21: Part 2: Chapter XI
<< 20: Part 2: Chapter X || 22: Part 2: Chapter XII >>
Champlain and Pontgrave returned to France, while Pierre Chauvin of
Dieppe held Quebec in their absence. The King was at Fontainebleau,—it
was a few months before his assassination,—and here Champlain
recounted his adventures, to the great satisfaction of the lively
monarch. He gave him also, not the head of the dead Iroquois, but a belt
wrought in embroidery of dyed quills of the Canada porcupine, together
with two small birds of scarlet plumage, and the skull of a gar-fish.
De Monts was at court, striving for a renewal of his monopoly. His
efforts failed; on which, with great spirit but little discretion, he
resolved to push his enterprise without it. Early in the spring of 1610,
the ship was ready, and Champlain and Pontgrave were on board, when a
violent illness seized the former, reducing him to the most miserable of
all conflicts, the battle of the eager spirit against the treacherous
and failing flesh. Having partially recovered, he put to sea, giddy and
weak, in wretched plight for the hard career of toil and battle which
the New World offered him. The voyage was prosperous, no other mishap
occurring than that of an ardent youth of St. Malo, who drank the health
of Pontgrave with such persistent enthusiasm that he fell overboard and
was drowned.
There were ships at Tadoussac, fast loading with furs; and boats, too,
higher up the river, anticipating the trade, and draining De Monts's
resources in advance. Champlain, who was left free to fight and explore
wherever he should see fit, had provided, to use his own phrase, "two
strings to his bow." On the one hand, the Montagnais had promised to
guide him northward to Hudson's Bay; on the other, the Hurons were to
show him the Great Lakes, with the mines of copper on their shores; and
to each the same reward was promised,—to join them against the common
foe, the Iroquois. The rendezvous was at the mouth of the river
Richelien. Thither the Hurons were to descend in force, together with
Algonquins of the Ottawa; and thither Champlain now repaired, while
around his boat swarmed a multitude of Montagnais canoes, filled with
warriors whose lank hair streamed loose in the wind.
There is an island in the St. Lawrence near the mouth of the Richelien.
On the nineteenth of June it was swarming with busy and clamorous
savages, Champlain's Montagnais allies, cutting down the trees and
clearing the ground for a dance and a feast; for they were hourly
expecting the Algonquin warriors, and were eager to welcome them with
befitting honors. But suddenly, far out on the river, they saw an
advancing canoe. Now on this side, now on that, the flashing paddles
urged it forward as if death were on its track; and as it drew near, the
Indians on board cried out that the Algonquins were in the forest, a
league distant, engaged with a hundred warriors of the Iroquois, who,
outnumbered, were fighting savagely within a barricade of trees.
The air was split with shrill outcries. The Montagnais snatched their
weapons,—shields, bows, arrows, war-clubs, sword-blades made fast to
poles,—and ran headlong to their canoes, impeding each other in their
haste, screeching to Champlain to follow, and invoking with no less
vehemence the aid of certain fur-traders, just arrived in four boats
from below. These, as it was not their cue to fight, lent them a deaf
ear; on which, in disgust and scorn, they paddled off, calling to the
recusants that they were women, fit for nothing but to make war on
beaver-skins.
Champlain and four of his men were in the canoes. They shot across the
intervening water, and, as their prows grated on the pebbles, each
warrior flung down his paddle, snatched his weapons, and ran into the
woods. The five Frenchmen followed, striving vainly to keep pace with
the naked, light-limbed rabble, bounding like shadows through the
forest. They quickly disappeared. Even their shrill cries grew faint,
till Champlain and his men, discomforted and vexed, found themselves
deserted in the midst of a swamp. The day was sultry, the forest air
heavy, close, and filled with hosts of mosquitoes, "so thick," says the
chief sufferer, "that we could scarcely draw breath, and it was
wonderful how cruelly they persecuted us." Through black mud, spongy
moss, water knee-deep, over fallen trees, among slimy logs and
entangling roots, tripped by vines, lashed by recoiling boughs, panting
under their steel head-pieces and heavy corselets, the Frenchmen
struggled on, bewildered and indignant. At length they descried two
Indians running in the distance, and shouted to them in desperation,
that, if they wanted their aid, they must guide them to the enemy.
At length they could hear the yells of the combatants; there was light
in the forest before them, and they issued into a partial clearing made
by the Iroquois axemen near the river. Champlain saw their barricade.
Trees were piled into a circular breastwork, trunks, boughs, and matted
foliage forming a strong defence, within which the Iroquois stood
savagely at bay. Around them flocked the allies, half hidden in the
edges of the forest, like hounds around a wild boar, eager, clamorous,
yet afraid to rush in. They had attacked, and had met a bloody rebuff.
All their hope was now in the French; and when they saw them, a yell
arose from hundreds of throats that outdid the wilderness voices whence
its tones were borrowed,—the whoop of the homed owl, the scream of the
cougar, the howl of starved wolves on a winter night. A fierce response
pealed from the desperate band within; and, amid a storm of arrows from
both sides, the Frenchmen threw themselves into the fray, firing at
random through the fence of trunks, boughs, and drooping leaves, with
which the Iroquois had encircled themselves. Champlain felt a
stone-headed arrow splitting his ear and tearing through the muscles of
his neck. he drew it out, and, the moment after, did a similar office
for one of his men. But the Iroquois had not recovered from their first
terror at the arquebuse; and when the mysterious and terrible
assailants, clad in steel and armed with thunder-bolts, ran up to the
barricade, thrust their pieces through the openings, and shot death
among the crowd within, they could not control their fright, but with
every report threw themselves flat on the ground. Animated with unwonted
valor, the allies, covered by their large shields, began to drag out the
felled trees of the barricade, while others, under Champlain's
direction, gathered at the edge of the forest, preparing to close the
affair with a final rush. New actors soon appeared on the scene. These
were a boat's crew of the fur-traders under a young man of St. Malo, one
Des Prairies, who, when he heard the firing, could not resist the
impulse to join the fight. On seeing them, Champlain checked the
assault, in order, as he says, that the new-comers might have their
share in the sport. The traders opened fire, with great zest and no less
execution; while the Iroquois, now wild with terror, leaped and writhed
to dodge the shot which tore through their frail armor of twigs.
Champlain gave the signal; the crowd ran to the barricade, dragged down
the boughs or clambered over them, and bore themselves, in his own
words, "so well and manfully," that, though scratched and torn by the
sharp points, they quickly forced an entrance. The French ceased their
fire, and, followed by a smaller body of Indians, scaled the barricade
on the farther side. Now, amid howlings, shouts, and screeches, the work
was finished. Some of the Iroquois were cut down as they stood, hewing
with their war-clubs, and foaming like slaughtered tigers; some climbed
the barrier and were killed by the furious crowd without; some were
drowned in the river; while fifteen, the only survivors, were made
prisoners. "By the grace of God," writes Champlain, "behold the battle
won!" Drunk with ferocious ecstasy, the conquerors scalped the dead and
gathered fagots for the living; while some of the fur-traders, too late
to bear part in the fight, robbed the carcasses of their
blood-bedrenched robes of beaver-skin amid the derision of the
surrounding Indians.
That night, the torture fires blazed along the shore. Champlain saved
one prisoner from their clutches, but nothing could save the rest. One
body was quartered and eaten.(31) "As for the rest of the prisoners,"
says Champlain, "they were kept to be put to death by the women and
girls, who in this respect are no less inhuman than the men, and,
indeed, much more so; for by their subtlety they invent more cruel
tortures, and take pleasure in it."
On the next day, a large band of Hurons appeared at the rendezvous,
greatly vexed that they had come too late. The shores were thickly
studded with Indian huts, and the woods were full of them. Here were
warriors of three designations, including many subordinate tribes, and
representing three grades of savage society,—the Hurons, the
Algonquins of the Ottawa, and the Montagnais; afterwards styled by a
Franciscan friar, than whom few men better knew them, the nobles, the
burghers, and the peasantry and paupers of the forest. Many of them,
from the remote interior, had never before seen a white man; and,
wrapped like statues in their robes, they stood gazing on the French
with a fixed stare of wild and wondering eyes.
Judged by the standard of Indian war, a heavy blow had been struck on
the common enemy. Here were hundreds of assembled warriors; yet none
thought of following up their success. Elated with unexpected fortune,
they danced and sang; then loaded their canoes, hung their scalps on
poles, broke up their camps, and set out triumphant for their homes.
Champlain had fought their battles, and now might claim, on their part,
guidance and escort to the distant interior. Why he did not do so is
scarcely apparent. There were cares, it seems, connected with the very
life of his puny colony, which demanded his return to France. Nor were
his anxieties lessened by the arrival of a ship from his native town of
Brouage, with tidings of the King's assassination. Here was a death-blow
to all that had remained of De Monts's credit at court; while that
unfortunate nobleman, like his old associate, Pontrincourt, was moving
with swift strides toward financial ruin. With the revocation of his
monopoly, fur-traders had swarmed to the St. Lawrence. Tadoussac was
full of them, and for that year the trade was spoiled. Far from aiding
to support a burdensome enterprise of colonization, it was in itself an
occasion of heavy loss.
Champlain bade farewell to his garden at Quebec, where maize, wheat,
rye, and barley, with vegetables of all kinds, and a small vineyard of
native grapes,—for he was a zealous horticulturist,—held forth a
promise which he was not to see fulfilled. He left one Du Parc in
command, with sixteen men, and, sailing on the eighth of August, arrived
at Honfleur with no worse accident than that of running over a sleeping
whale near the Grand Bank.
With the opening spring he was afloat again. Perils awaited him worse
than those of Iroquois tomahawks; for, approaching Newfoundland, the
ship was entangled for days among drifting fields and bergs of ice.
Escaping at length, she arrived at Tadoussac on the thirteenth of May,
1611. She had anticipated the spring. Forests and mountains, far and
near, all were white with snow. A principal object with Champlain was to
establish such relations with the great Indian communities of the
interior as to secure to De Monts and his associates the advantage of
trade with them; and to this end he now repaired to Montreal, a position
in the gateway, as it were, of their yearly descents of trade or war. On
arriving, he began to survey the ground for the site of a permanent
post.
A few days convinced him, that, under the present system, all his
efforts would be vain. Wild reports of the wonders of New France had
gone abroad, and a crowd of hungry adventurers had hastened to the land
of promise, eager to grow rich, they scarcely knew how, and soon to
return disgusted. A fleet of boats and small vessels followed in
Champlain's wake. Within a few days, thirteen of them arrived at
Montreal, and more soon appeared. He was to break the ground; others
would reap the harvest. Travel, discovery, and battle, all must inure to
the profit, not of the colony, but of a crew of greedy traders.
Champlain, however, chose the site and cleared the ground for his
intended post. It was immediately above a small stream, now running
under arches of masonry, and entering the St. Lawrence at Point
Callieres, within the modern city. He called it Place Royale; and here,
on the margin of the river, he built a wall of bricks made on the spot,
in order to measure the destructive effects of the "ice-shove" in the
spring.
Now, down the surges of St. Louis, where the mighty floods of the St.
Lawrence, contracted to a narrow throat, roll in fury among their sunken
rocks,—here, through foam and spray and the roar of the angry torrent,
a fleet of birch canoes came dancing like dry leaves on the froth of
some riotous brook. They bore a band of Hurons first at the rendezvous.
As they drew near the landing, all the fur-traders' boats blazed out a
clattering fusillade, which was designed to bid them welcome, but in
fact terrified many of them to such a degree that they scarcely dared to
come ashore. Nor were they reassured by the bearing of the disorderly
crowd, who, in jealous competition for their beaver-skins, left them not
a moment's peace, and outraged all their notions of decorum. More soon
appeared, till hundreds of warriors were encamped along the shore, all
restless, suspicious, and alarmed. Late one night they awakened
Champlain. On going with them to their camp, he found chiefs and
warriors in solemn conclave around the glimmering firelight. Though they
were fearful of the rest, their trust in him was boundless. "Come to our
country, buy our beaver, build a fort, teach us the true faith, do what
you will, but do not bring this crowd with you." The idea had seized
them that these lawless bands of rival traders, all well armed, meant to
plunder and kill them. Champlain assured them of safety, and the whole
night was consumed in friendly colloquy. Soon afterward, however, the
camp broke up, and the uneasy warriors removed to the borders of the
Lake of St. Louis, placing the rapids betwixt themselves and the objects
of their alarm. Here Champlain visited them, and hence these intrepid
canoe-men, kneeling in their birchen egg-shells, carried him homeward
down the rapids, somewhat, as he admits, to the discomposure of his
nerves.(32)
The great gathering dispersed: the traders descended to Tadoussac, and
Champlain to Quebec; while the Indians went, some to their homes, some
to fight the Iroquois. A few months later, Champlain was in close
conference with De Monts at Pons, a place near Rochelle, of which the
latter was governor. The last two years had made it apparent, that, to
keep the colony alive and maintain a basis for those discoveries on
which his heart was bent, was impossible without a change of system. De
Monts, engrossed with the cares of his government, placed all in the
hands of his associate; and Champlain, fully empowered to act as he
should judge expedient, set out for Paris. On the way, Fortune, at one
stroke, wellnigh crushed him and New France together; for his horse fell
on him, and he narrowly escaped with life. When he was partially
recovered, he resumed his journey, pondering on means of rescue for the
fading colony. A powerful protector must be had,—a great name to
shield the enterprise from assaults and intrigues of jealous rival
interests. On reaching Paris he addressed himself to a prince of the
blood, Charles de Bourbon, Comte de Soissons; described New France, its
resources, and its boundless extent; urged the need of unfolding a
mystery pregnant perhaps with results of the deepest moment; laid before
him maps and memoirs, and begged him to become the guardian of this new
world. The royal consent being obtained, the Comte de Soissons became
Lieutenant-General for the King in New France, with vice-regal powers.
These, in turn, he conferred upon Champlain, making him his lieutenant,
with full control over the trade in furs at and above Quebec, and with
power to associate with himself such persons as he saw fit, to aid in
the exploration and settlement of the country.
Scarcely was the commission drawn when the Comte de Soissons, attacked
with fever, died,—to the joy of the Breton and Norman traders, whose
jubilation, however, found a speedy end. Henri de Bourbon, Prince de
Conde, first prince of the blood, assumed the vacant protectorship. He
was grandson of the gay and gallant Conde of the civil wars, was father
of the great Conde, the youthful victor of Rocroy, and was husband of
Charlotte de Moutmorency, whose blond beauties had fired the inflammable
heart of Henry the Fourth. To the unspeakable wrath of that keen lover,
the prudent Conde fled with his bride, first to Brussels, and then to
Italy; nor did he return to France till the regicide's knife had put his
jealous fears to rest. After his return, he began to intrigue against
the court. He was a man of common abilities, greedy of money and power,
and scarcely seeking even the decency of a pretext to cover his mean
ambition. His chief honor—an honor somewhat equivocal—is, as
Voltaire observes, to have been father of the great Conde. Busy with his
intrigues, he cared little for colonies and discoveries; and his rank
and power were his sole qualifications for his new post.
In Champlain alone was the life of New France. By instinct and
temperament he was more impelled to the adventurous toils of exploration
than to the duller task of building colonies. The profits of trade had
value in his eyes only as means to these ends, and settlements were
important chiefly as a base of discovery. Two great objects eclipsed all
others,—to find a route to the Indies, and to bring the heathen tribes
into the embraces of the Church, since, while he cared little for their
bodies, his solicitude for their souls knew no bounds.
It was no part of his plan to establish an odious monopoly. He sought
rather to enlist the rival traders in his cause; and he now, in
concurrence with Du Monts, invited them to become sharers in the
traffic, under certain regulations, and on condition of aiding in the
establishment and support of the colony. The merchants of St. Malo and
Rouen accepted the terms, and became members of the new company; but the
intractable heretics of Rochelle, refractory in commerce as in religion,
kept aloof, and preferred the chances of an illicit trade. The prospects
of New France were far from flattering; for little could be hoped from
this unwilling league of selfish traders, each jealous of the rest. They
gave the Prince of Conde large gratuities to secure his countenance and
support. The hungry viceroy took them, and with these emoluments his
interest in the colony ended.
__________
(31)The first white man to descend the rapids of St. Louis was a
youth named Louis, who, on the 10th of June, 1611, went with two Indians
to shoot herons on an island, and was drowned on the way down; the
second was a young man who in the summer before had gone with the Hurons
to their country, and who returned with them on the 18th of June; the
third was Champlain himself.
(32) Wampum was a sort of beads, of several colors, made originally
by the Indians from the inner portion of certain shells, and afterwards
by the French of porcelain and glass. It served a treble purpose,—that
of currency, decoration, and record, wrought into belts of various
devices, each having its significance, it preserved the substance of
treaties and compacts from generation to generation.
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