27: Part 2: Chapter XVII
<< 26: Part 2: Chapter XVI || TOC
On Monday, the fifth of July, 1632, Emery de Caen anchored before
Québec. He was commissioned by the French Crown to reclaim the place
from the English; to hold for one year a monopoly of the fur-trade, as
an indemnity for his losses in the war; and, when this time had expired,
to give place to the Hundred Associates of New France.
By the convention of Suza, New France was to be restored to the French
Crown; yet it had been matter of debate whether a fulfillment of this
engagement was worth the demanding. That wilderness of woods and savages
had been ruinous to nearly all connected with it. The Caens, successful
at first, had suffered heavily in the end. The Associates were on the
verge of bankruptcy. These deserts were useless unless peopled; and to
people them would depopulate France. Thus argued the inexperienced
reasoners of the time, judging from the wretched precedents of Spanish
and Portuguese colonization. The world had not as yet the example of an
island kingdom, which, vitalized by a stable and regulated liberty, has
peopled a continent and spread colonies over all the earth, gaining
constantly new vigor with the matchless growth of its offspring.
On the other hand, honor, it was urged, demanded that France should be
reinstated in the land which she had discovered and explored. Should
she, the centre of civilization, remain cooped up within her own narrow
limits, while rivals and enemies were sharing the vast regions of the
West? The commerce and fisheries of New France would in time become a
school for French sailors. Mines even now might be discovered; arid the
fur-trade, well conducted, could not but be a source of wealth.
Disbanded soldiers and women from the streets might be shipped to
Canada. Thus New France would be peopled and old France purified. A
power more potent than reason reinforced such arguments. Richelieu seems
to have regarded it as an act of personal encroachment that the subjects
of a foreign crown should seize on the domain of a company of which he
was the head; and it could not be supposed, that, with power to eject
them, the arrogant minister would suffer them to remain in undisturbed
possession.
A spirit far purer and more generous was active in the same behalf. The
character of Champlain belonged rather to the Middle Age than to the
seventeenth century. Long toil and endurance had calmed the adventurous
enthusiasm of his youth into a steadfast earnestness of purpose; and he
gave himself with a loyal zeal and devotedness to the profoundly
mistaken principles which he had espoused. In his mind, patriotism and
religion were inseparably linked. France was the champion of
Christianity, and her honor, her greatness, were involved in her
fidelity to this high function. Should she abandon to perdition the
darkened nations among whom she had cast the first faint rays of hope?
Among the members of the Company were those who shared his zeal; and
though its capital was exhausted, and many of the merchants were
withdrawing in despair, these enthusiasts formed a subordinate
association, raised a new fund, and embarked on the venture afresh.
England, then, resigned her prize, and Caen was despatched to reclaim
Québec from the reluctant hands of Thomas Kirke. The latter, obedient to
an order from the King of England, struck his flag, embarked his
followers, and abandoned the scene of his conquest. Caen landed with the
Jesuits, Paul le Jeune and Anne de la Noue. They climbed the steep
stairway which led up the rock, and, as they reached the top, the
dilapidated fort lay on their left, while farther on was the stone
cottage of the Heberts, surrounded with its vegetable gardens,—the
only thrifty spot amid a scene of neglect. But few Indians could be
seen. True to their native instincts, they had, at first, left the
defeated French and welcomed the conquerors. Their English partialities
were, however, but short-lived. Their intrusion into houses and
store-rooms, the stench of their tobacco, and their importunate begging,
though before borne patiently, were rewarded by the newcomers with oaths
and sometimes with blows. The Indians soon shunned Québec, seldom
approaching it except when drawn by necessity or a craving for brandy.
This was now the case; and several Algonquin families, maddened with
drink, were howling, screeching, and fighting within their bark lodges.
The women were frenzied like the men. it was dangerous to approach the
place unarmed.
In the following spring, 1633, on the twenty-third of May, Champlain,
commissioned anew by Richelieu, resumed command at Québec in behalf of
the Company. Father le Jeune, Superior of the mission, was wakened from
his morning sleep by the boom of the saluting cannon. Before he could
sally forth, the convent door was darkened by the stately form of his
brother Jesuit, Brebeuf, newly arrived; and the Indians who stood by
uttered ejaculations of astonishment at the raptures of their greeting.
The father hastened to the fort, and arrived in time to see a file of
musketeers and pikemen mounting the pathway of the cliff below, and the
heretic Caen resigning the keys of the citadel into the Catholic hands
of Champlain. Le Jeune's delight exudes in praises of one not always a
theme of Jesuit eulogy, but on whom, in the hope of a continuance of his
favors, no praise could now be ill bestowed. "I sometimes think that
this great man [Richelieu], who by his admirable wisdom and matchless
conduct of affairs is so renowned on earth, is preparing for himself a
dazzling crown of glory in heaven by the care he evinces for the
conversion of so many lost infidel souls in this savage land. I pray
affectionately for him every day," etc.
For Champlain, too, he has praises which, if more measured, are at least
as sincere. Indeed, the Father Superior had the best reason to be
pleased with the temporal head of the colony. In his youth, Champlain
had fought on the side of that; more liberal and national form of
Romanism of which the Jesuits were the most emphatic antagonists. Now,
as Le Jeune tells us, with evident contentment, he chose him, the
Jesuit, as director of his conscience. In truth, there were none but
Jesuits to confess and absolve him; for the Recollets, prevented, to
their deep chagrin, from returning to the missions they had founded,
were seen no more in Canada, and the followers of Loyola were sole
masters of the field. The manly heart of the commandant, earnest,
zealous, and direct, was seldom chary of its confidence, or apt to stand
too warily on its guard in presence of a profound art mingled with a no
less profound sincerity.
A stranger visiting the fort of Québec would have been astonished at its
air of conventual decorum. Black Jesuits and scarfed officers mingled at
Champlain's table. There was little conversation, but, in its place,
histories and the lives of saints were read aloud, as in a monastic
refectory. Prayers, masses, and confessions followed one another with an
edifying regularity, and the bell of the adjacent chapel, built by
Champlain, rang morning, noon, and night. Godless soldiers caught the
infection, and whipped themselves in penance for their sins. Debauched
artisans outdid each other in the fury of their contrition. Québec was
become a mission. Indians gathered thither as of old, not from the
baneful lure of brandy, for the traffic in it was no longer tolerated,
but from the less pernicious attractions of gifts, kind words, and
politic blandishments. To the vital principle of propagandism both the
commercial and the military character were subordinated; or, to speak
more justly, trade, policy, and military power leaned on the missions as
their main support, the grand instrument of their extension. The
missions were to explore the interior; the missions were to win over the
savage hordes at once to Heaven and to France. Peaceful, benign,
beneficent, were the weapons of this conquest. France aimed to subdue,
not by the sword, but by the cross; not to overwhelm and crush the
nations she invaded, but to convert, civilize, and embrace them among
her children.
And who were the instruments and the promoters of this proselytism, at
once so devout and so politic? Who can answer? Who can trace out the
crossing and mingling currents of wisdom and folly, ignorance and
knowledge, truth and falsehood, weakness and force, the noble and the
base, can analyze a systematized contradiction, and follow through its
secret wheels, springs, and levers a phenomenon of moral mechanism? Who
can define the Jesuits? The story of their missions is marvellous as a
tale of chivalry, or legends of the lives of saints. For many years, it
was the history of New France and of the wild communities of her desert
empire.
Two years passed. The mission of the Hurons was established, and here
the indomitable Breheuf, with a band worthy of him, toiled amid miseries
and perils as fearful as ever shook the constancy of man; while
Champlain at Québec, in a life uneventful, yet harassing and laborious,
was busied in the round of cares which his post involved.
Christmas day, 1635, was a dark day in the annals of New France. In a
chamber of the fort, breathless and cold, lay the hardy frame which war,
the wilderness, and the sea had buffeted so long in vain. After two
months and a half of illness, Champlain, stricken with paralysis, at the
age of sixty-eight, was dead. His last cares were for his colony and the
succor of its suffering families. Jesuits, officers, soldiers, traders,
and the few settlers of Québec followed his remains to the church; Le
Jeune pronounced his eulogy, and the feeble community built a tomb to
his honor.
The colony could ill spare him. For twenty-seven years he had labored
hard and ceaselessly for its welfare, sacrificing fortune, repose, and
domestic peace to a cause embraced with enthusiasm and pursued with
intrepid persistency. His character belonged partly to the past, partly
to the present. The preux chevalier, the crusader, the romance-loving
explorer, the curious, knowledge-seeking traveler, the practical
navigator, all claimed their share in him. His views, though far beyond
those of the mean spirits around him, belonged to his age and his creed.
He was less statesman than soldier. He leaned to the most direct and
boldest policy, and one of his last acts was to petition Richelieu for
men and munitions for repressing that standing menace to the colony, the
Iroquois. His dauntless courage was matched by an unwearied patience,
proved by life-long vexations, and not wholly subdued even by the
saintly follies of his wife. He is charged with credulity, from which
few of his age were free, and which in all ages has been the foible of
earnest and generous natures, too ardent to criticise, and too honorable
to doubt the honor of others. Perhaps the heretic might have liked him
more if the Jesuit had liked him less. The adventurous explorer of Lake
Huron, the bold invader of the Iroquois, befits but indifferently the
monastic sobrieties of the fort of Québec, and his sombre environment of
priests. Yet Champlain was no formalist, nor was his an empty zeal. A
soldier from his youth, in an age of unbridled license, his life had
answered to his maxims; and when a generation had passed after his visit
to the Hurons, their elders remembered with astonishment the continence
of the great French war-chief.
His books mark the man,—all for his theme and his purpose, nothing for
himself. Crude in style, full of the superficial errors of carelessness
and haste, rarely diffuse, often brief to a fault, they bear on every
page the palpable impress of truth.
With the life of the faithful soldier closes the opening period of New
France. Heroes of another stamp succeed; and it remains to tell the
story of their devoted lives, their faults, follies, and virtues.
<< 26: Part 2: Chapter XVI || TOC
