The White and the Gold (26 page)

This was the situation at the time. There was no room inside the palisades for a new building of this size; and, in any event, the site was proving unsuitable because of the spring inundations which flooded the flatlands. It would be necessary to build the hospital outside
the walls, where it would be vulnerable to attack. There was urgent need to strengthen still further the defenses of the fort and little enough time in which to do it. There was no immediate need for a hospital because the Indian allies were giving the island a wide berth and there were no patients. Here the fanaticism of the little group shows itself conspicuously. It was decided, in spite of all the reasons to the contrary, to proceed at once with the new building.

The fort, it will be recalled, stood on the west bank of the St. Pierre River. On the other bank the ground stood well above the high-water mark of the spring floods. Back of it and flowing in a westerly direction to join the St. Pierre was a still smaller stream known as St. Martin’s Brook. The higher land, therefore, was better suited to defense and perhaps should have been selected for the mission in the first place. Here it was decided to raise the walls of the hospital.

Louis d’Ailleboust saw to it that the new structure was strongly built. It was sixty feet long and twenty-four wide and contained four rooms. One (a very small one) was intended for Jeanne Mance, one for her assistants, and the others were for the patients. There was a chapel attached to the main building. It was quite small, but it was of stone construction and had a weatherproof roof. A suitable home had at last been found for the gifts which had been sent out from France. There was a handsome chalice of silver. A ciborium was suspended at the altar, the type of communion cup which resembles in shape the Egyptian water lily. There were costly candlesticks of silver and gold and lamps like those which swung from the ceilings of the Tabernacle; three sets of vestments, a piece of burgamot tapestry, and two carpets.

In the rooms for the patients were furnishings which had been carefully and lovingly made, including a beautifully carved long table for the keeping of drugs, bandages and supplies, and the crude surgical instruments which were in use at the time. The wards were airy and light and filled with the clean smell of new wood. The walls were weather-tight, the window frames well fitted, the hearths of ample size.

When the slender woman looked about her with her dark and rather tragic eyes, she saw in this small frame building the realization of a dream. Here the bodily ills of the savages would be tended and the seeds of service planted which would raise a great harvest of conversion. Did it matter that adverse conditions were curtailing
the number of patients and that certain material needs had seemed to demand attention first? Not to Jeanne Mance; and not, it is only fair to add, to any of that devoted band. The men and women of Montreal looked over their inadequate walls at this institution of mercy standing so boldly alone on the high ground across the stream and did not begrudge the effort which had gone into it.

The hospital, of course, had been provided with as much protection as possible. A high palisade had been raised around its four acres of land in which already two oxen, four cows, and twenty sheep had been turned out to graze. A strong bastion had been erected over the entrance.

Jeanne Mance, happy at last, took possession at once and waited for the patients to come. A few soldiers from the fort were assigned to the hospital.

The second winter arrived. The colonists saw in the change of season a further protection, for surely now the hostile bands would cease to lurk in the woods and betake themselves to the shelter of their own log houses. It was to prove a severe winter. The snow fell incessantly and covered the earth with great drifts. Then the bitter winds from the Ottawa country began to batter the sides of the mountain and to assault with unabated fury the settlement huddling on each side of the St. Pierre. To the sentries who paced the platforms behind the wooden barricades and breathed through beards white with frost, it seemed impossible that the scantily clad enemy were still on the prowl.

This was underestimating the determination and the powers of endurance of the Iroquois. They had not given up the offensive. In spite of the intense cold they still swarmed in the woods, waiting a chance to pick off anyone who ventured out. Sometimes they were so close to the cockleshell defense of the walls that their voices could be heard, the high-pitched gabble which Frenchmen were learning to dread.

At this critical stage in the life of the infant settlement the garrison was indebted to a four-footed friend for much of the immunity enjoyed. A faithful female dog named Pilot had set herself the task of patrolling the woods. She had a nose which unfailingly scented the presence of the Iroquois. After giving birth to a large litter, she taught her sons and daughters to follow her example. At all hours of the day and night the ubiquitous Pilot and her growing family maintained their ceaseless watch. Whenever their keen noses caught
the acrid scent of hostile Indians, they would come to a halt like bird dogs on point and send up such a clamor of warning that the garrison would rush at once to the gun posts.

There was no danger of a surprise attack as long as Pilot and her eager pups continued this unremitting patrol, but the advantage thus provided was almost thrown away through the impetuosity of the garrison. Irked by the close confinement and confident they could drive the Indians out of the woods if given the chance, the men kept begging to be allowed to sally out. Much against his better judgment, Maisonneuve finally gave in to them.

On March 13 the sun was hidden behind heavy clouds and the cold was so intense that any step on the hard surface of the snow sounded clearly for some distance. Pilot and her noisy brood were on their rounds. They drifted in and out of the woods, sometimes venturing so far back into the cover that the occasional excited yipping of the young ones came faintly to the listening ears behind the barricades. Suddenly the deep baying of the mother could be heard. This could mean one thing only, that the pack had caught the scent of painted warriors hiding in the woods.

The garrison collected about the governor and pleaded to be allowed the chance to give battle. They were certain they could teach the redskins a lesson.

“Get ready then!” said Maisonneuve. “I shall lead you myself.”

A party of thirty men, armed with muskets and hunting knives, issued from the enclosure behind the commander. They were brimful of confidence. Not even the difficulty of wading through the deeply drifted snow (only a few had donned snowshoes) dulled the edge of their desire to come finally to grips with the red men.

No sooner had they entered the woods, however, than it became evident they had walked into a trap. The Iroquois were out in full force. The war whoop of the enemy sounded all about the little party. Arrows whistled through the woods, and the sharp rattle of musketry warned the startled Frenchmen that the enemy had plenty of guns.

Maisonneuve shouted an order: they must take cover behind the trees and fight the Indians with their own methods. This did little good, however, for it was soon demonstrated that the white men were outnumbered. The Indians were spreading out and outflanking the French on both wings. Making a hurried calculation, Maisonneuve decided there must be close to a hundred Iroquois in the party. He shouted another order, this time to retreat.

In the construction of the hospital a track had been made into the woods for the hauling out of logs, and in their scramble for shelter the French found this of great assistance. The Indians now burst from the woods in complete disregard of the guns of the retreating white men, and their spine-chilling cries of
“Cassee kouee!”
filled the air triumphantly. Musket balls and arrows whistled by the panic-stricken whites and kicked up snow like spume on each side. Three Frenchmen were killed and a number wounded. It was certain now that the governor’s estimate of the number of the foe had not been far wrong. They seemed to be everywhere, leaping over the drifts, brandishing their weapons in derision, and shouting in wild abandon.

To the frightened watchers in the fort it seemed impossible that the plodding soldiers could reach safety before the screeching Iroquois closed about them. D’Ailleboust ordered the men who had remained behind with him to fire at the Indians over the retreating whites, but at that distance this did not prove effective. Perhaps the whine of the bullets had the effect, nevertheless, of slowing up the pursuit. The Iroquois did not succeed in their efforts to encircle the French. The doors of the Hôtel-Dieu received the racing whites with the smallest possible margin of safety. Maisonneuve was the last man in, having risked capture to cover the retreat of his men. The heavy portals swung to behind him.

The episode had one result: it provided Jeanne Mance with her first patients.

The Indians remained in the woods throughout the whole course of the winter. Sometimes at night the baying of the faithful Pilot would be heard and the members of the watch would hurry to their posts. Here they would remain, straining their eyes for any sign of a rush of fleet copper figures across the white of the snow. The women would dress and sit in the darkness in anxious prayer.

It must not be assumed that the hands on the clocks stood still while the Iroquois besieged the French settlements like the goblins to whom they were compared by Father Jerome Lalemant in one of his letters. Somehow business went on and native canoes, in lesser quantity than ever, reached Three Rivers and Quebec with furs for barter. The fall fleet departed for France on October 24; “laden,” said the
Relations
, “with 20,000 pounds weight of beaver skins for
the habitants, and 10,000 for the general company, at a pistole, or ten or eleven francs, a pound.” This statement makes it evident that plenty of private trading was carried on in spite of the efforts of the company to suppress it.

Nor did the Iroquois invariably have things their own way. The Hurons, who sprang from the same racial stock as the indomitable warriors of the Long House, fought bravely enough when danger faced them. The Algonquins were a fierce and cruel race who in the past had bested the Mohawks, the most relentless among the Five Nations. To the Algonquins, moreover, belongs the credit of producing the greatest individual warrior of that day, whose name was Piskiart.

Piskiart lived in the Ottawa country and had become a Christian; almost certainly, it was said, with an eye to receiving the musket which the French sometimes felt safe in confiding into the hands of converts. If the great Piskiart had taken the vows with an ulterior motive in the first place, he made up for it later by becoming thoroughly devout in his declining years; and certainly he made good use of the musket. He was a tall fellow with the agility of a panther and the face of an eagle; a lone wolf, moreover, for he preferred to fight alone. His greatest feat was when he stole down into the enemy country, a war party of one. Reaching a Mohawk village after night had fallen, he located a huge pile of wood at the edge of the nearby forest and made for himself a hiding place under it. Then he stole into the village and killed all the occupants of one lodge, men, women, and children, never using more than a single blow to split open a skull. In his secret and convenient niche under the woodpile he heard the commotion next morning when the catastrophe was discovered: the lamentations, the shouts of rage, the departure of parties to track him down, the return of the discomfited avengers empty-handed.

The second night, believing that the killer would not dare to return, the village sank again into heavy slumbers, and Piskiart repeated his sanguinary feat by slaughtering the occupants of another lodge. The second day was a repetition of the first, but when the insatiable and confident Piskiart emerged from his woodpile the third night, he discovered that a string of sentries had been set about the village. Having to be content with killing one of them, he raised a wild cry of triumph and departed. The Iroquois sent a party after him. This time he made no effort to conceal himself but boldly set
out for his own country. All through the day the chase went on. The pursuing braves followed the usual plan of taking turns at setting the pace, so that he was forced to travel at high speed through most of the day. Among his other accomplishments Piskiart seems to have been the fleetest of runners. At any rate, he showed his heels to the lot of them. The pursuing party finally gave up and settled down to a night’s sleep in a state of complete exhaustion, upon which the bold Algonquin slipped back and brained them all with his well-reddened tomahawk.

None of the paladins of European legend, the heroes of chivalrous annals, performed greater deeds than copper-skinned Piskiart. It is unfortunate that more is not known about him.

It came about, therefore, that the men of the Five Nations, who were as shrewd as they were brave, decided to give themselves a space of time for recuperation from a war which had been exhausting and, up to this point, not too rewarding. They announced their intention of offering peace to the French, using as a pretext the magnanimity of Montmagny in saving the lives of two Iroquois braves who had fallen into the hands of the Algonquins; another feat of the great Piskiart. In July of the year 1645 a party of Iroquois leaders arrived at Three Rivers to begin negotiations. The spokesman was an arrogant chief named Kiotsaton, who came ashore swathed in wampum (“completely covered with porcelain beads,” was Father Lalemant’s phrase), and haughtily announced his intention to discuss terms. He addressed the Sieur de Montmagny by the name which the Iroquois people, who had a gift for poetic imagery, had selected to designate the leader of the French—“Onontio,” meaning Great Mountain.

“Onontio, give ear,” he orated with graceful gestures. “I am the mouth of all my nation. When you listen to me, you listen to all the Iroquois. There is no evil in my heart. My song is a song of peace.”

Kiotsaton was playing a part. In his heart there was nothing but double-dealing. Nevertheless, he worked out a basis of peace with the French and their allies, the Hurons, the Algonquins, the Montagnais, and the Men of the White Fish. He produced seventeen collars of wampum and handed them over one at a time, with a burst of oratory to describe the clause in the proposed treaty which each of them symbolized. The collars, which were very handsomely decorated, were then strung on a line between two poles so that they could be seen by everyone.