CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 ANNA S. GURLEY 
 
 MEMORIAL BOOK FUND 
 
 FOR THE PURCHASE OF BOOKS 
 IN THE FIELD OF THE DRAMA 
 
 THE GIFT OF 
 
 William F. E. Gurley 
 
 CLASS OF 1877 
 1935 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tinis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924030985828 
 
CRUSADERS OF NEW FRANCE 
 
GRADUATES' EDITION 
 
 VOLUME 4 
 
 THE CHRONICLES 
 
 OF AMERICA SERIES 
 
 ALLEN JOHNSON 
 
 EDITOR 
 
 GERHARD R. LOMER 
 
 CHARLES W. JEFFERYS 
 
 ASSISTANT EDITORS 
 
r,: -'J-VTE J^JXJJST£. 
 
JACQUES CARTIER 
 
 Bngraving from a painting in the Town Hall of St. Malo, France. 
 Stephen Leacock, in The Mariner of St. Malo, says that it was painted 
 probably in 1839, but that we have no means of telling hcT like or 
 unlike Cartier it may be. An accidental discovery of recent years 
 seems to confirm in some degree its genuineness. In the autumn of 
 1908 an ancient house in the fishing village of Cap-des-Rosiers, near 
 the mouth of the St. Lawrence, was torn down. In the process of 
 demolition a dummy window was disclosed containing a wooden 
 medallion, on which was carved in relief the portrait of a man whose 
 features bore a strong resemblance to those of the St. Malo portrait. 
 The initials J. C. and the date 1704 were carved upon the back. .The 
 medallion would appear to have figured as the stern shield of some 
 French vessel wrecked probably upon the Gaspfi coast. As it must 
 have been made long before the St. Malo portrait was painted, the 
 resemblance of the two faces perhaps ifidicates the existence of some 
 definite and genuine portrait of Cartier of which the record has been 
 lost. 
 
CRUSADERS 
 OF NEW FRANCE 
 
 A CHRONICLE OF THE 
 
 FLEUR-DE-LIS IN THE WILDERNESS 
 
 BY WILLIAM BENNETT MUNRO 
 
 LVXET 
 
 NEW HAVEN: YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS 
 
 TORONTO: GLASGOW, BROOK & CO. 
 
 LONDON: HUMPHREY MILFORD 
 
 OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 
 
 1920 
 
n-5 
 
 es 
 
 862616 
 
 Copyright, 1918, by Yale University Press 
 
To 
 
 my good friend 
 
 FATHER HENRI BEAUDE 
 
 {Henri d' Aries) 
 
 this tribute to the men 
 of his race and faith is 
 aflPectionately inscribed. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 I. FBANCE OP THE BOURBONS Page 1 
 
 n. A VOYAGEUB OF BRITTANY " 14 
 
 m. THE FOUNDING OF NEW FRANCE " 82 
 
 IV. THE AGE OP LOUIS QUATORZ? " 60 
 
 V. THE IRON GOVERNOR " 79 
 
 VI. LA SALLE AND THE VOYAGEURS " 100 
 
 Vn. THE CHURCH IN NEW FRANCE " IIS 
 
 Vm. SEIG>JEURS OF OLD CANADA " 13S 
 
 K. THE COUREURS-DE-BOIS " 155 
 
 X. AGRICULTURE. INDUSTRY, AND TRADE " 180 
 
 XI. HOW THE PEOPLE LIVED " 203 
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE " 229 
 
 INDEX " 283 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 JACQUES CAKTIER 
 
 Engraving from a painting in The Town Hall 
 of St. Malo, Fiance. Stephen Leacock, in 
 The Mariner of St. Malo, says that it was painted 
 probably in 1839, but that we have no means of 
 telling how like or unlike Cartier it may be. An 
 accidental discovery of recent years seems to 
 confirm in some degree its genuineness. In 
 the autumn of 1908 an ancient house in the 
 fishing vUlage of Cap-des-Rosiers, near the 
 mouth of the St. Lawrence, was torn down. 
 In the process of demolition a dummy window 
 was disclosed containing a wooden medallion, 
 on which was carved in relief the portrait of a 
 man whose features bore a strong resemblance 
 to those of the St. Malo portrait. The initials 
 J. C. and the date 1704 were carved upon the 
 back. The medallion would appear to have 
 figured as the stem shield of some French vessel 
 wrecked probably upon the Gasp€ coast. As it 
 must have been made long before the St. Malo 
 portrait was painted, the resemblance of the 
 two faces perhaps indicates the existence of 
 some definite and genuine portrait of Cartier of 
 which the record has been lost. FroiUispiece 
 
 NEW FRANCE, 1634-1690 
 
 Map by W. L. G. Joerg, American Geographi- 
 cal Society. Facing page 80 
 
CRUSADERS OF NEW FRANCE 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 FRANCE OF THE BOURBONS 
 
 France, when she undertook the creation of a 
 Bourbon empire beyond the seas, was the first 
 nation of Europe. Her population was larger 
 than that of Spain, and three times that of Eng- 
 land. Her army in the days of Louis Quatorze, 
 numbering nearly a half-million in all ranks, was 
 larger than that of Rome at the height of the 
 imperial power. No nation since the fall of 
 Roman supremacy had possessed such resources 
 for conquering and colonizing new lands. By 
 the middle of the seventeenth century Spain 
 had ceased to be a dangerous rival; Germany and 
 Italy were at the time little more than geographi- 
 cal expressions, while England was in the throes 
 of the Puritan Revolution. 
 
 1 
 
2 CRUSADERS OF NEW FRANCE 
 
 Nor was it only in the arts of war that the hege- 
 mony of the Bourbon kingdom stood unquestioned. 
 In art and education, in manners and fashions, 
 France also dominated the ideas of the old con- 
 tinent, the dictator of social tastes as well as the 
 grim warrior among the nations. In the second 
 half of the seventeenth century France might 
 justly claim to be both the heart and the head of 
 Europe. Small wonder it was that the leaders of 
 such a nation should demand to see the "clause in 
 Adam's will" which bequeathed the New World 
 to Spain and Portugal. Small wonder, indeed, 
 that the first nation of Europe should insist upon 
 a place in the sun to which her people might go to 
 trade, to make land yield its increase, and to widen 
 the Bourbon sway. If ever there was a land able 
 and ready to take up the white man's burden, 
 it was the France of Louis XIV. 
 
 The power and prestige of France at this time 
 may be traced, in the main, to three sources. 
 First there were the physical features, the com- 
 pactness of the kingdom, a fertile soil, a propitious 
 cUmate, and a frontage upon two great seas. Id 
 an age when so much of a nation's wealth came 
 from agriculture these were factors of great 
 importance. Only in commerce did the Frencli 
 
FRANCE OF THE BOURBONS 3 
 
 people at this time find themselves outstripped by 
 their neighbors. Although both the Atlantic 
 and the Mediterranean bathed the shores of 
 France, her people were being outdistanced on the 
 seas by the English and the Dutch, whose com- 
 mercial companies were exploiting the wealth of 
 the new continents both east and west. Yet in 
 France there was food enough for all and to spare; 
 it was only because the means of distributing it 
 were so poor that some got more and others less 
 than they required. France was supporting at 
 this time a population half as large as that of 
 today. 
 
 Then there were qualities of race which telped 
 to make the nation great. At all periods in their 
 history the French have shown an almost inex- 
 haustible stamina, an ability to bear disasters, 
 and to rise from them quickly, a courage and per- 
 sistence that no obstacles seem able to thwart. 
 How often in the course of the centuries has 
 France been torn apart by internecine strife or 
 thrown prostrate by her enemies only to astonish 
 the world by a superb display of recuperative 
 powers! It was France that first among the king- 
 doms of Europe rose from feudal chaos to orderly 
 nationalism; it was France that first among 
 
4 CRUSADERS OF NEW FRANCE 
 
 continental countries after the Middle Ages 
 established the reign of law throughout a power- 
 ful realm. Though wars and turmoils almost 
 without end were a heavy drain upon Gallic 
 vitality for many generations, France achieved 
 steady progress to primacy in the arts of peace. 
 None but a marvellous people could have made 
 such efforts without exhaustion, yet even now 
 in the twentieth century the astounding vigor 
 of this race has not ceased to compel the admira- 
 tion of mankind. 
 
 In the seventeenth century, moreover, France 
 owed much of her national power to a highly-cen- 
 tralized and closely-knit scheme of government. 
 Under Richelieu the strength of the monarchy 
 had been enhanced and the power of the nobility 
 broken. When he began his personal rule, Louis 
 XIV continued his work of consolidation and in 
 the years of his long reign managed to centralize 
 in the throne every vestige of political power. 
 The famous saying attributed to him, "The 
 State! I am the State!" embodied no idle boast. 
 Nowhere was there a trace of representative 
 government, nowhere a constitutional check on 
 the royal power. There were councils of different 
 sorts and with varied jurisdictions, but men sat in 
 
FRANCE OF THE BOURBONS 5 
 
 them at the King's behest and were removable at 
 his will. There were parlements, too, but to 
 mention them without explanation would be only 
 to let the term mislead, for they were not repre- 
 sentative bodies or parliaments in the ordinary 
 sense: their powers were chiefly judicial and they 
 were no barrier in the way of the steady march 
 to absolutism. The political structure of the 
 Bourbon realm in the age of Louis XIV and 
 afterwards was simple: all the lines of control ran 
 upwards and to a common center. And all this 
 made for unity and autocratic eflficiency in finance, 
 in war, and in foreign affairs. 
 
 Another feature which fitted the nation for an 
 imperial destiny was the possession of a united 
 and militant church. With heresy the Galilean 
 branch of the Catholic Church had fought a fierce 
 struggle, but, before the seventeenth century was 
 far advanced, the battle had been won. There 
 were heretics in France even after Richelieu's time, 
 but they were no longer a source of serious discord. 
 The Church, now victorious over its foes, became 
 militant, ready to carry its missionary efforts to 
 other lands — ready, in fact, for a new crusade. 
 
 These four factors, rare geographical advantages, 
 racial qualities of a high order, a strongly central- 
 
6 CRUSADERS OF NEW FRANCE 
 
 ized scheme of government, and a militant church, 
 contributed largely to the prestige which France 
 possessed among European nations in the seven- 
 teenth century. With all these advantages she 
 should have been the first and not the last to get 
 a firm footing in the new continents. Historians 
 .have recorded their reasons why France did not 
 seriously enter the field of American colonization 
 as early as England, but these reasons do not im- 
 press one as being good . Foreign wars and internal 
 religious strife are commonly given and accepted 
 as the true cause of French tardiness in following 
 up the pioneer work of Jacques Cartier and others. 
 Yet not all the energy of nearly twenty million 
 people was being absorbed in these troubles. 
 There were men and money to spare, had the im- 
 portance of the work overseas only been adequately 
 realized. 
 
 The main reason why France was last in the 
 field is to be found in the failure of her kings and 
 ministers to realize until late in the day how vast 
 the possibilities of the new continent really were. 
 In a highly centralized and not over-populated 
 state the authorities must lead the way in colonial 
 enterprises; the people wUl not of their own 
 initiative seek out and follow opportunities to 
 
FRANCE OF THE BOURBONS 7 
 
 colonize distant lands. And in France the au- 
 thorities were not ready to lead. Sully, who 
 stood supreme among the royal advisers in the 
 closing years of the sixteenth century, was opposed 
 to colonial ventures under all circumstances. 
 "Far-off possessions," he declared, "are not 
 suited to the temperament or to the genius of 
 Frenchmen, who to my great regret have neither 
 the perseverance nor the foresight needed for such 
 enterprises, but who ordinarily apply their vigor, 
 minds, and courage to things which are immedi- 
 ately at hand and constantly before their eyes." 
 Colonies beyond the seas, he believed, "would 
 never be anything but a great expense." That, 
 indeed, was the orthodox notion in circles surround- 
 ing the seat of royal power, and it was a difficult 
 notion to dislodge. 
 
 Never until the time of Richelieu was any 
 intimation of the great colonial opportxmity, 
 now quickly slipping by, allowed to reach the 
 throne, and then it was only an inkling, making 
 but a shght impression and soon virtually for- 
 gotten. Richelieu's great Company of 1627 made 
 a brave start, but it did not hold the Cardinal's 
 interest very long. Mazarin, who succeeded Riche- 
 lieu, took no interest in the New World; the 
 
8 CRUSADERS OF NEW FRANCE 
 
 tortuous problems of European diplomacy ap- 
 pealed far more strongly to his Italian imagination 
 than did the vision of a New France beyond the 
 seas. It was not imtil Colbert took the reins 
 that oflBcial France really displayed an interest 
 in the work of colonization at all proportionate to 
 the nation's power and resources. 
 
 Colbert was admirably fitted to become the 
 herald of a greater France. Coming from the 
 ranks of the bourgeoisie, he was a man of affairs, 
 not a cleric or a courtier as his predecessors in 
 oflBce had been. He had a clear conception of 
 what he wanted and unwearied industry in moving 
 towards the desired end. His devotion to the 
 King was beyond question; he had native ability, 
 patience, sound ideas, and a firm will. Given a 
 fair opportunity, he would have accomplished far 
 more for the glory of the fleur-de-lis in the region 
 of the St. Lawrence and the Great Lakes of 
 America. But a thousand problems of home 
 administration were crowded upon him, problems 
 of finance, of industry, of ecclesiastical adjustment, 
 and of social reconstruction. In the first few 
 years of his term as minister he could still find a 
 little time and thought for Canada, and during this 
 short period he personally conducted the corre- 
 
FRANCE OF THE BOURBONS 9 
 
 spondence with the colonial oflBcials; but after 1669 
 all this was turned over to the Minister of Marine, 
 and Colbert himself figured directly in the affairs 
 of the colony no more. The great minister of 
 Louis XIV is remembered far more for his work 
 at home than for his services to New France. 
 
 As for the French monarchs of the seventeenth 
 century, Louis XIV was the first and only one to 
 take an active and enduring interest in the great 
 crusade to the northern wUderness. He began his 
 personal reign about 1660 with a genuine display 
 of zeal for the establishment of a colony which 
 would by its rapid growth and prosperity soon 
 crowd the English oflF the new continent. In the 
 selection of officials to carry out his policy, his 
 judgment, when not subjected to sinister pressure, 
 was excellent, as shown in his choice of Frontenac. 
 Nor did the King's interest in the colony slacken 
 in the face of discouragement. It kept on to the 
 end of his reign, although diminishing somewhat 
 towards the close. It could not well do otherwise 
 than weaken during the European disasters which 
 marked his later years. By the death of Louis XIV 
 in 1715 the colony lost its most unwavering friend. 
 
 The shrewdest of French historians, De Tocque- 
 ville, has somewhere remarked that "the physi- 
 
10 CRUSADERS OF NEW FRANCE 
 
 ognomy of a government may be best judged in 
 the colonies. . . . When I wish to study the 
 spirit and faults of the administration of Louis 
 XIV," he writes, "I must go to Canada, for its 
 deformity is there seen as through a microscope. " 
 That is entirely true. The history of New France 
 in its picturesque alternation of sunshine and 
 shadow, of victory and defeat, of pageant and 
 tragedy, is a chronicle that is Gallic to the core. 
 In the early annals of the northland one can find 
 silhouetted in sharp relief examples of all that was 
 best and all that was worst in the life of Old France. 
 The political framework of the colony, with its 
 strict centralization, the paternal regulation of 
 industry and commerce, the flood of missionary 
 zeal which poured in upon it, the heroism and 
 courage of its priests and voyageurs, the venality 
 of its administrative oflBcials, the anachronism of a 
 feudal land-tenure, the bizarre externals of its 
 social life, the versatility of its people — all these 
 reflected the paternity of New France. 
 
 The most striking weakness of French colonial 
 policy in the seventeenth century was its failure 
 to realize how vastly different was the environ- 
 ment of North America from that of Central 
 Europe. Institutions were transplanted bodily, 
 
FRANCE OF THE BOURBONS 11 
 
 and then amazement was expressed at Versailles 
 because they did not seem to thrive in the new 
 soil. Detailed instructions to officials in New 
 France were framed by men who had not the 
 slightest grasp of the colony's needs or problems. 
 One busj'body wrote to the colonial Intendant 
 that a bake-oven should be established in every 
 seigneury and that the habitants should be ordered 
 to bring their dough there to be made into bread. 
 The Intendant had to remind him that, in the 
 long cold winters of the St. Lawrence valley, the 
 dough would be frozen stifiF if the habitants, with 
 their dwellings so widely scattered, were required 
 to do anything of the kind. Another martinet 
 gravely informed the colonial authorities that, as 
 a protection against Indian attacks "all the seign- 
 euries should be palisaded." And some of the 
 seigneurial estates were eight or ten miles square! 
 The dogmatic way in which the colonial officials 
 were told to do this and that, to encourage one 
 thing and to discourage another, all by superiors 
 who displayed an astounding ignorance of New 
 World conditions, must have been a severe trial 
 to the patience of those hard-working officials 
 who were never without great practical difficulties 
 immediately before their eyes. 
 
12 CRUSADERS OF NEW FRANCE 
 
 Not enough heed was paid, moreover, to the 
 advice of men who were on the spot. It is true 
 that the recommendations sent home to France 
 by the Governor and by the Intendant were often 
 contradictory, but even where the two oflBcials 
 were agreed there was no certainty that their 
 counsel would be taken. With greater freedom 
 and discretion the colonial government could have 
 accomplished much more in the way of developing 
 trade and industry; but for every step the acquies- 
 cence of the home authorities had first to be secured. 
 To obtain this consent always entailed a great loss 
 of time, and when the approval arrived the 
 opportunity too often had passed. From Novem- 
 ber until May there was absolutely no communi- 
 cation between Quebec and Paris save that in a 
 great emergency, if France and England happened 
 to be at peace, a dispatch might be sent by dint 
 of great hardship to Boston with a precarious 
 chance that it would get across to the French 
 ambassador in London. Ordinarily the officials 
 sent their requests for instructions by the home- 
 going vessels from Quebec in the autumn and 
 received their answers by the ships which came in 
 the following spring. If any plans were formulated 
 after the last ship sailed in October, it ordinarily 
 
FRANCE OF THE BOURBONS 13 
 
 took eighteen months before the royal approval 
 could be had for putting them into eflFect. The 
 routine machinery of paternalism thus ran with 
 exasperating slowness. 
 
 There was, however, one mitigating feature in the 
 situation. The hand of home authority was rigid 
 and its beckonings were precise; but as a practical 
 matter it could be, and sometimes was, disregarded 
 altogether. Not that the colonial officials ever 
 defied the King or his ministers, or ever failed to 
 profess their intent to follow the royal instructions 
 loyally and to the letter. They had a much safer 
 plan. When the provisions of a royal decree 
 seemed impractical or unwise, it was easy enough to 
 let them stand unenforced. Such decrees were duly 
 registered in the records of the Sovereign Council 
 at Quebec and were then promptly pigeonholed 
 so that no one outside the little circle of officials at 
 the ChS-teau de St. Louis ever heard of them. 
 In one case a new intendant on coming to the 
 colony unearthed a royal mandate of great import- 
 ance which had been kept from public knowledge 
 for twenty years. 
 
 Absolutism, paternalism, and religious solidarity 
 were characteristic of both France and her colonies 
 in the great century of overseas expansion. There 
 
14 CRUSADERS OF NEW FRANCE 
 
 was no self-government, no freedom of individual 
 initiative, and very little heresy either at home or 
 abroad. The factors which made France strong 
 in Europe, her unity, her subordination of all other 
 things to the military needs of the nation, her 
 fostering of the sense of nationalism — these 
 appeared prominently in Canada and helped to 
 make the colony strong as well. Historians of 
 New France have been at pains to explain why 
 the colony ultimately succumbed to the combined 
 attacks of New England by land and of Old Eng- 
 land by sea. For a full century New France had 
 as its next-door neighbor a group of English colo- 
 nies whose combined populations outnumbered her 
 own at a ratio of about fifteen to one. The relative 
 numbers and resources of the two areas were 
 about the same, proportionately, as those of the 
 United States and Canada at the present day. 
 The marvel is not that French dominion in 
 America finally came to an end but that it man- 
 aged to endm"e so long. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 A VOYAGEUK OF BRITTANY 
 
 The closing quarter of the fifteenth century in 
 Europe has usually been regarded by historians as 
 marking the end of the Middle Ages. The era of 
 feudal chaos had drawn to a close and states were 
 being welded together under the leadership of 
 strong dynasties. With this consolidation came 
 the desire for expansion, for acquiring new lands, 
 and for opening up new channels of influence. 
 Spain, Portugal, and England were first in the 
 field of active exploration, searching for stores of 
 precious metals and for new routes to the coasts 
 of Ormuz and of India. In this quest for a short 
 route to the half -fabulous empires of Asia they had 
 literally stumbled upon a new continent which 
 they had made haste to exploit. France, mean- 
 while, was dissipating her energies on Spanish 
 and Italian battlefields. It was not until the 
 peace of Cambrai in 1529 ended the struggle with 
 
 15 
 
16 CRUSADERS OF NEW FRANCE 
 
 Spain that France gave any attention to the work 
 of gaining some foothold in the New World. By 
 that time Spain had become firmly entrenched in 
 the lands which border the Caribbean Sea; her 
 galleons were already bearing home their rich 
 cargoes of silver bullion. Portugal, England, and 
 even Holland had already turned with zeal to the 
 exploration of new lands in the East and the West; 
 French fishermen, it is true, were lengthening their 
 voyages to the west; every year now the rugged 
 old Norman and Breton seaports were sending 
 their fleets of small vessels to gather the harvests 
 of the sea. But oflficial France took no active 
 interest in the regions toward which they went. 
 Five years after the peace of Cambrai the 
 Breton port of St. Malo became the starting point 
 of the first French voyageur to the St. Lawrence. 
 Francis I had been persuaded to turn his thoughts 
 from gaming and gallantries to the trading pros- 
 pects of his kingdom, with the result that in 1534 
 Jacques Cartier was able to set out on his first 
 voyage of discovery. Cartier is described in the 
 records of the time as a corsair — which means 
 that he had made a business of roving the seas 
 to despoil the enemies of France. St. Malo, his 
 birthplace and home, on the coast of Brittany, 
 
A VOYAGEUR OF BRITTANY 17 
 
 faces the English Channel somewhat south of 
 Jersey, the nearest of the Channel Islands. The 
 town is set on high ground which projects out into 
 the sea, forming an almost landlocked harbor 
 where ships may ride at ease during the most 
 tumultuous gales. It had long been a notable 
 nursery of hardy fishermen and adventurous navi- 
 gators, men who had pressed their way to all the 
 coasts of Europe and beyond. 
 
 Cartier was one of these hardy sailors. His 
 fathers before him had been mariners, and he had 
 himself learned the way of the great waters while 
 yet a mere youth. Before his expedition of 1534 
 Jacques Cartier had probably made a voyage 
 to Brazil and had in all probability more than 
 once visited the Newfoundland fishing-banks. 
 Although, when he sailed from St. Malo to become 
 the pathfinder of a new Bourbon imperialism, he 
 was forty-three years of age and in the prime of 
 his days, we know very little of his youth and 
 early manhood. It is enough that he had attained 
 the rank of a master-pilot and that, from his skill 
 in seamanship, he was considered the most depend- 
 able man in all the kingdom to serve his august 
 sovereign in this important enterprise. 
 
 Cartier shipped his crew at St. Malo, and on the 
 
18 CRUSADERS OF NEW FRANCE 
 
 20th of April, 1534, headed his two small ships 
 across the great Atlantic. His company numbered 
 only threescore souls in all. Favored by steady 
 winds his vessels made good progress, and within 
 three weeks he sighted the shores of Newfound- 
 land where he put into one of the many small 
 harbors to rest and refit his ships. Then, turning 
 northward, the expedition passed through the 
 straits of Belle Isle and into the Gulf of St. Law- 
 rence. Coasting along the northern shore of 
 the Gulf for a short distance, Cartier headed his 
 ships due southward, keeping close to the western 
 shore of the great island almost its whole length; 
 he then struck across the lower Gulf and, mov- 
 ing northward once more, reached the Bale des 
 Chaleurs on the 6th July. Here the boats were sent 
 ashore and the French were able to do a little trad- 
 ing with the Indians. About a week later, Cartier 
 went northward once more and soon sought shelter 
 from a violent gulf storm by anchoring in Gaspe 
 Bay. On the headland there he planted a great 
 wooden cross with the arms of France, the first 
 symbol of Bourbon dominion in the New Land, 
 and the same symbol that successive explorers, 
 chanting the Vexilla Regis, were in time to set aloft 
 from the Gulf of St. Lawrence to the Gulf of 
 
A VOYAGEIJR OF BRITTANY 19 
 
 Mexico. It was the augury of the white man's 
 coming. 
 
 Crossing next to the southerly shore of Anti- 
 costi the voyageurs almost circled the island until 
 the constant and adverse winds which Cartier met 
 in the gradually narrowing channel forced him to 
 defer indefinitely his hope of finding a western 
 passage, and he therefore headed his ships back 
 to Belle Isle. It was now mid-August, and the 
 season of autumnal storms was drawing near. 
 Cartier had come to explore, to search for a west- 
 ward route to the Indies, to look for precious 
 metals, not to establish a colony. He accordingly 
 decided to set sail for home and, with favoring 
 winds, was able to reach St. Malo in the early days 
 of September. 
 
 In one sense the voyage of 1534 had been a fail- 
 ure. No stores of mineral wealth had been 
 discovered and no short route to Cipango or Ca- 
 thay. Yet the spirit of exploration had been 
 awakened. Carrier's recital of his voyage had 
 aroused the interest of both the King and his people, 
 so that the navigator's request for better equip- 
 ment to make another voyage was readily granted. 
 On May 19, 1535, Cartier once more set forth from 
 St. Malo, this time with three vessels and with 
 
20 CRUSADERS OF NEW FRANCE 
 
 a royal patent empowering him to take possession 
 of new lands in his sovereign's name. With Car- 
 tier on this voyage there were over one hundred 
 men, of whom the majority were hardened Ma- 
 louins, veterans of the sea. How he found ac- 
 commodation for all of them, with supplies and 
 provisions, in three small vessels whose total 
 burden was only two hundred and twenty tons, is 
 not least among the mysteries of this remarkable 
 voyage. ' 
 
 The trip across the ocean was boisterous, and the 
 clumsy caravels had a hard time breasting the 
 waves. The ships were soon separated by alter- 
 nate storms and fog so that all three did not meet 
 at their appointed rendezvous in the Straits of 
 Belle Isle until the last week in July. Then 
 moving westward along the north shore of the 
 Gulf, they passed Anticosti, crossed to the Gaspe 
 shore, circled back as far as the Mingan islands, 
 and then resumed a westward course up the great 
 river. As the vessels stemmed the current but 
 
 ' The shipbuilders' old measure for determining tonnage was to 
 multiply the length of a vessel minus three-quarters of the beam 
 by the beam, then to multiply the product by one-half the beam, then 
 to divide this final product by 94. The resulting quotient was the 
 tonnage. On this basis Cartier's three ships were 67 feet length by 
 iS feet beam, 57 feet length by 17 feet beam, and 48 feet length by 
 17 feet beam, respectively. 
 
A VOYAGEUR OF BRITTANY 21 
 
 slowly, it was well into September when they cast 
 anchor before the Indian village of Stadacona 
 which occupied the present site of Lower Quebec. 
 
 Since it was now too late in the season to think 
 of returning at once to France, Cartier decided 
 to spend the winter at this point. Two of the 
 ships were therefore drawn into the mouth of a 
 brook which entered the river just below the vil- 
 lage, while the Frenchmen established acquaintance 
 with the savages and made preparations for a trip 
 farther up the river in the smallest vessel. Using 
 as interpreters two young Indians whom he had 
 captured ia the Gaspe region during his first 
 voyage in the preceding year, Cartier was able 
 to learn from the Indians at Stadacona that there 
 was another settlement of importance at Hoche- 
 laga, now Montreal. The navigator decided to 
 use the remaining days of autumn in a visit to 
 this settlement, although the Stadacona Indians 
 strenuously objected, declaring that there were all 
 manner of dangers and difficulties in the way. 
 With his smallest vessel and about half of his men, 
 Cartier, however, made his way up the river during 
 the last fortnight in September. 
 
 Near the point where the largest of the St. 
 Lawrence rapids bars the river gateway to the 
 
22 CRUSADERS OF NEW FRANCE 
 
 west the Frenchman found Hochelaga nestling 
 between the mountain and the shore, in the midst 
 of "goodly and large fields full of corn such as the 
 country yieldeth." The Indian village, which 
 consisted of about fifty houses, was encircled by 
 three coiu-ses of palisades, one within the other. 
 The natives received their visitors with great 
 cordiality, and after a liberal distribution of trink- 
 ets the French learned from them some vague 
 snatches of information about the rivers and great 
 lakes which lay to the westward "where a man 
 might travel on the face of the waters for many 
 moons in the same direction. " But as winter was 
 near Cartier found it necessary to hurry back to 
 Stadacona, where the remaining members of his 
 expedition had built a small fort or habitation 
 during his absence. 
 
 Everything was made ready for the long season 
 of cold and snow, but the winter came on with 
 unusual severity. The neighboring Indians grew 
 so hostile that the French hardly dared to venture 
 from their narrow quarters. Supplies ran low, 
 and to make matters worse the pestilence of scurvy 
 came upon the camp. In February almost the 
 entire company was stricken down and nearly one 
 quarter of them had died before the emaciated 
 
A VOYAGEUR OF BRITTANY 23 
 
 survivors learned from the Indians that the bark 
 of a white spruce tree boiled in water would afford 
 a cure. The Frenchmen dosed themselves with 
 the Indian remedy, using a whole tree in less than 
 a week, but with such revivifying results that 
 Cartier hailed the discovery as a genuine miracle. 
 When spring appeared, the remnant of the 
 company, now restored to health and vigor, gladly 
 began their preparations for a return to France. 
 There was no ardor among them for a further 
 exploration of this inhospitable land. As there 
 were not enough men to handle all three of the 
 ships, they abandoned one of them, whose timbers 
 were uncovered from the mudbank in 1843, more 
 than three centuries later. Before leaving Stada- 
 cona, however, Cartier decided to take Donnacona, 
 the head of the village, and several other Indians 
 as presents to the French King. It was natural 
 enough that the master-pilot should wish to bring 
 his sovereign some impressive souvenir from the 
 new domains, yet this sort of treachery and 
 ingratitude was unpardonable. Donnacona and 
 all these captives but one little Indian maiden 
 died in France, and his people did not readily 
 forget the lesson of European duplicity. By 
 July the expedition was back in the harbor of St. 
 
24 CRUSADERS OF NEW FRANCE 
 
 Malo, and Cartier was promptly at work preparing 
 for the King a journal of his experiences. 
 
 Cartier's account of his voyage which has come 
 down to us contains many interesting details 
 concerning the topography and life of the new 
 land. The Malouin captain was a good navigator 
 as seafaring went in his day, a good judge of dis- 
 tance at sea, and a keen observer of landmarks. 
 But he was not a discriminating chronicler of 
 those things which we would now wish to under- 
 stand — for example, the relationship and status of 
 the various Indian tribes with which he came into 
 contact. All manner of Indian customs are 
 superficially described, particulariy those which 
 presented to the French the aspect of novelty, but 
 we are left altogether uncertain as to whether 
 the Indians at Stadacona in Cartier's time were 
 of Huron or Iroquois or Algonquin stock. The 
 navigator did not describe with suflScient clearness, 
 or with a due differentiation of the important from 
 the trivial, those things which ethnologists would 
 now like to know. 
 
 It must have been a disappointment not to be 
 able to lay before the King any promise of great 
 mineral wealth to be found in the new territory. 
 While at Hochelaga Cartier had gleaned from the 
 
A VOYAGEUR OF BRITTANY 25 
 
 savages some vague allusions to sources of silver 
 and copper in the far northwest, but that was all. 
 He had not found a northern Eldorado, nor had 
 his quest of a new route to the Indies been a whit 
 more fruitful. Cartier had set out with this as his 
 main motive, but had succeeded only in finding 
 that there was no such route by way of the St. 
 Lawrence. Though the King was much interested 
 in his recital of courage and hardships, he was not 
 fired with zeal for spending good money in the 
 immediate equipping of another expedition to 
 these inhospitable shores. 
 
 Not for five years after his return in 1536, 
 therefore, did Cartier again set out for the St. 
 Lawrence. This time his sponsor was the Sieur 
 de Roberval, a nobleman of Picardy, who had 
 acquired an ambition to colonize a portion of the 
 new territory and who had obtained the royal 
 endorsement of his scheme. The royal patronage 
 was not diflBcult to obtain when no funds were 
 sought. Accordingly in 1540 Roberval, who was 
 duly appointed viceroy of the country, enlisted 
 the assistance of Cartier in carrying out his plans. 
 It was arranged that Cartier with three ships 
 should sail from St. Malo in the spring of 1541, 
 while Roberval's part of the expedition should set 
 
26 CRUSADERS OF NEW FRANCE 
 
 forth at the same time from Honfleur. But when 
 May arrived Roberval was not ready and Cartier's 
 ships set sail alone, with the understanding that 
 Roberval would follow. Cartier in due course 
 reached Newfoundland, where for six weeks he 
 awaited his viceroy. At length, his patience 
 exhausted, he determined to push on alone to 
 Stadacona, where he arrived toward the end of 
 August. The ships were unloaded and two of the 
 vessels were sent back to France. The rest of 
 the expedition prepared to winter at Cap Rouge, a 
 short distance above the settlement. Once more 
 Cartier made a short trip up the river to Hoche- 
 laga, but with no important incidents, and here 
 the voyageur's journal comes to an end. He may 
 have written more, but if so the pages have never 
 been found. Henceforth the evidence as to his 
 doings is less extensive and less reliable. On 
 his return he and his band seem to have passed 
 the winter at Cap Rouge more comfortably than 
 the first hibernation six years before, for the 
 French had now learned the winter hygiene of the 
 northern regions. The Indians, however, grew 
 steadily more hostile as the months went by, and 
 Cartier, fearing that his small following might 
 not fare well in the event of a general assault, 
 
A VOYAGEUR OF BRITTANY 27 
 
 deemed it wise to start for France when the river 
 opened in the spring of 1542. 
 
 Cartier set sail from Quebec in May. Taking 
 the southern route through the Gulf he entered, 
 early in June, the harbor of what is now St. John's, 
 Newfoundland. There, according to Hakluyt, 
 the Breton navigator and his belated viceroy, 
 Roberval, anchored their ships side by side. 
 Roberval, who had been delayed nearly a year, 
 was now on his way to join Cartier at Quebec 
 and had put into the Newfoundland harbor to 
 refit his ships after a stormy voyage. What passed 
 between the two on the occasion of this meeting 
 will never be known with certainty. We have 
 only the brief statement that after a spirited inter- 
 view Cartier was ordered by his chief to turn his 
 ships about and accompany the expedition back 
 to Quebec. Instead of doing so, he spread his sails 
 during the night and slipped homeward to St. 
 Malo, leaving the viceroy to his own resources. 
 There are difficulties in the way of accepting 
 this story, however, although it is not absolutely 
 inconsistent with the official records, as some later 
 historians seem to have assumed.' 
 
 'Justin Winsor, Narrative and Critical History of America, vol. 
 iv., 58. 
 
28 CRUSADERS OF NEW FRANCE 
 
 At any rate it was in no pleasant humor that 
 Roberval now proceeded to the St. Lawrence and 
 up to Cap Rouge, where he took possession of 
 Cartier's post, sowed some grain and vegetables, 
 and endeavored to prepare for the winter. His 
 company of followers, having been recruited from 
 the jails of France, proved as unruly as might 
 have been expected. Discipline and order could 
 only be maintained by the exercise of great sever- 
 ity. One of the malefactors was executed; others 
 were given the lash in generous measure. The 
 winter, moreover, proved to be terribly cold; sup- 
 plies ran low, and the scurvy once again got 
 beyond control. If anything, the conditions were 
 even worse than those which Cartier had to endure 
 seven years before. When spring arrived the 
 siu*vivors had no thought of anything but a prompt 
 return to France. But Roberval bade most of 
 them wait until with a small party he ventured 
 a trip to the territory near what is now Three 
 Rivers and the mouth of the St. Maurice. Appar- 
 ently the whole party made its way safely back to 
 France before the autumn, but as to how or when 
 we have no record. There is some evidence that 
 Cartier was sent out with a relief expedition in 
 1543, but in any case, both he and Roberval were 
 
A VOYAGEUR OF BRITTANY 29 
 
 in France during the spring of the next year, for 
 they then appeared there in court to settle respec- 
 tive accounts of expenses incurred in the badly 
 managed enterprise. 
 
 Of Cartier's later life little is known save that he 
 Uved at St. Malo until he died in 1557. With 
 the exception of his journals, which cover only a 
 part of his explorations, none of his writings or 
 maps has come down to us. That he prepared 
 maps is highly probable, for he was an explorer 
 in the royal service. But diligent search on the 
 part of antiquarians has not brought them to 
 Hght. His portrait in the town hall at St. Malo 
 shows us a man of firm and strong features with 
 jaws tight-set, a high forehead, and penetrating 
 eyes. Unhappily it is of relatively recent work- 
 manship and as a likeness of the great Malouin 
 its trustworthiness is at least questionable. Fear- 
 less and untiring, however, his own indisputable 
 achievements amply prove him to have been. 
 The tasks set before him were difl5cult to perform; 
 he was often in tight places and he came through 
 unscathed. As a navigator he possessed a skill 
 that ranked with the best of his time. His was an 
 intrepid sailor-soul. If his voyages resulted in no 
 permanent establishment, that was not altogether 
 
so CRUSADERS OF NEW FRANCE 
 
 Cartier's fault. He was sent out on his first two 
 voyages as an explorer, to find new trade routes, 
 or stores of gold and silver or a rich land to exploit. 
 On his third voyage, when a scheme of colonization 
 was in hand, the failure of Roberval to do his part 
 proved the undoing of the entire plan. There is 
 no reason to believe that faint-heartedness or lack 
 of courage had any place in Cartier's sturdy 
 frame. 
 
 For sixty years following the ill-starred ventures 
 of 1541-1542 no serious attempts were made to 
 gain for France any real footing in the regions of 
 the St. Lawrence. This is not altogether sur- 
 prising, for there were troubles in plenty at home. 
 Huguenots and Catholics had ranged themselves 
 in civil strife; the wars of the Fronde were convuls- 
 ing the land, and it was not until the very end of 
 the sixteenth century that France settled down 
 to peace within her own borders. Norman and 
 Breton fishermen continued their yearly trips to 
 the fishing-banks, but during the whole latter half 
 of the sixteenth century no vessel, so far as we 
 know, ever made its way beyond the Saguenay. 
 Some schemes of colonization, without official sup- 
 port, were launched during this interval; but in all 
 such cases the expeditions set forth to warmer 
 
A VOYAGEUR OF BRITTANY 31 
 
 lands, to Brazil and to Florida. In neither direc- 
 tion, however, did any marked success attend these 
 praiseworthy examples of private initiative. 
 
 The great valley of the St. Lawrence during 
 these six decades remained a land of mystery. 
 The navigators of Europe still clung to the vision 
 of a westward passage whose eastern portal must 
 be hidden among the bays or estuaries of this 
 silent land, but none was bold or persevering 
 enough to seek it to the end. As for the great 
 continent itself, Europe had not the slightest 
 inkling of what it held in store for future genera- 
 tions of mankind. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 THE FOUNDING OF NEW FEANCE 
 
 In the closing years of the sixteenth century the 
 spirit of French expansion, which had remained so 
 strangely inactive for nearly three generations, 
 once again began to manifest itself. The Sieur de 
 La Roche, another Breton nobleman, the merchant 
 traders, Pontgrave of St. Malo and Chauvin of 
 Honfleur, came forward one after the other with 
 plans for colonizing the unknown land. Unhappily 
 these plans were not easily matured into stern 
 realities. The ambitious project of La Roche 
 came to grief on the barren sands of Sable Island. 
 The adventurous merchants, for their part, 
 obtained a monopoly of the trade and for a few 
 years exploited the rich peltry regions of the St. 
 Lawrence, but they made no serious attempts at 
 actual settlement. Finally they lost the monop- 
 oly, which passed in 1603 to the Sieur de Chastes, 
 a royal favorite and commandant at Dieppe. 
 
 32 
 
THE FOUNDING OF NEW FRANCE 33 
 
 It is at this point that Samuel Champlain first 
 becomes associated with the pioneer history of 
 New France. Given the opportunity to sail with 
 an expedition which De Chastes sent out in 1603, 
 Champlain gladly accepted and from this time to 
 the end of iis days he never relaxed his whole- 
 souled interest in the design to establish a French 
 dominion in these western lands. With his 
 accession to the ranks of the voyageurs real pro- 
 gress in the field of colonization was for the first 
 time assured. Champlain encountered many set- 
 backs during his initial years as a colonizer, but he 
 persevered to the end. When he had finished his 
 work, France had obtained a footing in the St. 
 Lawrence valley which was not shaken for nearly a 
 hundred and fifty years. 
 
 Champlain was born in 1567 at the seaport of 
 Brouage, on the Bay of Biscay, so that he was 
 only thirty-six years of age when he set out on his 
 first voyage to America. His forbears belonged 
 to the lesser gentry of Saintonge, and from them 
 he inherited a roving strain. Long before reaching 
 middle manhood he had learned to face dangers, 
 both as a soldier in the wars of the League and as 
 a sailor to the Spanish Main. With a love of 
 adventure he combined rare powers of description. 
 
34 CRUSADERS OF NEW FRANCE 
 
 so much so that the narrative of his early voyages 
 to this region had attracted the King's attention 
 and had won for him the title of royal geographer. 
 His ideas were bold and clear; he had an inflexible 
 will and great patience in battling with discourage- 
 ments. Possessing these quaUties, Champlain was 
 in every way fitted to become the founder of New 
 France. 
 
 The expedition of 1603 proceeded to the St. 
 Lawrence, where some of the party landed at the 
 mouth of the Saguenay to trade with the Indians. 
 The remainder, including Champlain, made their 
 way up the river to the Indian village at Hoche- 
 laga, which they now found in ruins, savage war- 
 fare having turned the place into a solitude. 
 Champlain busied himself with some study of the 
 country's resources and the customs of the abo- 
 rigines; but on the whole the prospects of the St. 
 Lawrence valley did not move the explorers to 
 enthusiasm. Descending the great river again, 
 they rejoined their comrades at the Saguenay, and, 
 taking their cargoes of furs aboard, the whole 
 party sailed back to France in the autumn. There 
 they found that De Chastes, the sponsor for their 
 enterprise, had died during their absence. 
 
 The death of De Chastes upset matters badly. 
 
THE FOUNDING OP NEW FRANCE 35 
 
 for with it the trade monopoly had lapsed. But 
 things were promptly set right again by a royal 
 act which granted the monopoly anew. This 
 time it went to the Sieur de Monts, a prominent 
 Huguenot nobleman, then governor of Pons, with 
 whom Champlain was on friendly terms. To 
 quiet the clamors of rival traders, however, it was 
 stipulated that Monts should organize a company 
 and should be bound to take into his enterprise 
 any who might wish to associate themselves with 
 him. The company, in retium for its trading 
 monopoly, was to transport to the new domains 
 at least one hundred settlers each year. 
 
 Little diflBculty was encountered in organizing 
 the company, since various merchants of St. Malo, 
 Honfleur, Rouen, and Rochelle were eager to take 
 shares. Preparations for sending out an expedi- 
 tion on a much larger scale than on any previous 
 occasion were soon under way, and in 1604 two 
 well-equipped vessels set forth. One of them went 
 to the old trading-post at the Saguenay; the other 
 went southward to the regions of Acadia. On 
 board the latter were De Monts himself, Cham- 
 plain as chief geographer, and a young adventurer 
 from the ranks of the noblesse, Biencourt de Pou- 
 trincourt. The personnel of this expedition was 
 
J6 CRUSADERS OF NEW FRANCE 
 
 ;xcellent: it contained no convicts; most of its 
 nembers were artisans and sturdy yeomen. 
 Rounding the tip of the Nova Scotian peninsula, 
 :hese vessels came to anchor in the haven of Port 
 Eloyal, now Annapolis. Not satisfied with the 
 jrospects there, however, they coasted around the 
 Bay of Fundy, and finally reached the island in 
 Passamaquoddy Bay which they named St. Croix. 
 Here on June 25, 1604, the party decided to found 
 ;heir settlement. Work on the buildings was at 
 )nce commenced, and soon the little colony was 
 safely housed. In the autumn Poutrincourt was 
 iispatched with one vessel and a crew back to 
 France, while Champlain and the rest prepared 
 :o spend the winter in their new island home. 
 
 The choice of St. Croix as a location proved 
 singularly unfortunate; the winter was long and 
 severe, and the preparations that had been made 
 ivere soon found to be inadequate. Once more 
 there were sufferings such as Cartier and his men 
 lad rmdergone during the terrible winter of 1534- 
 1535 at Quebec. There were no brooks or springs 
 dose at hand, and no fresh water except such as 
 ;ould be had by melting snow. The storehouse 
 lad no cellar, and in consequence the vegetables 
 'roze, so that the company was reduced to salted 
 
THE FOUNDING OF NEW FRANCE 37 
 
 meat as the chief staple of diet. Scurvy ravaged 
 the camp, and before the snows melted nearly 
 two-fifths of the party had died. Not until June, 
 moreover, did a vessel arrive from France with 
 fresh stores and more colonists. 
 
 The experience of this first winter must have 
 indeed "produced discontent," as Champlain 
 rather mildly expressed it, but it did not impel De 
 Monts to abandon his plans. St. Croix, however, 
 was given up and, after a futile search for a better 
 location on the New England coast, the colony 
 moved across the bay to Port Royal, where the 
 buildings were reconstructed. In the autumn 
 De Monts went back to France, leaving Champlain, 
 Pontgrave, and forty-three others to spend the 
 winter of 1605-1606 in Acadia. During this 
 hibernation the fates were far more kind. The 
 season proved milder, the bitter lessons of the 
 previous season had not gone unlearned, and 
 scurvy did not make serious headway. But when 
 June came and De Monts had not returned from 
 France with fresh supplies, there was general 
 discouragement; so much so that plans for the 
 entire abandonment of the place were on the eve 
 of being carried out when a large vessel rounded 
 the point on its way into the Basin. Aboard were 
 
38 CRUSADERS OF NEW FRANCE 
 
 Poutrincourt and Marc Lescarbot, together with 
 more settlers and supplies. Lescarbot was a 
 Parisian lawyer in search of adventure, a man 
 who combined wit with wisdom, one of the pleasant- 
 est figures in the annals of American colonization. 
 He was destined to gain a place in literary history 
 as the interesting chronicler of this little colony's 
 all-too-brief existence. These arrivals put new 
 heart into the men, and they set to work sowing 
 grain and vegetables, which grew in such abund- 
 ance that the storehouses were filled to their 
 capacity. The ensuing winter found the com- 
 pany with an ample store of everything. The 
 season of ice and snow passed quickly, thanks 
 largely to Champlain's successful endeavor to 
 keep the colonists in good health and spirits by 
 exercise, by variety in diet, and by divers gaieties 
 imder the auspices of his Ordre de Bon Temps, a 
 spontaneous social organization created for the 
 purpose of banishing cares and worries from the 
 little settlement. It seemed as though the colony 
 had been established to stay. 
 
 But with the spring of 1607 came news which 
 quickly put an end to all this optimism. Rival 
 merchants had been clamoring against the monop- 
 oly of the De Monts company. Despite the fact 
 
THE FOUNDING OF NEW FRANCE 39 
 
 that De Monts was a Huguenot and thus a shining 
 target for the shafts of bigotry, these protests had 
 for three years failed to move the King; but now 
 they had gained their point, and the monopoly 
 had come to an end. This meant that there would 
 be no more ships with settlers or supplies. As the 
 colony could not yet hope to exist on its own 
 resources, there was no alternative but to abandon 
 the site and return to France, and this the whole 
 party reluctantly proceeded to do. 
 
 On arrival in France the affairs of the company 
 were wound up, and De Monts found himself a 
 heavy loser. He was not yet ready to quit the 
 game, however, and Champlain with the aid of 
 Pontgrave was able to convince him that a new 
 venture in the St. Lawrence region might yield 
 profits even without the protection of a monopoly. 
 Thus out of misfortune and failure arose the plans 
 which led to the founding of a permanent outpost 
 of empire at Quebec. 
 
 In the spring of 1608 Champlain and Pontgrave 
 once again set sail for the St. Lawrence. The latter 
 delayed at the Saguenay to trade, while Champlain 
 pushed on to the site of the old Stadacona, where 
 at the foot of the cliff he laid the foundations of 
 the new Quebec, the first permanent settlement of 
 
iO CRUSADERS OF NEW FRANCE 
 
 Europeans in the territory of New France. On the 
 shore below the rocky steep several houses were 
 built, and measures were taken to defend them 
 in case of an Indian attack. Here Champlain's 
 party spent the winter of 1608-1609. 
 
 With the experience gained at St. Croix and 
 Port Royal it should have been possible to provide 
 for all eventualities, yet difficulties in profusion 
 were encountered during these winter months. 
 First there was the imearthing of a conspiracy 
 against Champlain. Those concerned in it were 
 speedily punished, but the execution of the chief 
 culprit gave to the new settlement a rather omin- 
 ous beginning. Then came a season of zero 
 weather, and the scurvy came with it. Champ- 
 lain had heard of the remedy used by Cartier, but 
 the tribes which had been at Stadacona in Cartier's 
 time had now disappeared, and there was no one 
 to point out the old-time remedy to the suffering 
 garrison. So the scoiu-ge went on unchecked. 
 The ravages of disease were so severe that, when a 
 relief ship arrived in the early summer of 1609, all 
 but eight of Champlain's party had succumbed. 
 
 Yet there was no thought of abandoning the 
 settlement. The beginnings of Canada made 
 astounding demands upon the fortitude and 
 
THE FOUNDING OF NEW FRANCE 41 
 
 stamina of these dauntless voyageurs, but their 
 store of courage was far from the point of exhaus- 
 tion. They were ready not only to stay but to 
 explore the territory inland, to traverse its rivers 
 and lakes, to trudge through its forests afoot 
 that they might find out for the King's information 
 what resources the vast land held in its silent 
 expanses. After due deliberation, therefore, it 
 was decided that Champlain and four others 
 should accompany a party of Huron and Algon- 
 quin Indians upon one of their forays into the 
 country of the Iroquois, this being the only way in 
 which the Frenchmen could be sure of their red- 
 skin guides. So the new allies set forth to the 
 southeastward, passing up the Richelieu River 
 and, traversing the lake which now bears his 
 name, Champlaia and his Indian friends came 
 upon a war party of Iroquois near Ticonderoga 
 and a forest fight ensued. The muskets of the 
 French terrified the enemy tribesmen and they 
 fled in disorder. In itself the incident was not of 
 much account nor were its consequences so far- 
 reaching as some historians would have us believe. 
 It is true that Champlain's action put the French 
 for the moment in the bad graces of the Iroquois; 
 but the conclusion that this foray was chiefly 
 
42 CRUSADERS OF NEW FRANCE 
 
 responsible for the hostility of the great tribes 
 during the whole ensuing century is altogether 
 without proper historical foundation. 
 
 Revenge has always been a prominent trait of 
 redskin character, but it could never of itself have 
 determined the alignment of the Five Nations 
 against the French during a period of nearly 
 eight generations. From the situation of their 
 territories, the Iroquois were the natural allies 
 of the English and Dutch on the one hand, and 
 the natural foes of the French on the other. 
 Trade soon became the Alpha and the Omega of all 
 tribal diplomacy, and the Iroquois were discerning 
 enough to realize that their natural role was to 
 serve as middlemen between the western Indians 
 and the English. Their very livelihood, indeed, 
 depended on their success in diverting the flow of 
 the fur trade through the Iroquois territories, for 
 by the middle of the seventeenth century there 
 were no beavers left in their own country. Such 
 a situation meant that they must promote trade 
 between the western Indians and the English at 
 Albany; but to promote trade with the English 
 meant friendship with the English, and friendship 
 with the English meant enmity with the French. 
 Here is the true key to the long series of quarrels 
 
THE FOUNDING OF NEW FBANCE 43 
 
 in which the Five Nations and New France engaged. 
 Champlain's little escapade at Ticonderoga was 
 a mere incident and the Iroquois would have 
 soon forgotten it if their economic interests had 
 required them to do so. "Trade and peace," 
 said an Iroquois chief to the French on one occa- 
 sion, "we take to be one thing." He was right; 
 they have been one thing in all ages. As compan- 
 ions, trade and the flag have been inseparable 
 in all lands. The expedition of 1609 had, however, 
 some results besides the discomfiture of an Iroquois 
 raiding party. It disclosed to the French a water- 
 route which led almost to the upper reaches of 
 the Hudson. The spot where Champlain put 
 the Iroquois to flight is within thirty leagues 
 of Albany. It was by this route that the French 
 and English came so often into warring contact 
 during the next one hundred and fifty years. 
 
 Explorations, the care of his little settlement 
 at Quebec, trading operations, and two visits to 
 France occupied Champlain's attention during 
 the next few years. Down to this time no white 
 man's foot had ever trodden the vast wildemess 
 beyond the rapids above Hochelaga. Stories had 
 filtered through concerning great waters far to the 
 West and North, of hidden minerals there, and 
 
44 CRUSADERS OF NEW FRANCE 
 
 of fertile lands. Champlain was determined to see 
 these things for himself and it was to that end 
 that he made his two great trips to the interior, in 
 1613 and 1616, respectively. 
 
 The expedition of 1613 was not a journey of 
 indefinite exploration; it had a very definite end 
 in view. A few years previously Champlain had 
 sent into the villages of the Algonquins on the 
 upper Ottawa River a young Frenchman named 
 Vignau, in order that by living for a time among 
 these people he might learn their language and 
 become useful as an interpreter. In 1612 Vignau 
 came back with a marvelous story concerning a 
 trip which he had made with his Algonquin friends 
 to the Great North Sea where he had seen the 
 wreck of an English vessel. This striking news 
 inflamed Champlain's desire to find out whether 
 this was not the route for which both Cartier 
 and he himself had so eagerly searched — the 
 western passage to Cathay and the Indies. There 
 is evidence that the explorer from the first doubted 
 the truth of Vignau's story, but in 1613 he decided 
 to make sure and started up the Ottawa River, 
 taking the young man with him to point the way. 
 
 After a fatiguing journey the party at length 
 reached the Algonquin encampment on Allumette 
 
THE FOUNDING OF NEW FRANCE 45 
 
 Island in the upper Ottawa, where his doubts were 
 fully confirmed. Vignau, the Algonquins assured 
 Champlain, was an impostor; he had never been 
 out of their sight, had never seen a Great North 
 Sea; the English shipwreck was a figment of his 
 imagination. "Overcome with wrath," writes 
 Champlain, "I had him removed from my pres- 
 ence, being unable to bear the sight of him." 
 The party went no fiu*ther, but returned to Que- 
 bec. As for the impostor, the generosity of his 
 leader in the end allowed him to go unpunished. 
 Though the expedition had been in one sense a 
 fool's errand and Champlain felt himself badly 
 duped, yet it was not without its usefulness, for it 
 gave him an opportunity to learn much concerning 
 the methods of wilderness travel, the customs of 
 the Indians and the extent to which they might 
 be relied upon. The Algonquins and the Hurons 
 had proved their friendship, but what they most 
 desired, it now appeared, was that the French 
 should give them substantial aid in another 
 expedition against the Iroquois. 
 
 This was the basis upon which arrangements 
 were made for Champlain's next journey to the 
 interior, the longest and most daring enterprise 
 in his whole career of exploration. In 1615 the 
 
46 CRUSADERS OF NEW FRANCE 
 
 Brouage navigator with a small party once again 
 ascended the Ottawa, crossed to Lake Nipissing 
 and thence made his way down the French River 
 to the Georgian Bay, or Lake of the Hurons as it 
 was then called. Near the shores of the bay 
 he found the villages of the Hurons with the 
 RecoUet Father Le Caron already at work among 
 the tribesmen. Adding a large band of Indians 
 to his party, the explorer now struck southeast 
 and, by following the chain of small lakes and 
 rivers which lie between Matchedash Bay and the 
 Bay of Quinte, he eventually reached Lake On- 
 tario. The territory pleased Champlain greatly, 
 and he recorded his enthusiastic opinion of its 
 fertility. Crossing the head of Lake Ontario in 
 their canoes the party then headed for the country 
 of the Iroquois south of Oneida Lake, where lay a 
 palisaded village of the Onondagas. This they 
 attacked, but after three hours' fighting were 
 repulsed, Champlain being woimded in the knee 
 by an Iroquois arrow. 
 
 The eleven Frenchmen with their horde of 
 Indians then retreated cautiously; but the Onon- 
 dagas made no serious attempt at pursuit, and 
 in due course Champlain with his party recrossed 
 Lake Ontario safely. The Frenchmen were now 
 
THE FOUNDING OF NEW FRANCE 47 
 
 eager to get back to Quebec by descending the St. 
 Lawrence, but their Indian allies would not hear 
 of this desertion. The whole expedition therefore 
 plodded on to the shores of the Georgian Bay, 
 following a route somewhat north of the one by 
 which it had come. There the Frenchmen spent 
 a tedious winter. Chainplain was anxious to 
 make use of the time by exploring the upper lakes, 
 but the task of settling some wretched feuds 
 among his Huron and Algonquin friends took 
 most of his time and energy. The winter gave 
 him opportunity, however, to learn a great deal 
 more about the daily life of the savages, their 
 abodes, their customs, their agriculture, their 
 amusements, and their folklore. AU this inform- 
 ation went into his journals and would have been 
 of priceless value had not the Jesuits who came 
 later proved to be such untiring chroniclers of every 
 detail. 
 
 When spring came, Champlain left the Huron 
 country and by way of Lake Nipissing and the 
 Ottawa once more reached his own people at 
 Quebec. It took him forty days to make the 
 journey from the Georgian Bay to the present 
 site of Montreal. 
 
 Arriving at Quebec, where he was hailed as 
 
48 CRUSADERS OF NEW FRANCE 
 
 one risen from the dead, Champlain found that 
 things in France had taken a new turn. They 
 had, in fact, taken many twists and turns during 
 the nine years since De Monts had financed the 
 first voyage to the St. Lawrence. In the first 
 place, De Monts had lost the last vestige of his 
 influence at court; as a Huguenot he could not 
 expect to have retained it under the stern regency 
 which followed the assassination of Henry IV 
 in 1610. Then a haH-dozen makeshift arrange- 
 ments came in the ensuing years. It was always 
 the same story faithfully repeated in its broad 
 outlines. Some friendly nobleman would obtain 
 from the King appointment as viceroy of New 
 France and at the same time a trading monopoly 
 for a term of years, always promising to send out 
 some settlers in return. The monopoly would 
 then be sublet, and Champlain would be recog- 
 nized as a sort of viceroy's deputy. And all for a 
 colony in which the white population did not yet 
 number fifty souls ! 
 
 Despite the small population, however, Cham- 
 plain's task at Quebec was difficult and exacting. 
 His sponsors in France had no interest in the 
 permanent upbuilding of the colony; they sent out 
 very few settlers, and gave him little in the way 
 
THE FOUNDING OF NEW FRANCE 49 
 
 of funds. The traders who came to the St. 
 Lawrence each summer were an unruly and boister- 
 ous crew who quarreled with the Indians and 
 among themselves. At times, indeed, Champlain 
 was sorely tempted to throw up the undertaking 
 in disgust. But his patience held out until 1627, 
 when the rise of Richelieu in France put the affairs 
 of the colony upon a new and more active basis. 
 For a quarter of a century, France had been 
 letting golden opportunities slip by while the 
 colonies and trade of her rivals were forging ahead. 
 Spain and Portugal were secure in the South. 
 England had gained firm footholds both in Virginia 
 and on Massachusetts Bay. Even Holland had a 
 strong commercial company in the field. This 
 was a situation which no far-sighted Frenchman 
 could endure. Hence Cardinal Richelieu, when he 
 became chief minister of Louis XIII, undertook to 
 see that France should have her share of New 
 World spoils. "No realm is so well situated as 
 France," he declared, "to be mistress of the seas 
 or so rich ia all things needful." The cardinal- 
 minister combined fertility in ideas with such a 
 genius for organization that his plans were quickly 
 under way. Unhappily his talent for details, 
 for the efficient handling of little things, was not 
 
50 CRUSADERS OF NEW FRANCE 
 
 nearly so great, and some of his arrangements 
 went sadly awry in consequence. 
 
 At any rate Richelieu in 1627 prevailed upon 
 the King to abolish the office of viceroy, to cancel 
 all trading privileges, and to permit the organi- 
 zation of a great colonizing company, one that 
 might hope to rival the English and Dutch com- 
 mercial organizations. This was formed imder 
 the name of the Company of New France, or the 
 Company of One Hundred Associates, as it was 
 more commonly called from the fact that its 
 membership was restricted to one hundred share- 
 holders, each of whom contributed three thousand 
 livres. The cardinal himself, the ministers of 
 state, noblemen, and courtesans of Paris, as well 
 as merchants of the port towns, all figured in the 
 list of stockholders. The subscription lists con- 
 tained an imposing array of names. 
 
 The powers of the new Company, moreover, 
 were as imposing as its personnel. To it was 
 granted a perpetual monopoly of the fur trade and 
 of all other commerce with rights of suzerainty 
 over all the territories of New France and Acadia. 
 It was to govern these lands, levy taxes, establish 
 courts, appoint officials, and even bestow titles 
 of nobility. In return the Company undertook 
 
THE FOUNDING OF NEW FRANCE 51 
 
 to convey to the colony not less than two hundred 
 settlers per year, and to provide them with sub- 
 sistence until they could become self-supporting. 
 It was stipulated, however, that no Huguenots or 
 other heretics should be among the immigrants. 
 
 The Hundred Associates entered upon this 
 portentous task with promptness and enthusiasm. 
 Early in 1628 a fleet of eighteen vessels freighted 
 with equipment, settlers, and supplies set sail from 
 Dieppe for the St. Lawrence to begin operations. 
 But the time of its arrival was highly inopportune, 
 for France was now at war with England, and it 
 happened that a fleet of English privateers was 
 already seeking prey in the Lower St. Lawrence. 
 These privateers, commanded by Kirke, inter- 
 cepted the Company's heavily-laden caravels, 
 overpowered them, and carried their prizes off to 
 England. Thus the Company of the One Hundred 
 Associates lost a large part of its capital, and its 
 shareholders received a generous dividend of dis- 
 appointment in the very first year of its operations. 
 
 A more serious blow, however, was yet to come. 
 Flushed with his success in 1628, Kirke came back 
 to the St. Lawrence during the next summer and 
 proceeded to Quebec, where he summoned Cham- 
 plain and his little settlement to surrender. As 
 
52 CRUSADERS OF NEW FRANCE 
 
 the place was on the verge of famine owing to the 
 capture of the supply ships in the previous year, 
 there was no alternative but to comply, and the 
 colony passed for the first time into English 
 hands. Champlain was allowed to sail for Eng- 
 land, where he sought the services of the French 
 ambassador and earnestly advised that the King 
 be urged to insist on the restoration of Canada 
 whenever the time for peace should come. Negoti- 
 ations for peace soon began, but they dragged 
 on tediously until 1632, when the Treaty of St. 
 Germain-en-Laye gave back New France to its 
 former owners. 
 
 With this turn in affairs the Company was able 
 to resume its operations. Champlain, as its repre- 
 sentative, once more reached Quebec, where he 
 received a genuine welcome from the few French- 
 men who had remained through the years of 
 Babylonian captivity, and from the bands of 
 neighboring Indians. With his hands again set 
 to the arduous tasks, Champlain was able to make 
 substantial progress during the next two years. 
 For a time the Company gave him funds and 
 equipment besides sending him some excellent 
 colonists. Lands were cleared in the neighbor- 
 hood of the settlement; buildings were improved 
 
THE FOUNDING OF NEW FRANCE 53 
 
 and enlarged; trade with the Indians was put upon 
 a better basis. A post was estabHshed at Three 
 Rivers, and plans were made for a further extension 
 of French influence to the westward. It was in the 
 midst of these achievements and hopes that 
 Champlain was stricken by paralysis and died 
 on Christmas Day, 1635. 
 
 Champlain's portrait, attributed to Moncornet, 
 shows us a sturdy, broad-shouldered frame, with 
 features in keeping. Unhappily we have no 
 assurance that it is a faithful likeness. No one, 
 however, can deny that the mariner of Brouage, 
 with his extraordinary perseverance and energy, 
 was admirably fitted to be the pathfinder to a new 
 realm. Not often does one encounter in the 
 annals of any nation a man of greater tenacity 
 and patience. Chagrin and disappointment he 
 had to meet on many occasions, but he was never 
 baffled nor moved to concede defeat. His per- 
 severance, however, was not greater than his 
 modesty, for never in his writings did he magnify 
 his difficulties nor exalt his own powers of over- 
 coming them, as was too much the fashion of his 
 day. As a writer, his style was plain and direct, 
 with no attempt at embellishment and no indica- 
 tion that strong emotions ever had much influeni:^' 
 
54 CRUSADERS OF NEW FRANCE 
 
 upon his pen. He was essentially a man of action, 
 and his narrative is in the main a simple record 
 of such a man's achievements. His character 
 was above reproach; no one ever impugned his 
 honesty or his sincere devotion to the best interests 
 of his superiors. To his Church he was loyal in the 
 last degree; and it was under his auspices that 
 the first of the Jesuit missionaries came to begin 
 the enduring work which the Order was destined 
 to accomplish in New France. 
 
 On the death of Champlain the Company 
 appointed the Sieur de Montmagny to be governor 
 of the colony. He was an ardent sympathizer 
 with the aims of the Jesuits, and life at Quebec 
 soon became almost monastic in its austerity. 
 The Jesuits sent home each year their Relations, 
 and, as these were widely read, they created great 
 interest in the spiritual affairs of the colony. The 
 call for zealots to carry the cross westward into 
 the wilderness met ready response, and it was amid 
 a glow of religious fervor that the settlement at 
 Montreal was brought into being. A company 
 was formed in France, funds were obtained, and a 
 band of forty-four colonists was recruited for 
 the crusade into the wilderness. The Sieur de 
 Maisonneuve, a gallant soldier and a loyal devotee 
 
THE FOUNDING OF NEW FRANCE 55 
 
 of the Church, was the active leader of the enter- 
 prise, with Jeanne Mance, an ardent young reh- 
 gionist of high motives and fine character, as his 
 principal coadjutor. Fortune dealt kindly with the 
 project, and Montreal began its history in 1642. 
 
 A few years later Montmagny gave up his post 
 and returned to France. With the limited re- 
 sources at his disposal, he had served the colony 
 well, and had left it stronger and more prosperous 
 than when he came. His successor was M. 
 D'Ailleboust, who had been for some time in the 
 country, and who was consequently no stranger 
 to its needs. On his appointment a council was 
 created, to consist of the governor of the colony, 
 the bishop or the superior of the Jesuits, and the 
 governor of Montreal. Henceforth this body was 
 to be responsible for the making of all general 
 regulations. It is commonly called the Old Coun- 
 cil to distinguish it from the Sovereign Council 
 by which it was supplanted in 1663. 
 
 The opening years of the new administration 
 were marked by one of the greatest of forest 
 tragedies, the destruction of the Hurons. In 
 1648 a party of Iroquois warriors made their 
 way across Lake Ontario and overland to the 
 Huron country, where they destroyed one large 
 
56 CRUSADERS OF NEW FRANCE 
 
 village. Emboldened by this success, a much 
 larger body of the tribesmen returned in the year 
 following and completed their bloody work. A 
 dozen or more Huron settlements were attacked 
 and laid waste with wanton slaughter. Two 
 Jesuit priests, Lajemant and Brebeuf, who were 
 laboring among the Hurons, were taken and 
 burned at the stake after suffering atrocious 
 tortures. The remnants of the tribe were scat- 
 tered: a few found shelter on the islands of the 
 Georgian Bay, while others took refuge with 
 the French and were given a tract of land at 
 Sillery, near Quebec. To the French colony the 
 extirpation of the Hurons came as a severe blow, 
 [t weakened their prestige in the west, it cut off 
 a lucrative source of fur supply, and it involved 
 the loss of faithful allies. 
 
 More ominous still, the Iroquois by the success 
 of their forays into the Huron country endangered 
 the French settlement at Montreal. Glorying 
 in their prowess, these warriors now boasted 
 that they would leave the Frenchmen no peace 
 but in their graves. And they proceeded to make 
 ?ood their threatenings. Bands of confederates 
 spread themselves about the region near Montreal, 
 pouncing lynx-like from the forest upon any who 
 
THE FOUNDING OF NEW FRANCE 57 
 
 ventured outside the immediate boundaries of the 
 settlement. For a time the people were in despair, 
 but the colony soon gained a breathing space, 
 not by its own efforts, but from a diversion of 
 Iroquois enmity to other quarters. 
 
 About 1652 the confederated tribes undertook 
 their famous expedition against the Eries, whose 
 country lay along the south shore of the lake 
 which bears their name, and this enterprise for the 
 time absorbed the bulk of the Iroquois energy. 
 The next governor of New France, De Lauzon, 
 regarded the moment as opportune for peace 
 negotiations, on the hypothesis that the idea of 
 waging only one war at a time might appeal to the 
 Five Nations as sound policy. A mission was 
 accordingly sent to the Iroquois, headed by the 
 Jesuit missionary Le Moyne, and for a time it 
 seemed as if arrangements for a lasting peace 
 might be made. But there was no sincerity in 
 the Iroquois professions. Their real interest lay 
 in peaceful relations with the Dutch and the 
 English; the French were their logical enemies; 
 and when the Iroquois had finished with the 
 Eries their insolence quickly showed itself once 
 more. 
 
 The next few years therefore found the colony 
 
58 CRUSADERS OF NEW FRANCE 
 
 again in desperate straits. In its entire population 
 there were not more than five hundred men capa- 
 ble of taking the field, nor were there firearms 
 for all of these. The Iroquois confederacy could 
 muster at least three times that number; they were 
 now obtaining firearms in plenty from the Dutch 
 at Albany; and they could concentrate their 
 whole assault upon the French settlement at 
 Montreal. Had the Iroquois known the barest 
 elements of siege operations, the colony must 
 have come to a speedy and disastrous end. As 
 the outcome proved, however, they were unwise 
 enough to divide their strength and to dissipate 
 their energies in isolated raids, so that Montreal 
 came safely through the gloomy years of 1658 
 and 1659. 
 
 In the latter of these years there arrived from 
 France a man who was destined to play a large 
 part in its aifairs during the next few decades, 
 Frangois-Xavier de Laval, who now came to take 
 charge of ecclesiastical affairs in New France with 
 the powers of a vicar apostolic. Laval's arrival 
 did not mark the beginning of friction between 
 the Church and the civil officials in the colony; 
 there were such dissensions aheady. But the 
 doughty churchman's claims and the governor's 
 
THE FOUNDING OF NEW FRANCE 59 
 
 policy of resisting them soon brought things to an 
 open breach, particularly upon the question of 
 permitting the sale of liquor to the Indians. In 
 1662 the quarrel became bitter. Laval hastened 
 home to France where he placed before the authori- 
 ties the list of ecclesiastical grievances. The 
 governor, a bluff old soldier, was thereupon 
 summoned to Paris to present his side of the whole 
 affair. In the end a decision was reached to 
 reorganize the whole system of civil and com- 
 mercial administration in the colony. Thus, as 
 we shall soon see, the power passed away altogether 
 from the Company of One Hundred Associates. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE AGE OF LOUIS QUATOBZE 
 
 Lotris XIV, the greatest of the Bourbon monarchs, 
 had now taken into his own hands the reins of 
 power. Nominally he had been king of France 
 since 1642, when he was only five years old, but it 
 was not until 1658 that the control of affairs by 
 the regency came to an end. Moreover, Colbert 
 was now chief minister of state, so that colonial 
 matters were assured of a searching and enlightened 
 inquiry. Richelieu's interest in the progress of 
 New France had not endured for many years after 
 the founding of his great Company. It is true 
 that during the next fifteen years he remained 
 chief minister, but the great effort to crush the 
 remaining strongholds of feudalism and to central- 
 ize all political power in the monarchy left him no 
 time for the care of a distant colony. Colbert, on 
 the other hand, had well-defined and far-reaching 
 plans for the development of French industrial 
 
 60 
 
THE AGE OF LOUIS QUATORZE 61 
 
 interests at home and of French commercial 
 interests abroad. 
 
 As for the colony, it made meager progress 
 under Company control: few settlers were sent 
 out; and they were not provided with proper 
 means of defense against Indian depredations. 
 Under the circumstances it did not take Colbert 
 long to see how remiss the Company of One Him- 
 dred Associates had been, nor to reach a decision 
 that the colony should be at once withdrawn from 
 its control. He accordingly persuaded the mon- 
 arch to demand the surrender of the Company's 
 charter and to reprimand the Associates for the 
 shameless way in which they had neglected the 
 trust committed to their care. "Instead of 
 finding," declared the King in the edict of revoca- 
 tion, "that this country is populated as it ought 
 to be after so long an occupation thereof by our 
 subjects, we have learned with regret not only 
 that the number of its inhabitants is very limited, 
 but that even these are daily exposed to the danger 
 of being wiped out by the Iroquois." 
 
 In truth, the company had little to show for its 
 thirty years of exploitation. The entire popu- 
 lation of New France in 1663 numbered less than 
 twenty-five hundred people, a considerable pro- 
 
62 CRUSADERS OF NEW FRANCE 
 
 portion of whom were traders, officials, and 
 priests. The area of cleared land was astonish- 
 ingly small, and agriculture had made no progress 
 worthy of the name. There were no industries 
 of any kind, and almost nothing but furs went 
 home in the ships to France. The colony de- 
 pended upon its mother country even for its aimual 
 food supply, and when the ships from France failed 
 to come the colonists were reduced to severe 
 privations. A dispirited and nearly defenseless 
 land, without solid foundations of agriculture 
 or industry, with an accumulation of Indian 
 enmity and an empty treasury — this was the 
 legacy which the Company now turned over to 
 the Crown in return for the viceroyal privileges 
 given to it in good faith more than three decades 
 before. 
 
 When the King revoked the Company's charter, 
 he decided upon Colbert's advice to make New 
 France a royal domain and to provide it with a 
 scheme of administration modeled broadly upon 
 that of a province at home. To this end a royal 
 edict, perhaps the most important of all the many 
 decrees affecting French colonial interests in the 
 seventeenth century, was issued in April, 1663. 
 While the provisions of this edict bear the stamp 
 
THE AGE OF LOUIS QUATORZE 63 
 
 of Colbert's handiwork, it is not unlikely that 
 the suggestions of Bishop Laval, as given to the 
 minister during his visit of the preceding year, 
 were accorded some recognition. At any rate, 
 after reciting the circumstances under which the 
 King had been prompted to take New France into 
 his own hands, the edict of 1663 proceeded to 
 authorize the creation of a Sovereign Council as 
 the chief governing body of the colony. This, 
 with a larger membership and with greatly 
 increased powers, was to replace the old council 
 which the Company had established to administer 
 affairs some years previously. 
 
 During the next hundred years this Sovereign 
 Council became and remained the paramount 
 civil authority in French America. At the outset 
 it consisted of seven members, the governor and 
 the bishop ex officio, with five residents of the 
 colony selected jointly by these two. Beginning 
 with the arrival of Talon as first intendant of the 
 colony in 1665, the occupant of this post was also 
 given a seat in the Council. Before long, however, 
 it became apparent that the provision relating to 
 the appointment of non-official members was 
 unworkable. The governor and the bishop could 
 not agree in their selections; each wanted his own 
 
64 CRUSADERS OF NEW FRANCE 
 
 partisans appointed. The result was a deadlock 
 in which seats at the council-board remained 
 vacant. In the end Louis Quatorze solved this 
 problem, as he solved many others, by taking the 
 power directly into his own hands. After 1674 
 all appointments to the Council were made by 
 the King himself. In that same year the number 
 of non-official members was raised to seven, and in 
 1703 it was further increased to twelve.' At the 
 height of its power, then, the Sovereign Council 
 of New France consisted of the governor, the 
 intendant, the bishop, and twelve lay councilors, 
 together with an attorney-general and a clerk. 
 These two last-named officials sat with the Council 
 but were not regular members of it. 
 
 In the matter of powers the Council was given 
 by the edict of 1663 jurisdiction over all civil and 
 criminal matters under the laws and ordinances of 
 the kingdom, its procedure in dealing with such 
 matters to be modeled on that of the Parliament 
 of Paris. It was to receive and to register the 
 royal decrees, thus giving them validity in New 
 France, and it was also to be the supreme tribunal 
 of the colony with authority to establish local 
 courts subordinate to itself. There was no 
 
 ' Its official title was in 1678 changed to Superior Council. 
 
THE AGE OF LOUIS QUATORZE 65 
 
 division of powers in the new frame of government. 
 Legislative, executive, and judicial powers were 
 thrown together in true Bourbon fashion. Appar- 
 ently it was Colbert's plan to make of the governor 
 a distinguished figurehead, with large military 
 powers but without paramount influence in civil 
 affairs. The bishop was to have no civil juris- 
 diction, and the intendant was to be the director of 
 details. The Council, according to the edict of 
 1663, was to be the real pivot of power in New 
 France. 
 
 Through the long years of storm and stress 
 which make up the greater part of the history of 
 the colony, the Sovereign Council rendered dili- 
 gent and faithful service. There were times 
 when passions waxed warm, when bitter words 
 were exchanged, and when the urgent interests 
 of the colony were sacrificed to the settlement of 
 personal jealousies. Many dramatic scenes were 
 enacted around the long table at which the council- 
 ors sat at their weekly sessions, for every Monday 
 through the greater portion of the year the Coun- 
 cil convened at seven o'clock in the morning and 
 usually sat until noon or later. But these were 
 only meteoric flashes. Historians have given 
 them undue prominence because such episodes 
 
66 CRUSADEBS OF NEW FRANCE 
 
 make racy reading. By far the greater portion 
 of the council's meetings were devoted to the 
 serious and patient consideration of routine busi- 
 ness. Matters of infinite variety came to it for 
 determination, including the regulation of industry 
 and trade, the currency, the fixing of prices, the 
 interpretation of the rules relating to land tenure, 
 fire prevention, poor relief, regulation of the 
 liquor traflBc, the encouragement of agriculture— 
 and these are only a few of the topics taken at ran- 
 dom from its calendar. In addition there were 
 thousands of disputes brought to it for settlement 
 either directly or on appeal from the lower courts. 
 The minutes of its deliberations during the ninety- 
 seven years from September 18, 1663, to April 8, 
 1760, fin no fewer than fifty-six ponderous manu- 
 script volumes. 
 
 Though, in the edict establishing the Sovereign 
 Council, no mention was made of an intendant, the 
 decision to send such an official to New France 
 came very shortly thereafter. In 1665 Jean Talon 
 arrived at Quebec bearing a royal commission 
 which gave him wide powers, infringing to some 
 extent on the authority vested in the Sovereign 
 Council two years previously. The phraseology 
 was similar to that used in the commissions of the 
 
THE AGE OF LOUIS QUATORZE 67 
 
 provincial intendants in France, and so broad was 
 the wording, indeed, that one might well ask 
 what other powers could be left for exercise by 
 any one else. No wonder that the seventeenth- 
 century apostle of frenzied finance, John Law, 
 should have laconically described France as a land 
 "ruled by a king and his thirty intendants, upon 
 whose will alone its welfare and its wants depend. " 
 Along with hisv commission Talon brought to the 
 colony a letter of instructions from the minister 
 which gave more detailed directions as to what 
 things he was to have in view and what he was to 
 avoid. 
 
 In France the office of intendant had long been in 
 existence. Its creation in the first instance has 
 commonly been attributed to Richelieu, but it 
 really antedated the coming of the great car- 
 dinal. The intendancy was not a spontaneous 
 creation, but a very old and, in its origin, a humble 
 post which grew in importance with the central- 
 ization of power in the King's hands, and which 
 kept step in its development with the gradual 
 extinction of local self-government in the royal 
 domains. The provincial intendant in pre-revo- 
 lutionary France was master of administration, 
 finance, and justice within his own jurisdiction; he 
 
8 CRUSADERS OF NEW FRANCE 
 
 i^as bound by no rigid statutes; he owed obedience 
 no local authorities; he was appointed by the 
 (ling and was responsible to his sovereign alone. 
 From first to last there were a dozen intendants 
 if New France. Talon, whose ambition and 
 nergy did much to set the colony in the saddle, was 
 he first. Frangois Bigot, the arch-plunderer of 
 lis monarch's funds, who did so much to bring 
 he land to its downfall, was the last. Between 
 hem came a line of sensible, earnest, hard-working 
 fficials who served their King far better than they 
 erved themselves, who gave the best years of theii; 
 ives to the task of making New France a bright 
 ewel in the Bourbon crown. The colonial intend- 
 mt was the royal man-of-all-work. The King 
 poke and the intendant forthwith transformed his 
 vords into action. As the King's great interest 
 n New France, coupled with his scant knowledge 
 )f its conditions, moved him to speak often, and 
 isually in broad generalities, the intendant's 
 ictivity was prodigious and his discretion wide. 
 Drdinances and decrees flew from his pen like 
 sparks from a blacksmith's forge. The duty 
 ievolved upon him as the overseas apostle of 
 jrallic paternalism to "order everything as seemed 
 iust and proper, " even when this brought his hand 
 
THE AGE OF LOUIS QUATORZE 69 
 
 into the very homes of the people, into their daily 
 work or worship or amusements. Nothing that 
 needed setting aright was too inconsequential 
 to have an ordinance devoted to it. As general 
 regulator of work and play, of manners and morals, 
 of things present and things to come, the intendant 
 was the busiest man in the colony. 
 
 In addition to the governor, the council, and the 
 intendant, there were many other officials on the 
 civil list. Both the governor and the intendant had 
 their deputies at Montreal and at Three Rivers. 
 There were judges and bailiffs and seneschals and 
 local officers by the score, not to speak of those 
 who held sinecures or received royal pensions. 
 There were garrisons to be maintained at all the 
 frontier posts and church officials to be supported 
 by large sums. No marvel it was that New 
 France could never pay its own way. Every 
 year there was a deficit which the King had to 
 liquidate by payments from the royal exchequer. 
 
 The administration of the colony, moreover, 
 fell far short of even reasonable efficiency. There 
 were far too many officials for the relatively small 
 amount of work to be done, and their respective 
 fields of authority were inadequately defined. 
 Too often the work of these officials lacked even 
 
70 CRUSADERS OF NEW FRANCE 
 
 the semblance of harmony, nor did the royal 
 authorities always view this deficiency with regret. 
 A fair amount of working at cross-purposes, 
 provided it did not bring affairs to a complete 
 standstill, was regarded as a necessary system 
 of checks and balances in a colony which lay three 
 thousand miles away. It prevented any chance 
 of a general conspiracy against the home authori- 
 ties or any wholesale wrong-doing through col- 
 lusion. It served to make every ojQficial a ready 
 tale-bearer in all matters concerning the motives 
 and acts of his colleagues, so that the King might 
 with reasonable certainty count upon hearing 
 all the sides to every story. That, in fact, was 
 wholly in consonance with Latin traditions of 
 government, and it was characteristically the 
 French way of doing things in the seventeenth 
 and eighteenth centuries. 
 
 Louis XIV took a great personal interest in 
 New France even to the neglect at times of things 
 which his courtiers deemed to be far more im- 
 portant. The governor and the intendant plied 
 him with their requests, with their grievances, 
 and too often with their prosy tales of petty 
 squabbling. With every ship they sent to Ver- 
 sailles their mSmoires, often of intolerable length; 
 
THE AGE OF LOUIS QUATORZE 71 
 
 and the patient monarch read them all. Marginal 
 notes, made with his own hand, are still upon 
 many of them, and the student who plods his way 
 through the musty bimdles of ofl5cial correspond- 
 ence in the Archives Nationales will find in these 
 marginal comments enough to convince him that, 
 whatever the failings of Louis XIV may have 
 been, indolence was not of them. Then with the 
 next ships the Bang sent back his budget of orders, 
 counsel, reprimand, and praise. If the colony 
 failed to thrive, it was not because the royal 
 interest in it proved insincere or deficient. 
 
 The progress of New France, as reported in 
 these dispatches from Quebec, with their figures of 
 slow growth in population, of poor crops, and of 
 failing trade, of Indian troubles and dangers 
 from the English, of privations at times and of 
 deficits always, must often have dampened the 
 royal hopes. The requests for subsidies from 
 the royal purse were especially relentless. Every 
 second dispatch contained pleas for money or for 
 things which were boimd to cost money if the King 
 provided them: money to enable some one to clear 
 his lands, or to start an industry, or to take a trip 
 of exploration to the wilds; money to provide more 
 priests, to build churches, or to repair fortifi- 
 
12 CRUSADERS OF NEW FRANCE 
 
 nations; money to pension officials — the call for 
 noney was incessant year after year. In the face 
 )f these multifarious demands upon his exchequer, 
 Louis XIV was amazingly generous, but the more 
 le gave, the more the colony asked from him. 
 Until the end of his days, he never failed in re- 
 sponse if the object seemed worthy of his support. 
 [t was not until the Grand Monarch was gathered 
 ;o his fathers that the officials of New France 
 )egan to ply their requests in vain. 
 
 So much for the frame of government in the col- 
 my during the age of Louis XIV. Now as to the 
 lappenings during the decade following 1663. The 
 lew administration made a promising start under 
 ;he headship of De Mezy, a fellow townsman and 
 riend of Bishop Laval, who arrived in the autumn 
 )f 1663 to take up his duties as governor. In a 
 ew days he and the bishop had amicably chosen 
 :he five residents of the colony who were to serve 
 IS councilors, and the covmcil began its sessions. 
 3ut troubles soon loomed into view, brought on in 
 )art by Laval's desire to settle up some old scores 
 low that he had the power as a member of the 
 sovereign Council and was the dominating influence 
 n its deliberations. Under the bishop's inspira- 
 ion the Council ordered the seizure of some papers 
 
THE AGE OF LOUIS QUATORZE 73 
 
 belonging to Peronne Dumesnil, a former agent of 
 the now defunct Company of One Hundred Asso- 
 ciates. Dumesnil retorted by filing a dossier of 
 charges against some of the councilors; and the 
 colonists at once ranged themselves into two op- 
 posing factions — those who believed the charges 
 and those who did not. The bishop had become 
 the stormy petrel of colonial poUtics, and nature 
 had in truth well fitted him for just such a role. 
 
 Soon, moreover, the relations between Mezy 
 and Laval themselves became less cordial. For 
 a year the governor had proved ready to give 
 way graciously on every point; but there was a 
 limit to his amenability, and now his proud spirit 
 began to chafe under the dictation of his ecclesi- 
 astical coUeague. At length he ventured to show 
 a mind of his own; and then the breach between 
 him and Laval widened quickly. Three of the 
 councillors having joined the bishop against him, 
 Mezy undertook a coup d'etat, dismissed these 
 councilors from their posts, and called a mass- 
 meeting of the people to choose their successors. 
 On the governor's part this was a serious tactical 
 error. He could hardly expect that a monarch 
 who was doing his best to crush out the last vestige 
 of representative government in France would 
 
4 CRUSADERS OF NEW FRANCE 
 
 welcome its establishment and encouragement 
 )y one of his own officials in the New World. But 
 VIezy did not live to obey the recall which speedily 
 ;ame from the King as the outcome of this indis- 
 iretion. In the spring of 1665 he was taken ill and 
 lied at Quebec. "He went to rest among the 
 )aupers," says Parkman, "and the priests, serenely 
 riumphant, sang requiems over his grave. " 
 
 But discord within its borders was not the 
 lolony's only trouble during these years. The 
 icourge of the Iroquois was again upon the land. 
 During the years 1663 and 1664 bands of Mohawks 
 md Oneidas raided the regions of the Richelieu 
 md penetrated to the settlement at Three Rivers. 
 These petites guerres were making things intoler- 
 ible for the colonists, and the King was urged to 
 end out a force of troops large enough to crush 
 he bothersome savages once for all. This plea 
 net with a ready response, and in June, 1665, 
 'rouville de Tracy with two hundred officers and 
 nen of the Regiment de Carignan-Salieres dis- 
 smbarked at Quebec. The remaining companies 
 )f the regiment, making a force almost a thousand 
 itrong, arrived a little later. The people were 
 low sure that deliverance was at hand, and the 
 vhole colony was in a frenzy of joy. 
 
THE AGE OF LOUIS QUATORZE 75 
 
 Following the arrival of the troops came Cour- 
 celle, the new governor, and Jean Talon, who was 
 to take the post of intendant. These were gala 
 days m New France; the whole colony had caught 
 the spirit of the new imperialism. The banners 
 and the trumpets, the scarlet cloaks and the 
 perukes, the glittering profusion of gold lace and 
 feathers, the clanking of swords and muskets, 
 transformed Quebec in a season from a wilderness 
 village to a Versailles in miniature. But there was 
 Uttle time for dress parades and affairs of ceremony. 
 Tracy had come to give the Iroquois their coup 
 de grace, and the work must be done quickly. 
 The King could not afford to have a thousand 
 soldiers of the grand army eating their heads off 
 through the long months of a Canadian winter. 
 
 The work of getting the expedition ready, there- 
 fore, was pushed rapidly ahead. Snowshoes were 
 provided for the regiment, provisions and suppKes 
 were gathered, and in January, 1666, the expe- 
 dition started up the frozen Richelieu, traversed 
 Lake Champlain, and moved across to the head- 
 waters of the Hudson. It was a spectacle new to the 
 northern wilderness of America, this glittering and 
 picturesque cavalcade of regulars flanked by troops 
 of militiamen and bands of fur-clothed Indians 
 
76 CRUSADERS OF NEW FRANCE 
 
 moving on its errand of destruction along the 
 frozen rivers. But the French regular troops 
 were not habituated to long marches on snowshoes 
 in the dead of winter; and they made progress so 
 slowly that the Dutch settlers of the region had 
 time to warn the Mohawks of the approach of the 
 expedition. This upset all French plans, since the 
 leaders had hoped to fall upon the Mohawk 
 villages and to destroy them before the tribesmen 
 could either make preparations for defense or 
 withdraw southward. Foiled in this plan, and 
 afraid that an early thaw might make their route 
 of return impossible, the French gave up their 
 project and started home again. They had not 
 managed to reach, much less to destroy, the 
 villages of their enemies. 
 
 But the undertaking was not an absolute failure. 
 The Mohawks were astute enough to see that only 
 the inexperience of the French had stood between 
 them and destruction. Here was an enemy which 
 had proved able to come through the dead of 
 winter right into the regions which had hitherto 
 been regarded as inaccessible from the north. The 
 French might be depended to come again and, by 
 reason of greater experience, to make a better job 
 of their coming. The Iroquois reasoning was quite 
 
THE AGE OF LOUIS QUATORZE 77 
 
 orrect, as the sequel soon disclosed. In Septem- 
 er of the same year the French had once again 
 quipped their expedition, more effectively this 
 ime. Traveling overland along nearly the same 
 ante, it reached the coimtry of the Mohawks 
 dthout a mishap. The Indians saved them- 
 slves by a rapid flight to the forests, but their 
 alisaded strongholds were demolished, their 
 ouses set afire, their cacMs of corn dug out 
 nd destroyed. The Mohawks were left to face 
 tie oncoming winter with nothing but the woods 
 3 shelter them. Having finished their task of 
 unishment, Tracy and his regiment made their 
 'ay leisurely back to Quebec. 
 The Mohawks were now quite ready to make 
 ;rms, and in 1667 they sent a delegation to Que- 
 ec to proffer peace. Two raids into their terri- 
 jries in successive years had taught them that 
 ley could not safely leave their homes to make 
 ar against the tribes of the west so long as the 
 rench were their enemies. And the desire to 
 ominate the region of the lakes was a first 
 rinciple of Iroquois policy at this time. An 
 rmistice was accordingly concluded, which lasted 
 ithout serious interruption for more than a 
 ecade. One of the provisions of the peace was 
 
78 CRUSADERS OF NEW FRANCE 
 
 that Jesuit missions should be established in the 
 Iroquois territory, this being the usual way in 
 which the French assured themselves of diplomatic 
 intercoiirse with the tribes. 
 
 With its trade routes once more securely open, 
 New France now began a period of marked 
 prosperity. Tracy and his staff went back to 
 France, but most of his soldiers remained and 
 became settlers. Wives for these soldiers were 
 sent out under royal auspices, and liberal grants of 
 money were provided to get the new households 
 estabhshed. Since 1664, the trade of the colony 
 had been once more in the hands of a commercial 
 organization, the Company of the West Indies, 
 whose financial success was, for the time being, 
 assured by the revival of the fur traffic. Industries 
 were beginning to spring into being, the population 
 was increasing rapidly, and the King was showing 
 a lively interest in aU the colony's affairs. It was 
 therefore a prosperous and promising colony to 
 which Governor Frontenac came in 1672. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THE IRON GOVERNOR 
 
 The ten years following 1663 form a decade of ex- 
 traordinary progress in the history of New France. 
 The population of the colony had trebled, and 
 now numbered approximately seven thousand; 
 the red peril, thanks to Tracy's energetic work, 
 had been lessened; while the fur trade had grown 
 to large and lucrative proportions. With this 
 increase in population and prosperity, there came 
 a renaissance of enthusiasm for voyages of explora- 
 tion and for the widening of the colony's frontiers. 
 Glowing reports went home to the King concern- 
 ing the latent possibilities of the New World. 
 What the colony now needed was a strong and 
 vigorous governor who would not only keep a 
 firm hold upon what had been already achieved, 
 but one who would also push on to greater and 
 more glorious things. 
 
 It was in keeping with this spirit of faith and 
 
 79 
 
80 CRUSADERS OF NEW FRANCE 
 
 hope that the King sent to Quebec, in 1672, Louis 
 de Buade, Count Frontenac, naming him governor 
 of all the French domains in North America. 
 Fifty-two years of age when he came to Canada, 
 Frontenac had been a soldier from his youth; he 
 had fought through hard campaigns in Italy, in 
 the Low Countries, and with the Venetians in their 
 defense of Candia against the Turks. In fact, he 
 had but shortly returned from this last service 
 when he was chosen to succeed Courcelle as the 
 royal representative in New France. 
 
 To Frontenac's friends the appointment seemed 
 more like a banishment than a promotion. But 
 there were several reasons why the governor 
 should have accepted gladly. He had inherited 
 only a modest fortune, and most of this had been 
 spent, for thrift was not one of Frontenac's virtues. 
 His domestic life had not been happy, and there 
 were no strong personal ties binding him to lite 
 in France.' Moreover, the post of governor in 
 the colony was not to be judged by what it 
 had been in the days of D'Avaugour or De 
 Mezy. The reports sent home by Talon had 
 
 ■ Saint-Simon, in his Mhaoires, prints the current Parisian gossip 
 that Frontenac was sent to New France to shield him from the im- 
 perious temper of his wife and to afford him a means of livelihood. 
 
CARTIER'S VOl^GES 
 
 Approximate Routes 
 
 i St voyage 1534-35 
 
 2"A voyage 1535-36 
 
 NEW FRANCE 
 
 1534 - 1690 
 
 , . , ,^ ( Champlain 1609, 1615-16 "^ 
 
 proximate routes traveled by { La Salle 1669-70/1679-82 
 
 SCALE OF MiLES 
 
 li ib 50 75 (00 
 
 JULIUS BIEN 
 
THE IRON GOVERNOR 81 
 
 stirred the national ambitions. "I am no courtier," 
 this intendant had written, "and it is not to please 
 the King or without reason that I say this portion 
 of the French monarchy is going to become some- 
 thing great. What I now see enables me to make 
 such a prediction." And indeed the figures of 
 growth in population, of acreage cleared, and of 
 industries rising into existence seemed to justify 
 the intendant's optimism. Both the King and his 
 ministers were building high hopes on Canada, 
 as their choice of Frontenac proves, and in their 
 selection of a man to carry out their plans they 
 showed, on the whole, good judgment. Frontenac 
 proved to be the ablest and most commanding of 
 all the oflBcials who served the Bourbon mon- 
 archy in the New World. In the long line of 
 governors he approached most nearly to what a 
 Viceroy ought to be. 
 
 It is true that in New France there were con- , 
 ditions which no amount of experience in the Old 
 World could train a man to handle. Nor was 
 Frontenac particularly fitted by training or 
 temperament for all of the duties which his new 
 post involved. In some things he was well- 
 endowed; he had great physical endurance, a 
 strong will, with no end of courage, and industry 
 
82 CRUSADERS OF NEW FRANCE 
 
 to spare. These were qualities of the highest 
 value in a land encircled by enemies and forced 
 to depend for existence upon the strength of its 
 own people. But more serviceable still was his 
 ability in adapting himself to a new environment. 
 Men past fifty do not often show this quality in 
 marked degree, but Frontenac fitted himself to 
 the novelty of colonial life exceedingly well. In 
 his relations with the Indians he showed amazing 
 skill. No other colonial governor, English, French, 
 or Dutch, ever commanded so readily the respect 
 and admiration of the red man. But in his deal- 
 ings with the intendant and the bishop, with the 
 clergy, and with all those among the French of 
 New France who showed any disposition to dis- 
 agree with him, Frontenac displayed an uncon- 
 trollable temper, an arrogance of spirit, and a 
 degree of personal vanity which would not have 
 made for cordial relations £q any field of human 
 effort. He had formed his own opinions and was 
 quite ready to ride rough-shod over thofee of other 
 men. It was this impetuosity that served to make 
 the official circles of the colony, during many 
 months of his term, a "little hell of discord." 
 
 But when the new viceroy arrived at Quebec 
 he was in high fettle; he was pleased with the 
 
THE IRON GOVERNOR 83 
 
 situation of the town and flattered by the enthusi- 
 astic greeting which he received from its people. 
 His first step was to familiarize himself with the 
 existing machinery of colonial government, which 
 he found to be far from his liking. He proceeded, 
 accordingly, in his own imperious way, to make 
 some startling changes. For one thing, he decided 
 to summon a representative assembly made up of 
 the clergy, the seigneurs, and the common folk of 
 New France. This body he brought together for 
 his inauguration in October, 1672. No such 
 assembly had ever been convened before, and 
 nothing like it was ever allowed to assemble again. 
 Before another year had passed, the minister 
 sent Frontenac a polite reprimand with the 
 intimation that the King could not permit in the 
 colony an institution he was doing his best, and 
 with entire success, to crush out at home. The 
 same fate awaited the governor's other project, 
 the establishment of a municipal government in 
 the town of Quebec. Within a few months of his 
 arrival, Frontenac had allowed the people of the 
 town to elect a syndic and two aldermen, but the 
 minister vetoed this action with the admonition 
 that "you should very rarely, or, to speak more 
 correctly, never, give a corporate voice to the 
 
84 CRUSADERS OF NEW FRANCE 
 
 inhabitants, for . . . it is well that each should 
 speak for himself, and no one for all." In the 
 reorganization of colonial administration, there- 
 fore, the governor found himself promptly called 
 to a halt. He therefore turned to another field 
 where he was much more successful in having 
 his own way. 
 
 From the day of his arrival at Quebec the 
 governor saw the pressing need of extending 
 French influence and control into the regions 
 bordering upon the Great Lakes. To dissipate 
 the colony's efforts in westward expansion, how- 
 ever, was exactly what he had been instructed not 
 to do. The King and his ministers were sure 
 that it would be far wiser to devote all available 
 energies and funds to developing the settled por- 
 tions of the land. They desired the governor to 
 carry on the policy of encouraging agriculture 
 which Talon had begun, thus solidifying the 
 colony and making its borders less difficult to 
 defend. Frontenac's instructions on this point 
 could hardly have been more explicit. "His 
 Majesty considers it more consistent with the good 
 of his service," wrote Colbert, "that you apply 
 yourself to clearing and settling the most fertile 
 places that are nearest the seacoast and the 
 
THE IRON GOVERNOR 85 
 
 communication with France than to think afar of 
 explorations in the iaterior of the coimtry, so 
 distant that they can never be inhabited by 
 Frenchmen." This was discouraging counsel, 
 showing neither breadth of vision nor familiarity 
 with the urgent needs of the colony. Frontenac 
 courageously set these instructions aside, and in 
 doing so he was wise. Had he held to the 
 letter of his instructions. New France would 
 never have been more than a strip of terri- 
 tory fringing the Lower St. Lawrence. More 
 than any other Frenchman he helped to plan the 
 great empire of the West. 
 
 Notwithstanding the narrow views of his superi- 
 ors at Versailles, Frontenac was convinced that 
 the colony could best secure its own defense by 
 controlling the chief line of water communications 
 between the Iroquois country and Montreal. To 
 this end he prepared to build a fort at Cataraqui 
 where the St. Lawrence debouches from Lake 
 Ontario. He was not, however, the first to 
 recognize the strategic value of this point. Talon 
 had marked it as a place of importance some years 
 before, and the English authorities at Albany had 
 been urged by the Iroquois chiefs to forestall any 
 attempt that the French might make by being 
 
86 CRUSADERS OF NEW FRANCE 
 
 first on the ground. But the English procrasti- 
 nated, and in the summer of 1673 the governor, 
 with an imposing array of troops and mihtia, made 
 his way to Cataraqui, having first summoned the 
 Iroquois to meet him there in solenm coimcil. 
 In rather high dudgeon they came, ready to make 
 trouble if the chance arose; but Frontenac's dis- 
 play of armed strength, his free-handed bestowal 
 of presents, his tactful handling of the chiefs, 
 and his effective oratory at the conclave soon 
 assured him the upper hand. The fort was built, 
 and the Iroquois, while they continued to regard 
 it as an invasion of their territories, were forced 
 to accept the new situation with reluctant grace. 
 This stroke at Cataraqui inflamed the governor's 
 interest in western affairs. During his conferences 
 with the Indians he had heard much about the 
 great waters to the West and the rich beaver 
 lands which lay beyond. He was ready, there- 
 fore, to encourage in every way the plans of those 
 who wished to undertake journeys of exploration 
 and trade into these regions, even although he was 
 well aware that such enterprises would win little 
 commendation from his superiors at the royal 
 court. Voyageurs ready to undertake these tasks 
 there were in plenty, and all of them found in the 
 
THE IRON GOVERNOR 87 
 
 Iron Governor a stalwart friend. Foremost among 
 these pioneers of the Far Country was Robert Cave- 
 Her de La Salle, whom Frontenac had placed for a 
 time in command of the fort at Cataraqui and who, 
 in 1678, was commissioned by the governor to forge 
 another link in the chain by the erection of a fort 
 at Niagara. There he also built a small vessel, 
 the first to ply the waters of the upper lakes, and 
 in this La Salle and his lieutenants made their 
 way to Michilimackinac. How he later jom-neyed 
 to the Mississippi and down that stream to its 
 mouth is a story to be told later on in these pages. 
 It was and will remain a classic in the annals 
 of exploration. And without Frontenac's vigor- 
 ous support it could never have been accomplished. 
 La Salle, when he performed his great feat of daring 
 and endurance, was still a young man under forty, 
 but his courage, firmness, and determination were 
 not surpassed by any of his race. He had quali- 
 ties that justified the confidence which the gover- 
 nor reposed in him. 
 
 But while La Salle was the most conspicuous 
 among the pathfinders of this era, he was not the 
 only one. Tonty, Du Lhut, La ForSt, La Mothe- 
 Cadillac, and others were all in Frontenac's favor, 
 and all had his vigorous support in their work. 
 
88 CRUSADERS OF NEW FRANCE 
 
 Intrepid woodsmen, they covered every portion 
 of the western wilderness, building forts and posts 
 of trade, winning the friendship of the Indians, 
 planting the arms of France in new soil and 
 carrying the Vexilla Regis into parts unknown 
 before. If Frontenac could have had his way, if 
 the King had provided him with the funds, he 
 would have run an iron chain of fortified posts all 
 along the great water routes from Cataraqui to the 
 Mississippi — and he had lieutenants who were 
 able to carry out such an undertaking. But 
 there were great obstacles in the way, — the luke- 
 warmness of the home government, the bitter 
 opposition of the Jesuits, and the intrigues of his 
 colleagues. Yet the governor was able to make a 
 brave start, and before he had finished he had 
 firmly laid the foundations of French trading 
 supremacy in these western regions. 
 
 During the first three years after his coming 
 to Canada, the governor had ruled alone. There 
 was no intendant or bishop to hamper him, for 
 both Talon and Laval had gone to France in 
 1672. But in 1675 Laval returned to the colony, 
 and in the same year a new intendant, Jacques 
 Duchesneau, was appointed. With this change 
 in the situation at Quebec the friction began in 
 
THE IRON GOVERNOR 89 
 
 earnest, for Frontenac's imperious temper did not 
 make him a cheerful sharer of authority with any 
 one else. If the intendant and the bishop had 
 been men of conflicting ideas and dispositions, 
 Frontenac might easily have held the balance 
 of power; but they were men of kindred aims, 
 and they readily combined against the governor. 
 United in their opposition to him, they were 
 together a fair match for Frontenac in ability and 
 astuteness. It was not long, accordingly, before 
 the whole colony was once more aligned in two 
 factions. With the governor were the merchants, 
 many of the seigneurs, and all the coureurs-de-bois. 
 Supporting the intendant and the bishop were 
 many of the subordinate oflScials, all of the priests, 
 and those of the tradesmen and habitants with 
 whom the clerical influence was paramount. 
 
 The story of the quarrels which went on between 
 these two factions during the years 1675-1680 is 
 neither brief nor edifying. The root of it all lay 
 in the governor's western policy, his encourage- 
 ment of the forest traders or coureurs-de-bois, and 
 his connivance at the use of brandy in the Indian 
 trade. There were unseemly squabbles about 
 precedence at council meetings and at religious 
 festivals, about trivialities of every sort; but the 
 
90 CRUSADERS OF NEW FRANCE 
 
 question of the brandy trade was at the bottom 
 of them all. The bishop flayed the governor for 
 letting this trade go on; the missionaries declared 
 that it was proving the ruin of their efforts; and 
 the intendant declared that Frontenac allowed 
 it to continue because he was making a personal 
 profit from the traffic. Charges and counter- 
 charges went home to France with every ship. 
 The intendant wrote dispatches of wearisome 
 length, rehearsing the governor's usurpations, 
 insults, and incompetence. "Disorder," he told 
 the minister, "rules everywhere. Universal con- 
 fusion prevails; justice is openly perverted, and 
 violence supported by authority determines every- 
 thing. " In language quite as unrestrained Fronte- 
 nac recounted in detail the difficulties with which 
 he had to contend owing to the intendant's 
 obstinacy, intrigue, and dishonesty. The minister, 
 appalled by the bewildering contradictions, could 
 only lay the whole matter before the King, who 
 determined to try first a courteous reprimand and 
 to that end sent an autograph letter to each 
 official. Both letters were alike in admonishing 
 the governor and the intendant to work in har- 
 mony for the good of the colony, but each con- 
 cluded with the significant warning: "Unless you 
 
THE IRON GOVERNOR 91 
 
 harmonize better in the future than in the past, 
 my only alternative will be to recall you both." 
 
 This intimation, coming straight from their 
 royal master, was to each a rebuke which could 
 not be misunderstood. But it did not accomplish 
 much, for the bitterness and jealousy existing 
 between the two colonial oflScers was too strong 
 to be overcome. The very next vessels took to 
 France a new budget of complaints and recrimi- 
 nations from both. The King, as good as his word, 
 issued prompt orders for their recall and the two 
 officials left for home, but not on the same vessel, 
 in the summer of 1682. 
 
 The question as to which of the two was the 
 more at fault is hardly worth determining. The 
 share of blame to be cast on each by the verdict 
 of history should probably be about equal. Fronte- 
 nac was by far the abler man, but he had the 
 defects of his qualities. He could not brook the 
 opposition of men less competent than he was, 
 and when he was provoked his arrogance be- 
 came intolerable. In broader domains of political 
 action he would soon have out-generaled his 
 adversary, but in these petty fields of neighbor- 
 hood bickering Duchesneau, particularly with the 
 occasional nudgings which he received from Laval, 
 
92 CRUSADERS OP NEW FRANCE 
 
 proved no unequal match. The fact remains 
 that neither was able or willing to sacrifice per- 
 sonal animosities nor to display any spirit of cordial 
 cooperation even at the royal command. The 
 departm-e of both was regarded as a blessing by 
 the majority of the colonists to whom the con- 
 tinued squabbles had become wearisome. Yet 
 there was not lacking, in the minds of many among 
 them, the conviction that if ever again New 
 France should find itself in urgent straits, if ever 
 there were critical need of an iron hand to rule 
 within and to guard without, there would still be 
 one man whom, so long as he lived, they could 
 confidently ask to be sent out to them again. 
 For the time being, however, Frontenac's official 
 career seemed to be at an end. At sixty-two he 
 could hardly hope to regain the royal favor by 
 further service. He must have left the shores of 
 New France with a heavy heart. 
 
 Frontenac's successor was La Barre, an old 
 naval officer who had proved himself as capable 
 at sea as he was now to show himself incompetent 
 on land. He was the antithesis of his headstrong 
 predecessor, weak in decision, without personal 
 energy, without imagination, but likewise without 
 any of Frontenac's skill in the art of making 
 
THE IRON GOVERNOR 93 
 
 enemies. With La Barre came MeuUes, an abler 
 and more energetic colleague, who was to succeed 
 Duchesneau as intendant. Both reached Quebec 
 in the autumn of 1682, and problems in plenty 
 they found awaiting them. Shortly before their 
 arrival a fire had swept through the settlement at 
 Quebec, leaving scarcely a building on the lands 
 below the cliff. To make matters worse, the 
 Iroquois had again thrown themselves across 
 the western trade route and had interrupted the 
 coming of the colony's fur supply. As every one 
 now recognized that the protection of this route 
 was essential. La Barre decided that the Iroquois 
 must be taught a lesson. Preparations in rather 
 ostentatious fashion were therefore made for a 
 punitive expedition, and in the summer of 1684 
 the governor with his troops was at Cataraqui. 
 At this point, however, he began to question 
 whether a parley might not be a better means 
 of securing peace than the laying waste of Indian 
 lands. Accordingly, it was arranged that a 
 council with the Iroquois should be held across 
 the lake from Cataraqui at a place which later 
 took the name of La Famine from the fact that 
 during the council the French supplies ran low 
 and the troops had to be put on short rations. 
 
94 CRUSADERS OF NEW FRANCE 
 
 After negotiations which the cynical chronicler 
 La Hontan has described with picturesque realism, 
 an inglorious truce was patched up. The new 
 governor was sadly deficient in his knowledge of 
 the Indian temperament. He had given the 
 Iroquois an impression that the French were too 
 proud to fight. For their part the Iroquois 
 oflFered him war or peace as he might choose, 
 and La Barre assured them that he chose to live 
 at peace. When the expedition returned to 
 Quebec there was great disgust throughout the 
 colony, the echoes of which were not without 
 their effect at Versailles, and La Barre was forth- 
 with recalled. 
 
 In his place the King sent out the Marquis de 
 Denonville ia 1685 with power to make war on the 
 tribesmen or to respect the peace as he might find 
 expedient upon his arrival. The new governor 
 was an honest, well-intentioned soul, neither men- 
 tally incapable nor lacking in personal coiu-age. 
 He might have served his King most acceptably in 
 many posts of routine officialdom, but he was not 
 the man to handle the destinies of half a continent 
 in critical years. His mission, to be sure, was no 
 sinecure, for the Iroquois had grown bolder with 
 the assurance of support from the English. Now 
 
THE IRON GOVERNOR 95 
 
 that they were securing arms and ammunition 
 from Albany it was probable that they would 
 carry their raids right to the heart of New France. 
 Denonville was therefore forced to the conclusion 
 that he had better strike quickly. In making 
 this decision he was right, for in dealing with 
 savage races a thrust is almost always the best 
 defense. 
 
 Armed preparations were consequently once 
 more placed under way, and in the summer of 
 1687 a flotUla of canoes and batteaux bearing 
 soldiers and supplies was again at Cataraqui. This 
 time the expedition was stronger in numbers and 
 better equipped than ever before. Down the 
 lakes from MichUimackinac came a force of 
 coureurs-de-bois, among them seasoned veterans 
 of the wilderness like Du Lhut, Tonty, La Foret, 
 Morel de la Durantaye, and Nicholas Perrot, each 
 worth a whole squad of soldiers when it came to 
 fighting the Iroquois in their own forests. At the 
 rendezvous across the lake from Cataraqui the 
 French and their allies mustered nearly three 
 thousand men. Denonville had none of his 
 predecessor's bravado coupled with cowardice; 
 his plans were carried forward with a precision 
 worthy of Frontenac. Unlike Frontenac, how- 
 
96 CRUSADERS OF NEW FRANCE 
 
 ever, he had a scant appreciation of the skill with 
 which the red man could get out of the way in the 
 face of danger. By moving too slowly after he 
 had set out overland towards the Seneca villages, 
 he gave the enemy time to place themselves out 
 of his reach. So he burned their villages and 
 destroyed large areas of growing corn. After 
 more than a week had been spent in laying waste 
 the land, Denonville and his expedition retired 
 slowly to Cataraqui. Leaving part of his force 
 there, the governor went westward to Niagara, 
 where he rebuilt in more substantial fashion La 
 Salle's old fort at that point and placed it in charge 
 of a garrison. The coureurs-de-bois then continued 
 on their way to Michilimackinac while Denonville 
 returned to Montreal. 
 
 The expedition of 1687 had not been a fiasco 
 like that of 1685, but neither was it in any real 
 way a success. It angered the whole Iroquois 
 confederacy without having sufficiently impressed 
 the Indians with the punitive power of the French. 
 Denonville had stirred up the nest without destroy- 
 ing the hornets. It was all too soon the Indians' 
 turn to show what they could do as ravagers of 
 unprotected villages; within a year after the 
 French expedition had returned, the Iroquois 
 
THE IRON GOVERNOR 97 
 
 bands were raiding the territory of the French to 
 the very outskirts of Montreal itself. The route 
 to the west was barred; the fort at Niagara had to 
 be abandoned; Cataraqui was cut off from succor 
 and ultimately had to be destroyed by its garrison; 
 not a single canoe-load of furs came down from the 
 lakes during the entire summer. The merchants 
 were facing ruin, and the whole colony was begin- 
 ning to tremble for its very existence. The seven 
 years since Frontenac left the land had indeed been 
 a lurid interval. 
 
 It was at this juncture that tidings of the 
 colony's dire distress were hurried to the King, 
 and the Grand Monarch moved with rare good 
 sense. He promptly sent for that grim old vet- 
 eran whom he had recalled in anger seven years 
 before. In all the realm Frontenac was the 
 one man who could be depended upon to restore 
 the prestige of France along the great trade 
 routes. 
 
 The Great Onontio, as Frontenac was known to 
 the Indians, reached the St. Lawrence in the late 
 autumn of 1689, just as the colony was about to 
 pass through its darkest hours. Quebec greeted 
 him as a Redemptor Patriae; its people, in the words 
 of La Hontan, were as Jews welcoming the Messiah. 
 
98 CRUSADERS OF NEW FRANCE 
 
 Nor was their enthusiasm without good cause, 
 for in a few years Frontenac demonstrated his 
 ability to put the colony on its feet once more. 
 He settled its internal broils, opened the channels 
 of trade, restored the forts, repulsed the English, 
 and brought the Iroquois to terms. 
 
 Now that his mission had been achieved and he 
 was no longer as robust as of old, the Iron Gover- 
 nor asked the minister to keep him in mind for 
 some suitable sinecure in France if the opportu- 
 nity came. This the minister readily promised, 
 but the promise was still unfulfilled when Fronte- 
 nac was stricken with his last illness. On Novem- 
 ber 28, 1698, the greatest of the Onontios, or 
 governors, passed away. "Devoted to the service 
 of his king," says his eulogist, "more busied with 
 duty than with gain; inviolable in his fidelity to his 
 friends, he was as vigorous a supporter as he was 
 an untiring foe." Had his oflScial career closed 
 with his recall in 1682, Frontenac woidd have 
 ranked as one of the singular misfits of the old 
 French colonial system. But the brilliant suc- 
 cesses of his second term made men forget the 
 earlier days of petulance and petty bickerings. 
 In the sharp contrasts of his nature Frontenac 
 was an unusual man, combining many good and 
 
THE IRON GOVERNOR 99 
 
 great qualities with personal shortcomings that 
 were equally pronounced. In the civil history of 
 New France he challenges attention as the most 
 remarkable figure. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 LA SALLE AND THE VOYAGETTBS 
 
 The greatest and most enduring achievement of 
 Frontenac's first term was the exploration of the 
 territory southwestward of the Great Lakes and 
 the planting of French influence there. This 
 work was due, in large part, to the courage and 
 energy of the intrepid La Salle. Rene-Robert 
 Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, like so many others 
 who followed the flexir-de-lis into the recesses of the 
 new continent, was of Norman birth and lineage. 
 Rouen was the town of his nativity; the year 1643 
 probably the date of his birth. How the days of 
 his youth were spent we do not know except that 
 he received a good education, presumably in a 
 Jesuit seminary. While still in the early twenties he 
 came to Montreal where he had an older brother, 
 a priest of the Seminary of St. Sulpice. This was 
 in 1666. Through the influence of his brother, 
 no doubt, he received from the Seminary a grant 
 
 100 
 
LA SALLE AND THE VOYAGEUES 101 
 
 of the seigneury at Lachine on the river above the 
 town, and at once began the work of developing 
 this property. 
 
 If La Salle intended to become a yeoman of 
 New France, his choice of a site was not of the 
 best. The seigneury which he acquired was one 
 of the most dangerous spots in the whole colony, 
 being right in the path of Iroquois attack. He 
 was able to gather a few settlers around him, it 
 is true, but their homes had to be enclosed by 
 palisades, and they hardly dared venture into the 
 fields unarmed. Though the Iroquois and the 
 French were just now at peace, the danger of 
 treachery was never absent. On the other hand 
 no situation could be more favorable for one 
 desiring to try his hand at the fur trade. It was 
 inevitable, therefore, that a young man of La 
 Salle's adventurous temperament and commercial 
 ancestry should soon forsake the irksome drudgery 
 of clearing land for the more exciting and appar- 
 ently more profitable pursuit of forest trade. 
 That was what happened. In the winter of 
 1668-1669 he heard from the Indians their story 
 of a great southwestern river which made its way 
 to the "Vermilion Sea." The recital quickened 
 the restless strain in his Norman blood. Here, he 
 
102 CRUSADERS OF NEW FRANCE 
 
 thought, was the long-sought passage to the shores 
 jf the Orient, and he determined to follow the river. 
 Having no other means of obtaining funds with 
 ivhich to equip an expedition. La Salle sold his 
 ieigneury and at once began his preparations, 
 [n July, 1669, he set off with a party of about 
 twenty men, some of whom were missionaries 
 sent by the Seminary of St. Sulpice to carry the 
 :idings of the faith into the heart of the continent. 
 Up the St. Lawrence and along the south shore of 
 Lake Ontario they went, halting at Irondequoit 
 Bay while La Salle and a few of his followers 
 jvent overland to the Seneca villages in search of 
 juides. Continuing to Niagara, the party divided 
 md the Sulpicians made their way to the Sault 
 3te. Marie, while La Salle with the remainder of 
 the expedition struck out south of Lake Erie and in 
 ill probability reached the Ohio by descending one 
 jf its branches. But, as no joiu-nal or contempor- 
 iry record of the venture after they had left 
 Niagara has come down to us, the details of the 
 journey are unknown. It is believed that de- 
 sertions among his followers prevented further 
 progress and that, in the winter of 1669-1670, 
 La Salle retraced his steps to the lakes. In its 
 main object the expedition had been a failure. 
 
LA SALLE AND THE VOYAGEURS 103 
 
 Having exhausted his funds, La Salle had no 
 opportunity, for the present at least, of making 
 another trial. He accordingly asked Frontenac 
 for trading privileges at Cataraqui, the site of 
 modern "Kingston, where stood the fortified post 
 named after the governor. Upon Frontenac's 
 recommendation La Salle received in 1674 not only 
 the exclusive right to trade but also a grant of 
 land at Fort Frontenac on condition that he would 
 rebuild the defenses with stone and supply a 
 garrison. The conditions being acceptable, the 
 explorer hastened to his new post and was soon 
 engaged in the fur trade upon a considerable scale. 
 La Salle, however, needed more capital than he 
 himself could supply, and in 1677 he made a second 
 trip to France with letters from Frontenac to the 
 King and Colbert. He also had the further 
 design in view of obtaining authority and funds for 
 another trip of exploration to the West. Since 
 his previous expedition in 1669 two of his com- 
 patriots, Pere Marquette and Louis Joliet, had 
 reached the Great River and had found every 
 reason for believing that its course ran south to the 
 Gulf of Mexico, and not southwestward to the 
 Gulf of California, as had previously been sup- 
 posed. But they had not followed the Mississippi 
 
04 CRUSADERS OF NEW FRANCE 
 
 o its outlet, and this was what La Salle was now 
 letermined to do. 
 
 In Paris he found attentive listeners to his plans, 
 ,nd even the King's ministers were interested, 
 o that when La Salle sailed back to Quebec in 
 678 he brought a royal decree authorizing him 
 o proceed with his project. With him came a 
 laring spirit who was to be chief lieutenant and 
 aithful companion in the ensuing years, Henri de 
 Tonty. This adventurous soldier was later known 
 mong the Indians as "Tonty of the Iron Hand," 
 or in his youth he had lost a hand in battle, and 
 a its stead now wore an artificial one of iron, 
 i^hich he used from time to time with wholesome 
 flFect. He was a man of great physical strength 
 nd commensurate courage, loyal to his chief 
 nd almost La Salle's equal in perseverance. 
 
 La Salle's party lost no time in proceeding to 
 i'ort Frontenac. Even though the winter was at 
 land, Hennepin was at once sent forward to 
 Niagara with instructions to buUd a post and to 
 legin the construction of a vessel so that the 
 ourney westward might be begun with the open- 
 ag of spring. Later in the winter La Salle and 
 ?onty joined the party at Niagara where the fort 
 [ras completed. Before spring arrived, a vessel 
 
LA SALLE AND THE VOYAGEURS 105 
 
 of about forty-five tons, the largest yet built for 
 service on the lakes, had been constructed. On 
 its prow stood a carved griffin, from the armorial 
 bearings of Frontenac, and out of its portholes 
 frowned several small cannon. With the advent 
 of summer La Salle and his followers went aboard; 
 the sails were spread, and in due course the expe- 
 dition reached Michilimackinac, where the Jesuits 
 had already established their most westerly 
 mission. 
 
 The arrival of the Griffin brought Indians 
 by the hundred to marvel at the "floating fort" 
 and to barter their furs for the trinkets with which 
 La Salle had provided himself. The little vessel 
 then sailed westward into Lake Michigan and 
 finally dropped anchor in Green Bay where an 
 additional load of beaver skins was put on deck. 
 With the approach of autumn the return trip began. 
 La Salle, however, did not accompany his valuable 
 cargo, having a mind to spend the winter in 
 explorations along the Illinois. In September, 
 with many misgivings, he watched the Griffin set 
 sail in charge of a pilot. Then, with the rest of 
 his followers he started southward along the 
 Wisconsin shore. Reaching the mouth of the St. 
 Joseph, he struck into the interior to the upper 
 
106 CRUSADERS OF NEW FRANCE 
 
 Kankakee. This stream the voyageurs, who 
 numbered about forty in all, descended imtil 
 they reached the Illinois, which they followed 
 to the point where Peoria now stands. 
 
 Here La Salle's troubles began in abxmdance. 
 The Indians endeavored to dissuade him from 
 leading the expedition farther, and even the 
 explorer's own followers began to desert. Cha- 
 grinned at these untoward circumstances and on 
 his guard lest the Indians prove openly hostile. 
 La Salle proceeded to secure his position by the 
 erection of a fort to which he gave the name 
 Cr^vecoeur. Here he left Tonty with the major- 
 ity of the party, while he himself started with 
 five men back to Niagara. His object was in 
 part to get supplies for building a vessel at Fort 
 Crevecoeur, and in part to learn what had become 
 of the Griffin, for since that vessel had sailed 
 homeward he had heard no word from her crew. 
 Proceeding across what is now southern Michigan, 
 La Salle emerged on the shores of the Detroit 
 River. From this point he pushed across the 
 neck of land to Lake Erie, where he built a canoe 
 which brought him to Niagara at Eastertide, 
 1680. His fears for the fate of the Griffin were 
 now confirmed: the vessel had been lost, and with 
 
LA SALLE AND THE VOYAGEURS 107 
 
 her a fortune in furs. Nothing daunted, however, 
 La Salle hurried on to Fort Frontenac and thence 
 with such speed to Montreal that he accomplished 
 the trip from the IlUnois to the Ottawa in less 
 than three months — a feat hitherto unsurpassed 
 in the annals of American exploration. 
 
 At Montreal the explorer, who once more sought 
 the favor of Frontenac, was provided with equip- 
 ment at the King's expense. Within a few months 
 he was again at Fort Frontenac and ready to rejoin 
 Tonty at Crevecceur. Just as he was about to 
 depart, however, word came that the Crevecoeur 
 garrison had mutinied and had destroyed the post. 
 La Salle's one hope now was that his faithful lieu- 
 tenant had held on doggedly and had saved the 
 vessel he had been building. But Tonty in the 
 meantime had made his way with a few followers 
 to Green Bay, so that when La Salle reached the 
 Illinois he foimd everyone gone. Undismayed 
 by this climax to his misfortunes. La Salle never- 
 theless pushed on down the Illinois, and early 
 in December reached its confluence with the 
 Mississippi. 
 
 To follow the course of this great stream with 
 the small party which accompanied him seemed, 
 however, too hazardous an undertaking. La 
 
108 CRUSADERS OF NEW FRANCE 
 
 Salle, therefore, retraced his steps once more 
 and spent the next winter at Fort Miami on the 
 St. Joseph to the southeast of Lake Michigan. 
 In the spring word came to him that Tonty was at 
 Michilimackinac, and thither he hastened, to hear 
 from Tonty 's own lips the long tale of disaster. 
 "Any one else," wrote an eye-witness of the meet- 
 ing, "would have thrown up his hands and aban- 
 doned the enterprise; but far from this, with a 
 firmness and constancy that never had its equal, 
 I saw him more resolved than ever to continue his 
 work and push forward his discovery." 
 
 Now that he had caught his first glimpse of the 
 Mississippi, La Salle was determined to persist 
 untU he had followed its course to the outlet. 
 Returning with Tonty to Fort Frontenac, he 
 replenished his supplies. In this same autumn of 
 1681, with a larger number of followers, the explorer 
 was again on his way to the Illinois. By February 
 the party had reached the Mississippi. Passing 
 the Missouri and the Ohio, La Salle and his follow- 
 ers kept steadily on their way and early in April 
 reached the spot where the Father of Waters 
 debouches through three channels into the Gulf. 
 Here at the outlet they set up a column with the 
 insignia of France, and, as they took possession 
 
LA SALLE AND THE VOYAGEURS 109 
 of the land in the name of their King, they chanted 
 in solemn tones the Exaudiat, and in the name of 
 God they set up their banners. 
 
 But the French were short of supplies and could 
 not stay long after the symbols of sovereignty 
 had been raised aloft. Paddling slowly against 
 the current. La Salle and his party reached the 
 Illinois only in August. Here La Salle and 
 Tonty built their Fort St. Louis and here they 
 spent the winter. During the next summer 
 (1683) the indefatigable explorer journeyed down 
 to Quebec, and on the last ship of the year took 
 passage for France. In the meantime, Frontenac, 
 always his firm friend and supporter, had been 
 recalled, and La Barre, the new governor, was 
 unfriendly. A direct appeal to the home authori- 
 ties for backing seemed the only way of securing 
 funds for further explorations. 
 
 Accordingly, early in 1684 La Salle appeared at 
 the French court with elaborate plans for founding 
 a colony in the valley of the lower Mississippi. 
 This time the expedition was to proceed by sea. 
 To this project the King gave his assent, and 
 commanded the royal ofl5cers to furnish the sup- 
 plies. By midsummer four ships were ready 
 to set sail for the Gulf. Once more, however. 
 
no CRUSADERS OF NEW FRANCE 
 
 troubles beset La Salle on every hand. Disease 
 broke out on the vessels; the officers quarreled 
 among themselves; the expedition was attacked 
 by the Spaniards, and one ship was lost. Not 
 until the end of December was a landing made, 
 and then not at the Mississippi's mouth but at a 
 spot far to the west of it, on the sands of Mata- 
 gorda Bay. 
 
 Finding that he had missed his reckonings, 
 La Salle directed a part of his company to follow 
 the shore. After many days of fruitless search 
 they established a permanent camp and sent the 
 largest vessel back to France. Their repeated 
 efforts to reach the Mississippi overland were in 
 vain. Finally, in the winter of 1687, La Salle with 
 a score of his strongest followers struck out north- 
 ward, determined to make their way to the Lakes, 
 where they might find succor. To follow the 
 detail of their dreary march would be tedious. 
 The hardships of the journey, without adequate 
 equipment or provisions, and the incessant danger 
 of attack by the Indians increased petty jealousies 
 into open mutiny. On the 19th of March, 1687, 
 the courageous and indefatigable La Salle was 
 treacherously assassinated by one of his own party. 
 Here in the fastnesses of the Southwest died at 
 
LA SALLE AND THE VOYAGEURS 111 
 
 the age of forty-four the intrepid explorer of New 
 France, whom Tonty called — ^perhaps not untruth- 
 fully — " one of the greatest men of this age. " 
 
 "Thus," writes a later historian with all the 
 perspective of the intervening years, "was cut 
 short the career of a man whose personality is 
 impressed in some respects more strongly than that 
 of any other upon the history of New France. His 
 schemes were too far-reaching to succeed. They 
 required the strength and resources of a half- 
 dozen nations like the France of Louis XIV. 
 Nevertheless the lines upon which New France 
 continued to develop were substantially those 
 which La Salle had in mind, and the fabric of a 
 wilderness empire, of which he laid the foundations, 
 grew with the general growth of colonization, 
 and in the next century became truly formidable. 
 It was not until Wolfe climbed the Heights of 
 Abraham that the great ideal of La Salle was 
 finally overthrown. " 
 
 It would be difficult, indeed, to find among the 
 whole array of explorers which history can offer 
 in all ages a perseverance more dogged in the face 
 of abounding difficulties. Phcenix-like, he rose 
 time after time from the ashes of adversity. 
 Neither fatigue nor famine, disappointment nor 
 
112 CRUSADERS OF NEW FRANCE 
 
 even disaster, availed to swerve him from his 
 purpose. To him, more than to any one else of 
 his time, the French could justly attribute their 
 early hold upon the great regions of the West. 
 Other explorers and voyageurs of his generation 
 there were in plenty, and their service was not 
 inconsiderable. But in courage and persistence, 
 as well as in the scope of his achievements. La 
 Salle, the pathfinder of Rouen, towered above them 
 all. He had, what so many of the others lacked, 
 a clear vision of what the great plains and valleys 
 of the Middle West could yield towards the enrich- 
 ment of a nation in years to come. "America, " as 
 Parkman has aptly said, "owes him an enduring 
 memory; for in this masculine figure she sees 
 the pioneer who guided her to the possession of 
 her richest heritage. " 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE CHUBCH IN NEW FRANCE 
 
 Nearly all that was distinctive in the life of old 
 Canada links itself in one way or another with 
 the Catholic religion. From first to last in the 
 history of New France the most pervading trait 
 was the loyalty of its people to the church of their 
 fathers. Intendants might come and go; gover- 
 nors abode their destined hour and went their way; 
 but the apostles of the ancient faith never for one 
 moment released their grip upon the hearts and 
 minds of the Canadians. During two centuries 
 the political life of the colony ran its varied 
 rounds; the habits of the people were transformed 
 with the coming of material prosperity; but the 
 Church went on imchanged, unchanging. One 
 may praise the steadfastness with which the 
 Church fought for what its bishops believed to be 
 right, or one may, on the other hand, decry the 
 arrogance of its pretensions to civil power and its 
 
 8 113 
 
114 CRUSADERS OF NEW FRANCE 
 
 hampering conservatism; but as the great central 
 fact in the history of New France, the hegemony 
 of Catholicism cannot be ignored. 
 
 When Frenchmen began the work of founding 
 a dominion in the New World, their own land 
 was convulsed with religious troubles. Not only 
 were the Huguenots breaking from the trammels 
 of the old religion, but within the Catholic Church 
 itself in France there were two great contending 
 factions. One group strove for the preservation 
 of the Galilean liberties, the special rights of the 
 French King and the French bishops in the ecclesi- 
 astical government of the land, while the other 
 claimed for the Pope a supremacy over all earthly 
 rulers in matters of spiritual concern. It was not 
 a difference on points of doctrine, for the Gallicans 
 did not question the headship of the Papacy in 
 things of the spirit. What they insisted upon 
 was the circumscribed nature of the papal power 
 in temporal matters within the realm of France, 
 particularly with regard to the right of appoint- 
 ment to ecclesiastical positions with endowed 
 revenues. Bishops, priests, and religious orders 
 ranged themselves on one side or the other, for 
 it was a conflict in which there could be no neu- 
 trality. As the royal authorities were heart and 
 
THE CHURCH IN NEW FRANCE 115 
 
 soul with the Gallicans, it was natural enough 
 that priests of this group should gain the first 
 religious foothold in the colony. The earliest 
 priests brought to the colony were members of 
 the R6collet Order. They came with Champlain 
 in 1615, and made their headquarters in Quebec 
 at the suggestion of the King's secretary. For 
 ten years they labored in the colony, striving 
 bravely to clear the way for a great missionary 
 crusade. 
 
 But the day of the Recollets in New France was 
 not long. In 1625 came the advance guard of 
 another religious order, the militant Jesuits, 
 bringing with them their traditions of unwavering 
 loyalty to the Ultramontane cause. The work 
 of the Recollets had, on the whole, been dis- 
 appointing, for their numbers and their resources 
 proved too small for effective progress. During 
 ten years of devoted labor they had scarcely been 
 able to make any impression upon the great 
 wilderness of heathenism that lay on all sides. 
 In view of the apparent futility of their efforts, 
 the coming of the Jesuits — suggested, it may be, 
 by Champlain — was probably not unwelcome to 
 them. Richelieu, moreover, had now brought 
 his Ultramontane sympathies close to the seat of 
 
[16 CRUSADERS OF NEW FRANCE 
 
 •oyal power, so that the King no longer was in a 
 josition to oppose the project. At any rate the 
 Fesuits sailed for Canada, and their arrival forms 
 I notable landmark in the history of the colony. 
 Their dogged zeal and iron persistence carried 
 ;hem to points which missionaries of no other 
 •eligious order would have reached. For the 
 Fesuits were, above all things else, the harbingers 
 )f a militant faith. Their organization and their 
 nethods admirably fitted them to be the pioneers 
 )f the Cross in new lands. They were men of 
 iction, seeking to win their crown of glory and 
 :heir reward through intense physical and spiritual 
 ;xertions, not through long seasons of prayer 
 md meditation in cloistered seclusion. Loyola, 
 ;he founder of the Order, gave to the world the 
 mcleus of a crusading host, disciplined as no army 
 !ver was. If the Jesuits could not achieve the 
 ipiritual conquest of the New World, it was 
 ;ertain that no others could. And this conquest 
 ;hey did achieve. The whole course of Catholic 
 nissionary effort throughout the Western Hemi- 
 ;phere was shaped by members of the Jesuit 
 3rder. 
 
 Only four of these priests came to Quebec in 
 1625. Although it was intended that others should 
 
THE CHURCH IN NEW FRANCE 117 
 
 follow at once, their number was not substantially 
 increased until seven years later, when the troubles 
 with England were brought to an end and the 
 colony was once more securely in the hands of the 
 French. Then the Jesuits came steadily, a few 
 arriving with almost every ship, and either singly 
 or together they were sent oflf to the Indian settle- 
 ments — to the Hurons around the Georgian Bay, 
 to the Algonquins north of the Ottawa, and to the 
 Iroquois south of the Lakes. The physical vigor, 
 the moral heroism, and the unquenchable religious 
 zeal of these missionaries were qualities exemplified 
 in a measure and to a degree which are beyond 
 the power of any pen to describe. Historians of 
 all creeds have tendered homage to their self- 
 sacrifice and zeal, and never has work of human 
 hand or spirit been more worthy of tribute. The 
 Jesuit went, often alone, where no others dared 
 to go, and he faced unknown dangers which had 
 all the possibihties of torture and martyrdom. 
 Nor did this energy waste itself in flashes of 
 isolated triumph. The Jesuit was a member of 
 an efficient organization, skillfully guided by in- 
 spired leaders and carrying its extensive work of 
 Christianization with machine-like thoroughness 
 through the vastness of five continents. We are 
 
118 CRUSADERS OF NEW FRANCE 
 
 too apt to think only of the individual mission- 
 ary's glowing spirit and rugged faith, his pictur- 
 esque strivings against great odds, and to regard 
 him as a guerilla warrior against the hosts of 
 darkness. Had he been this, and nothing more, 
 his efforts must have been altogether in vain. The 
 great services which the Jesuit missionary rendered 
 in the New World, both to his country and to his 
 creed, were due not less to the matchless organi- 
 zation of the Order to which he belonged than to 
 qualities of courage, patience, and fortitude which 
 he himself showed as a missionary. 
 
 During the first few years of Jesuit effort 
 among the Indians of New France the results 
 were pitifully small. The Hurons, among whom 
 the missionaries put forth their initial labors, 
 were poor stock, even as red men went. The 
 minds of these half-nomadic and dull-witted sav- 
 ages were filled with gross superstitions, and their 
 senses had been brutalized by the incessant tor- 
 ments of their Iroquois enemies. Anaid the toils 
 and hazards and discomforts of so insecure and 
 wandering a life the Jesuits found little oppor- 
 tunity for soundly instructing the Hurons in the 
 faith. Hence there were but few neophytes in 
 these early years. By 1640 the missionaries could 
 
THE CHURCH IN NEW FRANCE 119 
 
 count only a hundred converts in a population of 
 many thousands, and even this Uttle quota 
 included many infants who had died soon after 
 receiving the rites of baptism. More mission- 
 aries kept coming, however; the work steadily 
 broadened; and the posts of service were multi- 
 plied. In due time the footprints of the Jesuits 
 were everywhere, from the St. Lawrence to the 
 Mississippi, from the tributaries of the Hudson 
 to the regions north of the Ottawa. Le Jeune, 
 Miiss^, Brebeuf, Lalemant, Ragueneau, Le 
 Dablon, Jogues, Gamier, Raymbault, Peron, 
 Moyne, AUouez, Druilletes, Chaumonot, Menard, 
 Bressani, Daniel, Chabanel, and a hundred others, 
 — they soon formed that legion whose works of cour- 
 age and devotion stand forth so prominently in the 
 early annals of New France. 
 
 Once at their stations in the upper country, the 
 missionaries regularly sent down to the Superior 
 of the Order at Quebec their full reports of 
 progress, difficulties, and hopes, all mingled with 
 interesting descriptions of Indian customs, folk- 
 lore, and life. It is no wonder that these narra- 
 tives, "jotted down hastily," as Le Jeune tells us, 
 "now in one place, now in another, sometimes on 
 water, sometimes on land," were often crude, or 
 
120 CRUSADERS OF NEW FRANCE 
 
 that they required careful editing before being 
 sent home to France for publication. In their 
 printed form, however, these Relations des Jesuites 
 gained a wide circle of European readers; they 
 inspired more missionaries to come, and they 
 drew from well-to-do laymen large donations 
 of money for carrying on the crusade. 
 
 The royal authorities also gave their earnest 
 support, for they saw in the Jesuit missionary not 
 merely a torchbearer of his faith or a servant of the 
 Church. They appreciated his loyalty and remem- 
 bered that he never forgot his King, nor shirked 
 his duty to the cause of France among the tribes. 
 Every mission post thus became an embassy, 
 and every Jesuit an ambassador of his race, striv- 
 ing to strengthen the bonds of friendship between 
 the people to whom he went and the people from 
 whom he came. The French authorities at Que- 
 bec were not slow to recognize what an ever- 
 present help the Jesuit could be in times of Indian 
 trouble. One governor expressed the situation 
 with fidelity when he wrote to the home authori- 
 ties that, "although the interests of the Gospel do 
 not require us to keep missionaries in all the Indian 
 villages, the interests of the civil government for 
 the advantage of trade must induce us to manage 
 
THE CHURCH IN NEW FRANCE 121 
 
 things so that we may always have at least one of 
 thena there. " It must therefore be admitted that, 
 when the civil authorities did encourage the 
 missions, they did not always do so with a purely 
 spiritual motive in mind. 
 
 As the political and commercial agent of his 
 people, the Jesuit had great opportunities, and 
 in this capacity he usually gave a full measure of 
 service. After he had gained the confidence of the 
 tribes, the missionary always succeeded in getting 
 the first inkling of what was going on in the way 
 of inter-tribal intrigues. He learned to fathom 
 the Indian mind and to perceive the redskin's 
 motives. He was thus able to communicate to 
 Quebec the information and advice which so often 
 helped the French to outwit their English rivals. 
 As interpreters in the conduct of negotiations and 
 the making of treaties the Jesuits were also in- 
 valuable. How much, indeed, these blackrobes 
 achieved for the purely secular interests of the 
 French colony, for its safety from sudden Indian 
 attack, for the development of its trade, and for 
 its general upbuilding, will never be known. The 
 missionary did not put these things on paper, 
 but he rendered services which in all probability 
 were far greater than posterity will ever realize. 
 
122 CRUSADERS OF NEW FRANCE 
 
 It was not, however, with the conversion of the 
 Indians or with the service of French seculat 
 interests among the savages that the work of the 
 Jesuits was wholly, or even chiefly, concerned. 
 During the middle years of the seventeenth cen- 
 tury, these services at the outposts of French 
 territory may have been most significant, for the 
 French population along the shores of the St. 
 Lawrence remained small, the settlements were 
 closely huddled together, and a few priests could 
 serve their spiritual needs. The popular impres- 
 sion of Jesuit enterprises in the New World is 
 connected almost wholly with work among the 
 Indians. This pioneer phase of the Jesuit's work 
 was picturesque, and historians have had a great 
 deal to say about it. It was likewise of this service 
 in the depths of the interior that the missionary 
 himself wrote most frequently. But as the colony 
 grew and broadened its boimds until its settle- 
 ments stretched all the way from the Saguenay to 
 Montreal and beyond, a far larger number of 
 cur^s was needed. Before the old regime came to 
 a close there were far more Frenchmen than 
 Indians within the French sphere of influence 
 in America, and they required by far the greater 
 share of Jesuit ministration, and, long before the 
 
THE CHURCH IN NEW FRANCE 123 
 
 old dominion ended, the Indian missions had to 
 take a subordinate place in the general program 
 of Jesuit undertakings. The outposts in the In- 
 dian country were the chief scene of Jesuit labors 
 from 1615 to about 1700, when the emphasis 
 shifted to the St. Lawrence valley. Some of the 
 mission fields held their own to the end, but in 
 general they failed to make much headway during 
 the last half-century of French rule. The Church 
 in the settled portions of the colony, however, 
 kept on with its steady progress in achievement 
 and power. 
 
 New France was the child of missionary fervor. 
 Even from the outset, in the scattered settlements 
 along the St. Lawrence, the interests of religion 
 were placed on a strictly missionary basis. There 
 were so-called parishes in the colony almost 
 from its beginning, but not until 1722 was the 
 entire colony set off into recognized ecclesiastical 
 parishes, each with a fixed cur6 in charge. 
 Through all the preceding years each village or 
 cote had been served by a missionary, by a mov- 
 able cur&, or by a priest sent out from the Semi- 
 nary at Quebec. No priest was tied to any parish 
 but was absolutely at the immediate beck and call 
 of the bishop. Some reason for this unsettled 
 
124 CRUSADERS OF NEW FRANCE 
 
 arrangement might be found in the conditions 
 imder which the colony developed in its early 
 years, with its sparse population ranging far and 
 wide, with its lack of chiu-ches and of presbyteres 
 in which the priest might reside. But the real 
 explanation of its long continuance lies in the 
 fact that, if regular curSs were appointed, the 
 seigneurs would lay claim to various rights of 
 nonaination or patronage, whereas the bishop could 
 control absolutely the selection of missionary 
 priests and could thus more easily carry through 
 his policy of ecclesiastical centralization. 
 
 Not only in this particular, but in every other 
 phase of religious life and organization during 
 these crusading days in Canada, one must reckon 
 not only with the logic of the situation, but also 
 with the dominating personality of the first and 
 greatest Ultramontane, Bishop Laval. Though 
 not himself a Jesuit, for no member of the Order 
 could be a bishop, Laval was in tune with their 
 ideals and saw eye to eye with the Jesuits on every 
 point of religious and civil policy. 
 
 Frangois-Xavier de Laval, Abbe de Montigny, 
 was born in 1622, a scion of the great house of 
 Montmorency. He was therefore of high nobility, 
 the best-born of all the many thousands who came 
 
THE CHURCH IN NEW FRANCE 125 
 
 o New France throughout its history. As a youth 
 le had come into close association with the 
 esuits, and had spent four years in the famous 
 lermitage at Caen, that Jesuit stronghold which 
 erved so long as the nursery for the spiritual 
 •ioneers of early Canada. When he came to 
 iuebec as Vicar-Apostolic in 1659, he was only 
 hirty-seven years of age. His position in the 
 lolony at the time of his arrival was somewhat 
 inusual, for although he was to be in command 
 if the colony's spiritual forces. New France was 
 lot yet organized as a diocese and could not 
 )e so organized until the Pope and the King 
 hould agree upon the exact status of the Church 
 Q the French colonial dominions. Laval was 
 levertheless given his titular rank from the ancient 
 ee of Petrsea in Arabia which had long since been 
 n pariibus infidelium and hence had no bishop 
 dthin its bounds. From his first arrival in 
 I!anada he was Bishop Laval, but without a 
 liocese over which he could actually hold sway. 
 lis commission as Vicar-Apostolic gave him 
 )Ower enough, however, and his responsibility 
 ras to the Pope alone. 
 
 For the tasks which he was sent to perform, 
 ^a^ral had eminent qualifications. A haughty 
 
126 CRUSADERS OF NEW FRANCE 
 
 spirit went with the iiltra-blue blood ia his veins; 
 he had a temperament that loved to lead and to 
 govern, and that could not endure to yield or 
 to lag behind. His intellectual talents were high 
 beyond question, and to them he added the bless- 
 ing of a rugged physical frame. No one ever 
 came to a new land with more definite ideas of 
 what he wanted to do or with a more unswerving 
 determination to do it in his own way. 
 
 It was not long before the stamp of Laval's firm 
 hand was laid upon the life of the colony. In 
 due course, too, he found himself at odds with 
 the governor. The dissensions smouldered at 
 first, and then broke out into a blaze that warmed 
 the passions of all elements in the colony. The 
 exact origin of the feud is somewhat obscure, 
 and it is not necessary to put down here the details 
 of its development to the war a outrance which 
 soon engaged the civil and ecclesiastical authorities 
 in the colony. In the background was the ques- 
 tion of the coureurs-de-bois and the liquor traflBc 
 which now became a definite issue and which 
 remained the storm centre of colonial politics 
 for many generations. The merchants insisted 
 that if this traffic were extinguished it would 
 involve the ruin of the French hold upon the 
 
THE CHURCH IN NEW FRANCE 127 
 
 [ndian trade. The bishop and the priests, on the 
 )ther hand, were ready to fight the Hquor traffic 
 ;o the end and to exorcise it as the greatest blight 
 ipon the New World. Quebec soon became a 
 lockpit where the battle of these two factions 
 ■aged. Each had its ups and downs, until in the 
 ;nd the traffic remained, but under a makeshift 
 lystem of regulation. 
 
 To portray Laval and his associates as always in 
 jitter conflict with the civil power, nevertheless, 
 vould be to paint a false picture. Church and 
 itate were not normally at variance in their views 
 md aims. They clashed fiercely on many occa- 
 lions, it is true, but after their duels they shook 
 lands and went to work with a will at the task 
 )f making the colony stand upon its own feet, 
 historians have magnified these bickerings out of 
 ill proportion. Squabbles over matters of pre- 
 ;edence at ceremonies, over the rate of the tithes, 
 md over the curbing of the coureurs-de-bois did 
 lot take the major share of the Church's attention. 
 ?or the greater part of two whole centuries it 
 oyally aided the civil power in aU things wherein 
 he two could work together for good. 
 
 And these ways of assistance were many. For 
 ixample the Church, through its various institu- 
 
128 CRUSADERS OF NEW FRANCE 
 
 tions and orders, rendered a great service to 
 colonial agriculture. As the greatest landowner 
 in New France, it set before the seigneurs and the 
 habitants an example of what intelligent methods 
 of farming and hard labor could accomplish in 
 making the land yield its increase. The King 
 was lavish in his grants of territory to the Church: 
 the Jesuits received nearly a million arpents 
 as their share of the royal bounty; the bishop 
 and the Quebec Seminary, the Sulpicians, and 
 the Ursuliaes, about as much more. Of the entire 
 granted acreage of New France the Church 
 controlled about one-quarter, so that its position 
 as a great landowner was even stronger in the 
 colony than at home. Nor did it fold its talents 
 in a napkin. Colonists were brought from France, 
 farms were prepared for them in the church seign- 
 euries, and the new settlers were guided and 
 encouraged through the troublous years of pioneer- 
 ing. With both money and brains at its command, 
 the Church was able to keep its own lands in the 
 front line of agricultural progress. 
 
 When in 1722 the whole colony was marked off 
 into definite ecclesiastical divisions, seventy-two 
 parishes were established, and nearly one hundred 
 curSs were assigned to them. As time went on, 
 
THE CHURCH IN NEW FRANCE 129 
 
 both parishes and cur6s increased in number, so 
 that every locality had its spiritual leader who was 
 also a philosopher and guide in all secular matters. 
 The priest thus became a part of the commu- 
 nity and never lost touch with his people. The 
 habitant of New France for his part never neg- 
 lected his Church on week-days. The priest 
 and the Church were with him at work and at 
 play, the spirit and the life of every community. 
 Though paid a meager stipend, the cur6 worked 
 hard and always proved a laborer far more than 
 worthy of his hire. The clergy of New France 
 never became a caste, a privileged order; they 
 did not live on the fruits of other men's labor, but 
 gave to the colony far more than the colony 
 ever gave to them. 
 
 As for the Church revenues, these came from 
 several sources. The royal treasury contributed 
 large sums, but, as it was not full to overflowing, 
 the King preferred to give his benefactions in 
 generous grants of land. Yet the royal subsidies 
 amounted to many thousand livres each year. The 
 diocese of Quebec was endowed with the revenues 
 of three French abbeys. Wealthy laymen in 
 France followed the royal example and sent 
 contributions from time to time, frequently of 
 
130 CRUSADERS OF NEW FRANCE 
 
 large amount. While the Company of One 
 Hundred Associates controlled the trade of the 
 colony, it made from its treasury some provisions 
 for the support of the missionaries. After 1663, 
 a substantial source of ecclesiastical income was 
 the tithe, an ecclesiastical tax levied annually 
 upon all produce of the land, and fixed in 1663 
 at one-thirteenth. Four years later it was reduced 
 to one-twenty-sixth, and Bishop Laval's strenuous 
 efforts to have the old rate restored were never 
 successful. 
 
 In education, yet another field of colonial life, 
 the Church rendered some service. Here the civil 
 authorities did nothing at all, and had it not been 
 for the Church the whole colony would have grown 
 up in absolute illiteracy. A school for boys was 
 eistabhshed at Quebec in Champlain's day, and 
 during the next hundred and fifty years it was 
 followed by about thirty others. More than a 
 dozen elementary schools for girls were also 
 established under ecclesiastical auspices. Yet 
 the amount of secular education imparted by all 
 these seminaries was astoundingly small, and they 
 did but little to leaven the general illiteracy of 
 the population. Only the children of the towns 
 attended the schools, and the program of study 
 
THE CHURCH IN NEW FRANCE 131 
 
 was of the most elementary character. Religious 
 instruction was given the first place and received 
 so much attention that there was little time in 
 school hours for anything else. The girls fared 
 better than the boys on the whole, for the nuns 
 taught them to sew and to knit as well as to read 
 and to write. 
 
 So far as secular education was concerned, 
 therefore, the English conquest found the colony 
 in almost utter stagnation. Not one in five 
 hundred among the habitants, it was said, could 
 read or write. Outside the immediate circle of 
 clergy, officials, and notaries, ignorance of even 
 the rudiments of education was almost universal. 
 There were no newspapers in the colony and very 
 few books save those used in the services of worship. 
 Greysolon Du Lhut, the king of the voyageurs, 
 for example, was a man of means and education, 
 but his entire library, as disclosed by his will, 
 consisted of a world atlas and a set of Josephus. 
 The priests did not encourage the reading of 
 secular books, and La Hontan recounts the troubles 
 which he had in keeping one militant curS from 
 tearing his precious volumes to pieces. New 
 France was at that period not a land where free- 
 dom dwelt with knowledge. 
 
132 CRUSADERS OF NEW FRANCE 
 
 Intellectually, the people of New France com- 
 prised on the one hand a small elite and on the 
 other a great unlettered mass. There was no 
 middle class between. Yet the population of the 
 colony always contained, especially among its 
 oflBcials and clergy, a sprinkling of educated and 
 scholariy men. These have given us a literature 
 of travel and description which is extensive and 
 of high quality. No other American colony of 
 the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries put so 
 much of its annals into print; the Relations of the 
 Jesuits aJone were suflBcient to fill forty-one vol- 
 umes, and they form but a small part of the entire 
 literary output. 
 
CHAPTER Vin 
 
 SEIGNEURS OF OLD CANADA 
 
 From the beginning of the colony there ran in the 
 minds of French officialdom the idea that the social 
 order should rest upon a seigneurial basis. His- 
 torians have commonly attributed to Richelieu 
 the genesis of New World feudalism, but without 
 good reason, for its beginnings antedated the time 
 of the great minister. The charter issued to the 
 ill-starred La Roche in 1598 empowered him "to 
 grant lands to gentlemen in the forms of fiefs and 
 seigneuries, " and the different viceroys who 
 had titular charge of the colony before the Com- 
 pany of One Hundred Associates took charge in 
 1627 had similar powers. Several seigneurial 
 grants in the region of Quebec had, in fact, been 
 made before Richelieu first turned his attention 
 to the colony. 
 
 Nor was the adoption of this policy at all 
 unnatural. Despite its increasing obsolescence, 
 
 133 
 
134 CRUSADERS OF NEW FRANCE 
 
 the seigneurial system was still strong in France 
 and dominated the greater part of the kingdom. 
 The nobility and even the throne rested upon it. 
 The Church, as suzerain of enormous landed 
 estates, sanctioned and supported it. The masses 
 of the French people were familiar with no other 
 system of landholding. No prolonged quest need 
 accordingly be made to explain why France 
 transplanted feudalism to the shores of the great 
 Canadian waterway; in fact, an explanation 
 would have been demanded had any other policy 
 been considered. No one asks why the Puritans 
 took to Massachusetts Bay the English system 
 of freehold tenure. They took the common law 
 of England and the tenure that went with it. 
 Along with the fleur-de-lis, likewise, went the 
 Custom of Paris and the whole network of social 
 relations based upon a hierarchy of seigneurs and 
 dependents. 
 
 The seigneurial system of land tenure, as all 
 students of history know, was feudalism in a 
 somewhat modernized form. During the chaos 
 which came upon Western Europe in the centuries 
 following the collapse of Roman imperial suprem- 
 acy, every local magnate found himself forced 
 to depend for existence upon the strength of his 
 
SEIGNEURS OF OLD CANADA 135 
 
 own castle, under whose walls he gathered as many 
 vassals as he could induce to come. To these he 
 gave the surrounding lands free from all rents, but 
 on condition of aid in time of war. The lord gave 
 the land and promised to protect his vassals, who, 
 on their part, took the land and promised to pay 
 for it not in money or in kind, but in loyalty and 
 service. Thus there was created a close personal 
 relation, a bond of mutual wardship and fidelity 
 which bound liegeman and lord with hoops of 
 steel. The whole social order rested upon this 
 bond and upon the gradations in privilege which it 
 involved in a sequence which became stereotyped. 
 In its day feudalism was a great institution and 
 one which shared with the Christian Church 
 the glory of having made mediaeval life at all 
 worth living. It helped to keep civilization from 
 perishing utterly in a whirl of anarchy, and it 
 enabled Europe to recover inch by inch its former 
 state of order, stability, and law. 
 
 But, having done its service to humanity, feudal- 
 ism did not quietly make way for some other 
 system more suited to the new conditions. It 
 bung on grimly long after the forces which had 
 brought it into being ceased to exist, long after the 
 growth of a strong monarchy in France with a 
 
136 CRUSADERS OF NEW FRANCE 
 
 powerful standing army had removed the necessity 
 of mutual guardianship and service. To meet the 
 new conditions the system merely changed its 
 incidents, never its general form. The ancient 
 obligation of military service, no longer needed, 
 gave place to dues and payments. The old 
 personal bond relaxed; the feudal lord became 
 the seigneur, a mere landlord. The vassal became 
 the censitaire, a mere tenant, paying heavy dues 
 each year in return for protection which he no 
 longer received nor required. In a word, before 
 1600 the feudal system had become the seigneurial 
 system, and it was the latter which was established 
 in the French colony of Canada. 
 
 In the new land there was reason to hope, how- 
 ever, that this system of social relations based 
 upon landholding would soon work its way back 
 to the vigor which it had displayed in mediaeval 
 days. Here in the midst of an unf athomed wilder- 
 ness was a small European settlement with hostile 
 tribes on every hand. The royal arm, so strong 
 in affording protection at home, could not strike 
 hard and promptly in behalf of subjects a thou- 
 sand leagues away. New France, accordingly 
 must organize itself for defense and repel her 
 enemies just as the earldoms and duchies of the 
 
SEIGNEURS OF OLD CANADA 137 
 
 crusading centuries had done. And that is just 
 what the colony did, with the seigneurial system 
 as the groundwork of defensive strength. Under 
 stress of the new environment, which was not 
 wholly imlike that of the former feudal days, the 
 military aspects of the system revived and the 
 personal bond regained much of its ancient vigor. 
 The sordid phases of seigneurialism dropped into 
 the backgroxmd. It was this restored vitality 
 that helped, more than all else, to turn New 
 France into a huge armed camp which hordes of 
 invaders, both white and red, strove vainly to 
 pierce time after time during more than a full 
 century. 
 
 The first grant of a seigneury in the territory of 
 New France was made in 1623 to Louis Hebert, 
 a Paris apothecary who had come to Quebec 
 with Champlain some years before this date. 
 His land consisted of a tract upon the height 
 above the settlement, and here he had cleared the 
 fields and built a home for himself. By this 
 indenture feudalism cast its first anchor in New 
 France, and Hebert became the colony's first 
 patron of husbandry. Other grants soon followed, 
 particularly during the years when the Company of 
 One Hundred Associates was in control of the 
 
138 CRUSADERS OF NEW FRANCE 
 
 land, for, by the terms of its charter, this organi- 
 zation was empowered to grant large tracts as 
 seigneuries and also to issue patents of nobility. 
 It was doubtless assumed by the King that such 
 grants would be made only to persons who would 
 actually emigrate to New France and who would 
 thus help in the upbuilding of the colony, but the 
 Company did not live up to this policy. Instead, 
 it made lavish donations, some of them containing 
 a hundred square miles or more, to directors and 
 friends of the Company in France who neither came 
 to the colony themselves nor sent representatives to 
 undertake the clearing of these large estates. One 
 director took the entire Island of Orleans; others 
 secured generous slices of the best lands on both 
 shores of the St. Lawrence; but not one of them 
 lifted a finger in the way of redeeming these huge 
 concessions from a state of wilderness primeval. 
 The tracts were merely held in the hope that some 
 day they would become valuable. Out of sixty 
 seigneuries which were granted by the Company 
 during the years from 1632 to 1663 not more than a 
 half-dozen grants were made to bona fide colonists. 
 At the latter date the total area of cleared land 
 was scarcely four thousand arpents.^ 
 
 ■ An arpent was about five-sixths of an acre. 
 
SEIGNEURS OF OLD CANADA 139 
 
 With the royal action of 1663 which took the 
 olony from the Company and reconstructed its 
 [overnment, the seigneurial system was galvanized 
 it once with new energy. The uncleared tracts 
 phich the officials of the Company had carved out 
 Lmong themselves were declared to be forfeited 
 ,o the Crown and actual occupancy was held to be, 
 or the future, the essential of every seigneurial 
 ;rant. A vigorous effort was made to obtain 
 lettlers, and with considerable success, for in the 
 ^ears 1665-1667 the population of the colony 
 nore than doubled. Nothing was left undone 
 jy the royal authorities in securing and transport- 
 ng emigrants. Officials from Paris scoured the 
 srovinces, offering free passage to Quebec and 
 'ree grants of land upon arrival. The cam- 
 paign was successful, and many shiploads of 
 jxcellent colonists, most of them hardy peasants 
 from Normandy, Brittany, Perche, and Picardy, 
 were sent during these banner years. 
 
 On their arrival at Quebec the incoming settlers 
 were taken in hand by officials and were turned 
 3ver to the various seigneurs who were ready to 
 provide them with lands and to help them in 
 getting well started. If the newcomer happened 
 to be a man of some account at home, and particu- 
 
140 CRUSADERS OF NEW FRANCE 
 
 larly if he brought some money with him, he had 
 the opportunity to become a seigneur himself. 
 He merely applied to the intendant, who was 
 quite willing to endow with a seigneury any one 
 who appeared likely to get it cleared and ready for 
 future settlers. In this matter the oflBcials, follow- 
 ing out the spirit of the royal orders, were prone 
 to err on the side of liberality. Too often they 
 gave large seigneurial grants to men who had 
 neither the energy nor the funds to do what was 
 expected of a seigneur in the new land. 
 
 As for extent, the seigneuries varied greatly. 
 Some were as large as a European dukedom; others 
 contained only a few thousand arpents. There 
 was no fixed rule; within reasonable limits each 
 applicant obtained what he asked for, but it 
 was generally understood that men who had been 
 members of the French noblesse before coming 
 to the colony were entitled to larger areas than 
 those who were not. In any case little attention 
 was paid to exact boundaries, and no surveys 
 were made. In making his request for a seigneury 
 each applicant set forth what he wanted, and this 
 he frequently did in such broad terms as, "all lands 
 between such-and-such a river and the seigneury 
 of the Sieur de So-and-So." These descriptions. 
 
SEIGNEURS OF OLD CANADA 141 
 
 irely adequate or accurate, were copied into the 
 itent, causing often hopeless confusion of bound- 
 •ies and unneighborly squabbles. It was fortu- 
 ite that most seigneurs had more land than they 
 )uld use; otherwise there would have been as 
 any lawsuits as seigneuries. 
 The obligations imposed upon the seigneurs 
 ere not burdensome. No initial payment was 
 iked, and there were no annual rentals to be 
 lid to the Crown. Each seigneur had to render 
 le ceremony of fealty and homage to the royal 
 presentative at Quebec. Each was liable for 
 ilitary service, although that obligation was not 
 ritten into the grant. When a seigneury changed 
 vneTS otherwise than by inheritance in direct 
 iccession, a payment known as the quint (being, 
 the name connotes, one-fifth of the reported 
 line) became payable to the royal treasury, 
 it this was rarely collected. The most impor- 
 nt obligation imposed upon the Canadian seign- 
 ir, and one which did not exist at all in France, 
 is that of getting settlers established upon his 
 ttds. This obligation the authorities insisted 
 »on above all others. The Canadian seigneur 
 IS expected to live on his domain, to gather 
 pendents around him, to build a mill for grinding 
 
142 CRUSADERS OF NEW FRANCE 
 
 their grain, to have them level the forest, clear the 
 fields, and make two blades of grass grow where 
 one grew before. In other words, the Canadian 
 seigneur was to be a royal immigration and land 
 agent combined. He was not given his generous 
 landed patrimony in order that he should sit 
 idly by and wait for the unearned increment to 
 come. 
 
 Many of the seigneurs fulfilled this trust to the 
 letter. Robert GifFard, who received the seign- 
 eury of Beauport just below Quebec, was one of 
 these; Charles Le Moyne, Sieur de Longueuil, 
 was another. Both brought many settlers from 
 France and saw them safely through the years of 
 pioneering. Others, however, did no more than 
 flock to Quebec when ships were expected, like 
 so many real estate agents explaining to the new 
 arrivals what they had to offer in the way of 
 lands fertile and well situated. Still others did 
 not even do so much, but merely put forth one 
 excuse after another to explain why their tracts 
 remained without settlements at all. From time 
 to time the authorities prodded these seigneurial 
 drones and threatened them with the forfeiture 
 of their estates; but some of the laggards had 
 friends among the members of the Sovereign 
 
SEIGNEURS OF OLD CANADA 143 
 
 'ouncil or possessed other means of warding off 
 ction, so that final decrees of forefeiture were 
 arely issued. Occasionally there were seigneurs 
 rhose estates were so favorably situated that they 
 ould exact a bonus from intending settlers, but 
 be King very soon put a stop to this practice. 
 5y the Arrets of Marly in 1711 he decreed that no 
 onus or 'prix d'entrSe should be exacted by any 
 eigneur, but that every settler was to have land 
 ar the asking and at the rate of the annual dues 
 ustomary in the neighborhood. 
 
 At this date there were some ninety seigneuries 
 a the colony, about which we have considerable 
 iformation owing to a careful survey which was 
 aade in 1712 at the King's request. This work 
 las entrusted to an engineer, Gedeon de Catalogue, 
 i^ho had come to Quebec a quarter of a century 
 arlier to help with the fortifications. Catalogue 
 pent two years in his survey, during which 
 ime he visited practically all the colonial estates. 
 Ls a result he prepared and sent to France a full 
 eport giving in each case the location and extent 
 f the seigneury, the name of its owner, the nature 
 f the soil, and its suitability for various uses, 
 lie products, the population, the condition of the 
 eople, the provisions made for religious instruc- 
 
144 CRUSADERS OF NEW FRANCE 
 
 tion, and various other matters. ' With the report 
 he sent three maps, one of which has disappeared. 
 The others show the location of all seigneuries in 
 the regions of Quebec and Three Rivers. 
 
 From Catalogue's survey we know that before 
 1712 nearly all the territory on both shores of the 
 St. Lawrence from below Quebec to above Mont- 
 real had been parceled into seigneuries. Likewise 
 the islands in the river and the land on both sides 
 of the RicheUeu in the region toward Lake Cham- 
 plain had been allotted. Many of the seigneuries 
 in this latter belt had been given to oflScers of the 
 Carignan-Salieres regiment which had come out 
 with Tracy in 1665 to chastise the Mohawks. 
 After the work of the regiment had been finished, 
 Talon suggested to the King that it be disbanded 
 in Canada, that the officers be persuaded to accept 
 seigneuries, and that the soldiers be given lands 
 within the estates of their officers. The Grand 
 Monarque not only assented but promised a liberal 
 money bonus to all who would remain. Accord- 
 ingly, more than twenty officers, chiefly captains 
 or lieutenants, and nearly four hundred men, 
 
 ' This report was printed for the first time in the author's 
 Documents relating to the Seigniorial Tenure in Canada (Toronto: 
 The Champlain Society, 1908). 
 
SEIGNEURS OF OLD CANADA 145 
 
 agreed to stay in New France under these ar- 
 rangements. 
 
 Here was an experiment in the system of im- 
 perial Rome repeated in the New World. When 
 the empire of the Caesars was beginning to give 
 way before the oncoming Goths and Huns, the 
 practice of disbanding the legions on the frontier 
 so that they might settle there and form an iron 
 ping against the invaders was adopted and served 
 its purpose for a time. It was from these prcedia 
 militaria that Talon got the idea which he now 
 transmitted to the French King with the sugges- 
 tion that "the practice of these sagacious and war- 
 like Romans might be advantageously followed 
 in a land which, being so far away from its sover- 
 eign, must trust for existence to the strength of its 
 own arms. " In keeping with the same precedent. 
 Talon located the military seigneuries in that 
 section of the colony where they would be most 
 useful as a barrier against the enemy; that is to 
 say, he placed them in the colony's most vulner- 
 able region. This was the area along the Riche- 
 lieu from Lake Champlain to its confluence with 
 the St. Lawrence at Sorel. It was by this route 
 that the Mohawks had already come more than 
 once on their errands of massacre, and it was by 
 
146 CRUSADERS OF NEW FRANCE 
 
 this portal that the English were likely to come 
 if they should ever attempt to overwhelm New 
 France by an overland assault. The region of the 
 Richelieu was therefore made as strong against 
 incursion as this colonizing measure could make 
 it. 
 
 All who took lands in this region, whether 
 seigneurs or habitants, were to assemble in arms at 
 the royal call. Their uniforms and muskets they 
 kept for service, and never during subsequent 
 years was such a call without response. These mil- 
 itary settlers and their sons after them were only 
 too ready to rally around the royal oriflamme at any 
 opportunity. It was from the armed seigneuries 
 of the Richelieu that Hertel de Rouville, St. Ours, 
 and others quietly slipped forth and leaped with 
 all the advantage of surprise upon the lonely ham- 
 lets of outlying Massachusetts or New York. How 
 the English feared these gentilshommes let their 
 own records tell, for there these French colonials 
 put many a streak of blood and fire. 
 
 But not all of the seigneuries were settled in this 
 way, and it was well for the best interests of the 
 colony that they were not. Too often the good 
 soldier made only an indifferent yeoman. First in 
 war, he was last in peace. The task of hammer- 
 
SEIGNEURS OF OLD CANADA 147 
 
 ing spears into ploughshares and swords into 
 pruning-hooks was not altogether to his liking. 
 Most of the oflBcers gradually grew tired of their 
 role as gentlemen of the wilderness, and eventu- 
 ally sold or mortgaged their seigneuries and made 
 their way back to France. Many of the soldiers 
 succumbed to the lure of the western fur traffic 
 and became coureurs-de-bois. But many others 
 stuck valiantly to the soil, and today their de- 
 scendants by the thousand possess this fertile 
 land. 
 
 What were the obligations of the settler who 
 took a grant of land within a seigneury? On the 
 whole they were neither numerous nor burden- 
 some, and in no sense were they comparable 
 with those laid upon the hapless peasantry in 
 France during the days before the great Revolu- 
 tion. Every habitant had a written title-deed 
 from his seigneur and the terms of this deed were 
 explicit. The seigneur could exact nothing that 
 was not stipulated therein. These title-deeds 
 were made by the notaries, of whom there seem to 
 have been plenty in New France; the census of 
 1681 listed no fewer than twenty-four of them 
 in a population which had not yet reached ten 
 thousand. When the deed had been signed, the 
 
148 CRUSADERS OF NEW FRANCE 
 
 notary gave one copy to each of the parties; the 
 original he kept himself. These scribes were men 
 of limited education and did not always do their 
 work with proper care, but on the whole they ren- 
 dered useful service. 
 
 The deed first set forth the situation and area 
 of the habitant's farm. The ordinary extent 
 was from one hundred to four hundred arpents, 
 usually in the shape of a parallelogram with a 
 narrow frontage on the river, and extending inland 
 to a much greater distance. Every one wanted 
 to be near the main road which ran along the 
 shore; it was only after all this land had been taken 
 up that the incoming settlers were willing to have 
 farms in the "second range" on the uplands away 
 from the stream. At any rate, the habitant took 
 his land subject to yearly payments known as the 
 cens et rentes. The amount was small, a few sous 
 together with a stated donation in grain or poultry 
 to be delivered each autumn. Reckoned in terms 
 of present-day rentals, the cens et rentes amounted 
 to half a dozen chickens or a bushel of grain for 
 each fifty or sixty acres of land. Yet this was the 
 only payment which the habitants of New France 
 regularly made in return for their lands. Each 
 autumn at Michaelmas they gathered at the 
 
SEIGNEURS OF OLD CANADA 149 
 
 seigneur's house, their carryalls fiUing his yard. 
 One by one they handed over their quota of grain 
 or poultry and counted out their cens in copper 
 coins. The occasion became a neighborhood 
 festival to which the women came with the men. 
 There was a general retailing of local gossip and 
 a squaring-up of accounts among the neighbors 
 themselves. 
 
 But while this was the only regular payment 
 made by the habitant, it was not the only obli- 
 gation imposed upon him. In New France the 
 seigneur had the exclusive right of grinding all 
 grain, and the habitants were bound by their 
 title-deeds to bring their grist to his mill and to 
 pay the legal toll for milling. This banalitS, as it 
 was called, did not bear heavily upon the people; 
 most of the complaints concerning it came rather 
 from the seigneurs who claimed that the legal toll, 
 which amounted to one-fourteenth of the grain, 
 did not suffice to pay expenses. Some of the 
 seigneurs did not build mills at all, but the authori- 
 ties eventually moved them to action by ordering 
 that those who did not provide mills at once would 
 not be allowed to enforce the obligation of toll at 
 any future date. Most of the seigneurial mills were 
 crude, wind-driven affairs which made poor flour 
 
150 CRUSADERS OF NEW FRANCE 
 
 and often kept the habitants waiting for days to 
 get it. Usually built in tower-like fashion, they 
 were loopholed in order to afford places of refuge 
 and defense against Indian attack. 
 
 Another seigneurial obligation was that of giving 
 to the seigneur certain days of corv6e, or forced 
 labor, in each year. In France this was a grievous 
 burden; peasants were taken from their own 
 lands at inconvenient seasons and forced to work 
 for weeks on the seigneur's domain. But there 
 was nothing of this sort in Canada. The amount 
 of corvie was limited to six days at the most in any 
 year, of which only two days could be asked 
 for at seed-time and two days at harvest. The 
 seigneur, for his part, did not usually exact even 
 this amount, because the neighborhood custom 
 required that he should furnish both food and 
 tools to those whom he called upon to work for 
 him. 
 
 Besides, there were various details of a minor 
 sort incidental to the seigneurial system. If the 
 habitant caught fish in the river, one fish in every 
 eleven belonged to the seigneur. But seldom was 
 any attention paid to this stipulation. The 
 seigneur was entitled to take firewood and build- 
 ing materials from the lands of his habitants if he 
 
SEIGNEURS OF OLD CANADA 151 
 
 desired, but he rarely availed himself of this right. 
 On the morning of every May Day the habitants 
 were under strict injunction to plant a Maypole 
 before the seigneur's house, and this they never 
 failed to do, because the seigneur in return was 
 expected to dispense hospitality to all who came. 
 Bright and early in the morning the whole com- 
 munity appeared and greeted the seigneur with a 
 salvo of blank musketry. With them they carried 
 a tall fir-tree, pulled bare to within a few feet of 
 the top where a tuft of green remained. Having 
 planted this M^aypole in the ground, they joined 
 in dancing and a feu de joie in the seigneur's 
 honor, and then adjourned for cakes and wine at 
 his table. There is no doubt that such good 
 things disappeared with celerity before appetites 
 whetted by an hour's exercise in the clear spring 
 air. After drinking to the seigneur's health and 
 to the health of all his kin, the merry company 
 returned to their homes, leaving behind them the 
 pole as a souvenir of their homage. That the 
 seigneur was more than a mere landlord such an 
 occasion testified. 
 
 The seigneurs of New France had the right to 
 hold courts for the settlement of disputes among 
 their tenantry, but they rarely availed themselves 
 
152 CRUSADERS OF NEW FRANCE 
 
 of this privilege because, owing to the sparseness 
 of the population in most of the seigneuries, the 
 fines and fees did not produce enough income to 
 make such a procedure worth while. In a few 
 populous districts there were seigneurial courts 
 with regular judges who held sessions once or 
 twice each week. In some others the seigneur 
 himself sat in judgment behind the living-room 
 table in his own home and meted out justice after 
 his own fashion. The Custom of Paris was 
 the common law of the land, and all were sup- 
 posed to know its provisions, though few save 
 the royal judges had any such knowledge. When 
 the seigneur himself heard the suitors, his decision 
 was not always in keeping with the law but it 
 usually satisfied the disputants, so that appeals 
 to the royal courts were not common. These 
 latter tribunals, each with a judge of its own, sat 
 at Quebec, Three Rivers, and Montreal. Their 
 procedure, like that of the seigneurial courts, 
 was simple, free from chicane, and inexpensive. 
 A lawsuit in New France did not bring ruinous 
 costs. "I will not say," remarks the facetious La 
 Hontan, "that the Goddess of Justice is more 
 chaste here than in France, but at any rate, if she 
 is sold, she is sold more cheaply. In Canada we 
 
SEIGNEURS OP OLD CANADA 153 
 
 3 not pass through the clutches of advocates, 
 le talons of attorneys, and the claws of clerks, 
 hese vermin do not as yet infest the land. Every 
 le here pleads his own cause. Our Themis is 
 "ompt, and she does not bristle with fees, costs, 
 id charges. " 
 
 Throughout the French period there was nc 
 )mplaint from the habitants concerning the 
 ardens of the seigneurial tenure. Here and 
 lere disputes arose as to the exact scope and 
 iture of various obligations, but these the intend- 
 it adjusted with a firm hand and an eye to the 
 jneral interest. On the whole, the system Tend- 
 ed a highly useful service, by bringing the entire 
 iral population into close and neighborly con- 
 ict, by affording a firm foundation for the colony's 
 icial structure, and by contributing greatly 
 1 the defensive unity of New France. So long 
 ; the land was weak and depended for its very 
 dstence upon the solidarity of its people, so long 
 1 the intendant was there to guide the system with 
 praetorian hand and to prevent abuses, so long 
 1 strength was more to be desired than opulence, 
 le seigneurial system served New France better 
 an any other scheme of landholding would 
 ive done. It was only when the administration 
 
154 CRUSADERS OF NEW FRANCE 
 
 of the country came into new and alien hands 
 that Canadian seigneurialism became a barrier to 
 economic progress and an obsolete system which 
 had to be abolished. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE COUREUES-DE-BOI8 
 
 HE center and soul of the economic system in 
 
 ew France was the traffic in furs. Even before 
 
 le colony contained more than a handful of 
 
 ttlers, the profit-making possibilities of this 
 
 ade were recognized. It grew rapidly even in the 
 
 ,rly days, and for more than a hundred and 
 
 ty years furnished New France with its sinews 
 
 war and peace. Beginning on the St. Lawrence, 
 
 is trade moved westward along the Great Lakes, 
 
 itil toward the end of the seventeenth century 
 
 passed to the headwaters of the Mississippi. 
 
 uring the two administrations of Frontenac the 
 
 r traffic grew to large proportions, nor did it 
 
 ow much sign of shrinking for a generation 
 
 ereafter. With the ebb-tide of French military 
 
 »wer, however, the trader's hold on these western 
 
 ads began to relax, And before the final overthrow 
 
 New France it had become greatly weakened. 
 iss 
 
156 CRUSADERS OF NEW FRANCE 
 
 In establishing commercial relations with th 
 Indians, the French voyageur on the St. Lawreno 
 had several marked advantages over his Englis] 
 and Dutch neighbors. By temperament he wa 
 better adapted than they to be a pioneer of trade 
 No race was more supple than his own in conform 
 ing its ways to the varied demands of place am 
 time. When he was among the Indians, th( 
 Frenchman tried to act like one of them, and hi 
 soon developed in all the arts of forest life a skil 
 which rivaled that of the Indian himself. Th( 
 fascination of life in the untamed wilderness witl 
 its hair-raising experiences, its romance, its fre( 
 abandon, appealed more strongly to the Frencl 
 temperament than to that of any other Europeai 
 race. Non licet omnibus adire Corinthum. And th( 
 French colonist of the seventeenth century hac 
 the qualities of personal courage and hardihooc 
 which enabled him to enjoy this life to th< 
 utmost. 
 
 Then there was the Jesuit missionary. H( 
 was the first to visit the Indians in their owi 
 abodes, the first to make his home among them 
 the first to master their language and to under 
 stand their habits of mind. This sympatheti( 
 comprehension gave the Jesuit a great influenc( 
 
THE COUREURS-DE-BOIS 157 
 
 the councils of the savages. While first of 
 a soldier of the Cross, the missionary never 
 got, however, that he was also a sentinel doing 
 ;post duty for his own race. Apostle he was, 
 t patriot too. Besides, it was to the spiritual 
 erest of the missionary to keep his flock in 
 itact with the French alone; for if they became 
 luainted with the English they would soon come 
 ier the smirch of heresy. To prevent the In- 
 ns from engaging in any commercial dealings 
 ;h Dutch or English heretics meant encouraging 
 ;m to trade exclusively with the French. In 
 s way the Jesuit became one of the most zealous 
 helpers in carrying out the French program 
 diverting to Montreal the entire fur trade of 
 I western regions. He was thus not only a pio- 
 T of the faith but at the same time a pathfinder 
 ;ommercial empire. It is true, no doubt, that this 
 vice to the trading interests of the colony was 
 t ill-requited by those whom it benefited most, 
 e trader too often repaid the missionary in 
 tty poor coin by bringing the curse of the liquor 
 ffic to his doors, and by giving denial by shame- 
 5 conduct to all the good father's moral teach- 
 s. In spite of such inevitable drawbacks, the 
 uit rendered a great service to the trading 
 
158 CRUSADERS OF NEW FRANCE 
 
 interests of New France, far greater indeed than 
 lie ever claimed or received credit for. 
 
 In the struggle for the control of the fur trade 
 geographical advantages lay with the French. 
 They had two excellent routes from Montreal 
 directly into the richest beaver lands of the conti- 
 nent. One of these, by way of the Ottawa and 
 Mattawa rivers, had the drawback of an over- 
 land portage, but on the other hand the whole 
 route was reasonably safe from interruption by 
 Iroquois or English attack. The other route, by 
 way of the upper St. Lawrence and the lakes, 
 passed Cataraqui, Niagara, and Detroit on the 
 way to Michilimackinac or to Green Bay. This 
 was an all-water route, save for the short detour 
 around the falls at Niagara, but it had the dis- 
 advantage of passing, for a long stretch, within 
 easy reach of Iroquois interference. The French 
 soon realized, however, that this lake route was the 
 maia artery of the colony's fur trade and must 
 be kept open at any cost. They accordingly 
 entrenched themselves at all the strategic points 
 along the route. Fort Frontenac at Cataraqui 
 was built in 1674; the fortified post at Detroit, 
 in 1686; the fort at Niagara, in 1678; and the 
 establishments at the Sault Ste. Marie and at 
 
THE COUREURS-DE-BOIS 159 
 
 ichilimackinac had been, constructed even 
 ■lier. 
 
 But these places only marked the main channels 
 •ough which the trade passed. The real sources 
 the fur supply were in the great regions now 
 /ered by the states of Ohio, Wisconsin, Iowa, 
 d Minnesota. As it became increasingly neces- 
 •y that the French should gain a firm footing 
 
 these territories as well, they proceeded to 
 ;ablish their outposts without delay. The post 
 Baye des Puants (Green Bay) was established 
 Eore 1685 ; then in rapid succession came trading 
 )ckades in the very heart of the beaver lands, 
 irt St. Antoine, Fort St. Nicholas, Fort St. 
 oix, Fort Perrot, Fort St. Louis, and several 
 tiers. No one can study the map of this western 
 untry as it was in 1700 without realizing what a 
 ■angle-hold the French had achieved upon all 
 e vital arteries of its trade. 
 The English had no such geographical advan- 
 ces as the French, nor did they adequately 
 predate the importance of being first upon the 
 Dund. With the exception of the Hudson after 
 64, they controlled no great waterway leading 
 
 the interior. And the Hudson with its tribu- 
 ries tapped only the territories of the Iroquois 
 
160 CRUSADERS OF NEW FRANCE 
 
 which were denuded of beaver at an early date. 
 These Iroquois might have rendered great service 
 to the Enghsh at Albany by acting as middlemen 
 in gathering the furs from the West. They tried 
 hard, indeed, to assume this r61e, but, as they were 
 practically always at enmity with the western 
 tribes, they never succeeded iu turning this possi- 
 bility to their full emolument. 
 
 In only one respect were the French at a serious 
 disadvantage. They could not compete with the 
 English in the matter of prices. The English 
 trader could give the Indian for his furs two or 
 three times as much merchandise as the French 
 could oflfer him. To accoimt for this commercial 
 discrepancy there were several reasons. The cost 
 of transportation to and from France was high — 
 approximately twice that of freighting from 
 London to Boston or New York. Navigation 
 on the St. Lawrence was dangerous in those days 
 before buoys and beacons came to mark the 
 shoal waters, and the risk of capture at sea during 
 the incessant wars with England was considerable. 
 The staples most used in the Indian trade — 
 utensils, muskets, blankets, and strouds (a coarse 
 woolen cloth made into shirts) — could be bought 
 more cheaply in England than in France. Rum 
 
THE COUREURS-DE-BOIS 161 
 
 uld be obtained from the British West Indies 
 ore cheaply than brandy from across the ocean, 
 oreover, there were duties on furs shipped 
 >m Quebec and on all goods which came into 
 at post. And, finally, a paternal government in 
 ew France set the scale of prices in such a way 
 
 to ensure the merchants a large profit. It is 
 ;ar, then, that in fair and open competition 
 r the Indian trade the French would not have 
 rvived a single season.' Their only hope was 
 
 keep the English away from the Indians al- 
 gether, and particularly from the Indians of the 
 r-bearing regions. This was no easy task, but 
 
 general they managed to do it for nearly a 
 ntury. 
 
 The most active and at the same time the most 
 2turesque figure in the fur-trading system of 
 3W France was the coureur-de-bois. Without 
 □a the trade could neither have been begun nor 
 
 In the collection of Documents Relating to the Colonial History 
 New York ( ix., 408-409) the following comparative table of 
 3es at Fort Orange (Albany) and at Montreal in 1689 is given: 
 
 The Indian pays for 
 1 musket 
 
 at Albany 
 2 beavers 
 
 at Montreal 
 5 beavers 
 
 8 pounds of powder 
 40 pounds of lead 
 1 blanket 
 
 1 beaver 
 1 *' 
 
 4 
 3 
 
 2 
 
 4 shirts 
 
 
 " 
 
 2 
 
 6 pairs stockings 
 
 
 ** 
 
 2 
 
 II 
 
 
 
 
162 CRUSADERS OF NEW FRANCE 
 
 continued successfully. Usually a man of good 
 birth, of some military training, and of more or 
 less education, he was a rover of the forest by 
 choice and not as an outcast from civilization. 
 Young men came from France to serve as officers 
 with the colonial garrison, to hold minor civil 
 posts, to become seigneurial landholders, or merely 
 to seek adventure. Very few came out with the 
 fixed intention of engaging in the forest trade; but 
 hundreds fell victims to its magnetism after they 
 had arrived in New France. The young officer who 
 grew tired of garrison duty, the yoimg seigneur 
 who found yeomanry tedious, the young habitant 
 who disliked the daily toil of the farm — young men 
 of all social ranks, in fact, succumbed to this lure 
 of the wilderness. "I cannot tell you," wrote 
 one governor, "how attractive this life is to all 
 our youth. It consists in doing nothing, caring 
 nothing, following every inclination, and getting 
 out of the way of all restraint." In any case the 
 ranks of the voyageurs included those who had 
 the best and most virile blood in the colony. 
 
 Just how many Frenchmen, young and old, were 
 engaged in the lawless and fascinating life of the 
 forest trader when the fur traffic was at its height 
 cannot be stated with exactness. But the number 
 
THE COUREURS-DE-BOIS 163 
 
 ust have been large. The intendant Duches- 
 jau, in 1680, estimated that more than eight 
 indred men, out of a colonial population number- 
 g less than ten thousand, were off in the woods. 
 There is not a family of any account, " he wrote 
 I the King, "but has sons, brothers, uncles, and 
 jphews among these coureurs-de-bois." This 
 ay be an exaggeration, but from references 
 >ntained in the dispatches of various royal officials 
 le may fairly conclude that Duchesneau's esti- 
 ate of the number of traders was not far wide 
 
 the mark. And there is other evidence as to the 
 ze of this exodus to the woods. Nicholas Perrot, 
 hen he left Montreal for Green Bay in 1688, 
 lok with him one hundred and forty-three 
 jyageurs.' La Hontan found "thirty or forty 
 mreurs-de-bois at every post in the Illinois 
 mntry."'' 
 
 Among the leaders of the coureurs-de-bois 
 veral names stand out prominently. Frangois 
 auphine de la Foret, Nicholas Perrot, and Henri 
 ; Tonty, the lieutenants of La Salle, Alphonse de 
 onty, Antoine de La Mothe-Cadillac, Greysolon 
 u Lhut and his brother Greysolon de la Tourette, 
 
 ' Documents Relative to the Colonial History of New York, ix., 470. 
 ' Voyages (ed. Thwaites), ii., 175. 
 
164 CRUSADERS OF NEW FRANCE 
 
 Pierre Esprit Radisson and Medard Chouart de 
 Groseilliers, Olivier Morel de la Durantaye, Jean- 
 Paul Le Gardeur de Repentigny, Louis de la 
 Porte de Louvigny, Louis and Juchereau Joliet, 
 Pierre Le Sueur, Boucher de la Perriere, Jean Pere, 
 Pierre Jobin, Denis Masse, Nicholas d'Ailleboust 
 de Mantet, Frangois Perthuis, Etienne Brule, 
 Charles Juchereau de St. Denis, Pierre Moreau 
 dit La Toupine, Jean Nicolet — these are only the 
 few who connected themselves with some striking 
 event which has transmitted their names to 
 posterity. Many of them have left their imprint 
 upon the geographical nomenclature of the Middle 
 West. Hundreds of others, the rank and file of 
 this picturesque array, gained no place upon the 
 written records, since they took part in no striking 
 achievement worthy of mention in the dispatches 
 and memoirs of their day. The coureur-de-bois 
 was rarely a chronicler. If the Jesuits did not deign 
 to pillory him in their Relations, or if the royal offi- 
 cials did not single him out for praise in the memo- 
 rials which they sent home to France each year, 
 the coureur-de-bois might spend his whole active 
 life in the forest without transmitting his name or 
 fame to a future generation. And that is what 
 most of them did. A few of the voyageurs found 
 
THE COUKEURS-DE-BOIS 165 
 
 at one trip to the wilds was enough and never 
 ok to the trade permanently. But the great 
 ajority, once the virus of the free life had entered 
 eir veins, could not forsake the wild woods to 
 e end of their days. The dangers of the life 
 ;re great, and the mortality among the traders 
 IS high. Coureurs de risques they ought to 
 ve been called, as La Hontan remarks. But 
 ken as a whole they were a vigorous, adventur- 
 s, strong-limbed set of men. It was a genuine 
 tnpliment that they paid to the wilderness 
 len they chose to spend year after year in its 
 ibrace. 
 
 In their methods of trading the coureurs-de-bois 
 (re imlike anything that the world had ever 
 own before. The Hanseatic merchants of 
 rlier fur-trading days in Northern Europe had 
 ;ablished their forts or factories at Novgorod, 
 Bergen, and elsewhere, great entrepots stored 
 th merchandise for the neighboring territories, 
 te traders lived within, and the natives came to 
 2 posts to barter their furs or other raw materials, 
 le merchants of the East India Company had 
 ;ablished their posts in the Orient and traded 
 th the natives on the same basis. But the 
 )rman voyageurs of the New World did things 
 
166 CRUSADERS OF NEW FRANCE 
 
 quite differently. They established fortified posts 
 throughout the regions west of the Lakes, it is 
 true, but they did not make them storehouses, 
 nor did they bring to them any considerable 
 stock of merchandise. The posts were for use 
 as the headquarters of the coureurs-de-bois, and 
 usually sheltered a small garrison of soldiers during 
 the winter months; they likewise served as places of 
 defense in the event of attack and of rendezvous 
 when a trading expedition to Montreal was being 
 organized. It was not the policy of the French 
 authorities, nor was it the plan of the coureurs-de- 
 bois, that any considerable amount of trading 
 should take place at these western stockades. 
 They were only the outposts intended to keep the 
 trade running in its proper channels. In a word, 
 it was the aim of the French to bring the trade to 
 the colony, not to send the colony overland to 
 the savages. That is the way Father Carheil 
 phrased it, and he was quite right. ' 
 
 Every spring, accordingly, if the great trade 
 routes to Montreal were reasonably free from the 
 danger of an overwhelming Iroquois attack, the 
 coureurs-de-bois rounded up the western Indians 
 
 ' Carheil to Champigny (August 30, 1702), in R. G. Thwaites, 
 Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents, Ixv., 219. 
 
THE COUREURS-DE-BOIS 167 
 
 ith their stocks of furs from the winter's hunt, 
 ben, proceeding to the grand rendezvous at 
 [ichilimackinac or Green Bay, the canoes were 
 ined into one great flotilla, and the whole array 
 t off down the lakes or by way of the Ottawa 
 I Montreal. This annual fur flotilla often 
 imbered hundreds of canoes, the coureurs-de- 
 )is acting as pilots, assisting the Indians to ward 
 f attacks, and adding their European intelligence 
 I the red man's native cunning." About mid- 
 immer, having covered the thousand miles of 
 ater, the canoes drew within hail of the settle- 
 ent of Montreal. Above the Lachine Rapids 
 le population came forth to meet it with a noisy 
 elcome. Enterprising cabaretiers, in defiance 
 the royal decrees, had usually set up their 
 )oths along the shores for the sale of brandy, 
 id there was some brisk trading as well as a 
 >nsiderable display of aboriginal boisterousness 
 'en before the canoes reached Montreal. 
 Once at the settlement, the Indians set up their 
 pees, boiled their kettles, and unpacked their 
 indies of peltry. A day was then given over to a 
 
 ' The flotilla of 1693 consisted of more than 400 canoes, with about 
 coureurs-de-bms, 1200 Indians, and furs to the value of over 
 0,000 Iwres. 
 
168 CRUSADERS OF NEW FRANCE 
 
 great council which the governor of the colony, 
 in scarlet cloak and plumed hat, often came from 
 Quebec to attend. There were the usual pledges 
 of friendship; the peace-pipe went its round, and 
 the song of the calumet was sung. Then the 
 trading really began. The merchants of Montreal 
 had their little shops along the shore where they 
 spread out for display the merchandise brought 
 by the spring ships from France. There were 
 muskets, powder, and lead, blankets in all colors, 
 coarse cloth, knives, hatchets, kettles, awls, 
 needles, and other staples of the trade. But the 
 Indian had a weakness for trinkets of every sort, 
 so that cheap and gaudy necklaces, bracelets, 
 tin looking-glasses, Httle bells, combs, vermilion, 
 and a himdred other things of the sort were there 
 to tempt him. And last, but not least ia its 
 purchasing power, was brandy. Many hogsheads 
 of it were disposed of at every annual fair, and 
 while it lasted the Indians turned bedlam loose in 
 the town. The fair was Montreal's gala event 
 in every year, for its success meant everything to 
 local prosperity. Indeed, in the few years when, 
 owing to the Iroquois dangers, the flotilla failed 
 to arrive, the whole settlement was on the verge 
 of bankruptcy. 
 
THE COUREURS-DE-BOIS 169 
 
 What the Indian got for his furs at Montreal 
 ried from time to time, depending for the most 
 rt upon the state of the fur market in France, 
 id this, again, hinged to some extent upon the 
 urse of fashions there. On one occasion the 
 shion of wearing low-crowned hats cut the value 
 beaver skins in two. Beaver was the fur of 
 rs, and the mainstay of the trade. Whether 
 r warmth, durability, or attractiveness in ap- 
 arance, there was none other to equal it. Not 
 . beaver skins were valued alike, however, 
 lose taken from animals killed during the winter 
 ;re preferred to those taken at other seasons, 
 lile new skins did not bring as high a price as 
 ose which the Indian had worn for a time and 
 ,d thus made soft. The trade, in fact, developed 
 classification of beaver skins into soft and 
 ,lf-soft, green and haK-green, wet and dry, and 
 on. Skins of good quality brought at Montreal 
 )m two to four livres per pound, and they aver- 
 ed a little more than two pounds each. The 
 irmal cargo of a large canoe was forty packs of 
 ins, each pack weighing about fifty pounds, 
 •anslated into the currency of today a beaver 
 It of fair quality was worth about a dollar. When 
 ; read in the official dispatches that a half- 
 
170 CRUSADERS OF NEW FRANCE 
 
 million livres' worth of skins changed owneri 
 at the Montreal fair, this statement means that at 
 least a hundred thousand animals must have been 
 slaughtered to furnish a large flotiUa with its 
 cargo. 
 
 The furs of other animals, otter, marten, and 
 mink, were also in demand but brought smaller 
 prices. Moose hides sold well, and so did bear 
 skins. Some buflfalo hides were brought to 
 Montreal, but in proportion to their value they 
 were bulky and took up so much room in the 
 canoes that the Indians did not care to bring them. 
 The heyday of the buffalo trade came later, with 
 the development of overland transportation. At 
 any rate the dependence of New France upon 
 these furs was complete. "I would have you 
 know," asserts one chronicler, "that Canada 
 subsists only upon the trade of these skins and 
 furs, three-fourths of which come from the people 
 who live around the Great Lakes." The prosper- 
 ity of the French colony hinged wholly upon two 
 things: whether the routes from the West were 
 open, and whether the market for furs in France 
 was holding up. Upon the former depended the 
 quantity of furs brought to Montreal; upon the 
 latter, the amount of profit which the coureurs- 
 
THE COUEEimS-DE-BOIS 17] 
 
 bois and the merchants of the colony would 
 :ain. 
 
 For ten days or a fortnight the great fair ai 
 )ntreal continued. A picturesque bazaar it 
 ist have been, this meeting of the two ends 
 civilization, for trade has been, in all ages, a 
 jhty magnet to draw the ends of the earth 
 ;ether. When all the furs had been sold, the 
 ireurs-de-bois took some goods along with 
 !m to be used partly in trade on their own ac- 
 tnt at the western posts and partly as presents 
 m the King to the western chieftains. There 
 reason to suspect, however, that much of 
 at the royal bounty provided for this latter 
 -pose was diverted to private use. There were 
 lual fairs at Three Rivers for the Indians of 
 
 St. Maurice region; at Sorel, for those of the 
 helieu; and at Quebec and at Tadoussac, for 
 
 redskins of the Lower St. Lawrence. But 
 )ntreal, owing to its situation at the confluence 
 the St. Lawrence and Ottawa trade routes, 
 3 by far the greatest fur mart of all. 
 t has been mentioned that the colonial authori- 
 i tried to discourage trading at the western posts, 
 eir aim was to bring the Indian with his furs 
 the colonial settlement. But this policy could 
 
172 CRUSADERS OF NEW FRANCE 
 
 not be fully carried out. Despite the most rigid 
 prohibitions and the severest penalties, some of 
 the coureurs-de-bois would take goods and brandy 
 to sell in the wilderness. Finding that this 
 practice could not be exterminated, the authorities 
 decided to permit a limited amount of forest 
 trading under strict regulation, and to this end 
 the Ejng authorized the granting of twenty-five 
 licenses each year. These licenses permitted a 
 trader to take three canoes with as much mer- 
 chandise as they would hold. As a rule the 
 hcenses were not issued directly to the traders 
 themselves, but were given to the religious in- 
 stitutions or to dependent widows of former royal 
 officers. These in turn sold them to the traders, 
 sometimes for a thousand livres or more. The 
 system of granting twenty-five annual licenses did 
 not of itself throw the door wide open for trade at 
 the western establishments. But as time went on 
 the plan was much abused by the granting of private 
 licenses to the friends of the officials at Quebec, and 
 " God knows how many of these were issued, " as one 
 writer of the time puts it. Traders often went, 
 moreover, without any license at all, and especially 
 in the matter of carrying brandy into the forest 
 they frequently set the official orders at defiance. 
 
THE COUREURS-DE-BOIS 173 
 
 his brandy question was, in fact, the great 
 ibler in Israel. It bulks large in every chroni- 
 every memoir, every Relation, and in almost 
 y oflScial dispatch during a period of more than 
 
 years. It worried the King himself; it set 
 officers of the Church and State against each 
 !r; and it provoked more friction throughout 
 western dominions of France than all other 
 ;s put together. 
 
 s to the ethics of the liquor traffic in New 
 ice, there was never any serious disagreement, 
 n the secular authorities readily admitted 
 
 brandy did the Indians no good, and that 
 rould be better to sell them blankets and 
 les. But that was not the point. The traders 
 ived that, if the western Indians could not 
 re brandy from the French, they would get 
 
 from the English. The Indian would be no 
 er off in that case, and the French would lose 
 r hold on him into the bargain. Time and 
 n they reiterated the argument that the 
 libition of the brandy trade would make an 
 to trade, to French influence, and even to the 
 ionary's own labors. For if the Indian went 
 lie English for rum, he would get into touch 
 I heresy as .well; he would have Protestant 
 
174 CRUSADERS OF NEW FRANCE 
 
 missionaries come to his village, and the day oi 
 Jesuit propaganda would be at an end. 
 
 This, throughout the whole trading period, was 
 the stock argument of publicans and sinners. 
 The Jesuit missionaries combated it with all their 
 power; yet they never fully convinced either the 
 colonial or the home authorities. Louis XIV, 
 urged by his confessor to take one stand and by his 
 ministers to take the other, was sorely puzzled. 
 He wanted to do his duty as a Most Christian 
 King, yet he did not want to have on his hands a 
 bankrupt colony. Bishop Laval pleaded with 
 Colbert that brandy would speU the ruin of all 
 religion in the new world, but the subtle minister 
 calmly retorted that the eau-de-vie had not yet over- 
 come the ancient church in older lands. To set 
 his conscience right, the King referred the whole 
 question to the savants of the Sorbonne, and they, 
 like good churchmen, promptly gave their opinion 
 that to sell intoxicants to the heathen was a 
 heinous sin. But that counsel afforded the Grand 
 Monarch scant guidance, for it was not the relative 
 sinfulness of the brandy trade that perplexed 
 him. The practical expediency of issuing a de- 
 cree of prohibition was what lay upon his mind. 
 On that point Colbert gave him sensible advice. 
 
THE COUREURS-DE-BOIS 175 
 
 ,mely, that a question of practical policy could be 
 tter settled by the colonists themselves than 
 ' cloistered scholars. Guided by this sugges- 
 m, the King asked for a limited plebiscite; the 
 ivemor of New France was requested to call 
 gether "the leading inhabitants of the colony" 
 id to obtain from each one his opinion in writing, 
 ere was an inkling of colonial self-government, 
 id it is unfortunate that the King did not resort 
 ore often to the same method of solving the 
 lony's problems. 
 
 On October 26, 1678, Frontenac gathered the 
 eading inhabitants" in the Ch§,teau at Quebec, 
 part from the officials and military officers on 
 e one hand and the clergy on the other, most of 
 e solid men of New France were there. One 
 ter another their views were called for and writ- 
 n down. Most of those present expressed the 
 linion that the evils of the traffic had been 
 aggerated, and that if the French should pro- 
 bit the sale of brandy to the savages they would 
 on lose their hold upon the western trade. There 
 ;re some dissenters, among them a few who urged 
 more rigid regulation of the traffic. One hard- 
 aded seigneur, the Sieur Dombourg, raised 
 e query whether the colony was really so depen- 
 
176 CRUSADERS OF NEW FRANCE 
 
 dent for its existence upon the fur trade as the others 
 had assumed to be the case. If there were less 
 attention to trade, he urged, there would be more 
 heed paid to agriculture, and in the long run it 
 would be better for the colony to ship wheat to 
 France instead of furs. "Let the western trade 
 go to the English in exchange for their rum; it 
 would neither endure long nor profit them much." 
 This was sound sense, but it did not carry great 
 weight with Dombourg's hearers. 
 
 The written testimony was put together and, 
 with comments by the governor, was sent to 
 France for the information of the King and his 
 ministers. Apparently it had some effect, for, 
 without altogether prohibiting the use of brandy 
 in the western trade, a royal decree of 1679 forbade 
 the coureurs-de-bois to carry it with them on their 
 trips up the lakes. The issue of this decree, how- 
 ever, made no perceptible change in the situation, 
 and brandy was taken to the western posts as 
 before. So far as one can determine from the 
 actual figures of the trade, however, the quantity 
 of intoxicants used by the French in the Indian 
 trade has been greatly exaggerated by the mis- 
 sionaries. Not more than fifty barrels (barriques) 
 ever went to the western regions in the course of a 
 
THE COUREURS-DE-BOIS 177 
 
 iar. A barrel held about two hundred and fifty 
 nts, so that the total would be less than one pint 
 T capita for the adult Indians within the French 
 here of influence. That was a far smaller per 
 pita consumption than Frenchmen guzzled in 
 
 single day at a Breton fair, as La Salle once 
 )inted out. The trouble was, however, that thou- 
 nds of Indians got no brandy at all, while a rela- 
 i^ely small number obtained too much of it. What 
 ey got, moreover, was poor stuff, most of it, and 
 01 diluted with water. The Indian drank to get 
 unk, and when brandy constituted the other 
 id of the bargain he would give for it the very 
 rs off his back. 
 
 But if the Jesuits exaggerated the amount of 
 andy used in the trade, they did not exaggerate 
 i demoralizing effect upon both the Indian and 
 e trader. They believed that brandy would 
 reck the Indian's body and ruin his soul. They 
 ;re right; it did both. It made of every western 
 •st, in the words of Father Carheil, a den of 
 jrutality and violence, of injustice and impiety, 
 
 lewd and shameless conduct, of contempt and 
 suits." No sinister motives need be sought to 
 plain the bitterness with which the blackrobes 
 ied out against the iniquities of a system which 
 
178 CRUSADERS OF NEW FRANCE 
 
 swindled the redskin out of his furs and debauched 
 him into the bargain. Had the Jesuits done 
 otherwise than fight it from first to last they would 
 have been false to the traditions of their Church 
 and their Order. They were, when all is said and 
 done, the truest friends that the North American 
 Indian has ever had. 
 
 The effects of the fur trade upon both Indians 
 and French were far-reaching. The trade changed 
 the red man's order of life, took him in a single 
 generation from the stone to the iron age, de- 
 molished his old notions of the world, carried him 
 on long journeys, and made him a different man. 
 French brandy and English rum sapped his stamina, 
 and the grand lihertinage of the traders calloused 
 whatever moral sense he had. His folklore, his 
 religion, and his institutions made no progress 
 after the trader had once entered his territories. 
 
 On the French the effects of tribal commerce 
 were not so disastrous, though pernicious enough. 
 The trade drew off into the wilderness the vigorous 
 blood of the colony. It cast its spell over New 
 France from Lachine to the Saguenay. Men left 
 their farms, their wives, and their famihes, they 
 mortgaged their property, and they borrowed from 
 their friends in order to join the annual hegira 
 
THE COUREURS-DE-BOIS 179 
 
 to the West. Yet very few of these traders accu- 
 mulated fortunes. It was not the trader but the 
 merchant at Montreal or Quebec who got the 
 lion's share of the profit and took none of the risks. 
 Many of the coureurs-de-hois entered the trade 
 with ample funds and emerged in poverty. Nicholas 
 Perrot and Greysolon Du Lhut were conspicuous 
 examples. It was a highly speculative game. At 
 times large profits came easily and were spent 
 recklessly. The trade encouraged profligacy, 
 bravado, and garishness; it deadened the moral 
 sense of the colony, and even schooled men in 
 trickery and peculation. It was a corrupting 
 influence in the oflScial life of New France, and 
 even governors could not keep from soiling their 
 hands in it. But most unfortunate of all, the 
 colony was impelled to put its economic energies 
 into what was at best an ephemeral and transitory 
 source of national wealth and to neglect the solid 
 foundations of agriculture and industry which in 
 the long run would have profited its people much 
 more. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 AGKICULTURE, INDUSTRY, AND TRADE 
 
 It was the royal desire that New France should 
 some day become a powerful and prosperous 
 agricultural colony, providing the motherland 
 with an acceptable addition to its food supply. 
 To this end large tracts of land were granted 
 upon most liberal terms to incoming settlers, 
 and every effort was made to get these acres 
 cultivated. Encouragement and coercion were 
 alike given a trial. Settlers who did well were 
 given official recognition, sometimes even to the 
 extent of rank in the noblesse. On the other 
 hand those who left their lands uncleared were 
 repeatedly threatened with the revocation of 
 their land-titles, and in some cases their hold- 
 ings were actually taken away. From the 
 days of the earliest settlement down to the eve 
 of the English conquest, the officials of both 
 the Church and the State never ceased to use 
 
 180 
 
AGRICULTURE, INDUSTRY, AND TRADE 181 
 
 their best endeavors in the interests of colonial 
 agriculture. 
 
 Yet with all this official interest and encourage- 
 ment agricultural development was slow. Much 
 of the land on both the north and the south 
 shores of the St. Lawrence was heavily timbered, 
 and the work of clearing proved tedious. It was 
 estimated that an industrious settler, working 
 by himself, could clear not more than one super- 
 ficial arpent in a whole season. So slowly did the 
 work make progress, in fact, that in 1712, after 
 fifty years of royal paternalism, the cultivable 
 area of New France amounted to only 160,000 
 arpents, and at the close of the French dominion 
 in 1760 it was scarcely more than twice that 
 figure, — in other words, about five arpents foi 
 each head of population. 
 
 While industry and trade, particularly the In- 
 dian trade, took the attention and interest of a 
 considerable portion in the population of New 
 France, agriculture was from first to last th( 
 vocation of the great majority. The census oi 
 1695 showed more than seventy-five per cen1 
 of the people living on the farms of the colonj 
 and this ratio was almost exactly maintained 
 nearly sixty years later, when the census of 175^ 
 
182 CRUSADERS OF NEW FRANCE 
 
 was compiled. This population was scattered 
 along both banks of the St. Lawrence from a point 
 well below Quebec to the region surrounding 
 Montreal. Most of the farms fronted on the 
 river so that every habitant had a few arpents 
 of marshy land for hay, a tract of cleared upland 
 for ploughing, and an area extending to the rear 
 which might be turned into meadow or left 
 imcleared to supply him with firewood. 
 
 Wheat and maize were the great staples, 
 although large quantities of oats, barley, and 
 peas were also grown. The wheat was invariably 
 spring-sown, and the yield averaged from eight 
 to twelve hundredweights per arpent, or from 
 ten to fourteen bushels per acre. Most of the 
 wheat was made into flour at the seigneurial mills 
 and was consumed in the colony, but shipments 
 were also made with fair regularity to France, 
 to the West Indies, and for a time to Louisbourg. 
 In 1736 the exports of wheat amounted to nearly 
 100,000 bushels, and in the year following the 
 banner harvest of 1741 this total was nearly 
 doubled. The price which the habitant got for 
 wheat at Quebec ranged normally from two to 
 four livres per hundredweight (about thirty to 
 sixty cents per bushel) depending upon the har- 
 
AGRICULTURE, INDUSTRY, AND TRADE 183 
 
 vests in the colony and the safety with which 
 wheat could be shipped to France, which, again, 
 hinged upon the fact whether France and England 
 were at peace or at war. Indian corn was 
 not exported to any large extent, but many 
 cargoes of dried peas were sent abroad, and 
 occasionally there were small shipments of oats 
 and beans. 
 
 There was also a considerable production of 
 hemp, flax, and tobacco, but not for export in any 
 large quantity. The tobacco grown in the colony 
 was coarse and ill-flavored. It was smoked by 
 both the habitant and the Indian because it was 
 cheap; but Brazilian tobacco was greatly preferred 
 by those who could afford to buy it, and large 
 quantities of this were brought in. The French 
 Government frowned upon tobacco-growing in 
 New France, believing, as Colbert wrote to Talon in 
 1672, that any such policy would be prejudicial to 
 the interests of the French colonies in the tropical 
 zones which were much better adapted to this 
 branch of cultivation. 
 
 Cattle raising made substantial progress, and 
 the King urged the Sovereign Council to prohibit 
 the slaughter of cattle so that the herds might 
 keep on growing; but the stock was not of a high 
 
184 LiJiUSAJJJiitS U±i J\Jt!;W IKAJNUJi 
 
 standard, but undersized, of mongrel breed, and 
 poorly cared for. Sheep raising, despite the brisk 
 demand for wool, made slow headway. Most of 
 the wool needed in the colony had to be brought 
 from France, and the demand was great because so 
 much woolen clothing was required for winter use. 
 The keeping of poultry was, of course, another 
 branch of husbandry. The habitants were fond of 
 horses; even the poorest managed to keep two or 
 three, which was a wasteful policy as there was 
 no work for the horses to do during nearly half 
 the year. Fodder, however, was abundant and 
 cost nothing, as each habitant obtained from the 
 flats along the river all that he could cut and 
 carry away. This marsh hay was not of superior 
 quality, but it at least served to carry the horses 
 and stock through the winter. 
 
 The methods of agriculture were beyond ques- 
 tion slovenly and crude. Catalogue, the engineer 
 whom the authorities commissioned to make an 
 agricultural census of the colony, ventured the 
 opinion that, if the fields of France were cultivated 
 as the farms of Canada were, three-quarters of 
 the French people would starve. Rotation of crops 
 was practically unknown, and fertilization of the 
 land was rare, although the habitant frequently 
 
AGRICULTURE, INDUSTRY, AND TRADE 185 
 
 burned the stubble before putting the plough to 
 his fields. From time to time a part of each farm 
 was allowed to lie fallow, but such fallow fields 
 were left unploughed and soon grew so rank with 
 weeds that the soil really got no rest at all. All 
 the ploughing was done in the spring, and it 
 was not very well done at that, for the land was 
 ploughed in ridges which left much waste between 
 the furrows. Too often the seed became poor, 
 as a result of the habitant using seed from his own 
 crops year after year imtil it became run out. 
 Most of the cultivated land was high and dry and 
 needed no artificial drainage. Even where the 
 water lay on the land late in the spring, however, 
 there was rarely an attempt, as Peter Kalm in 
 his Travels remarks, to drain it off. The hab- 
 itant had patience in greater measure than 
 industry, and he was always ready to wait for 
 nature to do his work. Everybody depended 
 for his implements largely upon his own workman- 
 ship, so that the tools of agriculture were of poor 
 construction. The cultivation of even a few 
 arpents required a great deal of manual drudgery. 
 On the other hand, the land of New France was 
 fertile, and every one could have plenty of it for the 
 asking. Kalm thought it quite as good as the 
 
average in the English colonies and far better 
 than most arable land in his own Scandinavia. 
 
 Why, then, did French-Canadian agriculture, 
 despite the warm official encouragement given to 
 it, make such relatively meager progress? There 
 are several reasons for its backwardness. The 
 long winters, which developed in the habitant 
 an inveterate disposition to idleness, afford the 
 clue to one of them. A general aversion to un- 
 remitting manual toil was one of the colony's 
 besetting sins. Notwithstanding the small per 
 capita acreage, accordingly, there was a continual 
 complaint that not enough labor could be had 
 to work the farms. Women and children were 
 pressed into service in the busy seasons. Yet 
 the colony abounded in idle men, and mendicancy 
 at one time assumed such proportions as to require 
 the enforcement of stringent penalties. The au- 
 thorities were partly to blame for the develop- 
 ment of this trait, for upon the slightest excuse 
 they took the habitant from his daily routine and 
 set him to help with warlike expeditions against 
 the Indians and the English, or called him to build 
 roads or to repair the fortifications. And the 
 lure of the fur trade, which drew the most vigorous 
 young men of the land off the farms into the forest, 
 
AGRICULTURE, INDUSTRY, AND TRADE 187 
 
 was another obstacle to the growth of yeomanry. 
 Moreover, the curious and inconvenient shape of 
 the farms, most of them mere ribbons of land, 
 with a narrow frontage and disproportionate depth, 
 handicapped all efforts to cultivate the fields in 
 an intelligent way. Finally, there was the general 
 poverty of the people. With a large family to 
 support, for families of ten to fifteen children 
 were not uncommon, it was hard for the settler 
 to make both ends meet from the annual yield 
 of a few arpents, however fertile. The habitant, 
 therefore, took the shortest cut to everything, 
 getting what he could out of his land in the quick- 
 est possible way with no reference to the ultimate 
 improvement of the farm itself. If he ever 
 managed to get a little money, he was likely to 
 spend it at once and to become as impecunious 
 as before. Such a propensity did not make for 
 progress, for poverty begets slovenliness in all ages 
 and among all races of men. 
 
 If anything like the industry and intelligence 
 that was bestowed upon agriculture in the English 
 colonies had been applied to the St. Lawrence 
 valley, New France might have shipped far more 
 wheat than beaver skins each year to Europe. 
 But in this respect the colony never half realized 
 
188 CRUSADERS OF NEW FRANCE 
 
 the royal expectations. On the other hand, the 
 attempt to make the land a rich grain-growing 
 colony was far from being a flat failure. It was 
 supporting its own population, and had a modest 
 amount of grain each year for export to France 
 or to the French West Indies. With peace it 
 would soon have become a land of plenty, for the 
 traveler who passed along the great river from 
 Quebec to Montreal in the late autumn might see, 
 as Kalm in his Travels tells us he saw, field upon 
 field of waving grain extending from the shores 
 inward as far as the eye could reach, broken only 
 here and there by tracts of meadow and woodland. 
 Here was at least the nucleus of a Golden West. 
 
 Of colonial industry, however, not as much can 
 be said as of agriculture. Down to about 1663 
 it had given scarcely a single token of existence. 
 The colony, until that date, manufactured nothing. 
 Everything in the way of furnishings, utensils, 
 apparel, and ornament was brought in the com- 
 pany's ships from France, and no one seemed to 
 look upon this procedure as at all unusual. On 
 the coming of Talon in 1665, however, the idea of 
 fostering home industries in the colony took active 
 shape. By persuasion and by promise of reward, 
 the "Colbert of New France" interested the 
 
A.GRICULTURE, INDUSTRY, AND TRADE 189 
 
 prominent citizens of Quebec in modest industrial 
 enterprises of every sort. 
 
 But the outcome soon belied the intendant's 
 airy hopes. It was easy enough to make a brave 
 start in these things, especially with the aid of an 
 initial subsidy from the treasury; but to keep 
 the wheels of industry moving year after year 
 without a subvention was an altogether different 
 thing. A colony numbering less than ten thou- 
 sand souls did not furnish an adequate market 
 for the products of varied industries, and the high 
 cost of transportation made it difficult to export 
 caanufactured wares to France or to the West 
 [ndies with any hope of profit. A change of tone, 
 moreover, soon became noticeable in Colbert's 
 dispatches with reference to industrial develop- 
 ment. In 1665, when giving his first instructions 
 to Talon, the minister had dilated upon his desire 
 that Canada should become self-sustaining in the 
 natter of clothing, shoes, and the simpler house- 
 'umishings. But within a couple of years Col- 
 bert's mind seems to have taken a different shift, 
 md we find him advising Talon that, after all, it 
 night be better if the people of New France would 
 levote their energies to agriculture and thus to 
 •aise enough grain wherewith to buy manufactured 
 
190 CRUSADERS OF NEW FRANCE 
 
 wares from France. So, for one reason or another, 
 the infant industries languished, and, after Talon 
 was gone, they gradually dropped out of existence. 
 Another of Talon's ventures was to send pro- 
 spectors in search of minerals. The use of malle- 
 able copper by the Indians had been noted by the 
 French for many years and various rumors con- 
 cerning the source of supply had filtered through 
 to Quebec. Some of Talon's agents, including 
 Jean Pere, went as far as the upper lakes, returning 
 with samples of copper ore. But the distance from 
 Quebec was too great for profitable transportatioH 
 and, although Pere Dablon in 1670 sent down an 
 accurate description of the great masses of ore in 
 the Lake Superior region, many generations were 
 to pass before any serious attempt could be made 
 to develop this source of wealth. Nearer at hand 
 some titaniferous iron ore was discovered, at Baie 
 St. Paul below Quebec, but it was not utilized, 
 although on being tested it was found to be good in 
 quality. Then the intendant sent agents to verify 
 reports as to rich coal deposits in Isle Royale 
 (Cape Breton), and they retm-ned with glowing 
 accounts which subsequent industrial history 
 has entirely justified. Shipments of this coal were 
 brought to Quebec for consumption. A little later 
 
AGRICULTURE, INDUSTRY, AND TRADE 191 
 
 the intendant reported to Colbert that a vein of 
 coal had been actually uncovered at the foot of the 
 great rock which frowns upon the Lower Town at 
 Quebec, adding that the vein could not be followed 
 for fear of toppling over the ChS,teau which stood 
 above. No one has ever since found any trace of 
 Talon's coal deposit, and the geologists of today 
 are quite certain that the intendant had more 
 imagination than accuracy of statement or even 
 of elementary mineralogical knowledge. 
 
 Above the settlement at Three Rivers some 
 excellent deposits of bog iron ore were found in 
 1668, but it was not until five decades later that 
 the first forges were established there. These 
 were successfully operated throughout the remain- 
 der of the Old Regime, and much of the colony's 
 iron came from them to supply the blacksmiths. 
 From time to time rumors of other mineral dis- 
 coveries came to the ears of the people. A 
 find of lead was reported from the Gaspe penin- 
 sula, but an investigation proved it to be a hoax. 
 Copper was actually found in a dozen places 
 within the settled ranges of the colony, but not 
 in paying quantities. Every one was always on 
 the qui vive for a vein of gold or silver, but no part 
 of New France ever gave the slightest hint of 
 
192 CRUSADERS OF NEW FRANCE 
 
 an El Dorado. Prospecting engaged the energies 
 of many colonists in every generation, but most 
 of those who thus spent their years at it got nothing 
 but a princely dividend of chagrin. 
 
 Mention should also be made of the brewing 
 industry which Talon set upon its feet during his 
 brief intendancy but which, like all the rest of his 
 schemes, did not long survive his departure. In 
 estabhshing a brewery at Quebec the paternal 
 intendant had two ends in mind: first, to reduce 
 the large consumption of eau-de-vie by providing a 
 cheaper and more wholesome substitute; and 
 second, to furnish the farmers of the colony with a 
 profitable home market for their grain. In 1771 
 Talon reported to the French authorities that the 
 Quebec brewery was capable of turning out four 
 thousand hogsheads of beer per annum, and thus 
 of creating a demand for many thousand bushels 
 of malt. Hops were also needed and were expen- 
 sive when brought from France, so that the peo- 
 ple were encouraged to grow hop-vines in the 
 colony. But even with grain and hops at hand, 
 the brewing industry did not thrive, and before 
 many years Talon's enterprise closed its doors. 
 The building was finally remodeled and became 
 the headquarters of the later intendants. 
 
AGRICULTURE, INDUSTRY, AND TRADE 193 
 
 Flour-making and lumbering were the two 
 industries which made most consistent progress 
 in the colony. Flour-mills were established both 
 in and near Quebec at an early date, and in course 
 of time there were scores of them scattered through- 
 out the colony, most of them built and operated 
 as banal mills by the seigneurs. The majority 
 were windmills after the Dutch fashion, but some 
 were water-driven. On the whole, they were not 
 very eflScient and turned out flour of such indiffer- 
 ent grade that the bakers of Quebec complained 
 loudly on more than one occasion. In response to 
 a request from the intendant, the King sent out 
 some fanning-mills which were distributed to 
 various seigneuries, but even this benefaction 
 did not seem to make any great improvement in 
 the quality of the product. Yet in some years 
 the colony had flour of suflBciently good quality 
 for export, and sent small cargoes both to France 
 and to the French West Indies. 
 
 The sawing of lumber was carried on in various 
 parts of the colony, particularly at Malbaie and at 
 Bale St. Paul. Beam-timbers, planks, staves, and 
 shingles were made in large quantities both for 
 use in the colony and for export to France, where 
 the timbers and planks were in demand at the 
 13 
 
194 CRUSADERS OF NEW FRANCE 
 
 royal shipyards. Wherever lands were granted 
 by the Crown, a provision was inserted in the 
 title-deed reserving all oak timber and all pine 
 of various species suitable for mastings. Though 
 such timber was not to be cut without official 
 permission, the people did not always respect this 
 reservation. Yet the quantity of timber shipped 
 to France was very large, and next to furs it formed 
 the leading item in the cargoes of outgoing ships. 
 For staves there was a good market at Quebec 
 where barrels were being made for the packing of 
 salted fish and eels. 
 
 The various handicrafts or small industries, 
 such as blacksmithing, cabinet-making, pottery, 
 brick-making, were regulated quite as strictly in 
 Canada as in France. The artisans of the towns 
 were organized into jur6s or guilds, and elected a 
 master for each trade. These masters were 
 responsible to the civil authorities for the proper 
 quality of the work done and for the observance of 
 all the regulations which were promulgated by the 
 intendant or the council from time to time. 
 
 This relative proficiency in home industry 
 accounts in part for the tardy progress of the col- 
 ony in the matter of large industrial establish- 
 ments. But there were other handicaps. For 
 
AGRICULTURE, INDUSTRY, AND TRADE 195 
 
 one thing, the Paris authorities were not anxious 
 to see the colony become industrially self-sustain- 
 ing. Colbert in his eariiest instructions to Talon 
 wrote as though this were the royal policy, but no 
 other minister ever hinted at such a desire. Rather 
 it was thought best that the colony should confine 
 itself to the production of raw materials, leaving 
 it to France to supply manufactured wares in 
 return. The mercantilist doctrine that a colony 
 existed for the benefit of the mother country was 
 gospel at Fontainebleau. Even Montcalm, a man 
 of Hberal inclinations, expressed this idea with 
 undiminished vigor in a day when its evil results 
 must have been apparent to the naked eye. "Let 
 us beware," he wrote, "how we allow the establish- 
 ment of industries in Canada or she will become 
 proud and mutinous like the English colonies. 
 So long as France is a nursery to Canada, let not 
 the Canadians be allowed to trade but kept to 
 their laborious life and military services." 
 
 The exclusion of the Huguenots from Canada 
 was another industrial misfortune. A few Hugue- 
 not artisans came to Quebec from Rochelle at 
 an early date, and had they been welcomed, 
 more would soon have followed. But they were 
 promptly deported. From an economic standpoint 
 
19e CRUSADERS OF NEW FRANCE 
 
 this was an unfortunate policy. The Huguenots 
 were resourceful workmen, skilled in many trades. 
 They would have supplied the colony with a vigor- 
 ous and enterprising stock. But the interests 
 of orthodoxy in religion were paramount with the 
 authorities, and they kept from Canada the one 
 class of settlers which most desired to come. 
 Many of those same Huguenots went to England, 
 and every student of economic history knows how 
 greatly they contributed to the upbuilding of 
 England's later supremacy in the textile and 
 related industries. 
 
 If we tiu-n to the field of commerce, the spirit of 
 restriction appears as prominently as in the domain 
 of industry. The Company of One Hundred 
 Associates, during its thirty years of control, 
 allowed no one to proceed to Quebec except on its 
 own vessels, and nothing could be imported 
 except through its storehouses. Its successor, 
 the Company of the West Indies, which dominated 
 colonial commerce from 1664 to 1669, was not a 
 whit more liberal. Even under the system of 
 royal government, the consistent keynotes of 
 commercial policy were regulation, paternalism, 
 and monopoly. 
 
 This is in no sense surprising. Spain had 
 
AGRICULTURE, INDUSTRY, AND TRADE 197 
 
 first given to the world this policy of commercial 
 constraint and the great enrichment of the Spanish 
 monarchy was everywhere held to be its outcome. 
 France, by reason of her similar political and 
 administrative system, found it easy to drift 
 into the wake of the Spanish example. The 
 official classes in England and Holland would fain 
 have had these countries do likewise, but private 
 initiative and enterprise proved too strong in 
 the end. As for New France, there were spells 
 during which the grip of the trading monopolies 
 relaxed, but these lucid intervals were never 
 very long. When the Company of the West 
 Indies became bankrupt in 1669, the trade between 
 New France and Old was ostensibly thrown open 
 to the traders of both countries, and for the moment 
 this freedom gave Colbert and his Canadian 
 apostle. Talon, an opportunity to carry out theii 
 ideas of commercial upbuilding. 
 
 The great minister had as his ideal the creation 
 of a huge fleet of merchant vessels, built and 
 operated by Frenchmen, which would ply to all 
 quarters of the globe, bringing raw products tc 
 France and taking manufactured wares in return, 
 It was under the inspiration of this ideal thai 
 Talon built at Quebec a small vessel and, having 
 
198 CRUSADEES OF NEW FRANCE 
 
 freighted it with lumber, fish, com, and dried 
 pease, sent it off to the French West Indies. 
 After taking on board a cargo of sugar, the vessel 
 was then to proceed to France and, exchanging 
 the sugar for goods which were needed in the 
 regions of the St. Lawrence, it was to return to 
 Quebec. The intendant's plans for this triangular 
 trade were well conceived, and in a general way 
 they aimed at just what the English colonies 
 along the Atlantic seaboard were beginning to 
 do at the time. The keels of other ships were 
 being laid at Quebec and the officials were dreaming 
 of great maritime achievements. But as usual 
 the enterprise never got beyond the sailing of the 
 first vessel, for its voyage did not yield a profit. 
 
 The ostensible throwing-open of the colonial 
 trade, moreover, did not actually change to any 
 great extent the old system of paternalism and 
 monopoly. Commercial companies no longer con- 
 trolled the channels of transportation, it is true, 
 but the royaJ government was not minded to let 
 everything take its own course. So the trade was 
 taxed for the benefit of the royal treasury, and the 
 privilege of collecting the taxes, according to the 
 custom of the old regime, was farmed out. All 
 the commerce of the colony, imports and exports, 
 
A.GRICULTURE, INDUSTRY, AND TRADE 199 
 
 had to pass througli the hands of these farmers-of- 
 the-revenue who levied ten per cent on all goods 
 coming and kept for the royal treasury one- 
 quarter of the price fixed for all skins exported. 
 Traders as a rule were not permitted to ship their 
 fuxs directly to France. They turned them in to 
 farmers-of-the-revenue at Quebec, where they 
 received the price as fixed by ordinance, less one- 
 quarter. This price they usually took in bills of 
 exchange on Paris which they handed over to the 
 colonial merchants in payment for goods, and 
 which the merchants in turn sent home to France 
 to pay for new stocks. Nor were the authorities 
 content with the mere fixing of prices. By 
 ordinance they also set the rate of profit which 
 traders should have upon all imported wares 
 brought into the colony. This rate of profit was 
 fixed at sixty-five per cent, but the traders had no 
 compunction in going above it whenever they saw 
 an opportunity which was not likely to be dis- 
 covered. As far as the forest trade was concerned, 
 the regulation was, of course, absurd. 
 
 Every year, about the beginnmg of May, the 
 first ships left France for the St. Lawrence with 
 general cargoes consisting of goods for the colonists 
 themselves and for the Indians, as well as large 
 
200 CRUSADERS OF NEW FRANCE 
 
 quantities of brandy. When they arrived at Que- 
 bec, the vessels were met by the merchants of the 
 town and by those who had come from Three 
 Rivers and Montreal. For a fortnight lively 
 trading took place. Then the goods which had 
 been bought by the merchants of Montreal and 
 Three Rivers were loaded upon small barques and 
 brought to these towns to be in readiness 
 for the annual fairs when the coureurs-de-bois 
 and their Indians came down to trade in the late 
 summer. As for the vessels which had come 
 from France, these were either loaded with timber 
 or furs and set oflf directly home again, or else 
 they departed light to Cape Breton and took 
 cargoes of coal for the French West Indies, where 
 the refining of sugar occasioned a demand for fuel. 
 The last ships left in November, and for seven 
 months the colony was cut off from Europe. 
 
 Trade at Quebec, while technically open to 
 any one who would pay the duties and observe 
 the regulations as to rates of profit, was actually 
 in the hands of a few merchants who had large 
 warehouses and who took the greater part of what 
 the ships brought in. These men were, in turn, 
 affiliated more or less closely with the great 
 trading houses which sent goods from Rouen or 
 
AGRICULTURE, INDUSTRY, AND TRADE 201 
 
 Rochelle, so that the monopoly was nearly as iron- 
 clad as when commercial companies were in control. 
 When an outsider broke into the charmed circle, as 
 happened occasionally, there was usually some 
 way of hustling him out again by means either fair 
 or foul. The monopolists made large profits, 
 and many of them, after they had accumulated a 
 fortune, went home to France. "I have known 
 twenty of these -pedlars," quoth La Hontan, 
 "that had not above a thousand crowns stock when 
 I arrived at Quebec in the year 1683 and when 
 I left that place had got to the tune of twelve 
 thousand crowns. " 
 
 Glancing over the whole course of agriculture, 
 industry, and commerce in New France from the 
 time when Champlain built his little post at 
 the foot of Cape Diamond until the day when 
 the fleur-de-lis fluttered down from the heights 
 above, the historian finds that there is one word 
 which sums up the chief cause of the colony's 
 economic weakness. That word is "paternalism.'' 
 The Administration tried to take the place oi 
 Providence. It was as omnipresent and its ways 
 were as inscrutable. Like as a father chastenett 
 his children, so the King and his officials felt i1 
 their duty to chasten every show of private initia- 
 
202 CRUSADERS OF NEW FRANCE 
 
 tive which did not direct itself along the grooves 
 that they had marked out for the colony to 
 follow. By trying to order everything they 
 eventually succeeded in ordering nothing aright. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 IHOW THE PEOPLE LIVED 
 
 In New France there were no privileged orders. 
 This, indeed, was the most marked difference 
 between the social organization of the home land 
 and that of the colony. There were social distinc- 
 tions in Canada, to be sure, but the boundaries 
 between different elements of the population were 
 not rigid; there were no privileges based upon the 
 laws of the land, and no impenetrable barrier sep- 
 arated one class from another. Men could rise by 
 their own efforts or come down through their own 
 defaults ; their places in the community were not 
 determined for them by the accident of birth as 
 was the case in the older land. Some of the most 
 successful figures in the public and business affairs 
 of New France, some of the social leaders, some ol 
 those who attained the highest rank in the noblesse, 
 came of relatively humble parentage. 
 In France of the sixteenth and seventeenth 
 
 £03 
 
204 CRUSADERS OF NEW FRANCE 
 
 centuries the chief officials of state, the seigneurs, 
 the higher ecclesiastics, even the officers of the 
 army and the marine, were always drawn from the 
 nobility. In the colony this was very far from 
 being the case. Some colonial officials and a few 
 of the seigneurs were among the numerous noblesse 
 of France before they came, and they of course 
 retained their social rank in the new environment. 
 Others were raised to this rank by the King, 
 usually for distinguished services in the colony 
 and on the recommendation of the governor or 
 the intendant. But, even if taken all together, 
 these men constituted a very small proportion 
 of the people in New France. Even among the 
 seigneurs the great majority of these landed 
 gentlemen came from the ranks of the people, and 
 not one in ten was a member of the noblesse. 
 There was, therefore, a social solidarity, a spirit 
 of fraternity, and a feeling of imiversal comrade- 
 ship among them which was altogether lacking at 
 home. 
 
 The pivot of social life in New France was the 
 settlement at Quebec. This was the colonial 
 capital, the seat of the governor and of the council, 
 the only to^yn in the colony large enough to have 
 all the trappings and tinsel of a well-rounded social 
 
HOW THE PEOPLE LIVED 20. 
 
 Set. Here, too, came some of the seigneurs t( 
 spend the winter months. The royal officials, th 
 officers of the garrison, the leading merchants 
 the judges, the notaries and a few other profes 
 sional men — these with their families made up ai 
 elite which managed to echo, even if somewha 
 faintly, the pomp and glamor of Versailles. Que 
 bee, from all accounts, was lively in the Ion, 
 winters. Its people, who were shut oflF from al 
 intercourse with Europe for many months at 
 time, soon learned the art of providing for thei 
 own recreation and amusement. The knight 
 errant La Hontan speaks enthusiastically of th 
 events in the life of this miniature society, c 
 the dinners and dances, the salons and receptions 
 the intrigues, rivalries, and flirtations, all of whic' 
 were well suited to his Bohemian tastes. Bu 
 the clergy frowned upon this levity, of which the; 
 believed there was far too much. On one o 
 two occasions they even laid a rigorous and re 
 straining hand upon activities of which they dis 
 approved, notably when the young officers of th 
 Quebec garrison imdertook an amateur perform 
 ance of Moh^re's Tartuffe in 1694. At Montrea 
 and Three Rivers, the two smaller towns of th 
 colony, the social circle was more contracted ani 
 
206 CRUSADERS OF NEW FRANCE 
 
 correspondingly less brilliant. The capital, indeed, 
 had no rival. 
 
 Only a small part of the population, however, 
 Uved in the towns. At the beginning of the 
 eighteenth century the census (1706) showed a 
 total of 16,417, of whom less than 3000 were in 
 the three chief settlements. The others were 
 scattered along both banks of the St. Lawrence, 
 but chiefly on the northern shore, with the houses 
 grouped into cotes or little villages which almost 
 touched elbows along the banks of the stream. 
 In each of these hamlets the manor-house or home 
 of the seigneur, although not a mansion by any 
 means, was the focus of social life. Sometimes 
 bmlt of timber but more often of stone, with 
 dimensions rarely exceeding twenty feet by forty, 
 it was not much more pretentious than the homes 
 of the more prosperous and thrifty among the 
 seigneur's dependents. Its three or four spacious 
 rooms were, however, more comfortably equipped 
 with furniture which in many cases had been 
 brought from France. Socially, the seigneur and 
 his family did not stand apart from his neighbors. 
 All went to the same church, took part in the same 
 amusements upon days of festival, and not infre- 
 quently worked together at the common task of 
 
HOW THE PEOPLE LIVED 20^ 
 
 clearing the lands. Sons and daughters o| th( 
 seigneurs often intermarried with those of habi 
 tants in the seigneury or of traders in the towns 
 There was no social impasse such as existed ii 
 France among the various elements in a com 
 munity. 
 
 As for the habitants, the people who clearec 
 and cultivated the lands of the seigneuries, thej 
 worked and lived and dressed as pioneers ar< 
 wont to do. Their homes were commonly built o: 
 felled timber or of rough-hewn stone, solid, low 
 stocky buildings, usually about twenty by fortj 
 feet or thereabouts in size, with a single doorwaj 
 and very few windows. The roofs were steep 
 pitched, with a dormer window or two thrust oul 
 on either side, the eaves projecting well over the 
 walls in such manner as to give the structures i 
 half-bungalow appearance. With almost reUgiou! 
 punctuality the habitants whitewashed the out 
 side of their walls every spring, so that from th< 
 river the country houses looked trim and neat a1 
 aU seasons. Between the river and the uplands 
 ran the roadway, close to which the habitants se1 
 their conspicuous dwellings with only in ran 
 cases a grass plot or shade tree at the door. Ii 
 winter they bore the full blast of the winds thai 
 
208 CRUSADERS OF NEW FRANCE 
 
 drove across the expanse of frozen stream in front 
 of them; in summer the hot smi blazed relentlessly 
 upon the low roofs. As each house stood but a 
 few rods from its neighbor on either side, the 
 colony thus took on the appearance of one long, 
 straggling, village street. The habitant liked to 
 be near his fellows, partly for his own safety against 
 marauding redskins, but chiefly because the 
 colony was at best a lonely place in the long cold 
 season when there was little for any one to do. 
 
 Behind each house was a small addition used as 
 a storeroom. Not far away were the barn and the 
 stable, built always of untrimmed logs, the inter- 
 vening chinks securely filled with clay or mortar. 
 There was also a root-house, half-sunk in the 
 ground or burrowed into the slope of a hill, where 
 the habitant kept his potatoes and vegetables 
 secure from the frost through the winter. Most 
 of the habitants likewise had their own bake- 
 ovens, set a convenient distance behind the 
 house and rising four or five feet from the ground. 
 These they built roughly of boulders and plastered 
 with clay. With an abundance of wood from 
 the virgin forests they would build a roaring fire 
 in these ovens and finish the whole week's baking 
 at one time. The habitant would often enclose 
 
HOW THE PEOPLE LIVED 20! 
 
 a small plot of ground surrounding the house anc 
 outbuildings with a fence of piled stones or spli 
 rails, and in one corner he would plant his kitchen 
 garden. 
 
 Within the dwelling-house there were usually 
 two, and never more than three, rooms on th 
 ground floor. The doorway opened into the grea 
 room of the house, parlor, dining-room, am 
 kitchen combined. A "living" room it surely 
 was! In the better houses, however, this roon 
 was divided, with the kitchen partitioned of 
 from the rest. Most of the furnishings were th 
 products of the colony and chiefly of the family* 
 own workmanship. The floor was of hewi 
 timber, rubbed and scrubbed to smoothness, k 
 woolen rug or several of them, always of vivk 
 hues, covered the greater part of it. There weri 
 the family dinner-table of hewn pine, chairs mad< 
 of pine saplings with seats of rushes or wovei 
 underbark, and often in the corner a couch tha 
 would serve as an extra bed at night. Pictures o 
 saints hung on the walls, sharing the space with \ 
 crucifix, but often having for ominous company 
 the habitant's flint-lock and his powder-hon 
 hanging from the beams. At one end of the 
 room was the fireplace and hearth, the sole meani 
 14 
 
210 CRUSADERS OF NEW FRANCE 
 
 of heating the place, and usually the only means 
 of cooking as well. Around it hung the array of 
 pots and pans, almost the only things in the house 
 which the habitant and his family were not able 
 to make for themselves. The lack of colonial 
 industries had the advantage of throwing each 
 home upon its own resources, and the people 
 developed great versatility in the cruder arts of 
 craftsmanship. 
 
 Upstairs, and reached by a ladder, was a loft or 
 attic running the full area of the house, but so 
 low that one could touch the rafters everywhere. 
 Here the children, often a dozen or more of them, 
 were stowed away at night on mattresses of straw 
 or feathers laid along the floor. As the windows 
 were securely fastened, even in the coldest weather 
 this attic was warm, if not altogether hygienic. 
 The love of fresh air in his dwelling was not 
 among the habitant's virtues. Every one went 
 to bed shortly after darkness fell upon the land, 
 and all rose with the sun. Even visits and festivi- 
 ties were not at that time prolonged into the 
 night as they are nowadays. Therein, however, 
 New France did not differ from other lands. In 
 the seventeenth century most of the world went to 
 bed at nightfall because there was nothing else to 
 
HOW THE PEOPLE LIVED 211 
 
 do, and no easy or inexpensive artificial light 
 Candles were in use, to be sure, but a great manj 
 more of them were burned on the altars of the 
 churches than in the homes of the people. For hi; 
 reading, the habitant depended upon the priest 
 and for his writing, upon the notary. 
 
 Clothing was almost wholly made at home. I1 
 was warm and durable, as well as somewhat dis 
 tinctive and picturesque. Every parish had spin 
 ning wheels and handlooms in some of its homes or 
 which the women turned out the heavy druggets o] 
 Stqffes du pays from which most of the men's 
 clothing was made. A great fabric it was, thi; 
 homespun, with nothing but wool in it, not attrac 
 tive in pattern but able to stand no end of wear 
 It was fashioned for the habitant's use into roomj 
 trousers and a long frock coat reaching to th< 
 knees which he tied around his waist with a bell 
 of leather or of knitted yarn. The women als( 
 used this etoffe for skirts, but their waists anc 
 summer dresses were of calico, homemade as well 
 As for the children, most of them ran about in the 
 summer months wearing next to nothing at all. A 
 single garment without sleeves and reaching tc 
 the knees was all that covered their nakedness 
 For all ages and for both sexes there were furs ii 
 
212 CRUSADEBS OF NEW FRANCE 
 
 plenty for winter use. Beaver skins were cheap, 
 in some years about as cheap as cloth. When 
 properly treated they were soft and pliable, and 
 easily made into clothes, caps, and mittens. 
 
 Most of the footwear was made at home, usually 
 from deerhides. In winter every one wore the 
 bottes sauvages, or oiled moccasins laced up half- 
 way or more to the knees. They were proof 
 against cold and were serviceable for use with snow- 
 shoes. Between them and his feet the habitant 
 wore two or more pairs of heavy woolen socks 
 made from coarse homespun yarn. In summer the 
 women and children of the rural communities 
 usually went barefoot so that the soles of their feet 
 grew as tough as pigskin; the men sometimes did 
 likewise, but more frequently they wore, in the 
 fields or in the forest, clogs made of cowhide. 
 
 On the week-days of summer every one wore a 
 straw hat which the women of the household spent 
 part of each winter in plaiting. In cold weather 
 the knitted tuque made in vivid colors was the 
 great favorite. It was warm and picturesque. 
 Each section of the colony had its own color; the 
 habitants in the vicinity of Quebec wore blue 
 tuques, while those around Montreal preferred red. 
 The apparel of the people was thus in general 
 
HOW THE PEOPLE LIVED 213 
 
 adapted to the country, and it had a distinctiveness 
 that has not yet altogether passed away. 
 
 On Sundays and on the numerous days of festi- 
 val, however, the habitant and his family brought 
 out their best. To Mass the men wore clothes of 
 better texture and high beaver hats, the women 
 appeared in their brighter plumage of dresses 
 with ribbons and laces imported from France. 
 Such finery was brought over in so large a quan- 
 tity that more than one mSmoire to the home 
 government censured the "spirit of extravagance" 
 of which this was one outward manifestation. In 
 the towns the oflBcials and the well-to-do mer- 
 chants dressed elaborately on all occasions ol 
 ceremony, with scarlet cloaks and perukeSj 
 buckled slippers and silk stockings. In early 
 Canada there was no austerity of garb such as wt 
 find in Puritan New England. New France on a 
 jour defete was a blaze of color. 
 
 As for his daily fare, the habitant was nevei 
 badly off even in the years when harvests wert 
 poor. He had food that was more nourishing and 
 more abundant than the French peasant had a1 
 home. Bread was made from both wheat and ryt 
 flour, the product of the seigneurial mills. Corn 
 cakes were baked in Indian fashion from grounc 
 
214 CRUSADERS OF NEW FRANCE 
 
 maize. Fat salted pork was a staple during the 
 winter, and nearly every habitant laid away each 
 autumn a smoked supply of eels from the river. 
 Game of all sorts he could get with little trouble at 
 any time, wild ducks and geese, partridges, for 
 there were in those days no game laws to protect 
 them. In the early winter, likewise, it was iadeed 
 a luckless habitant who could not also get a caribou 
 or two for his larder. Following the Indian 
 custom, the venison was smoked and hung on the 
 kitchen beams, where it kept for months until 
 needed. Salted or smoked fish had also to be 
 provided for family use, since the usages of the 
 Church required that meat should not be used 
 upon numerous fast-days. 
 
 Vegetables of many varieties were grown in 
 New France, where the warm, sandy, virgin soil 
 of the St. Lawrence region was splendidly suited 
 for this branch of husbandry. Peas were the great 
 stand-by, and in the old days whole families were 
 reared upon sawpe aux 'pais, which was, and may 
 even still be said to be, the national dish of the 
 French Canadians. Beans, cucumbers, melons, and 
 a dozen other products were also grown in the 
 family gardens. There were potatoes, which the 
 habitant called patates and not pommes de terre, 
 
HOW THE PEOPLE LIVED 215 
 
 but they were almost a rarity until the closing days 
 of the Old Regime. Wild fruits, chiefly raspberries, 
 blueberries, and wild grapes, grew in abundance 
 among the foothills and were gathered in great 
 quantities every summer. There was not much 
 orchard fruit, although some seedling trees were 
 brought from France and had managed to become 
 acclimated. 
 
 On the whole, even in the humbler homes 
 there was no need for any one to go hungry. The 
 daily fare of the people was not of great varietyj 
 but it was nourishing, and there was plenty of it 
 save in rare instances. More than oae visitor to 
 the colony was impressed by the rude comfort 
 in which the people lived, even though they 
 made no pretense of being well-to-do. "In New 
 France," wrote Charlevoix, "poverty is hiddcD 
 behind an air of comfort," while the gossipy La 
 Hontan was of the opinion that "the boors of these 
 seigneuries live with greater comfort than ar 
 infinity of the gentlemen in France." Occasion- 
 ally, when the men were taken from the fields tc 
 serve in the defense of the colony against the 
 English attacks, the harvests were small and 
 the people had to spend the ensuing winter od 
 short rations. Yet, as the authorities assured 
 
116 CRUSADERS OF NEW FRANCE 
 
 the King, they were "robust, vigorous, and able 
 in time of need to live on little." 
 
 As for beverages, the habitant was inordinately 
 Eond of sour milk. Tea was scarce and costly. 
 Brandy was imported in huge quantities, and not 
 all this eau-de-vie, as some writers imagine, went 
 into the Indian trade. The people themselves 
 consumed most of it. Every parish in the colony 
 had its grog-shop; in 1725 the King ordered that 
 Qo parish should have more than two. Quebec 
 had a dozen or more, and complaint was made 
 that the people flocked to these resorts early in the 
 morning, thus rendering themselves unfit for work 
 during most of the day, and soon ruining their 
 health into the bargain. There is no doubt that 
 the people of New France were fond of the flagon, 
 for not only the priests but the civil authorities 
 complained of this failing. Idleness due to the 
 Qumerous holidays and to the long winters com- 
 bined with the tradition of hospitality to encour- 
 age this taste. The habitants were fond of visiting 
 one another, and hospitality demanded on every 
 such occasion the proffer of something to drink. 
 On the other hand, the scenes of debauchery 
 which a few chroniclers have described were not 
 typical of the colony the year round. When the 
 
HOW THE PEOPLE LIVED 21' 
 
 ships came in with their cargoes, there was j 
 great indulgence in feasting and drink, and thi 
 excesses at this time were sure to impress th( 
 casual visitor. But when the fleet had weighe( 
 anchor and departed for France, there was i 
 quick return to the former quietness and to i 
 reasonable measure of sobriety. 
 
 Tobacco was used freely. "Every farmer,' 
 wrote Kalm, "plants a quantity of tobacco nea 
 his house because it is xmiversally smoked. Boy 
 of twelve years of age often run about with th( 
 pipe in their mouths. " The women were smokers 
 too, but more commonly they used tobacco in thi 
 form of snuflf. In those days, as in our own, thi 
 French-Canadian tobacco was strong stuff, cure( 
 in the sun till the leaves were black, and whei 
 smoked emitting an odor that scented the whol 
 parish. The art of smoking a pipe was one o 
 several profitless habits which the Frenchman los 
 little time in acquiring from his Indian friends 
 
 This convivial temperament of the inhabitant 
 of New France has been noted by more than om 
 contemporary. The people did not spend al 
 their energies and time at hard labor. Fron 
 October, when the crops were in, until May, whei 
 the season of seedtime came again, there was 
 
!18 CRUSADERS OF NEW FRANCE 
 
 ndeed, little hard work for them to do. Aside 
 rom the cutting of firewood and the few house- 
 lold chores the day was free, and the habitants 
 herefore spent it in driving about and visiting 
 leighbors, drinking and smoking, dancing and 
 )laying cards. Winter, accordingly, was the 
 freat social season in the coimtry as well as in 
 he town. 
 
 The chief festivities occurred at Michaelmas, 
 Zlhristmas, Easter, and May Day. Of these, the 
 irst and the last were closely connected with 
 the seigneurial system. On Michaelmas the hab- 
 tant came to pay the annual rental for his lands; 
 jn May Day he rendered the Maypole hom- 
 ige which has been already described. Christ- 
 nas and Easter were the great festivals of the 
 Hhiu-ch and as such were celebrated with religious 
 'ervor and solemnity. In addition, minor festivals, 
 jhiefly religious in character, were numerous, so 
 nuch so that their frequency even in the months 
 )f cultivation was the subject of complaint by 
 ;he civil authorities, who felt that these holidays 
 ;ook altogether too much time from labor. Stm- 
 lay was a day not only of worship but of recrea- 
 ion. Clad in his best raiment, every one went 
 ;o Mass, whatever the distance or the weather. 
 
HOW THE PEOPLE LIVED 21i 
 
 The parish church indeed was the emblem of vil 
 lage solidarity, for it gathered within its wall 
 each Sunday morning all sexes and ages and ranks 
 The habitant did not separate his religion from hi 
 work or his amusements; the outward manifes 
 tations of his faith were not to his mind things o 
 another world; the church and its priests wer 
 the center alid soul of his little community. Th 
 whole countryside gathered about the churc] 
 doors after the service while the capitaine de l 
 cote, the local representative of the intendaut 
 read the decrees that had been sent to him froii 
 the seats of the mighty at the ChS,teau de Si 
 Louis. That duty over, there was a garrulou 
 interchange of local gossip with a retailing of sud 
 news as had dribbled through from France. Th 
 crowd then melted away in groups to spend th 
 rest of the day in games or dancing or in friendl; 
 visits of one family with another. 
 
 Especially popular among the young people o 
 each parish were the corvSes rScrSatives, or "bees' 
 as we call them nowadays in our rural communi 
 ties. There were the ipuchlette or corn-husking 
 the brayage or flax-beating, and others of the sam 
 sort. The harvest-home or grosse-gerbe, cele 
 brated when the last load had been brough 
 
220 CRUSADERS OF NEW FRANCE 
 
 in from the fields, and the IgnolSe or welcoming 
 of the New Year, were also occasions of goodwill, 
 noise, and revelry. Dancing was by all odds 
 the most popular pastime, and every parish had 
 its fiddler, who was quite as indispensable a factor 
 in the life of the village as either the smith or the 
 notary. Every wedding was the occasion for 
 terpsichorean festivities which lasted all day long. 
 The habitant liked to sing, especially when work- 
 ing with others in the woods or when on the march. 
 The voyageurs relieved the tedium of their long 
 journeys by breaking into song at intervals. But 
 the popular repertoire was limited to a few folk- 
 songs, most of them songs of Old France. They 
 were easy to learn, simple to sing, but sprightly and 
 melodious. Some of them have remained on the 
 lips and in the hearts of the French-Canadian 
 race for over two hundred years. Those who do 
 Qot know the Claire fontaine and Ma boul'e 
 roulant have never known French Canada. The 
 foretier of today still goes to the woods chanting 
 the Malbrouck s'en va-t-en guerre which his ancestors 
 caroled in the days of Blenheim and Malplaquet. 
 When the habitant sang, moreover, it was in 
 ao pianissimo tones; he was lusty and cheerful 
 about giving vent to his buoyant spirits. And 
 
HOW THE PEOPLE LIVED 2S 
 
 his descendant of today has not lost thi 
 propensity. 
 
 The folklore of the old dominion, unlike the fol 
 music, was extensive. Some of it came with tt 
 colonists from their Norman firesides, but mon 
 perhaps, was the outcome of a superstitioi 
 popular imagination working in the new an 
 strange environment of the wilderness. The hab 
 tant had a profound belief in the supematura 
 and was prone to associate miraculous handiwoi 
 with every unusual event. He peopled the eart 
 and the air, the woods and the rivulets, with spirr 
 of diverse forms and varied motives. The re 
 man's abounding superstition, likewise, had son 
 influence upon the habitant's highstrung temperi 
 ment. At any rate, New France was full of legen( 
 and weird tales. Every island, every cove in tl 
 river, had one or more associated with it. Most ( 
 these legends had some moral lessons attached 1 
 them: they were tales of disaster which came froi 
 disobeying the teachings of the Church or of mir; 
 culous escape from death or perdition due to tl 
 supernatural rewarding of righteousness. Take 
 together, they make up a wholesome and vigoroi 
 body of folklore, reflecting both the mystic tempi 
 of the colony and the religious fervor of its commc 
 
222 CRUSADERS OF NEW FRANCE 
 
 life. A distinguished son of French Canada has 
 with great industry gathered these legends to- 
 gether, a service for which posterity wiU be 
 grateful. ' 
 
 Various chroniclers have left us pen portraitures 
 of the habitant as they saw him in the olden days. 
 Charlevoix," La Hontan, Hocquart, and Peter 
 Kalm, men of widely different tastes and apti- 
 tudes, all bear testimony to his vigor, stamina, 
 and native-bom vivacity. He was courteous and 
 polite always, yet there was no flavor of servility 
 in this most benign trait of character. It was 
 bred in his bone and was fostered by the teachings 
 of his church. Along with this went a bonhomie 
 and a lightheartedness, a touch of personal vanity, 
 with a liking for display and ostentation, which 
 unhappily did not make for thrift. The habitant 
 "enjoys what he has got," writes Charlevoix, 
 "and often makes a display of what he has not 
 got." He was also fond of honors, even minor 
 ones, and plumed himself on the slightest recogni- 
 tion from oflBcial circles. Habitants who by years 
 of hard labor had saved enough to buy some un- 
 cleared seigneury strutted about with the airs 
 of genuine aristocrats while their wives, in the 
 
 ' Sir J. M. Lemoine, Legends of the St. Lawrence (Quebec, 1878). 
 
HOW THE PEOPLE LIVED 22 
 
 words of Governor Denonville, "essayed to pla^ 
 the fine lady." More than one intendant wa 
 amused by this broad streak of vanity in th^ 
 colonial character. "Every one here," wrot 
 Meulles, "begins by calling himself an esquir 
 and ends by thinking himself a nobleman. " 
 
 Yet despite this attempt to keep up appear 
 ances, the people were poor. Clearing the lam 
 was a slow process, and the cultivable area avail 
 able for the support of each household was small 
 Early marriages were the rule, and families of i 
 dozen or more children had to be supported fron 
 the produce of a few arpents. To maintain sue] 
 a family as this every one had to work hard in th 
 growing season, and even the women went to th 
 fields in the harvest-time. One serious short 
 coming of the habitant was his lack of steadfast 
 ness in labor. There was a roving strain in hi 
 Norman blood. He could not stay long at an; 
 one job; there was a restlessness in his tempera 
 ment which would not down. He would leav 
 his fields unploughed in order to go huntini 
 or to turn a few sous in some small tradinj 
 adventure. Unstable as water, he did not exce 
 in tasks that required patience. But he couli 
 do a great many things after a fashion, and somi 
 
224 CRUSADERS OF NEW FRANCE 
 
 that could be done quickly he did surprisingly 
 well. 
 
 One racial characteristic which drew comment 
 from observers of the day was the litigious dispo- 
 sition of the people. The habitant would have 
 made lawsuits his chief diversion had he been 
 permitted to do so. "If this propensity be not 
 curbed," wrote the intendant Raudot, "there will 
 soon be more lawsuits in this country than there 
 are persons." The people were not quarrelsome 
 in the ordinary sense, but they were very jealous 
 each one of his private rights, and the opportuni- 
 ties for litigation over such matters seemed to 
 provide themselves without end. Lands were 
 given to settlers without accurate description of 
 their boundaries; farms were unfenced and 
 cattle wandered into neighboring fields; the 
 notaries themselves were almost illiterate, and 
 as a result scarcely a legal document in the 
 colony was properly drawn. Nobody lacked pre- 
 texts for controversy. Idleness during the winter 
 was also a contributing factor. But the Church 
 and the civil authorities frowned upon this 
 habit of rushing to court with every trivial 
 complaint. CurSs and seigneurs did what they 
 could to have such diflBculties settled amicably 
 
HOW THE PEOPLE LIVED 2$ 
 
 at home, and in a considerable measure the 
 succeeded. 
 
 New France was born and nurtured in a 
 atmosphere of religious devotion. To the hab 
 tant the Church was everything — his school, h 
 counselor, his almsgiver, his newspaper, h 
 philosopher of things present and of things 1 
 come. To him it was the source of all knowledg 
 experience, and inspiration, and to it he never fa 
 tered in imgrudging loyalty. The Church mac 
 the colony a spiritual unit and kept it so, undefile 
 by any taint of heresy. It furnished the one strong 
 well-disciplined organization that New Franc 
 possessed, and its missionaries blazed the way f( 
 both yeoman and trader wherever they went. 
 
 Many traits of the race have been carried on \ 
 the present day without substantial change. Tl 
 habitant of the old dominion was a voluble talke 
 a teller of great stories about his own feats of ski 
 and endurance, his hair-raising escapes, or h 
 astounding prowess with musket and fishing-lin 
 Stories grew in terms of prodigious achievement s 
 they passed from tongue to tongue, and the scar 
 regard for anything approaching the truth in the; 
 matters became a national eccentricity. Tt 
 habitant was boastful in all that concerned himse 
 
J26 DilUSAUiiKS Ut! JNJiW DKAJNiJii 
 
 )r his race; never did a people feel more firmly 
 issured that it was the salt of the earth. He was 
 jroud of his ancestry, and proud of his allegiance; 
 md so are his descendants of today even though 
 ;heir allegiance has changed. 
 
 To speak of the habitants of New France as 
 iowntrodden or oppressed, dispirited or despair- 
 ng, like the peasantry of the old land in the days 
 jefore the great Revolution, as some historians 
 lave done, is to speak untruthfully. These people 
 vere neither serfs nor peons. The habitant, as 
 Charlevoix puts it, "breathed from his birth the air 
 )f liberty"; he had his rights and he maintained 
 ;hem. Shut off from the rest of the world, know- 
 ng only what the Church and civil government 
 dlowed him to know, he became provincial in his 
 lorizon and conservative in his habits of mind. 
 The paternal policy of the authorities sapped his 
 nitiative and left him little scope for personal 
 jnterprise, so that he passed for being a dull fellow. 
 iTet the annals of forest trade and Indian diplo- 
 nacy prove that the New World possessed no 
 iharper wits than his. Beneath a somewhat 
 mgainly exterior the yeoman and the trader of 
 Siew France concealed qualities of cunning, tact, 
 md quick judgment to a surprising degree. 
 
HOW THE PEOPLE LIVED i 
 
 These various types in the population of N 
 France, oflScials, missionaries, seigneurs, voyageu 
 habitants, were all the scions of a proud ra 
 admirably fitted to form the rank and file in 
 great crusade. It was not their fault that Frai 
 failed to dominate the Western Hemisphere. 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 
 
 On the earlier voyages of discovery to the nortt 
 coasts of the New World the most informing boo] 
 H. P. Biggar's Precursors of Jacques Cartier (Otta 
 1911). Hakluyt's Voyages contain an English tn 
 lation of Cartier's own writings which cover the wl 
 of the first two expeditions and a portion of the th 
 Champlain's journals, which describe in detail his 
 voyages and inland trips of exploration during the y< 
 1604-1618 inclusive, were translated into English ; 
 published by the Prince Society of Boston during 
 years 1878-1882. 
 
 For further discussions of these explorations and of 
 various other topics dealt with in this book the rea 
 may be referred to several works in the Chronicle 
 Canada (32 vols. Toronto, 1914-1916), namely, 
 Stephen Leacock's Dawn of Canadian History ; 
 Mariner of St. Mob; Charles W. Colby's Founder ofl 
 France and The Fighting Governor; Thomas Chapa 
 Great Intendant; Thomas G. Marquis's Jesuit Missu 
 also to Seigneurs of Old Canada and Coureurs-de-1 
 by the author of the present volume. In each 
 these books, moreover, further bibliographical re 
 ences covering the several topics are provided. 
 
 The series known as Canada and Its Provinces 
 its 
 
10 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 
 
 )ls. and index, Toronto, 1914) contains accurate and 
 adable chapters upon every phase of Canadian 
 story, political, military, social, economic, and liter- 
 ■y. The first two volumes of this series deal with the 
 rench regime. Mention should also be made of the 
 ©graphical series dealing with The Makers of Canada 
 12 vols. Toronto, 1905-1914) and especially to the 
 ographies of Champlain, Laval, and Frontenac 
 hich this series includes among its earUer volumes. 
 
 The writings of Francis Parkman, notably his 
 ioneers of New France, Old Regime in Canada, Jesuits 
 I North America, La Salle and the Discovery of the Great 
 ^est, and Count Frontenac are of the highest interest 
 ad value. Although given to the world nearly two 
 merations ago, these volumes still hold an un- 
 lallenged supremacy over all other books relating 
 ) this field of American history. 
 
 Other works which may be commended to readers 
 ho seek pleasure as well as instruction from books of 
 istory are the following: 
 
 ERE F.-X. Charlevoix, Histoire el dSscription gSni- 
 rale de la Nouvelle-France, translated by John 
 Gilmary Shea (6 vols. N. Y., 1866-1872). 
 
 i. W. CoiiBT, Canadian Types of the Old RSgime (N. Y., 
 1908). 
 
 .. G. Doughty, A Daughter of New France (Edinburgh, 
 1916). 
 
 AMES Douglas, Old France in the New World (Cleve- 
 land, 190C). 
 
 '.-X. Garneau, Histoire du Canada (5th ed. by Hector 
 Garneau, Paris, 1913. As yet only the first volume 
 of this edition ha,i appeared.) 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 
 
 P. Kauw, Travels into North America (2 vols. Lon( 
 
 1772). 
 Le Babon de la Hontan, New Voyages to N 
 
 America (ed. R. G. Thwaites. 2 vols. Chic 
 
 1905). 
 Mahc Lescahbot, Histoire de la Nouvelle-Fri 
 
 (translated by W. L. Grant. 3 vols. Toronto, 1£ 
 
 1914. Publications of the Champlain Socie 
 Frederic A. Ogg, The Opening of the Mississ 
 
 (N..Y., 1904). 
 A. Salone, La colonisation de la Nouvelle-France (Pj 
 
 1905). 
 G. M. Wrong, A Canadian Manor and its Seign 
 
 (Toronto, 1908). 
 For further references the reader should consul 
 The Encyclopwdia Britannica, the articles on Fro 
 Canada, Louis XIV, Richelieu, Colbert, and The Jes 
 
INDEX 
 
 Algonquins, The, act as guides to 
 Cbamplain, 41; frieniuy to the 
 French, 45 
 Anticosti, Island of, 19, 20 
 ArrSts of Marly (1711), 143 
 
 Belle We, 18, 19, 20 
 
 Bigot, Frangois, 68 
 
 Brebeuf, Jean de, Jesuit mission- 
 ary, 56 
 
 Brouage, birthplace of Cham- 
 plain, 33 
 
 Cambrai, Peace of (1729), 15 
 
 Canada, see New France 
 
 Cap Rouge, Cartier winters at, 
 
 26; Boberval winters at, 28 
 Cartier, Jacques, sets out on first 
 voyage of discovery, (1534), 
 16; a corsair, 16; former 
 voyages, 17; reaches New 
 World, 18; purpose of expedi- 
 tion, 19; returns home, 19; 
 begins second voyage, 19-20; 
 his ships, 20; winters at Stada- 
 cona, 21-23; learns of Great 
 Lakes, 22; takes Indians to 
 King, 23; account of voyage, 
 24; sails on third voyage from 
 St. Malo (1541), 25; winters 
 at Cap Rouge, 26; defies pa- 
 tron, RobervaJ, 27; personal 
 characteristics, 29; later life, 
 29; death (1557), 29; bibli- 
 ography, 229 
 Catalogue, Ged^on de, makes 
 survey and maps of Quebec 
 
 region (1712), 143-44; mi 
 agricultural census, 184 
 
 Cataraqui (Kingston), fort 
 tablished at, 85-86; La S 
 receives grant of laud at, 1 
 
 Chaleurs, Bate des, 18 
 
 Champlain, Samuel de, bon 
 Brouage (1567), 33; sails \ 
 expedition of De Cha 
 (1603), 33; personal charac 
 istics, 33-34; embarks as c 
 geographer (1604), 35; win 
 at St. Croix, 36-37; Orda 
 Bon Temps, 38; returns 
 France, 39; sails again for 
 St. Lawrence (1608), 39; i 
 against the Iroquois, 41; st 
 western passage to Catl 
 44; makes journeys into 
 terior (1613 and 1616), 44- 
 journals, 47; as vicen 
 deputy, 48; surrenders 
 English, 51-52; returns 
 Quebec as representative 
 Company of One Hunc 
 Associates, 62; death (16 
 53; appreciation of, 53-54 
 
 Champlain, Lake, 41 
 
 Chastes, Amyar, Sieur de, 
 33,34 
 
 Chauvin of Honfleur, 32 
 
 Church in New France, loyi 
 to, 113; R^collets, ] 
 Jesuits, 116 et seq.; aid to < 
 power, 127-28; revenues, 1 
 130; see also Jesuits 
 
 Colbert, Jean Baptiste, perse 
 characteristics, 8; interest 
 
 233 
 
34 
 
 INDEX 
 
 'olbert — Coniinved 
 colonial ventures, 8-9; plans 
 for French interest, 60-61; 
 plans fleet of merchant vessels, 
 197-98 
 
 ourcelle, Daniel de Bemy, Sieur 
 de. Governor of New France, 
 75 
 
 oureurs-de-bois, attack Indians 
 (1687), 95-96; kind of men 
 engaged as, 161-62; number, 
 162-63; leaders, 163-64; meth- 
 ods of trading, 165 et seq.; 
 licenses granted to, 172 
 rdvecoeur. Fort, 106, 107 
 
 'Ailleboust, Governor of New 
 France, 55 
 
 enonville. Marquis de. Gov- 
 ernor of New France, 94 
 onnacona, head of Indian vil- 
 lage, 23 
 
 uchesneau, Jacques, Intendant 
 of New France, 88; quarrels 
 with Frontenac, 89-91; re- 
 called, 91 
 
 u Lhut, Daniel Greysolon, 87, 
 95, 131 
 umesnil, Peronne, 73 
 
 ducation in New France, 130- 
 
 132 
 ngland, early explorations, 15, 
 
 16; colonial ventures, 49 
 
 ive nations, appellation of the 
 Iroquois Indians, 42 
 ranee in the seventeenth cen- 
 tury, population, 1, 3; army, 1; 
 power and prestige, 2-4; out- 
 stripped in commerce, 3; racial 
 qualities, 3-4 ; government, 4-5 ; 
 cnurch, 5; tardiness in Ameri- 
 can colonization, 6-8; weak- 
 ness of colonial policy, 10-14 
 rontenac, Louis de Buade, 
 Count, chosen to carry out 
 colonial policy, 9; sent as 
 Governor Un Quebec (1672), 
 
 80; early life, 80; personal 
 characteristics, 81-82; inau- 
 guration, 83; plans checked by 
 King, 83-84; expansion policy, 
 84 et seq.; builds fort at Ca- 
 taraqui, 86; opposed by Bishop 
 and Intendant, 89-91; recalled 
 (1682), 91; returns to Quebec 
 as Governor (1689), 97-98; 
 death (1698), 98 
 Frontenac, Fort, 85-86, 103, 108 
 Fur trade with the Indians, 155 
 et seq. 
 
 Galilean branch of the Catholic 
 
 Church, 5, 114 
 Gaspe Bay, 18 
 Georgian Bay, Champlaiu's 
 
 journey to, 46-47 
 GifiFard, Robert, 142 
 Green Bay, 163 
 Griffin, The, ship, 104-105, 106 
 
 Habitants, 147-51, 207-26 
 
 Hakluyt, account of meeting of 
 Cartier and Roberval, 27 
 
 Hubert, Louis, 137 
 
 Hennepin, Louis, R^coUet friar, 
 104 
 
 Hochelaga (Montreal), 21-22, 
 26, 34 
 
 Huguenots excluded from Can- 
 ada, 195-96 
 
 Hurons, The, act as guides to 
 Champlain, 41; friendly to the 
 French, 45-46; destroyed by 
 the Iroquois, 55-56; Jesuits 
 among, 118-19 
 
 Hurons, Lake of the, see Georgian 
 Bay 
 
 Ulinob River, La Salle reaches, 
 106, 109 
 
 Indians, hostility toward Cartier, 
 26; fur trade with, 156 et seq.; 
 effect of trade upon, 178; sea 
 also Algonquins, Hurons, Iro- 
 quois, Onondagas 
 
 Irondequoit Bay, 102 
 
IJNUEX 
 
 Iroquois, The, Champlain's en- 
 counter with, 41-43; friends 
 of English, enemies of French, 
 42-43; troubles with, 56-58, 
 74-78, 93 eisej. 
 
 Jesuit Relations, 54, 119-20, 132 
 Jesuits, The, settle Montreal, 
 54-55; oppose Frontenac, 88; 
 come to Canada (1625), 115- 
 16; characteristics, 116, 117- 
 18; missionaries to Indians, 
 118 et seq.; progress among 
 French settlers, 122 et seq.; ser- 
 vice to trade interests, 156-58 
 Joliet, Louis, 103, 164 
 
 Kahn, Peter, Travels, 185-86, 188 
 Kirke, Sir David, Commander of 
 English privateers, 51 
 
 La Barre, Le Febvre de. Gov- 
 ernor of New France, 92-94, 
 109 
 
 La Durantaye, Olivier Morel de, 
 95, 164 
 
 La For^t, Franjois Dauphine de, 
 87, 95, 163 
 
 Lalemant, Jesuit missionary, 56 
 
 La Mothe-Cadillac, Antoine de 
 87, 163 
 
 La Roche, Sieur de, 32 
 
 La Salle, Rene-Robert Cavelier, 
 Sieur de, foremost among 
 French pathfinders, 87; born 
 (1643), 100; comes to Montreal 
 (1666), 100-01; equijjs expedi- 
 tion (1669), 102; receives trad- 
 ing rights and land at Fort 
 Frontenac, 103; goes to France 
 for further aid, 103-04; first 
 journey down the Illinois, 105- 
 107; returns to Montreal, 107; 
 reaches the Mississippi, 107; 
 winters at Fort Miami, 108; 
 journeys down the Mississippi, 
 108-09; plans for founding 
 colony in lower Mississippi 
 valley (1684), 109-10; death 
 
 (1687), 110; later estimates 
 111-12 
 
 Lauzon, Jean de. Governor 
 New France, 57 
 
 Laval, Frangois-Xavier de, A 
 de Montigny, Bishop of C 
 bee, arrives in New Fra 
 (1659), 58; friction with ( 
 authorities, 58-59; relat 
 with Mezy, 72^73; return; 
 colony, 88; opposed to Fro: 
 nac, 89 et seq.; born (1622), : 
 personal characteristics, 1 
 26; opposed to liquor tra 
 126-27 
 
 Law, John, 67 
 
 Le Caron, Joseph, Recollet, i 
 sionary, 46 
 
 Le Moyue, Jesuit missionary 
 
 Lescarbot, Marc, 38 
 
 Liquor tra£5c with the Indii 
 126-27, 173-78 
 
 Longueuil, Baron de, 142 
 
 Louis XIV, centralization 
 power under, 4-5; interest 
 colonial ventures, 9; assu 
 power (1658), 60; edict 
 1663, 62-63; personal inte 
 in New France, 70-71 
 
 Maisonneuve, Paul de Cho 
 
 dey, Sieur de, 54-55 
 Mance, Jeanne, 55 
 Marquette, Jacques, Jesuit i 
 
 sionary, 103 
 Matagorda Bay, 110 
 Mazarin, Jules, not intereste 
 
 colonial ventures, 8 
 Meules, Intendant of I 
 
 France, 93 
 Mezy, de. Governor of I 
 
 France, 72-74 
 Miami, Fort, 108 
 Michilimackinac, 105, 108 
 Mingan Islands, 20 
 Mississippi River, La S 
 
 reaches, 108 
 Montmagny, Charles Jacq 
 
 Huault, Sieur de, 54. 55 
 
36 
 
 INDEX 
 
 lontreal, settled, 34-55; annual 
 fur fair at, 166-71; see also 
 Hochelaga 
 
 lonts, Pierre du Guast, Sieur 
 de, granted trade monopoly, 
 35; organizes company, 35-39; 
 loses influence at court, 48 
 
 Few France, reflects old France, 
 10, 14; difficulty of communi- 
 cation with Eurooe, 12-13; 
 population (1663), 61-62; 
 colonial intendant, 67-69; ad- 
 ministration, 69-70; requests 
 for money, 71-72; period of 
 prosperity, 78, 79; seigneurial 
 system of land tenure, 133 
 et seq.; military seigneuries, 
 145-46; forced labor in, 150; 
 merrymaking in, 151; courts, 
 151-53; fur trade, 155 et seq.; 
 competition with English in 
 trade, 159-61; liquor traffic, 
 173-78; efifect of trade upon, 
 178-79; agriculture, 180 et 
 seq.; industries, 188 et seq.; 
 minerals, 190-92; exclusion of 
 Huguenots from, 195-96; trade 
 conditions, 198-201; social or- 
 ganization, 203 et seq.; seign- 
 eurs, 206-07; homes of habit- 
 ants, 207-11; clothing, 211-13; 
 food, 213-17; use of tobacco, 
 217; festivities, 217-21; folk- 
 lore, 221-22; poverty of habit- 
 ants, 223; litigious disposition 
 of people, 224-25; religion, 
 225; characteristics of people, 
 225-26; types of population, 
 227; bibliography, 229-31 
 
 [ew France, Company of, see 
 One Hundred Associates, 
 Company of 
 
 fewfoundland, Cartier's expedi- 
 tions rests at, 18 
 
 fiagara, fort rebuilt by Denon- 
 ville, 96; La Salle builds post 
 at, 104 
 
 Old Council, 55 
 
 One Hundred Associates, Com- 
 pany of, organization, 50; 
 powers and duties, 60-51; 
 sends fleet to the St. Lawrence 
 (1628), 51; sends Champlain as 
 representative, 52-53; charter 
 revoked, 61; failure of, 62; 
 grants by, 137-38; restricts 
 industry, 196 
 
 Onondagas, The, Champlain's 
 attack upon, 46 
 
 Ontario, Lake, 46 
 
 Ottawa River, 44 
 
 Perrot, Nicholas, 95, 163 
 Pontgrave of St. MaJo, 32, 39 
 Port Royal (Annapolis), 36, 37 
 Portugal, early explorations, 15, 
 
 16; colonial ventures, 49 
 Poutrincourt, Biencourt de, 35, 
 
 36,38 
 
 Quebec, Champlain settles, 39- 
 40; population, 48; surrenders 
 to English, 61-52; burns, 93; 
 pivot of social life, 204-06; 
 see also Stadacona 
 
 RecoUets, The, 115 
 
 Richelieu, Cardinal, interest in 
 colonial ventures under, 7-8; 
 becomes chief minister of Louis 
 Xni, 49; prevails upon King 
 to organize colonizing com- 
 pany (1627), 60; interest in 
 New France not lasting, 60 
 
 Richelieu River, 41 
 
 Roberval, Jean Frangois de la 
 Roque, Sieur de, enlists serv- 
 ices of Cartier, 25-26, meets 
 Cartier returning to France, 
 27; winters at Cap Rouge, 28 
 
 Rouen, birthplace of La SaUe, 100 
 
 Sable Island, 32 
 Saguenay River, 34 
 St Croix. 36-37 
 
INDEX 
 
 St. Germain-en-Laye, Treaty of 
 (1632), 52 
 
 St. John's, Newfoundland, 27 
 
 St. Lawrence, Gulf of, 18 
 
 St. Louis, Fort, 109 
 
 St. Malo, 16-17, 19, 25. 29 
 
 St. Maurice, 28 
 
 Seigneurs of New France, 133 
 e«»ej., 206-07 
 
 Sovereign Council, 63-66 
 
 Spain, early explorations, 15, 16; 
 colonial ventures, 49 
 
 Stadacona (Lower Quebec), 21, 
 26, 39 
 
 Sully, Due de, opposed to colo- 
 nial ventures, 7 
 
 Sulpicians, The, 102, 128 
 
 Superior Council, see Sovereign 
 Council 
 
 Talon, Jean, first Intendant of 
 
 New Prance (16«5), 63; 
 rives in Quebec, 66-67, 6S 
 report to the King, 8( 
 fosters industries, 18i 
 plans trade with West I: 
 and France, 197-98 
 
 Three Rivers, 28, 53 
 
 Ticonderoga, fight bet 
 French and Indians at, 4 
 
 Tocqueville, de, French histo 
 10 
 
 Tonty, Henri de, 87, 95, 104 
 
 Tracy, ProuvUle de, 74-78 
 
 Ursulines, The, 128 
 
 Vignau tells Champlain of 
 lish shipwreck, 44-45 
 
 West Indies, Company of 
 78, 196, 197