The White and the Gold (71 page)

S
OME men are born for emergencies. They are not particularly successful when life flows easily and placidly. They are prone to display faulty judgment and almost certain to get at odds with their fellows; but when a crisis arises and courageous leadership is needed, they come into their own. Such a man was Frontenac. It must be conceded that during his first term as governor of Canada he had not been successful in many respects. But now adverse winds were blowing in the colony and its very existence was at stake, and it was to the old lion that the King instinctively turned.

Frontenac had been existing on the fringe of the court. The King had not found a post for him but had granted him a pension of thirty-five hundred livres. It was possible for Frontenac to live on this income, but most certainly it did not allow for ostentation. His rooms would be few in number and of no distinction, and he would not be able to afford more in his household than a valet and a cook. It was probably a dingy-looking old man, the very picture of an ex-official out of favor, who had haunted the anterooms of Versailles and chatted with minor officials. Certainly there would be no gold lace on his sleeves and no clean white plume in his hat.

He was seventy years old when summoned back to the presence after these years of neglect. There was still a glint in the Frontenac eye, however, and a hint of the former pride in the firmness of his step. The King himself was in his fifties and had become decidedly plump. There was no shadow between them this time. Even if there had been any truth in the story about the count and La Montespan, she had lost her hold on the royal affections some years before and had been replaced by a ripe and intelligent beauty named Madame
de Maintenon. The new favorite had been governess to the brood of children La Montespan had borne the King, and it was generally believed that she had demanded marriage as the price of her compliance. The royal widower had yielded. He was a little subdued in manner now and, in many respect at least, under the plump white Maintenon thumb.

“I send you back to Canada,” said the King to the old count, “where I expect you will serve me as well as you did before. I ask for nothing more.”

No word had reached France at this time of the Lachine disaster, but it was recognized that the colony was in serious straits. Plans were discussed and it was decided that an offensive move would be the best defense. The drive should be made, in the opinion of the monarch, against the English and not against the Iroquois. William of Orange, now seated on the throne of England, was at war with Louis, and the latter burned with desire to find vulnerable chinks in his opponent’s armor. Albany and New York and the patroon country along the Hudson had been Dutch territory and were therefore highly valued by the great Dutch leader. If the French could drive down the Hudson and capture New York, the fast-growing New England colonies would be hedged into a small corner of the continent with no outlets save by sea. There were other good reasons for the plan, the main one being that New York Harbor was open all year round and was therefore of high strategic importance.

The plan decided upon was that two warships would be sent out to attack New York from the sea at the same time that Frontenac organized the strength of Canada for a drive down the Hudson. The King saw no insurmountable difficulties in the carrying out of this military coup and felt as though Manhattan were already in his pocket.

It should have been as apparent to the optimistic monarch as it was undoubtedly to the realistic soldier who would have to carry out the most difficult part that the success of the plan would depend on a miracle of improvisation. It would take genius on the part of Frontenac to create an army of sufficient strength out of the ragtag and bobtail of military resources in French Canada. And what of the Iroquois while this magnificent turning movement was in operation? They were overrunning the St. Lawrence as it was. Could they be expected to return obligingly to their villages while Frontenac proceeded to undermine their very existence?

Such were the instructions, however, with which the old man of seventy set sail for Canada to begin his second term of office. Knowing the reasons for the wide-open breach between French Canada and the Iroquois, he had demanded that the surviving Indians in the slave ships be sent back with him. From the malodorous benches of the galleys, therefore, came thirteen bent and sick men of copper hue, all who were still alive. They were bathed and fed and dressed in the gayest of French garb. They were treated with great respect, given long fancy pipes and all the tobacco they would need, and then turned over to the governor as honored guests. Frontenac, with his instinctive knowledge of the Indian nature, made much of them in the hope of turning them into ambassadors of good will among their own people. As he had a remarkable way with him, he did succeed in establishing friendly relations with one of the thirteen, a Cayuga chief named Ourehaoué. On arriving at Quebec, where he was greeted with wild acclaim, Frontenac lodged Ourehaoué in the château with him and completely turned the chief’s head with attentions and flattery.

The old governor heard for the first time now of the Lachine massacre. He realized from the panicky reports brought to him that the colony would have to fight for its existence and that the King’s pet enterprise would have to be laid aside for the time being. Going up the river to Montreal, he found Denonville still there, sitting disconsolately in the ashes of defeat, saddened and unhappy and incapable of making any constructive plans. The superseded officer, in fact, had been piling mistake on mistake and had just carried out one colossal blunder which was designed to fill his successor with resentment. On demands from the Iroquois he had dismantled Fort Frontenac, leaving its smoking walls and the highly strategic country surrounding it to the maurading Indian bands.

Although Frontenac found the colony in this sorry plight, the indomitable veteran decided on an offensive campaign as the best means of retrieving lost ground. He organized three forces and sent them down into English territory in the dead of the winter which followed. One was to strike Albany or Schenectady, the second was to invade New Hampshire, the third Maine.

And so began the long series of wars with the English. Inasmuch as the struggle must be reserved for a second volume, the story of the first broad phase of the French regime has been brought to a conclusion. The narrator confesses, however, to a reluctance to leave
the scene. There are still threads of narrative waiting to be tied into place, still much that the reader who has progressed thus far might like to know before closing the volume. This has been, above everything else, a story of people, of the men and women who created Canada in the face of such odds, nourishing the soil with their blood, lending to the early annals the fascination of a spirited gaiety, an instinctive touch of romance.

Many of the greatest of them were still on the scene. Frontenac, the hot-tempered old lion, had returned and with his back to the wall would win his best-deserved bays. Bishop Laval, patient and restrained in retirement but still burning with zeal, had many years still to live in the twilight. Nine of the ten Le Moynes were in the front line and the varied and magnificent achievements of Iberville and Bienville would soon be reached; almost with the turn of a page. Du Lhut, Durantaye, Perrot, Tonty were still holding in the West the outposts of an empire. On the southern shore of the St. Lawrence in a rude blockhouse there lived a delicate child just emerging into her teens whose name was Madeleine de Verchères.

At the risk of overlapping the full recital which will begin in another volume, it seems fitting to end with a few scenes about the greatest of these surviving figures. Some stories will follow, therefore, about four Titans and one remarkable little heroine.

October 16, 1690

An underofficer whose name has been omitted in all the records came ashore early in the morning under a flag of truce. Four canoes put out from Lower Town and the subaltern was taken ashore. Before landing him, however, the Frenchmen blindfolded him with such thoroughness that all of the beautiful October sunlight and the view of the picturesque capital on the heights were blotted out completely. Stumbling at the quay, he found himself taken tightly by both arms and led forward. A wild-goose chase up and down the town followed. He was taken through the narrowest and roughest of the streets and forced to climb obstructions which had been placed deliberately in his way, coming at last to Mountain Street, where barricades blocked off the heights above. By the time they reached the Château of St. Louis, the bewildered messenger may have been of the opinion that Quebec was a maze of defenses which
could be defended easily against attack; unless, of course, he had expected something of the kind and was not surprised.

While this game of blindman’s buff, as one recorder has called it, was being enacted ashore, the Basin of Quebec swarmed with English vessels; thirty-four of them, of all sizes and descriptions, geared for war and carrying twenty-three hundred men. Never had the fortress faced such danger before.

The successful attacks which Frontenac had launched against the New England colonies, resulting in the destruction of sleeping towns with atrocities different only in extent from the tragedy of Lachine, had roused the British to a decision that the French must be subdued once and for all time. A land force had marched from New York and Connecticut, joining with a band of Iroquois and moving up to Lake Champlain with the purpose of attacking Montreal. In the meantime the state of Massachusetts had equipped a fleet at a cost of fifty thousand pounds (which had to be raised by loans) to attack Quebec simultaneously by sea.

The command of the naval expedition had been entrusted to Sir William Phips, who was acclaimed in the colonies (he proudly acknowledged it himself) the greatest of self-made men. He had been born on what Cotton Mather called a “despicable plantation on the River Kennebec,” one of the last of twenty-six children. First a sheep-herder and then a ship’s carpenter, Phips had grown into a tall and unusually strong man, determined to get ahead although handicapped by his lack of education. He had the great fists of a bucko mate and the courage to use them against any odds. Married to a widow of some means, he had promised to get her a “fair brick house” in Boston and had done so as the result of an extraordinary adventure. Having heard stories, from sources which seemed impeccable, of a Spanish treasure ship sunk on a reef off an island in the Bahamas, he interested some Englishmen of wealth in fitting out a vessel to search for the lost gold. He located the island on his second attempt; and there, caught in deep water between sunken reefs, was the wreck of a large ship. For two months divers worked continuously over the bulk, bringing up thirty-four tons of gold and silver, “peeces of eight and litters of sows and dow boys,” to the value of over three hundred thousand pounds. Out of this unexpected showering of fortune Phips had secured only sixteen thousand pounds (having promised to recompense the crew from his personal share, if necessary, and scrupulously adhering to his word), but as compensation
a knighthood and a fair brick house at the corner of Charter and Salem streets in Boston, not to mention the praise of a poet who sang:

He had become governor of Massachusetts since this fortunate speculation and had fulfilled the duties of the office like a well-intentioned bull in a china shop, continuing, nevertheless, to hold such a share of the esteem of the citizens that they considered Quebec as good as taken when he assumed command of the naval forces.

The subaltern sent ashore by Phips was not freed from the blindfold until he stood in the reception room of the château. It was an unexpected sight which greeted him. The aging governor, an actor to his fingertips, had arranged things to impress the messenger in the stately room with its dark paneling and long embrasured windows. It is probable that the eyes of the subaltern, blinking in the sudden light, saw nothing but the people gathered there. They were grouped about their leader, wearing coats which flared out so stiffly from their waists that the use of whalebone, that great aid to feminine attire, could safely be surmised. There was no other hint of the feminine, however, about these fierce and proud men. It might have seemed that they had hackles about their necks instead of white collars of the finest lace. Their sashes were of the richest silk velours, but the function they served was to support swords which were ready to leap from the scabbards at the smallest pretext. Under any other circumstance an onlooker would have been impressed with the beauty of the setting and the mingling of three major colors—red, white, and blue—to designate the parts of Canada from which each man came.

The majestic mien of the governor offset the evidences he showed of old age: the white of his shaggy brows, the lines in his face, and the corpulence of his waist. He kept his eyes on the messenger with the hauteur of an aging lion confronted by a jackal.