Читать книгу The White and the Gold - Thomas B. Costain - Страница 52

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It should be stated that in reality very little is known about the married life of Champlain and the unhappy woman who was his wife. He avoided the subject in the journals he maintained so faithfully, setting down the fact of her arrival and the date when she left, nothing more. The sparse references of the elderly husband are supplemented, fortunately, by stray bits of information from other sources; and the random glimpses thus afforded of the pair are as useful as the single bone of a prehistoric monster from which scholars are able to reconstruct the whole frame of the long-extinct animal.

It is certain that the marriage was not a success. If there had been less disparity in their ages, if it had been the good fortune of the young wife to have taken her place by his side earlier, the situation might have been different. Madame de Champlain had character and courage, and it is pleasant to indulge in thoughts of what might have been; of his young wife accompanying the founder of Quebec on some of his ventures into the western wilds, sitting in the prow of a canoe, her eyes as filled with excitement as his with the beauty and wonder of the new continent.

The years that she remained in America were punctuated with excitement of a kind. There was an anxious period when the Indians camping near Quebec killed two Frenchmen and, fearing reprisals, decided to take the initiative and wipe out the whole colony. The purpose of the savages came early to the ear of the commander, and he took steps to improve the defenses. There were many watchful days and nights before the fear subsided and friendly relations were established again.

She was in Quebec also when two Iroquois braves arrived to discuss a treaty of peace between the Five Nations and the French—a ferociously painted pair, most haughty and contemptuous. The settlers, who had been fed for years on tales of their fighting power and their cruelty, watched with anxious eyes. It developed, after a great deal of desultory talk, that the visitors had undertaken the mission on their own initiative and could not claim to represent their tribes. The suspicion grew then that they had come to spy out the land. It was a good thing that work on the citadel in the meantime had progressed to the stage where its turreted walls frowned above the crest and the boom of cannon at dawn and sundown gave warning that a vigilant watch was being maintained. The emissaries were allowed to see that the fort was large as well as strong—thirty-six yards in length with wings of twenty yards, towers at the four corners, and a ravelin in front to command the approaches, the whole circled with a moat.

After much feasting and dancing and more futile palaver, the two braves took to their canoes and vanished up the river. They had in all probability accomplished their purpose. Nothing more was heard of a peace treaty, but no war parties came to attack the settlement.

At the end of four years it became known that Madame de Champlain would accompany her husband back to France. The glum colonists watched while her trunks, packed tight with all her finery (for which she had found so little use), were carried aboard the ship. They watched with open regret when the slim figure climbed the swaying rope ladder. She stood at the rail and waved to them in farewell, knowing that it was a final one.

She never came back. Having become deeply religious, she desired to enter a convent. Champlain refused his consent to this, and it was not until after his death that she carried out her purpose of becoming an Ursuline nun, taking the name of Sister Hélène d’Augustin. She founded a convent at Meaux and died there in 1654.