CHAPTER XXI

He was born at Rouen, November 21, 1643, and was educated at the Jesuit College there. In his fifteenth year he entered the Jesuit noviceship, on October 5, 1658. During the two years of noviceship, the père maître, or novice master, had a difficult task to train the impetuous, vigorous, impressionable, headstrong, exuberant, healthy youth of fifteen, to the calm regularity of obedience, and the soldierly, intellectual routine demanded by the Jesuit traditions; but it is just this type of strong character, so powerful for good, if brought under wise subjection, that the Jesuits love to mould; and so the young man was allowed to take the simple vows of Evangelical Poverty, Chastity and Obedience on October 10, 1660. The next two years he spent as a Jesuit scholastic at the Royal College of La Flèche studying philosophy and the physical sciences, showing ability in the latter courses. Instead of finishing the third year, the restless young man went out to teach as a Jesuit professor at Alençon for a year. He then resumed his delayed third year. From October, 1664, to October, 1665, he taught at Tours, and from 1665 to 1668 at Blois. In the September of 1666 he returned to La Flèche to study theology. He was then only twenty-three years of age, and had been promoted to the theology course seven or eight years ahead of the usual Jesuit course, because his inability to stay long in any one place and his want of success in a humdrum professorship for which he had no taste, and which was irritating to him and his students, forced his superiors to allow him to hurry through his studies, thinking doubtless that this ardent spirit might find congenial work in the distant mission fields with every facility for exercising his fiery zeal, with less restraint, and under less conventional circumstances than in France.

This resolution was brought about by Cavelier's own insistency in demanding immediately the foreign missions, in a letter of April 5th, written from Blois, to the general of the Jesuits, Jean Paul Oliva. The general on May 4, 1666, answered temporizingly to the young man, advising him to continue his studies and prepare himself usefully for the sacred ministry, and in the meantime maintain that most "perfect indifference," which is one of the most striking characteristics of the Jesuit philosophical training and has been subjected to so much criticism of praise or blame. To this Cavelier replied that he had still the same desire, but the general wrote that he could give no different reply. To understand Cavelier's nature he is described in the Jesuit informations of the time as "inquietus" and "scrupulosus," which words are very nearly English. Hardly had the theological studies at La Flèche commenced than he wrote to the general, on December 1, 1666, asking to be sent to Portugal for his studies. No doubt the restless Cavelier was undergoing a nervous strain of scrupulosity and doubt as to his fitness for religious and priestly life, and he thought that he could find peace of mind again in a change of scene. The general replied kindly, bidding him remain quietly in his own "Province," to conclude his studies, and after the third year of probational novitiate, which all Jesuits undergo after being ordained and before taking their final "solemn" vows, his zealous desire for the foreign missions would be satisfied.

This answer brought to a head Cavelier's doubts as to his fitness for the calmer repose of a studious life. On the one hand there were holding him his three simple vows, not lightly to be laid down, and to which he had been doubtless substantially faithful; on the other, he felt that his natural character was impelling him to a freer life than that of restrained self-sacrifice he had honourably tried to follow up. So that making use of the privilege of a Jesuit scholastic, not irrevocably bound to the Society till the taking of the last vows, and after laying his conscience open to his superior and not "hiding his moral infirmities," and probably exaggerating them, he applied, canonically, for his letters of release. By January 28th, in the year following, the final application was sent to Rome by the Jesuit rector of La Flèche, and on March 1st, the general, Jean Paul Oliva, wrote to the Jesuit provincial of France: "After a serious examination of the informations which you have sent us, we authorize you to accept the resignation of Robert Ignatius Cavelier, approved scholastic." Ignatius was a name taken by Cavelier on taking his simple vows in 1660 in admiration of Ignatius Loyola, the soldier saint and founder of the Society of Jesus.

Robert Ignatius Cavelier left the College of La Flèche on March 28, 1667, an ex-Jesuit. Before his final letters of freedom were given him he received a kind letter from the general, in which he was told that the French provincial had been instructed by him "to absolve you from your vows and set you free." He added in Latin, "But do you, dearest brother, wheresoever and in whatever state you shall find yourself, be ever mindful of the state from which you have gone forth, and attend to the rock from which you have been hewed, and although you may be separated from us in time and place, strive always to be in heart with us and to live in Christ with us. May His grace be always with you!" (Archives General S. J.) Cf. Rochemonteix "Les Jésuites et la Nouvelle France."

Circumstances in later life separated him largely from intercourse with the Jesuits, as his career took him across the Sulpicians and the Recollects.

Cavelier de La Salle is free! Where will he turn his steps? He has no position and very little of a fortune, for on becoming a Jesuit he had yielded up his inheritance to others of his family. Canada calls him, for his brother François, the priest, had gone there in the September of 1666. Canada, therefore, had doubtless been luring him during his late mental struggles at La Flèche, and the summer of 1667 found the ex-Jesuit with his brother, the Sulpician, at Montreal.

The Abbé de Queylus received the young man of twenty-four years kindly, and doubtless for his brother's sake gave him a "fief noble" of great extent opposite the Sault St. Louis. To encourage him to make good, the title was not given in writing to him till January 9, 1669, when he paid a medal of fine gold, which was to be repaid to the Seminary at every subsequent change of seigneur.

The adventurous Sieur de La Salle set whole-heartedly to work in his new vocation. He gratefully called the seigneury "St. Sulpice" and, commencing the clearing of the land, he mapped out the borders of his future village and subdivided his land as grants to his feudal tenants in lots of sixty arpents, with half an arpent in the village itself. He relieved them of any seigneurial dues till the year 1671, provided they had built their homes by the feast of St. John, 1669. He gave them the right of hunting on their lands and of fishing in front. He took off 200 arpents of land from his fief towards Lake St. Peter for a "common," whereon each could feed his beasts at a feudal fine of five sous a year, while he reserved 400 arpents for his seigneurial manor. This, however, he sold in 1670, when the passion for travel and discovery seized him, as shall be later described.

We have ventured to give the romantic details of the history of one of the early seigneurs because they illustrate the adventuresome period and also because many of these facts surrounding the life of La Salle were not generally known, even by many of the leading historians of Canada. They will help as a key to explain the temperament and character of the celebrated discoverer, in his Canadian life, his enterprises and his misfortunes, his extreme need of movement, his uncertainty, his passion for travel, his reputation for learning, and also his active and ardent faith deepened by his Jesuit training.

His robust health and his commanding figure were of powerful avail to him in his adventurous tasks. The generous blood of Normandy flowed freely in his veins and, like his countrymen, he was active, intelligent, industrious, resourceful and self-regarding. He made a better pioneer than a patient, plodding land owner, as we shall see, and the defects of an untractable youth made the success of the man as an explorer.

We left the young La Salle organizing his seigneury, but before long he is to be found, gun on his shoulder and knapsack on his back, traversing the woods and in his canoe exploring all the rivers and lakes around the neighbourhood. Trading his merchandise for beaver skins with the Indians and coming in contact with the coureurs de bois, he learns the directions of the rivers and the products of the countries through which they pass, and soon there seizes him the great desire to discover the long-sought-for northwest passage to China and Japan and thus to open out a fruitful field for commerce for France, and glory and fortune for himself.

During the autumn of 1668 some Seneca (Tsonnontouan) Indians stopped at St. Sulpice and from them he learned that the river he called the Ohio entered into the Mississippi, which emptied its waters into the "River of the Sault," which he thought to be the Pacific. [104] With the aid of these he started to master the Iroquois language.

Meanwhile, a similar idea of exploring and evangelizing the Shawnee district had presented itself to Dollier de Casson who was now at Quebec, making arrangements with M. de Queylus for his departure.

Dollier had spent the winter of 1668 in the woods with the Indians at Lake Nipissing, learning an Algonquin dialect from a Nipissing chief named Nitaukyk. This latter had a Shawnee slave who, on a visit to Montreal, so enthused Queylus, that he sent a letter back by the slave, telling M. de Casson of his desire to convert the Shawnee people who seemed to provide special aptitude for Christianity, and offering this mission to the zealous Dollier, who hastened to his superior at once and thence to Quebec.

To raise the money for La Salle's expedition the seigneurs bought back a great part of his land for 1,000 livres, payable in merchandise to arrive by the vessels at Quebec. But he still wished to retain his seigneurial domain of 400 arpents. Indeed on January 11th he received the written titles of these from the seminary.

But on February 9th, following, La Salle, still in need of funds, sold his seigneurial domain for 2,800 livres to Jean Milot—a very good bargain considering that he had been granted it for very little, and that the documents of the transaction reveal that he had only cleared nine or ten arpents; and that, on the other part, the wood had only been felled, and not logged, and buildings had only been commenced. [105] Then he set out to Quebec to interest M. de Courcelles, the governor, in his project and to obtain all the necessary passports and authorizations to range the woods and lakes.

De Courcelles warmly approved of his enthusiasm, seeing glory for his own administration at no cost to himself, and he even allowed soldiers to quit their companies and join La Salle. He also persuaded Dollier de Casson, then in Quebec, consulting de Queylus on the Shawnee mission, to combine with La Salle's expedition, thus giving it a certain governmental éclat and public importance. Dollier de Casson received his letters from Laval on May 15, 1669. On returning to Montreal, preparations were made for departure. La Salle engaged four canoes and fourteen men, among whom was the Sieur Thoulonnier and the surgeon, La Roussillière. To meet additional expenses he had to sell another piece of land above St. Sulpice to Jacques Leber, for 600 livres tournois, on July 6, 1669, the day of departure.

De Casson had three canoes and seven men, and with them M. de Galinée, a Sulpician deacon, an astronomer and mathematician, who joined only three days before the departure. They took a Hollander to interpret the Iroquois language.

Before leaving Montreal the party witnessed the execution of three French soldiers of the Carignan Regiment, who were put to death for the assassination, near Point Claire on Lake St. Louis, of an Iroquois chief of the Senecas (Tsonnontouans). On the eve of this date it was found out, by a confession to La Salle, that three other Frenchmen had committed, near Montreal, on the River Mascouche, a more atrocious assassination of six Oneida Iroquois (Onneiouts), three of whom were a woman and two children. Yet the bodies were never found, so this remains a mystery. Rewards were offered for the capture of the prisoners, but they were never taken. Both of these horrible slaughters had been caused by a desire of seizing the peltry belonging to the Indians. Such treachery was likely to rekindle war with the natives. On this occasion, therefore, M. de Courcelles came up to conciliate the assembled Indians and to assure them, by presents, of the governmental displeasure at these acts. Under these critical and dangerous circumstances, the expedition of seven canoes containing twenty-two Frenchmen and guided by two other canoes of those Tsonnontouans who had lived with La Salle, left Montreal.

They made their way to the great village of Tsonnontouan and stayed there a month, trembling in fear of their lives, for the chief, lately murdered at Montreal, came from this place. Added to this one of those drunken bouts, the results of the liquor traffic, seized the inhabitants and threatened the Europeans' safety. While here Dollier de Casson, worn out by the unaccustomed hardships of the journey, fell into a great fever and was near his end, but happily recovering, the explorers left and arrived at a river whose cataracts marked the descent of the waters of Lake Erie into those of Lake Ontario.

Five days' journey brought them to the other side of Lake Ontario. While here a fever also fell upon La Salle which in a few days imperilled his life. On September 22d, they journeyed again and on the 24th reached a village named Tenaoutoua, where they met the explorer, Joliet, arrived there the evening before. He had previously set out from Montreal with canoes and merchandise, under instructions from M. de Courcelles, to seek the whereabouts of a copper mine said to be situated on Lake Superior. Finding the winter coming on, he had relinquished this project and was about to return to Montreal. He gave a description of the places he had visited and Galinée, the Sulpician geographer, entered them on his map.

La Salle now determined that he also would return to Montreal, urging for excuse the state of his health and the inexperience of his men to stand a winter in the woods, where they were likely to perish of hunger. But the missionary party was firm in its resolution to proceed to the Mississippi Indians. Thus it was that some of La Salle's party arrived the autumn of 1669 in Montreal alone. Whether La Salle returned with them is doubted, for his traces for two years are hard to follow. The failure of his expedition to discover La Chine was commemorated in derision by the wags of Montreal who henceforth dubbed his seigneury of St. Sulpice, as that of "La Chine." Such it soon began to be named, even in the official documents, as for example one of June 10, 1670, "this place La Chine, so called." So La Chine it has remained to this day.

Meanwhile the Montreal missionaries, after leaving Tenaoutoua on October 1, 1669, arrived, the 13th or 14th, on the banks of Lake Erie, which seemed to them like a great sea lashed and tossed by the tempestuous winds. At the mouth of a pleasant river, after three days they built their cabin and there they remained for fifteen days, till the fierce lake winds drove them to a more sheltered place in the woods, about a quarter of a league away, on a bank of a stream. There they reconstructed their cabin, but more strongly, and wintered for five months and eleven days.

When spring came, they determined to push on to the Mississippi Indians, but before doing so, an event is to be chronicled in the history of discovery, from Montreal. On March 23d, on Passion Sunday, descending to the banks of Lake Erie, the explorers took possession of the country in the name of Louis XIV.

The following procès verbal, then drawn up and preserved in the marine archives of France, fully explains the picturesque ceremony:

On the 26th of March they proceeded further on their journey, but in Easter week, having halted by the side of Lake Erie, and drawn some of their canoes onto the land, leaving others on the sandy shore near the water's edge, wearied out with fatigue after a day's journey of twenty leagues, the party fell asleep. A great wind arose and heaped up the waters so that the awakened sleepers had difficulty in rescuing their canoes. One they utterly lost, as well as apparel and chapel accoutrements. A barrel of gunpowder floating on the waves was saved but the ammunition was lost. This disaster made them resolve to turn back to Montreal.

They chose for their return voyage the route passing by the mission of Sault Ste. Marie. On their way, after 100 leagues' navigation, they destroyed a rude Indian idol, and after entering Lake Huron arrived on May 25th at Sault Ste. Marie Fort, where they were joyously received by the Jesuits, Dablon and Marquette, with the little colony of twenty to twenty-five Frenchmen.

Thence they started on May 28th, with a guide from the fort, and after a strenuous journey of twenty-two days reached Montreal on June 18, 1670.

The party of fifty-two went by road to La Chine and embarked above St. Louis Rapids on the governor's barque and thirteen birch bark canoes. On June 12th it reached the mouth of Lake Ontario. On the way a party of Iroquois had been met and impressed with fear and respect. These were now sent with letters to the missionaries to publish around news of the mission of the governor general. The Iroquois were overwhelmed by the dignity of the governor and his party, and for a time they kept dumb with their hands and their mouths, in astonishment. Of the French they said that they were demons and brought to a conclusion everything they wanted. The governor, they thought an incomparable man. He made capital of his success and menaced destruction to those who should revolt, whose settlements he would take and destroy at will.

The party returned on June 14th and soon arrived in Montreal, the whole expedition having taken only fifteen days. It was most successful with the Indians and restrained their trade with the Dutch and English, and even the latter, according to Marie l'Incarnation (letter No. 89) feared lest they should be driven from their trading posts.

CHAPTER XXII

At Montreal, as the population began to grow, Marguerite Bourgeoys now handed over the boys, who were beginning to be educated with the girls in the little primary school in the stable, to M. Souart, who, since the return of M. de Queylus, had been supplanted as curate by M. Gilles Pérot, and we find him styled in the documents of the time "former curé—schoolmaster." In this occupation he was assisted by M. Rémy, a deacon, who was afterwards entrusted for some time with the primary education of the town. The education was given gratuitously, but to maintain the schoolmaster, the syndic, accompanied by the clerk of the court, canvassed subscriptions from private individuals. In the fall, the Seminary made up the deficit. Marguerite Bourgeoys, and her four companions, still taught during the day for nothing, without any assistance as before, but during the night they worked at manual labour for their support. "Thus," says Dollier de Casson writing of 1652, "what I admire most about these young women, is that being without goods and willing to teach gratuitously, they have nevertheless acquired by the grace of God and without being a charge to anyone, houses and lands in the island of Montreal." In fact on August 29, 1668, Marguerite Bourgeoys bought a house thirty-six feet square adjoining the "Congregation" from the widow of Claude Fézeret. On September 21, 1668, she acquired from François Leber a grant of land, with a house on it, at Pointe St. Charles. The site of this house, with its buildings, can be seen to this day.

In 1669, she acquired, from Maturin Roulier, another piece of land with a granary and a meadow, situated in the direction of Sault St. Louis. All this, added to the original donation from M. de Maisonneuve, and sixty arpents and more granted through the Seigneurs, out of which she had put thirty-two under cultivation and on which she had placed a granary, went in great part to support her community of pious lay associates. In addition, on July 6, 1672, she bought an arpent of land adjoining the "Congregation" and built on it a larger establishment, as the number of her pupils surpassed the limited space of her stable school.

On October 9, 1668, Laval at Quebec started his "petit séminaire," out of the boys of which he hoped to draw the nucleus of a Canadian clergy. He started with six Hurons, to whom were added eight French boys. In 1669 there were three Montrealers being educated there, probably on a bourse from the king's bounty, viz., Charles Le Moyne, de Longueuil; Jacques Leber, brother of Jeanne, and Louis Prud'homme. The French boys, supported by the king's bounty, boarded, however, at the Jesuit College. Soon others joined, but as it was found that many of them did not care for study, they were sent to Cap au Tourment, where they learned mechanical trades and arts suitable to young colonists.

In 1670, there were only five teachers for the many calls on the education of the girls, so Marguerite Bourgeoys went to France for assistance, and after six months she saw Colbert, who promised to assist her so that her congregation in May, 1671, received the approval of the "Roi Soleil," Louis XIV, who was then with his brilliant court at Dunkerque. She returned to Quebec in 1672, on August 14th, bringing back a miraculous oaken statue of the Blessed Virgin, of some eight inches in height for the church of Bonsecours, already projected in 1651 and to be built shortly. With her came several novices to join her order, some of noble families, Elizabeth de la Bertache, Madeleine de Constantin, Thérèse Soumillard, Pierrette Laurent, Geneviève Durosoy, Marguerite Soumillard, and Marguerite Sénécal, who was the bursar of the very slender funds of the party.

In addition to the externes the congregation was beginning to have boarders and was reaching such a point of utility, when she might extend her work throughout the colony, that she had been persuaded to ask for the above royal letters patent of incorporation. Her eventual aim was to establish a regular congregation, with religious vows of its own. For the present, Laval did not favour such a plan; he rather wished to avoid a multiplicity of religious congregations in a poor country, and he would have preferred her companions to join the Ursulines at Quebec, becoming if necessary a branch establishment.

To this the independent Marguerite Bourgeoys was opposed. The Ursulines was an enclosed order and the Montreal congréganistes wished indeed to live in community, but to circulate freely among the people—a new idea then among religious congregations of women, very untried and to which consequently the conservative bishop of Petrea was not favourable. Yet, in 1689, on a visit of Laval to Montreal, the foundress was authorized to spread her fellow workers over his diocese, and it was about this time that they began to adopt a form of dress based on an Acadian model.

The education of Indian children was greatly promoted under the new policy of Louis XIV, and Laval, in the intention of "Gallicizing" the natives in language, religion and customs, and eventually of allying them in marriage with the colonists from France. This had been one of Laval's objects in founding the "petit séminaire" of Quebec. He persuaded the Jesuits and the Ursulines to start Indian schools for Algonquin boys and Huron and Algonquin girls at Quebec. On September 27, 1670, Marie de l'Incarnation announced the marriage of some of her girls to Frenchmen, with domestic success.

Laval also induced the Sulpicians at Montreal to undertake the work for the children of those Algonquin and Huron parents who had been captured by the Iroquois. The city archives contain the contracts of July 16, 1669, by which Jacques Akimega, thirteen years of age, and Louise Resikouki, an Algonquin girl of twelve years, bind themselves to be lodged and educated like French people till eighteen years of age, at the seminary on a gift of 500 livres, provided by Dollier de Casson on the stipulation that if the contract was broken the money shall go for the education of other savage children.

Other Indian girls being forthcoming, Marguerite Bourgeoys undertook their training at the congregation, and on November 14, 1672, we have the contract of marriage between one of them, Marie Magdalene Catherine Nachital, and Pierre Hogue, born at Belle-Fontaine, near Amiens.

One of the pupils of the congregation, called Gannensagouas and baptized Marie Thérèse, after the queen of France, later in 1681 made her religious profession as a nun in the congregation order, by that time erected.

But the work of Gallicizing and civilizing these wayward, liberty-loving, capricious children of the woods was an ungrateful task. Most of those who entered the cloister of the Ursulines were like birds of passage and they flew over the cloister walls to escape the melancholy of their restrained lives, even when their parents did not take them away. Nor did the Jesuits succeed any better. The Sulpicians made a bold attempt by taking their Indian school into the country. M. de Fénelon, one of their number, was charged to form an establishment under the name of La Présentation at Gentilly, situated on the bank of the St. Lawrence above Lachine, and in addition he secured a concession on January 9, 1673, of the three islands opposite between Lachine and Cap St. Gilles, which had been granted originally to Picoté de Bélestre and were now exchanged for land on the island. These islands were then named the Iles de Courcelles, after the governor general, and on one of them at a place called the Baie d'Urfé, after the name of one of the Sulpician missionaries, an Indian mission was established. We may here mention the Jesuit missions, on the south shore facing Montreal of the seigneuries of Madeleine la Prairie and St. Lambert, which commenced with a few savages in 1669, the progenitor of the fifth site, the Caughnawaga reservation, as known today.

NOTE

Caughnawaga, or Sault St. Louis, an Iroquois reservation, situated on the south bank of the St. Lawrence, about ten miles above Montreal. Area, 12,327 acres. Population in 1905, 2,100, all Catholics except five or six families. The language is the Mohawk dialect. The sault (or rapids) was an old seigniory, or concession, granted to the Jesuits in 1680. To Père Ruffeix, S. J., is due the idea of thus grouping the Iroquois neophytes on the banks of the St. Lawrence to guard them from the persecution and temptation to which they were subject amid the pagan influences of their own villages. In 1667 the missionary prevailed upon seven communities to take up their residence at La Prairie, opposite Montreal. Other Christian Iroquois from different localities soon came to join the settlement, and in 1670 there were twenty families. As the proximity of the whites was prejudicial to the Indians, the mission was transferred, in 1676, several miles higher up the river. This second site is memorable as the scene of the saintly life and death of Catherine Tekakwitha (died 1680). In 1890 a granite monument was erected on the site, in memory of the humble Iroquois virgin. In 1689, to escape the threatened attacks of their pagan tribesmen, the Christian Iroquois sought refuge in Montreal, where they remained eight or nine months. When the danger had passed they founded another settlement a mile or two above the last. In 1696 another migration took place to a fourth site. Here it was that Père Lafitau, S. J., discovered the famous "ginseng" plant, so valuable in the eyes of the Chinese. The discovery created a great sensation, and was for a time the source of lucrative commerce. The fourth site still proving unsatisfactory, the settlement was moved to the present site of Caughnawaga in 1716. From 1667 to 1783 the mission was conducted by the Jesuits; from 1783 to 1903 by secular priests and oblates. In 1903 it was again confided to the Jesuits. Among the more noted missionaries were Fathers Bruyas, S. J.; Chauchetière, S. J.; Lafitau, S. J.; Burtin, O. M. I.; Marcoux, who composed an Iroquois dictionary and grammar; and Forbes, who drew up complete genealogical tables of the settlement. The Indians are intelligent and industrious. Some are engaged in farming, others take rafts down the Lachine rapids. The industries are principally bead work and the making of lacrosse rackets and snowshoes. Besides the presbytery, dating from 1716, and the church built in 1719 and restored in 1845, there are in the village the ruins of a French fort of 1754, two schools and a hospital. The government by chiefs was, in 1889, replaced by that of a mayor and council. Note by Joseph Gras, S. J.

N. B.—Joseph Gras, S. J., the writer of this monograph, is assistant missionary at Caughnawaga.

CHAPTER XXIII

One of the charges against la Fredière had been that of selling liquor to the savages, and of fraudulently diluting it, at that. He was not without imitators among the officers who, not content with selling them liquor in their settlements, followed them to their hunting fields, so that through their continual drunken orgies, the savages brought back but few skins, and thus the habitants of Montreal, who had gone to great expense in advancing them on credit, arms, powder and provisions, were reduced to great want. Dollier de Casson, contrasting the singlemindedness of M. de Maisonneuve with the new régime of avaricious officers, says that if things went on so, the country would be ruined.

"It is impossible that it can hold together," he says in his account of the year 1667, "if individuals have not the wherewith to buy utensils, linen, clothes, in a country where wheat has no value. Owing to the cupidity of the officers, the inhabitants, not having any peltry for exchange, are forced to sell their arms to provide the wherewith to cover themselves, and having only their feet and arms to defend themselves, they will become the prey of the Iroquois, should they wish to begin to war again."

Speaking of this period Marie l'Incarnation (letter of October, 1669) says "that it would have been better to have less inhabitants and better Christians," and Dollier de Casson in his history of the year 1664, bewailing the departure of M. de Maisonneuve, says that "since Montreal had fallen into other hands, vices unknown before had crept in."

The common soldiers followed the licenses of their betters and were within an ace of endangering the safety of the colony by rekindling the smouldering embers of Iroquois hatred. In their greed the soldiers of the Montreal garrison had killed a Seneca chief for his peltry, having plied him with brandy and killed him. His body they loaded with weights to sink it, but it was found floating by some Iroquois who brought it to Montreal, and thus the murder was out. As we have related they were put to death, on the day of the departure of La Salle for the West. About the same time, in the winter of 1668-69, three other scamps who had left the Carignan Regiment and settled at Montreal cruelly massacred six Oneidas (Onneiouts) on the banks of the River Mascouche, first intoxicating them in their cabin, and then during the night falling on them, not even sparing the woman and her young children. And this for a load of fifty elk and beaver skins! One of the assassins confessed the brutal deed to La Salle, as we have said, before departing.

The first armed attack on life at Montreal among Frenchmen was also committed by a soldier, viz., by Carion, a lieutenant of La Motte's regiment, on the person of M. de Lormeau, an ensign of M. de Gué's company, in payment of a grudge. The case was brought up before M. d'Ailleboust in May, 1671, and the records of the greffe giving the depositions of the witnesses, tell an exciting story, of how, on Pentecost evening, after vespers and just before the first sound of the "salut" pealed, the Sieur de Lormeau was walking with his wife towards the common and had passed the seminary enclosure, apparently on the way to his dwelling, when nearing the house of Charles Le Moyne, of Longueuil, who was at table entertaining Picoté de Bélestre and a merchant of Rochelle named Baston, they saw M. de Carion coming to meet them. They advanced towards him and they were near Migeon de Branssat's house when Carion, seeking a pretext for provocation, called out, "Coward! Why have you struck this child? Why don't you attack me?" "Coward yourself!" was the reply. "Go away!" On the instant Carignan's sword is out and de Lormeau follows suit. Three or four blows are struck and they clinch one another. In the struggle Carion, taking his sword by the blade, tries to plunge its point into de Lormeau's stomach. De Lormeau's péruque now falling to the ground, Carion takes the opportunity of seizing his sword by the hilt and deals blows with its pommel on de Lormeau's unprotected head till the blood began to flow. Whereupon de Lormeau's lady, Marie Roger Lepage, terror-stricken and beside herself, runs back to Charles Le Moyne's house and disturbs the supper party by crying, "Murder! Murder! M. de Bélestre, come out!" The three, leaving the table, rushed to separate the struggling officers but in vain. Picoté de Bélestre then exclaimed in indignation: "Since you won't separate, then kill yourselves if you want to." And now, one called Gilles, a former servant of M. Carion, comes on the scene with drawn sword, brandishing it in defence of his master, but doing no damage. M. Morel, an ensign in the same company as Carion and a partner in the same quarrel against de Lormeau, also comes on with naked sword and makes a thrust at de Lormeau, much to Charles Le Moyne's disgust strongly expressed, at seeing an unarmed man so struck.

By this time de Lormeau had received three wounds, when two priests from the seminary ran out to separate them, M. de Frémont and M. Dollier de Casson, the strapping soldier priest, whose presence soon acted as a peacemaker. But de Lormeau took the affair to the court, as we have seen.

The military introduced a love of gayety, good cheer and dissipation into the colony. In Quebec in 1667, on February 4th, the first ball was held and the Jesuit journal of the period adds this reflection: "May God grant that there are no sad consequences."

At Montreal, larcenies, breaches of respect for authority, blasphemies and Sabbath breaking are now recorded.

In 1670 an attempt was made for the first time, in Montreal to make a corner in wheat to the detriment of the poor. By an act of January 26, 1671, Talon fixed the price at three livres and two sous the bushel, and punished a refractory miller, de la Touche-Champlain who, profiting by the dearth of wheat, sold it at twenty sous, and even then it was mixed with Indian corn.

The "volontaires," or day labourers, began to be a trouble, as they were more numerous at Montreal than elsewhere. Many of these were lazy and wanderers, and would not hire themselves out or take up land, and doubtless many of the petty larcenies now commencing, were due to these gentlemen living on their wits. The woods appealed to them and the "coureurs de bois" would soon be recruited from them. The simplicity of primitive manners was going. An ordinance of the "procureur fiscal" in the records of the city for March 9, 1670, shows that precautions had to be now taken to prevent sacks of wheat and flour from being willfully changed at the mill, and their amounts from being falsified.

Theft was severely punished, according to the "greffe" of April 15, 1667. A man who had stolen thirteen bushels of wheat was condemned to be marked with the royal "fleur de lys" and to be sent to the Canadian galleys for three years. On December 20, 1668, another was sentenced to stand outside the parish church for a quarter of an hour, as the people were leaving after mass on Sunday. The town clerk read his sentence out to the people and an officer of justice affixed to the culprit's breast a notice in large characters so that all might read the legend, "voleur de blé" (wheat thief).

Again, on March 8, 1670, a man convicted of stealing from a store by night was condemned by M. d'Ailleboust, under the good pleasure of the sovereign council, to be hanged on a market day, so that by "this dire example, the evil disposed might be intimidated and prevented from committing greater larcenies and other crimes." The condemned man, however, appealed to the sovereign council, and the execution does not appear to have taken place.

Tavern frequentation was also a source of dissipation and trouble. The cabarets became the rendezvous of Montrealers, although they were only licensed for strangers and marketers. In 1669, the intendant came to town and on this occasion at the request of the Seigneurs brought about a special ordinance dated April 2, 1669, which ran as follows:

"Desirous of doing all in our power to stop these dissipations and debaucheries, which serve only for the corruption of morals and the destruction of families and of the colony, we, in execution of this ordinance of the king, very expressly forbid all those who shall keep cabarets or taverns, in the town as well as in the bourgs, villages or other places, to open them to receive any person on Sundays and holy days and during divine service, under a penalty of a fine for the first offence, and of prison for the second. We forbid, under the same penalties, all those domiciled in towns, bourgs and villages where there are cabarets or taverns, even those who are married and have families or households, to go to eat or to drink in these places, and those who keep these cabarets or taverns to give them food or drink, or gaming, under any pretext whatever. They can only sell them wine by the pot, which they shall take home to drink.

"We forbid them also, under the same penalties, to receive in these places any dissolute or lewd men or women, or to give them food or 'aliment' of any kind, or likewise to give to any engagé (hired man) or 'volontaire' food or drink.

"They shall, however, be allowed to give drink in moderation to travelers and to give board and lodging to those who shall be obliged to reside in this town to manage their affairs. Finally we forbid all innkeepers to give credit for their dues or to exact any promise or obligation of payment under the penalty of loss of their stock, for which they shall not take any action of recovery, conformably to Article 128 of the 'Custom of Paris.'"

This ordinance appears to have been strictly enforced for some time, for we find the syndic himself on August 19, 1670, appearing before M. d'Ailleboust to answer a charge of eating and drinking at an inn on a Sunday or a feast day during divine service. The syndic owned up to having contravened the law on a week day, but brought witnesses to prove that he had not broken the ordinance of the Sunday and feast day observance. The innkeeper was condemned to pay the law expenses of the case and to pay a fine to the church.

Even those who broke the ecclesiastical abstinence in these cabarets seem to have been in danger of the secular arm.

A watch was kept by the Seigneurs on the weights and measures and they had them stamped with their seal. In order to see that innkeepers did not substitute others, the procureur fiscal, or his substitute, accompanied by the clerk of the justices and two sergeants, went on a tour of inspection from time to time. (Greffe de Ville Marie, June 11, 1673.)

In 1676, on a surprise visit after vespers one Sunday,—"on information received" doubtless,—these officers found four men being entertained at one of the cabarets, now beginning to open up without authorization and apparently contravening all the above-quoted ordinance. One June 11th the four men and the innkeeper were fined. On September 27th the judge of the seigneurs, forced to cut down the growing abuses, ordered all inns to be closed under penalty of a 100 livres, provided that the autumn then ending and the forthcoming winter did not bring any strangers to Montreal. He declared at the same time that in the spring there would be established one or two "cabaretiers hôteliers," which we may translate as "hostelry innkeepers," to board and lodge traveling merchants coming to Montreal. Shall we consider this the first indication of the hotel life of Montreal, the commercial metropolis of Canada?

The crime of blasphemy was severely punished. On Ascension Day, 1668, the new royal edict, supplementing a former one of 1651, was placarded at the door of the parish church at Montreal. [106] Various fines and imprisonments are meted out to those who shall sin. At the sixth offence it is ordered that the blasphemer's upper lip shall be cut with a hot iron, the lower lip on the seventh, and if after this he still continues his blasphemy, his tongue is to be cut out.

A man near Lachine, having attempted outrage on two young girls of eleven and seven years, was fined and banished, on June 2, 1672, from the Isle of Montreal, for seven years.

Evil livers were punished even after death. A former corporal, who had been killed by accident by an Ottawan at the "Little" River, was, in July, 1674, refused burial in holy ground but was allowed to be buried on the commons by one who offered to do that service on the condition that the clothing covering the deceased man should be left him. [107]

We may sum up the history of the transition of morals from the pristine fervour of the early days of Maisonneuve to the early years of royal colonization, in the words of Sister Morin in her annals: "But this happy time is past. The war with the Iroquois having obliged our good king to send us troops at several times, the officers and soldiers have ruined the Lord's vineyards, and vice and sin are almost as common in Canada as in Old France. This it is that makes good people grieve, especially the missioners who wear themselves out in preaching and exhortation almost without fruit, regretting with tears and sobs those happy bygone years, when virtue flourished, as it were, without any labour on their part."