The White and the Gold (54 page)

Radisson took advantage of the opportunity thus presented to him. He built a high fire, which was the Indian way of announcing their presence with furs to trade, and in response the
Prince Rupert
came in to anchor. Radisson then succeeded in getting the ear of old Zachariah Gillam and acquainted him with the news of his son’s involvement. Zachariah was distressed, for he knew that his son could be shot if his identity was discovered. He did not, therefore, let Bridgar know that this bearded stranger was none other than Pierre Esprit Radisson, that well-known turner of coats.

Then nature took a decisive hand. A storm drove the ice from the bay into the estuary, and the
Prince Rupert
was sunk. Fourteen of the crew, including Captain Zachariah Gillam, were drowned.

At this point the story that Radisson retails becomes too involved for recapitulation or belief. By devious means, which he makes more ingenious than any pirate ever contrived, he took possession of a fort which Ben Gillam had built on shore and captured the whole New England crew. Not a blow was struck, not a drop of blood spilled. Then he made prisoners of Bridgar and most of his men (this one does justice to Münchhausen himself), and putting all of them on board the
Bachelor’s Delight
, and all the furs which the poachers had secured, he sailed away in triumph.

It is almost impossible to believe what Radisson tells of the methods by which he brought about this miracle, but there is no denying the results. The
Bachelor’s Delight
reached Quebec. Bridgar and Ben Gillam were on board in the role of prisoners. There was a valuable cargo in the hold.

This much also is certain. The people of Quebec went wild with enthusiasm when the terror of the North, who had always been a hero in the eyes of most of them, came into the harbor with his loot and his prisoners. But in high circles there was no trace of enthusiasm at all. In the citadel of St. Louis there was at this time a governor named Le Febvre de la Barre, an old soldier who completely lacked the qualifications to deal with situations like this. To Governor la Barre the success of Radisson was a complication which he solved by doing the obvious thing. He fined the victors and ordered that they return at once to France and report to Colbert, who would know how to deal with them. He restored the
Bachelor’s Delight
to Ben Gillam and allowed him to sail for Boston. Bridgar was set at liberty with diplomatic apologies.

La Compagnie du Nord
came very close to a premature collapse as a result of this decision on the part of Governor la Barre. When Radisson, impoverished a second time by the fines imposed on him, reached Paris he found that Colbert was dead and that the King was in a state of fury over the whole episode. Louis was angry with La Barre and wrote to him demanding to know why the latter had thus publicly surrendered the French claim to Hudson’s Bay. He was furious with Radisson because he had been too successful but a little later ordered him to go back to the bay and do what he could to help the English restore order. The English Government furiously bombarded Versailles with demands for damages and the punishment of the men responsible for the losses of the company.

At this point Groseilliers drops out of the story. Some say he retired
to Three Rivers and lived out the balance of his days there with his faithful Marguerite and his brood of children. Others believe that he died in the North while Radisson was performing his feats of legerdemain. Whatever the reason, he dropped for good from the pages of history, and from that point on Radisson traveled alone.

Radisson was, needless to state, very unhappy over this break in a friendship which had withstood for so many years the strain of great successes and the bitterness of defeat. It had been a truly remarkable alliance, a David and Jonathan epic of the north woods and waters. Radisson was the showy partner, the dynamic leader. Groseilliers had carried the heaviest share of the burdens. That the entente had not been impaired is evidenced by the fact that Radisson left young Jean Chouart in charge of the captured forts in the North when he made his victorious return to Quebec.

In the spring of 1684 there was a meeting of the directors of the Hudson’s Bay Company at which a most unexpected announcement was made. Pierre Esprit Radisson was back in London. Like the Vicar of Bray, “he had turned a cat in a pan once more” and he was back for good. He was no longer willing to trust himself and his fortunes to the mercy of French colonial governors. The directors, willing to forget the past, welcomed the prodigal and made an agreement with him by which he received stock to the value of two hundred pounds, a salary of one hundred pounds in years when dividends were not paid and fifty when they were, and the sum of twenty-five pounds to set himself up again. They were so glad to see the rolling stone on their side that they made a present of seven musquash skins to Sir William Young, who had persuaded Radisson to return. They even took the Frenchman to meet the Duke of York, who had succeeded Prince Rupert as governor of the company. As a shareholder he had to take the customary oath of allegiance, which began, “I doe sweare to bee true and faithful to ye Comp’y of Adventurers: ye secrets of ye Comp’y I will not disclose.…”

In the years that followed Radisson seems to have been an active and faithful servant of the company, although he was still to wage many battles with the directors over his share of the proceeds and to secure a pension for his wife. He went out to the bay immediately in the
Happy Return
; and a happy return it was, for he brought
back twenty thousand pelts. He made many other trips to the wild north country which he loved so much and was a factor, without a doubt, in the successes which now crowned the company efforts. There were years when his dividends on the two hundred pounds of stock he held amounted to one hundred and fifty and there were years when he received, probably as a result of the loss of ships, no more than fifty.

As he grew older he ceased to accompany the ships to the bay. He had more arguments with the directors, as a result of which his income was cut to a regular one hundred pounds a year. On this he was able to live reasonably well although he had nine children to support. He drew his last quarterly installment in July 1710, when he was in his seventy-sixth year.

His last years could not have been happy ones. In London, his ears were filled with the cries of the streets, and this must have been a poor substitute for the sound of dipping paddles and the swish of water along the sides of a birch-bark canoe. From his windows he saw sooty chimney pots and lowering skies instead of the green line of trees and the flash of the northern lights.

Of all the characters produced by New France, and there were so many of them, he seems the most picturesque. He had in him much of the stuff of greatness.

T
HERE now appears on the scene the leading character and the most colorful actor in this drama which was being enacted against the backdrop of Canadian solitudes. The Comte de Frontenac has been accepted as the greatest in the long list of governors who for various periods controlled the destinies of the colony. He was a man of positive qualities, a curious blending of strength and weakness—in fact, one of the most contradictory of men to attain such a degree of fame. He came to New France at a time when a strong hand was badly needed at the helm. If his record, reviewed at this late period, seems rather lacking in solid achievement to deserve the acclaim which has been accorded him, there can be no doubt that he had in full degree the strength which was needed and that he brought the colony through a period of desperate crisis.

Frontenac was a soldier with a remarkable record, brave, aggressive, and astute. As a courtier he had been less successful. As the controller of his own far from adequate fortune he had been a failure. As a man he had positive virtues and as many obvious faults.

It will soon become apparent that the Comte de Frontenac was a keen judge of men. He quarreled with the other heads of the state and from the first seems to have been on the worst possible terms with the Jesuits. His coat of arms carried an imaginary animal, half griffon and half lion. “I will yet make the griffon fly above the crows!” he cried on one occasion, the crows being the Jesuits. He had no difficulty, however, in winning and holding the affections and
the obedience of the common man and his industrious wife. He strove always to improve the position of the patient habitant and succeeded to some extent.

He seems to have had an instinctive understanding of the Indians. The shrewd and fearless policy he adopted in dealing with them brought the colony through its darkest days. The Iroquois admired and feared him. He knew when to call them his children and play the indulgent parent, but he never failed at exactly the right moment to slip off the velvet glove and strike with the iron hand. He sometimes indulged in horseplay with the braves from the Finger Lakes and even joined with them in an imitation of a war dance. At other times, when hatred ran high, he did not hesitate to authorize the burning of prisoners at the stake.

On the reverse side, he was haughty, quarrelsome, absurdly boastful, unable to stomach opposition (it was said he sometimes frothed at the mouth with rage when his views were disregarded), and at most times unstable. He was impetuous in some of his decisions and always bitterly unwilling to acknowledge a mistake. There seems no doubt that he had accepted the post in the first place as a way of improving his own fortunes. The charge was made against him that he was in secret alliance with some of the
coureurs de bois
, but no proof of venality has been established.

This bold and imperious man, whose character showed in his darkly handsome face, remained in Canada for ten years, a decade of bitter controversy but at the same time a period of peace with the Iroquois and of steady if not spectacular growth in population and wealth. When the patience of the King was worn out with the constant bickering among his officers in Canada, Frontenac was recalled. But seven years later, when the mistakes of the governors who followed him had brought about the most desperate phase of the Iroquois wars, he was hurriedly summoned from his retirement. It was apparent to all men that Frontenac, and Frontenac alone, could repair the blunders which had been committed. In his seventieth year he returned to Quebec to take up the burden again, a tired old man. Despite his poor health and his lack of strength, he took the situation in hand with the same indomitable will he had displayed during his first term.

Nine years later he died at his post in the citadel of St. Louis. The clouds of defeat had been dispelled. Once again men could walk in the woods without fear or launch a canoe on the rivers. His earlier
mistakes and shortcomings were forgotten. Only his accomplishments remained in the minds of the people.

Father Goyer, a Récollet, of course, delivered the funeral oration. “I will not seek to dry your tears,” he said to the weeping congregation, “for I cannot contain my own. This is a time to weep, and never did people weep for a better governor.”

The word “gasconade” was long ago applied to the habit of boastful speaking in which the men of Gascony were prone to indulge, being very sure of themselves but at the same time very conscious of their lack of worldly advantages. It would be unfair to suggest that the temperament of Louis de Buade, Comte de Frontenac et Palluau, would mark him unmistakably as a Gascon, but it must be allowed that he possessed some of their characteristic traits and was not above this kind of vainglorious talk. And he
was
a Gascon, born at Béam in the year 1620.

His family had come down a little in their fortunes. Antoine de Buade, his grandfather, had been quite a ruffler at court and a close confidant of Henry IV. He was sent in 1600 to Italy to convey to Marie de’ Medici a portrait of his King when negotiations were under way for a marriage between them. Apparently the courtly Gascon conducted whatever ambassadorial duties devolved on him with due skill. The Medici heiress decided in favor of the match and became the second wife of that great King.

Although the family fortunes were beginning to shrink, Frontenac’s father also played a conspicuous part at court. In addition to being colonel of the regiment of Navarre, he held a post in the household of Louis XIII. The latter acted as godfather to the son of the family, honoring the lusty infant with his own name. Henri de Buade had a house in Paris on the Quai des Célestines, but it does not seem to have been a showy establishment. The early age at which the young scion of the line was put into the army suggests that the need was felt to get him out into the world to seek his own fortune, as in the case of another Gascon who left Béarn in his early years, one Monsieur d’Artagnan.

Frontenac was a born soldier. He was brave, audacious, and cool. When he was fifteen he was sent to the wars in the Netherlands and began to distinguish himself at once. His record was so exceptional,
in fact, that at the age of twenty-three he was appointed colonel of the regiment of Normandy. Four years later, because of the success with which he led his men in the Italian campaigns, he was made a
maréchal de camp
. He had always been in the thick of things and had been wounded often, including a broken arm at the siege of Orbitello. When peace was finally made, young Louis de Buade found himself without an occupation. He returned to his father’s house in Paris and seems to have been concerned for some years with the possibilities of advancement at court. He had not achieved much in that direction when he allowed himself the interruption of a romantic attachment.