Читать книгу Old Québec: The Fortress of New France - Gilbert Parker - Страница 28

The suffering caused by the pestilence of 1637 was much more severe than those periodical afflictions by which the Indians were visited. Virulent smallpox was a feature of the plague, and the pious offices of priests and the incantations of the medicine-men alike proved unavailing. Clearly, some black spell had been cast upon the nation. First it was ascribed to a serpent, then to a spotted frog, then to a demon in the muskets of the French. The Jesuits were accused of compassing death by magic. The striking clock, which aforetime had merely astonished them, was now an engine of calamity; and the litanies floating out through the windows of the mission-house were fatal incantations. Yet the Indians were afraid to lay hands upon these dealers in death. Awe held them back from wreaking their sinister designs upon the fearless men who went as ever into the pestilential tepees, that through the mystic drop and sign they might rescue the poor victims from an eternity of woe.

At length it became clear to the Jesuits that fear alone would not much longer stay the hatchets of the now hopeless Hurons. Daily they expected to meet a violent death, and a letter, still extant, drawn up by five priests in the form of a last testament, shows the unfaltering fortitude of men whose dearest ambition was a martyr's death. The intervention of a squaw saved Du Peron from the tomahawk uplifted to brain him; an unseen hand delivered Ragueneau; Le Mercier and Brébeuf confounded their assailants with the courage of their demeanour; and only Chaumont suffered, being assaulted and severely wounded. Knowing, however that their death had been finally decided upon, the Jesuits gave a festin d'adieu—one of those farewell feasts which Huron custom enjoined on those about to die; and the courageous resignation of this band of martyrs filled even the tents of the ungodly with a superstitious awe. Once more the annihilating blow was averted; and from this time forward the peril threatening the Jesuit mission came not from the Hurons themselves, but from their implacable enemies, the Iroquois.

The year 1640 was drawing to a close when, after a few years' respite, the terrible war-whoop of the Five Nation Indians again rang through Canadian woods. Quebec was continually threatened by the Mohawks, whose highway of attack was the river Richelieu; and the Hurons were assailed by the Western tribe of the Iroquois confederacy. The pestilence of 1637 had ruined Ihonatiria, and for greater security the Jesuits resolved upon a large central establishment, in lieu of small missions in the several Huron villages. They chose for a site the mouth of the river Wye, which empties into Matchedash Bay. Here, in 1639, they built the mission of Ste. Marie. In the extreme peril of Indian warfare, the Hurons fled thither for food and baptism; and the hunger of three thousand neophytes and refugees soon put the fortified mission on short rations.

Isaac Jogues and a score of Huron warriors were despatched to Quebec for food and clothing. They reached the city in safety, although the St. Lawrence was closely beset by hostile Iroquois. Returning in twelve canoes laden with necessaries for the destitute Ste. Marie, Father Jogues and his companions fell into the hands of a Mohawk war-party. Some were killed on the spot, and the others were carried up the Richelieu and across Lake Champlain to a more awful fate. First they were made to run a gauntlet of Mohawk war-clubs; then they were placed upon a scaffold, where the women lacerated them with knives and clam-shells, and the children applied fire-brands to their naked bodies. This torture was repeated in each of the three Mohawk villages. Goupil, a lay brother, was soon afterwards murdered, and Jogues lived the life of a slave until some Dutch settlers on the Hudson effected his ransom and put him on board a ship bound for France.

In the following year, however, Jogues came back to Quebec, and on behalf of the suffering city he undertook to negotiate a peace with the Mohawks. Armed with gifts and belts of wampum, he set out fearlessly to face his former tormentors. For a short time the wampum saved him, but he was soon obliged to return to Quebec. The French, however, were determined to win the Iroquois, politically and religiously, and no danger was great enough to check them. Accordingly, in the late summer of 1646, Jogues was again despatched to the post which by this time had come to be known as the Mission of the Martyrs; and at last, on the 18th of October, he was foully murdered in the lodge of a Mohawk chief.

In the preceding winter Anne de Nouë, a Jesuit of noble descent and frail physique, set off from Quebec to minister to the garrison at Fort Richelieu. In spite of his sixty-three years, he did not shrink from the perils of frost and snow which lay before him. On his snow-shoes and with a few days' provisions he set forth upon the path of sacrifice. A blizzard overtook him on the frozen river, he lost his way, and some days later his martyred body was discovered kneeling in the snow.

Meanwhile the dangers farther west were not decreasing. Iroquois attacks and Huron reprisals were ever threatening the Jesuit missions, and the last great blow was soon to fall. In the summer of 1648 an Iroquois war-party crept up to the gates of St. Joseph. Most of the warriors had gone to Quebec, but the palisade still contained Father Daniel and close upon a thousand women and children and old men. An early Mass had crowded the chapel, and the priest, clothed in full vestments, was exhorting the neophytes to be strong in the faith, when the dreaded war-cry rang through the village. The panic-stricken Hurons sought in vain to save themselves from stark slaughter, but Daniel met his death calmly at the door of his burning church. Seven hundred prisoners were taken, and the retiring Iroquois left of St. Joseph only a heap of ruins.

The destruction of the mission was, however, but the prelude to the final extinction of the Huron nation. Terror-stricken they awaited the blow, in spite of the efforts of the Jesuits to rouse them to strong defence. All winter a formidable war-party of the Mohawks and Senecas roved through the Huron woods, and in early spring they fell upon St. Ignace and St. Louis. The first village was burned with no show of resistance, and its four hundred inhabitants were either tomahawked or kept for torture. Only three escaped, and these fled to St. Louis, about a league away. Here Brébeuf and Lalement endeavoured to rally the panic-stricken villagers. By sunrise the invaders were upon them. Brought to bay, the Hurons fought bravely. The giant Brébeuf stood in the breach and cheered them by his hopeful courage. Twice the Iroquois fell back, but at their third advance drove in the shattered palisade. Those of the Hurons who still lived were made prisoners; the two Jesuits were bound together, and the clustering cabins of St. Louis were given to the flames.

Returning to the ruins of St. Ignace, the Iroquois made preparations for the despatch of their prisoners. Brébeuf and Lalement were stricken to the soul by the carnival of blood; yet their own martyrdom was to be made the most cruel of all. Brébeuf was first bound to a stake, all the while continuing to speak words of comfort to his fellow-captives. Enraged by this behaviour, the Iroquois tore away his lower lip and thrust a hot iron into his throat. No sound or sign of pain escaped the tortured priest. Then Lalement was also led out, that each might witness the other's pangs. Strips of bark smeared with pitch enveloped the naked body of Lalement, and after making him fast to a stake they set the bark on fire. Round Brébeuf's neck a collar of red-hot hatchets was hung; and in mockery of baptism the savages poured kettles of scalding water upon the heads of both. Brébeuf was scalped, his tormentors drinking the blood, thus to endow themselves with his unflinching courage. After four hours the noblest Jesuit of all was dead; but Lalement was kept alive for seventeen hours, until a pitiful hatchet ended his voiceless misery. So died two men whose memory has ennobled the history of the land for which they laboured, and adds to the fame and honour of their race.

At Ste. Marie, Bressani, Ragueneau, and their French companions awaited the Iroquois onslaught. But the fugitive Hurons, gathering for a last resistance, had checked the Iroquois' further advance, and after a fierce battle the latter withdrew southward with an army of wretched captives.

That day the Hurons as a nation ceased to exist. Abandoning their remaining villages, they dispersed in small bands to roam northward and eastward, while a few established themselves at Isle St. Joseph, thinking to protect themselves here from their inveterate foes. As for the Jesuits, Garnier and Chabanel still laboured among the Tobacco nation farther to the south; but they too became the victims of the Iroquois before this fatal year was over.

Famine and the rigours of winter presently worked sad havoc upon the little band to whom Ragueneau now ministered at Isle St. Joseph, and in the spring renewed attacks of the Iroquois led the Hurons to decide upon a remarkable enterprise. This was to migrate to Quebec and take refuge under the guns of Fort St. Louis.

On the 10th of June all was ready for the departure, the sorrowing Hurons bidding good-bye to the home of their fathers, and the Jesuits to the country consecrated by the blood of their martyrs. Proceeding by the Georgian Bay, Lake Nipissing, the Ottawa and the St. Lawrence, the fleet of canoes reached Quebec before the end of July, 1650. And while Quebec was ready to open her gates to the sorrowful remnant of a once great nation, her own position was sorely beset. Food was scarce and lodgings scarcer in the palisaded city. However, the Ursulines and the nuns of the Hospital made every effort to provide shelter for the exiled race, and the Jesuits themselves bore the chief burden of their converts. In the following year, 1651, four hundred more Hurons found their way to Quebec, and together they established a settlement on the Island of Orleans. Here, in sight of the protecting ramparts of the city, this decimated people lived for a time secure. But the Iroquois were set upon nothing less than their annihilation, and in 1656 they made a descent upon the quiet island and carried off many captives. The terrified Hurons were then removed to the city itself and lodged in a square enclosure almost adjoining Fort St. Louis. A map of 1660 places the "Fort des Sauvages" on the site of the present Place d'Armes. Here they dwelt for about ten years in the same uncertain security enjoyed by Quebec itself. Then they removed to Ste. Foye, four miles west of the city, and again changing their abode six years later, they founded the village of Old Lorette.

Standing to-day on Dufferin Terrace, the observer sees spread beneath him the picturesque Côte de Beaupré, a graceful upland losing itself in the Laurentian foot-hills. A shining spire in the middle distance arrests the eye. It marks the village of Ancient Lorette, a nine miles' drive from Quebec, where a pitiful moiety of Canada's noblest Indian tribe ekes out an existence by the making of baskets and beaded moccasins, and by that nonchalant culture of the soil which still marks the primitive man.