The Makers of Canada: Bishop Laval Part 7

It would seem that sad presentiments a.s.sailed him at this moment, for he said in the deed of gift: "I declare that my last will is to be buried in this chapel; and if our Lord disposes of my life during this voyage I desire that my body be brought here for burial. I also desire this chapel to be open to the public." Fortunately, he was mistaken, it was not the intention of the Lord to remove him so soon from the affections of his people. For twenty years more the revered prelate was to spread about him good works and good examples, and Providence reserved for him the happiness of dying in the midst of his flock.

His generosity did not confine itself to this grant. He could not leave his diocese, which he was not sure of seeing again, without giving a token of remembrance to that school of St. Joachim, which he had founded and which he loved so well; he gave the seminary eight thousand francs for the support of the priest entrusted with the direction of the school at the same time as with the ministry of the parish, and another sum of four thousand francs to build the village church.

A young Canadian priest, M. Guyon, son of a farmer of the Beaupre sh.o.r.e, had the good fortune of accompanying the bishop on the voyage. It would have been very imprudent to leave the venerable prelate alone, worn out as he was by troublesome fits of vertigo whenever he indulged too long in work; besides, he was attacked by a disease of the heart, whose onslaughts sometimes incapacitated him.

It would be misjudging the foresight of Mgr. de Laval to think that before embarking for the mother country he had not sought out a priest worthy to replace him. He appealed to two men whose judgment and circ.u.mspection he esteemed, M. Dudouyt and Father Le Valois of the Society of Jesus. He asked them to recommend a true servant of G.o.d, virtuous and zealous above all. Father Le Valois indicated the Abbe Jean Baptiste de la Croix de Saint-Vallier, the king's almoner, whose zeal for the welfare of souls, whose charity, great piety, modesty and method made him the admiration of all. The influence which his position and the powerful relations of his family must gain for the Church in Canada were an additional argument in his favour; the superior of St. Sulpice, M. Tronson, who was also consulted, praised highly the talents and the qualities of the young priest. "My Lord has shown great virtue in his resignation," writes M. Dudouyt. "I know no occasion on which he has shown so strongly his love for his Church; for he has done everything that could be desired to procure a person capable of preserving and perfecting the good work which he has begun here." If the Abbe de Saint-Vallier had not been a man after G.o.d's own heart, he would not have accepted a duty so honourable but so difficult. He was not unaware of the difficulties which he would have to surmount, for Mgr. de Laval explained them to him himself with the greatest frankness; and, what was a still greater sacrifice, the king's almoner was to leave the most brilliant court in the world for a very remote country, still in process of organization. Nevertheless he accepted, and Laval had the satisfaction of knowing that he was committing his charge into the hands of a worthy successor.

It was now only a question of obtaining the consent of the king before pet.i.tioning the sovereign pontiff for the canonical establishment of the new episcopal authority. It was not without difficulty that it was obtained, for the prince could not decide to accept the resignation of a prelate who seemed to him indispensable to the interests of New France.

He finally understood that the decision of Mgr. de Laval was irrevocable; as a mark of confidence and esteem he allowed him to choose his successor.

At this period the misunderstanding created between the common father of the faithful and his most Christian Majesty by the claims of the latter in the matter of the right of _regale_[9] kept the Church in a false position, to the grief of all good Catholics. Pope Innocent XI waited with persistent and calm firmness until Louis XIV should become again the elder son of the Church; until then France could not exist for him, and more than thirty episcopal sees remained without occupants in the country of Saint Louis and of Joan of Arc. It was not, then, to be hoped that the appointment by the king of the Abbe de Saint-Vallier as second bishop of Quebec could be immediately sanctioned by the sovereign pontiff. It was decided that Mgr. de Laval, to whom the king granted an annuity for life of two thousand francs from the revenues of the bishopric of Aire, should remain t.i.tular bishop until the consecration of his successor, and that M. de Saint-Vallier, appointed provisionally grand vicar of the prelate, should set out immediately for New France, where he would a.s.sume the government of the diocese. The Abbe de Saint-Vallier had not yet departed before he gave evidence of his munificence, and proved to the faithful of his future bishopric that he would be to them as generous a father as he whom he was about to replace. By deed of May 10th, 1685, he presented to the Seminary of Quebec a sum of forty-two thousand francs, to be used for the maintenance of missionaries; he bequeathed to it at the same time all the furniture, books, etc., which he should possess at his death.

Laval's purpose was to remain for the present in France, where he would busy himself actively for the interests of Canada, but his fixed resolve was to go and end his days on that soil of New France which he loved so well. It was in 1688, only a few months after the official appointment of Saint-Vallier to the bishopric of Quebec, and his consecration on January 25th of the same year, that Laval returned to Canada.

M. de Saint-Vallier embarked at La Roch.e.l.le in the beginning of June, 1685, on the royal vessel which was carrying to Canada the new governor-general, M. de Denonville. The king having permitted him to take with him a score of persons, he made a most judicious choice: nine ecclesiastics, several school-masters and a few good workmen destined for the labours of the seminary, accompanied him. The voyage was long and very fatiguing. The pa.s.sengers were, however, less tried than those of two other s.h.i.+ps which followed them, on one of which more than five hundred soldiers had been crowded together. As might have been expected, sickness was not long in breaking out among them; more than one hundred and fifty of these unfortunates died, and their bodies were cast into the sea.

Immediately after his arrival the grand vicar visited all the religious establishments of the town, and he observed everywhere so much harmony and good spirit that he could not pa.s.s it over in silence. Speaking with admiration of the seminary, he said: "Every one in it devoted himself to spiritual meditation, with such blessed results that from the youngest cleric to the highest ecclesiastics in holy orders each one brought of his own accord all his personal possessions to be used in common. It seemed to me then that I saw revived in the Church of Canada something of that spirit of unworldliness which const.i.tuted one of the princ.i.p.al beauties of the budding Church of Jerusalem in the time of the apostles." The examples of brotherly unity and self-effacement which he admired so much in others he also set himself: he placed in the library of the seminary a magnificent collection of books which he had brought with him, and deposited in the coffers of the house several thousand francs in money, his personal property. Braving the rigours of the season, he set out in the winter of 1685 and visited the sh.o.r.e of Beaupre, the Island of Orleans, and then the north sh.o.r.e as far as Montreal. In the spring he took another direction, and inspected all the missions of Gaspesia and Acadia. He was so well satisfied with the condition of his diocese that he wrote to Mgr. de Laval: "All that I regret is that there is no more good for me to do in this Church."

In the spring of this same year, 1686, a valiant little troop was making a more warlike pastoral visit. To seventy robust Canadians, commanded by d'Iberville, de Sainte-Helene and de Maricourt, all sons of Charles Le Moyne, the governor had added thirty good soldiers under the orders of MM. de Troyes, d.u.c.h.esnil and Catalogne, to take part in an expedition for the capture of Hudson Bay from the English. Setting out on snowshoes, dragging their provisions and equipment on toboggans, then advancing, sometimes on foot, sometimes in bark canoes, they penetrated by the Ottawa River and Temiskaming and Abitibi Lakes as far as James Bay. They did not brave so many dangers and trials without being resolved to conquer or die; accordingly, in spite of its twelve cannon, Fort Monsipi was quickly carried. The two forts, Rupert and Ste. Anne, suffered the same fate, and the only one that remained to the English, that named Fort Nelson, was preserved to them solely because its remote situation saved it. The head of the expedition, M. de Troyes, on his return to Quebec, rendered an account of his successes to M. de Denonville and to a new commissioner, M. de Champigny, who had just replaced M. de Meulles.

The bishop's infirmities left him scarcely any respite. "My health," he wrote to his successor, "is exceedingly good considering the bad use I make of it. It seems, however, that the wound which I had in my foot during five or six months at Quebec has been for the last three weeks threatening to re-open. The holy will of G.o.d be done!" And he added, in his firm resolution to pa.s.s his last days in Canada: "In any case, I feel that I have sufficient strength and health to return this year to the only place which now can give me peace and rest. _In pace in idipsum dormiam et requiescam._ Meanwhile, as we must have no other aim than the good pleasure of our Lord, whatever desire He gives me for this rest and peace, He grants me at the same time the favour of making Him a sacrifice of it in submitting myself to the opinion that you have expressed, that I should stay this year in France, to be present at your return next autumn." The bad state of his health did not prevent him from devoting his every moment to Canadian interests. He went into the most infinitesimal details of the administration of his diocese, so great was his solicitude for his work. "We must hasten this year, if possible," he wrote, "to labour at the re-establishment of the church of Ste. Anne du Pet.i.t-Cap, to which the whole country has such an attachment. We must work also to push forward the clearing of the lands of St. Joachim, in order that we may have the proper rotation crops on each farm, and that the farms may suffice for the needs of the seminary." In another letter he concerns himself with the sum of three thousand francs granted by the king each year for the marriage portion of a certain number of poor young girls marrying in Canada. "We should,"

says he, "distribute these moneys in parcels, fifty francs, or ten crowns, to the numerous poor families scattered along the sh.o.r.es, in which there is a large number of children." He practises this wise economy constantly when it is a question, not of his personal property, but of the funds of his seminary. He finds that his successor, whom the ten years which he had pa.s.sed at court as king's almoner could not have trained in parsimony, allows himself to be carried away, by his zeal and his desire to do good, to a somewhat excessive expense. With what tact and delicacy he indulges in a discreet reproach! "_Magna est fides tua_," he writes to him, "and much greater than mine. We see that all our priests have responded to it with the same confidence and entire submission with which they have believed it their duty to meet your sentiments, in which they have my approval. My particular admiration has been aroused by seeing in all your letters and in all the impulses of your heart so great a reliance on the lovable Providence of G.o.d that not only has it permitted you not to have the least doubt that it would abundantly provide the wherewithal for the support of all the works which it has suggested to you, but that upon this basis, which is the firm truth, you have had the courage to proceed to the execution of them. It is true that my heart has long yearned for what you have accomplished; but I have never had sufficient confidence or reliance to undertake it. I always awaited the means _quae pater posuit in sua potestate_. I hope that, since the Most Holy Family of our Lord has suggested all these works to you, they will give you means and ways to maintain what is so much to the glory of G.o.d and the welfare of souls.

But, according to all appearances, great difficulties will be found, which will only serve to increase this confidence and trust in G.o.d." And he ends with this prudent advice: "Whatever confidence G.o.d desires us to have in His providence, it is certain that He demands from us the observance of rules of prudence, not human and political, but Christian and just."

He concerns himself even with the servants, and it is singular to note that his mind, so apt to undertake and execute vast plans, possesses none the less an astonis.h.i.+ng sagacity and accuracy of observation in petty details. One Valet, entrusted with the purveyance, had obtained permission to wear the ca.s.sock. "Unless he be much changed in his humour," writes Mgr. de Laval, "it would be well to send him back to France; and I may even opine that, whatever change might appear in him, he would be unfitted to administer a living, the basis of his character being very rustic, gross, and displeasing, and unsuitable for ecclesiastical functions, in which one is constantly obliged to converse and deal with one's neighbours, both children and adults. Having given him the ca.s.sock and having admitted him to the refectory, I hardly see any other means of getting rid of him than to send him back to France."

In his correspondence with Saint-Vallier, Laval gives an account of the various steps which he was taking at court to maintain the integrity of the diocese of Quebec. This was, for a short time, at stake. The Recollets, who had followed La Salle in his expeditions, were trying with some chance of success to have the valley of the Mississippi and Louisiana made an apostolic vicariate independent of Canada. Laval finally gained his cause; the jurisdiction of the bishopric of Quebec over all the countries of North America which belonged to France was maintained, and later the Seminary of Quebec sent missionaries to Louisiana and to the Mississippi.

But the most important questions, which formed the princ.i.p.al subject both of his preoccupations and of his letters, are that of the establishment of the Recollets in the Upper Town of Quebec, that of a plan for a permanent mission at Baie St. Paul, and above all, that of the t.i.thes and the support of the priests. This last question brought about between him and Mgr. de Saint-Vallier a most complete conflict of views. Yet the differences of opinion between the two servants of G.o.d never prevented them from esteeming each other highly. The following letter does as much honour to him who wrote it as to him to whom such homage is rendered: "The n.o.ble house of Laval from which he sprang,"

writes Mgr. de Saint-Vallier, "the right of primogeniture which he renounced on entering upon the ecclesiastical career; the exemplary life which he led in France before there was any thought of raising him to the episcopacy; the a.s.siduity with which he governed so long the Church in Canada; the constancy and firmness which he showed in surmounting all the obstacles which opposed on divers occasions the rect.i.tude of his intentions and the welfare of his dear flock; the care which he took of the French colony and his efforts for the conversion of the savages; the expeditions which he undertook several times in the interests of both; the zeal which impelled him to return to France to seek a successor; his disinterestedness and the humility which he manifested in offering and in giving so willingly his frank resignation; finally, all the great virtues which I see him practise every day in the seminary where I sojourn with him, would well deserve here a most hearty eulogy, but his modesty imposes silence upon me, and the veneration in which he is held wherever he is known is praise more worthy than I could give him...."

Mgr. de Saint-Vallier left Quebec for France on November 18th, 1686, only a few days after a fire which consumed the Convent of the Ursulines; the poor nuns, who had not been able to s.n.a.t.c.h anything from the flames, had to accept, until the re-construction of their convent, the generous shelter offered them by the hospitable ladies of the Hotel-Dieu. Mgr. de Saint-Vallier did not disembark at the port of La Roch.e.l.le until forty-five days after his departure, for this voyage was one continuous storm.

FOOTNOTES:

[9] A right, belonging formerly to the kings of France, of enjoying the revenues of vacant bishoprics.

CHAPTER XV

MGR. DE LAVAL COMES FOR THE LAST TIME TO CANADA

Mgr. de Saint-Vallier received the most kindly welcome from the king: he availed himself of it to request some aid on behalf of the priests of the seminary whom age and infirmity condemned to retirement. He obtained it, and received, besides, fifteen thousand francs for the building of an episcopal palace. He decided, in fact, to withdraw from the seminary, in order to preserve complete independence in the exercise of his high duties. Laval learned with sorrow of this decision; he, who had always clung to the idea of union with his seminary and of having but one common fund with this house, beheld his successor adopt an opposite line of conduct. Another cause of division rose between the two prelates; the too great generosity of Mgr. de Saint-Vallier had brought the seminary into financial embarra.s.sment. The Marquis de Seignelay, then minister, thought it wiser under such circ.u.mstances to postpone till later the return of Mgr. de Laval to Canada. The venerable bishop, whatever it must have cost him, adhered to this decision with a wholly Christian resignation. "You will know by the enclosed letters," he writes to the priests of the Seminary of Quebec, "what compels me to stay in France. I had no sooner received my sentence than our Lord granted me the favour of inspiring me to go before the most Holy Sacrament and make a sacrifice of all my desires and of that which is the dearest to me in the world. I began by making the _amende honorable_ to the justice of G.o.d, who deigned to extend to me the mercy of recognizing that it was in just punishment of my sins and lack of faith that His providence deprived me of the blessing of returning to a place where I had so greatly offended; and I told Him, I think with a cheerful heart and a spirit of humility, what the high priest Eli said when Samuel declared to him from G.o.d what was to happen to him: '_Dominus est: quod bonum est in oculis suis faciat_.' But since the will of our Lord does not reject a contrite and humble heart, and since He both abases and exalts, He gave me to know that the greatest favour He could grant me was to give me a share in the trials which He deigned to bear in His life and death for love of us; in thanksgiving for which I said a Te Deum with a heart filled with joy and consolation in my soul: for, as to the lower nature, it is left in the bitterness which it must bear. It is a hurt and a wound which will be difficult to heal and which apparently will last until my death, unless it please Divine Providence, which disposes of men's hearts as it pleases, to bring about some change in the condition of affairs. This will be when it pleases G.o.d, and as it may please Him, without His creatures being able to oppose it."

In Canada the return of the revered Mgr. de Laval was impatiently expected, and the governor, M. de Denonville, himself wrote that "in the present state of public affairs it was necessary that the former bishop should return, in order to influence men's minds, over which he had a great ascendency by reason of his character and his reputation for sanct.i.ty." Some persons wrongfully attributed to the influence of Saint-Vallier the order which detained the worthy bishop in France; on the contrary, Saint-Vallier had said one day to the minister, "It would be very hard for a bishop who has founded this church and who desires to go and die in its midst, to see himself detained in France. If Mgr. de Laval should stay here the blame would be cast upon his successor, against whom for this reason many people would be ill disposed."

M. de Denonville desired the more eagerly the return of this prelate so beloved in New France, since difficulties were arising on every hand.

Convinced that peace with the Iroquois could not last, he began by ama.s.sing provisions and ammunition at Fort Cataraqui, without heeding the protests of Colonel Dongan, the most vigilant and most experienced enemy of French domination in America; then he busied himself with fortifying Montreal. He visited the place, appointed as its governor the Chevalier de Callieres, a former captain in the regiment of Navarre, and in the spring of 1687 employed six hundred men under the direction of M. du Luth, royal engineer, in the erection of a palisade.

These wooden defences, as was to be expected, were not durable and demanded repairs every year. The year 1686, which had begun with the conquest of the southern portion of Hudson Bay, was spent almost entirely in preparations for war and negotiations for peace; the Iroquois, nevertheless, continued their inroads. Finally M. de Denonville, having received during the following spring eight hundred poor recruits under the command of Vaudreuil, was ready for his expedition. Part of these reinforcements were at once sent to Montreal, where M. de Callieres was gathering a body of troops on St. Helen's Island: eight hundred and thirty-two regulars, one thousand Canadians, and three hundred Indian allies, all burning with the desire of distinguis.h.i.+ng themselves, awaited now only the signal for departure.

"With this superiority of forces," says one author, "Denonville conceived, however, the unfortunate idea of beginning hostilities by an act which dishonoured the French name among the savages, that name which, in spite of their great irritation, they had always feared and respected." With the purpose of striking terror into the Iroquois he caused to be seized the chiefs whom the Five Nations had sent as delegates to Cataraqui at the request of Father de Lamberville, and sent them to France to serve on board the royal galleys. This violation of the law of nations aroused the fury of the Iroquois, and two missionaries, Father Lamberville and Millet, though entirely innocent of this crime, escaped torture only with difficulty. The king disapproved wholly of this treason, and returned the prisoners to Canada; others who, at Fort Frontenac, had been taken by M. de Champigny in as treacherous a manner, were likewise restored to liberty.

The army, divided into four bodies, set out on June 11th, 1687, in four hundred boats. It was joined at Sand River, on the sh.o.r.e of Lake Ontario, by six hundred men from Detroit, and advanced inland. After having pa.s.sed through two very dangerous defiles, the French were suddenly attacked by eight hundred of the enemy ambushed in the bed of a stream. At first surprised, they promptly recovered from their confusion, and put the savages to flight. Some sixty Iroquois were wounded in this encounter, and forty-five whom they left dead on the field of battle were eaten by the Ottawas, according to the horrible custom of these cannibals. They entered then into the territory of the Tsonnontouans, which was found deserted; everything had been reduced to ashes, except an immense quant.i.ty of maize, to which they set fire; they killed also a prodigious number of swine, but they did not meet with a single Indian.

Instead of pursuing the execution of these reprisals by marching against the other nations, M. de Denonville proceeded to Niagara, where he built a fort. The garrison of a hundred men which he left there succ.u.mbed in its entirety to a mysterious epidemic, probably caused by the poor quality of the provisions. Thus the campaign did not produce results proportionate to the preparations which had been made; it humbled the Iroquois, but by this very fact it excited their rage and desire for vengeance; so true is it that half-measures are more dangerous than complete inaction. They were, besides, cleverly goaded on by Governor Dongan. Towards the end of the summer they ravaged the whole western part of the colony, and carried their audacity to the point of burning houses and killing several persons on the Island of Montreal.

M. de Denonville understood that he could not carry out a second expedition; disease had caused great havoc among the population and the soldiers, and he could no longer count on the Hurons of Michilimackinac, who kept up secret relations with the Iroquois. He was willing to conclude peace, and consented to demolish Fort Niagara and to bring back the Iroquois chiefs who had been sent to France to row in the galleys.

The conditions were already accepted on both sides, when the negotiations were suddenly interrupted by the duplicity of Kondiaronk, surnamed the Rat, chief of the Michilimackinac Hurons. This man, the most cunning and crafty of Indians, a race which has nothing to learn in point of astuteness from the shrewdest diplomat, had offered his services against the Iroquois to the governor, who had accepted them.

Enkindled with the desire of distinguis.h.i.+ng himself by some brilliant deed, he arrives with a troop of Hurons at Fort Frontenac, where he learns that a treaty is about to be concluded between the French and the Iroquois. Enraged at not having even been consulted in this matter, fearing to see the interests of his nation sacrificed, he lies in wait with his troop at Famine Creek, falls upon the delegates, and, killing a number of them, makes the rest prisoners. On the statement of the latter that they were going on an emba.s.sy to Ville-Marie, he feigns surprise, and is astonished that the French governor-general should have sent him to attack men who were going to treat with him. He then sets them at liberty, keeping a single one of them, whom he hastens to deliver to M.

de Durantaye, governor of Michilimackinac; the latter, ignorant of the negotiations with the Iroquois, has the prisoner shot in spite of the protestations of the wretched man, who the Rat pretends is mad. The plan of the Huron chief has succeeded; it remains now only to reap the fruits of it. He frees an old Iroquois who has long been detained in captivity and sends him to announce to his compatriots that the French are seeking in the negotiations a cowardly means of ridding themselves of their foes. This news exasperated the Five Nations; henceforth peace was impossible, and the Iroquois went to join the English, with whom, on the pretext of the dethronement of James II, war was again about to break out. M. de Callieres, governor of Montreal, set out for France to lay before the king a plan for the conquest of New York; the monarch adopted it, but, not daring to trust its execution to M. de Denonville, he recalled him in order to entrust it to Count de Frontenac, now again appointed governor.

We can easily conceive that in the danger thus threatening the colony M.

de Denonville should have taken pains to surround himself with all the men whose aid might be valuable to him. "You will have this year," wrote M. de Brisacier to M. Glandelet, "the joy of seeing again our two prelates. You will find the first more holy and more than ever dead to himself; and the second will appear to you all that you can desire him to be for the particular consolation of the seminary and the good of New France." On the request of the governor-general, in fact, Mgr. de Laval saw the obstacle disappear which had opposed his departure, and he hastened to take advantage of it. He set out in the spring of 1688, at that period of the year when vegetation begins to display on all sides its festoons of verdure and flowers, and transforms Normandy and Touraine, that garden of France, into genuine groves; the calm of the air, the perfumed breezes of the south, the arrival of the southern birds with their rich and varied plumage, all contribute to make these days the fairest and sweetest of the year; but, in his desire to reach as soon as possible the country where his presence was deemed necessary, the venerable prelate did not wait for the spring sun to dry the roads soaked by the rains of winter; accordingly, in spite of his infirmities, he was obliged to travel to La Roch.e.l.le on horseback. However, he could not embark on the s.h.i.+p _Le Soleil d'Afrique_ until about the middle of April.

His duties as Bishop of Quebec had ended on January 25th preceding, the day of the episcopal consecration of M. de Saint-Vallier. It would seem that Providence desired that the priestly career of the prelate and his last co-workers should end at the same time. Three priests of the Seminary of Quebec went to receive in heaven almost at the same period the reward of their apostolic labours. M. Thomas Morel died on September 23rd, 1687; M. Jean Guyon on January 10th, 1688; and M. Dudouyt on the fifteenth of the same month. This last loss, especially, caused deep grief to Mgr. de Laval. He desired that the heart of the devoted missionary should rest in that soil of New France for which it had always beat, and he brought it with him. The ceremony of the burial at Quebec of the heart of M. Dudouyt was extremely touching; the whole population was present. Up to his latest day this priest had taken the greatest interest in Canada, and the letter which he wrote to the seminary a few days before his death breathes the most ardent charity; it particularly enjoined upon all patience and submission to authority.

The last official doc.u.ment signed by Mgr. de Laval as t.i.tulary bishop was an addition to the statutes and rules which he had previously drawn up for the Chapter of the city of Champlain. He wrote at the same time: "It remains for me now, sirs and dearly beloved brethren, only to thank you for the good affection that you preserve towards me, and to a.s.sure you that it will not be my fault if I do not go at the earliest moment to rejoin you in the growing Church which I have ever cherished as the portion and heritage which it has pleased our Lord to preserve for me during nearly thirty years. I supplicate His infinite goodness that he into whose hands He has caused it to pa.s.s by my resignation may repair all my faults."

The prelate landed on June 3rd. "The whole population," says the Abbe Ferland, "was heartened and rejoiced by the return of Mgr. de Laval, who came back to Canada to end his days among his former flock. His virtues, his long and arduous labours in New France, his sincere love for the children of the country, had endeared him to the Canadians; they felt their trust in Providence renewed on beholding again him who, with them, at their head, had pa.s.sed through many years of trial and suffering." He hardly took time to rest, but set out at once for Montreal, where he was anxious to deliver in person to the Sulpicians the doc.u.ment of spiritual and devotional union which had been quite recently signed at Paris by the Seminary of St. Sulpice and by that of the Foreign Missions. Returning to Quebec, he had the pleasure of receiving his successor on the arrival of the latter, who disembarked on July 31st, 1688.

The reception of Mgr. de Saint-Vallier was as cordial as that offered two months before to his predecessor. "As early as four o'clock in the morning," we read in the annals of the Ursulines, "the whole population was alert to hasten preparations. Some arranged the avenue along which the new bishop was to pa.s.s, others raised here and there the standard of the lilies of France. In the course of the morning Mgr. de Laval, accompanied by several priests, betook himself to the vessel to salute his successor whom the laws of the old French etiquette kept on board his s.h.i.+p until he had replied to all the compliments prepared for him.

Finally, about two o'clock in the afternoon, the whole clergy, the civil and military authorities, and the people having a.s.sembled on the quay, Mgr. de Saint-Vallier made his appearance, addressed first by M. de Bernieres in the name of the clergy. He was next greeted by the mayor, in the name of the whole town, then the procession began to move, with military music at its head, and the new bishop was conducted to the cathedral between two files of musketeers, who did not fail to salute him and to fire volleys along the route." "The thanksgiving hymn which re-echoed under the vaults of the holy temple found an echo in all hearts," we read in another account; "and the least happy was not that of the worthy prelate who thus inaugurated his long and laborious episcopal career."

CHAPTER XVI

Ma.s.sACRE OF LACHINE

The virtue of Mgr. de Laval lacked the supreme consecration of misfortune. A wearied but triumphant soldier, the venerable shepherd of souls, coming back to dwell in the bishopric of Quebec, the witness of his first apostolic labours, gave himself into the hands of his Master to disappear and die. "Lord," he said with Simeon, "now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace according to thy word." But many griefs still remained to test his resignation to the Divine Will, and the most shocking disaster mentioned in our annals was to sadden his last days.

The year 1688 had pa.s.sed peacefully enough for the colony, but it was only the calm which is the forerunner of the storm. The Five Nations employed their time in secret organization; the French, lulled in this deceptive security, particularly by news which had come from M. de Valrennes, in command of Fort Frontenac, to whom the Iroquois had declared that they were coming down to Montreal to make peace, had left the forts to return to their dwellings and to busy themselves with the work of the fields. Moreover, the Chevalier de Vaudreuil, who commanded at Montreal in the absence of M. de Callieres, who had gone to France, carried his lack of foresight to the extent of permitting the officers stationed in the country to leave their posts. It is astonis.h.i.+ng to note such imprudent neglect on the part of men who must have known the savage nature. Rancour is the most deeply-rooted defect in the Indian, and it was madness to think that the Iroquois could have forgotten so soon the insult inflicted on their arms by the expedition of M. de Denonville, or the breach made in their independence by the abduction of their chiefs sent to France as convicts. The warning of their approaching incursion had meanwhile reached Quebec through a savage named Ataviata; unfortunately, the Jesuit Fathers had no confidence in this Indian; they a.s.sured the governor-general that Ataviata was a worthless fellow, and M. de Denonville made the mistake of listening too readily to these prejudices and of not at least redoubling his precautions.

It was on the night between August 4th and 5th, 1689; all was quiet on the Island of Montreal. At the end of the evening's conversation, that necessary complement of every well-filled day, the men had hung their pipes, the faithful comrades of their labour, to a rafter of the ceiling; the women had put away their knitting or pushed aside in a corner their indefatigable spinning-wheel, and all had hastened to seek in sleep new strength for the labour of the morrow. Outside, the elements were unchained, the rain and hail were raging. As daring as the Normans when they braved on frail vessels the fury of the seas, the Iroquois, to the number of fifteen hundred, profited by the storm to traverse Lake St. Louis in their bark canoes, and landed silently on the sh.o.r.e at Lachine. They took care not to approach the forts; the darkness was so thick that the soldiers discovered nothing unusual and did not fire the cannon as was the custom on the approach of the enemy. Long before daybreak the savages, divided into a number of squads, had surrounded the houses within a radius of several miles. Suddenly a piercing signal is given by the chiefs, and at once a horrible clamour rends the air; the terrifying war-cry of the Iroquois has roused the sleepers and raised the hair on the heads of the bravest. The colonists leap from their couches, but they have no time to seize their weapons; demons who seem to be vomited forth by h.e.l.l have already broken in the doors and windows. The dwellings which the Iroquois cannot penetrate are delivered over to the flames, but the unhappy ones who issue from them in confusion to escape the tortures of the fire are about to be abandoned to still more horrible torments. The pen refuses to describe the horrors of this night, and the imagination of Dante can hardly in his "Inferno" give us an idea of it. The butchers killed the cattle, burned the houses, impaled women, compelled fathers to cast their children into the flames, spitted other little ones still alive and compelled their mothers to roast them. Everything was burned and pillaged except the forts, which were not attacked; two hundred persons of all ages and of both s.e.xes perished under torture, and about fifty, carried away to the villages, were bound to the stake and burned by a slow fire. Nevertheless the great majority of the inhabitants were able to escape, thanks to the strong liquors kept in some of the houses, with which the savages made ample acquaintance. Some of the colonists took refuge in the forts, others were pursued into the woods.

Meanwhile the alarm had spread in Ville-Marie. M. de Denonville, who was there, gives to the Chevalier de Vaudreuil the order to occupy Fort Roland with his troops and a hundred volunteers. De Vaudreuil hastens thither, accompanied by de Subercase and other officers; they are all eager to measure their strength with the enemy, but the order of Denonville is strict, they must remain on the defensive and run no risk.

By dint of insistence, Subercase obtained permission to make a sortie with a hundred volunteers; at the moment when he was about to set out he had to yield the command to M. de Saint-Jean, who was higher in rank.

The little troop went and entrenched itself among the debris of a burned house and exchanged an ineffectual fire with the savages ambushed in a clump of trees. They soon perceived a party of French and friendly Indians who, coming from Fort Remy, were proceeding towards them in great danger of being surrounded by the Iroquois, who were already sobered. The volunteers wished to rush out to meet this reinforcement, but their commander, adhering to his instructions, which forbade him to push on farther, restrained them. What might have been foreseen happened: the detachment from Fort Remy was exterminated. Five of its officers were taken and carried off towards the Iroquois villages, but succeeded in escaping on the way, except M. de la Rabeyre, who was bound to the stake and perished in torture.

On reading these details one cannot understand the inactivity of the French: it would seem that the authorities had lost their heads. We cannot otherwise explain the lack of foresight of the officers absent from their posts, the pusillanimous orders of the governor to M. de Vaudreuil, his imprudence in sending too weak a troop through the dangerous places, the lack of initiative on the part of M. de Saint-Jean, finally, the absolute lack of energy and audacity, the complete absence of that ardour which is inherent in the French character.

After this disaster the troops returned to the forts, and the surrounding district, abandoned thus to the fury of the barbarians, was ravaged in all directions. The Iroquois, proud of the terror which they inspired, threatened the city itself; we note by the records of Montreal that on August 25th there were buried two soldiers killed by the savages, and that on September 7th following, Jean Beaudry suffered the same fate. Finding nothing more to pillage or to burn, they pa.s.sed to the opposite sh.o.r.e, and plundered the village of Lachesnaie. They ma.s.sacred a portion of the population, which was composed of seventy-two persons, and carried off the rest. They did not withdraw until the autumn, dragging after them two hundred captives, including fifty prisoners taken at Lachine.

This terrible event, which had taken place at no great distance from them, and the news of which re-echoed in their midst, struck the inhabitants of Quebec with grief and terror. Mgr. de Laval was cruelly affected by it, but, accustomed to adore in everything the designs of G.o.d, he seized the occasion to invoke Him with more fervour; he immediately ordered in his seminary public prayers to implore the mercy of the Most High. M. de Frontenac, who was about to begin his second administration, learned the sinister news on his arrival at Quebec on October 15th. He set out immediately for Montreal, which he reached on the twenty-seventh of the same month. He visited the environments, and found only ruins and ashes where formerly rose luxurious dwellings.