Canada: the Empire of the North / Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom

But now Champlain must to business; and his business is war. Brulé and twelve Indians are sent like the carriers of the fiery cross in the Highlands of Scotland to rally tribes of the Susquehanna to join the Hurons against the Iroquois. A wild war dance is held with mystic rites in the lodges of the Hurons; and the braves set out with Champlain from Lake Simcoe for Lake Ontario by way of Trent River. As they near what is now New York state, buckskin is flung aside, the naked bodies painted and greased, and the trail shunned for the pathless woods off the beaten track where the Indians glide like beasts of prey through the frost-tinted forest.

October 9 they suddenly come on some Onondagas fishing, and they begin torturing their captives by cutting off a girl's finger, when Champlain commands them to desist. Presently the forest opens to a farm clearing where the Iroquois are harvesting their corn. Spite of all Champlain could do, the wild Hurons uttered their war cry and rushed the field, but the Iroquois turned on the rabble and drove them back to the woods. Champlain was furious. They should have waited for Brulé to come with their allies; and the foolish attack had only served to forewarn the enemy. He frankly told the Hurons if they were going to fight under his command, they must fight as white men fight; and he set them to building a platform from which marksmen could shoot over the walls of the Iroquois town. But the admonitions fell on frenzied ears. No sooner was the command to advance given than the Hurons broke from cover like maniacs, easy marks for the javelin throwers inside the walls, and hurled themselves against the Iroquois palisades in blind fury, making more din with yelling than woe with shots. Boiling water poured from the galleries inside drove the braves back from the walls, and the poisoned barb of the Iroquois arrows pursued their flight. A score fell wounded, among them Champlain with an arrow in his knee-cap. The flight became panic fast and furious, with the wounded carried on wicker stretchers whose every jolt added agony to pain.

As for Brulé, he arrived with the allies only to find that the Hurons had fled, and here was he, alone in a hostile land, with Iroquois warriors rampant as molested wasps. In the swift retreat off the trail Brulé lost his way. He was without food or powder, and had to choose between starvation or surrender to the Iroquois. Throwing down his weapons, he gave himself up to what he knew would be certain torture. Had he winced or whined as they tore the nails from his fingers and the hair from his head, the Iroquois would probably have brained him on the spot for a poltroon; but the young man, bound to a stake, pointed to a gathering storm as sign of Heaven's displeasure. The high spirit pleased the Iroquois. They unbound him and took him with them in their wanderings for three years.

The Hurons had promised to convey Champlain back down the St. Lawrence to Quebec, but the defeat had caused loss of prestige. The man "with the stick that thundered" was no more invulnerable to wounds than they. They forgot their promises and invented excuses for not proceeding to Quebec. Champlain wintered with the hunters somewhere north of Lake Ontario, and came down the Ottawa with the fur canoes the next summer. He was received at Quebec as one risen from the dead.

While Champlain had been exploring, New France had not prospered as a colony. Royal patron after royal patron sold the monopoly to fresh hands, and each new master appointed Champlain viceroy. The fur trade merchants could pay forty per cent dividends, but could do nothing to advance settlement. Less than one hundred people made up the population of New France; and these were torn asunder by jealousies. Huguenot and Catholic were opposed; and when three Jesuits came to Quebec, Jesuits and Recollets distrusted each other.

Madam Champlain joined her husband at Quebec, in 1620, to stay for four years, and that same year Champlain built himself a new habitation—the famous Castle of St. Louis on the cliff above the first dwelling. Louis Hebert, the apothecary of Port Royal, is now a farmer close to the Castle of Quebec; and the wife of Abraham Martin has given birth to the first white child born in New France.

Now came a revolutionary change. Cardinal Richelieu was virtual ruler of France. He quickly realized that the monopolists were sucking the lifeblood of the colony in furs and were giving nothing in return to the country. In 1627, under the great cardinal's patronage, the Company of One Hundred Associates was formed. In this company any of the seaport traders could buy shares. Indeed, they were promised patent of nobility if they did buy shares. Exclusive monopoly of furs was given to the company from Florida to Labrador. In return the Associates were to send two ships yearly to Canada. Before 1643 they were to bring out four thousand colonists, support them for three years, and give them land. In each settlement were to be supported three priests; and, to prevent discord, Huguenots were to be banished from New France.

To Champlain it must have seemed as if the ambition of his life were to be realized. Just when the sky seemed clearest the bolt fell.

Early in April, 1628, the Associates had dispatched colonists and stores for Quebec; but war had broken out between France and England. Gervais Kirke, an English Huguenot of Dieppe, France, who had been put under the ban by Cardinal Richelieu, had rallied the merchants of London to fit out privateers to wage war on New France. The vessels were commanded by the three sons, Thomas, Louis, and David; and to the Kirkes rallied many Huguenots banished from France.

Quebec was hourly looking for the annual ships, when one morning in July two men rushed breathless through the woods and up the steep rock to Castle St. Louis with word that an English fleet of six frigates lay in hiding at Tadoussac, ready to pounce on the French! Later came other messengers—Indians, fishermen, traders—confirming the terrible news. Then a Basque fisherman arrives with a demand, from Kirke for the keys to the fort. Though there is no food inside the walls, less than fifty pounds of ammunition in the storehouse, and not enough men to man the guns, Champlain hopes against hope, and sends the Basque fisherman back with suave regrets that he cannot comply with Monsieur Kirke's polite request. Quebec's one chance lay in the hope that the French vessels might slip past the English frigates by night. Days wore on to weeks, weeks to months, and a thousand rumors filled the air; but no ships came. The people of Quebec were now reduced to diet of nuts and corn. Then came Indian runners with word that the French ships had been waylaid, boarded, scuttled, and sunk. Loaded to the water line with booty, the English privateers had gone home.

For that winter Quebec lived on such food as the Indians brought in from the woods. By the summer of 1629 men, women, and children were grubbing for roots, fishing for food, ranging the rocks for berries. There are times when the only thing to do is—do nothing; and it is probably the hardest task a brave man ever has. When the English fleet came back in July Champlain had a ragamuffin, half-starved retinue of precisely sixteen men. Yet he haggled for such terms that the English promised to convey the prisoners to France. On July 20, for the first time in history, the red flag of England blew to the winds above the heights of Quebec.

But New France was only a pawn to the gamesters of French and English diplomacy. Peace was proclaimed; and for the sake of receiving $200,000 as dowry due his French wife, Charles of England restored to France the half continent which the Kirkes had captured, David Kirke receiving the paltry honor of a title as compensation for the loss. Champlain was back in Quebec by 1633; but his course had run. Between Christmas eve and Christmas morning, in 1635, the brave Soldier of the Cross, the first knight of the Canadian wildwoods, passed from the sphere of earthly life—a life without a stain, whether among the intriguing courtiers of Paris or in the midst of naked license in the Indian camp.

CHAPTER IV

FROM 1635 TO 1666

Frays between La Tour and Charnisay—Madame La Tour defends the fort—Charnisay's treachery

When Port Royal fell before Argall, it will be remembered, young Biencourt took to the woods with his French bush lopers and Indian followers of Nova Scotia. The farms and fort of Annapolis Basin granted to his father by special patents lay in ruins. Familiar with the woods as the English buccaneer, who had destroyed the fort, was with his ship's cabin, Biencourt withdrew to the southwest corner of Nova Scotia, where he built a rude stronghold of logs and slabs near the modern Cape Sable. Here he could keep in touch with the French fishermen off Cape Breton, and also traffic with the Indians of the mainland.

With Biencourt was a young man of his own age, boon comrade, kindred spirit, who had come to Port Royal a boy of fourteen, in 1606, in the gay days of Marc L'Escarbot—Charles de La Tour. Sea rovers, bush lopers, these two could bid defiance to English raiders. Whether Biencourt died in 1623 or went home to France is unknown; but he deeded over to his friend, Charles de La Tour, all possessions in Acadia.

And now England again comes on the scene. By virtue of Cabot's discovery and Argall's conquest, the King of England, in 1621, grants to Sir William Alexander, the Earl of Stirling, all of Acadia, renamed Nova Scotia—New Scotland. By way of encouraging emigration, the order of Nova Scotia Baronets is created, a title being granted to those who subscribe to the colonization company.

Sir William Alexander's colonists shun the French bush lopers under Charles de La Tour down at Fort St. Louis on Cape Sable. The seventy Scotch colonists go on up the Annapolis Basin and build their fort four miles from old Port Royal. How did they pass the pioneer years—these Scotch retainers of the Nova Scotia Baronets? Report among the French fishing fleet says thirty died of scurvy; but of definite information not a vestige remains. The annals of these colonists are as completely lost to history as the annals of the lost Roanoke colony in Virginia.

Under the same English patent Lord Ochiltree lands English colonists in Cape Breton, the grand summer rendezvous of the French fishermen; but two can play at Argall's game of raids. French seamen swoop down on Ochiltree's colony, capture fifty, destroy the settlement, and run up the white flag of France in place of the red standard of England.

The Hundred Associates are given all Canada—Quebec and Acadia. Founded by Cardinal Richelieu, the Hundred Associates are violently Catholic, violently anti-Protestant. Charles de La Tour need expect no favors, if indeed the grant that he holds from Biencourt be not assailed. Double reason for moving the most of his possessions across Fundy Bay to St. John River.

Then the Englishmen, under the Kirke brothers, capture Quebec. As luck or ill luck will have it, among the French captured from the French ships of the Hundred Associates down at Tadoussac, is Claude de La Tour, the father of Charles. Claude de La Tour was a Protestant. This and his courtly manner and his noble birth commended him to the English court. What had France done for Claude de La Tour? Placed him under the ban on account of his religion.

Claude de La Tour promptly became a British subject, received the title Baronet of Nova Scotia with enormous grants of land on St. John River, New Brunswick, married an English lady in waiting to the Queen, and sailed with three men-of-war for Nova Scotia to win over his son Charles. No writer like Marc Lescarbot was present to describe the meeting between father and son; but one can guess the stormy scene,—the war between love of country and love of father, the guns of the father's vessels pointing at the son's fort, the guns of the son's fort pointing at the father's vessels. The father's arguments were strong. What had France done for the La Tours? By siding with England they would receive safe asylum in case of persecution and enormous grants of land on St. John River. But the son's arguments were stronger. The father must know from his English bride—maid in waiting to the English Queen—that England had no intentions of keeping her newly captured possessions in Canada, but had already decided to trade them back to France for a dowry to the English Queen. If Canada were given back to France, what were English grants in New Brunswick worth? "If those who sent you think me capable of betraying my country even at the prayer of my father, they are mightily mistaken," thundered the young man, ordering his gunners to their places. "I don't purchase honors by crime! I don't undervalue the offer of England's King; but the King of France is just as able to reward me! The King of France has confided the defense of Acadia to me; and I'll defend it to my last breath."

Stung by his son's rebuke, the elder La Tour retired to his ship, wrote one more unavailing appeal, then landed his mariners to rush the fort. But the rough bush lopers inside the palisades were expert marksmen. Their raking cross fire kept the English at a distance, and the father could neither drive nor coax his men to the sticking point of courage to scale palisades in such an unnatural war. Claude de La Tour was now in an unenviable plight. He dare not go back to France a traitor. He could not go back to England, having failed to win the day. The son built him a dwelling outside the fort; and there this famous courtier of two great nations, with his noble wife, retired to pass the end of his days in a wildwood wilderness far enough from the gaudy tinsel of courts. The fate of both husband and wife is unknown.

MAP SHOWING LA TOUR'S POSSESSIONS IN ACADIA

Charles de La Tour's predictions were soon verified. The Treaty of St.-Germain-en-Laye, in 1632, gave back all Canada to France; and the young man's loyalty was rewarded by the French King confirming the father's English patent to the lands of St. John River, New Brunswick. Perhaps he expected more. He certainly wanted to be governor of Acadia, and may have looked for fresh title to Port Royal, which Biencourt had deeded to him. His ambition was embittered. Cardinal Richelieu of the Hundred Associates had his own favorites to look after. Acadia is divided into three provinces. Over all as governor is Isaac Razilli, chief of the Hundred Associates. La Tour holds St. John. One St. Denys is given Cape Breton; and Port Royal, the best province of all, falls to Sieur d'Aulnay de Charnisay, friend and relative of Richelieu; and when Razilli dies in 1635, Charnisay, with his strong influence at court, easily secures the dead man's patents with all land grants attached. Charnisay becomes governor of Acadia.

For a second time La Tour is thwarted. Things are turning out as his father had foretold. Who began the border warfare matters little. Whether Charnisay as lord of all Acadia first ordered La Tour to surrender St. John, or La Tour, holding his grant from Biencourt to Port Royal, ordered Charnisay to give up Annapolis Basin, war had begun,—such border warfare as has its parallel only in the raids of rival barons in the Middle Ages. Did La Tour's vessels laden with furs slip out from St. John River across Fundy Bay bound for France? There lay at Cape Sable and Sable Island Charnisay's freebooters, Charnisay's wreckers, ready to board the ship or lure her a wreck on Sable Island reefs by false lights. It is unsafe to accept as facts the charges and countercharges made by these two enemies; but from independent sources it seems fairly certain that Charnisay, unknown to Cardinal Richelieu, was a bit of a freebooter and wrecker; for his men made a regular business of waylaying English ships from Boston, Dutch ships from New York, as they passed Sable Island; and Charnisay's name became cordially hated by the Protestant colonies of New England. La Tour, being Huguenot, could count on firm friends in Boston.

Countless legends cling to Fundy Bay of the forays between these two. In 1640 La Tour and his wife, cruising past Annapolis Basin in their fur ships, rashly entered and attacked Port Royal. Their ship was run aground by Charnisay's vessels and captured; but the friars persuaded the victor to set La Tour and his wife free, pending an appeal to France. France, of course, decided in favor of Charnisay, who was of royal blood, a relative of Richelieu's, in high favor with the court. La Tour's patent was revoked and he was ordered to surrender his fort on the St. John.

The Puritans of Boston had qualms of conscience about interfering in this French quarrel; but they did not forget that Charnisay's wreckers had stripped their merchant ships come to grief on the reefs of Sable Island. La Tour gave the Boston merchants a mortgage on all his belongings at St. John, and in return obtained four vessels, fifty mariners, ninety-two soldiers, thirty-eight cannon. With this fleet he swooped down on Fundy Bay in July. Charnisay's vessels lay before Fort St. John, where the stubborn little garrison still held out, when La Tour came down on him like an enraged eagle. Charnisay's fur ships were boarded, scuttled, and sunk, while the commander himself fled in terror for Port Royal. All sails pressed, La Tour pursued right into Annapolis Basin, wounding seven of the enemy, killing three, taking one prisoner. Charnisay's one remaining vessel grounded in the river. A fight took place near the site of the mill which Poutrincourt had built long ago, but Charnisay succeeded in gaining the shelter of Port Royal, where his cannon soon compelled La Tour to fly from Annapolis Basin. Charnisay found it safer to pass that winter in France, and La Tour gathered in all the peltry traffic of the bay.

Early in 1644 Charnisay returned and sent a friar to secure the neutrality of the New Englanders. All summer negotiations dragged on between Boston and Port Royal, La Tour meanwhile scouring land and sea unchecked, packing his fort with peltries. Finally, Charnisay promised to desist from all fur trade along the coast if the New England colonies would remain neutral; and the colonies promised not to aid La Tour. La Tour was now outlawed by the French government, and Charnisay had actually induced New England to promise not to convey either La Tour or his wife to or from Bay of Fundy in English boats.

La Tour chanced to be absent from his fort in 1645. Like a bird of prey Charnisay swooped on St. John River; but he had not reckoned on Madame La Tour—Frances Marie Jacqueline. With the courage and agility of a trained soldier, she commanded her little garrison of fifty and returned the raider's cannonade with a fury that sent Charnisay limping back to Port Royal with splintered decks, twenty mangled corpses jumbled aft, and a dozen men wounded to the death lying in the hold.

With all the power of France at his back Charnisay had been defeated by a woman,—the Huguenot wife of an outlaw! He must reduce La Tour or stand discredited before the world. Furious beyond words, he hastened to France to prepare an overwhelming armament.

But Madame La Tour was not idle. She, too, hastened across the Atlantic to solicit aid in London. One can imagine how Charnisay gnashed his teeth. Here, at last, was his chance. The Boston vessels were not to convey the La Tours back to Acadia. Like a hawk Charnisay cruised the sea for the outcoming ship with its fair passenger; but Madame La Tour had made a cast-iron agreement with the master of the sailing vessel to bring her direct to Boston. Instead of this, the vessel cruised the St. Lawrence, trading with the Indians, and so delayed the aid coming to La Tour; but when Charnisay's searchers came on board off Sable Island, Madame La Tour was hidden among the freight in the hold. For the delay she sued the sailing master in Boston and obtained a judgment of 2000 pounds; and when he failed to pay, had his cargo seized and sold, and with the proceeds equipped three vessels to aid her outlawed husband. So the whole of 1646 passed, each side girding itself for the final fray.

April, 1647, spies brought word to Charnisay that La Tour was absent from his fort. Waiting not a moment, Charnisay hurried ships, soldiers, cannon across the bay. Inside La Tour's fort was no confusion. Madame La Tour had ordered every man to his place. Day and night for three days the siege lasted, Charnisay's men closing in on the palisades so near they could bandy words with the fighters on the galleries inside the walls. Among La Tour's fighters were Swiss mercenaries—men who fight for the highest pay. Did Charnisay in the language of the day "grease the fist" of the Swiss sentry, or was it a case of a boorish fellow refusing to fight under a woman's command? Legend gives both explanations; but on Easter Sunday morning Charnisay's men gained entrance by scaling the walls where the Swiss sentry stood. Madame La Tour rushed her men to an inner fort loopholed with guns. Afraid of a final defeat that would disgrace him before all the world, Charnisay called up generous terms if she would surrender. To save the lives of the men Madame La Tour agreed to honorable surrender, and the doors were opened. In rushed Charnisay! To his amazement the woman had only a handful of men. Disgusted with himself and boiling over with revenge for all these years of enmity, Charnisay forgot his promise and hanged every soul of the garrison but the traitor who acted as executioner, compelling Madame La Tour to watch the execution with a halter round her neck amid the jeers of the soldiery. Legend says that the experience drove her insane and caused her death within three weeks. Charnisay was now lord of all Acadia, with 10,000 pounds worth of Madame La Tour's jewelry transferred to Port Royal and all La Tour's furs safe in the warehouses of Annapolis Basin; but he did not long enjoy his triumph. He had the reputation of treating his Indian servants with great brutality. On the 24th of May, 1650, an Indian was rowing him up the narrows near Port Royal. Charnisay could not swim. Without apparent cause the boat upset. The Indian swam ashore. The commander perished. Legend again avers that the Indian upset the boat to be revenged on Charnisay for some brutality.

MAP OF ANNAPOLIS BASIN

La Tour had been wandering from Newfoundland to Boston and Quebec seeking aid, but a lost cause has few friends, and if La Tour turned pirate on Boston boats, he probably thought he was justified in paying off the score of Boston's bargain with Charnisay. Later he turned trader with the Indians from Hudson Bay, and found friends in Quebec. Word of his wrongs reached the French court. When Charnisay perished, La Tour was at last appointed lieutenant governor of Acadia. Widow Charnisay, left with eight children, all minors, made what reparation she could to La Tour by giving back the fort on the St. John, and La Tour, to wipe out the bitter enmity, married the widow of his enemy in February of 1653.

But this was not the seal of peace on his troubled life. Cromwell was now ascendant in England, and Major Sedgwick of Boston, in 1654, with a powerful fleet, captured Port Royal and St. John. Weary of fighting what seemed to be destiny, La Tour became a British subject, and with two other Englishmen was granted the whole of Acadia. Ten years later his English partners bought out his rights, and La Tour died in the land of his many trials about 1666. A year later the Treaty of Breda restored Acadia to France.

CHAPTER V

FROM 1635 TO 1650

Mystics come to Canada—A city built of dreams—First night at Montreal—Maisonneuve fights raiders—Le Jeune joins the hunters—Brébeuf goes to Lake Huron—Life at the Huron mission—The scourge of the Iroquois—The fight at St. Louis—Rageneau's converts resist—Flight of the Hurons

While Charles de La Tour and Charnisay scoured the Bay of Fundy in border warfare like buccaneers of the Spanish Main, what was Quebec doing?

The Hundred Associates were to colonize the country; but fur trading and farming never go together. One means the end of the other; and the Hundred Associates shifted the obligation of settling the country by granting vast estates called seigniories along the St. Lawrence and leaving to these new lords of the soil the duty of bringing out habitants. Later they deeded over for an annual rental of beaver skins the entire fur monopoly to the Habitant Company, made up of the leading people of New France. So ended all the fine promises of four thousand colonists.

Years ago Pontgravé had learned that the Indians of the Up-Country did not care to come down the St. Lawrence farther than Lake St. Peter's, where Iroquois foe lay in ambush; and the year before Champlain died a double expedition had set out from Quebec in July: one to build a fort north of Lake St. Peter's at the entrance to the river with three mouths,—in other words, to found Three Rivers; the other, under Father Brébeuf, the Jesuit, and Jean Nicolet, the wood runner, to establish a mission in the country of the Hurons and to explore the Great Lakes.

In fact, it must never be forgotten that Champlain's ambitions in laying the foundations of a new nation aimed just as much to establish a kingdom of heaven on earth as to win a new kingdom for France. Always, in the minds of the fathers of New France, Church was to be first; State, second. When Charles de Montmagny, Knight of Malta, landed in Quebec one June morning in 1636, to succeed Champlain as governor of New France, he noticed a crucifix planted by the path side where viceroy and officers clambered up the steep hill to Castle St. Louis. Instantly Montmagny fell to his knees before the cross in silent adoration, and his example was followed by all the gay train of beplumed officers. The Jesuits regarded the episode as a splendid omen for New France, and set their chapel organ rolling a Te Deum of praise, while Governor and retinue filed before the altars with bared heads.

It was in the same spirit that Montreal was founded.

The Jesuits' letters on the Canadian missions were now being read in France. Religious orders were on fire with missionary ardor. The Canadian missions became the fashion of the court. Ladies of noble blood asked no greater privilege than to contribute their fortunes for missions in Canada. Nuns lay prostrate before altars praying night and day for the advancement of the heavenly kingdom on the St. Lawrence. The Jesuits had begun their college in Quebec. The very year that Champlain had first come to the St. Lawrence there had been born in Normandy, of noble parentage, a little girl who became a passionate devotee of Canadian missions. To divert her mind from the calling of a nun, her father had thrown her into a whirl of gayety from which she emerged married; but her husband died in a few years, and Madame de la Peltrie, left a widow at twenty-two, turned again heart and soul to the scheme of endowing a Canadian mission. Again her father tried to divert her mind, threatening to cut off her fortune if she did not marry. An engagement to a young noble, who was as keen a devotee as herself, quieted her father and averted the loss of her fortune. On the death of her father the formal union was dissolved, and Madame de la Peltrie proceeded to the Ursuline Convent of Tours, where the Jesuits had already chosen a mother superior for the new institution to be founded at Quebec—Marie of the Incarnation, a woman of some fifty years, a widow like Madame de la Peltrie, and, like Madame de la Peltrie, a mystic dreamer of celestial visions and divine communings and heroic sacrifices. How much of truth, how much of self-delusion, lay in these dreams of heavenly revelation is not for the outsider to say. It is as impossible for the practical mind to pronounce judgment on the mystic as for the mystic to pronounce sentence on the scientist. Both have their truths, both have their errors; and by their fruits are they known.

At sight of the somber Saguenay, the silver-flooded St. Lawrence, the frowning mountains, the far purple hills, the primeval forests through which the wind rushed with the sound of the sea, the fishing craft dancing on the tide like cockle boats, the grizzled fur traders bronzed as the crinkled oak forests where they passed their lives, the tawny, naked savages agape at these white-skinned women come from afar, the hearts of the housed-up nuns swelled with emotions strange and sweet,—the emotions of a new life in a new world. And when they scrambled over the rope coils aboard a fishing schooner to go on up to Quebec, and heard the deep-voiced shoutings of the men, and witnessed the toilers of the deep fighting wind and wave for the harvest of the sea, did it dawn on the fair sisterhood that God must have workers out in the strife of the world, as well as workers shut up from the world inside convent walls? Who knows?… Who knows? At Tadoussac, that morning, to both Madame de la Peltrie and Marie of the Incarnation it must have seemed as if their visions had become real. And then the cannon of Quebec began to thunder till the echoes rolled from hill to hill and shook—as the mystics thought—the very strongholds of hell. Tears streamed down their cheeks at such welcome. The whole Quebec populace had rallied to the water front, and there stood Governor Montmagny in velvet cloak with sword at belt waving hat in welcome. Soldiers and priests cheered till the ramparts rang. As the nuns put foot to earth once more they fell on their knees and kissed the soil of Canada. August 1st was fête day in Quebec. The chapel chimes rang … and rang again their gladness. The organ rolled out its floods of soul-shattering music, and deep-throated chant of priests invoked God's blessing on the coming of the women to the mission. So began the Ursuline Convent of Quebec and the Hôtel Dieu of the hospital sisters; but Montreal was still a howling wilderness untenanted by man save in midsummer, when the fur traders came to Champlain's factory and the canoes of the Indians from the Up-Country danced down the swirling rapids like sea birds on waves.

The letters from the Jesuit missions touched more hearts than those of the mystic nuns.

In Anjou dwelt a receiver of taxes—Jérôme le Royer de la Dauversière, a stout, practical, God-fearing man with a family, about as far removed in temperament from the founders of the Ursulines as a character could well be. Yet he, too, had mystic dreams and heard voices bidding him found a mission in the tenantless wilderness of Montreal. To the practical man the thing seems sheer moon-stark madness. If Dauversière had lived in modern days he would have been committed to an asylum. Here was a man with a family, without a fortune, commanded by what he thought was the voice of Heaven to found a hospital in a wilderness where there were no people. Also in Paris dwelt a young priest, Jean Jacques Olier, who heard the self-same voices uttering the self-same command. These two men were unknown to each other; yet when they met by chance in the picture gallery of an old castle, there fell from their eyes, as it were, scales, and they beheld as in a vision each the other's soul, and recognized in each fellow-helper and comrade of the spirit. To all this the practical man cries out "Bosh"! Yet Montreal is no bosh, but a stately city, and it sprang from the dreams—"fool dreams," enemies would call them—of these two men, the Sulpician priest and the Anjou tax collector.

Hour after hour, arm in arm, they walked and talked, the man of prayers and the man of taxes. People or no people at Montreal, money or no money, they decided that the inner voice must be obeyed. A Montreal Society was formed. Six friends joined. What would be equal to $75,000 was collected. There were to be no profits on this capital. It was all to be invested to the glory of the Kingdom of Heaven. Unselfish if you like, foolish they may have been, but not hypocrites.

First of all, they must become Seigneurs of Montreal; but the island of Montreal had already been granted by the Hundred Associates to one Lauson. To render the title doubly secure, Dauversière and Olier obtained deeds to the island from Lauson and from the Hundred Associates.

Forty-five colonists, part soldiers, part devotees, were then gained as volunteers; but a veritable soldier of Heaven was desired as commander. Paul de Chomedey, Sieur de Maisonneuve, was noted for his heroism in war and zeal in religion. When other officers returned from battle for wild revels, Maisonneuve withdrew to play the flute or pass hours in religious contemplation. His name occurred to both Dauversière and Olier as fittest for command; but to make doubly sure, they took lodgings near him, studied his disposition, and then casually told him of their plans and asked his coöperation. Maisonneuve was in the prime of life, on the way to high service in the army. His zeal took fire at thought of founding a Kingdom of God at Montreal; but his father furiously opposed what must have seemed a mad scheme. Maisonneuve's answer was the famous promise of Christ: "No man hath left house or brethren or sister for my sake but he shall receive a hundredfold."

Maisonneuve was warned there would be no earthly reward—no pay—for his arduous task; but he answered, "I devote my life and future; and I expect no recompense."

Mademoiselle Jeanne Mance, thirty-four years old, who had given herself to good works from childhood, though she had not yet joined the cloister, now felt the call to labor in the wilderness. Later, in 1653, came Marguerite Bourgeoys to the little colony beneath the mountain. She too, like Jeanne Mance, distrusted dreams and visions and mystic communings, cherishing a religion of good works rather than introspection of the soul. Dauversière and Olier remained in France. Fortunately for Montreal, practical Christians, fighting soldiers of the cross, carried the heavenly standard to the wilderness.

It was too late to ascend the St. Lawrence when the ship brought the crusaders to Quebec in August, 1641; and difficulties harried them from the outset. Was Montmagny, the Governor, jealous of Maisonneuve; or did he simply realize the fearful dangers Maisonneuve's people would run going beyond the protection of Quebec? At all events, he disapproved this building of a second colony at Montreal, when the first colony at Quebec could barely gain subsistence. He offered them the Island of Orleans in exchange for the Island of Montreal, and warned them of Iroquois raid.

"I have not come to argue," answered Maisonneuve, "but to act. It is my duty to found a colony at Montreal, and thither I go though every tree be an Iroquois."

Maisonneuve passed the winter building boats to ascend the St. Lawrence next spring; and Madame de la Peltrie, having established the Ursulines at Quebec, now cast in her lot with the Montrealers for two years.

May 8, 1642, the little flotilla set out from Quebec—a pinnace with the passengers, a barge with provisions, two long boats propelled by oars and a sweep. Montmagny and Father Vimont accompanied the crusaders; and as the boats came within sight of the wooded mountain on May 17, hymns of praise rose from the pilgrims that must have mingled strangely on Indian ears with the roar of the angry rapids. One can easily call up the scene—the mountain, misty with the gathering shadows of sunset, misty as a veiled bride with the color and bloom of spring; the boats, moored for the night below St. Helen's Island, where the sun, blazing behind the half-foliaged trees, paints a path of fire on the river; the white bark wigwams along shore with the red gleam of camp fire here and there through the forest; the wilderness world bathed in a peace as of heaven, as the vesper hymn floats over the evening air! It is a scene that will never again be enacted in the history of the world—dreamers dreaming greatly, building a castle of dreams, a fortress of holiness in the very center of wilderness barbarity and cruelty unspeakable. The multitudinous voices of traffic shriek where the crusaders' hymn rose that May night. A great city has risen on the foundations which these dreamers laid. Let us not scoff too loudly at their mystic visions and religious rhapsodies! Another generation may scoff at our too-much-worldliness, with our dreamless grind and visionless toil and harder creeds that reject everything which cannot be computed in the terms of traffic's dollar! Well for us if the fruit of our creeds remain to attest as much worth as the deeds of these crusaders!

Early next morning the boats pulled in ashore where Cartier had landed one hundred years before and Champlain had built his factory thirty years ago. Maisonneuve was first to spring on land. He dropped to his knees in prayer. The others as they landed did likewise. Their hymns floated out on the forest. Madame de la Peltrie, Jeanne Mance, and the servant, Charlotte Barré, quickly decorated a wildwood altar with evergreens. Then, with Montmagny the Governor, and Maisonneuve the soldier, standing on either side, Madame de la Peltrie and Jeanne Mance and Charlotte Barré, bowed in reverence, with soldiers and sailors standing at rest unhooded, Father Vimont held the first religious services at Mont Royal. "You are a grain of mustard seed," he said, "and you shall grow till your branches overshadow the earth."

Maisonneuve cut the first tree for the fort; and a hundred legends might be told of the little colony's pioneer trials. Once a flood threatened the existence of the fort. A cross was erected to stay the waters and a vow made if Heaven would save the fort a cross should be carried and placed on the summit of the mountain. The river abated, and Maisonneuve climbed the steep mountain, staggering under the weight of an enormous cross, and planted it at the highest point. Here, in the presence of all, mass was held, and it became a regular pilgrimage from the fort up the mountain to the cross.

In 1743 came Louis d'Ailleboust and his wife, both zealously bound by the same vows as devotees, bringing word of more funds for Ville Marie, as Montreal was called. Montmagny's warning of Iroquois proved all too true. Within a year, in June, 1743, six workmen were beset in the fields, only one escaping. Because his mission was to convert the Indians, Maisonneuve had been ever reluctant to meet the Iroquois in open war, preferring to retreat within the fort when the dog Pilot and her litter barked loud warning that Indians were hiding in the woods. Any one who knows the Indian character will realize how clemency would be mistaken for cowardice. Even Maisonneuve's soldiers began to doubt him.

"My lord, my lord," they urged, "are the enemy never to get a sight of you? Are we never to face the foe?"

Maisonneuve's answer was in March, 1644, when ambushed hostiles were detected stealing on the fort.

"Follow me," he ordered thirty men, leaving D'Ailleboust in command of the fort.

Near the place now known as Place d'Armes the little band was greeted by the eldritch scream of eighty painted Iroquois. Shots fell thick and fast. The Iroquois dashed to rescue their wounded, and a young chief, recognizing Maisonneuve as the leader of the white men, made a rush for the honor of capturing the French commander alive. Maisonneuve had put himself between his retreating men and the advancing warriors. Firing, he would retreat a pace, then fire again, keeping his face to the foe. His men succeeded in rushing up the hillock, then made for the gates in a wild stampede. Maisonneuve was backing away, a pistol in each hand. The Iroquois circled from tree to tree, near and nearer, and like a wildwood creature of prey was watching his chance to spring, when the Frenchman fired. The pistol missed. Dodging, the Indian leaped. Maisonneuve discharged the other pistol. The Iroquois fell dead, and while warriors rescued the body, Maisonneuve gained the fort gates. This was only one of countless frays when the dog Pilot with her puppies sounded the alarm of prowlers in the woods.