The White and the Gold (17 page)

She was in Quebec also when two Iroquois braves arrived to discuss a treaty of peace between the Five Nations and the French—a ferociously painted pair, most haughty and contemptuous. The settlers, who had been fed for years on tales of their fighting power and their cruelty, watched with anxious eyes. It developed, after a great deal of desultory talk, that the visitors had undertaken the mission
on their own initiative and could not claim to represent their tribes. The suspicion grew then that they had come to spy out the land. It was a good thing that work on the citadel in the meantime had progressed to the stage where its turreted walls frowned above the crest and the boom of cannon at dawn and sundown gave warning that a vigilant watch was being maintained. The emissaries were allowed to see that the fort was large as well as strong—thirty-six yards in length with wings of twenty yards, towers at the four corners, and a ravelin in front to command the approaches, the whole circled with a moat.

After much feasting and dancing and more futile palaver, the two braves took to their canoes and vanished up the river. They had in all probability accomplished their purpose. Nothing more was heard of a peace treaty, but no war parties came to attack the settlement.

At the end of four years it became known that Madame de Champlain would accompany her husband back to France. The glum colonists watched while her trunks, packed tight with all her finery (for which she had found so little use), were carried aboard the ship. They watched with open regret when the slim figure climbed the swaying rope ladder. She stood at the rail and waved to them in farewell, knowing that it was a final one.

She never came back. Having become deeply religious, she desired to enter a convent. Champlain refused his consent to this, and it was not until after his death that she carried out her purpose of becoming an Ursuline nun, taking the name of Sister Hélène d’Augustin. She founded a convent at Meaux and died there in 1654.

I
N HIS last years Henry IV of France came under the influence of the Jesuits. His confessor was a member of that order, Father Coton, a man of remarkable character. It was due to Coton’s earnest prompting that the King decided to attach Father Pierre Biard, a professor of theology at Lyons and a zealous Jesuit, to the first Acadian colony. The leaders of the venture, Monts and Poutrincourt, shared the suspicion general in France that the order was a Spanish institution and closely allied to the Inquisition. By some skillful contriving the ship which was supposed to take Father Biard to America managed to leave him behind in the port of Bordeaux, and there he remained for a year in mounting indignation and wrath. He succeeded finally in getting himself aboard another ship and reaching Acadia. He was just in time to figure in the bitter days of the Argall raid, which will be described later.

After the death of Henry a coterie of court ladies carried on the movement to place spiritual control of Canada in the hands of the Jesuits. The Society differed from the Franciscans in an important respect: it appealed to the middle and upper classes, while the gentle friars labored almost entirely among the poor and lowly; and so it is not hard to understand that the ladies in question had a great deal of influence. The Queen Regent was of the number, as was also one of Henry’s mistresses and, of more importance still as things turned out, a very lovely and virtuous lady with whom the amorous King had been deeply but unsuccessfully in love, Antoinette de Pons, Marquise de Guercheville. The marquise, still lovely and more virtuous than ever, was a widow and the possessor of great wealth with
which she was prepared to support the followers of Loyola in the New World.

In 1625 the Duc de Ventadour assumed the post of viceroy of Canada in succession to his uncle, the Duc de Montmorenci, and in the new incumbent the determined ladies found a most willing ally. This deeply religious young man was titular head for a short time only, but he left his mark on the colony.

A story about the Duc de Ventadour must be told at this point. His religious convictions took such hold on him early in life that he shunned the court. During the years when he acted as viceroy he was one of a group of earnest young men who met weekly at the Capuchin convent in the Faubourg St. Honoré to discuss ways of alleviating the lot of the poor. Out of these meetings was to come the establishment in 1630 of a society known as the
Compagnie du Très Saint-Sacrement de l’Autel
, which was shortened in time to
Compagnie de Saint-Sacrement
. Its purpose was to initiate and give impetus to worthy causes, such as the improvement of prisons and hospitals and lazar-cotes, as well as to supply relief in individual cases. The members were for the most part men of the highest rank who could always reach the right ears, even as high as the King’s, and command all sources of wealth. Ventadour was the moving spirit of the organization, but he had with him such men as the Marquis d’Andelot, the Archbishop of Aries, the French Ambassador to Rome, Henri de Pichery, who was the royal maître d’hôtel, and Father Suffren, who acted as confessor to both the King and the Queen Regent.

The success of the society, which was quite amazing, was due largely to an early decision of the founders. Instead of beginning with a great fanfare and an open appeal for support, they kept their affairs secret, believing they could best employ their influence by avoiding all publicity. None save the members knew where or when the society met. None of the members mentioned it or acknowledged affiliation. Members never signed the letters they sent out. Secrecy can become a more potent weapon than publicity. All France began to whisper about the society, to speculate as to who belonged and about the real aims back of it. In time they even began to fear it.

Certainly the society grew to have tremendous power, and in the early stages it did a very great deal of good. It has been said that the beloved “Monsieur Vincent,” who was canonized as St. Vincent de Paul, was one of the members. There is no proof of this,
but the society was of great assistance to him in the noble work he did with his Congregation of the Missions.

The success of the
Compagnie de Saint-Sacrement
was so great, and public interest in it was fanned so briskly by its self-imposed cloak of secrecy, that inevitably it drifted from its true course. After the original members died, it became an instrument of punishment rather than charity and devoted itself largely to the detection and suppression of heresy. Becoming known in time as
La Cabale des Devôts
, it was suppressed in the next reign by Cardinal Mazarin.

Such, then, was the Duc de Ventadour, who now took into his hands the reins of the viceroyalty. He was already convinced that religious teaching in New France should be exclusively in the hands of the Jesuits. It has been said, in fact, that it was on the advice of Father Philibert Noyrot, his confessor and a Jesuit, that he had assumed the post. Shortly thereafter Father Noyrot joined the Jesuit group in Canada, where the work was still being shared with the Récollets and where, moreover, the Huguenot influence was strong because of their predominance in the company membership. When Father Lalemant, the Jesuit Superior in Canada, sent Noyrot back he wrote to Ventadour, “… in order to finish what he has started. He is the most capable one for this affair.” It had been apparent for some time that the Récollets were not strong enough to carry on the work in Canada unaided, and Ventadour saw to it that the burden was transferred to the willing shoulders of the black-cassocked Jesuits.

Three truly remarkable men formed the Jesuit advance guard, Charles Lalemant, Jean de Brébeuf, and Enemond Masse. Filled with courage and burning with a zeal which nothing could daunt, they were to play great parts in the early history of New France. They arrived without ostentation and found that no provision had been made for their reception, Champlain being in France and the Huguenot Emery de Cȧėn acting in his place. It was necessary for them to take up their quarters temporarily with the Récollets on the St. Charles River. Although the kindly friars knew that they would be relegated to a secondary part, they welcomed the newcomers cordially.

The vigorous intent of the order became apparent soon thereafter when two more priests arrived with ample supplies provided by the unfailing purse of the widowed marquise and accompanied by a corps of workmen. They then proceeded to build themselves a simple
but stout house behind a palisade of tall timbers in the neighborhood of the Récollets. Impatient to be about the work which had brought them to the New World, and thirsting perhaps for the martyrdom which beckoned, the staunch fathers set forth into the wilds as soon as their base had been established. Lalemant and Brébeuf went to live with the Hurons, where they labored and suffered for many years. Soon Brébeuf was writing to the General of the Society in Rome: “They [the Indians] are frightened by the torment of hell. Enticed by the joys of paradise, they open their eyes to the light of truth … We have baptized more than 90.”

This expressed much of the philosophy which governed the activities of the Jesuits. They were avid for results and at all times showed a keen interest in the statistics of conversion. One of the lesser-known priests, Father Raymbaut, who struck far north and lived among the Nipissings, was at the point of death and said to one of the natives about him: “Magouch, thou seest well that I am about to die; and at such a time I would not tell thee a lie. I assure thee that there is down below a fire that will burn the wicked forever.” Magouch replied, “Beyond a doubt, I must obey God.” He became thereafter one of the most convinced and eloquent of converts.

Because of the nature of the work they were doing, the Jesuits in the wilderness felt themselves close to God. The solitude in which they existed added to their mysticism. Even Father Brébeuf, who was a giant physically and a man of simple and gentle spirit, began to have visions. Once he saw a great cross in the sky. This was in 1640, when the Iroquois had declared open war on the French and were stalking the forests. The cross was in the south, above the land where the men of the Long House dwelt. It seemed to be moving toward him.

He called his comrades and told them what he could see. “How large is it?” asked one after gazing in the direction indicated and seeing nothing.

Father Brébeuf did not reply at once. He continued to stare up into the sky and finally he sighed deeply.

“It is large enough,” he said in a low voice, “to crucify all of us.”

The missions in the Huron country had much success. It was at Brébeuf’s direction that they decided to center their activities at Ihonatiria, and here they built a chapel which was a constant source of wonder to the dark-skinned people. It was thirty feet long, sixteen
wide, and twenty-four high, and the vestments were costly and beautiful. In the otherwise bare house of the priests were many objects which caused astonishment among the credulous men of the woods. There was, for instance, the clock which they began to call the Captain. The priests were willing to capitalize on the effect produced by the striking of the clock. If it happened to be ten they would cry out immediately after the tenth stroke, “Stop!” and when the Captain obeyed, the red men would slap their thighs with horny palms and shake their heads in delighted wonder. “What does it eat?” they asked, convinced that the mechanism was alive. Some years before a young Huron who was called Savignon had been taken to France as a hostage when Etienne Brulé remained in Indian hands. Savignon came back full of awe and reported that he had seen the golden cabin of the French King rolling along the ground, pulled by eight moose without horns, and that he had also seen a machine which spoke and told the time of day. Here was a proof of his veracity and one of the reasons why the Hurons examined the clock with particular interest.

The Captain proved very useful to the hard-worked priests. They told the Hurons that each stroke conveyed a command and that when it reached four in the afternoon the order was “Go home!” At four o’clock, therefore, all the Indians would rise obediently and leave the lodge.

Every piece of equipment the mission contained was equally potent, a magnifying glass in particular. The dusky visitors never tired of looking through it and crying out when the figures of ants and bugs grew to an unbelievable size before their eyes. They watched the magnet with due awe, believing that a
manatu
of great power dwelt within it and compelled objects to draw near.

There was one occasion when, like the Connecticut Yankee at the court of King Arthur, the Jesuits made capital of an eclipse. There was this difference in the two incidents, that far up in the Huron country it was the light of the moon and not the sun which was conveniently dimmed. This happened during the night of December 31, 1638. The priests consulted their books and told the members of their flock to watch for what was coming. The fading out of the light of the moon at the moment predicted raised a panic among the natives; and ever after they believed the Black Gowns capable of commanding the coming and the going of light. This anecdote was contained in a letter written by Father François Joseph le Mercier from the Huron village of Ossossané.