barre's successor was the Marquis of Denonville, a pious colonel of dragoons, who had seen much active service, and who could act when occasion required with firmness and vigour. In the same boat with him and his wife there arrived at Quebec in the beginning of August, 1685, Laval's successor, the bishop-elect, the young, impetuous, zealous and rigid Monseigneur de Saint-Vallier--and a lasting friendship was then cemented. Denonville's instructions ordered him to uphold the allies of France, to humiliate the Iroquois and to establish peace on a solid basis. He was to spare no effort to maintain a good understanding with the English but should they and the Iroquois be allied in their battles, they were to be treated as enemies. On the 6th of August he presided at the Sovereign Council. After staying a short time at Quebec he went to Montreal and there set up the Chevalier de Callières, a former captain of the Navarre Regiment, as the governor in place of M. Perrot, who had been sent to Acadia (being appointed in 1684), where as governor he pursued the same tactics as at Montreal and was replaced in 1687. Denonville's reign with the English and the Iroquois was stormy, but he was singularly peaceful in his relations with the bishop, the intendant and the governor of Montreal.
A gloomy picture of Canadian life, which applies equally to Montreal, was sent by Denonville to France in his letters of August 20, September 3 and November 12, 1685. "The youths," he says, "are so badly trained that the moment they are able to shoulder a gun their fathers dare not speak reprovingly to them. They do not take kindly to labour, having no occupation but hunting; they prefer the life of the coureur de bois, where there is no curé or father to restrain them, and in which they adopt the life of the Indian even to going about naked. The life has great attractions for them, for on carnival days and other days of feasting and debauchery they imitate the Indian in all things, their company being frequently lawless and unruly. The noblesse of Canada is in a condition of extreme poverty. To increase their number is to multiply a class of lounging idlers. The sons of the councillors are not more industrious than the other youths. The men are tall, well made, well set up, robust, active, accustomed to live on little. They are wayward, lightminded and inclined to debauchery but have intelligence and veracity; the women and girls, pretty, but idle from want of occupation in the minor work of the sex.
"Nothing," says Denonville, "can be finer or better conceived than the regulations formed for the government of this country; but nothing, I assure you, is so ill-observed as regards both the fur trade and the general discipline of the colony. One great evil is the infinite number of drinking shops, which makes it almost impossible to remedy the disorders resulting from them. All the rascals and idlers of the country are attracted to this business of tavern keeping. They never dream of tilling the soil, but on the contrary they deter the other inhabitants from it, and end with ruining them. I know seignories where there are but twenty houses, and more than half of them dram shops. At Three Rivers there are twenty-five houses and liquor may be had at eighteen or twenty of them. Ville Marie (Montreal) and Quebec are on the same footing. The villages governed by the Jesuits and Sulpicians are models. Drunkenness there is not seen. But it is sad to see the ignorance of the population at a distance from the abodes of the curés, who are put to the greatest trouble to remedy the evils, traveling from place to place through the parishes in their charges." (Denonville au ministre, Parkman, "Old Régime," pp. 375-6-7; vide, résumé of Kingsford, I, 65.)
The clergy, however, did their work manfully and unflinchingly and it was their devotion to their work of upbuilding the morality and character of the French Canadians that assured them the prestige which is enjoyed by them to this day. Bishop St. Vallier confirms Denonville, La Barre, Duchesneau and other contemporary writers when he says that, "the Canadian youths are for the most part demoralized," and although previously, in 1688, he had written very favourably on the religious state of Canada, in a pastoral mandate of October 31, 1690, he says: "Before we first knew our flock we thought that the English and the Iroquois were the only wolves we had to fear; but God having opened our eyes to the disorders of this diocese and made us feel more and more the weight of our charge, we are forced to confess that our most dangerous foes are drunkenness, impurity, and slander." The Canadian drank hard and many a man was old at forty. "But," says Parkman ("Old Régime," p. 378), "nevertheless the race did not die out. The prevalence of early marriages and the birth of numerous offspring before the vigour of the father had been wasted ensured the strength and hardihood which characterized the Canadians." Bishop St. Vallier soon visited Montreal and his description of the mountain settlement we have already given.
Here we may add a scathing picture which occurs in the ordinance of Monseigneur Jean Baptiste de Saint-Vallier, dated October 22, 1686, touching modesty and the want of veneration in the churches. It may justly apply to the Montreal ladies of the period, since it complains, "of the luxury and the vanity reigning, throughout the whole country among the girls and grown-up women, with more licence and scandal than ever. They are not content to have on them habits, the price and style of which are much above the means or the condition of life of those wearing them, but they affect moreover immodest head-dresses within and without their homes, and often even in the churches, leaving heads uncovered or only decked with a transparent veil and with an assemblage of ribbons, lace work, curls and other vanities. But what is still more to be deplored, and what pierces our soul with sorrow, is that they have no difficulty in rendering themselves the instruments of the demon and in cooperating with the loss of souls, bought by the blood of Jesus Christ, by uncovering the nudités of their neck and shoulders, the sight of which makes an infinite number of persons to fall." The good bishop might be similarly shocked if he visited Montreal today.[132]
In the spring of 1685, M. de Callières, the governor of Montreal, employed 600 men under the direction of M. du Luth, royal engineer, to erect a palisade around the town.[133] It was made of wood stakes furnished by the citizens and had to be constantly repaired. This palisade, with curtains and bastions, was 13 feet in height and there were five gates, those of Lachine, the Recollects, the Port, St. Martin and St. Lawrence; and five posterns, de Maricourt, the barracks, the General Hospital, the Hôtel-Dieu and de Callières.
About this time there was apparently laxity in the retention of arms. For one cause or another many households were very scantily accommodated, through sale or truck, or on account of seizure for debt. Accordingly a notice of the supreme council was affixed to the door of the parish church of Montreal by the sergeant, Quesneville, on February 18, 1686. After emphasizing the importance of the obligation which the Marquis de Denonville had laid upon every house-holder in the colony of being well armed, the council forbade all persons of whatever quality or condition to deprive themselves of their arms by sale or otherwise, unless they had weapons beyond what was necessary, to arm each father of the family, and his children and domestics, who shall have attained to the age of fourteen years; it forbade all "huissiers and sergeants of justice to seize these arms, all tavern keepers and others to buy them, or truck them, under penalties named."
With Denonville's advent as the representative of Louis XIV, the struggle for supremacy between Canada and the English, under Thomas Dongan, the Irish Catholic governor of New York representing James II, of England, began to assume warlike proportions. The English of New York were laying claim to the whole country south of the Great Lakes and were anxious to control the great western fur trade. The northern fur trade was being bid for by the Hudson's Bay Company, and the fisheries of New Acadia were being seized upon by the New Englanders. In the regions of Michillimackinac the English were striving to alienate the Hurons, Ottawas and other like tribes; they had already on their side, the Iroquois, whose arrogance to the French, especially that of the Senecas, was so galling that it seemed necessary for French prestige to humble them. Such were de Denonville's instructions. This was one of the reasons why he wished to build his fort at Niagara as early as May, 1685--a project highly displeasing to Dongan--to counteract the English desire for the same purpose, namely to obtain supremacy over the tribes in that direction and to be masters of the trade, for that was what most mattered.[134]
This was de Denonville's motive also for his projected forts at Toronto, or Lake Erie, and that at Détroit, for which latter enterprise he commissioned du Luth of Montreal. The intense rivalry showed itself in 1686 in the organized attempt of the French to dispute the supremacy claimed by the Hudson's Bay Company, then in its infancy, on the western shore of that dreary inland sea. As so many Montrealers joined in this effort, it may be recorded more fully than could otherwise be permitted.
Let us, then, turn to the rivalry existing between the English and French in Hudson's Bay, represented by the great company of that name and the Canadian rival body, "La Compagnie du Nord." The English firm had discovered the bay under Hudson and, with the help of the two renegade Frenchmen, Médard Chouart des Groseilliers and Pierre Esprit de Radisson,[135] both well known at Montreal, as bold and unscrupulous coureurs de bois and fur traders, had formed a company with English capital from London and had established Fort Nelson near the mouth of the Nelson River, and then other forts, Albany, Rupert and Monsipi or Monsoni (Fort Hayes) on the southern end of the bay. But the French had a grant of the fur industry from Louis XIV and had done some trading there before the advent of the English. It had been taken possession of, in 1672, in the name of Louis XIV by the Jesuit Albanel (one of the early Montreal missionaries) and M. de St. Simon, and the French had built Fort Thérèse, which, on being taken from them by the English, was named Fort Nelson.
The French merchants desiring to oust their competitors appealed to Denonville and he commissioned the Chevalier de Troyes, a captain of infantry, to chase the English from the bay and retake their own. With him went the young d'Iberville (then twenty-four years of age) and his brothers Maricourt and St. Hélène, seventy Canadians and thirty soldiers, "all," says Ferland, "accustomed to long marches, able to manage canoes, to withstand the most piercing colds and well versed in 'la petite guerre.'" Their chaplain was the Jesuit Silvy. The party left Montreal in the month of March, 1686, when the rivers were still frozen and the snow was on the ground. They mounted the rivers and lakes on their snowshoes, dragging their provisions, arms and materials for canoe construction on their sleds, reaching the River Monsipi, near Fort Hayes, the first English fort, in June or so, which shortly afterwards fell with Forts Rupert and Albany, largely on account of the brilliant exploits of d'Iberville, whose reputation was established on this occasion. The whole expedition lasted only two months.
This brave buccaneering angered the English. A treaty of neutrality intervening between the two powers of France and England left them helpless for the moment, but in 1693 the Hudson's Bay Company were again in possession. In 1697, as we shall see, d'Iberville will again be in their waters and attacking these forts.
The year 1687 marks the tragic death of La Salle. In 1684 his last expedition had sailed from La Rochelle directly for the Mississippi, carrying three priests at least, his brother, the Sulpician, Jean Cavelier, and the Recollects, Zendbre Membre and Anastase Douay; twelve gentlemen of France and also soldiers, artisans and labourers, in all to the number of 144 persons, with a full supply of provisions and implements. There were four vessels, Le Joly, a frigate of thirty-six cannons; La Belle, six cannons; St. François, a transport; and l'Aimable, a fluke of 300 tons. M. de Beaujean, sailing in Le Joly, was commander of the squadron and La Salle led the land forces.
Disaster after disaster befell the expedition. M. de Beaujean passed the mouth of the Mississippi without noticing it, it being reserved for Le Moyne d'Iberville in 1699 to be the first white man to descend it by the sea. One vessel ran aground, another was captured by the Spaniards, with those that carried the greater part of the ammunition, implements and provisions. Beaujean in consequence of serious disagreements with La Salle returned to France with Le Joly and the luckless explorer found himself reduced, by these losses and by sickness, to the number of thirty-six despairing colonists. In this plight La Salle conceived the plan of reaching Canada on foot. Sixteen of his party consented to follow him, among them his brother Jean, his nephew Moranget, the faithful Joutel, du Hault and his servant Larchevêque, Hiens of Wurtembourg a buccaneer, Ruter Liotot or Lanquetot, the surgeon of the expedition, Sager and Nika, and the faithful Recollect, Père Douay, who accompanied La Salle to his last hour.
On March 17, 1687, two months after the departure from the Bay of Matagorda, on the coast of Texas, which the expedition had reached at the end of January, the surgeon, Liotot, slew with his axe Moranget, Sager and Nika. He was but the cowardly executor of the order of a band of assassins of the rest of the party, consisting of Hiens, Larchevêque and their leader du Hault. Fearing the vengeance of La Salle, two days later, the mutineers determined to make away with him, and on March 19th, between the rivers, San Jacinto and La Trinité, Robert René de Cavelier, at the age of forty-three years and four months, fell a victim to the musket of the treacherous du Hault.[136]
Joutel, who accompanied the expedition and whom Charlevoix met in Rouen in 1713 and described as a very honest man and one of the few of his troop that La Salle could count on, says of his friend in the "Journal historique du dernier voyage que feu M. de la Salle fit dans le Golfe du Mexique, Paris, 1713," written on the notes taken from 1684-1687: "Thus unhappily ended the life of M. de la Salle, at the time when he had all to hope for from his great labours. He had the intelligence and talent to crown his enterprise with success--firmness, courage, a great knowledge of sciences and arts, which rendered him capable of anything, and an indefatigable perseverance which made him surmount every obstacle. These fine qualities were balanced by too haughty manners, which made him sometimes unsupportable, and by a harshness towards those who were under him, which drew upon him their implacable hatred and was the cause of his death." Ferland (Cours d'Histoire t. II, p. 172) has a similar judgment. We have different writings on the death of La Salle: first, the story of Father Douay, the eye witness of the assassination; he gave the details to Joutel, who was not present at the moment of the crime; second, "La Relation of the death of Sieur de la Salle, following the report of one named Couture." This Couture of Rouen, who had remained with Tonti, had learned the circumstances of the assassination of La Salle from a Frenchman. This description shows animosity to La Salle; third, the "Mémoire" of Henry Tonti. The "Relation" of Abbé Cavelier stops before the death of his brother.
All the assassins perished miserably. Liotot and du Hault died at the hands of Ruter, a Breton sailor. Hiens and Ruter were also slain by one of their accomplices. (Parkman, Great West, p. 461.) Larchevêque was discovered in Texas by the Spaniards and was sent to Mexico to work in the mines as a galley slave. Père Douay, l'Abbé Cavelier, Joutel and others finished by arriving at Arkansas and from there they went to Fort St. Louis on the Illinois.
Thus ended the career of one of the most remarkable men of this continent. The lights and shades of this man's story are fascinating but we cannot pursue them. For Montrealers he is interesting in that he, one of their predecessors, it was who discovered by land the Ohio and the mouth of the Mississippi, and the vast district of Louisiana, of which he had taken solemn possession on April 9, 1682, in the name of Louis XIV. It remained for another Montrealer, Le Moyne d'Iberville, to build a stockade fort at Biloxi in 1699 to hold the country for the king, thus laying the first foundations of Louisiana in Mississippi, which soon saw also the forts of Mobile Bay and Dauphin Island. The first governors of Louisiana the brothers d'Iberville and de Bienville, are also proudly remembered as of Montreal origin. It is foreign to the scope of this history to settle the dispute as to how far La Salle discovered the Mississippi.[137] But granting that Father Marquette and Louis Joliet commenced the discovery in 1673, of the upper inland reaches, its completion to the mouth by land must be conceded to La Salle, its discovery from the sea having been made a century before by de Soto.
In many ways La Salle differed very much from the type of men exploring North America at this time. He had little of the traditional gayety and insouciance of the leader of coureurs de bois; he did not seek, primarily, wealth or glory; nor is his life marked with any of the excesses of a scandalous time. This silent and uncommunicative man, of a hardy and uncommon physiognomy, active in body and restless in mind, with those powerful and tyrannical instincts, ever latent, which push strong and energetic natures to the arduous search after the unknown and the vague was one of those characters that feel the need of fleeing from society to go out of themselves and to lose themselves in movement and action. Repose is to them irksome and wearisome. Such men are the victims of the perpetual tempests agitating them and it is no wonder that sometimes they break forth impetuously into anger or brutality against friend or foe alike. Such a one was La Salle; and the above psychological explanation of his career, it seems, is the key of understanding to this original personality.
FOOTNOTES:
[130] Kingsford, History of Canada, II, p. 3.
[131] See R. W. McLachlan, The Canadian Card Money, Montreal, 1911.
[132] To the student of morals and to social reformers, we draw attention to a "mémoire" of the King on March 30, 1687, to Denonville and Champigny, the new Intendant, in which His Majesty does not approve of their proposition to send back to France the women of evil life; that, he says, would not be a punishment great enough. "It would be better to employ them by force on the public works, to draw water, saw wood and serve the masons."
[133] The citadel was also built in 1685. The wooden fortifications were demolished in 1722.
[134] Speaking of the Hurons of Michillimackinac, Denonville wrote to the minister on June 12, 1686: "They like the manners of the French but they like the cheap goods of the English better." In a letter to Dongan in October he expostulated with him for furnishing the Indians with rum: "Certainly," replied Dongan on December 1st, "our rum does as little hurt as your brandy and in the opinion of Christians is much more wholesome."
[135] Radisson was in Montreal as early as July, 1657, and frequently afterwards started his wanderings from Montreal. Other early references are found in documents of 1658, 1660 and 1661. Chouart des Groseilliers, was here in 1658. In 1660 he entered into a partnership with Charles Le Moyne. (Cf. See Massicotte "Les Colons de Montreal," p. 27.)
[136] On August 20, 1688, Père Douay related to the Marquis de Seignelay the details of the unhappy expedition of the discoverer.
[137] According to a recent writer, Pierre d'Esprit Radisson, and Médard Chouart, Sieur de Groseilliers, of Three Rivers, but both well known at Montreal, whence they drew members of their party, had in their wide wanderings traversed the Ottawa, the St. Lawrence, the Great Lakes, Labrador, the return west of the Mississippi, the great northwest and the overland route to Hudson's Bay, the west, the northwest and the west. In 1659 it is stated Radisson and Groseilliers discovered the upper Mississippi and the lands of the great northwest ten years before Marquette Joliet, twenty years before La Salle, a hundred years before La Vérendrye. Radisson's manuscripts being rescued from oblivion in 1885 are alleged to prove their claims. The course of the first exploration of Radisson seems to have circled over the territory now known as Wisconsin, perhaps eastern Iowa and Nebraska, South Dakotas, Montana and back over North Dakota and Minnesota to the north shore of Lake Superior. This was the southwest. On his return he passed by the scene of Dollard's exploit at the Long Sault. At Quebec they were feted but when afterwards it had leaked out that they had heard of the famous sea of the north and they had asked to continue their explorations, the French governor refused except on condition of receiving half the profits. On this the adventurers with two Indian guides for the upper country, who chanced to be in Montreal and whom they had taken to Three Rivers, stole out thence to the north country and in 1662 discovered Hudson's Bay by the overland route with the aid of friendly Crees. By the spring of 1663 they were back to the Lake of the Woods region, accompanied by 700 Indians of the upper country. Eventually they made their way to Quebec and were received with salvos of canon. Their fortune of pelts was valued in modern money at $30,000, of which the governor claimed for the revenue so much that but $20,000 worth was left. They then turned their allegiance elsewhere. The stories of their various changes of allegiance to and fro, from the French both in the New and Old France to the English, does not concern us. This has blackened their name but does not gainsay their claims to a share in the great discoveries mentioned. At the same time as they never appear to have made a formal claim or took a formal "prise de possession" for France, it is not to be wondered that historians will continue to give the credit to the already accredited discoverers. The five writers who according to the author we are noticing, have attempted to redeem Radisson's memory from ignominy are: Dr. N. G. Dionne, of the Parliament Library of Quebec; Mr. Justice Prud'homme, of St. Boniface, Manitoba; Dr. George Bryce, of Winnipeg; Mr. Benjamin Sulte, of Ottawa, and Judge J. Z. Brower, of St. Paul. (Vide the "Pathfinders of the West," Toronto, 1904, by A. C. Laut.)
Chapter XXIX
1687-1689
IROQUOIS REVENGE
DENONVILLE'S TREACHERY AND THE MASSACRE OF LACHINE
ST. HELEN'S ISLAND A MILITARY STATION--FORT FRONTENAC--DENONVILLE'S TREACHERY--THE FEAST--INDIANS FOR THE GALLEYS OF FRANCE--THE WAR MARCH AGAINST THE SENECAS--THE RETURN--MONTREAL AN INCLOSED FORTRESS--DE CALLIERES' PLAN FOR THE INVASION OF NEW YORK--THE STRUGGLE FOR TRADE SUPREMACY--MONTREAL BESIEGED--KONDIARONK, THE RAT, KILLS THE PEACE--DENONVILLE RECALLED--CALLIERES' PLAN FAILS--THE MASSACRE AT LACHINE--DENONVILLE'S TREACHERY REVENGED. NOTE: THE EXPLOIT AT THE RIVIERE DES PRAIRIES.
In the commencement of the summer of 1687, Denonville, who had made his preparations secretly and had received reinforcements of 800 men with 168,000 livres in money or supplies from France, determined to carry to a finish his long projected war policy against the Iroquois supported by the English under Dongan, by stealing upon them unawares. St. Helen's Island opposite Montreal was the scene of a great military camp. Thither the new intendant, de Champigny-Noroy--the successor of de Meulles, who had been recalled upon the complaints of the governor--had gone on June 7th with the Chevalier de Vaudreuil, lately arrived in the colony with the title of commander of the forces. The army of four battalions, commanded by the Governor de Denonville in person, was composed, says Bibaud, of 800 regular soldiers, about a thousand Canadians and 300 Indians, mostly from the missions of Sault St. Louis and the Mountain. M. de Callières, the governor of Montreal, also was there. It started on June 11th on 200 flatboats and as many birch bark canoes, and struggling against the rapids made its way for Fort Frontenac. Just after the departure the 800 regulars arrived from France and were left at Montreal to protect the settler. We have not usually related the details of these expeditions from Montreal and its vicinity, but the opening incident on this occasion, known as Denonville's treachery, resulting in the massacre of Lachine on August 25, 1689, was so fateful in its dire results for Montreal that it must be told.
Arriving at Fort Frontenac, it was found that there were in the neighbourhood a number of Iroquois of the two neutral villages of Kenté (Quinté) and Ganneious or Ganeyout, on the north shore of Lake Ontario, forming a sort of colony, where the Sulpicians of Montreal had established their mission. They were on excellent terms with the garrison of Fort Frontenac and hunted and fished for them. These Denonville determined to seize, partially because of the fear that they might communicate with their relatives, the hostile Seneca Iroquois, but principally because he wished to satisfy the desire of Louis XIV that the Iroquois prisoners of war should be sent to France to be put in the galleys, "because," said the royal letters, "the savages being strong and robust, they will serve usefully on our convict gangs."
Accordingly by various artifices, such as by the invitation to a feast, the unsuspecting and friendly Indians were enticed to the fort by the advances of the new intendant, Champigny, and then seized, the men being sent to Quebec and then deported to the galleys in France.[138] This was a breach of faith, unjustifiable according to the natural law of nations; these men could in no way have been called prisoners of war. The other Indians were deeply incensed at this treason and they brooded over it long and deeply. A sad incident in the story is that the Jesuit missionary Lamberville was unwittingly the instrument used to induce the Onondaga chief to accept the invitation to a parley at Fort Frontenac. When the news of the capture was made known, he was summoned before a council of the angry Iroquois. The magnanimity of the Iroquois saved his life. One of them addressed him thus: "You cannot but agree that all sorts of reasons, authorize us to treat you as an enemy, but we cannot agree to that; we know you too well not to be persuaded that your heart has had no part in the treason against us in which you have shared, and we are not unjust enough to punish you for a crime of which we believe you are innocent, and for which without doubt you are in despair for having been the instrument. But it is not fitting that you should remain here, for when once our young men have sung the war cry, they will see in you for the future nothing but a traitor, who has delivered our chiefs to the most disgraceful slavery. Then fury will fall on you and we shall not be able any longer to save you."[139] They gave him guides and sent him back to Denonville.[140]
Meanwhile La Durantaye arrived with news of the capture of the Dutch and English traders under Rosenboom and Major Patrick McGregor, who had been carried to Niagara and afterward to Quebec, a proceeding which mightily angered the English governor of New York, Dongan. The war soon began; the rendezvous was at Irondequoit Bay on the borders of the Seneca country. There were gathered the armies of Denonville, joined by the flotilla of La Durantaye, with Duluth and his cousin Tonti, who had come from Niagara, the Ottawas from Michillimackinac and savages of every nation. There were the regulars from France, the Canadian militia under de Callières of Montreal, the Jesuit chaplains, the Sulpician, de Belmont, from Montreal, the noblesse, the Christian Indians from the Montreal district, the hardy explorer Nicholas Perrot and others, such as Le Moyne de Longueuil. Nearly three thousand men, red and white, were under Denonville on July 12, when the march against the Senecas began and most men of note in the colony seemed to be there. On the 24th of July the army returned to the fortified fort at Irondequoit Bay and shortly descended to Montreal, victorious in name. But the Senecas were only scotched, not killed.
The expedition returned to Montreal in August. In October the Iroquois, to the number of 200, attacked the upper part of Montreal, where they burned five houses and killed six habitants. The consequence was that de Callières (the governor) caused a redoubt to be constructed in each seignory, so that the troops quartered there and the inhabitants could find refuge in the hour of attack. A contemporary writer says that there were twenty-eight such forts in the government of Montreal. A corps of 120 men picked from the coureurs de bois was placed at Lachine, but the great massacre there was not to occur till 1689. Thus Montreal was virtually enclosed in de Callières' palisaded picket. "New troops were called for from France and the plan of the next campaign was to advance with two columns in distinct expeditions against the Iroquois.
"The possession of New York by the French as a desirable acquisition was advocated by the leading men in Canada more than ever." De Callières, the governor of Montreal, was conceiving a plan for such an invasion.[141]
This became more popular as James II, on November 10, 1687, formally claimed the Iroquois as subjects and ordered Dongan to protect them. This was the beginning of the long struggle between the two powers, the supremacy of the west being the bone of contention, for the trade of which the English were always "itching." As this trade was Montreal's support we may realize the anxiety present during the next year, 1688. For two years the trade had been stopped. Montreal was again in a siege. The Iroquois moved about mysteriously in small bands, and paralyzed agriculture. The early history of Montreal was being reproduced; yet the country had far more troops than formerly. At the head of the Island of Montreal a large body of militia under Vaudreuil was on guard. In the midst of this anxiety negotiations took place with the great and crafty diplomatist, Big Mouth, the chief of the Onondagas, who on the promise of Denonville to return the prisoners captured up west, made his way to Montreal, in spite of the prohibitions of Sir Edward Andros, who had now succeeded Dongan, with six Onondaga, Cayuga and Oneida chiefs; but, it is said, he had sent ahead a force of 1,200 men. He arrived at Montreal on June 8, 1688. A declaration of neutrality was drawn up and he promised that within a certain time the whole confederacy should come to Montreal to conclude a general peace. They never came. For, although they were on their way, Kondiaronk, surnamed the Rat, the renowned chief of the Hurons at Michillimackinac, a most astute man, treacherously "killed" the peace as he boasted, by intercepting and firing on them, pretending he had been prompted to this action by Denonville. Thus he aroused the Iroquois against the French. For his fear was that should peace be concluded with the Iroquois, the French allies, such as the Hurons, would not be protected against their hereditary enemies, the Iroquois. Hence Montreal never saw the delegation. But the danger still hovered around, although Denonville with false security still wrote to France that there was hope of peace. The Iroquois, however, had not forgotten his treachery at Fort Frontenac. Their brethren in the galleys of France called for vengeance.
The winter of 1688 and part of the summer of 1689 passed quietly enough. Changes had occurred in the government. Denonville received his recall by a letter of May 31, 1689, being needed for the war in Europe. St. Vallier had been consecrated bishop of Quebec on January 25th. Count Frontenac was named governor for a second time. De Callières, the governor of Montreal, being replaced in his absence by de Vaudreuil, was in France communicating his ambitious plans of conquering New York as the only means of preserving the colony.[142] Incidentally he was to be New York's new governor. It could be done, he argued, with the forces in Canada, 1,000 regulars and 600 militia, and two royal ships of war. The king modified the scheme and adopted it, but it never came into execution. The long delay in the preparation of the ships and the unexpectedly long passage of Callières and Frontenac across the Atlantic, caused by head winds, ruined the enterprise. The two governors did not reach Quebec until October 12th, bringing back with them from the galleys of France the remnant of the Iroquois. Thence they left on October 20th and arrived at Montreal on October 27th, where Denonville, with Duluth in charge of the garrison, was still making the last arrangements for maintaining the peace of Montreal before departing for France. But this was not to be till after the horrible massacre of reprisal, so long threatened, that fell upon the island at Lachine on the night of August 5, 1689.
The story of the disaster at Lachine, saddening the last days of Denonville, must now be told in the graphic words of Parkman (Frontenac, pp. 177-181).
"On the night before the 4th and 5th of August a violent hailstorm burst over Lake St. Louis, an expansion of the St. Lawrence, a little above Montreal. Concealed by the tempest and the darkness, 1,500 warriors landed at Lachine and silently posted themselves about the houses of the sleeping settlers, then screeched the war whoop and began the most frightful massacre in Canadian history. The houses were burned and men, women and children indiscriminately butchered. In the neighbourhood were three stockade forts, called Rémy, Rolland and La Présentation; and they all had garrisons. There was also an encampment of 200 regulars about three miles distant, under an officer named Subercasse, then absent from Montreal on a visit to Denonville, who had lately arrived with his wife and family. At four o'clock in the morning the troops in this encampment heard a cannon shot from one of the forts. They were at once ordered under arms. Soon after, they saw a man running toward them just escaped from the butchery. He told his story and passed on with the news to Montreal, six miles distant. Then several fugitives appeared, chased by a band of Iroquois who gave up the pursuit at sight of the soldiers but pillaged several houses before their eyes. The day was well advanced before Subercasse arrived. He ordered the troops to march. About a hundred armed inhabitants had joined them and they moved together toward Lachine. Here they found the houses still burning and the bodies of the inmates strewn among them or hanging from the stakes where they had been tortured. They learned from a French surgeon, escaped from the enemy, that the Iroquois were all encamped a mile and a half further on, behind a tract of forest. Subercasse, whose force had been strengthened by troops from the forts, resolved to attack them; and had he been allowed to do so, he would probably have punished them severely, for most of them were hopelessly drunk with brandy taken from the houses of the traders. Sword in hand, at the head of his men, the daring officer entered the forest; but at that moment a voice from the rear commanded him to halt. It was that of the Chevalier de Vaudreuil, just come from Montreal, with positive orders from Denonville to run no risks and stand solely on the defensive. Subercasse was furious. High words passed between him and Vaudreuil, but he was forced to obey.
"The troops were led back to Fort Rolland, where about five hundred regulars and militia were now collected under command of Vaudreuil. On the next day eighty men from Fort Rémy attempted to join them, but the Iroquois had slept off the effects of their orgies and were again on the alert. The unfortunate detachment was set upon by a host of savages and cut to pieces in full sight of Fort Rolland. All were killed or captured except Le Moyne de Longueuil, and a few others who escaped within the gate of Fort Rémy.
"Montreal was wild with terror. It had been fortified with palisades since the war began and though there were troops in the town under the governor himself, the people were in mortal dread. No attack was made either on the town or on any of the forts, and such of the inhabitants who could reach them were safe while the Iroquois held undisputed possession of the open country, burned all the houses and barns over an extent of nine miles, and roamed in small parties pillaging and scalping over more than twenty miles. There is no mention of their having encountered opposition, nor do they seem to have met with any loss but that of some warriors killed in the attack on the detachment from Fort Rémy, and that of three drunken stragglers who were caught and thrown into a cellar in Fort La Présentation. When they came to their senses they defied their captors and fought with such ferocity that it was necessary to shoot them. Charlevoix says that the invaders remained in the neighbourhood of Montreal till the middle of October, or for more than two months. But this seems incredible, since troops and militia enough to drive them all into the St. Lawrence might easily have been collected in less than a week. It is certain, however, that their stay was strangely long. Troops and inhabitants seemed to have been paralyzed with fear. At length the most of them took to their canoes and recrossed Lake St. Louis in a body, giving ninety yells to show that they had ninety prisoners in their clutches. This was not all, for the whole number carried off was more than a hundred and twenty, besides about two hundred who had the good fortune to be killed on the spot. As the Iroquois passed the forts they shouted: 'Onontio! You deceived us! And now we have deceived you!' Towards evening they encamped on the farther side of the lake and began to torture and devour their prisoners. On that miserable night, stupefied and speechless groups stood gazing from the strand of the Lachine at the lights that gleamed along the distant shore of Chateauguay, where their friends, wives, parents or children agonized in the fires of the Iroquois and scenes were enacted of indescribable and nameless horror. The greater part of the prisoners were, however, reserved to be distributed among the towns of the confederacy and there tortured for the diversion of the inhabitants. While some of the invaders went home to celebrate their triumph others roamed in small parties through all the upper parts of the colony, spreading universal terror."[143]
NOTE
THE EXPLOIT AT THE RIVIERE DES PRAIRIES, 1690
Since writing the last chapter important facts almost forgotten concerning the brilliant exploit against the Iroquois at the Rivière des Prairies, which almost rivals that of Dollard's companions at the Long Sault, have been made public by Mr. E. Z. Massicotte in the "Canadian Antiquarian and Numismatic Journal" No. 3, 1914. The intendant, Champigny, had officially and briefly reported it and it had been also commented on sparsely or inaccurately by Ferland, "Histoire du Canada," Volume II, pp. 209-210, by de Belmont, "Histoire du Canada," and by Tanguay in his "Dictionnaire" and in a mémoire attributed to deLery. From these authorities and the study of the registers of Pointe aux Trembles for 1690 and 1694 Mr. Massicotte has been enabled to reconstruct the story and identify the heroes. Four days after the horrible hecatomb of Lachine, i.e., on the 9th of August, 1689, the Iroquois, emboldened by their success, spread over the island of Montreal and below it they massacred Pierre Dagenets dit Lespine and probably burned his wife, Anne Brandon, whose disappearance is recorded at this time. They also besieged the mill of Rivière des Prairies recently constructed. But this was only by way of prelude.
In the spring of 1690 the Indians, who had sown terror the preceding year, now probably on their way to combine with Phipps in the attack on Quebec, invaded anew the neighbourhood of Montreal and committed several acts of brigandage. On the 2d of July, warned of the presence of Iroquois on the Rivière des Prairies, some inhabitants of Pointe aux Trembles, under the command of Sieur de Colombet, a former lieutenant, went to meet the enemy. Posted near the river, they fired on the marauders and killed four of their men in a canoe. The Iroquois, numbered a hundred, and as the opposing force of habitants formed only a little group of twenty to twenty-five, Champigny's account "le combat fut rude" was very descriptive. Sixteen of the French remained on the field dead or taken prisoners. The rest in all haste partook themselves for safety to the little fort not far distant. The enemy lost thirty warriors and made their way to Ile Jésus to burn some of their captives; the rest they carried away to suffer the like fate, with the exception of one, whom Father Pierre Millet, himself a prisoner among the Onneyouts at the time, records as having been spared. Such was the fear of the lurking Iroquois that the eight bodies were buried in all haste on the field of glory, but on November 2, 1694, the registry of Pointe aux Trembles tells us the bodies were exhumed and reburied together in consecrated ground.
The list of the slain is as follows: (1) De Colombet, commandant; (2) Joseph de Maintenon, Sieur de la Rue; (3) Jean Gallot, surgeon; (4) Guillaume Richard, dit Lafleur, Captain, "de la Milice" de Pointe aux Trembles; (5) Joseph Cartier, dit Larose; (6) Jean Baudoin (fils); (7) Pierre Marsta (fils); (8) Jean Delpne, dit Parisot; (9) Nicholas Joly; (10) A hired man of one Beauchamp; (11) Isaac, a soldier.
Made prisoners and burnt: (12) Jean Rainaud, dit Planchard; (13) Jean Grou; (14) Paschange; (15) Le Bohême.
Made prisoners and released: (16) Pierre Payet, dit St. Amour; (17) Wounded, probably, Antoine Chaudillon, surgeon.
FOOTNOTES:
[138] On October 31 Dongan wrote to Denonville demanding that these Iroquois should be surrendered to the English ambassador at Paris. On August 10, 1689, Denonville wrote to France begging the King to send back the captured Indians to Canada, and on October 15, 1689, thirteen Iroquois returned with Frontenac--all that remained of those sent to the galleys.
[139] Bibaud, "Histoire du Canada," following Charlevoix.
[140] This scandalous act of treachery on the part of a Christian nation was bewailed by the Abbé de Belmont, the Montreal Sulpician and historian who was present on this expedition. "It is pitiable," he wrote, "that the Indians under our protection were thus seized, pillaged and chained, seduced under the bait of a feast." And he adds, "If in the beginning we were too violent, we were too weak and humble at the close."
[141] Kingsford, History of Canada, Vol. II, 87.
[142] This expedition was meant to be a serious check to the English pretensions of supremacy over the Iroquois. A memoir of this period shows the claims of the French as follows: That the Iroquois had submitted in 1604; that Champlain had taken possession of their lands in the name of the King; that they had declared themselves to be the subjects of France in the treaty with M. de Tracy in 1655-6, and that the subsequent treaty of the Iroquois with the English in 1684 could not prevail against rights already acquired. Frontenac and de Callières were to attack Orange and if that expedition succeeded, they were to attack Manhattan and M. de Vaudreuil was to undertake the government in their absence.
[143] Bibaud, in his "Histoire du Canada," says that "the Island of Montreal was not free from the presence of these ferocious enemies (the Iroquois) until the middle of October when Denonville sent Duluth and de Mantet, well accompanied, to the Lake of Two Mountains to make certain whether the retreat of the Iroquois was real or only simulated. These officers met twenty-two Iroquois in two canoes, who came to attack them with much determination. They withstood the first gunshots without firing but after that they boarded them and killed eighteen. Of the few that remained, one saved himself by swimming, but the others were taken prisoners and given over to the fire of the Indian allies."
Chapter XXX
1689-1698
MONTREAL PROWESS AT HOME AND ABROAD
FRONTENAC'S SECOND TERM OF GOVERNMENT
FRONTENAC RETURNS--REVIEW AT MONTREAL--INDIANS FROM THE GALLEYS SENT WITH PEACE OVERTURES--NEW ENGLAND TO BE ATTACKED--THE MONTREAL LEADERS--THREE SUCCESSFUL EXPEDITIONS--RETALIATION MEDITATED BY THE ENGLISH--TRADE FLOWING BACK TO MONTREAL--THE GRAND COUNCIL IN THE MARKET--FRONTENAC LEADS THE WAR DANCE--JOHN SCHUYLER'S PARTY AGAINST MONTREAL RETIRES--SIR WILLIAM PHIPPS SEIZES QUEBEC--THE MONTREAL CONTINGENT--PETER SCHUYLER DEFEATED AT LA PRAIRIE--THE COLONY IN DIRE DANGER--MADELEINE DE VERCHERES, HER DEED OF ARMES--THE EXPEDITION VIA CHAMBLY--ARRIVAL OF FURS FROM MICHILLIMACKINAC--FRONTENAC, THE SAVIOUR OF THE COUNTRY--MONTREAL PROWESS EAST AND WEST--A PLEIAD OF MONTREAL NAMES--THE LE MOYNE FAMILY--NEWFOUNDLAND--HUDSON'S BAY--FORT FRONTENAC AGAIN--THE DEATH OF FRONTENAC.
On arriving at Quebec on October 25, 1689, Frontenac, learning that the colony was seized with a sort of paralysis caused by discouragement and stupor, set out by the boats for Montreal in spite of the incessant rains, and he found it a scene of desolation and dejection,[144] after the disaster of Lachine. Frontenac was now a man of seventy years, but it was felt that with all his imperious failings, now mellowed by age, he possessed in a high degree, military knowledge and valour and was the man to meet the desperate state of affairs. Encouraged by the consciousness of this, he accordingly left the gay court of Louis XIV, le Soleil, determined to prove his loyal attachment to his prince. On his arrival he was ostensibly welcomed on all hands. And on his part he was mindful of his charge dated June 7, 1689, to forget his former dissensions and to govern with moderation and wisdom and to favour the clergy, although he was to keep an eye on the Jesuits.
At Montreal he reviewed the troops, seven or eight hundred of whom were in garrison, the rest being scattered in the forts. Having restored confidence, he turned his attention quickly toward conciliating or subduing the Iroquois. His first move was to send a deputation to Onondaga from "the great Onontio, who as you all know has come back again." With it he sent three of the released Indians whom he had brought back from the galleys of France, to invite them to meet the Onontio at Fort Frontenac and to give back allegiance. These overtures were spurned.
Later came news to Montreal from Father Carheil, the Jesuit, saying that the Huron and Ottawa tribes, their allies, around Michillimackinac were on the point of revolt, going over to the Iroquois and the English. Nicholas Perrot was sent with a haughty message. "I am strong enough," says Onontio, "to kill the English, destroy the Iroquois and whip you if you fail in your duty." A temporary peace was secured by the adroitness of Nicholas Perrot.
Frontenac now turned his attention to the English and planned his descent on Albany and the border settlements of New Hampshire and Maine. Of the three war parties of picked men, organized at Quebec, Three Rivers and Montreal, the latter, which was to attack Maine, was first ready, consisting of 210 men, ninety-six of whom were Christian Iroquois from Sault St. Louis or the Mountain settlement, and the rest being hardy and venturesome bush rangers skilled in woodcraft and Indian warfare. Their leaders were men equal to the task, d'Ailleboust de Mantet and Le Moyne de St. Hélène. Other brave sons of Charles Le Moyne also supported them, Le Moyne d'Iberville, Le Moyne de Bienville and others of the noblesse, men of nerve, and adventurous.
"It was the depth of winter," says Parkman, "when they began their march, striding on snowshoes over the vast white field of the frozen St. Lawrence, each with the hood of his blanket coat drawn over his head, a gun in his mittened hand, a knife, a hatchet, a tobacco pouch and a bullet pouch at his belt, a pack over his shoulders and his inseparable pipe hung at his neck in a leather case. They dragged their blankets and provisions over the snow on Indian sledges."
They crossed to Chambly. How on February 8, 1690, this party (Montreal losing but two men) put Corlaer (Schenectady), about fifteen miles from Albany and the furthest outpost of the colony of New York, to massacre and ashes, and finally, although victorious, had to retreat to Montreal across the ice of Lake Champlain, worn out and closely pursued almost to the very gates of the town by Iroquois and fifty men from Albany, so that fifteen or more of a party of stragglers were killed or taken prisoners, it is not necessary to relate in detail, nor is it necessary to recount the furthest story of the universal war now kindled like wildfire. The three expeditions were, however, victorious.
Retaliation was being prepared by the Iroquois and the English during the spring. A combined attack was to be made on Canada. The colonial militia of New York were to meet at Albany and thence advance on Montreal by way of Lake Champlain; Massachusetts and the other New England states were to attack Quebec under Sir William Phipps, the former coarse ship-carpenter, rough sailor-captain and brusque governor of Massachusetts, proud of his obscure origin and his career as a self-made man, blunt in speech and manner, doubtfully honest in private dealing, but believing that all was fair in war and business, patriotic and devoted withal to New England.
While these hostile preparations against Quebec and Montreal were being matured, Frontenac was at Quebec, sparring with the council as to the degree of dignity with which he was to be received at the meetings of the Supreme Council when he should visit it for the first time. Then he turned his attention to saving the country, which was his forte, strengthening the rear of Quebec, fortifying the settlements and keeping strong scouting parties in Montreal to guard the settlers, who were being occasionally broken in upon and burned and butchered as of old, by the war parties of their hereditary enemies, the Iroquois. Then, late in July, he left for Montreal, the chief point of danger, and with him went the Intendant Champigny, leaving Town Major Prevost to finish the fortifications of Quebec.
Montreal was reached on July 31st. A few days of August had passed when the commandant of Fort Lachine came in hot haste to report that Lake St. Louis was "full of canoes," as Frontenac wrote to the minister on November 9th and 12th. Fright gave way to pleasure when it was found that it was a friendly party of 300 Indians coming with 110 canoes, laden with beaver skins to the value of nearly a hundred thousand crowns from the upper lakes, descending from Michillimackinac to trade at Montreal. A few days later La Durantaye, the recent commander of Michillimackinac, arrived with fifty-five more canoes loaded with valuable furs and manned by French traders. The trade was flowing back from the English market to Montreal.[145] Frontenac was in high feather at the success of his policy, at least with the lake tribes.
Soon a grand council was prepared to precede the market, according to custom. Such a crowd there was of painted, greased and befeathered Hurons, Ottawas, Ojibways, Pottawattomies, Crees and Nipissings, mingling with the officials and traders around Frontenac. They talked of trade and war and politics, and they exhorted one another to fight the English and the Iroquois to the death. Then old Frontenac took a hatchet and brandishing it sang the war song and led the war dance, in which all the motley crowd joined, like a screeching mass of frenzied madmen, possessed by devils it would seem to judge by their wild contortions. Nor did Onontio lose caste with the Indians; he knew his people and he gained in estimation with them. Then came the solemn war feast--two oxen and six large dogs chopped into pieces and basted with prunes, and two barrels of wine and plenty of tobacco.
During the market days following there was an alarm of Iroquois and English coming down the Richelieu to attack Montreal. To La Prairie went Frontenac with 1,200 men to meet the attack. But he did not find the expected assailants; so leaving a small force he returned to Montreal and paid the final courtesies to his Indian guests, with whom he had ingratiated himself.
Hard on their departure, news came from La Prairie that the expected assailants had arrived and fallen on the soldiers and inhabitants as they were reaping in the fields, twenty-five being killed or captured, cattle being destroyed and houses burned. The news was quickly boomed around by the answering guns of Chambly, La Prairie and Montreal. Little damage was done, for it was but a small remnant, under Captain John Schuyler, of the vaunted expedition against Montreal, which had been reduced by dissension and disease; it soon retired.
On the 10th of October Major Prevost sent a note from Quebec telling of the advance of Sir William Phipps' navy against Quebec. That evening Frontenac departed for Quebec by canoe, ordering 200 men to follow him. On the next day a fresh message from Prevost confirmed the former saying that the English fleet was already above Tadoussac. Frontenac sent back Captain de Ramezay to de Callières, the governor of Montreal, bidding him to descend to Quebec with all the force at his disposal, and to beat up the inhabitants on the way to join the muster. He arrived in Quebec on October 14th and on the 16th Phipps entered the harbour.
We must resist the temptation to describe the defence of Quebec. One incident in the siege, which must be related, is the arrival, on the evening of October 16th, of the Montreal contingent, the noise of the welcome in Upper Town being heard by Phipps as his vessels were lying idly at their moorings down below. The officers asked a French prisoner, Granville, the meaning of the noise. "Ma foi! Messieurs," said he, "You have lost the game. It is the governor of Montreal arriving with the people from the country above. There is nothing for you now but to pack and go home."
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.
This year, there was again great rejoicing in Montreal. Frontenac had planned to escort the Indians with their furs to Montreal from Michillimackinac, and he came to Montreal to witness their arrival with canoes plentifully filled with beaver skins, the escort being under Commandant de Louvigny. Frontenac was the hero of the hour. "It is impossible," says the Chronicle, "to conceive the joys of the people when they beheld these riches. Canada had awaited them for years. The merchants and the farmers were dying of hunger. Credit was gone and everybody was afraid that the enemy would waylay and seize this last resource of the country. Therefore, it was that none could find words strong enough to praise and bless him, by whose care all the wealth had arrived. Father of the people, Preserver of the Country, seemed terms too weak to express their gratitude."[147]
We are not writing the history of Canada or of Frontenac, consequently we must pass over much contemporary history of this period. But we may be rightfully concerned with the history of notable Montrealers then consolidating New France. During the latter administration of Frontenac, Montreal's sons reached the height of their careers. These latter were here, there, and everywhere, engaging in the struggle for mastery in the West or for that of Hudson's Bay, or of Newfoundland or lastly of Acadia--these four regions all coming under the government of Frontenac and each of them being largely influenced by the Canadian noblesse whose center was at Montreal.
In the West, on the banks of the Mississippi, among the Illinois, there were to be found men who had at one time or other made Montreal their headquarters, and who had taken their share in the discovery of the Great River and had founded posts and cities and colonies and had become the governors of provinces such as that of Louisiana, which from 1678 to 1754 was ruled by d'Iberville, de Bienville, La Motte-Cardillac, and de Vaudreuil. Men like La Salle, the sons of Charles Le Moyne, the Montreal interpreter, viz., d'Iberville, de Bienville, de Sérigny, de Chateauguay; de Tonti, du Luth, de la Forêt and others--a pleiad of illustrious Montreal names--men of courage and audacity--are not only captains of whom any city may be proud but they belong to the history of the Continent of North America. Their discoveries, their adventures, their exploits, oftentimes heroic, are recorded in the pages of history, dealing with regions stretching from Hudson's Bay and Newfoundland to the Gulf of Mexico.
It is often forgotten that Montreal is the Mother of the West. These men, living in a time of faith, hope, and romantic chivalry, held their lives in daily peril, exposed themselves to unheard of privations led on by the desire, for glory or for gain, of conquering the unknown and acquiring territories for their beloved France and for the expansion of Christendom.[148] Thus they rose above the ranks of mere soldiers of fortune, vulgar adventurers, or careless coureurs de bois. We are fascinated by the story of their wanderings accompanied by their Jesuit, Récollet or Sulpician chaplains,[149] to primeval forests and plains, over lofty mountain peaks and through deep dales, nowploring mines of copper or land on the Mississippi or restlessly crossing the mighty rivers and lakes in their birch bark canoes or their flat bottomed bateaux; now as hunters or fishermen, sometimes in want and disease, but always gay; now trading in skins or acting as captains of vessels of war, or as commanders defending their far off posts, or attacking the Iroquois or the rival English. An atmosphere of the marvelous and heroic surrounds these makers of Canada and creates in one the desire to relate their histories and their wanderings by land and water, in detail. Out of all these one family stands out preëminently--that of Charles Le Moyne, settled in Montreal since 1646. He was the father of eleven sons, of whom the third, Pierre Le Moyne, d'Iberville (born in Montreal in 1662), was the most famous. Others were de Longueuil, de Sérigny, de Maricourt, d'Assigny, Ste. Hélène, the two Chateauguays, the two Bienvilles and Antoine Le Moyne, who died young--types of the hardy Canadian noblesse.
Seven of these sons lived long enough to die heroically on the field of battle or to become distinguished administrators of the colonies. These were native born and of obscure parentage, yet they aspired to positions which were in those days rarely given but to those of noble birth coming from France. From all these notable sons, d'Iberville stands out giantlike; his actions being almost legendary in their records of heroism.
We now treat of his invasion of Newfoundland made conjointly with de Sérigny, his brother, after he had seized a frigate of twenty-four cannons at the entrance of the River St. Jean and captured Pemaquid on August 15, 1696, whither he had sailed in command of the Envieux; thence he sailed again to Placentia in Newfoundland. There he set out to take St. John, the chief port of the English, which he burned to the ground. During the winter he led a hardy party through hamlet after hamlet--each man provided with a musket, a battle axe, a dagger knife and snowshoes, and when the spring of 1697 opened all the English posts were destroyed according to orders received from the minister dated March 31, 1696, except those of Bona Vista and the Island of Carbonnière. Thus the safety from invasion of Canada by the English was hoped to be rendered secure. When d'Iberville had returned to Placentia, of which he had been appointed governor in advance, as well as of all the posts seized by him, and was preparing to attack the two remaining British strongholds, his brother de Sérigny arrived, commissioner by the king in the March previously to thrust the English from Hudson's Bay. With him came five ships of war, the Pelican, the Palmier, the Profond, the Violent and the Wasp; the latter with the Dragon, not arrived apparently, was for d'Iberville. Sérigny's instructions were to take the advice of his brother, who was undertaking the expense of the expedition. He was to destroy all the English forts in the bay and to leave no vestiges of them; the prisoners were to be sent to France or even England. It was to be a war of extermination of English influence and a strife for the possession by New France of the fur trade. Fort Bourbon (Fort York of today), or Fort Nelson, as the English called it, was the chief object of attack. Already the two brothers had captured it, three years before, but it had been retaken by the English, to whom it was valuable as it commanded the fur trade of the interior. How d'Iberville, sailing on the Pelican, and Sérigny on the Palmier after storms arrived at the bay and steered mid the threatening ice of the bay into the open sea to Fort Nelson, 300 miles of those bleak inland waters, and how he triumphed over ice and storms and the English, this also takes us too far from Montreal to describe with justice.
Suffice it to say, this glorious campaign assured France for many years of the possession of the countries of the north and the intrepid sailor commandant left in a few days for Europe, leaving his brother de Sérigny in command of the bay. On November 7th he reached the shores of France and having obtained from the government permission to reconnoitre the mouths of the Mississippi, he left in 1698 and never saw Canada again.
Léon Guérin in his "Histoire Maritime de France," draws this picture of d'Iberville: "He was a hero in the full significance of the expression." He adds, "If his campaigns, prodigious in their results, obtained by the most feeble materials, had had Europe for their witness, instead of the echoless seas bounding the neighbourhood of the pole, he would have had, in life and after death, a name as celebrated as those of Jean Bart, Duguay, Trouin and des Tourvilles."
We must now turn to the conquest of the West which was being planned by Frontenac and the success of which meant continued prosperity for Montreal as the centre of the paltry trade rather than Albany. La Motte-Cardillac at Michillimackinac, Tonti and La Forêt at the fortified rock of St. Louis on the Illinois, Nicholas Perrot, the voyageur, among the Mississippi tribes--all were trying to keep their allies at peace with one another and the French. Frontenac was determined to strike a blow up west against the resolute Iroquois who were the scourge of Canada, supplied with arms from Albany. Things had been going so badly that a memoir to Champigny and Frontenac on May 26th tells how the king for the present had decided to abandon Michillimackinac and all the posts of the West, to withdraw all the congés to the coureurs de bois and to return to the ancient custom of relying on the savages themselves to bring their peltries to Montreal.
On April 21, 1697, the king wrote to Frontenac from Marly, arranging for him to attack Boston and perhaps Manhattan; but on April 27th, while still outlining the same offensive measures against the English, he allowed the posts of Michillimackinac, St. Louis and Frontenac to be continued but forbade the soldiers to trade there. Meanwhile he had been considering Frontenac's plan of attacking the Iroquois, and it had his entire approval, expressed in his letter written next day. These conflicting instructions probably arrived by the same ship. Champigny and others had been writing to the king and directing his various policies. Fort Frontenac--his darling first love--it was the cherished hope of the governor to re-establish and repair. Others opposed him and wrote to the minister, who informed Frontenac that Fort Frontenac "must absolutely be abandoned." The letter arrived the day after the governor had sent 700 men to Lake Ontario to repair it. The Intendant Champigny wanted their early recall, but the inflexible Frontenac refused and the fort was repaired, garrisoned and victualed for a year. It would have been a blunder to give up these forest posts. They were necessary for the trade and the growth of the country. The early isolation of the colony could never be repeated. On July 4, 1697, 200 men set out with Frontenac from Montreal and on July 19th he reached Frontenac. With him was de Callières, suffering from the gout and mounted on a horse, commanding the first line, and Vaudreuil the second, as they marched to Onondaga, with the aged governor carried in an armchair when they reached it; they found it burned by the inhabitants, who had saved themselves by flight. The campaign was not successful. Frontenac had not delivered his blow; but it was the forerunner of the peace of 1701 with the Iroquois, for they feared the old indefatigable man.
Early in May, 1698, a party of Dutch with "Sieur Abraham," an Iroquois, arrived in Montreal with the news that peace had been declared in Europe and at the end of May, Major Peter Schuyler arrived accompanied by Delius, the minister of Albany, with a copy of the treaty of Ryswick[150] in French and Latin and bringing back French prisoners in exchange for English, who nearly all preferred to remain. But the Iroquois free nations still remained unpacified and Frontenac was again prepared to direct his force against them to press the French claims to sovereignty over them as opposed to those of the British.
On November 22d the aged governor, now in his seventy-eighth year and seized with a mortal illness, was strong enough to make his last will and testament. On the 28th he died, having become reconciled to the Intendant Champigny, who wrote that the governor had died with the sentiments of a true Christian. He was buried by his desire on the Friday after his death in the church of the Recollects at Quebec, whom he had favoured so considerably. His great faults were overtowered by his many eminent qualities. He was the greatest captain in the seventeenth century in Canada. The Jesuit historian, Charlevoix, says: "New France owed to him all that it was at his death," "He found the colony enfeebled," says another cleric historian, Abbé Gauthier, "attacked on all sides, despised by its enemies; he left it in peace, increased and respected; again he has been called the Saviour of New France." He had succeeded in suppressing the Iroquois and had warred successfully against the English. He had encouraged and upheld the expedition of that brave son of Montreal, d'Iberville, in Acadia, Newfoundland and at Hudson's Bay and the enterprises of that intrepid explorer, La Salle, in the West; surely, he merits a tribute in the history of Montreal!
NOTE
We are indebted for the story of Madeleine de Verchères to a document found in the "Collection Moreau Saent-Mery," Vol. 6, entitled, "Relation des faits Héroïques de Mademoiselle Marie Madeleine de Verchères (âgée de 14 ans) contre les Iroquois en l'année 1692, le 22 Octobre à huit heures du matin." This description was made by Madeleine Verchères herself on the request of the intendant (named April 1, 1702), M. le Marquis de Beauharnois, arriving from France to take possession of his office. The event it seems had caused a stir at court and therefore a more detailed account was desired. In a previous letter written on October 15, 1699, a modest account of the story had been told accompanying a petition to Madame la Comtesse de Maurepas, wife of the secretary of the marine department, requesting a pension of 50 crowns, as was commonly given to the widows of officers, in view of her father's poverty--"he has been fifty-five years in the King's service." In default she asked the promotion of one of her brothers, a cadet in the army, to be an ensign. "He knows service, he has been engaged in several expeditions against the Iroquois. I have even had one of my brothers burned by them." Thus even the very young fought. This young cadet was then only about nineteen years of age. At this period many of the sons of the noblesse were sent to France to enter the army or navy as cadets. There are to be found complaints from the ministers of these departments that youths as young as thirteen and fifteen years are being sent. These youths were early accustomed to bear arms; hence the haste to get into the regular service and to obtain commissions. D'Iberville was only fourteen years of age when he entered the French navy, and only twenty-five when he was sent by Denonville to Hudson's Bay.
The following version of the story of Madeleine de Verchères, based on her own description above, may be fitly recorded here. Not far from Montreal and the St. Lawrence stands the Village of Verchères, near which was the scene of Madeleine Jarret's heroism. In early years that countryside had been erected into a seigneury and at the time of the exploit, Madeleine Jarret's father was the Seigneur of Verchères. The defence of Verchères took place during the last week of October, 1692. At the time Seigneur Jarret was in Quebec on official business and his wife was in Montreal. The head of the household was the daughter Madeleine, a girl of fourteen years, the other members of the family in the fort being two brothers of Madeleine, who were mere lads, both younger than herself. On the morning of October 22d, the inhabitants of the seigneury went as usual to their work in the adjacent fields--and most of them never to return--leaving in the fort Madeleine, her two brothers, an old man of eighty and a number of women and children. Such were the conditions at the Seigneury of Verchères when the Iroquois suddenly burst upon the place.
During the forenoon, Madeleine went down to the little wharf, or landing place, not far from the fort, accompanied by a hired man named La Violette. Suddenly the sounds of firing came from the direction of the field where the settlers were at work, and the next instant the servant, La Violette, cried out, "Run, run, here come the Iroquois!" Turning, she saw forty or fifty Iroquois at a distance of a pistol shot. She and the man made a dash for the fort, and seeing that they could not overtake her, the Iroquois fired at the fleeting girl and man, but missed both. Reaching the fort, she caused the gates to be closed and fastened, and then set about making the place as secure as possible. A few palisades had fallen, through which an Indian could enter the enclosure. She helped to carry palisades, or pickets, to the places where they were required, and assisted in setting them up.
Then Madeleine went to the blockhouse where the ammunition was kept and here she said, "I found two soldiers, one hiding in a corner and the other with a lighted fuse in his hand. 'What are you going to do with that?' I asked. He answered: 'Light the powder and blow us all up.' 'You are a miserable coward,' said I, 'go out of this place.' I spoke so resolutely that he obeyed. I then threw off my bonnet and, after putting on a hat and taking a gun, I said to my brothers: 'Let us fight to the death. We are fighting for our country. Remember that our father has taught you that gentlemen are born to shed their blood for the service of God and the King."
To understand fully the courage of this girl of fourteen, it must be remembered that these words were addressed to mere lads, twelve and ten years of age respectively. The brothers were worthy of their heroic sister. They responded to the call, which also inspired the two soldiers with some courage, for they took up their guns and began firing from the loopholes upon the Iroquois, who, ignorant of the weakness of the garrison, and always reluctant to attack a fortified place, occupied themselves with chasing and butchering the people in the neighbouring fields.
Shortly after the appearance of the Iroquois, a settler with his family in a canoe, was seen approaching the landing. The soldiers would not venture from the fort, so Madeleine went to the landing alone, and with a musket in hand, escorted the family to the fort. The very boldness of the affair caused the Iroquois to think it was a ruse to draw them near the fort, so that the garrison could rush out upon them, and they did not dare to attack Madeleine and those she was conducting to the fort. The arrival of the settler added one to the fighting strength of the garrison, and Madeleine now gave orders that the Iroquois should be fired upon whenever seen within range. When night came on a gale began to blow, accompanied by snow and hail; and the Iroquois hoped to be able to climb into the fort under cover of darkness. Madeleine now made the distribution of her small force, upon whose vigilance the lives of all depended. The two soldiers she stationed in the blockhouse, and as it was the strongest part of the post, she led there the women and children. "If I am taken," she said to the two soldiers, "do not surrender, even if I am cut to pieces and burned before your eyes. The enemy cannot hurt you in the blockhouse, if you make the least show of fight."
The outer and chief defence of the fort was a wooden wall, or palisade, at each corner of which stood a small tower, or bastion. In two of these towers Madeleine placed her two young brothers, in the third tower she placed the old man of eighty, while she took the fourth tower herself. All night long, through the howling wind and driving snow, the cries of "All's Well" were kept up from the fort to the blockhouse. "One would have thought," related Madeleine to Governor Beauharnois, "that the place was full of soldiers. The Iroquois thought so, and were completely deceived, as they confessed afterwards." They had held a council to make a plan for capturing the fort in the night, but had done nothing because such a constant watch was kept.
"At last, the daylight came again; and, as the darkness disappeared, our anxiety seemed to disappear with it. Everybody took courage, except the wife of Sieur Fontaine, who, being extremely timid, asked her husband to carry her to another fort. He said: 'I will never abandon this fort while Mademoiselle Madeleine is here.' I answered him that I would never abandon it; that I would rather die than give it up to the enemy; and that it was of the greatest importance that they (the Iroquois) should never get possession of any French fort, because if they got one, they would think that they could get others and would grow more bold and presumptuous than ever. I may say with truth that I did not eat or sleep for twice twenty-four hours, but kept always on the bastion, or went to the blockhouse to see how the people there were behaving. I always kept a cheerful and smiling face and encouraged my little company with hope of speedy succour."
Seven days passed, and although the weather continued to be raw and cold, the Iroquois kept the field, still hoping to be able to capture the fort and scalp its garrison. "We were a week in constant alarm, with the enemy always about us," relates Madeleine in her narrative to Governor Beauharnois. "At last M. de la Monnerie, a lieutenant, sent by M. de Callières (then commanding at Montreal), arrived in the night with forty men. As he did not know whether the fort was taken or not, he approached as silently as possible. One of our sentinels, hearing a strange sound, cried out, 'Qui Vive?' I was at the time dozing, with my head on a table and my gun lying across my arms. The sentinel told me he heard a voice from the river. I went up at once to the bastion to see whether it was Indians or Frenchmen. I asked, 'Who are you?' One of them answered, 'We are Frenchmen, it is La Monnerie, who comes to bring you help.' I caused the gate to be opened, placed a sentinel there and went down to the river to meet them. As soon as I saw M. de la Monnerie, I saluted him and said, 'Monsieur, I surrender my arms to you.' He answered gallantly, 'Mademoiselle, they are in good hands.' 'Better than you think,' I returned. He inspected the fort and found everything in order and a sentinel on each bastion. 'It is time to relieve them, Monsieur,' I said, 'We have not been off our bastions for a week.'"
So ended the siege of Verchères, for learning that the garrison had received reinforcements, the Iroquois abandoned the undertaking, and sneaked away to try their fortunes at other little posts, where there might be a garrison numerically stronger.
FOOTNOTES:
[144] Montreal had now about 2,000 inhabitants.
[145] INDIAN TRADE IN MONTREAL IN 1689.
Differences of prices in the Indian trade at Montreal and Orange (Albany), New York, in 1689:
The Indian pays for at Albany at Montreal
Eight-pounds of powder 1 beaver 4 beavers A gun 2 " 5 " Forty pounds of lead 1 " 3 " A blanket of red cloth 1 " 2 " A white blanket 1 " 2 " Four shirts 1 " 2 " Six pairs of stockings 1 " 2 "
"The English have no black or Brazilian tobacco, they sell that of Virginia at discretion to the Indians.
"The other small wares, which the French truck with the Indians, are supplied by the English in the market.
"The English give six quarts (pots) of eau de vie for one beaver. It is rum or spirits or, in other words, liquor distilled from the sugar cane, imported from the West Indies. The French have no fixed rate in trading brandy, some give more, some give less, but they never give as much as a quart for a beaver. It depends on places and circumstances and on the honesty of the French trader.
"Remark:--the English do not discriminate in the quality of the beaver; they take all at the same rate, which is more than 50 per cent higher than the French, there being besides more than 100 per cent difference in the price of their trade and ours."
[146] Marie Madeleine Jarret de Verchères was born in April, 1678; married Pierre Thomas Tarieu de la Naudière and M. de la Pérade or Prade in 1722. A pension for life was given to her through the intervention of Madame de Pontchartrain, wife of the minister. For the story of the heroic defence and the relief from Montreal see note at the end of the chapter.
[147] See Parkman, Frontenac, p. 316, and Parkman's note "Relation de ce que s'est passé de plus remarquable au Canada, 1692, 1693," attributed to de Callières. Compare La Potherie, III, 185.
[148] On the Duluth building, at the southeast corner of Place d'Armes Square, is a tablet:
"Here lived, in 1675, Daniel de Grésolon, Sieur Duluth, one of the explorers of the Upper Mississippi, after whom the city of Duluth was named." This was a rented house.
Duluth also lived on St. Paul Street South Side. The house was bought by de Vaudreuil when constructing his château hard by.
[149] 1640, June 28th, Hudson's Bay discovered by land by Albanel, a Jesuit, afterward stationed at Montreal. 1647, July 16th, St. Johns was discovered by de Quen, a Jesuit, afterwards stationed at Montreal. 1669, Dollier de Casson and de Galinée, both Sulpicians of Montreal, take possession of lands on Lake Erie for Louis XIV. 1673, June 17th, the northern part of the Mississippi discovered by Joliet and Marquette, a Jesuit, who started from Montreal. 1678, Niagara Falls described by Hennepin, a Recollect, who started from Montreal.
[150] Treaty of Ryswick. This ended the great Anglo-French struggles known as King William's War, which started in 1685.
Chapter XXXI
1688-1698
SOCIAL, CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS PROGRESS
THE PICKET ENCLOSURE--FORTIFICATIONS STRENGTHENED--GARRISON JEALOUSIES--PRESEANCE--THE "CONGREGATION" BURNT DOWN--A POOR LAW BOARD--TO QUEBEC ON FOOT--THE CHURCH OF THE "CONGREGATION" ON FIRE--THE ENCLOSING OF A RECLUSE--THE JESUIT RESIDENCE--THE RECOLLECTS--THE "PRIE DIEU" INCIDENT--MGR. DE ST. VALLIER'S BENEFACTIONS--THE FRERES CHARON--FIRST GENERAL HOSPITAL--TECHNICAL EDUCATION--THE SEMINARY BEING BUILT--SULPICIAN ADMINISTRATION--THE MARKET PLACE. NOTE: THE GENTLEMEN OF THE SEMINARY.
The last chapter has treated of Montreal as the base of many military operations under Frontenac and Callières and has followed the history of some of its celebrated citizens. We must now survey the town at closer range. As said, the inhabitants were virtually confined to the picket enclosure, constructed by de Callières in 1687, yet the king did not approve of enclosing Montreal with fortifications, thinking that this expense would be better employed by strengthening the forts in the West. (Vide mémoire du Roi à M. de Denonville et à Champigny, Mars 5, 1688.) It is not till May 8, 1694, that the minister wrote to de Callières saying he might repair the palisades.[151] In the garrison petty jealousies and struggles for precedence were being maintained. By an ordinance of Intendant Champigny of June 10, 1688, confirming a previous one, it was decided that the officers of justice should hold préséance over the church wardens, both without and within the church, such as the first places in receiving the pain bénit and the offertories on Sundays, the receiving of tapers on Candle-Mass day and palms on Palm Sunday. The time was one of unsettlement and of terrorized conditions, yet the religious communities were growing stronger. In 1683 the home of the congregation founded by Marguerite Bourgeoys had been burned down. Writing to the minister, Denonville says: "They have lost everything. It would be necessary for them to build, but they have not a penny to begin with." Yet they started again, for, says Sister Juchereau in her "Histoire de Quebec:" "They were so full of confidence in God, they began to build with only forty sous in their possession." Sister Morin, the historian of the Hôtel-Dieu says: "After their second house, a stone one, had been destroyed by fire, the Congregation nuns built a convent on the site they still occupy; their house touches our enclosure, making us neighbours; the house is large and spacious, and one of the best built in town."
Monseigneur de St. Vallier, having seen the nuns some time after the fire, remarks: "How they subsisted, since the accident befell them three or four years ago, is truly a marvel. Their entire house was burned in one night; they saved neither their furniture nor their wardrobes, happy enough in this that they were themselves rescued; even then two of their number perished in the flames. The courage of the survivors bore them up in their extreme poverty." Again he wrote to the minister of marine in this same year of a group of grown-up girls to the number of twenty, called the Daughters of Providence, who were trained and prepared for work by Sister Bourgeoys. He recommended that a gratuity should be given them to undertake some manufacture.
In 1688 their mission of free and popular education was extended by Marguerite Bourgeoys' trained workers to Quebec, at the invitation of St. Vallier, who had bought a house with a yard and garden on November 13, 1686, as the initial step of a foundation and in 1688 the free schools were opened for the smaller girls.
Those concerned with the history of the birth of philanthropic agencies in city life will find of interest a decree of the Supreme Council of Thursday, April 18, 1688, ordering a "Bureau des Pauvres," a Poor Law Board, to be established in the towns of Quebec, Montreal and Three Rivers, and other parishes dependent on them, and also in the country parishes. The object was to discriminate between the honest poor and the lazy shirkers and the ne'er-do-wells of the period. The lengthy decree gives elaborate instructions for this purpose and would delight modern charity organizers. It insists that work should be carried on by the poor applying for relief. The directors should be the curé; an executive director of the poor, to do the research work by investigating into the real state and cause of the poverty and to find work and to supervise the hiring of the poor and fixing the remuneration; a third was to be the treasurer, who should keep account of all the revenues coming from church collections, or public canvasses for money or gifts in kind; a fourth should be the secretary, who should keep the records and lists of those applying to the bureau for assistance. These directors were to be on an equal footing, the secretary to count their votes and the decisions to be signed by all the directors present, two to form a quorum.
There does not seem to be any grant from the government for the support of this voluntary charity organization society established by order of the council, Christian charity and alms giving being, seemingly, considered to suffice in providing its funds. The directors could, according to circumstances, chastise the poor by imprisonment in the dungeon on a bread and water diet, or by retrenchment on their victuals for a time, according to the enlightenment of the said directors, to whom the council, under the good pleasure of His Majesty, gives the power for the case required. Prohibitions were also issued to all the poor and necessitous against begging under any pretext whatever, on pain of such punishment as should be adjudged by the council. The directors were to put themselves in touch with the procurator general or his substitutes in each jurisdiction. Thus the volunteer and official sides of civic philanthropy were brought together--an admirable combination to be more widely imitated these days.
In order to start the new bureau, the council chose directors from out of its own members, appointing as the first directeur des pauvres the procurator general of the king, François Madaleine Ruette d'Auteuil; for the post of treasurer Paul Dupuy, his substitute on the prévôté; and for secretary the clerk of the Supreme Council, Jean Baptiste Peuvret de Mesnu.
Though admirably mapped out the organization of the Bureaux des Pauvres in Quebec, Three Rivers and Montreal, ordered by the Sovereign Council in 1688, appears to have grown weak shortly. Ten years later, in 1698, as the zeal of the citizens needed new inspiration, the order was renewed and the Rev. Father Leblanc, a Jesuit, was charged by the bishop of the diocese of Quebec, Mgr. de St. Valier, to preach in the towns the reorganization of the bureaux. He came for this object to Montreal on June 1, 1698. In consequence of his sermon two days later a meeting of the most notable citizens met in one of the halls of the seminary to form a bureau composed of priests and lay people. Its business was to place poor children as apprentices to learn a trade, to put the sick poor into hospitals or to place them with relations in easier circumstances, to distribute wheat, bread, boots and merchandise to the poor. The voluntary contributions necessitated a house-to-house canvass, which was started in June by Madame de Maricour, the Mademoiselles de Repentigny, and followed in December by Madame Jucherau de St. Denis and Madame d'Argenteuil. The ladies kept to the town and immediate suburbs while the men collected in the outlying districts.
In 1689 St. Vallier called Sister Bourgeoys to Quebec to execute a project, by him, of the establishment of a home where the poor could be usefully employed in work. It was early spring; the shifting ice on the river would not allow a vehicle on the St. Lawrence; there were no roads to Quebec for carriages, and the aged woman, now sixty-nine years of age, traveled the whole distance of 180 miles, thither, on foot through the slushy snow of the woods and across melting ice-bound streams. Arriving at Quebec, she found that the bishop had changed his mind and he asked her to undertake a "General Hospital," instead of the more humble House of Providence originally contemplated. This hospital her companions directed till it was transferred to the Hospitalières de St. Joseph in 1692.
In 1693 the "Congregation" started to build a church in their own grounds with the help of Jeanne LeBer, who offered to share the expenses, and of her brother, Pierre LeBer, who promised to furnish all the stone required. It was finished in February, 1695. "During the night of the 24th of February," says one of the latest historians of the congregation,[152] "a lurid flame leaped up in the steeple of the Hôtel-Dieu church. Fiercely it blazed, until the pealing of alarm bells roused the townspeople and brought them, half dressed, into the ruddily illuminated streets. As the tumult of a terrified crowd filled the air, and the red signal of destruction spread over the sky, a panic seized on many hearts. Each man looked on the white face of his neighbour, ghastly in the fire's glare, and there read the same question, 'Will the town be saved?' Then it was that Dollier de Casson, followed by the priests from the Seminary, came to the place of danger, bearing the Blessed Sacrament. A passionate prayer went up, 'Lord, save us, have mercy on us.' The wind veered suddenly, and carried the roaring flame away from the town. At that manifestation of Divine clemency, a mighty shout of thanksgiving rent the air. But the maddened element had to find some fuel. A moment later, the hospital itself was a mass of flames and smoke. Père Denys, a Récollet, went fearlessly into the burning church, took out the Blessed Sacrament and carried it, at first, to the house of a certain merchant named Arnaud." At dawn of day it found its home in the new church. Later in the day the homeless Hôtel-Dieu Sisters were brought to the house of the congregation by Dollier de Casson, and there they lived and worshipped side by side with the Daughters of Marguerite Bourgeoys, thus carrying on the friendship begun between Jeanne Mance and Marguerite, the two founders. A solemn spiritual alliance was drawn up by the two communities, "to love one another," and years have not severed this friendship.
This new church, the original Notre Dame de Pitié, witnessed, on August 5th of 1695, a curious and reverent ceremony--the enclosing of a recluse in a little room behind the altar. This was none other than Jeanne LeBer, the daughter of the rich trader, Jacques LeBer, of Montreal, who was a brother of Jean LeBer du Chesne, wounded mortally at Prairie la Madeleine. She was now in her thirty-third year, being born on January 4, 1662. After her school days at Quebec were ended in 1677, she led an austere life--practically that of an enclosed nun, in her own home--scarcely seeing anyone, not even her parents--and this with her parents' permission. This craving for solitude is hard to understand for moderns, and we tell the story to give an indication of the intense religious faith of those days. Autre temps, autres moeurs.
In 1693 Jeanne LeBer promised to build the church, as said, if she were to be received as a sister of the congregation and allowed a cell behind the altar. "She wished the church to be as near as possible a reproduction of the holy house of Nazareth, oblong in shape, with the altar placed in the most conspicuous part, between the doors opening right and left. Her apartment, behind the altar, was to be about ten or twelve feet in depth, consisting of three stories. The first was to be a vestry; the second and third reserved for her use."
"On the evening of August 5th, solemn vespers were chanted in the parish church, after which a procession was formed, headed by the clergy. It wended its way to M. LeBer's house, where Jeanne was absorbed in prayer. She wore a woolen gown of light grey, confined to the waist by a black belt. Quitting forever the home of her childhood, breaking asunder the last and closest ties that bound her to earth, she followed the clergy accompanied by her father and several other relatives. It was a striking scene. Along the crowded street they passed: the recluse, clad in penitential garb, with downcast eyes, quiet bearing and firm step; and the white-haired man, bowed down by age and sorrow, who seemed, like Abraham and Jeptha, to be leading the victim to sacrifice. Scarce had the procession reached the church before Jacques LeBer, no longer master of his anguish, turned back and went to hide his grief in the now deserted home.[153]
"Dollier de Casson blessed the cell, and as she knelt before him, exhorted Jeanne LeBer to persevere therein like Magdalen in the Grotto. He then led her to the threshold and she calmly passed into her new abode, closing and fastening the door while the choir chanted the litany of the Blessed Virgin. The following morning, Feast of the Transfiguration, Dollier de Casson celebrated mass for the first time in the Congregation Church. Among the faithful knelt M. LeBer, strong in his heroic resignation."[154] She lived in that cell for nineteen years, until her death in October, 1714.
Between 1692 and 1694 another block of buildings, consisting of a residence and flanked by a public church and a private chapel, was being erected by the Jesuits, now returning. Its site is today covered by a portion of the city hall and the Court of Justice of Notre Dame Street, facing Jacques Cartier Square. These buildings of the Jesuits were destroyed by fire in 1803.[155]
We have to take notice of a new community that is now arising. It is that of the Recollects, so long absent from the neighbourhood of Montreal. The letters patent of the king confirming their permission to continue their establishments at Quebec, Montreal, Plaisance (Newfoundland) and the Isle of St. Peter, and to extend them to other places with the consent of the governor, were issued from Versailles in March, 1692. By 1694 they had their church built, and this, with their monastery and farm, occupied the large space now covered by Notre Dame Street from St. Peter to McGill streets and extending south. The street called Recollect today marks their home, and between this and the corner of McGill and Notre Dame streets was the western gate of the city, known as that of the "Recollects."
A ridiculous event occurred in this church in 1694, which is recorded as the "prie dieu incident," and which caused a certain amount of taking of sides and dissension and scandal at Montreal and Quebec, and was the subject of dispatches to France; it illustrates how very human men were at this time. M. De Callières, the governor of Montreal, was present with all the élite of Montreal, at the ceremony of the initiation of two Recollect novices into the order and he was kneeling at a prie dieu, or kneeling desk, in the middle of the church, "near the altar," in the place of honour. Mgr. de St. Vallier, who was present, notified him--"in a low voice," says the Intendant Champigny, who was present--that such a position was reserved for the governor general and too honourable for a local governor and requested him to relinguish it, otherwise he would leave the church and take no further part in the ceremony. "It is my right," said the obstinate de Callières, who retook the prie dieu, and the prelate withdrew so as not to create a public scandal. Before the entrance of de Callières the bishop had already noticed the position of the prie dieu and ordered the Récollets to remove it, but, although they obeyed, two of de Callières' officers and a soldier replaced it, and it was allowed to remain. Next day the bishop wrote to the superior to have the obnoxious prie dieu removed, as with his own, until the governor general came. The superior "reluctantly" obeyed, but de Callières had his taken back. On the refusal of the superior to have it again removed, the bishop interdicted the church on May 13, 1694, forbidding the use of the church for any ceremonies or the administration of the Sacraments, "until His Majesty's intentions were learned." This was followed on July 6th, by a further monition and was later followed by two others full of more serious charges against de Callières and the superior of the Recollects.[156]
The orders were obeyed for two months by the Recollects and then, influenced by the government party, with whom they were popular, and refusing to obey any longer, they opened their church again with public ceremonies more solemn than before, urging that the form of interdict was null. The disagreement went before the Sovereign Council at Quebec, whiceclared that the bishop had gone beyond his powers, and that with regard to the further charges against de Callières, he had acted without collecting sufficient information. It decided to refer the decision to His Majesty. On the 13th of June, 1695, the case was called to the notice of the privy council to be settled. At the same meeting the several other subsequent interdicts, for use of the Sacraments, issued by the bishop were discussed, as well as the Tartuffe interdict, which was against Mareuil, a half-pay officer, who La Motte-Cardillac--himself no lover of the clergy--owns was not an exemplary character, indeed he had been two years before accused of using language capable of making heaven blush. This man was reported to be cast to play the part of Tartuffe in Molière's play, in Frontenac's private theatricals at Quebec--it being thought that this was meant to be a scurrilous skit on the clergy and in revenge on the bishop for the Montreal affair. Mareuil and his friends insulted the bishop and Mareuil was ordered to prison. The council, however, decided that the bishop had not gone beyond his legitimate sphere in his mandate against the "Tartuffe" performance. Many clerics and laymen asked for Mgr. de St. Vallier's recall. Even Laval in his retirement expressed himself strongly on his successor, who had gone to France to defend himself against his enemies, and did not return for three years. After that he lived in peace with de Callières and de Frontenac.
The above calm description of the scene is that following the Intendant Champigny's account to the minister on October 27, 1694, and "le mémoire pour M. l'Evêque de Québec concernant l'interdit prononcé contre les Récollets de Ville Marie, 1694." La Motte-Cardillac's bantering account, which is splenetic and bitter, must be read with caution, as he never shows any mercy to the clerics, whom he whips with fine scorn for what we should call their "Puritanism." Witness has oft quoted attack on their condemnation of plays.
Parkman, commenting on these troubles of the austere and overzealous bishop, says: "An adjustment was effected: order, if not harmony, was restored; and the usual distribution of advice, exhortation, reproof and menace was made to the parties in the strife. Frontenac was commended for defending the royal prerogative, censured for violence and admonished to avoid future quarrels.... Callières was mildly advised not to take part in the disputes of the bishop and the Recollects. Thus was conjured down one of the most bitter, as well as the most needless, trivial and untimely of the quarrels that enliven the annals of New France," ("Frontenac," p. 333.) Parkman tries to make out a case, that "Tartuffe" was never meant to be acted and that it was an elaborate joke on the part of Frontenac to frighten and annoy the bishop. He does not succeed.
The unfortunate Mgr. de St. Vallier deserves not to be forgotten at Montreal. He was most liberal with his private fortune, having expended over 600,000 livres, of which 20,000 went to the Seminary of Montreal. This side of his character has not been sufficiently recognized. We have seen his interest in the establishment of the Montreal schools; we have now to record his approval of the first general hospital at Montreal, initiated by the Frères Charron or the Hospitaliers of St. Joseph de la Croix. In 1692, on August 31, he wrote to Frontenac and Champigny informing them of his intention to allow the establishment of a hospital at Montreal following the authorization and letters patent which he had already received from His Majesty. Its object was to cope with the increased needs of the poor and sick of the growing town. "In 1692," says Ferland, t. I-II, p. 267, "the Sieur François Charron offered his fortune, which was considerable, for the foundation of a general hospital.... Several persons, animated with the same spirit, joined him, consecrated their wealth to the good work and devoted themselves to the services of the poor.... On the request of the Bishop of Quebec, the Governor and the Intendant, the King approved in 1694 of this institution, which received the name of the 'Frères Hospitaliers de St. Joseph de la Croix.'"[157]
Montreal is noted for its citizen charities. This may be reckoned one of its first. In 1699 (May 30th) this hospital had letters patent to establish manual instruction in trades and in arts. Later, in 1699, in their collective letter of October 20th, addressed to the minister, Callières and Champigny speak in high terms of this establishment. "A house which will be very useful to the colony is that of the hospital brothers established at Montreal. It has not yet cost the King or country anything. However, it has done much good work. It has a hall filled with the poor. They have commenced to draw here some persons of distinction, of reduced and necessitous circumstances. They have private rooms which are well looked after.... His Majesty is prayed to accord them the exemption of duty on three tuns of eau de vie and six tuns of wine.... If His Majesty would have the goodness to add 1,000 livres to aid them more easily to establish the manufactures which they have commenced, this will procure a great advantage to them and the colony, because they will attract a number of poor young people to receive employment." (Arch, Col. Canada Corresp. Gen., Vol. 17, fol. 3-17.)
This may be considered the first attempt at technical education in Montreal and the origin of the "écoles des arts et métiers." Unfortunately this establishment fell upon evil days in later days and it was replaced by the Grey Sisters, who were founded by Madame de Youville in 1748, to administer the General Hospital as shall be told in its place. The site for the hospital was granted by Dollier de Casson near Windmill Point, on the spot where the lately demolished Grey Nuns' building stood. Its nine arpents (acres) thus covered the property adjoining the lower part of the present St. Peter Street, east and west.
A glance around the town in the latter years of Frontenac's rule will see the Sulpician Seigneurs consolidating their work, ministering to the parishes on the island, providing chaplains to the Hôtel-Dieu and the Congregation of Notre-Dame and instructing the Indians of the mountain settlement and making good Frenchmen of their dark charges, of whom there were 222 dwelling in their thirty-two cabanes.[158] Meanwhile their seminary was being built, its foundations being laid in 1685; it was not, however, completed till 1712. It was doing for education in a smaller degree what the seminary was accomplishing at Quebec.
In the meantime the Sulpicians administered the island as its seigneurs, though their duties as judges were gradually being undertaken by the king's officers. By order of the king, March 15, 1693, "Royal Justice" was established; a "juge royal" was appointed in the person of Jean Baptiste Migeon de Branssat, the nominee of the seminary, and chosen as a mark of respect to the seigneurs. Four procureurs postulants with minor officers were also appointed by the king to administer justice but there was still reserved to the seigneurs within their enclosures of the seminary and the St. Gabriel Farm the privileges of haute, moyenne et basse justice. Nine years later this decree was explained by an order of July, 1714, as not meant to take away basse justice from the ecclesiastics in the Isle of Montreal; in addition it explained that in future they shall have the same privilege in the newly established Côte St. Sulpice, the Iles Courcelles and their other dependencies. This was to allow the ecclesiastical seigneurs to create inferior judges for the recovery of debts, cens and rentes, fines, lods and ventes, and all the other rights and duties of feudal seigneurs, apart from the rights relinquished as above noted.
The market place was busy and prosperous. Owing to the great number of skins, the king, by a declaration of May 21, 1696, determined to limit the number of permissions to trade with the Indians and gave order to have delinquents condemned to the galleys. The number of beaver skins now being taken to France exceeded the demand and to avoid too large a quantity of inferior skins being sent, he gave orders that skins should not be sold outside of the public market. About this time, there was a general recall of officers, soldiers and coureurs de bois, and a great desire to concentrate the people in the chief settlements and to encourage the Indians to bring their peltries to Montreal.
The market place no doubt saw some strange sights. About 1695, in the official record sent home to France, "Relation of the most remarkable things," in that year, we are told that Frontenac once invited a band of Ottawas who came to trade at Montreal to roast an Iroquois "newly caught by the soldiers," but as they had hamstrung him to prevent his escape he bled to death before the torture began. Next spring Callières abandoned four Iroquois to be burned by the soldiers, habitants and Indian allies, in reprisal for the similar fate that befell two of the Sault Indians at Michillimackinac. (Callières to the minister, October 20, 1696.) This now seems cruel, but at the time it appeared necessary to thus impress the Iroquois with "the fear of the Lord." It was done all over the country and thought righteous. La Motte-Cardillac, writing on August 5, 1695, says: "If any more prisoners are brought me, I promise you that their fate will be no sweeter."
NOTE
THE GENTLEMEN OF THE SEMINARY
The early superiors of the seminary before the canonical erection of the parish were: M. Gabriel de Thubières de Lévis de Queylus, July 29, 1657, to October 22, 1661; M. Gabriel Souart, October 22, 1661, to autumn, 1668; M. Gabriel de Queylus, autumn, 1668, to autumn, 1671; M. François Dollier de Casson, autumn, 1671, to autumn, 1674; M. Gabriel Souart, autumn, 1674, to autumn, 1676; M. François Lefebre, autumn, 1676, to autumn, 1678.
Missionary curés: M. Gabriel Souart, September 3, 1657, to November 11, 1666; M. Giles Pérot, November 23, 1666, to October 30, 1678.
First titular curé as superior of the seminary (after the canonical erection of the parish, on October 28, 1678): M. François Dollier de Casson, October 30, 1678, to September 27, 1701.
Curés d'office (actual parish priests): M. Giles Pérot, October 30, 1678, to July 17, 1680; M. Pierre Rémy, July 17, 1680, to November 4, 1680; M. Jean Frémont, November 9, 1680, to October 5, 1682; M. Etienne Guyotte, October 10, 1692, to October 5, 1693; M. Jean Frémont, October 9, 1693, to June 17, 1694; M. Michel Caille, June 17, 1694, to October 29, 1696; M. René de Breslay, November 3, 1696, to September 27, 1701.
Second titular curé as superior of the seminary: François Vachon de Belmont, September 28, 1701, to May 22, 1732.
Curés d'office: M. de Breslay (continued), September 28, 1701, to November 19, 1703; M. Yves Priat, November 20, 1703, to April 26, 1717; M. Jentien Rangeard, June 2, 1717, to July 9, 1721; M. Benoit Baret, July 22, 1721, to October 22, 1721; M. Yves Priat, October 28, 1721, to August 8, 1725; M. Jn. Gab. Marie Le Pape du Lescöat, August 12, 1725, to February 11, 1730; M. Antoine Deat, February 20, 1730, to May 22, 1732.
Third titular curé as superior of the seminary: M. Louis Normant, May 25, 1732, to June 18, 1759.
Curé d'office: M. Antoine Deat (continued). May 25, 1732, to June, 1759.
Fourth titular curé as superior of the seminary: M. Etienne Montgolfier, June 21, 1759, to August 27, 1791.
Curé d'office: M. Antoine Deat (continued), June 21, 1759, to September 3, 1760.
FOOTNOTES:
[151] This tardiness in city planning and city improvement seems to be one of the heritages of the Montreal of today.
[152] Marguerite Mary Drummond--1906--"The Venerable Marguerite Bourgeoys."
[153] Madame LeBer had died on November 8, 1682.
[154] "The Venerable Marguerite Bourgeoys," by Marguerite Mary Drummond, 1906.
[155] Superiors of the Jesuits of Montreal from 1692-1789; François Vaillant, Jacques Lamberville, Claude Chauchetière, Pierre Cholenec, François Vaillant, Pierre LaGrenée, Louis d'Avaugour, Jacques d'Heu, J. B. Saint Pé, René Hoquet. Father J. B. Well, the last Montreal Jesuit, died in 1791.
[156] This angered de Callières so much that he had a "writing injurious to Mgr. l'Evêque" affixed to the church door, says the "mémoire pour l'Evêque," and had it published with the roll of the drum.
[157] The ordonnance of April 15, 1694, reveals the broad character of this "General" Hospital. Its charter authorized it to look after "poor children, orphans, cripples, aged men, the sick and needy of the same sex, to be lodged and boarded and assisted by them and their successors, in their needs; to occupy them in works suitable to them; to teach trades to the said children and to give them the best education that is possible, and all for the great glory of God and for the good and utility of the colony."
[158] Etat présent de l'église by Bishop St. Vallier.
Chapter XXXII
1698-1703
THE GREAT INDIAN PEACE SIGNED AT MONTREAL. THE FOUNDATION OF DETROIT
THE GOVERNMENT OF DE CALLIERES
DE CALLIERES--PREPARATIONS FOR PEACE--DEATH OF THE "RAT"--THE GREAT PEACE SIGNED AT MONTREAL--LA MOTTE-CARDILLAC--THE FOUNDATION OF DETROIT--THE DEATH OF MARGUERITE BOURGEOYS.
By a writ of June 4, 1689, Louis Hector de Callières, the governor of Montreal (1685-1698), had already received the appointment of commander general of New France during the projected absence of M. de Frontenac. Also in 1688, on March 8th, an order of the king gave him the command of the troops in the absence of M. de Denonville, which indicated that he was a "persona grata" and reserved for some higher post. On the death of Frontenac, de Callières, who had been Frontenac's right-hand man in his campaigns and had supported him in his Indian policy, naturally assumed the government of Canada ad interim. De Callières had every qualification for the position, having been opportunely trained as an apprentice by his government of Montreal and as second in command in the wars with the Iroquois. He was the man of the hour. For as we know that, although by the peace of Ryswick hostilities had ceased between the two colonial rival powers in North America, yet, the Iroquois loudly protested their independence of the treaty and were ever taking means to continue their warfare on Canada. Luckily, like Frontenac, the new governor held the Iroquois in awe and respect of him, a respect arising from his firmness in keeping his word and in holding them to theirs. A solid and strong man was needed. De Callières was this; and according to the Jesuit historian Charlevoix, "he had straight and disinterested views, without prejudices and without passions; a firmness always in accord with reason; a valour which always knew how to moderate itself and render useful service; great common sense, much uprightness and honour, a clear mental vision and great application to duty, joined to great experience."[159] The same writer also speaks of him as the most accomplished general the colony had ever received and the man who had rendered the most important services.
But Champigny, the intendant, and La Potherie, the controller of the marine department in Canada, writing home at this period, say he was haughty, ambitious, vain and fond of incense and flattery. Perhaps they were jealous. La Potherie, writing on June 2, 1699, accuses the governor ad interim of wanting more honors paid to him than the governor generals themselves, adding, "M. de Frontenac is no sooner dead than the cockle is spread in this country. We have seen M. de Callières take all of a sudden, a control so despotic that it seems as if the intendant himself must obey him blindly." On his part Champigny had never "seen such hauteur since he had come to the colony."
All the same de Callières inaugurated his government by an honourable and successful piece of statesmanship. Seeing that there was now by the treaty of Ryswick (September 20, 1697), a temporary peace, at least, between the English and the French, he desired to make all the Indians of the north of America share in it--a no easy task, since the English desired to keep the Iroquois in hostility toward the French still. It was not for nearly two years after the overtures had commenced that peace was definitely settled. In March, 1699, three Iroquois deputies had arrived at Montreal before the death of Frontenac, and besides desiring an exchange of prisoners, asked de Callières to conclude peace at Albany. According to La Potherie, they asked for the Jesuits Bruyas and Lamberville, for whom they had great esteem, to be sent with M. de Maricourt for this purpose.
But de Callières, seeing through their ruse, that they wanted their prisoners while they still would keep the French captives with the Five Nations, firmly told them that the peace had to be signed at Montreal and nowhere else. On July 18, 1700, a further embassy came to Montreal with six Iroquois ambassadors, two from the Onondagas and four from the Senecas, to pray the governor to send Father Bruyas and de Maricourt, and in place of Father Lamberville, then in France, the interpreter, Joncaire, who had married an Iroquois squaw and whose valour was much respected by them, so that they might seek the French prisoners themselves. The governor consented on condition that they should bring back with the prisoners the ambassadors from Onneyout and Gogogouen, with full powers to treat of peace. He did not speak of the others of the Five Nations, e. g. the Agniers (Mohawks), who living near Albany, were under English influence. The mission of Father Bruyas, de Maricourt and Joncaire was successful, and towards the beginning of September they returned with nineteen deputies from the country, and but ten French prisoners, the rest either not being able to secure their liberty, or preferring to adopt the Indian life.
On September 8th de Callières received the embassy in solemn audience, when a provisional treaty of peace was signed by all the chiefs of the tribes present. It was witnessed by the governor, intendant, the ecclesiastical, civil and military authorities, the Hurons, the Ottawas, the Abenakis and the Christian Iroquois from the missions of the Mountain and of Sault St. Louis. The month of August of the following year was appointed by de Callières for the final treaty to be signed at Montreal, for he aimed at a general alliance with all the Five Nations, to be preceded by a complete exchange of prisoners. But would they ever return? The governor with his calm confidence determined that they should and for this purpose he made use of the missionaries. To prepare the minds of the people for peace, Father de Bruyas, de Maricourt and Joncaire were again sent to Onondaga; Father Enjalran and M. de Courtmanche to the nations above. Among the Abenakis, Father Vincent Bigot, the Recollect Fathers in Acadia, and Father Carheil at Michillimackinac, and others, were also to promote the same great universal peace.
At last the great assembly opened at Montreal on July 25, 1701. Never had there been seen such a representative union of the Five Nations. There were present the Abenakis with Father Vincent Bigot; the Iroquois with Father Bruyas; the Hurons with Father Garnier; the Ottawas with Father Enjalran, and the Illinois and Miamis with the intrepid voyageur, Nicolas Perrot. There were also the Christian Indians from the mission settlements of Sault St. Louis, the Mountain, Lorette, Sillery, of the River St. Francis and St. Francis de Sales with the Algonquins, the Micmacs and many tribes from the west.
But all was not harmony; there were mutual recriminations and disputes and it looked as if the treaty would never be signed, had not the Rat, the Huron Chief Kondiaronk, swayed the minds of the assembly with his eloquence and saved the peace. It was he who had formerly broken the peace between Denonville and the Iroquois, but now he was to win the undying gratitude of the French by his masterly and tragic espousal of their cause. The historian Charlevoix speaking of Kondiaronk (Vol. 2, p. 278) says: "Never had savage more merit than he, a more noble character, more valour, more prudence and more discernment in knowing how to treat with others." He was so eloquent that he aroused the plaudits even of his enemies and those jealous of him; since he had so much intelligence and animation, he made such lively and witty repartees, and had ever such ready reply, that he was the only man in Canada who could cope with the Count de Frontenac. When the latter wished to divert his officers he invited the Rat to his table. On his side the Rat knew how to esteem his French contemporaries. "Among the French," he said, "I know only two men of sense, the Count de Frontenac and Father Carheil," the latter being the Jesuit missionary who had converted him, and for whom he had the tenderest veneration.
Amid the havoc of dissentient voices at the great assembly, the Rat, though suffering from great feebleness of health, demanded to be heard. He was accorded an arm chair in the middle of the assemblage and all drew near to hear him. "He spoke long," says Charlevoix, "and was listened to with infinite attention. He explained the necessity of peace, of the advantages accruing therefrom for the country in general and each tribe in particular." The emotion he aroused was great and he drew forth unanimous applause. But the brave orator had outpassed his strength and his once vigorous constitution was now broken. At the end of the discourse he was taken, a dying man, to the Hôtel-Dieu, where he died the following night with sentiments of religious fervour and fortified by the sacraments of the church.
His funeral obsequies were magnificent. He was buried in the parish church and over his tomb was inscribed:
"Ci-gît le Rat, Chef Huron" (Here lies the Huron Chieftain, the Rat.)
Four days after his death, on August 14th, the ceremony of the signing of the peace took place. High placed on a dais sat the representative of France, her lieutenant governor, M. de Callières, having by his side the intendant, Champigny, the governor of Montreal, de Vaudreuil, and principal officers of the county. Before him passed in single file all the contracting nations. Then took place the exchange of prisoners. The customary calumet of peace, was offered the Governor de Callières, who after smoking it passed it on till it had circulated among the encircling throng of Indian deputies. Thirty-eight of these then signed singly, each his own peculiar mark, a bear for the Agniers (Mohawk), a spider for the Onnontagues (Onondagas) and the Tsonnontouans (Senecas), a beaver for the Hurons, a caribou for the Abenakis, for the Ottawas a hare, etc. Then resounded the Te Deum of thanksgiving and the assemblage dispersed to be regaled by a grand and monstrous banquet, with salvos of artillery and fireworks, to terminate this auspicious day.
It was a momentous occasion. It was looked upon as the triumph of civilization and Christianity over barbarism and paganism. Montreal, so long the beleaguered outpost, the scene of many a bloody onslaught and carnage, was fittingly the arena of the joyous peace celebrations of that evening of August 14, 1701, heralding brighter days for the colony.
In the meantime, while the Indians were gathering at Montreal for the conclusion of the peace, a body of fifty regular soldiers and fifty Canadians left Lachine on June 1, 1701, under the command of Antoine de la Motte-Cardillac and accompanied by Capt. Alphonse de Tonti, the younger brother of Henri de Tonti, and the Lieutenants Dugué and Chacornelle. Not to draw the attention of the Iroquois, the expedition ascended the Ottawa River, entered Lake Huron and thence proceeded to Détroit to the new fort of Pontchartrain (or Détroit) rapidly rising and situated on the strait (Détroit) between Lakes Erie and Huron.
The establishment of this fort was the great desire of la Motte-Cardillac, for he deemed it of utmost importance and had obtained the permission from the secretary of the marine, Jérome Count de Pontchartrain. It secured the communications of the colony with the countries of the Miamis and the Illinois, and thence with Louisiana by the Mississippi. It was the key of the three upper lakes, a most desirable possession for the French. Moreover the climate of the strait was pleasant, the air healthful, the soil excellent and fruitful, and the hunting good. Incidentally the commandant saw an opportunity of enriching himself. But, to make such a settlement profitable, it was necessary to induce the Indians to settle there. At the congress of Montreal, the Governor de Callières, who had at first been hostile to the settlement of Détroit, as he feared with others like Champigny that it would be the ruin of Michillimackinac, invited the Hurons and Ottawas of Michillimackinac then present to change over to the new fort, and finally many of them did so. Thus was born the germ of the present Détroit.
Its founder was a familiar figure in Montreal. Antoine de la Motte-Cardillac belonged to a good family of Languedoc. At first a cadet in the regiment of Dampierre-Lorraine, then lieutenant in that of Clairembault, he passed over into Canada about 1683, desirous of making his fortune, being then not more than twenty-three years of age. His ready wit, intelligence, active ambition and never failing humour soon saw him advanced to a lieutenancy in the colonial troops, then to the rank of ensign of the navy and captain of the troops. Being a thorough Gascon, he gained the confidence of Frontenac, especially as he had no great love for the clergy, particularly the Jesuits. He was a railler, a skeptic and a critic of religion and morality, but knew how to play the game to suit his interests. He had undoubted ability and he acted as the ready tool of Frontenac. On September 16, 1694, he became the governor of Michillimackinac following Durantaye, and de Louvigny de la Port. His reign there was marked with the abuses prevalent among the trading posts of the period, where private commerce and self-interest among the soldiers were of more importance than the good of the natives or the development of the country. His frequent mêlées with the Jesuits, about whom he related contrary accusations of self-interested trading, brought it about that the French court determined to abandon Michillimackinac and when the order was rescinded, La Motte was so chagrined that finding it no longer likely to serve his interests, he refused to return there, being replaced by Alphonse de Tonti. Instead, he went to France to justify himself and to push the establishment of Fort Pontchartrain or Détroit as narrated, for he considered that wealth was in store for Détroit if the fur trade was restricted to it as he desired. This was likely to happen, for the policy of concentration was then in the ascendant, it being intended that the trade should seek the cities, while the western posts were being discouraged. Eventually the new trading company, which had been founded in October by the habitants of the colony for the exploitation of the beaver traffic and had most of the principal men as its shareholders, among them being many Montrealers who desired to concentrate the peltry trade towards Montreal, was restricted to Forts Frontenac and Détroit of the western forts. Finally, owing to trouble with the directors of the company, whom he bitterly accused of no desire but for gain, so that the fields were not sown and the cattle were destroyed, Détroit was handed over to Cardillac as commandant. But his ambitions were clipped, for by the ordinances of June, 1706, he could not trade in castors to more than fifteen to twenty thousand livres a year, so as not to increase the number of beaver skins, with which the company was already overloaded. He was forbidden, moreover, to trade except in his fort. His voluminous letters of this period are full of complaints against the Jesuits, the company and the head of the government. Thus Détroit struggled through a critical infancy but was gaining strength so that it had reached 200 souls, when its founder,[160] by letters of May 10, 1710, was appointed governor of Louisiana to succeed de Bienville.
On the first day of January, 1700, Marguerite Bourgeoys, now in her eightieth year, passed into her agony and on the 12th breathed her last, surrounded by the community she had founded and whose rule of life had at last been approved by Bishop St. Vallier on June 24, 1696. The funeral, which took place on January 13th in the parish church, was attended by all classes of Montreal from the governor general down to the simplest habitant, for she had been looked upon as the universal mother of the community. The vicar general of the diocese and the superior of the seminary, the aged Dollier de Casson, now bent under the weight of fourscore years of life and labours, pronounced the funeral oration. On the tablet of steel placed on the coffin, the epitaph ordered by him read as follows:
Here lies Sister Marguerite Bourgeoys, Teacher, Founder and First Superior of the Congregation of Notre-Dame, established in the Island of Montreal for the instruction of girls in town or country, Deceased on the 12th of January, 1700. Pray for the repose of her soul!
Thirty days after the death of Marguerite Bourgeoys a solemn requiem was chanted in the Congregation Church and an eloquent panegyric was delivered by M. de Belmont. After mass the preacher carried the heart of the deceased founder, embalmed in a leaden box, to a shrine prepared in a niche, and solemnly blessed the resting place and then closed the opening with a leaden slab, over which lay a copper tablet, bearing the following lines in French:
"Beneath this stone is hid a heart To flesh a foe, from earth apart, Its treasure sole, the virgin band Its zeal had gathered in this land."[161]
Then her daughters hung her portrait over the shrine. For sixty-eight years the sacred relics remained there until a fire broke out in the church and convent of the congregation on April 11, 1768, when the ashes were recovered and placed in a silver box that is still preserved. The memory of the saintly life of Mother Bourgeoys remained long in the land. On December 7, 1878, in the opening years of the pontificate of Leo XIII, a decree of the Sacred Congregation of Rites, at Rome, pronounced Marguerite Bourgeoys, Venerable. The title of "Blessed" was pronounced by Pius X. Her daughters look forward to the day when she may be invoked by them as St. Margaret of Canada.
Thus passed away one of the earliest figures of the infant colony of Montreal. We may aptly quote Parkman's tribute to this saintly woman: "To this day in crowded schoolrooms of Montreal and Quebec,[162] fit monuments of her unobtrusive virtue, her successors instruct the children of the poor, and embalm the pleasant memories of Margaret Bourgeois. In the martial figure of Maisonneuve and the fair form of this gentle nun, we find the true heroes of Montreal." (Jesuits, p. 202.)
FOOTNOTES:
[159] Charlevoix I, 288. Charlevoix lived for some time at the Caughnawaga settlement, about 1721, and there prepared his manuscript for his history. At the presbytery of the church is shown his old hard wood writing desk, still containing the historian's books in their sixteenth and seventeenth century bindings.
[160] The Canadian Antiquarian and Numismatic Journal, published quarterly by the Numismatic and Antiquarian Society of Montreal, started 1872, has the following note: "In June, 1701, La Motte-Cardillac was sent to construct a fort at Détroit. A fort, where Fort Gratiot now stands south of the present city, had been built in 1686 but had decayed. Modern inquiry establishes that the site (chosen by Cardillac) was in the center of the city, the present Jefferson Avenue, in the neighbourhood of the Exchange and is described by La Motte-Cardillac as being three miles from Lake Erie and two miles from Lake St. Claire. The fort was surrounded by a picket fence. Its fate was to be partially destroyed by fire in 1703; to be rebuilt in 1716-17 and to be extended at intervals."
[161] Faillon's Vie de la Soeur Bourgeoys, Vol. II, p. 88.
[162] At present the Congregation founded by Marguerite Bourgeoys, has under its control 140 missions (including the schools depending on them) divided among six provinces, under the direction of a provincial superior. These provinces are: (1) Montreal, (2) Quebec, (3) Notre Dame, (4) Ville Marie, (5) Ontario and the United States, (6) the Maritime Provinces (Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick).
The following seven missions were founded by Mother Bourgeoys: (1) The Mission of the Mountain--Notre Dames des Neiges. (2) L'enfant Jésus at Pointe aux Trembles. Ile d'Orleans near Quebec. (3) Les Saint Anges at Lachine. (4) La Visitation at Champlain. (5) Ste. Famille at the Notre Dame des Victoires at Quebec (Lower Town). (6) Notre Dame de la Visitation at Château Richer.
Chapter XXXIII
1697-1713
FROM THE TREATY OF RYSWICK TO THE TREATY OF UTRECHT QUEEN ANNE'S WAR
MONTREAL SAVED BY LAND AND WATER
"THE FRENCH HAVE ALWAYS COMMENCED HOSTILITIES IN CANADA"--SAMUEL VECHT IN MONTREAL--MONTREAL TO BE INVADED BY WOOD CREEK--NICHOLSON'S ARMY ROUTED BY DYSENTERY--THE "BOSTONNAIS" PLAN A SECOND DESCENT ON MONTREAL--JEANNE LEBER'S STANDARD--THE EXPEDITION OF SIR HOVENDER WALKER AGAINST QUEBEC--THE VOW OF THE MONTREAL LADIES--"OUR LADY OF VICTORIES" BUILT IN COMMEMORATION--PEACE OF UTRECHT--COMPARISON BETWEEN NEW ENGLAND AND NEW FRANCE. NOTE: THE CHATEAU DE RAMEZAY.
The peace of Ryswick, signed September 20, 1697, was only a temporary lull. Queen Anne began to reign in England on March 8, 1702, and another war with France, that known as Queen Anne's war or the war of the Spanish succession, was declared on the 4th of May, 1702. But it can be said that in Canada the English were not always the guilty causes. The Canadians, even before the declaration, were not adverse to war, as they considered themselves more warlike, better disciplined and could rely on their Indian allies since the peace of 1701. They held the "New Englanders"--a term often applied by them to the British colonists in general--as an easy mark. In their mind's eye they already saw themselves in possession of Boston and New York. Even Le Moyne d'Iberville had such visions and drew up a memoir on the project. On their side the greater number of the English colonists were not anxious for hostilities. Certainly not the New York and Albany Dutchmen, who feared for their trade. Meanwhile the borders of Massachusetts and New Hampshire were the theatre of war. An interesting light is thrown on the subject in the abstract of a dispatch, sent by M. de Vaudreuil, now governor, and M. Beauharnois, November 15, 1703, to be found in the state documents of New York (Doc. Col. Hist. N. Y., IX, p. 755). The minister, Pontchartrain, after the French attack on Wells and other places under Beaubassin, in 1703, has annotated the abstract thus: "It would have been desirable that this expedition had not taken place. M. de Vaudreuil was wishing for it in M. de Callières' time, who would never consent to it. I have a perfect knowledge that the English only want peace, aware that war is contrary to the interests of all the colonies; the French have always commenced hostilities in Canada." Yet Pontchartrain later, when the suffering English retaliated by planning the invasion of Canada, naturally enough was ready to counsel war parties against them.
In 1705 we find Samuel Vetch in Montreal. He had come on a diplomatic mission on the part of Massachusetts. He remained at Quebec from August to the middle of October, having ascended the St. Lawrence to reach the city and returning the same way. He kept his eyes open, and having been educated at Utrecht, he probably knew French, so that he likely discussed Canadian affairs. He boasted afterwards of the completeness of his knowledge of Canada and he made use of it. "Vetch visited Montreal and its governor, de Ramezay, wrote to the minister on the subject, complaining that in Quebec he had been left at liberty to obtain all the information desired; whereas in Montreal, de Ramezay himself had taken care that he should always be accompanied by an officer and an interpreter. There had been old dealings between Vetch and de Ramezay. Vetch, when engaged in his commercial operations for years previously, had advanced de Ramezay the amount of his appointments, paying him in card currency, and had received authority to draw his money in France. The war broke out and the power to obtain the money had been given by de Ramezay to another person in France. It was the object of Vetch in visiting Montreal to be repaid this advance, but de Ramezay professed himself not in the condition to give it back, without the approval of the minister."--Kingsford ("History of Canada"), II, p. 429.
About 1708 the conquest of Canada was designed as a means of bringing the struggles of the English colonists of North America in their desire for supremacy to a close. To the charge of this bold venture Samuel Vetch was appointed, an energetic, astute and ambitious agent for his party, who boasted he knew the St. Lawrence and its shores better than the Canadians themselves. His visit to Montreal had not been in vain. On March 11, 1709, he sailed from England, whither he had gone from the general court of Massachusetts to ask for aid from Queen Anne's government. A squadron bearing five regiments of regular troops was promised. The colonies, too, had to muster their forces, and the plan was to attack Montreal, advancing by way of Wood Creek, Lake Champlain and Chambly on the Richelieu, and to take Quebec by way of the St. Lawrence. The command of the advance on Montreal was entrusted to Col. Francis Nicholson, late lieutenant governor of New York, who had sailed from Portsmouth with Vetch. Nicholson was to proceed to Montreal and wait there until the promised British squadron should arrive at Boston about May.
News of his approach to Wood Creek reaching de Vaudreuil, he sent de Ramezay, the governor of Montreal, with 1,500 Canadians and Indians to surprise his camp. Montreal and Quebec were meanwhile in the greatest consternation, brought on by most exaggerated reports. Nothing less than the total conquest of the colony was feared. The result of the expedition led by the governor of Montreal may be told by Parkman ("A Half Century of Conflict," Chapter VII), relying on state documents of this year, 1709:
"Ramezay's fleet of canoes had reached Lake Champlain and was half way to the mouth of Wood Creek, when his advance party was discovered by English scouts, and the French commander began to fear that he should be surprised in turn; in fact some of his Indians were fired upon from an ambuscade. All was now doubt, perplexity and confusion. Ramezay landed at the narrows of the lake, a little south of the place now called Crown Point. Here in the dense woods, his Indians fired on some Canadians whom they took for English. This was near producing a panic. 'Every tree seemed an enemy,' writes an officer present. Ramezay lost himself in the woods and could not find his army. One Deruisseau, who had gone out as a scout, came back with the report that 900 Englishmen were close at hand. Seven English canoes did in fact appear, supported, as the French in their excitement imagined, by a numerous though invisible army in the forest; but being fired upon, and seeing they were entering a hornet's nest, the English sheered off, Ramezay having at last found his army, and order being gradually restored, a council of war was held, after which the whole force fell back to Chambly, having accomplished nothing."
Yet the advance on Montreal never went beyond Wood Creek. While waiting months and weeks for the order from Boston to proceed to Montreal, Nicholson's little army succumbed to the attacks of pestilence, probably a malignant dysentery, caused by being long penned up in an insanitary palisaded camp during the midsummer heat. It is said on the authority of Charlevoix, that the Iroquois had poisoned the waters of the creek, by throwing into it, above the camp, the skins and offal of the animals they had killed in their hunting. Whatever the cause, when a party of French came later upon the scene they found innumerable graves. The remnant of Nicholson's army turned back, as the British squadron was countermanded for Portugal, where British interests needed it. Thus was Montreal saved and with it Quebec.
In 1711, however, Nicholson was again attempting to move against Montreal. Again great consternation prevailed in the town, for the news had reached Canada early in August, when Vaudreuil had been informed by de Cortebelle, the French commandant at Placentia in Newfoundland, that English prisoners had reported mighty preparations being made by the "Bostonnais" against Quebec by water and Montreal by land. Dismay and confusion seized both towns. Montreal, fortified only by its palisade of stakes and incapable of resisting the artillery of the English invaders, believed that it was on the eve of its death throes, seeing that an army was setting out from New York with 3,000 men with cannons. In these straits the people turned to God, and the priests of St. Sulpice preached penitence to them. The chronicles of the time tell how hearts were moved, how there were penitential processions, in which all the Montrealers joined barefooted and with cords around their necks; it was a time of general communions, voluntary fasting and like mortifications.
Mother Juchereau in the annals of the Hôtel-Dieu of Quebec confesses that "the ladies of Montreal outbid those of Quebec, for the former obliged themselves not to wear ribbons or laces for a year,"--no small sacrifice, doubtlessly. Finally, the young "externe" ladies of the Congregation and others, made a vow that if they were saved from the evils apprehended, seemingly inevitable, they would build in honour of the Mother of God a chapel under the name of Our Lady of Victory. Meanwhile in her self-imposed retirement Jeanne LeBer, the recluse, was acquainted of the disasters impending, and her prayers were besought on all hands. Even the Baron de Longueuil, then governor of the town, and surnamed the "Macchabbeus of Montreal" prevailed on her to compose a prayer which should be inscribed on his standard, which he would take with a handful of men, to prepare, in their desperation, an ambuscade near Chambly, by which Nicholson's men were expected to pass. The recluse, thus prevailed on by her cousin, wrote this inscription: "Our enemies place all their confidence in their arms, but we place ours under the name of the Queen of Angels, whom we invoke. She is terrible as an army in battle array; under her protection we hope to conquer our enemies." The standard was solemnly blessed and put into the hands of M. de Longueuil by M. de Belmont, in the parish church of Notre Dame, whither all the people had gathered for this edifying spectacle.
Bearing this ensign himself, M. de Longueuil set out to encounter General Nicholson's land force, but the latter now retreated, on hearing of the disastrous termination of the expedition of the fleet making for the capture of Quebec. Not finding Nicholson's forces, and ignorant as yet of the cause of his retreat, the Montrealers journeyed down to Quebec to assist that town against the attack by water. There they waited till in the middle of October, when on the 19th the Sieur de la Valterie, who had come from Labrador in September and had been sent down the river again by de Vaudreuil to watch for the English fleet, appeared at Quebec with tidings of joy.
The deposition of François de Marganne, Sieur de la Valterie, before Paul Dupuy, Esquire, king's councillor, on October 19th, relates that, "he had descended the St. Lawrence in a canoe, with two Frenchmen and an Indian, till landing at the Ile aux Oeufs on the 1st of October, they met two French sailors or fishermen loaded with plunder and presently discovered the wrecks of seven English ships, with, as they declared, fifteen or sixteen hundred dead bodies, on the strand hard by, besides dead horses, sheep, dogs and hens, three or four hundred large iron-hooped casks, a barrel of wine and a barrel and keg of brandy, cables, anchors, chains, planks, boards, shovels, picks, mattocks and piles of old iron three feet high." (Parkman, "A Half Century of Conflict.") Later visits to the wrecks brought back news that, though the autumn tides had swept away many corpses, more than two thousand lay on the rocks, naked and in attitudes of despair. Denys de la Ronde, writing to the minister on December 30, 1711, says that nearly one thousand men were drowned, and about two thousand died of injuries. Whatever there is of exaggeration in this, still Colonel Lee of the Rhode Island contingent, writing to Governor Cranston, September 12, 1711, says that a day or two after the wreck, he saw "the bodies of twelve or thirteen hundred brave men, with women and children, lying in heaps."
So perished the ill-fated expedition under Admiral Sir Hovenden Walker, that was to have subjugated Canada. The fleet, which set sail from Boston on July 30th "consisted of nine ships of war and two bomb ketches with about sixty transports, store ships, hospital ships and other vessels, British and Provincial. They carried the seven British regiments, numbering with the artillery train about five thousand five hundred men, besides 600 marines and 1,500 provincials; counting with the sailors nearly twelve thousand in all." Samuel Vetch commanded the provincials--the same who had boasted of his knowledge of the Canadian coasts; but he was no sailor, and the pilots with the fleet had little serious knowledge of the St. Lawrence after all.
How this mighty expedition met disaster at the mercy of the elements leads us too far from Montreal to tell. Suffice it to say that Quebec and Montreal were saved.[163]
The dramatic routing of their enemies was regarded by Canadians as a manifest effect of Divine Providence watching over them. M. de Vaudreuil, writing to the minister on October 22, and November 6, 1712, says: "We are going to give thanks to God for the visible protection which he benignantly granted to this country. All our people, though well determined to defend themselves, agree that God has granted them great favours in the destruction of the English fleet, without it costing a single drop of blood to this colony." In his "Life of Sieur LeBer," M. de Belmont claimed that the Mother of God obtained for the Canadians this greatest miracle, "which has happened since the time of Moses when the Egyptians were swallowed up in the waters of the Red Sea." At Montreal, in thanksgiving, the ladies set about to procure the necessary funds to redeem their vows. The Sisters of the Congregation gave a plot of ground within their enclosure, near to their church, and in 1718 the foundation stone of the little shrine of "Our Lady of Victories" was ceremoniously laid.[164]
Peace for the two great rival nations was obtained by the treaty of Utrecht on April 13, 1713. But it was not without a pang for the old King Louis XIV, who lost fair jewels from his crown, in then ceding to the English, Acadia, Newfoundland, Hudson's Bay and the Iroquois country. To France was reserved only Prince Edward Island and the adjoining islands, and Cape Breton. "The treaty of Utrecht," says Ganneau, "was followed by a period of peace almost without example in the annals of Canada." The whole colony increased in population, the Island of Montreal growing from 3,492 souls in 1710 to 7,710 in 1740.
Montreal profited by the peace less advantageously than Quebec and Three Rivers. Formerly this town was the principal headquarters of the fur trade, as we have seen. But after the treaty of Utrecht, by the loss to the French of the Hudson's Bay trade, New York at last gained considerably over Montreal. Yet none the less, prosperity ruled there.
An interesting comparison of the two great races contending at this time for the mastery of the north of this continent may be here quoted from the "Journal d'un voyage en Amérique," Vol. V, published in 1744, and written by the Jesuit historian of Canada, Charlevoix. He is describing the condition prevailing about this period. "There reigns in New England and in the other provinces of the Continent of America, belonging to the British Empire, an opulence which, it seems, they do not know how to profit by; while in New France there is poverty hidden by an appearance of easy circumstances, which appears unstudied; commerce and cultivation of the plantations strengthen the first, the industry of the inhabitants sustain the second, and the taste of the people spreads around infinite comfort. The English colonist amasses wealth and makes no superfluous expenditure; the Frenchman enjoys what he has and often makes a parade of what he has not. The former labours for his heirs, while the latter leaves his in the same necessity in which he finds himself, allowing them to get out of the situation as well as they can. The English Americans do not desire war, because they have much to lose; they do not humour the savages, because they do not believe they have any need of them. The French youths for contrary reasons detest peace and live on good terms with the aborigines of the country, whose esteem they easily secure during periods of war, as well as their friendship at all times."
NOTE
THE CHATEAU DE RAMEZAY
Claude de Ramezay, eleventh governor of Montreal, appointed 1703, was born in France, 1657, and came to Canada in 1685, with a number of other young officers, in the suite of Governor de Denonville. He was then a lieutenant in de Troye's company of marine troops, which later took part in the expedition to Hudson's Bay. His promotion was rapid, being captain in 1687, later colonel, then commandant of troops, and finally governor of the town and its district.
In 1687 he took part in the expedition against the Iroquois and in 1690, when Phipps appeared before Quebec, he brought over 800 men from Montreal for the defense of the former town.
History tells of the spirited defense made by Frontenac and his gallant officers, the latter, no doubt, being encouraged by the bright smiles of some of Quebec's fair daughters who, it seems, lost no time in rewarding their brave defenders with their heart and hand. Scarcely had the last of Phipp's fleet disappeared around Point Levi, than de Ramezay led to the altar Melle Marie-Charlotte Denys, a daughter of Denys de la Ronde, one of the wealthiest families of Canada. His companion in arms, de Vaudreuil, at the same time married Louise, daughter of Pierre de Joybert de Soulanges. Could they have seen into the future their happiness would have been clouded by sorrow, for it was destined that a son of de Ramezay should be the one to open the gates of Quebec to the English in 1759, and a son of de Vaudreuil should do likewise, at Montreal, the following year.
De Ramezay was one of the most prominent men of this time, occupying an official position in Canada for a term exceeding forty years. He was Seigneur de la Gesse, de Montigny, et Boisfleurent in France, and in Canada was Seigneur de Monnoir and de Ramezay, Knight of the Military Order of St. Louis, governor of Montreal, and commandant of all the militia in the country, and was administrator of the governor-generalship during the two years' absence of de Vaudreuil in France.
The château was built in 1705. It is a long, low, cottage-built building, standing quaintly out of date before the city hall. The neighborhood was then the fashionable part of the town, and was occupied by the Baron de Longueuil, the Contrecoeurs, d'Eschambaults, d'Aillebousts and Madame de Portneuf, the widow of Baron Becancourt. Situated on a hill, and opposite to the magnificent garden of the Jesuits, this plain unembellished house had an open view to the river front. The vaults were of ancient castle construction. Even the attic floors were of stone slabs.
Under de Ramezay's régime, 1703 to 1724, this venerable edifice was the hall of entertainment of the illustrious of the country. The many expeditions to the distant fur fields, the voyages of discovery of new lands, the councils of war, the military expeditions, the conferences with the Indians, the annual fairs and fur trading market, attracted to the shores of Montreal not only the governor general, the intendant, and their suites, but a considerable number of the most important people of the country, including all classes of society. To one and all the portals of this hospitable mansion were ever open. To the lowly Indian and his squaw, and to the exalted nobleman and his consort, the noble and beneficent Ramezay and his family showed equal attention. Fearless to the Indian or enemy, his bravery and charity were equally exemplified in the personal care and attention he and his family gave to the suffering citizens of Montreal during the pest which devastated the town in 1721.
De Ramezay died in 1724, and his family sold the château to the Compagnie des Indes in 1745. The latter retained possession until the cession in 1763, when it was bought by William Grant, who, in turn, disposed of it to the English government for the sum of 2,000 guineas. It thus became again the residence of the governors, and remained such up to 1849.
In 1775-6 the château was the headquarters for the Continental Army under Montgomery, and in the spring of 1776 there came Benjamin Franklin, Carroll of Carrollton, and Samuel Chase, envoys sent by Congress to influence the French Canadians to join the colonies in the revolt against British rule. Then came Benedict Arnold, who occupied the château for several weeks. The mark of the old reception dias is still seen on the salon walls.
Lord Metcalfe was the last resident governor, but for some years after his establishment in a new government house the château was used for departmental offices. When the government was withdrawn from Montreal, the château served several purposes. For some years courts were held here, and later the normal school, then courts again.
In 1894 the château was sold by the Provincial government and purchased by the Corporation of the City of Montreal for the Numismatic and Antiquarian Society, which in 1895 obtained the building for the purpose of founding their historical portrait gallery and museum.
Next to the Château de Ramezay on the west stood the house of the Baron de Becancourt, built at the beginning of the 18th century. It also passed into the hands of the Compagnie des Indes, and became their commissariat. In 1800 this building came into the possession of the McGill family and was long known as the "Old McGill House."
FOOTNOTES:
[163] The account of this disaster may be found in Parkman's "Half Century of Conflict," pp. 163-4-5-6-7.
[164] This chapel of "Notre Dame de la Victoire" was burned on April 11, 1768, but was rebuilt in the same year and opened for service on December 7th. It was demolished about 1808.
Chapter XXXIV
1700-1721
HALF A CENTURY OF PEACE AND PROGRESS
CIVIC SIDE LIGHTS
I.
THE LONG PEACE--THE TWO GOVERNORS--TAVERN LICENSES--PERMIT TO MARRY--CULTIVATION OF HEMP--FIRST ATTEMPT OF THE LACHINE CANAL BY THE SEIGNEURS--GEDEON DE CATALOGNE--CHAUSSEGROS DE LERY--"SEDITIOUS ASSEMBLIES"--CLAUDE DE RAMEZAY--WAR PRICES--LINEN AND CLOTH INDUSTRIES DEVELOPED--AN ORDINANCE AGAINST DIRTY STREETS--AGAINST PIGS IN THE HOUSES--MARKET REGULATIONS--THE USE OF THE COMMONS--SALE OF LIQUOR TO SAVAGES--THE SEIGNEURS AND THE HABITANTS--REGULATIONS CONCERNING TANNERS, SHOEMAKERS AND BUTCHERS--ENGLISH MERCHANDISE NOT TO BE TOLERATED AT MONTREAL--A MARKET FOR CANADIAN PRODUCTS DESIRED--CONCENTRATION IN THE EAST VERSUS EXPANSION IN THE WEST--CONGES--FAST DRIVING--ROAD MAKING--HORSE BREEDING RESTRAINED--PIGS TO BE MUZZLED--LIQUOR LICENSES OVERHAULED--SNOW-SHOEING TO BE CULTIVATED--DIVERSE NATIONAL ORIGINS--A MARBLE QUARRY--THE DEATH OF A RECLUSE--MURDERER BURNT IN EFFIGY--CARD MONEY--A "BOURSE" FOR THE MERCHANTS--PATENTS OF NOBILITY TO THE LEBER AND LE MOYNE FAMILIES--PARTRIDGE SHOOTING--A "CURE ALL" PATENT MEDICINE--POSTAL SERVICE--A PICTURE OF MONTREAL ABOUT 1721 BY CHARLEVOIX.
Having already recorded the treaty with the Indians in 1701, and the history of Queen Anne's war which terminated in the peace of Utrecht, we may now survey in several chapters the civil progress of Montreal from the beginning of the eighteenth century and during the long peace which lasted to the beginning of the final war with the English, which ended in the capitulation of Montreal in 1760.
M. Philippe de Rigaud Marquis de Vaudreuil, as governor of Montreal (1698-1703), early renewed some of the old trouble of infringing on the authority of the governor general, for in 1700, on May 5th, the king's minister wrote to Vaudreuil that His Majesty did not wish him to interfere directly or indirectly in the administration of justice, nor would the king pardon him for putting the inhabitants in prison without the orders of M. de Callières.[165] Otherwise the ordinary administration of the town progressed. We have preserved the granting of a Montreal tavern license from May 5th to Pierre Billeron de Lafatigue and Marie Fortier, his wife, to sell and retail drinks, a pot et a pinte," and refreshments par assiette" (plate), with the injunction, "not to intoxicate the savages, and to make observed among them the regulations of our seigneurs of the council, with the prohibition of giving drink and food during the celebration of divine service or past 9 o'clock in the evening." License holders were to allow the police to inspect and they were to keep copies of these regulations posted in their inns. The civil, military and ecclesiastical hours of the day were told by the parish church clock, which had existed up to 1701; its remains were found in a lumber room in 1770. But about 1701, the superior of the seminary, M. de Belmont, brought from France the famous timepiece at the cost of 800 francs, about the value of the same number of dollars nowadays. In 1751 it got out of order for the first time but it was thoroughly renovated during Montgolfiers' rule of the seminary and it served faithfully as the only public clock till recent times.[166]
A permit to marry, granted by de Callières to a soldier coming to the Montreal district, and dated from Quebec, January 7, 1702, gives us a glimpse of the military jurisdiction of the time. "We give permission to one named Poitevin, a soldier of the company of Longueuil, to espouse the daughter of Julien Blois of Long point. The civic seigneur will not make any difficulty in marrying them.
"(Signed) Le Chevalier de Callières."
At this time M. de Vaudreuil was thinking of building his château in Montreal, and on May 6th, the minister writes to the Intendant Champigny "that the King has granted 1,000 livres to help M. de Vaudreuil to build his home." On the same day he wrote to the latter telling him "that as the inhabitants of Montreal are too far from the sea to take up the fishery industry otherwise than by associating themselves with those of Quebec, he should urge his people to the cultivation of the soil and especially of hemp, which the Kingdom of France has to import from the northern countries." On the same day, the minister wrote to de Ramezay,[167] who had recently arrived, congratulating him on the good condition of the 300 recruits taken by him from France. M. de Ramezay at the same time was appointed, in the absence of de Callières and de Vaudreuil, to the command of the whole extent of the colony, thus clearly designating him for future honours.
Montreal's destiny as the head of navigation was early forced upon the attention of the enterprising missionaries and traders who embarked from Montreal for the West. The rapids of the Sault St. Louis presented an initial difficulty, and eyes had long been cast on the possibility of avoiding them by constructing a canal, connecting the lac à loutre on the west side, by a channel, to the Lake St. Louis, so that canoes could start from the Little River St. Pierre, near Place Royale, and pursue their way inland and westward until they reached the Lake St. Louis. Thus, therefore, was evolved the first attempt at a Lachine Canal in 1700.
M. Ernest Marceau in 1906 gave the results of some of his investigations among the papers of the Sulpicians, for the history of the efforts of the seigneurs of Montreal to overcome the difficulties of the navigation between Lachine and Montreal. He relates these as follows:[168]
"A few years only had elapsed since the establishment of the French at Montreal, when the necessity for bettering the means of communication between the rising city and the settlements already existing at Lachine, Ste. Anne, etc., became apparent. The young colony was too poor, however, to think of building a canal with locks to overcome the very considerable fall in the nine miles of river from Pointe-à-Callières to Lachine.
"The route followed by the canoes at the time was along the north shore of the St. Lawrence, but it was exceedingly dangerous, and many portages intervened between navigable stretches. Even in these so-called navigable stretches, towing had to be resorted to. A number of accidents had already happened, in which men and canoes had been lost. In the year 1700, the Superior of the Sulpicians, Mr. Dollier de Casson,[169] undertook to improve the Little River St. Pierre, and to make it navigable for canoes, from its mouth to Lake St. Pierre, a shallow body of water lying about half way between Montreal and Lachine (this lake has long disappeared, owing chiefly to the works done in connection with the Lachine Canal), and to open up a cut from the lake to a point on the St. Lawrence above the worst part of the rapids.
"A notarial contract was passed, between the contractor, Gédéon de Catalogne,[170] and Mr. Dollier de Casson, for the excavation of a canal twenty-four arpents, or about one mile, in length, twelve feet wide at the surface of the ground, and of varying width at the bottom, according to the depth of cutting. The water flowing through the canal was to be at least eighteen inches deep, at the period of lowest water in the St. Lawrence.
"The work was begun in October, 1700, and in February of the year following the contractor failed, after having performed the greater part of his contract, the whole of the cut being completed at the time, except for a depth of three or four feet on some 2,400 feet in length.
"The canal was excavated for about one-third of its length through clay mixed with boulders, the balance being through quarry rock.
"A settlement was made with the contractor in the Spring, the amount paid being 12,500 livres, which represents about $15,000 of our present currency.
"The work was left in this unfinished condition, notwithstanding the repeated attempts to push it to completion, the Sulpicians' revenues, which were very unimportant at that time, finding better use in other directions.
"In 1708, Louis XIV ordered plans and estimates of the work to be submitted to him, the undertaking having been recognized as devolving upon the royal authorities, but, owing to the conditions of affairs in France during the latter part of the reign, the scheme had to be again postponed.
"Almost every year after this, the Canal de la Chine is mentioned in the correspondence between the superiors of the Montreal house and the head of the Sulpician Order in Paris, as also in letters addressed to the Governors of the colony.
"In 1717, Mr. Chaussegros de Léry, who had charge of all military and civil engineering works in Montreal, reported that three-fourths of the work was done. The Crown could not yet at the time give the necessary help to perfect the canal, but instructions were given not to abandon the idea.
"Again in 1733, the same engineer made a complete survey of the route and prepared fresh plans and estimates. The old line had evidently been abandoned, as the probable cost of the work is put down at 255,000 livres, or about $300,000. The new scheme contemplated a canal with locks. Unfortunately, no copy of the report of Mr. Chaussegros is on record in the documents referred to.
"From that date nothing can be found in the Seminary papers relating to the canal, which would seem to indicate that the work was never completed. It is quite likely, however, that the imperfect channel could be used by canoes during the periods of high water. Be that as it may, traces of it in the shape of a half-filled ditch, are still to be seen in a field near the Canadian Pacific Railway embankment at Rockfield."
In the year 1703, on May 26th, de Callières died, and M. de Vaudreuil succeeded him on August 1st as governor general, while M. Claude de Ramezay replaced the latter as governor of Montreal, being appointed by the king as such in August. The minister, this same month recommended de Vaudreuil, Beauharnois and the Marquis d'Alogny to make use of his advice in regard to the police and the management of the troops.
In 1704 we hear of an ordinance of the Governor General de Vaudreuil, dated December 12th, being sent to Montreal to forbid seditious assemblies. It had been brought to his notice that there had been a large gathering of the inhabitants near Montreal for the purpose of obliging the merchants to furnish them salt and other merchandise at a lower price. But on the explanation of the Governor de Ramezay and the superior of the seminary, M. de Belmont, that there had been nothing seditious in the meeting which had been called simply to protest and to draw attention to their complaints, things went no further than the issue of the ordinance, although the "meeting" was still the subject of letters to France in 1705. In that year de Ramezay had been having his troubles with the authorities of Quebec. In a letter from the minister (Pontchartrain) the latter strongly disapproves of his conduct in heading a cabal against de Vaudreuil and Beauharnois, and of the impropriety of raising himself up as a reformer of the higher powers of the colony.
An insight into the hardships experienced at Montreal as a result of the wars with the English colonies, may now be presented. The vessel, La Seine, which was carrying to Canada provisions and merchandise of all kinds and the cargo of which was estimated at a million livres (tournois), left Rochelle in the summer of 1705 and was captured by a Virginian fleet in spite of the heroic resistance of the Chevalier de Maupeon. The vessel was seized and its passengers, among whom was Mgr. de St. Vallier, were taken as prisoners to England. Such and similar disasters made living conditions dear at Montreal and famine was frequent. A missionary of this period says that wearing apparel and houses were of an extraordinary price at Montreal. The innkeepers made their fortune in diluting the drink, especially that which they sold to the Indians, who drank all that they could get, in exchange for their peltry. "You have served me out of the savages' barrel," grumbled one of the workmen to the servant who had just given him some liquor.
The scarcity of clothing material, caused by the loss of La Seine, brought with it, however, an advantage to the colony. On the suggestion of the Intendant Raudot, the king's council permitted the inhabitants to make linen and druggets with the homemade yarn and worsted of the country. For hitherto France had insisted on the right of supplying Canada with its manufactured articles. It forbade home industries. Even the wool gathered on the St. Lawrence banks was shipped to France and returned in the form of a coarse cloth. All clothing therefore had been very expensive in the colony. Necessity became, therefore, the mother of invention and we thus find Madame de Repentigny, who had greatly contributed to the progress of this industry, writing in 1708: "There is at present a considerable quantity of handicrafts which work at making linen in Canada. Women and men work at them. The men have a taste for deerskin clothing, which costs them much less than the cloths from France; they nearly all wear it with homemade drugget surtouts over it." On his side M. Bigot wrote in 1714: "There are in Montreal as many as twenty-five looms for making linen and worsted goods. The Sisters of the Congregation have shown me the collender which they have made for their clothing, which latter is as fine as that made in France; there are also made here, materials of black for the clothes of the priests, and of blue for those of the 'pensionnaires.'"
How the ladies of Montreal were participating in the industrial progress of the city may be seen in the letters of the minister, the intendant and to Madame de Repentigny. In 1706 he writes to Intendant Raudot, asking for samples of the cloth which Madame had made from nettles and bark and which she says is better than that made from linen and hemp. On June 30, 1707, he writes to Madame de Repentigny that he has received the samples of cloth and the little tablets of cotton syrup; that he has noticed with pleasure what she has told him of the number of cloth workers in the Island of Montreal, but he finds the price of her cloth too high.[171] He is pleased to be informed of the sugar that is made in Montreal and of the blue earth that has been found by the Indians thirty leagues from Montreal. Another year, he records his pleasure at her discoveries of dye woods near Montreal and on July 7, 1711, he writes of his satisfaction at her zeal for the progress of the colony. On June 29th he writes that he will recommend her son for the post of ensign and encourages her to redouble her efforts for the increase of her manufactures.
A survey of the various ordonnances issued by the intendants of this period supplies much insight into the life of the city. During the months of June and July, 1706, Jacques Raudot was in Montreal. The ordonnances issued by him there are of valuable historical usefulness in providing an insight into conditions then prevailing. That dated June 22d concerns the streets, primarily. "Having learnt," it begins, "on arriving in this town the state of disorder in which the streets are, being almost impracticable at all seasons not only for foot passengers, but for carriage and cart traffic, and this on account of the mire which is found in the said streets, and which comes not so much from the bad nature and inequality of the land as from the filth which the inhabitants throw there daily, and being persuaded that this comes from not giving the streets the slope necessary for the flow of the drainage, not being able to do anything of more utility for the town than to remedy these disorders, and having conferred with Sieur de Bellemont (sic), superior of the seminary, Fleury Deschambault, lieutenant general, Raimbault, King's procurator of the department of Justice Royale of this town, we order that, hereafter, there shall be given the following slopes." Then follow the list of streets to be altered, directions for the remaking of the roads and footpaths, and the sharing of the expenses, the order for the observance of the new alignments, penalties for throwing rubbish into the streets, etc.
Then also follow penalties and confiscations for keeping pigs in the houses, and for allowing cattle to stray in the streets. The renewal of the prohibitions against unlicenced liquor houses is also made. It concludes with instructions for the establishment of a market on the place d'Armes to meet the needs of the growing town. The market days are to be on Tuesdays and Fridays, weekly. This is for the convenience of the country vendors, who are not to sell their produce elsewhere, in private stores, as formerly. In order to enable the inhabitants to purchase in the market and to prevent the hotel keepers and cabaretiers from buying up everything before the citizens were astir, Raudot enjoins, that the former shall not buy in the market before 8 o'clock in the morning under a penalty of 3 livres.
Another ordonnance of July 2d settles the disputes amongst themselves of the inhabitants as to the use of the commons of the island vis à vis their homes.
Another of the same date relieves the habitants of Notre-Dame des Neiges from an obnoxious clause in their concessions of land, granted by the seigneurs, by which these would be confiscated if they sold spirituous and intoxicating liquors to the savages. They represented that this clause was now useless, since the prohibitions had been made so severe by the king's ordonnances, they were not likely to do so, but they might falsely be accused and thus their lands might be in danger of confiscation. With the consent of Mr. Cailhé, (Caille), who acted for the seigneurs, their petition was granted.
On the same day another order from Raudot straightened out the doubts of some habitants as to the meaning of clauses in their concessions, granting the seigneurs rights of claiming lumber. It was decided on the representation of M. Cailhé that the seigneurs would be content with lumber rights on one arpent in every location of sixty arpents, never having meant to claim universal rights. They still, however, reserved all their rights to claim from the habitations all the wood that was necessary for their own buildings and for public works.
Again on the same day: "the Seigneurs are justified in demanding their rents and arrears from certain habitants holding concessions from them, who had claimed that their lands were not staked out." The seigneurs prevailed, representing that the dearth of landmarks was the fault of the land owners, who had to provide them and had failed to pay for them, rather than through any difficulty on the part of the seminary.
The growth of Montreal brought new settlers who wished to set up in business; in consequence, Jacques Raudot, in 1706, drew up an ordonnance on July 20th, limiting the number of tanners, shoemakers and butchers. "Seeing that the town of Montreal is daily growing in the number of inhabitants who come to establish themselves, and that the number of every kind of trade increases in proportion, while awaiting the pleasure of His Majesty in establishing a corps de métier, we believe that it is fitting time for us to prescribe certain rules, particularly for the tanners and shoemakers, the observation of which, while being useful to the inhabitants, in that it will provide the workers themselves with emulation, while giving them the means of a livelihood, and of confining them to the special functions of their separate trades, we ordain:
"I. That there shall only be two tanners in the town, viz., Delaunay and Barsalot, so that they may both have work; the five butchers who are at present in business will share in equal portions both in number and in quality the skins of all the beasts slaughtered on their premises unless the said tanners prefer to make an arrangement among themselves to have the skins furnished to each by two butchers apiece whom they shall agree upon, and the fifth butcher to furnish his share every six months.
"II. That the said tanners shall be obliged to give the said skins all the necessary and required dressings, so that the public may have good merchandise, and this under penalty of 3 livres for each hide not found, on our prescribed visits, to conform to the quality demanded by our present ordonnance.
"III. We forbid the said butchers to retain any skins and make French shoes, under a penalty of 3 livres for each skin retained, but we permit them to retain some of an inferior quality to make shoes for the savages.
"IV. We forbid them to purchase skins from those coming in from the country, whom we order to take their goods to the market set up in this town, where they shall be exposed for sale for tanners only.
"V. While awaiting an opportunity to make regulations, to confine each to his allotted trade, we permit Delaunay, in consideration of the business set up by him, to have only three garçons shoemakers and one apprentice, etc."
On the 28th of the same month Raudot ordered thirteen who had rented lots from the seigneurs on "lower" street, either to pay their rent or to hand them over by a certain date to the seigneurs on the reimbursement of the expenses for the buildings thereon and other improvements, the value of the same to be settled by experts mutually agreed upon.
The students of mercantile economy will find that on November 11, 1707, the Intendants Raudot (père et fils), writing to the Minister Pontchartrain, speak of the sad state of the country produced by the low price of the beaver, but still more by the loss of 50 per cent on the money given in France for the Canadian letter of exchange. In 1709 M. de Pontchartrain is surprised to hear that Montreal is filled with English merchandise--a thing not to be tolerated. This was not surprising, seeing that the Canadians were not producers, and the purchase of all their supplies from France became very expensive. A memoir of Raudot of July, 1708, gives an explanation that suffices. Too much reliance had been placed on the beaver trade which had been the pivotal point of the prosperity of the country, but it was necessarily a precarious resource. Sooner or later, there must result either a rarity of this product or a decrease in price. At present the colony was suffering from the latter. Agriculture, he pointed out, should be the principal object, but it was only an accessory. The beaver had been the gold mine of the country. The inhabitants had sought the woods first, preferring an adventurous and profitable life to a laborious one on the soil. Thus they had cultivated laziness and negligence. There was, however, a great quantity of cattle and easy food supplies, but a great scarcity of clothing. The trade of the country turned on a sum of 600,000 livres and it was with this sum that it had to settle for its purchases in France. This is too little for a population of eighteen to twenty thousand souls. Everyone pays in kind for the merchandise bought in France, in such a way that money does not even come this way. Merchandise is very dear and the habitant will not work except for a fat salary, saying that he uses up more wearing apparel in working than he can gain by his work. The remedy for this state of affairs is, to urge the population to the production of wheat, cattle, timber, oils, ships, by finding a market for Canadian products. He further deprecates the policy then in vogue of thinking too much of the trade interests of France. He urges the minister to be wide-minded, and to realize that by providing a wider field for the colony, the interest and prosperity of the colony ought sooner or later increase the prosperity of the mother country.
If France had learned this lesson of colonization, there would never have been the loss of this country to the English a half century later. The pupildom of New France was continued far too long by an overstrained, narrow and jealous paternalism.
We have made these lengthy notes on the trade relations of the colony because Montreal was the center of the beaver traffic. Indeed, as we have seen, there were not wanting those who were opposed to the expansion of the colony through outlying posts, but wished to concentrate in the lower part of the colony--the same principle already prevailing, which was to stand in the way of the growth and development of Ontario and Upper Canada in later years under the British rule.
A memoir presented to M. de Pontchartrain in 1710 makes this position clear, while the replies in the margin by M. de Vaudreuil, the governor, and MM. Raudot (father and son), joint-intendants, show the opposite view. The memoir hopes that the congés or permits to trade up-country will not be repeated; they have been the source of all the evils, lawlessness and pernicious traffic in eau de vie and of the stagnation of agriculture, contrary to the aim of this colony, which was to humanize and evangelize the savages. This suppression of congés would have the effect of raising the value of beaver skins, whose present abundance cheapens the market at this time. It would be of more avail to allow the Indians to bring their poultry to Montreal in exchange for merchandise, for the expense of transporting merchandise to them in the West raised the price so much that the Indians were constrained to go to the English for their supplies. The English did not allow their people to trade far afield. It was because M. de La Barre had not followed a similar policy that the French had had a war of fourteen years with the Iroquois.
The Marquis' reply was to the effect that it was the abuse of the congés, too frequently granted, and not their moderate use that was at fault. Rightly exploited and curtailed, they would favor the conversion of the Indians, the increase of the colony and the preservation of peace. The chief thing was to stop the liquor traffic. As for the savages going to the English, three or four hundred leagues, for cheaper merchandise, that was unreasonable if the goods were taken to them. But if they were not, and the choice lay between Montreal and Orange, then they would certainly choose the latter place because of cheaper prices. The fourteen years' war was not a result of the congés, but of M. de La Barre's action in allowing the Iroquois to pillage the French. It is true that the English do not mingle with the affairs of the Indians, but prefer to allow them to destroy one another; thus they are not loved and have no influence. Our policy is otherwise, and hence our strength. We maintain the peace of the whole West. If Michillimackinac had been reestablished, the "sauteux" would not have attacked the Pottawatomies, or attempted to cut the ears of the Iroquois--a failure which may still lead us to war again. What restrains the Iroquois from striking a blow at any of the savage tribes is, that they know, that by our efforts they will not have the opportunity of destroying these nations one after another, as they did formerly, but that they will have all of them on their back, at one and the same time.
A picture of a Sunday morning or feast day crush at the church door after service is to be found in an ordonnance of Jacques Raudot of January 21, 1708, when on account of the disorders arising, from those habitants with carriages and those on horseback, urging their horses to depart so quickly that they butt into one another and even into the foot passengers, to the risk of wounds and even of life, he enjoins under a penalty of 10 livres, applicable to the local parish church, that none should put their horses into a trot or a gallop until they are ten arpents from the church. This notice was fixed at the door of Notre Dame. It is to be hoped the curé had no occasion to look for any fines, after it had been sufficiently promulgated.
Road traveling in 1709 was no easy thing at all times, but in the winter least of all.[172] Yet it was necessary to keep up communication between Montreal and Quebec, so we can appreciate the wisdom of Jacques Raudot's ordonnance of December 13th of this year, enjoining all the habitants of the country in the districts north of the St. Lawrence to cut out, each one, before his habitation, a roadway in the places most convenient, as well as to make a roadway across the lake in the accustomed places.[173]
In 1709 we find Raudot dealing a blow at horse breeding. In an ordonnance of June 13, 1709, being informed that the habitants of the government of Montreal are rearing too great a number of horses to the detriment of horned and wool bearing cattle, whose pastures are eaten by the horses and whose number was decreasing, and as the attention of the government ought to be principally directed to their increasing abundance, it is ordered that each inhabitant shall not have more than two horses, or mares, and a colt, after the seeding time of the year 1710, to give time to get rid of the superfluous ones; after which they will be obliged to slaughter those not disposed of.
Pigs straying in the streets, in 1710, brought an ordonnance from Raudot of June 29th; they had been the cause not only of filth, but of sanitary disorders and infection, and owners were given five days to enclose them, otherwise the pig were to be permitted to be killed and the proceeds to go to the poor of the Hôtel-Dieu. On the 4th of August, Raudot enjoined on all the owners of pigs in the colony to put muzzles on them so that those found doing damage to grain or field produce, without their muzzles on, could be killed for recompense.
The licencing permits of Montreal were overhauled by Antoine Denis Raudot, conjoint intendant, during his stay in Montreal in June, 1710, when by an ordonnance dated June 23d, having found that there were many selling liquors without permission of the local government, he ordered that there should only be ten licenced "cabaretiers-aubergistes," who shall sell all kinds of drink to the French, but not after 9 o'clock in the evening, and never to the Indians, under penalty of losing their licences.
In addition, he licenced nine other innkeepers, to sell beer only, and then in moderation, to the Indians, three for those of the St. Louis district, two for that of Sault-au-Récollet, two for the Nepissingués, and two others for the Abenakis, Ottowans and other savages, who came to the town to trade. Those with this beer licence had to refuse liquor to the Indians after the retraite battue, and never to let them take drink away with them; while they were obliged to give lodging to the savages if they wanted to stay. This second set of licence holders, however, had the privilege of selling any kind of drink to the French. We can imagine that these latter outlying saloons were in danger of being disorderly. Yet the number of illicit "houses" increased so that in 1726 Claude Thomas Dupuy issued an ordonnance, dated November 22d, which affected Montreal as well as other cities in the regulation of the sale of liquors. By this new order, which contained fourteen articles on the subject of innkeepers and liquor sellers of all kinds, from the fashionable hôtel of the time to the humbler vendor of wine who had his piece of evergreen bush outside his door--a bundle of pine sprigs, maybe, to show that drink was served inside. Even all those who had been given licences previously by local authorities were now to send in their titles and credentials before receiving in return a new licence expressly signed by the intendant himself. It was a necessary measure borne in upon him by many officers of troops, masters and fathers of families, who complained that the numerous cabarets were turning the youth, the soldiers and the servants away from duty, respect and service. Hence the intendant's drastic measure in striking at the root of the evil by putting down illicit vendors and restricting the legitimate licences.
As an instance of the methods of the day we may cite an instruction of the king to MM. de Vaudreuil and Bégon of June 15, 1712. "M. Bégon will take in hand the reduction of the number of horses. The habitants have only need of them to till the soil, to haul their timber and to transport their wheat. It is not natural that the inhabitants should make use of them during the winter to communicate with other places instead of going on snowshoes, as they ought to do. Too great attention cannot be paid to make the people take to this usage, now almost a lost art, and the habitants should be prevented as far as possible from leading an easy life by these soft methods, since such diminishes their strength and breaks down their courage."
Those interested in the first mention of immigrants of various nationalities, settling in Montreal, will find that in 1712 two ladies, English Catholics, Marie Silver and Esther O'Wellen, had obtained the favor of naturalization. At the same time, June 24th, the king demands a complete list of all English Catholics settled in Canada.
In 1714 we find mention, by Intendant Bégon, of an Irishman, "Jean La Haye, un Irlandais" (probably John Lahy, Leahy, or Lahey, who had been settled in the district of Lachine for twenty-two years), who had been arrested with an Englishman, Jean Joublin, Anglais (probably a John Jobling), for counterfeiting card money. These were probably prisoners of war who had remained behind.
On the date of March 7, 1724, at Versailles, a brevet to practice medicine in Montreal under the orders of Sieur Tarrazin, royal physician of Quebec, was granted to one Timothy Silvain (Sullivan), an Irishman by birth. On March 19, 1714, letters of naturalization were granted to an Englishman, Claude Mathias Senif, settled at Montreal.
Engineers and others will note the reply of the king on March 22, 1714, concerning the proposition of M. de Breslay, who had sent the king a specimen of a marble taken from a mountain situated twenty-one leagues from Montreal and at a league and a half from Long Sault, and who recommended the completion of the Lachine Canal. The king replied that the canal was not practicable by reason of the expense and the marble did not appear excellent enough to warrant it either.
In the course of this history we have given indications of the lives of some of the outstanding characters of Montreal whom the genius of the place fostered. It is fitting that we should take notice of the last days of the recluse, Jeanne LeBer, whose extraordinary career was one of the products of the age now being treated. She died on October 3, 1714, in her fifty-third year, after having lived fifteen years as a recluse in her parents' house and twenty more in the retreat made by herself in the Convent of the Congregation. The manner of her life was thus described as early as 1702 by M. Bacqueville de la Potherie in his "Histoire de l'Amérique Septentrionale." "I can not pass by in silence," he says, "an extraordinary trait of virtue of a young lady, making her abode in the Community of the Sisters of the Congregation, Miss LeBer, the only daughter of the richest merchant in Canada. She has an apartment in which she is enclosed, having no outside communication than that offered by a window looking out into the chapel. Her food is brought her, through a little opening in the door of her chamber. She sleeps on the hard floor. Her spiritual director is M. Leguenot, an ecclesiastic of St. Sulpice, and she sees her father, M. LeBer, only once or twice a year. In this solitude in which she has been for eight or nine years, she has formed a new temperament so that she could, with difficulty, now embrace any other manner of life. She has, however, a peaceful and docile disposition: the kind of life she lives does not consist in the abstract speculations of mental prayer, though she employs two hours daily in its practice. All the rest of the time she gives herself to good works of which she makes a present to the community."
Her benefactions were very great. By a contract of October 10, 1696, she gave the sum of 3,000 livres for the maintenance of a sister to worship day and night before the Blessed Sacrament in the Community Chapel. On the 25th of October, 1708, she gave another foundation of 8,000 livres for a daily mass, 2,000 of which was to be expended in the upkeep of the lights and sacred vessels. She also was desirous of adding to the convent suitable buildings for the boarding house of the pensionnaires and for the schools and of founding a number of burses for the education of poor girls who could not afford the pension. The foundation stone was placed on May 13, 1713, and on September 9, 1714, she disposed of the sum of 13,000 livres for the burses mentioned. After this act she did not live more than twenty-four days, having contracted an affection of the chest through rising during the night, as was her wont, to worship the Blessed Sacrament. Her death was the signal of an outburst of reverence. In the "History of the Hôtel-Dieu of Quebec," Mother Jucherau chronicles the event thus: "Her body was exposed for two days for the consolation and devotion of the whole of Montreal and the neighbourhood, whence crowds came to look upon and wonder at the holy body of this virgin. Her intercession was invoked with confidence. Her poor tattered garments and even her straw slippers were seized, as well as anything belonging to her, as revered relics. Several persons, afflicted with diverse maladies, approached her coffin and touched her with much reverence and faith, and we are assured that they have been cured. After this great gathering her body was carried to the door of the parish church, where a most solemn burial service was held; the greatest marks of veneration were paid her; and M. de Belmont, superior of the seminary, pronounced a very beautiful funeral oration." The text chosen was from the book of Judith, Chapter XV, v. 10, "Tu honorificentia populi nostri." "It is thou who art the glory of our people," indicated the degree of veneration and sanctity in which the deceased recluse was held by the people, most of whom had only heard of her by repute, never having seen her.
Her body was then taken to the Chapel of the Congregation and buried by the side of her father. The following inscription was placed above her resting place:
CI-GIST VENERABLE SOEUR JEANNE LEBER, BIENFAITRICE DE CETTE MAISON, QUI, AYANT ETE RECLUSE QUINZE ANS DANS LA MAISON DE SES PIEUX PARENTS, EN A PASSE VINGT DANS LA RETRAITE QU'ELLE A FAITE ICI. ELLE EST DECEDEE LE 3 OCTOBRE 1714, AGEE DE 52 ANS.
In 1715 there occurred a charge of murder against Jean d'Ailleboust d'Argenteuil. The major of the town and of the government of Montreal was then Jean Bouillet, Sieur de la Chassaigne. Acting as procureur of the king, he demanded that d'Argenteuil should be declared guilty of the crime and condemned to have his head cut off, and, as he was absent, this should be done in effigy. The court martial came to the same conclusions, the judges being Captains Le Verrier and d'Esgly, the Count de Vaudreuil, de Beaujeu, Du Vivier and de Buisson. As M. de Vaudreuil was a relative of the accused, the place of president was taken by the Baron de Longueuil, who held the trial in his own house.
Bankers and numismatists will learn that in the process of withdrawing the "card" money and putting an end to its circulation, the minister in a letter, dated February 17, 1715, to M. de Norisbel says, that out of 230,000 livres, so withdrawn by M. Bégon, the intendant, there has thus accrued to the profit of the king a benefit of 160,000 livres, which private persons lose. It was precisely this kind of impoverishment suffered by the people which eventually reconciled them to the English rule later.
In 1717, by a decree of May 11th, the merchants of Montreal were given the same privileges of the merchants in France of meeting in a convenient place to transact business in an exchange or bourse with the instruction to name one of their number to make representations in the name of all for the good of commerce to the governor general and the intendant of New France.
Genealogical students of the origins of Montreal families will learn from an edict of March 9, 1717, that it was decreed to maintain the children and grandchildren of Jacques LeBer, the Montreal merchant. This was in consequence of a request presented by his son, Jacques LeBer de Senneville, and the children of another son, Jacques LeBer de St. Paul. It is alleged in this report that the letters patent of nobility were promised to Jacques LeBer by M. de Frontenac, but that subsequently by an edict of March, 1696, it was settled that letters of nobility should not be forthcoming except for a financial consideration. As Jacques LeBer conformed to this condition he received his letters of nobility in November, 1696. But by another edict of August, 1715, all the titles of nobility accorded since 1689 for a financial consideration, were suppressed and revoked. Hence the present request relies on the representation of the services rendered by Jacques LeBer and his sons during all the wars; that one of them was slain in 1691, when he was commanding a party of eighty men, in a fight against the English, at La Prairie de la Madeleine.
In the same year letters patent of April 20, 1717, were issued giving permission to the Le Moynes to register at the Parliament Court of Paris and the Cour des Aydes, the letters of nobility accorded in the month of March, 1668, to Charles le Moyne de Longueuil and en-registered at the Chambre des Comptes on February 21, 1680. This document cites the service of the founder of the family, Charles le Moyne de Longueuil, and of his sons: Charles (baron de Longueuil), Pierre (d'Iberville), Joseph (de Sérigny), Jean Baptiste (de Bienville), and Antoine (de Chateauguay). There is also a notice of Francis, son of Pierre d'Iberville. This document states, that the founder, Charles, had eleven sons, six of whom had died in the king's service after distinguished careers. The survivors at this date were Charles, Baron de Longueuil, de Sérigny, de Bienville and de Chateauguay. Of these, at this period de Bienville and de Chateauguay were in Louisiana. Charles was in Canada and an active member of the Montreal district, holding important appointments. De Sérigny was probably in France, for he was then the seigneur of the Château de Loire in Aunis. The bones of the brave d'Iberville were resting in a cemetery of Havana.
Sportsmen may learn that partridge shooting was prohibited between March 15th and July 15th by an ordonnance of MM. de Vaudreuil and Bégon, dated January 28, 1720. In the same year the lieutenant-general of the jurisdiction of Montreal on May 10th forbids the merchants and private persons to keep more than ten pounds of powder on their premises. On May 21st an ordonnance of the Intendant Bégon forbade gunshots in the town and in the barns and other buildings in the country places.
A similar injunction was repeated by Intendant Dupuy on March 21, 1727, with the addition of a fine of 100 livres, for catching them by net or snare, or taking their eggs.
The druggists of today will hear with satisfaction of the recommendation by the king in a letter to MM. de Vaudreuil and Bégon, on June 8, 1721, of a powder, and the details of its composition, that was very much valued in sicknesses. This had just been recently made public. It was an Alkermes or Aurifique de Glaubec, prepared by Bolduc and La Serre, apothecaries to the king: it could cure the fevers, dropsy, vertigo, apoplexy, dysentery, gravel, smallpox, etc. English and American journals of that period contain numerous advertisements of similar "quack" medicines.
There is an act, dated July 1, 1721, of a land sale on the Coteau St. Louis at Montreal by the seigneurs of the seminary to M. Charles de Ramezay de la Gesse. This was to establish a brickyard and tile works.
To 1721 we may date the first beginnings of our Canadian postal service. In this year a posting system for the transportation of letters and travelers was created between Montreal and Quebec and the monopoly was rented for twenty years to M. Lanouiller on the condition of observing a certain tariff, according to distances, imposed by the Intendant Bégon. We may now give a picture of Montreal in 1721, as described by Charlevoix:
"This town has a very pleasing appearance. It is well situated, well laid out and well built. The charm of its surroundings and its streets inspires a certain gayety, which everybody feels. It is not fortified. A simple palisade with bastions, badly enough maintained, offers the sole defence with a rather wretched redoubt on a little rising ground, which serves as a boulevard and shelves down to a little square. This is the first point which one meets on arriving from Quebec. It is not forty years since the town was quite unprotected and exposed daily to be burned by the savages or by the English. It was the Chevalier de Callières who had it closed in. For some years there has been a project afoot to surround it with walls, but it will not be an easy task to induce the inhabitants to contribute to its expense. They are brave, and they are not rich. There has already been found difficulty in persuading them of the necessity of this expense since they are strongly convinced that their valour is more than sufficient to defend their town against any force that would dare to attack it....
"Montreal is a long square, situated on the bank of the river which, rising insensibly, divides the whole into high and low town, without any appreciable line of demarkation. The Hôtel-Dieu, the King's storehouses and the place d'Armes are in the lower town; this is also the merchants' quarter. In the upper town are the Seminary, the parish church, the Recollects, the Jesuits, the ladies of the Congregation, the Governor and the greater part of the officers. Beyond a little stream which comes from the northwest and bounds the town on this side, there are to be found some houses and the General Hospital and on the right, above the Recollects, whose convent is at the end of the town, or the same side, there is commencing to form a kind of suburb, which in time will be a very beautiful district. The Jesuits have only a small house here, but their church, which they have just finished covering in, is large and well built. The convent of the Recollects is much larger and its community more numerous. The seminary is in the middle of the town. It would seem that the object has been to make it solid and commodious rather than handsome. Its dignity, however, is such that one is not allowed to forget that it is the Seigneurial Manor; it communicates with the parochial church, which has more the air of a cathedral than that at Quebec. The services are conducted with a modesty and a dignity which inspire respect for the majesty of God, adored there. The house of the ladies of the Congregation, although one of the largest in the town, is too small as yet for its numerous community. It is the mother house of the order and the novitiate of an institute which ought to be all the dearer to New France and to this town in particular, since it originated here and the whole colony partakes in the advantages which so worthy an establishment brings to it.... The Hôtel-Dieu is served by nuns, whose first members were drawn from the Hôtel-Dieu of La Flèche in Anjou. They are poor; yet this is seen neither in their hall, which is large and well furnished and well supplied with beds, nor in their church, which is handsome and well ornamented, nor in their dwelling house, which is well built, becoming and spacious. But they are badly fed, although they are all occupied indefatigably, whether with the instruction of children, or the care of the sick.
"There can still be seen, from time to time, little flotillas of Indians arriving at Montreal, but this is nothing in comparison with the past. It is the Iroquois wars which have interrupted this great gathering of the nations in the colony. To remedy this, storehouses with forts have been established among the greater part of them, where there is always a commandant and soldiers enough to place the stores in safety. The savages always wish to have a gunsmith with them. In many places there are missionaries among them, who would do more good, if they were the only Frenchmen there. It would seem good to put things again on their former basis, seeing that throughout the length and breadth of the colony there is now peace. This would be the means of restraining the coureurs de bois, whose cupidity, without speaking of the other disorders brought about by their looseness of life, brings on daily instances of dishonesty, which make us despicable in the eyes of these barbarian people."
FOOTNOTES:
[165] A decree of May 7, 1679, forbids local or particular governors to arrest or imprison any of the French inhabitants without the express order of the governor and lieutenant-general, or that of the Sovereign Council, or to condemn any to l'amende," or to exercise any judgment of their private authority in this respect.
[166] In 1881 it was still the only one, though the post office clock was shortly expected to rival it.
[167] In 1714-16 he again acted as administrator of the colony.
[168] The origins of our canal system. President's address before the Canadian Society of Civil Engineers, 1906, by Ernest Marceau.
[169] He died the next year. A tablet on the seminary wall today reads: "François Dollier de Casson, first historian of Montreal, captain under Marshal de Turenne, then priest of St. Sulpice during thirty-five years. He died in 1701, curé of the parish."
[170] Going up St. Gabriel Street to St. Thérèse, and then turning to the east and going down St. Vincent to St. Amable and along the latter street to Jacques Cartier Square, several old houses may be seen. In one, on St. Vincent Street, erected in 1693, lived de Catalogne, who was the engineer of the first Lachine Canal.
[171] Apparently some of the employees engaged by Madame were English Protestants, for in a letter of the same date written to Vaudreuil and Raudot, it is asked if the English employees of Madame de Repentigny have yet been made Catholics.
[172] A vehicle on wheels first went from Quebec to Montreal in 1734.
[173] There is a similar disposition today to procrastinate in all city planning and health movements.