CRUSADERS OF NEW FRANCE

THE CHRONICLES OF AMERICA SERIES

ALLEN JOHNSON EDITOR

GERHARD R. LOMERCHARLES W. JEFFERYSASSISTANT EDITORS

CRUSADERS OF NEW FRANCE

A CHRONICLE OF THE FLEUR-DE-LIS IN THE WILDERNESS

BY WILLIAM BENNETT MUNRO

1918

 To my good friend FATHER HENRI BEAUDÉ (_Henri d'Arles_) this tribute to the men of his race and faith is affectionately inscribed. 

CONTENTS

I. FRANCE OF THE BOURBONSII. A VOYAGEUR OF BRITTANYIII. THE FOUNDING OF NEW FRANCEIV. THE AGE OF LOUIS QUATORZEV. THE IRON GOVERNORVI. LA SALLE AND THE VOYAGEURSVII. THE CHURCH IN NEW FRANCEVIII. SEIGNEURS OF OLD CANADAIX. THE COUREURS-DE-BOISX. AGRICULTURE, INDUSTRY, AND TRADEXI. HOW THE PEOPLE LIVEDBIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTEINDEX

CRUSADERS OF NEW FRANCE

CHAPTER I

FRANCE OF THE BOURBONS

France, when she undertook the creation of a Bourbon empire beyond theseas, was the first nation of Europe. Her population was larger thanthat of Spain, and three times that of England. Her army in the daysof Louis Quatorze, numbering nearly a half-million in all ranks, waslarger than that of Rome at the height of the imperial power. Nonation since the fall of Roman supremacy had possessed such resourcesfor conquering and colonizing new lands. By the middle of theseventeenth century Spain had ceased to be a dangerous rival; Germanyand Italy were at the time little more than geographical expressions, while England was in the throes of the Puritan Revolution. 

Nor was it only in the arts of war that the hegemony of the Bourbonkingdom stood unquestioned. In art and education, in manners andfashions, France also dominated the ideas of the old continent, thedictator of social tastes as well as the grim warrior among thenations. In the second half of the seventeenth century France mightjustly claim to be both the heart and the head of Europe. Small wonderit 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 andPortugal. Small wonder, indeed, that the first nation of Europe shouldinsist 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. Ifever there was a land able and ready to take up the white man'sburden, it was the France of Louis XIV. 

The power and prestige of France at this time may be traced, in themain, to three sources. First there were the physical features, thecompactness of the kingdom, a fertile soil, a propitious climate, anda frontage upon two great seas. In an age when so much of a nation'swealth came from agriculture these were factors of great importance. Only in commerce did the French people at this time find themselvesoutstripped by their neighbors. Although both the Atlantic and theMediterranean bathed the shores of France, her people were beingoutdistanced on the seas by the English and the Dutch, whosecommercial companies were exploiting the wealth of the new continentsboth east and west. Yet in France there was food enough for all and tospare; it was only because the means of distributing it were so poorthat some got more and others less than they required. France wassupporting at this time a population half as large as that of today. 

Then there were qualities of race which helped to make the nationgreat. At all periods in their history the French have shown an almostinexhaustible stamina, an ability to bear disasters, and to rise fromthem quickly, a courage and persistence that no obstacles seem able tothwart. How often in the course of the centuries has France been tornapart by internecine strife or thrown prostrate by her enemies only toastonish the world by a superb display of recuperative powers! It wasFrance that first among the kingdoms of Europe rose from feudal chaosto orderly nationalism; it was France that first among continentalcountries after the Middle Ages established the reign of lawthroughout a powerful realm. Though wars and turmoils almost withoutend 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 withoutexhaustion, yet even now in the twentieth century the astounding vigorof this race has not ceased to compel the admiration of mankind. 

In the seventeenth century, moreover, France owed much of her nationalpower to a highly-centralized and closely-knit scheme of government. Under Richelieu the strength of the monarchy had been enhanced and thepower of the nobility broken. When he began his personal rule, LouisXIV continued his work of consolidation and in the years of his longreign managed to centralize in the throne every vestige of politicalpower. The famous saying attributed to him, "The State! I am theState!" embodied no idle boast. Nowhere was there a trace ofrepresentative government, nowhere a constitutional check on theroyal power. There were councils of different sorts and with variedjurisdictions, but men sat in them at the King's behest and wereremovable at his will. There were _parlements_, too, but to mentionthem without explanation would be only to let the term mislead, forthey were not representative bodies or parliaments in the ordinarysense: their powers were chiefly judicial and they were no barrier inthe way of the steady march to absolutism. The political structure ofthe 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 allthis made for unity and autocratic efficiency in finance, in war, andin foreign affairs. 

Another feature which fitted the nation for an imperial destiny wasthe possession of a united and militant church. With heresy theGallican branch of the Catholic Church had fought a fierce struggle, but, before the seventeenth century was far advanced, the battle hadbeen 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 itsmissionary efforts to other lands--ready, in fact, for a new crusade. 

These four factors, rare geographical advantages, racial qualitiesof a high order, a strongly centralized scheme of government, and amilitant church, contributed largely to the prestige which Francepossessed among European nations in the seventeenth, century. With allthese advantages she should have been the first and not the last toget a firm footing in the new continents. Historians have recordedtheir reasons why France did not seriously enter the field of Americancolonization as early as England, but these reasons do not impress oneas being good. Foreign wars and internal religious strife are commonlygiven and accepted as the true cause of French tardiness in followingup the pioneer work of Jacques Cartier and others. Yet not all theenergy of nearly twenty million people was being absorbed in thesetroubles. There were men and money to spare, had the importance of thework overseas only been adequately realized. 

The main reason why France was last in the field is to be found in thefailure of her kings and ministers to realize until late in the dayhow vast the possibilities of the new continent really were. In ahighly centralized and not over-populated state the authorities mustlead the way in colonial enterprises; the people will not of theirown initiative seek out and follow opportunities to colonize distantlands. And in France the authorities were not ready to lead. Sully, who stood supreme among the royal advisers in the closing years ofthe sixteenth century, was opposed to colonial ventures under allcircumstances. "Far-off possessions, " he declared, "are not suited tothe temperament or to the genius of Frenchmen, who to my great regrethave neither the perseverance nor the foresight needed for suchenterprises, but who ordinarily apply their vigor, minds, and courageto things which are immediately at hand and constantly before theireyes. " Colonies beyond the seas, he believed, "would never be anythingbut a great expense. " That, indeed, was the orthodox notion in circlessurrounding the seat of royal power, and it was a difficult notion todislodge. 

Never until the time of Richelieu was any intimation of the greatcolonial opportunity, now quickly slipping by, allowed to reachthe throne, and then it was only an inkling, making but a slightimpression and soon virtually forgotten. Richelieu's great Company of1627 made a brave start, but it did not hold the Cardinal's interestvery long. Mazarin, who succeeded Richelieu, took no interest in theNew World; the tortuous problems of European diplomacy appealed farmore strongly to his Italian imagination than did the vision of a NewFrance beyond the seas. It was not until Colbert took the reinsthat official France really displayed an interest in the work ofcolonization 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 office had been. Hehad a clear conception of what he wanted and unwearied industry inmoving towards the desired end. His devotion to the King was beyondquestion; he had native ability, patience, sound ideas, and a firmwill. Given a fair opportunity, he would have accomplished far morefor the glory of the fleur-de-lis in the region of the St. Lawrenceand the Great Lakes of America. But a thousand problems of homeadministration were crowded upon him, problems of finance, ofindustry, of ecclesiastical adjustment, and of social reconstruction. In the first few years of his term as minister he could still find alittle time and thought for Canada, and during this short period hepersonally conducted the correspondence with the colonial officials;but after 1669 all this was turned over to the Minister of Marine, andColbert himself figured directly in the affairs of the colony no more. The great minister of Louis XIV is remembered far more for his work athome than for his services to New France. 

As for the French monarchs of the seventeenth century, Louis XIV wasthe first and only one to take an active and enduring interest in thegreat crusade to the northern wilderness. He began his personal reignabout 1660 with a genuine display of zeal for the establishment of acolony which would by its rapid growth and prosperity soon crowd theEnglish off the new continent. In the selection of officials to carryout his policy, his judgment, when not subjected to sinister pressure, was excellent, as shown in his choice of Frontenac. Nor did the King'sinterest in the colony slacken in the face of discouragement. It kepton to the end of his reign, although diminishing somewhat towards theclose. It could not well do otherwise than weaken during the Europeandisasters which marked his later years. By the death of Louis XIV in1715 the colony lost its most unwavering friend. The shrewdest ofFrench historians, De Tocqueville, has somewhere remarked that "thephysiognomy of a government may be best judged in the colonies. . . . When I wish to study the spirit and faults of the administration ofLouis XIV, " he writes, "I must go to Canada, for its deformity isthere seen as through a microscope. " That is entirely true. Thehistory of New France in its picturesque alternation of sunshine andshadow, of victory and defeat, of pageant and tragedy, is a chroniclethat is Gallic to the core. In the early annals of the northland onecan find silhouetted in sharp relief examples of all that was best andall that was worst in the life of Old France. The political frameworkof the colony, with its strict centralization, the paternal regulationof industry and commerce, the flood of missionary zeal which pouredin upon it, the heroism and courage of its priests and voyageurs, thevenality of its administrative officials, the anachronism of a feudalland-tenure, the bizarre externals of its social life, the versatilityof its people--all these reflected the paternity of New France. 

The most striking weakness of French colonial policy in theseventeenth century was its failure to realize how vastly differentwas the environment of North America from that of Central Europe. Institutions were transplanted bodily, and then amazement wasexpressed at Versailles because they did not seem to thrive in the newsoil. Detailed instructions to officials in New France were framed bymen who had not the slightest grasp of the colony's needs or problems. One busybody wrote to the colonial Intendant that a bake-oven shouldbe established in every seigneury and that the _habitants_ shouldbe ordered to bring their dough there to be made into bread. TheIntendant had to remind him that, in the long cold winters of the St. Lawrence valley, the dough would be frozen stiff if the habitants, with their dwellings so widely scattered, were required to doanything of the kind. Another martinet gravely informed the colonialauthorities that, as a protection against Indian attacks "all theseigneuries should be palisaded. " And some of the seigneurial estateswere eight or ten miles square! The dogmatic way in which the colonialofficials were told to do this and that, to encourage one thing andto discourage another, all by superiors who displayed an astoundingignorance of New World conditions, must have been a severe trial tothe patience of those hard-working officials who were never withoutgreat practical difficulties immediately before their eyes. 

Not enough heed was paid, moreover, to the advice of men who were onthe spot. It is true that the recommendations sent home to France bythe Governor and by the Intendant were often contradictory, but evenwhere the two officials were agreed there was no certainty that theircounsel would be taken. With greater freedom and discretion thecolonial government could have accomplished much more in the way ofdeveloping trade and industry; but for every step the acquiescence ofthe home authorities had first to be secured. To obtain this consentalways entailed a great loss of time, and when the approval arrivedthe opportunity too often had passed. From November until May therewas absolutely no communication between Quebec and Paris save that ina great emergency, if France and England happened to be at peace, adispatch might be sent by dint of great hardship to Boston with aprecarious chance that it would get across to the French ambassador inLondon. Ordinarily the officials sent their requests for instructionsby the home-going vessels from Quebec in the autumn and received theiranswers by the ships which came in the following spring. If any planswere formulated after the last ship sailed in October, it ordinarilytook eighteen months before the royal approval could be had forputting them into effect. The routine machinery of paternalism thusran with exasperating slowness. 

There was, however, one mitigating feature in the situation. The handof home authority was rigid and its beckonings were precise; but asa practical matter it could be, and sometimes was, disregardedaltogether. Not that the colonial officials ever defied the King orhis ministers, or ever failed to profess their intent to follow theroyal instructions loyally and to the letter. They had a much saferplan. When the provisions of a royal decree seemed impractical orunwise, it was easy enough to let them stand unenforced. Such decreeswere duly registered in the records of the Sovereign Council at Quebecand were then promptly pigeonholed so that no one outside the littlecircle of officials at the Château de St. Louis ever heard of them. In one case a new intendant on coming to the colony unearthed a royalmandate of great importance which had been kept from public knowledgefor twenty years. 

Absolutism, paternalism, and religious solidarity were characteristicof both France and her colonies in the great century of overseasexpansion. There was no self-government, no freedom of individualinitiative, and very little heresy either at home or abroad. The factors which made France strong in Europe, her unity, hersubordination of all other things to the military needs of the nation, her fostering of the sense of nationalism--these appeared prominentlyin Canada and helped to make the colony strong as well. Historians ofNew France have been at pains to explain why the colony ultimatelysuccumbed to the combined attacks of New England by land and of OldEngland by sea. For a full century New France had as its next-doorneighbor a group of English colonies whose combined populationsoutnumbered her own at a ratio of about fifteen to one. The relativenumbers and resources of the two areas were about the same, proportionately, as those of the United States and Canada at thepresent day. The marvel is not that French dominion in America finallycame to an end but that it managed to endure so long. 

CHAPTER II

A VOYAGEUR OF BRITTANY

The closing quarter of the fifteenth century in Europe has usuallybeen regarded by historians as marking the end of the Middle Ages. Theera of feudal chaos had drawn to a close and states were beingwelded together under the leadership of strong dynasties. With thisconsolidation came the desire for expansion, for acquiring new lands, and for opening up new channels of influence. Spain, Portugal, andEngland were first in the field of active exploration, searching forstores of precious metals and for new routes to the coasts of Ormuzand of India. In this quest for a short route to the half-fabulousempires of Asia they had literally stumbled upon a new continent whichthey had made haste to exploit. France, meanwhile, was dissipating herenergies on Spanish and Italian battlefields. It was not until thepeace of Cambrai in 1529 ended the struggle with Spain that Francegave any attention to the work of gaining some foothold in the NewWorld. By that time Spain had become firmly entrenched in the landswhich border the Caribbean Sea; her galleons were already bearing hometheir rich cargoes of silver bullion. Portugal, England, and evenHolland had already turned with zeal to the exploration of newlands in the East and the West: French fishermen, it is true, werelengthening their voyages to the west; every year now the rugged oldNorman and Breton seaports were sending their fleets of small vesselsto gather the harvests of the sea. But official France took no activeinterest in the regions toward which they went. Five years after thepeace of Cambrai the Breton port of St. Malo became the starting pointof the first French voyageur to the St. Lawrence. Francis I had beenpersuaded to turn his thoughts from gaming and gallantries to thetrading prospects of his kingdom, with the result that in 1534 JacquesCartier was able to set out on his first voyage of discovery. Cartieris described in the records of the time as a corsair--which means thathe had made a business of roving the seas to despoil the enemies ofFrance. St. Malo, his birthplace and home, on the coast of Brittany, faces the English Channel somewhat south of Jersey, the nearest of theChannel Islands. The town is set on high ground which projects outinto the sea, forming an almost landlocked harbor where ships may rideat ease during the most tumultuous gales. It had long been a notablenursery of hardy fishermen and adventurous navigators, men who hadpressed their way to all the coasts of Europe and beyond. 

Cartier was one of these hardy sailors. His fathers before him hadbeen mariners, and he had himself learned the way of the great waterswhile yet a mere youth. Before his expedition of 1534 Jacques Cartierhad probably made a voyage to Brazil and had in all probability morethan once visited the Newfoundland fishing-banks. Although, whenhe sailed from St. Malo to become the pathfinder of a new Bourbonimperialism, he was forty-three years of age and in the prime of hisdays, we know very little of his youth and early manhood. It is enoughthat he had attained the rank of a master-pilot and that, from hisskill in seamanship, he was considered the most dependable man inall the kingdom to serve his august sovereign in this importantenterprise. 

Cartier shipped his crew at St. Malo, and on the 20th of April, 1534, headed his two small ships across the great Atlantic. His companynumbered only threescore souls in all. Favored by steady winds hisvessels made good progress, and within three weeks he sighted theshores of Newfoundland where he put into one of the many small harborsto rest and refit his ships. Then, turning northward, the expeditionpassed through the straits of Belle Isle and into the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Coasting along the northern shore of the Gulf for a shortdistance, Cartier headed his ships due southward, keeping close to thewestern shore of the great island almost its whole length; he thenstruck across the lower Gulf and, moving northward once more, reachedthe Baie des Chaleurs on the 6th July. Here the boats were sent ashoreand the French were able to do a little trading with the Indians. About a week later, Cartier went northward once more and soon soughtshelter from a violent gulf storm by anchoring in Gaspé Bay. On theheadland there he planted a great wooden cross with the arms ofFrance, the first symbol of Bourbon dominion in the New Land, and thesame symbol that successive explorers, chanting the _Vexilla Regis_, were in time to set aloft from the Gulf of St. Lawrence to the Gulf ofMexico. It was the augury of the white man's coming. 

Crossing next to the southerly shore of Anticosti the voyageurs almostcircled the island until the constant and adverse winds whichCartier met in the gradually narrowing channel forced him to deferindefinitely his hope of finding a western passage, and he thereforeheaded his ships back to Belle Isle. It was now mid-August, and theseason of autumnal storms was drawing near. Cartier had come toexplore, to search for a westward route to the Indies, to look forprecious metals, not to establish a colony. He accordingly decided toset sail for home and, with favoring winds, was able to reach St. Maloin the early days of September. 

In one sense the voyage of 1534 had been a failure. No stores ofmineral wealth had been discovered and no short route to Cipango orCathay. Yet the spirit of exploration had been awakened. Carrier'srecital of his voyage had aroused the interest of both the King andhis people, so that the navigator's request for better equipment tomake another voyage was readily granted. On May 19, 1535, Cartier oncemore set forth from St. Malo, this time with three vessels and with aroyal patent, empowering him to take possession of new lands in hissovereign's name. With Cartier on this voyage there were over onehundred men, of whom the majority were hardened Malouins, veterans ofthe sea. How he found accommodation for all of them, with supplies andprovisions, in three small vessels whose total burden was only twohundred and twenty tons, is not least among the mysteries of thisremarkable voyage. [1]

[Footnote 1: The shipbuilders old measure for determining tonnage wasto multiply the length of a vessel minus three-quarters of the beam bythe beam, then to multiply the product by one-half the beam, thento divide this final product by 94. The resulting quotient was thetonnage. On this basis Cartier's three ships were 67 feet length by 23feet beam, 57 feet length by 17 feet beam, and 48 feet length by 17feet beam, respectively. ]

The trip across the ocean was boisterous, and the clumsy caravels hada hard time breasting the waves. The ships were soon separated byalternate storms and fog so that all three did not meet at theirappointed rendezvous in the Straits of Belle Isle until the last weekin July. Then moving westward along the north, shore of the Gulf, theypassed Anticosti, crossed to the Gaspé shore, circled back as far asthe Mingan islands, and then resumed a westward course up the greatriver. As the vessels stemmed the current but slowly, it was well intoSeptember when they cast anchor before the Indian village of Stadaconawhich occupied the present site of Lower Quebec. 

Since it was now too late in the season to think of returning at onceto France, Cartier decided to spend the winter at this point. Two ofthe ships were therefore drawn into the mouth of a brook which enteredthe river just below the village, while the Frenchmen establishedacquaintance with the savages and made preparations for a trip fartherup the river in the smallest vessel. Using as interpreters two youngIndians whom he had captured in the Gaspé region during his firstvoyage in the preceding year, Cartier was able to learn from theIndians at Stadacona that there was another settlement of importanceat Hochelaga, now Montreal. The navigator decided to use the remainingdays of autumn in a visit to this settlement, although the StadaconaIndians strenuously objected, declaring that there were all mannerof dangers and difficulties in the way. With his smallest vessel andabout half of his men, Cartier, however, made his way up the riverduring the last fortnight in September. 

Near the point where the largest of the St. Lawrence rapids bars theriver gateway to the west the Frenchman found Hochelaga nestlingbetween the mountain and the shore, in the midst of "goodly and largefields full of corn such as the country yieldeth. " The Indian village, which consisted of about fifty houses, was encircled by three coursesof palisades, one within the other. The natives received theirvisitors with great cordiality, and after a liberal distributionof trinkets the French learned from them some vague snatches ofinformation 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 inthe same direction. " But as winter was near Cartier found it necessaryto hurry back to Stadacona, where the remaining members of hisexpedition had built a small fort or _habitation_ during his absence. 

Everything was made ready for the long season of cold and snow, butthe winter came on with unusual severity. The neighboring Indians grewso hostile that the French hardly dared to venture from their narrowquarters. Supplies ran low, and to make matters worse the pestilenceof scurvy came upon the camp. In February almost the entire companywas stricken down and nearly one quarter of them had died before theemaciated survivors learned from the Indians that the bark of a whitespruce tree boiled in water would afford a cure. The Frenchmen dosedthemselves with the Indian remedy, using a whole tree in less thana week, but with such revivifying results that Cartier hailed thediscovery as a genuine miracle. When spring appeared, the remnant ofthe company, now restored to health and vigor, gladly began theirpreparations for a return to France. There was no ardor among them fora further exploration of this inhospitable land. As there were notenough men to handle all three of the ships, they abandoned one ofthem, whose timbers were uncovered from the mudbank in 1843, more thanthree centuries later. Before leaving Stadacona, however, Cartierdecided to take Donnacona, the head of the village, and several otherIndians as presents to the French King. It was natural enough thatthe master-pilot should wish to bring his sovereign some impressivesouvenir from the new domains, yet this sort of treachery andingratitude was unpardonable. Donnacona and all these captives but onelittle Indian maiden died in France, and his people did not readilyforget the lesson of European duplicity. By July the expedition wasback in the harbor of St. Malo, and Cartier was promptly at workpreparing for the King a journal of his experiences. 

Cartier's account of his voyage which has come down to us containsmany interesting details concerning the topography and life of the newland. The Malouin captain was a good navigator as seafaring went inhis day, a good judge of distance at sea, and a keen observer oflandmarks. But he was not a discriminating chronicler of those thingswhich we would now wish to understand--for example, the relationshipand status of the various Indian tribes with which he came intocontact. All manner of Indian customs are superficially described, particularly those which presented to the French the aspect ofnovelty, but we are left altogether uncertain as to whether theIndians at Stadacona in Cartier's time were of Huron or Iroquoisor Algonquin stock. The navigator did not describe with sufficientclearness, or with a due differentiation of the important from thetrivial, those things which ethnologists would now like to know. 

It must have been a disappointment not to be able to lay before theKing any promise of great mineral wealth to be found in the newterritory. While at Hochelaga Cartier had gleaned from the savagessome vague allusions to sources of silver and copper in the farnorthwest, but that was all. He had not found a northern Eldorado, norhad 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 succeededonly in finding that there was no such route by way of the St. Lawrence. Though the King was much interested in his recital ofcourage and hardships, he was not fired with zeal for spending goodmoney in the immediate equipping of another expedition to theseinhospitable shores. 

Not for five years after his return in 1536, therefore, did Cartieragain set out for the St. Lawrence. This time his sponsor was theSieur de Roberval, a nobleman of Picardy, who had acquired an ambitionto colonize a portion of the new territory and who had obtained theroyal endorsement of his scheme. The royal patronage was not difficultto obtain when no funds were sought. Accordingly in 1540 Roberval, whowas duly appointed viceroy of the country, enlisted the assistance ofCartier in carrying out his plans. It was arranged that Cartier withthree ships should sail from St. Malo in the spring of 1541, whileRoberval's part of the expedition should set forth at the same timefrom Honfleur. But when May arrived Roberval was not ready andCartier's ships set sail alone, with the understanding that Robervalwould follow. Cartier in due course reached Newfoundland, where forsix weeks he awaited his viceroy. At length, his patience exhausted, he determined to push on alone to Stadacona, where he arrived towardthe end of August. The ships were unloaded and two of the vessels weresent back to France. The rest of the expedition prepared to winter atCap Rouge, a short distance above the settlement. Once more Cartiermade a short trip up the river to Hochelaga, but with no importantincidents, and here the voyageur's journal comes to an end. Hemay have written more, but if so the pages have never been found. Henceforth the evidence as to his doings is less extensive and lessreliable. On his return he and his band seem to have passed the winterat Cap Rouge more comfortably than the first hibernation six yearsbefore, for the French had now learned the winter hygiene of thenorthern regions. The Indians, however, grew steadily more hostileas the months went by, and Cartier, fearing that his small followingmight not fare well in the event of a general assault, deemed it wiseto start for France when the river opened in the spring of 1542. 

Cartier set sail from Quebec in May. Taking the southern route throughthe Gulf he entered, early in June, the harbor of what is now St. John's, Newfoundland. There, according to Hakluyt, the Bretonnavigator and his belated viceroy, Roberval, anchored their ships sideby side, Roberval, who had been delayed nearly a year, was now on hisway to join Cartier at Quebec and had put into the Newfoundland harborto refit his ships after a stormy voyage. What passed between the twoon the occasion of this meeting will never be known with certainly. Wehave only the brief statement that after a spirited interview Cartierwas ordered by his chief to turn his ships about and accompany theexpedition back to Quebec. Instead of doing so, he spread his sailsduring the night and slipped homeward to St. Malo, leaving the viceroyto his own resources. There are difficulties in the way of acceptingthis story, however, although it is not absolutely inconsistentwith the official records, as some later historians seem to haveassumed. [1]

[Footnote 1: Justin Winsor, _Narrative and Critical History ofAmerica_, vol. Iv. , 58. ]

At any rate it was in no pleasant humor that Roberval now proceededto the St. Lawrence and up to Cap Rouge, where he took possession ofCarrier's post, sowed some grain and vegetables, and endeavoredto prepare for the winter. His company of followers, having beenrecruited from the jails of France, proved as unruly as might havebeen expected. Discipline and order could only be maintained by theexercise of great severity. One of the malefactors was executed;others were given the lash in generous measure. The winter, moreover, proved to be terribly cold; supplies ran low, and the scurvy onceagain got beyond control. If anything, the conditions were even worsethan those which Cartier had to endure seven years before. When springarrived the survivors had no thought of anything but a prompt returnto France. But Roberval bade most of them wait until with a smallparty he ventured a trip to the territory near what is now ThreeRivers and the mouth of the St. Maurice. Apparently the whole partymade its way safely back to France before the autumn, but as to how orwhen we have no record. There is some evidence that Cartier was sentout with a relief expedition in 1543, but in any case, both he andRoberval were in France during the spring of the next year, for theythen appeared there in court to settle respective accounts of expensesincurred in the badly managed enterprise. 

Of Carrier's later life little is known save that he lived at St. Malountil he died in 1557. With the exception of his journals, which coveronly a part of his explorations, none of his writings or maps has comedown to us. That he prepared maps is highly probable, for he was anexplorer in the royal service. But diligent search on the part ofantiquarians has not brought them to light. His portrait in the townhall at St. Malo shows us a man of firm and strong features with jawstight-set, a high forehead, and penetrating eyes. Unhappily it is ofrelatively recent workmanship and as a likeness of the great Malouinits trustworthiness is at least questionable. Fearless and untiring, however, his own indisputable achievements amply prove him to havebeen. The tasks set before him were difficult to perform; he was oftenin tight places and he came through unscathed. As a navigator hepossessed a skill that ranked with the best of his time. His wasan intrepid sailor-soul. If his voyages resulted in no permanentestablishment, that was not altogether Cartier's fault. He was sentout 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 thirdvoyage, when a scheme of colonization was in hand, the failure ofRoberval to do his part proved the undoing of the entire plan. Thereis no reason to believe that faint-heartedness or lack of courage hadany place in Carrier's sturdy frame. 

For sixty years following the ill-starred ventures of 1541-1542 noserious attempts were made to gain for France any real footing in theregions of the St. Lawrence. This is not altogether surprising, forthere were troubles in plenty at home. Huguenots and Catholics hadranged themselves in civil strife; the wars of the Fronde wereconvulsing the land, and it was not until the very end of thesixteenth century that France settled down to peace within her ownborders. Norman and Breton fishermen continued their yearly trips tothe fishing-banks, but during the whole latter half of the sixteenthcentury no vessel, so far as we know, ever made its way beyond theSaguenay. Some schemes of colonization, without official support, werelaunched during this interval; but in all such cases the expeditionsset forth to warmer lands, to Brazil and to Florida. In neitherdirection, however, did any marked success attend these praiseworthyexamples of private initiative. 

The great valley of the St. Lawrence during these six decades remaineda land of mystery. The navigators of Europe still clung to the visionof a westward passage whose eastern portal must be hidden amongthe bays or estuaries of this silent land, but none was bold orpersevering enough to seek it to the end. As for the great continentitself, Europe had not the slightest inkling of what it held in storefor future generations of mankind. 

CHAPTER III

THE FOUNDING OF NEW FRANCE

In the closing years of the sixteenth century the spirit of Frenchexpansion, which had remained so strangely inactive for nearly threegenerations, once again began to manifest itself. The Sieur de LaRoche, another Breton nobleman, the merchant traders, Pontgravé of St. Malo and Chauvin of Honfleur, came forward one after the other withplans for colonizing the unknown land. Unhappily these plans were noteasily matured into stern realities. The ambitious project of La Rochecame to grief on the barren sands of Sable Island. The adventurousmerchants, for their part, obtained a monopoly of the trade and for afew years exploited the rich peltry regions of the St. Lawrence, butthey made no serious attempts at actual settlement. Finally they lostthe monopoly, which passed in 1603 to the Sieur de Chastes, a royalfavorite and commandant at Dieppe. 

It is at this point that Samuel Champlain first becomes associatedwith the pioneer history of New France. Given the opportunity to sailwith an expedition which De Chastes sent out in 1603, Champlain gladlyaccepted and from this time to the end of his days he never relaxedhis whole-souled interest in the design to establish a French dominionin these western lands. With his accession to the ranks of thevoyageurs real progress in the field of colonization was for the firsttime assured. Champlain encountered many setbacks during his initialyears as a colonizer, but he persevered to the end. When he hadfinished his work, France had obtained a footing in the St. Lawrencevalley which was not shaken for nearly a hundred and fifty years. 

Champlain was born in 1567 at the seaport of Brouage, on the Bay ofBiscay, so that he was only thirty-six years of age when he set outon his first voyage to America. His forbears belonged to the lessergentry of Saintonge, and from them he inherited a roving strain. Longbefore reaching middle manhood he had learned to face dangers, bothas a soldier in the wars of the League and as a sailor to the SpanishMain. With a love of adventure he combined rare powers of description, so much so that the narrative of his early voyages to this region hadattracted the King's attention and had won for him the title of royalgeographer. His ideas were bold and clear; he had an inflexible willand great patience in battling with discouragements. Possessing thesequalities, Champlain was in every way fitted to become the founder ofNew France. 

The expedition of 1603 proceeded to the St. Lawrence, where someof the party landed at the mouth of the Saguenay to trade with theIndians. The remainder, including Champlain, made their way up theriver to the Indian village at Hochelaga, which they now found inruins, savage warfare having turned the place into a solitude. Champlain busied himself with some study of the country's resourcesand the customs of the aborigines; but on the whole the prospects ofthe St. Lawrence valley did not move the explorers to enthusiasm. Descending the great river again, they rejoined their comrades at theSaguenay, and, taking their cargoes of furs aboard, the whole partysailed 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, for with it the trademonopoly had lapsed. But things were promptly set right again by aroyal act which granted the monopoly anew. This time it went to theSieur de Monts, a prominent Huguenot nobleman, then governor of Pons, with whom Champlain was on friendly terms. To quiet the clamors ofrival traders, however, it was stipulated that Monts should organize acompany and should be bound to take into his enterprise any who mightwish to associate themselves with him. The company, in return for itstrading monopoly, was to transport to the new domains at least onehundred settlers each year. 

Little difficulty was encountered in organizing the company, sincevarious merchants of St. Malo, Honfleur, Rouen, and Rochelle wereeager to take shares. Preparations for sending out an expedition on amuch larger scale than on any previous occasion were soon under way, and in 1604 two well-equipped vessels set forth. One of them went tothe old trading-post at the Saguenay; the other went southward tothe regions of Acadia. On board the latter were De Monts himself, Champlain as chief geographer, and a young adventurer from the ranksof the _noblesse_, Biencourt de Poutrincourt. The personnel of thisexpedition was excellent: it contained no convicts; most of itsmembers were artisans and sturdy yeomen. Rounding the tip of the NovaScotian peninsula, these vessels came to anchor in the haven of PortRoyal, now Annapolis. Not satisfied with the prospects there, however, they coasted around the Bay of Fundy, and finally reached the islandin Passamaquoddy Bay which they named St. Croix. Here on June 25, 1604, the party decided to found their settlement. Work on thebuildings was at once commenced, and soon the little colony was safelyhoused. In the autumn Poutrincourt was dispatched with one vessel anda crew back to France, while Champlain and the rest prepared to spendthe 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 beenmade were soon found to be inadequate. Once more there were sufferingssuch as Cartier and his men had undergone during the terrible winterof 1534-1535 at Quebec. There were no brooks or springs close at hand, and no fresh water except such as could be had by melting snow. Thestorehouse had no cellar, and in consequence the vegetables froze, sothat the company was reduced to salted meat as the chief staple ofdiet. Scurvy ravaged the camp, and before the snows melted nearlytwo-fifths of the party had died. Not until June, moreover, did avessel arrive from France with, fresh stores and more colonists. 

The experience of this first winter must have indeed "produceddiscontent, " as Champlain rather mildly expressed it, but it did notimpel De Monts to abandon his plans. St. Croix, however, was given upand, after a futile search for a better location on the New Englandcoast, the colony moved across the bay to Port Royal, where thebuildings were reconstructed. In the autumn De Monts went back toFrance, leaving Champlain, Pontgravé, and forty-three others to spendthe winter of 1605-1606 in Acadia. During this hibernation the fateswere far more kind. The season proved milder, the bitter lessons ofthe previous season had not gone unlearned, and scurvy did not makeserious headway. But when June came and De Monts had not returned fromFrance with fresh supplies, there was general discouragement; so muchso that plans for the entire abandonment of the place were on the eveof being carried out when a large vessel rounded the point on its wayinto the Basin. Aboard were Poutrincourt and Marc Lescarbot, togetherwith more settlers and supplies. Lescarbot was a Parisian lawyer insearch of adventure, a man who combined wit with wisdom, one of thepleasantest figures in the annals of American colonization. He wasdestined to gain a place in literary history as the interestingchronicler of this little colony's all-too-brief existence. Thesearrivals put new heart into the men, and they set to work sowing grainand vegetables, which grew in such abundance that the storehouses werefilled to their capacity. The ensuing winter found the company with anample store of everything. The season of ice and snow passed quickly, thanks largely to Champlain's successful endeavor to keep thecolonists in good health and spirits by exercise, by variety in diet, and by divers gaieties under the auspices of his _Ordre de Bon Temps_, a spontaneous social organization created for the purpose of banishingcares and worries from the little settlement. It seemed as though thecolony had been established to stay. 

But with the spring of 1607 came news which quickly put an end to allthis optimism. Rival merchants had been clamoring against the monopolyof the De Monts company. Despite the fact that De Monts was a Huguenotand thus a shining target for the shafts of bigotry, these protestshad for three years failed to move the King; but now they had gainedtheir point, and the monopoly had come to an end. This meant thatthere would be no more ships with settlers or supplies. As the colonycould not yet hope to exist on its own resources, there was noalternative but to abandon the site and return to France, and this thewhole party reluctantly proceeded to do. 

On arrival in France the affairs of the company were wound up, and DeMonts found himself a heavy loser. He was not yet ready to quit thegame, however, and Champlain with the aid of Pontgravé was able toconvince him that a new venture in the St. Lawrence region mightyield profits even without the protection of a monopoly. Thus out ofmisfortune and failure arose the plans which led to the founding of apermanent outpost of empire at Quebec. 

In the spring of 1608 Champlain and Pontgravé once again set sail forthe St. Lawrence. The latter delayed at the Saguenay to trade, whileChamplain pushed on to the site of the old Stadacona, where at thefoot of the cliff he laid the foundations of the new Quebec, the firstpermanent settlement of Europeans in the territory of New France. On the shore below the rocky steep several houses were built, andmeasures were taken to defend them in case of an Indian attack. HereChamplain's party spent the winter of 1608-1609. 

With the experience gained at St. Croix and Port Royal it should havebeen possible to provide for all eventualities, yet difficulties inprofusion were encountered during these winter months. First there wasthe unearthing of a conspiracy against Champlain. Those concerned init were speedily punished, but the execution of the chief culprit gaveto the new settlement a rather ominous beginning. Then came a seasonof zero weather, and the scurvy came with it. Champlain had heard ofthe remedy used by Cartier, but the tribes which had been at Stadaconain Cartier's time had now disappeared, and there was no one to pointout the old-time remedy to the suffering garrison. So the scourgewent on unchecked. The ravages of disease were so severe that, whena relief ship arrived in the early summer of 1609, all but eight ofChamplain's party had succumbed. 

Yet there was no thought of abandoning the settlement. The beginningsof Canada made astounding demands upon the fortitude and stamina ofthese dauntless voyageurs, but their store of courage was far from thepoint of exhaustion. They were ready not only to stay but to explorethe territory inland, to traverse its rivers and lakes, to trudgethrough its forests afoot that they might find out for the King'sinformation what resources the vast land held in its silent expanses. After due deliberation, therefore, it was decided that Champlain andfour others should accompany a party of Huron and Algonquin Indiansupon one of their forays into the country of the Iroquois, this beingthe only way in which the Frenchmen could be sure of their redskinguides. So the new allies set forth to the southeastward, passing upthe Richelieu River and, traversing the lake which now bears his name, Champlain and his Indian friends came upon a war party of Iroquoisnear Ticonderoga and a forest fight ensued. The muskets of the Frenchterrified the enemy tribesmen and they fled in disorder. In itselfthe incident was not of much account nor were its consequences sofar-reaching as some historians would have us believe. It is true thatChamplain's action put the French, for the moment in the bad gracesof the Iroquois; but the conclusion that this foray was chieflyresponsible for the hostility of the great tribes during the wholeensuing century is altogether without proper historical foundation. 

Revenge has always been a prominent trait of redskin character, butit could never of itself have determined the alignment of theFive Nations against the French during a period of nearly eightgenerations. From the situation of their territories, the Iroquoiswere the natural allies of the English and Dutch on the one hand, andthe natural foes of the French on the other. Trade soon became theAlpha and the Omega of all tribal diplomacy, and the Iroquois werediscerning enough to realize that their natural rôle was to serve asmiddlemen between the western Indians and the English. Their verylivelihood, indeed, depended on their success in diverting the flow ofthe fur trade through the Iroquois territories, for by the middleof the seventeenth century there were no beavers left in their owncountry. Such a situation meant that they must promote trade betweenthe western Indians and the English, at Albany; but to promote tradewith the English meant friendship with the English, and friendshipwith the English meant enmity with the French. Here is the true key tothe long series of quarrels in which the Five Nations and New Franceengaged. Champlain's little escapade at Ticonderoga was a mereincident and the Iroquois would have soon forgotten it if theireconomic interests had required them to do so. "Trade and peace, " saidan Iroquois chief to the French on one occasion, "we take to beone thing. " He was right; they have been one thing in all ages. Ascompanions, trade and the flag have been inseparable in all lands. Theexpedition of 1609 had, however, some results besides the discomfitureof an Iroquois raiding party. It disclosed to the French a water-routewhich led almost to the upper reaches of the Hudson. The spot whereChamplain put the Iroquois to flight is within thirty leagues ofAlbany. It was by this route that the French and English came so ofteninto warring contact during the next one hundred and fifty years. 

Explorations, the care of his little settlement at Quebec, tradingoperations, and two visits to France occupied Champlain's attentionduring the next few years. Down to this time no white man's foot hadever trodden the vast wilderness beyond the rapids above Hochelaga. Stories had filtered through concerning great waters far to the Westand North, of hidden minerals there, and of fertile lands. Champlainwas determined to see these things for himself and it was to that endthat 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; ithad a very definite end in view. A few years previously Champlain hadsent into the villages of the Algonquins on the upper Ottawa River ayoung Frenchman named Vignau, in order that by living for a time amongthese people he might learn their language and become useful asan interpreter. In 1612 Vignau came back with a marvelous storyconcerning a trip which he had made with his Algonquin friends to theGreat North Sea where he had seen the wreck of an English vessel. Thisstriking news inflamed Champlain's desire to find out whether this wasnot the route for which both Cartier and he himself had so eagerlysearched--the western passage to Cathay and the Indies. There isevidence that the explorer from the first doubted the truth ofVignau's story, but in 1613 he decided to make sure and started up theOttawa River, taking the young man with him to point the way. 

After a fatiguing journey the party at length reached the Algonquinencampment on Allumette Island in the upper Ottawa, where his doubtswere fully confirmed. Vignau, the Algonquins assured Champlain, was animpostor; he had never been out of their sight, had never seen a GreatNorth Sea; the English shipwreck was a figment of his imagination. "Overcome with wrath. " writes Champlain, "I had him removed from mypresence, being unable to bear the sight of him. " The party went nofurther, but returned to Quebec. As for the impostor, the generosityof his leader in the end allowed him to go unpunished. Though theexpedition had been in one sense a fool's errand and Champlain felthimself badly duped, yet it was not without its usefulness, for itgave him an opportunity to learn much concerning the methods ofwilderness travel, the customs of the Indians and the extent to whichthey might be relied upon. The Algonquins and the Hurons had provedtheir friendship, but what they most desired, it now appeared, wasthat the French should give them substantial aid in another expeditionagainst the Iroquois. 

This was the basis upon which, arrangements were made for Champlain'snext journey to the interior, the longest and most daring enterprisein his whole career of exploration. In 1615 the Brouage navigatorwith a small party once again ascended the Ottawa, crossed to LakeNipissing and thence made his way down the French. River to theGeorgian Bay, or Lake of the Hurons as it was then called. Nearthe shores of the bay he found the villages of the Hurons with theRécollet Father Le Caron already at work among the tribesmen. Adding alarge band of Indians to his party, the explorer-now struck southeastand, by following the chain of small lakes and rivers which liebetween Matchedash Bay and the Bay of Quinte, he eventually reachedLake Ontario. The territory pleased Champlain greatly, and he recordedhis enthusiastic opinion of its fertility. Crossing the head of LakeOntario in their canoes the party then headed for the country of theIroquois south of Oneida Lake, where lay a palisaded village of theOnondagas. This they attacked, but after three hours' fighting wererepulsed, Champlain being wounded in the knee by an Iroquois arrow. 

The eleven Frenchmen with their horde of Indians then retreatedcautiously; but the Onondagas made no serious attempt at pursuit, andin due course Champlain with his party recrossed Lake Ontario safely. The Frenchmen were now eager to get back to Quebec by descendingthe St. Lawrence, but their Indian allies would not hear of thisdesertion. The whole expedition therefore plodded on to the shores ofthe Georgian Bay, following a route somewhat north of the one by whichit had come. There the Frenchmen spent a tedious winter. Champlain wasanxious to make use of the time by exploring the upper lakes, but thetask of settling some wretched feuds among his Huron and Algonquinfriends took most of his time and energy. The winter gave himopportunity, however, to learn a great deal more about the daily lifeof the savages, their abodes, their customs, their agriculture, theiramusements, and their folklore. All this information went into hisjournals and would have been of priceless value had not the Jesuitswho came later proved to be such untiring chroniclers of every detail. 

When spring came, Champlain left the Huron country and by way of LakeNipissing and the Ottawa once more reached his own people at Quebec. It took him forty days to make the journey from the Georgian Bay tothe present site of Montreal. 

Arriving at Quebec, where he was hailed as 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 DeMonts had financed the first voyage to the St. Lawrence. In the firstplace, 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 sternregency which followed the assassination of Henry IV in 1610. Then ahalf-dozen makeshift arrangements came in the ensuing years. It wasalways the same story faithfully repeated in its broad outlines. Somefriendly nobleman would obtain from the King appointment as viceroyof New France and at the same time a trading monopoly for a term ofyears, always promising to send out some settlers in return. Themonopoly would then be sublet, and Champlain would be recognized asa sort of viceroy's deputy. And all for a colony in which the whitepopulation did not yet number fifty souls!

Despite the small population, however, Champlain's task at Quebec wasdifficult and exacting. His sponsors in France had no interest in thepermanent upbuilding of the colony; they sent out very few settlers, and gave him little in the way of funds. The traders who came tothe St. Lawrence each summer were an unruly and boisterous crew whoquarreled 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 inFrance put the affairs of the colony upon a new and more activebasis. For a quarter of a century, France had been letting goldenopportunities slip by while the colonies and trade of her rivals wereforging ahead. Spain and Portugal were secure in the South. Englandhad gained firm footholds both in Virginia and on Massachusetts Bay. Even Holland had a strong commercial company in the field. This was asituation which no far-sighted Frenchman could endure. Hence CardinalRichelieu, when he became chief minister of Louis XIII, undertook tosee that France should have her share of New World spoils. "No realmis so well situated as France, " he declared, "to be mistress of theseas or so rich in all things needful. " The cardinal-minister combinedfertility in ideas with such a genius for organization that his planswere quickly under way. Unhappily his talent for details, for theefficient handling of little things, was not nearly so great, and someof his arrangements went sadly awry in consequence. 

At any rate Richelieu in 1627 prevailed upon the King to abolish theoffice of viceroy, to cancel all trading privileges, and to permit theorganization of a great colonizing company, one that might hope torival the English and Dutch commercial organizations. This was formedunder the name of the Company of New France, or the Company of OneHundred Associates, as it was more commonly called from the fact thatits membership was restricted to one hundred shareholders, each ofwhom contributed three thousand _livres_. The cardinal himself, theministers of state, noblemen, and courtesans of Paris, as well asmerchants of the port towns, all figured in the list of stockholders. The subscription lists contained an imposing array of names. 

The powers of the new Company, moreover, were as imposing as itspersonnel. To it was granted a perpetual monopoly of the fur tradeand of all other commerce with rights of suzerainty over all theterritories of New France and Acadia. It was to govern these lands, levy taxes, establish courts, appoint officials, and even bestowtitles of nobility. In return the Company undertook to convey to thecolony not less than two hundred settlers per year, and to providethem with subsistence until they could become self-supporting. It wasstipulated, however, that no Huguenots or other heretics should beamong the immigrants. 

The Hundred Associates entered upon this portentous task withpromptness and enthusiasm. Early in 1628 a fleet of eighteen vesselsfreighted with equipment, settlers, and supplies set sail from Dieppefor the St. Lawrence to begin operations. But the time of its arrivalwas highly inopportune, for France was now at war with England, and ithappened that a fleet of English privateers was already seeking preyin the Lower St. Lawrence. These privateers, commanded by Kirke, intercepted the Company's heavily-laden caravels, overpowered them, and carried their prizes off to England. Thus the Company of theOne Hundred Associates lost a large part of its capital, and itsshareholders received a generous dividend of disappointment in thevery first year of its operations. 

A more serious blow, however, was yet to come. Flushed with hissuccess in 1628, Kirke came back to the St. Lawrence during the nextsummer and proceeded to Quebec, where he summoned Champlain and hislittle settlement to surrender. As the place was on the verge offamine owing to the capture of the supply ships in the previous year, there was no alternative but to comply, and the colony passed forthe first time into English hands. Champlain was allowed to sail forEngland, where he sought the services of the French ambassador andearnestly advised that the King be urged to insist on the restorationof Canada whenever the time for peace should come. Negotiations forpeace soon began, but they dragged on tediously until 1632, when theTreaty of St. Germain-en-Laye gave back New France to its formerowners. 

With this turn in affairs the Company was able to resume itsoperations. Champlain, as its representative, once more reachedQuebec, where he received a genuine welcome from the few Frenchmen whohad remained through the years of Babylonian captivity, and from thebands of neighboring Indians. With his hands again set to the arduoustasks, Champlain was able to make substantial progress during the nexttwo years. For a time the Company gave him funds and equipment besidessending him some excellent colonists. Lands were cleared in theneighborhood of the settlement; buildings were improved and enlarged;trade with the Indians was put upon a better basis. A post wasestablished at Three Rivers, and plans were made for a furtherextension of French influence to the westward. It was in the midst ofthese achievements and hopes that Champlain was stricken by paralysisand 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 noassurance that it is a faithful likeness. No one, however, can denythat the mariner of Brouage, with his extraordinary perseverance andenergy, was admirably fitted to be the pathfinder to a new realm. Notoften does one encounter in the annals of any nation a man of greatertenacity and patience. Chagrin and disappointment he had to meet onmany occasions, but he was never baffled nor moved to concede defeat. His perseverance, however, was not greater than his modesty, for neverin his writings did he magnify his difficulties nor exalt his ownpowers of overcoming them, as was too much the fashion of his day. As a writer, his style was plain and direct, with, no attempt atembellishment and no indication that strong emotions ever had muchinfluence upon his pen. He was essentially a man of action, and hisnarrative is in the main a simple record of such a man's achievements. His character was above reproach; no one ever impugned his honesty orhis sincere devotion to the best interests of his superiors. To hisChurch he was loyal in the last degree; and it was under his auspicesthat the first of the Jesuit missionaries came to begin the enduringwork which the Order was destined to accomplish in New France. 

On the death of Champlain the Company appointed the Sieur de Montmagnyto be governor of the colony. He was an ardent sympathizer with theaims of the Jesuits, and life at Quebec soon became almost monastic inits austerity. The Jesuits sent home each year their _Rélations_, and, as these were widely read, they created great interest in thespiritual affairs of the colony. The call for zealots to carry thecross westward into the wilderness met ready response, and it was amida glow of religious fervor that the settlement at Montreal was broughtinto being. A company was formed in France, funds were obtained, anda band of forty-four colonists was recruited for the crusade into thewilderness. The Sieur de Maisonneuve, a gallant soldier and a loyaldevotee of the Church, was the active leader of the enterprise, withJeanne Mance, an ardent young religionist of high motives and finecharacter, as his principal coadjutor. Fortune dealt kindly with theproject, and Montreal began its history in 1642. 

A few years later Montmagny gave up his post and returned to France. With the limited resources at his disposal, he had served the colonywell, 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 thecountry, and who was consequently no stranger to its needs. On hisappointment a council was created, to consist of the governor of thecolony, the bishop or the superior of the Jesuits, and the governor ofMontreal. Henceforth this body was to be responsible for the makingof all general regulations. It is commonly called the Old Council todistinguish it from the Sovereign Council by which it was supplantedin 1663. 

The opening years of the new administration were marked by one of thegreatest of forest tragedies, the destruction of the Hurons. In 1648a party of Iroquois warriors made their way across Lake Ontario andoverland to the Huron country, where they destroyed one large village. Emboldened by this success, a much larger body of the tribesmenreturned in the year following and completed their bloody work. Adozen or more Huron settlements were attacked and laid waste withwanton slaughter. Two Jesuit priests, Lalemant and Brébeuf, who werelaboring among the Hurons, were taken and burned at the stakeafter suffering atrocious tortures. The remnants of the tribe werescattered: a few found shelter on the islands of the Georgian Bay, while others took refuge with the French and were given a tract ofland at Sillery, near Quebec. To the French colony the extirpation ofthe Hurons came as a severe blow. It weakened their prestige in thewest, it cut off a lucrative source of fur supply, and it involved theloss of faithful allies. 

More ominous still, the Iroquois by the success of their forays intothe Huron country endangered the French settlement at Montreal. Glorying in their prowess, these warriors now boasted that they wouldleave the Frenchmen no peace but in their graves. And they proceededto make good their threatenings. Bands of confederates spreadthemselves about the region near Montreal, pouncing lynx-like from theforest upon any who ventured outside the immediate boundaries of thesettlement. For a time the people were in despair, but the colony soongained a breathing space, not by its own efforts, but from a diversionof Iroquois enmity to other quarters. 

About 1652 the confederated tribes undertook their famous expeditionagainst the Eries, whose country lay along the south shore of the lakewhich bears their name, and this enterprise for the time absorbedthe bulk of the Iroquois energy. The next governor of New France, DeLauzon, regarded the moment as opportune for peace negotiations, onthe hypothesis that the idea of waging only one war at a time mightappeal to the Five Nations as sound policy. A mission was accordinglysent to the Iroquois, headed by the Jesuit missionary Le Moyne, andfor a time it seemed as if arrangements for a lasting peace might bemade. But there was no sincerity in the Iroquois professions. Theirreal interest lay in peaceful relations with the Dutch and theEnglish; the French were their logical enemies; and when the Iroquoishad finished with the Eries their insolence quickly showed itself oncemore. 

The next few years therefore found the colony again in desperatestraits. In its entire population there were not more than fivehundred men capable of taking the field, nor were there firearms forall of these. The Iroquois confederacy could muster at least threetimes that number; they were now obtaining firearms in plenty from theDutch at Albany; and they could concentrate their whole assault uponthe French settlement at Montreal. Had the Iroquois known the barestelements of siege operations, the colony must have come to a speedyand disastrous end. As the outcome proved, however, they were unwiseenough to divide their strength and to dissipate their energies inisolated raids, so that Montreal came safely through the gloomy yearsof 1658 and 1659. 

In the latter of these years there arrived from France a man who wasdestined to play a large part in its affairs during the next fewdecades, François-Xavier de Laval, who now came to take charge ofecclesiastical affairs in New France with the powers of a vicarapostolic. Laval's arrival did not mark the beginning of frictionbetween the Church and the civil officials in the colony; there weresuch dissensions already. But the doughty churchman's claims and thegovernor's policy of resisting them soon brought things to an openbreach, particularly upon the question of permitting the sale ofliquor to the Indians. In 1662 the quarrel became bitter. Lavalhastened home to France where he placed before the authorities thelist of ecclesiastical grievances. The governor, a bluff old soldier, was thereupon summoned to Paris to present his side of the wholeaffair. In the end a decision was reached to reorganize the wholesystem of civil and commercial administration in the colony. Thus, aswe shall soon see, the power passed away altogether from the Companyof One Hundred Associates. 

CHAPTER IV

THE AGE OF LOUIS QUATORZE

Louis XIV, the greatest of the Bourbon monarchs, had now taken intohis own hands the reins of power. Nominally he had been king of Francesince 1642, when he was only five years old, but it was not until 1658that the control of affairs by the regency came to an end. Moreover, Colbert was now chief minister of state, so that colonial matters wereassured of a searching and enlightened inquiry. Richelieu's interestin the progress of New France had not endured for many years after thefounding of his great Company. It is true that during the next fifteenyears he remained chief minister, but the great effort to crush theremaining strongholds of feudalism and to centralize all politicalpower in the monarchy left him no time for the care of a distantcolony. Colbert, on the other hand, had well-defined and far-reachingplans for the development of French industrial interests at home andof French commercial interests abroad. 

As for the colony, it made meager progress under Company control: fewsettlers were sent out; and they were not provided with proper meansof defense against Indian depredations. Under the circumstances it didnot take Colbert long to see how remiss the Company of One HundredAssociates had been, nor to reach a decision that the colony shouldbe at once withdrawn from its control. He accordingly persuaded themonarch to demand the surrender of the Company's charter and toreprimand the Associates for the shameless way in which they hadneglected the trust committed to their care. "Instead of finding, "declared the King in the edict of revocation, "that this country ispopulated as it ought to be after so long an occupation thereof by oursubjects, we have learned with regret not only that the number of itsinhabitants is very limited, but that even these are daily exposed tothe danger of being wiped out by the Iroquois. "

In truth, the company had little to show for its thirty years ofexploitation. The entire population of New France in 1663 numberedless than twenty-five hundred people, a considerable proportion ofwhom were traders, officials, and priests. The area of cleared landwas astonishingly small, and agriculture had made no progress worthyof the name. There were no industries of any kind, and almost nothingbut furs went home in the ships to France. The colony depended uponits mother country even for its annual food supply, and when theships from France failed to come the colonists were reduced to severeprivations. A dispirited and nearly defenseless land, without solidfoundations of agriculture or industry, with an accumulation of Indianenmity and an empty treasury--this was the legacy which the Companynow turned over to the Crown in return for the viceroyal privilegesgiven to it in good faith more than three decades before. 

When the King revoked the Company's charter, he decided upon Colbert'sadvice to make New France a royal domain and to provide it with ascheme of administration modeled broadly upon that of a province athome. To this end a royal edict, perhaps the most important of all themany decrees affecting French colonial interests in the seventeenthcentury, was issued in April, 1663. While the provisions of this edictbear the stamp of Colbert's handiwork, it is not unlikely that thesuggestions of Bishop Laval, as given to the minister during his visitof the preceding year, were accorded some recognition. At any rate, after reciting the circumstances under which the King had beenprompted to take New France into his own hands, the edict of 1663proceeded to authorize the creation of a Sovereign Council as thechief governing body of the colony. This, with a larger membership andwith greatly increased powers, was to replace the old councilwhich the Company had established to administer affairs some yearspreviously. 

During the next hundred years this Sovereign Council became andremained the paramount civil authority in French America. At theoutset it consisted of seven members, the governor and the bishop _exofficio_, with five residents of the colony selected jointly by thesetwo. Beginning with the arrival of Talon as first intendant of thecolony in 1665, the occupant of this post was also given a seat in theCouncil. Before long, however, it became apparent that the provisionrelating to the appointment of non-official members was unworkable. The governor and the bishop could not agree in their selections; eachwanted his own partisans appointed. The result was a deadlock in whichseats at the council-board remained vacant. In the end Louis Quatorzesolved this problem, as he solved many others, by taking the powerdirectly into his own hands. After 1674 all appointments to theCouncil were made by the King himself. In that same year the number ofnon-official members was raised to seven, and in 1703 it was furtherincreased to twelve. [1] At the height of its power, then, theSovereign Council of New France consisted of the governor, theintendant, the bishop, and twelve lay councilors, together with anattorney-general and a clerk. These two last-named officials sat withthe Council but were not regular members of it. 

[Footnote 1: Its official title was in 1678 changed to SuperiorCouncil. ]

In the matter of powers the Council was given by the edict of 1663jurisdiction over all civil and criminal matters under the laws andordinances of the kingdom, its procedure in dealing with such mattersto be modeled on that of the Parliament of Paris. It was to receiveand to register the royal decrees, thus giving them validity in NewFrance, and it was also to be the supreme tribunal of the colony withauthority to establish local courts subordinate to itself. There wasno division of powers in the new frame of government. Legislative, executive, and judicial powers were thrown together in true Bourbonfashion. Apparently it was Colbert's plan to make of the governora distinguished figurehead, with large military powers but withoutparamount influence in civil affairs. The bishop was to have no civiljurisdiction, and the intendant was to be the director of details. TheCouncil, according to the edict of 1663, was to be the real pivot ofpower in New France. 

Through the long years of storm and stress which make up the greaterpart of the history of the colony, the Sovereign Council rendereddiligent and faithful service. There were times when passions waxedwarm, when bitter words were exchanged, and when the urgent interestsof the colony were sacrificed to the settlement of personaljealousies. Many dramatic scenes were enacted around the long table atwhich the councilors sat at their weekly sessions, for every Mondaythrough the greater portion of the year the Council convened at seveno'clock in the morning and usually sat until noon or later. Butthese were only meteoric flashes. Historians have given them undueprominence because such episodes make racy reading. By far the greaterportion of the council's meetings were devoted to the serious andpatient consideration of routine business. Matters of infinite varietycame to it for determination, including the regulation of industry andtrade, the currency, the fixing of prices, the interpretation ofthe rules relating to land tenure, fire prevention, poorrelief, regulation of the liquor traffic, the encouragement ofagriculture--and these are only a few of the topics taken at randomfrom its calendar. In addition there were thousands of disputesbrought to it for settlement either directly or on appeal from thelower courts. The minutes of its deliberations during the ninety-sevenyears from September 18, 1663, to April 8, 1760, fill no fewer thanfifty-six ponderous manuscript volumes. 

Though, in the edict establishing the Sovereign Council, no mentionwas made of an intendant, the decision to send such an official to NewFrance came very shortly thereafter. In 1665 Jean Talon arrivedat Quebec bearing a royal commission which gave him wide powers, infringing to some extent on the authority vested in the SovereignCouncil two years previously. The phraseology was similar to that usedin the commissions of the provincial intendants in France, and sobroad was the wording, indeed, that one might well ask what otherpowers could be left for exercise by any one else. No wonder that theeighteenth-century apostle of frenzied finance, John Law, should havelaconically described France as a land "ruled by a king and his thirtyintendants, upon whose will alone its welfare and its wants depend. "Along with his commission Talon brought to the colony a letter ofinstructions from the minister which, gave more detailed directions asto 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. Itscreation in the first instance has commonly been attributed toRichelieu, but it really antedated the coming of the great cardinal. The intendancy was not a spontaneous creation, but a very old and, in its origin, a humble post which grew in importance with thecentralization of power in the King's hands, and which kept step inits development with the gradual extinction of local self-governmentin the royal domains. The provincial intendant in pre-revolutionaryFrance was master of administration, finance, and justice within hisown jurisdiction; he was bound by no rigid statutes; he owed obedienceto no local authorities; he was appointed by the King and wasresponsible to his sovereign alone. 

From first to last there were a dozen intendants of New France. Talon, whose ambition and energy did much to set the colony in the saddle, was the first. François Bigot, the arch-plunderer of his monarch'sfunds, who did so much to bring the land to its downfall, was thelast. Between them came a line of sensible, earnest, hard-workingofficials who served their King far better than they servedthemselves, who gave the best years of their lives to the task ofmaking New France a bright jewel in the Bourbon crown. The colonialintendant was the royal man-of-all-work. The King spoke and theintendant forthwith transformed his words into action. As the King'sgreat interest in New France, coupled with his scant knowledge ofits conditions, moved him to speak often, and usually in broadgeneralities, the intendant's activity was prodigious and hisdiscretion wide. Ordinances and decrees flew from his pen like sparksfrom a blacksmith's forge. The duty devolved upon him as the overseasapostle of Gallic paternalism to "order everything as seemed just andproper, " even when this brought his hand into the very homes of thepeople, into their daily work or worship or amusements. Nothing thatneeded setting aright was too inconsequential to have an ordinancedevoted to it. As general regulator of work and play, of manners andmorals, of things present and things to come, the intendant was thebusiest man in the colony. 

In addition to the governor, the council, and the intendant, therewere many other officials on the civil list. Both the governor and theintendant had their deputies at Montreal and at Three Rivers. Therewere judges and bailiffs and seneschals and local officers by thescore, not to speak of those who held sinecures or received royalpensions. There were garrisons to be maintained at all the frontierposts and church officials to be supported by large sums. No marvel itwas that New France could never pay its own way. Every year there wasa deficit which, the King had to liquidate by payments from the royalexchequer. 

The administration of the colony, moreover, fell far short of evenreasonable efficiency. There were far too many officials for therelatively small amount of work to be done, and their respectivefields of authority were inadequately defined. Too often the work ofthese officials lacked even the semblance of harmony, nor did theroyal authorities always view this deficiency with regret. A fairamount of working at cross-purposes, provided it did not bring affairsto a complete standstill, was regarded as a necessary system of checksand balances in a colony which lay three thousand miles away. Itprevented any chance of a general conspiracy against the homeauthorities or any wholesale wrong-doing through collusion. It servedto make every official a ready tale-bearer in all matters concerningthe 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 ofgovernment, and it was characteristically the French way of doingthings in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. 

Louis XIV took a great personal interest in New France even to theneglect at times of things which his courtiers deemed to be farmore important. The governor and the intendant plied him with theirrequests, with their grievances, and too often with their prosy talesof petty squabbling. With every ship they sent to Versailles their_mémoires_, often of intolerable length; and the patient monarch readthem all. Marginal notes, made with his own hand, are still upon manyof them, and the student who plods his way through the musty bundlesof official correspondence in the _Archives Nationales_ will find inthese marginal comments enough to convince him that, whatever thefailings of Louis XIV may have been, indolence was not of them. Thenwith the next ships the King sent back his budget of orders, counsel, reprimand, and praise. If the colony failed to thrive, it was notbecause the royal interest in it proved insincere or deficient. 

The progress of New France, as reported in these dispatches fromQuebec, with their figures of slow growth in population, of poorcrops, and of failing trade, of Indian troubles and dangers from theEnglish, of privations at times and of deficits always, must oftenhave dampened the royal hopes. The requests for subsidies fromthe royal purse were especially relentless. Every second dispatchcontained pleas for money or for things which were bound to cost moneyif the King provided them: money to enable some one to clear hislands, or to start an industry, or to take a trip of exploration tothe wilds; money to provide more priests, to build churches, or torepair fortifications; money to pension officials--the call for moneywas incessant year after year. In the face of these multifariousdemands upon his exchequer, Louis XIV was amazingly generous, but themore he gave, the more the colony asked from him. Until the end of hisdays, he never failed in response if the object seemed worthy ofhis support. It was not until the Grand Monarch was gathered to hisfathers that the officials of New France began to ply their requestsin vain. 

So much for the frame of government in the colony during the age ofLouis XIV. Now as to the happenings during the decade following 1663. The new administration made a promising start under the headship of DeMézy, a fellow townsman and friend of Bishop Laval, who arrived in theautumn of 1663 to take up his duties as governor. In a few days he andthe bishop had amicably chosen the five residents of the colony whowere to serve as councilors, and the council began its sessions. Buttroubles soon loomed into view, brought on in part by Laval's desireto settle up some old scores now that he had the power as a memberof the Sovereign Council and was the dominating influence in itsdeliberations. Under the bishop's inspiration the Council ordered theseizure of some papers belonging to Péronne Dumesnil, a former agentof the now defunct Company of One Hundred Associates. Dumesnilretorted by filing a _dossier_ of charges against some of thecouncilors; and the colonists at once ranged themselves into twoopposing factions--those who believed the charges and those who didnot. The bishop had become the stormy petrel of colonial politics, andnature had in truth well fitted him for just such a rôle. 

Soon, moreover, the relations between Mézy and Laval themselves becameless cordial. For a year the governor had proved ready to give waygraciously on every point; but there was a limit to his amenability, and now his proud spirit began to chafe under the dictation of hisecclesiastical colleague. At length he ventured to show a mind of hisown; and then the breach between him and Laval widened quickly. Three of the councillors having joined the bishop against him, Mézyundertook a _coup d'état_, dismissed these councilors from theirposts, and called a mass-meeting of the people to choose theirsuccessors. On the governor's part this was a serious tactical error. He could hardly expect that a monarch who was doing his best to crushout the last vestige of representative government in France wouldwelcome its establishment and encouragement by one of his ownofficials in the New World. But Mézy did not live to obey the recallwhich speedily came from the King as the outcome of this indiscretion. In the spring of 1665 he was taken ill and died at Quebec. "He wentto rest among the paupers, " says Parkman, "and the priests, serenelytriumphant, sang requiems over his grave. "

But discord within its borders was not the colony's only troubleduring these years. The scourge of the Iroquois was again upon theland. During the years 1663 and 1664 bands of Mohawks and Oneidasraided the regions of the Richelieu and penetrated to the settlementat Three Rivers. These _petites guerres_ were making thingsintolerable for the colonists, and the King was urged to send out aforce of troops large enough to crush the bothersome savages once forall. This plea met with a ready response, and in June, 1665, Prouvillede Tracy with two hundred officers and men of the Regiment deCarignan-Salières disembarked at Quebec. The remaining companies ofthe regiment, making a force almost a thousand strong, arrived alittle later. The people were now sure that deliverance was at hand, and the whole colony was in a frenzy of joy. 

Following the arrival of the troops came Courcelle, the new governor, and Jean Talon, who was to take the post of intendant. These were galadays in New France; the whole colony had caught the spirit of the newimperialism. The banners and the trumpets, the scarlet cloaks andthe perukes, the glittering profusion of gold lace and feathers, theclanking of swords and muskets, transformed Quebec in a season from awilderness village to a Versailles in miniature. But there was littletime for dress parades and affairs of ceremony. Tracy had come to givethe Iroquois their _coup de grâce_, and the work must be done quickly. The King could not afford to have a thousand soldiers of the grandarmy eating their heads off through the long months of a Canadianwinter. 

The work of getting the expedition ready, therefore, was pushedrapidly ahead. Snowshoes were provided for the regiment, provisionsand supplies were gathered, and in January, 1666, the expeditionstarted up the frozen Richelieu, traversed Lake Champlain, and movedacross to the headwaters of the Hudson. It was a spectacle new tothe northern wilderness of America, this glittering and picturesquecavalcade of regulars flanked by troops of militiamen and bands offur-clothed Indians moving on its errand of destruction along thefrozen rivers. But the French regular troops were not habituatedto long marches on snowshoes in the dead of winter; and they madeprogress so slowly that the Dutch settlers of the region had time towarn the Mohawks of the approach of the expedition. This upset allFrench plans, since the leaders had hoped to fall upon the Mohawkvillages and to destroy them before the tribesmen could either makepreparations for defense or withdraw southward. Foiled in this plan, and afraid that an early thaw might make their route of returnimpossible, the French gave up their project and started home again. They had not managed to reach, much less to destroy, the villages oftheir enemies. 

But the undertaking was not an absolute failure. The Mohawks wereastute enough to see that only the inexperience of the French hadstood between them and destruction. Here was an enemy which had provedable to come through the dead of winter right into the regions whichhad hitherto been regarded as inaccessible from the north. The Frenchmight be depended to come again and, by reason of greater experience, to make a better job of their coming. The Iroquois reasoning was quitecorrect, as the sequel soon disclosed. In September of the same yearthe French had once again equipped their expedition, more effectivelythis time. Traveling overland along nearly the same route, it reachedthe country of the Mohawks without a mishap. The Indians savedthemselves by a rapid flight to the forests, but their palisadedstrongholds were demolished, their houses set afire, their _cachés_ ofcorn dug out and destroyed. The Mohawks were left to face the oncomingwinter with nothing but the woods to shelter them. Having finishedtheir task of punishment, Tracy and his regiment made their wayleisurely back to Quebec. 

The Mohawks were now quite ready to make terms, and in 1667 theysent a delegation to Quebec to proffer peace. Two raids into theirterritories in successive years had taught them that they could notsafely leave their homes to make war against the tribes of the west solong as the French were their enemies. And the desire to dominate theregion of the lakes was a first principle of Iroquois policy at thistime. An armistice was accordingly concluded, which lasted withoutserious interruption for more than a decade. One of the provisionsof the peace was that Jesuit missions should be established in theIroquois territory, this being the usual way in which the Frenchassured themselves of diplomatic intercourse with the tribes. 

With its trade routes once more securely open, New France now began aperiod of marked prosperity. Tracy and his staff went back to France, but most of his soldiers remained and became settlers. Wives for thesesoldiers were sent out under royal auspices, and liberal grants ofmoney were provided to get the new households established. Since1664, the trade of the colony had been once more in the hands ofa commercial organization, the Company of the West Indies, whosefinancial success was, for the time being, assured by the revival ofthe fur traffic. Industries were beginning to spring into being, thepopulation was increasing rapidly, and the King was showing a livelyinterest in all the colony's affairs. It was therefore a prosperousand promising colony to which Governor Frontenac came in 1672. 

CHAPTER V

THE IRON GOVERNOR

The ten years following 1663 form a decade of extraordinary progressin the history of New France. The population of the colony hadtrebled, and now numbered approximately seven thousand; the red peril, thanks to Tracy's energetic work, had been lessened; while the furtrade had grown to large and lucrative proportions. With this increasein population and prosperity, there came a renaissance of enthusiasmfor voyages of exploration and for the widening of the colony'sfrontiers. Glowing reports went home to the King concerning the latentpossibilities of the New World. What the colony now needed was astrong and vigorous governor who would not only keep a firm hold uponwhat had been already achieved, but one who would also push on togreater and more glorious things. 

It was in keeping with, this spirit of faith and hope that the Kingsent to Quebec, in 1672, Louis de Buade, Count Frontenac, naming himgovernor of all the French domains in North America. Fifty-two yearsof age when he came to Canada, Frontenac had been a soldier from hisyouth; he had fought through hard campaigns in Italy, in the LowCountries, and with the Venetians in their defense of Candia againstthe Turks. In fact, he had but shortly returned from this last servicewhen he was chosen to succeed Courcelle as the royal representative inNew France. 

To Frontenac's friends the appointment seemed more like a banishmentthan a promotion. But there were several reasons why the governorshould have accepted gladly. He had inherited only a modest fortune, and most of this had been spent, for thrift was not one of Frontenac'svirtues. His domestic life had not been happy, and there were nostrong personal ties binding him to life in France. [1] Moreover, thepost of governor in the colony was not to be judged by what it hadbeen in the days of D'Avaugour or De Mézy. The reports sent home byTalon had stirred the national ambitions. "I am no courtier, " thisintendant had written, "and it is not to please the King or withoutreason that I say this portion of the French monarchy is going tobecome something great. What I now see enables me to make such aprediction. " And indeed the figures of growth in population, ofacreage cleared, and of industries rising into existence seemed tojustify the intendant's optimism. Both the King and his ministers werebuilding 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 andmost commanding of all the officials who served the Bourbon monarchyin the New World. In the long line of governors he approached mostnearly to what a Viceroy ought to be. 

[Footnote 1: Saint-Simon, in his _Mémoires_, prints the currentParisian gossip that Frontenac was sent to New France to shield himfrom the imperious temper of his wife and to afford him a means oflivelihood. ]

It is true that in New France there were conditions which no amountof experience in the Old World could train a man to handle. Nor wasFrontenac particularly fitted by training or temperament for allof the duties which his new post involved. In some things he waswell-endowed; he had great physical endurance, a strong will, with noend of courage, and industry to spare. These were qualities of thehighest value in a land encircled by enemies and forced to depend forexistence upon the strength of its own people. But more serviceablestill was his ability in adapting himself to a new environment. Menpast fifty do not often show this quality in marked degree, butFrontenac fitted himself to the novelty of colonial life exceedinglywell. In his relations with, the Indians he showed amazing skill. Noother colonial governor, English, French, or Dutch, ever commanded soreadily the respect and admiration of the red man. But in his dealingswith the intendant and the bishop, with the clergy, and with all thoseamong the French of New France who showed any disposition to disagreewith him, Frontenac displayed an uncontrollable temper, an arroganceof spirit, and a degree of personal vanity which would not have madefor cordial relations in any field of human effort. He had formed hisown opinions and was quite ready to ride rough-shod over those ofother men. It was this impetuosity that served to make the officialcircles of the colony, during many months of his term, a "little hellof discord. "

But when the new viceroy arrived at Quebec he was in high fettle;he was pleased with the situation of the town and flattered by theenthusiastic greeting which he received from its people. His firststep was to familiarize himself with the existing machinery ofcolonial government, which he found to be far from his liking. Heproceeded, accordingly, in his own imperious way, to makesome startling changes. For one thing, he decided to summon arepresentative assembly made up of the clergy, the seigneurs, andthe common folk of New France. This body he brought together for hisinauguration in October, 1672. No such assembly had ever been convenedbefore, and nothing like it was ever allowed to assemble again. Before another year had passed, the minister sent Frontenac a politereprimand with the intimation that the King could not permit in thecolony an institution he was doing his best, and with entire success, to crush out at home. The same fate awaited the governor's otherproject, the establishment of a municipal government in the town ofQuebec. Within a few months of his arrival, Frontenac had allowedthe people of the town to elect a syndic and two aldermen, but theminister vetoed this action with the admonition that "you should veryrarely, or, to speak more correctly, never, give a corporate voiceto the inhabitants, for . . . It is well that each should speak forhimself, and no one for all. " In the reorganization of colonialadministration, therefore, the governor found himself promptly calledto a halt. He therefore turned to another field where he was much moresuccessful in having his own way. 

From the day of his arrival at Quebec the governor saw the pressingneed of extending French, influence and control into the regionsbordering upon the Great Lakes. To dissipate the colony's efforts inwestward expansion, however, was exactly what he had been instructednot to do. The King and his ministers were sure that it would be farwiser to devote all available energies and funds to developing thesettled portions of the land. They desired the governor to carry onthe policy of encouraging agriculture which Talon had begun, thussolidifying the colony and making its borders less difficult todefend. Frontenac's instructions on this point could hardly have beenmore explicit. "His Majesty considers it more consistent with the goodof his service, " wrote Colbert, "that you apply yourself to clearingand settling the most fertile places that are nearest the seacoast andthe communication with France than to think afar of explorationsin the interior of the country, so distant that they can never beinhabited by Frenchmen. " This was discouraging counsel, showingneither breadth of vision nor familiarity with the urgent needs of thecolony. Frontenac courageously set these instructions aside, and indoing so he was wise. Had he held to the letter of his instructions, New France would never have been more than a strip of territoryfringing the Lower St. Lawrence. More than any other Frenchman hehelped to plan the great empire of the West. 

Notwithstanding the narrow views of his superiors at Versailles, Frontenac was convinced that the colony could best secure its owndefense by controlling the chief line of water communications betweenthe Iroquois country and Montreal. To this end he prepared to build afort at Cataraqui where the St. Lawrence debouches from Lake Ontario. He was not, however, the first to recognize the strategic value ofthis point. Talon had marked it as a place of importance some yearsbefore, and the English, authorities at Albany had been urged by theIroquois chiefs to forestall any attempt that the French might make bybeing first on the ground. But the English procrastinated, and in thesummer of 1673 the governor, with an imposing array of troops andmilitia, made his way to Cataraqui, having first summoned the Iroquoisto meet him there in solemn council. In rather high dudgeon they came, ready to make trouble if the chance arose; but Frontenac's displayof armed strength, his free-handed bestowal of presents, his tactfulhandling of the chiefs, and his effective oratory at the conclave soonassured 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 westernaffairs. During his conferences with the Indians he had heard muchabout the great waters to the West and the rich beaver lands which laybeyond. He was ready, therefore, to encourage in every way the plansof those who wished to undertake journeys of exploration and tradeinto these regions, even although he was well aware that suchenterprises would win little commendation from his superiors at theroyal court. Voyageurs ready to undertake these tasks there were inplenty, and all of them found in the Iron Governor a stalwart friend. Foremost among these pioneers of the Far Country was Robert Cavelierde La Salle, whom Frontenac had placed for a time in command of thefort at Cataraqui and who, in 1678, was commissioned by the governorto forge another link in the chain by the erection of a fort atNiagara. There he also built a small vessel, the first to ply thewaters of the upper lakes, and in this La Salle and his lieutenantsmade their way to Michilimackinac. How he later journeyed to theMississippi and down that stream to its mouth is a story to be toldlater on in these pages. It was and will remain a classic in theannals of exploration. And without Frontenac's vigorous support itcould never have been accomplished. La Salle, when he performed hisgreat feat of daring and endurance, was still a young man under forty, but his courage, firmness, and determination were not surpassed by anyof his race. He had qualities that justified the confidence which thegovernor reposed in him. 

But while La Salle was the most conspicuous among the pathfindersof this era, he was not the only one. Tonty, Du Lhut, La Forêt, LaMothe-Cadillac, and others were all in Frontenac's favor, and all hadhis vigorous support in their work. Intrepid woodsmen, they coveredevery portion of the western wilderness, building forts and posts oftrade, winning the friendship of the Indians, planting the arms ofFrance in new soil and carrying the _Vexilla Regis_ into parts unknownbefore. If Frontenac could have had his way, if the King had providedhim with the funds, he would have run an iron chain of fortifiedposts all along the great water routes from Cataraqui to theMississippi--and he had lieutenants who were able to carry out suchan undertaking. But there were great obstacles in the way, --thelukewarmmess of the home government, the bitter opposition of theJesuits, and the intrigues of his colleagues. Yet the governor wasable to make a brave start, and before he had finished he had firmlylaid the foundations of French trading supremacy in these westernregions. 

During the first three years after his coming to Canada, the governorhad ruled alone. There was no intendant or bishop to hamper him, forboth Talon and Laval had gone to France in 1672. But in 1675 Lavalreturned to the colony, and in the same year a new intendant, JacquesDuchesneau, was appointed. With this change in the situation at Quebecthe friction began in earnest, for Frontenac's imperious temper didnot make him a cheerful sharer of authority with any one else. Ifthe intendant and the bishop had been men of conflicting ideas anddispositions, Frontenac might easily have held the balance of power;but they were men of kindred aims, and they readily combined againstthe governor. United in their opposition to him, they were together afair match for Frontenac in ability and astuteness. It was not long, accordingly, before the whole colony was once more aligned in twofactions. With the governor were the merchants, many of the seigneurs, and all the _coureurs-de-bois_. Supporting the intendant and thebishop were many of the subordinate officials, all of the priests, andthose of the tradesmen and habitants with whom the clerical influencewas paramount. 

The story of the quarrels which went on between these two factionsduring the years 1675-1680 is neither brief nor edifying. The root ofit all lay in the governor's western policy, his encouragement of theforest traders or _coureurs-de-bois_, and his connivance at the useof brandy in the Indian trade. There were unseemly squabbles aboutprecedence at council meetings and at religious festivals, abouttrivialities of every sort; but the question of the brandy trade wasat the bottom of them all. The bishop flayed the governor for lettingthis trade go on; the missionaries declared that it was proving theruin of their efforts; and the intendant declared that Frontenacallowed it to continue because he was making a personal profit fromthe traffic. Charges and countercharges went home to France with everyship. The intendant wrote dispatches of wearisome length, rehearsingthe governor's usurpations, insults, and incompetence. "Disorder, " hetold the minister, "rules everywhere. Universal confusion prevails;justice is openly perverted, and violence supported by authoritydetermines everything. " In language quite as unrestrained Frontenacrecounted in detail the difficulties with which he had to contendowing to the intendant's obstinacy, intrigue, and dishonesty. Theminister, appalled by the bewildering contradictions, could onlylay the whole matter before the King, who determined to try first acourteous reprimand and to that end sent an autograph letter to eachofficial. Both letters were alike in admonishing the governor and theintendant to work in harmony for the good of the colony, but eachconcluded with the significant warning: "Unless you harmonize betterin the future than In the past, my only alternative will be to recallyou both. "

This intimation, coming straight from their royal master, was to eacha rebuke which could not be misunderstood. But it did not accomplish, much, for the bitterness and jealousy existing between the twocolonial officers was too strong to be overcome. The very next vesselstook to France a new budget of complaints and recriminations fromboth. The King, as good as his word, issued prompt orders for theirrecall and the two officials left for home, but not on the samevessel, in the summer of 1682. 

The question as to which of the two was the more at fault is hardlyworth determining. The share of blame to be cast on each by theverdict of history should probably be about equal. Frontenac was byfar the abler man, but he had the defects of his qualities. He couldnot brook the opposition of men less competent than he was, and whenhe was provoked his arrogance became intolerable. In broader domainsof political action he would soon have out-generaled his adversary, but in these petty fields of neighborhood bickering Duchesneau, particularly with the occasional nudgings which he received fromLaval, proved no unequal match. The fact remains that neither was ableor willing to sacrifice personal animosities nor to display any spiritof cordial cooperation even at the royal command. The departure ofboth was regarded as a blessing by the majority of the colonists towhom the continued squabbles had become wearisome. Yet there was notlacking, in the minds of many among them, the conviction that if everagain New France should find itself in urgent straits, if ever therewere critical need of an iron hand to rule within and to guardwithout, there would still be one man whom, so long as he lived, theycould confidently ask to be sent out to them again. For the timebeing, however, Frontenac's official career seemed to be at an end. Atsixty-two he could hardly hope to regain the royal favor by furtherservice. He must have left the shores of New France with a heavyheart. 

Frontenac's successor was La Barre, an old naval officer who hadproved himself as capable at sea as he was now to show himselfincompetent on land. He was the antithesis of his headstrongpredecessor, weak in decision, without personal energy, withoutimagination, but likewise without any of Frontenac's skill in theart of making enemies. With La Barre came Meulles, an abler and moreenergetic colleague, who was to succeed Duchesneau as intendant. Both, reached Quebec in the autumn of 1682, and problems in plenty theyfound awaiting them. Shortly before their arrival a fire had sweptthrough the settlement at Quebec, leaving scarcely a building on thelands below the cliff. To make matters worse, the Iroquois had againthrown themselves across the western trade route and had interruptedthe coining of the colony's fur supply. As every one now recognizedthat the protection of this route was essential, La Barre decidedthat the Iroquois must be taught a lesson. Preparations in ratherostentatious fashion were therefore made for a punitive expedition, and in the summer of 1684 the governor with his troops was atCataraqui. At this point, however, he began to question whether aparley might not be a better means of securing peace than the layingwaste of Indian lands. Accordingly, it was arranged that a councilwith the Iroquois should be held across the lake from Cataraqui at aplace which later took the name of La Famine from the fact that duringthe council the French supplies ran low and the troops had to be puton short rations. After negotiations which the cynical chronicler LaHontan has described with picturesque realism, an inglorious truce waspatched up. The new governor was sadly deficient in his knowledge ofthe Indian temperament. He had given the Iroquois an impression thatthe French were too proud to fight. For their part the Iroquoisoffered him war or peace as he might choose, and La Barre assured themthat he chose to live at peace. When the expedition returned to Quebecthere was great disgust throughout the colony, the echoes of whichwere not without their effect at Versailles, and La Barre wasforthwith recalled. 

In his place the King sent out the Marquis de Denonville in 1685 withpower to make war on the tribesmen or to respect the peace as he mightfind expedient upon his arrival. The new governor was an honest, well-intentioned soul, neither mentally incapable nor lacking inpersonal courage. He might have served his King most acceptably inmany posts of routine officialdom, but he was not the man to handlethe destinies of half a continent in critical years. His mission, tobe sure, was no sinecure, for the Iroquois had grown bolder with theassurance of support from the English. Now that they were securingarms and ammunition from Albany it was probable that they would carrytheir raids right to the heart of New France. Denonville was thereforeforced to the conclusion that he had better strike quickly. In makingthis decision he was right, for in dealing with savage races a thrustis almost always the best defense. 

Armed preparations were consequently once more placed under way, and in the summer of 1687 a flotilla of canoes and batteaux bearingsoldiers and supplies was again at Cataraqui. This time the expeditionwas stronger in numbers and better equipped than ever before. Down thelakes from Michilimackinac came a force of _coureurs-de-bois_, amongthem seasoned veterans of the wilderness like Du Lhut, Tonty, LaForêt, Morel de la Durantaye, and Nicholas Perrot, each worth a wholesquad of soldiers when it came to fighting the Iroquois in their ownforests. At the rendezvous across the lake from Cataraqui the Frenchand their allies mustered nearly three thousand men. Denonville hadnone of his predecessor's bravado coupled with cowardice; his planswere carried forward with a precision worthy of Frontenac. UnlikeFrontenac, however he had a scant appreciation of the skill with whichthe red man could get out of the way in the face of danger. By movingtoo slowly after he had set out overland towards the Seneca villages, he gave the enemy time to place themselves out of his reach. So heburned their villages and destroyed large areas of growing corn. Aftermore than a week had been spent in laying waste the land, Denonvilleand his expedition retired slowly to Cataraqui. Leaving part of hisforce there, the governor went westward to Niagara, where he rebuiltin more substantial fashion La Salle's old fort at that point andplaced it in charge of a garrison. The _coureurs-de-bois_ thencontinued on their way to Michilimackinac while Denonville returned toMontreal. 

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 wholeIroquois confederacy without, having sufficiently impressed theIndians with the punitive power of the French. Denonville had stirredup the nest without destroying the hornets. It was all too soon theIndians' turn to show what they could do as ravagers of unprotectedvillages; within a year after the French expedition had returned, theIroquois bands were raiding the territory of the French to the veryoutskirts of Montreal itself. The route to the west was barred; thefort at Niagara had to be abandoned; Cataraqui was cut off from succorand ultimately had to be destroyed by its garrison; not a singlecanoe-load of furs came down from the lakes during the entire summer. The merchants were facing ruin, and the whole colony was beginning totremble for its very existence. The seven years since Frontenac leftthe land had indeed been a lurid interval. 

It was at this juncture that tidings of the colony's dire distresswere hurried to the King, and the Grand Monarch moved with rare goodsense. He promptly sent for that grim old veteran whom he had recalledin anger seven years before. In all the realm Frontenac was the oneman who could be depended upon to restore the prestige of France alongthe great trade routes. 

The Great Onontio, as Frontenac was known to the Indians, reached theSt. Lawrence in the late autumn of 1689, just as the colony was aboutto pass through its darkest hours. Quebec greeted him as a _RedemptorPatriae_; its people, in the words of La Hontan, were as Jewswelcoming the Messiah. Nor was their enthusiasm without good cause, for in a few years Frontenac demonstrated his ability to put thecolony on its feet once more. He settled its internal broils, openedthe channels of trade, restored the forts, repulsed the English, andbrought the Iroquois to terms. 

Now that his mission had been achieved and he was no longer as robustas of old, the Iron Governor asked the minister to keep him in mindfor some suitable sinecure in France if the opportunity came. This theminister readily promised, but the promise was still unfulfilled whenFrontenac was stricken with his last illness. On November 28, 1698, the greatest of the Onontios, or governors, passed away. "Devoted tothe service of his king, " says his eulogist, "more busied with dutythan with gain; inviolable in his fidelity to his friends, he was asvigorous a supporter as he was an untiring foe. " Had his officialcareer closed with his recall in 1682, Frontenac would have ranked asone of the singular misfits of the old French colonial system. But thebrilliant successes of his second term made men forget the earlierdays of petulance and petty bickerings. In the sharp contrasts of hisnature Frontenac was an unusual man, combining many good and greatqualities with personal shortcomings that were equally pronounced. Inthe civil history of New France he challenges attention as the mostremarkable figure. 

CHAPTER VI

LA SALLE AND THE VOYAGEURS

The greatest and most enduring achievement of Frontenac's first termwas the exploration of the territory southwestward of the Great Lakesand the planting of French influence there. This work was due, inlarge part, to the courage and energy of the intrepid La Salle. René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, like so many others whofollowed the fleur-de-lis into the recesses of the new continent, wasof Norman birth and lineage. Rouen was the town of his nativity; theyear 1643 probably the date of his birth. How the days of his youthwere spent we do not know except that he received a good education, presumably in a Jesuit seminary. While still in the early twentieshe came to Montreal where he had an older brother, a priest of theSeminary of St. Sulpice. This was in 1666. Through, the influence ofhis brother, no doubt, he received from the Seminary a grant of theseigneury at Lachine on the river above the town, and at once beganthe work of developing this property. 

If La Salle intended to become a yeoman of New France, his choice of asite was not of the best. The seigneury which he acquired was one ofthe most dangerous spots in the whole colony, being right in the pathof 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 theyhardly dared venture into the fields unarmed. Though the Iroquois andthe French were just now at peace, the danger of treachery was neverabsent. On the other hand no situation could be more favorable forone desiring to try his hand at the fur trade. It was inevitable, therefore, that a young man of La Salle's adventurous temperamentand commercial ancestry should soon forsake the irksome drudgery ofclearing land for the more exciting and apparently more profitablepursuit of forest trade. That was what happened. In the winterof 1668-1669 he heard from the Indians their story of a greatsouthwestern river which made its way to the "Vermilion Sea. " Therecital quickened the restless strain in his Norman blood. Here, hethought, was the long-sought passage to the shores of the Orient, andhe determined to follow the river. 

Having no other means of obtaining funds with which to equip anexpedition, La Salle sold his seigneury and at once began hispreparations. In July, 1669, he set off with a party of about twentymen, some of whom were missionaries sent by the Seminary of St. Sulpice to carry the tidings of the faith into the heart of thecontinent. Up the St. Lawrence and along the south shore of LakeOntario they went, halting at Irondequoit Bay while La Salle and a fewof his followers went overland to the Seneca villages in search ofguides. Continuing to Niagara, the party divided and the Sulpiciansmade their way to the Sault Ste. Marie, while La Salle with theremainder of the expedition struck out south of Lake Erie and in allprobability reached the Ohio by descending one of its branches. But, as no journal or contemporary record of the venture after they hadleft Niagara has come down to us, the details of the journey areunknown. It is believed that desertions among his followers preventedfurther progress and that, in the winter of 1669-1670, La Salleretraced his steps to the lakes. In its main object the expedition hadbeen a failure. 

Having exhausted his funds, La Salle had no opportunity, for thepresent at least, of making another trial. He accordingly askedFrontenac for trading privileges at Cataraqui, the site of modernKingston, where stood the fortified post named after the governor. Upon Frontenac's recommendation La Salle received in 1674 not only theexclusive right to trade but also a grant of land at Fort Frontenac oncondition that he would rebuild the defenses with stone and supply agarrison. The conditions being acceptable, the explorer hastened tohis new post and was soon engaged in the fur trade upon a considerablescale. La Salle, however, needed more capital than he himself couldsupply, and in 1677 he made a second trip to France with letters fromFrontenac to the King and Colbert. He also had the further design inview of obtaining authority and funds for another trip of explorationto the West. Since his previous expedition in 1669 two of hiscompatriots, Père Marquette and Louis Joliet, had reached the GreatRiver and had found every reason for believing that its course ransouth to the Gulf of Mexico, and not southwestward to the Gulf ofCalifornia, as had previously been supposed. But they had not followedthe Mississippi to its outlet, and this was what La Salle was nowdetermined to do. 

In Paris he found attentive listeners to his plans, and even theKing's ministers were interested, so that when La Salle sailed back toQuebec in 1678 he brought a royal decree authorizing him to proceedwith his project. With him came a daring spirit who was to be chieflieutenant and faithful companion in the ensuing years, Henri deTonty. This adventurous soldier was later known among the Indiansas "Tonty of the Iron Hand, " for in his youth he had lost a hand inbattle, and in its stead now wore an artificial one of iron, which heused from time to time with wholesome effect. He was a man of greatphysical strength, and commensurate courage, loyal to his chief andalmost La Salle's equal in perseverance. 

La Salle's party lost no time in proceeding to Fort Frontenac. Eventhough the winter was at hand, Hennepin was at once sent forwardto Niagara with instructions to build a post and to begin theconstruction of a vessel so that the journey westward might be begunwith the opening of spring. Later in the winter La Salle and Tontyjoined the party at Niagara where the fort was completed. Beforespring arrived, a vessel of about forty-five tons, the largest yetbuilt for service on the lakes, had been constructed. On its prowstood a carved griffin, from the armorial bearings of Frontenac, andout of its portholes frowned several small cannon. With the advent ofsummer La Salle and his followers went aboard; the sails were spread, and in due course the expedition readied Michilimackinac, where theJesuits had already established their most westerly mission. 

The arrival of the _Griffin_ brought Indians by the hundred to marvelat the "floating fort" and to barter their furs for the trinkets withwhich La Salle had provided himself. The little vessel then sailedwestward into Lake Michigan and finally dropped anchor in Green Baywhere an additional load of beaver skins was put on deck. With theapproach of autumn the return trip began. La Salle, however, did notaccompany 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 therest of his followers he started southward along the Wisconsin shore. Reaching the mouth of the St. Joseph, he struck into the interior tothe upper Kankakee. This stream the voyageurs, who numbered aboutforty in all, descended until they reached the Illinois, which theyfollowed to the point where Peoria now stands. 

Here La Salle's troubles began in abundance. The Indians endeavoredto dissuade him from leading the expedition farther, and even theexplorer's own followers began to desert. Chagrinned at these untowardcircumstances and on his guard lest the Indians prove openly hostile, La Salle proceeded to secure his position by the erection of a fortto which he gave the name Crèvecoeur. Here he left Tonty with themajority of the party, while he himself started with five men back toNiagara. His object was in part to get supplies for building a vesselat Fort Crèvecoeur, and in part to learn what had become of the_Griffin_, for since that vessel had sailed homeward he had heard noword from her crew. Proceeding across what is now southern Michigan, La Salle emerged on the shores of the Detroit River. From this pointhe pushed across the neck of land to Lake Erie, where he built a canoewhich brought him to Niagara at Eastertide, 1680. His fears for thefate of the _Griffin_ were now confirmed: the vessel had been lost, and with her a fortune in furs. Nothing daunted, however, La Sallehurried on to Fort Frontenac and thence with such speed to Montrealthat he accomplished the trip from the Illinois to the Ottawa inless than three months--a feat hitherto unsurpassed in the annals ofAmerican exploration. 

At Montreal the explorer, who once more sought the favor of Frontenac, was provided with equipment at the King's expense. Within a fewmonths he was again at Fort Frontenac and ready to rejoin Tonty atCrèvecoeur. Just as he was about to depart, however, word came thatthe Crèvecoeur garrison had mutinied and had destroyed the post. LaSalle's one hope now was that his faithful lieutenant had held ondoggedly and had saved the vessel he had been building. But Tonty inthe meantime had made his way with a few followers to Green Bay, so that when La Salle reached the Illinois he found everyone gone. Undismayed by this climax to his misfortunes, La Salle neverthelesspushed on down the Illinois, and early in December reached itsconfluence with the Mississippi. 

To follow the course of this great stream with the small party whichaccompanied him seemed, however, too hazardous an undertaking. LaSalle, therefore, retraced his steps once more and spent the nextwinter at Fort Miami on the St. Joseph to the southeast of LakeMichigan. In the spring word came to him that Tonty was atMichilimackinac, and thither he hastened, to hear from Tonty's ownlips the long tale of disaster. "Any one else, " wrote an eye-witnessof the meeting, "would have thrown up his hands and abandoned theenterprise; but far from this, with, a firmness and constancy thatnever had its equal, I saw him more resolved than ever to continue hiswork and push forward his discovery. "

Now that he had caught his first glimpse of the Mississippi, La Sallewas determined to persist until he had followed its course to theoutlet. Returning with Tonty to Fort Frontenac, he replenished hissupplies. In this same autumn of 1681, with a larger number offollowers, the explorer was again on his way to the Illinois. ByFebruary the party had reached the Mississippi. Passing the Missouriand the Ohio, La Salle and his followers kept steadily on theirway and early in April reached the spot where the Father of Watersdebouches through three channels into the Gulf. Here at the outletthey set up a column with the insignia of France, and, as they tookpossession of the land in the name of their King, they chanted insolemn tones the _Exaudiat_, and in the name of God they set up theirbanners. 

But the French were short of supplies and could not stay long afterthe symbols of sovereignty had been raised aloft. Paddling slowlyagainst the current. La Salle and his party reached the Illinois onlyin August. Here La Salle and Tonty built their Fort St. Louis and herethey spent the winter. During the next summer (1683) the indefatigableexplorer journeyed down to Quebec, and on the last ship of the yeartook passage for France. In the meantime, Frontenac, always hisfirm friend and supporter, had been recalled, and La Barre, the newgovernor, was unfriendly. A direct appeal to the home authoritiesfor backing seemed the only way of securing funds for furtherexplorations. 

Accordingly, early in 1684 La Salle appeared at the French court withelaborate plans for founding a colony in the valley of the lowerMississippi. This time the expedition was to proceed by sea. To thisproject the King gave his assent, and commanded the royal officers tofurnish the supplies. By midsummer four ships were ready to set sailfor the Gulf. Once more, however, troubles beset La Salle on everyhand. Disease broke out on the vessels; the officers quarreled amongthemselves; the expedition was attacked by the Spaniards, and one shipwas lost. Not until the end of December was a landing made, and thennot at the Mississippi's mouth but at a spot far to the west of it, onthe sands of Matagorda Bay. 

Finding that he had missed his reckonings, La Salle directed a part ofhis company to follow the shore. After many days of fruitless search, they established a permanent camp and sent the largest vessel back toFrance. Their repeated efforts to reach the Mississippi overland werein vain. Finally, in the winter of 1687, La Salle with a score of hisstrongest followers struck out northward, determined to make their wayto the Lakes, where they might find succor. To follow the detail oftheir dreary march would be tedious. The hardships of the journey, without adequate equipment or provisions, and the incessant danger ofattack by the Indians increased petty jealousies into open mutiny. Onthe 19th of March, 1687, the courageous and indefatigable La Sallewas treacherously assassinated by one of his own party. Here in thefastnesses of the Southwest died at the age of forty-four theintrepid explorer of New France, whom Tonty called--perhaps notuntruthfully--"one of the greatest men of this age. "

"Thus, " writes a later historian with all the perspective ofthe intervening years, "was cut short the career of a man whosepersonality is impressed in some respects more strongly than thatof any other upon the history of New France. His schemes were toofar-reaching to succeed. They required the strength and resources ofa half-dozen nations like the France of Louis XIV. Nevertheless thelines upon which New France continued to develop were substantiallythose which La Salle had in mind, and the fabric of a wildernessempire, of which he laid the foundations, grew with the general growthof colonization, and in the next century became truly formidable. Itwas not until Wolfe climbed the Heights of Abraham that the greatideal of La Salle was finally overthrown. "

It would be difficult, indeed, to find among the whole array ofexplorers which history can offer in all ages a perseverance moredogged in the face of abounding difficulties. Phoenix-like, he rosetime after time from the ashes of adversity. Neither fatigue norfamine, disappointment nor even disaster, availed to swerve him fromhis purpose. To him, more than to any one else of his time, the Frenchcould justly attribute their early hold upon the great regions of theWest. Other explorers and voyageurs of his generation there were inplenty, and their service was not inconsiderable. But in courage andpersistence, as well as in the scope of his achievements, La Salle, the pathfinder of Rouen, towered above them all. He had, what so manyof the others lacked, a clear vision of what the great plains andvalleys of the Middle West could yield towards the enrichment of anation in years to come. "America, " as Parkman has aptly said, "oweshim an enduring memory; for in this masculine figure she sees thepioneer who guided her to the possession of her richest heritage. "

CHAPTER VII

THE CHURCH IN NEW FRANCE

Nearly all that was distinctive in the life of old Canada links itselfin one way or another with the Catholic religion. From first to lastin the history of New France the most pervading trait was the loyaltyof its people to the church of their fathers. Intendants might comeand go; governors abode their destined hour and went their way; butthe apostles of the ancient faith never for one moment released theirgrip upon the hearts and minds of the Canadians. During two centuriesthe political life of the colony ran its varied rounds; the habits ofthe people were transformed with the coming of material prosperity:but the Church went on unchanged, unchanging. One may praise thesteadfastness with which the Church fought for what its bishopsbelieved to be right, or one may, on the other hand, decry thearrogance of its pretensions to civil power and its hamperingconservatism; but as the great central fact in the history of NewFrance, 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 werethe Huguenots breaking from the trammels of the old religion, butwithin the Catholic Church, itself in France there were two greatcontending factions. One group strove for the preservation of theGalilean liberties, the special rights of the French King and theFrench bishops in the ecclesiastical government of the land, whilethe other claimed for the Pope a supremacy over all earthly rulers inmatters of spiritual concern. It was not a difference on points ofdoctrine, for the Galileans did not question the headship of thePapacy in things of the spirit. What they insisted upon was thecircumscribed nature of the papal power in temporal matters within therealm of France, particularly with regard to the right of appointmentto ecclesiastical positions with endowed revenues. Bishops, priests, and religious orders ranged themselves on one side or the other, forit was a conflict in which there could be no neutrality. As the royalauthorities were heart and soul with the Galileans, it was naturalenough that priests of this group should gain the first religiousfoothold in the colony. The earliest priests brought to the colonywere members of the Récollet Order. They came with Champlain in 1615, and made their headquarters in Quebec at the suggestion of the King'ssecretary. For ten years they labored in the colony, striving bravelyto clear the way for a great missionary crusade. 

But the day of the Récollets in New France was not long. In 1625 camethe advance guard of another religious order, the militant Jesuits, bringing with them their traditions of unwavering loyalty to theUltramontane cause. The work of the Récollets had, on the whole, beendisappointing, for their numbers and their resources proved too smallfor effective progress. During ten years of devoted labor they hadscarcely been able to make any impression upon the great wilderness ofheathenism that lay on all sides. In view of the apparent futility oftheir efforts, the coming of the Jesuits--suggested, it may be, byChamplain--was probably not unwelcome to them. Richelieu, moreover, had now brought his Ultramontane sympathies close to the seat of royalpower, so that the King no longer was in a position to oppose theproject. At any rate the Jesuits sailed for Canada, and their arrivalforms a notable landmark in the history of the colony. Their doggedzeal and iron persistence carried them to points which missionariesof no other religious order would have reached. For the Jesuits were, above all things else, the harbingers of a militant faith. Theirorganization and their methods admirably fitted them to be thepioneers of the Cross in new lands. They were men of action, seekingto win their crown of glory and their reward through intense physicaland spiritual exertions, not through long seasons of prayer andmeditation in cloistered seclusion. Loyola, the founder of the Order, gave to the world the nucleus of a crusading host, disciplined as noarmy ever was. If the Jesuits could not achieve the spiritual conquestof the New World, it was certain that no others could. And thisconquest they did achieve. The whole course of Catholic missionaryeffort throughout the Western Hemisphere was shaped by members of theJesuit Order. 

Only four of these priests came to Quebec in 1625. Although it wasintended that others should follow at once, their number was notsubstantially increased until seven years later, when the troubleswith England were brought to an end and the colony was once moresecurely in the hands of the French. Then the Jesuits came steadily, a few arriving with almost every ship, and either singly or togetherthey were sent off to the Indian settlements--to the Hurons aroundthe Georgian Bay, to the Algonquins north of the Ottawa, and to theIroquois south of the Lakes. The physical vigor, the moral heroism, and the unquenchable religious zeal of these missionaries werequalities exemplified in a measure and to a degree which are beyondthe power of any pen to describe. Historians of all creeds havetendered homage to their self-sacrifice and zeal, and never has workof human hand or spirit been more worthy of tribute. The Jesuit went, often alone, where no others dared to go, and he faced unknown dangerswhich had all the possibilities of torture and martyrdom. Nor did thisenergy waste itself in flashes of isolated triumph. The Jesuit was amember of an efficient organization, skillfully guided by inspiredleaders and carrying its extensive work of Christianization withmachine-like thoroughness through the vastness of five continents. We are too apt to think only of the individual missionary's glowingspirit and rugged faith, his picturesque 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 beenaltogether in vain. The great services which the Jesuit missionaryrendered in the New World, both to his country and to his creed, weredue not less to the matchless organization of the Order to which hebelonged than to qualities of courage, patience, and fortitude whichhe himself showed as a missionary. 

During the first few years of Jesuit effort among the Indians of NewFrance the results were pitifully small. The Hurons, among whom themissionaries put forth their initial labors, were poor stock, even asred men went. The minds of these half-nomadic and dull-witted savageswere filled with gross superstitions, and their senses had beenbrutalized by the incessant torments of their Iroquois enemies. Amidthe toils and hazards and discomforts of so insecure and wandering alife the Jesuits found little opportunity for soundly instructing theHurons in the faith. Hence there were but few neophytes in these earlyyears. By 1640 the missionaries could count only a hundred converts ina population of many thousands, and even this little quota includedmany infants who had died soon after receiving the rites of baptism. More missionaries kept coming, however; the work steadily broadened;and the posts of service were multiplied. In due time the footprintsof the Jesuits were everywhere, from the St. Lawrence to theMississippi, from the tributaries of the Hudson to the regions northof the Ottawa. Le Jeune, Massé, Brébeuf, Lalemant, Ragueneau, LeDablon, Jogues, Gamier, Raymbault, Péron, Moyne, Allouez, Druilletes, Chaumonot, Ménard, Bressani, Daniel, Chabanel, and a hundredothers, --they soon formed that legion whose works of courage anddevotion stand forth so prominently in the early annals of New France. 

Once at their stations in the upper country, the missionariesregularly sent down to the Superior of the Order at Quebec theirfull reports of progress, difficulties, and hopes, all mingled withinteresting descriptions of Indian customs, folklore, and life. It isno wonder that these narratives, "jotted down hastily, " as Le Jeunetells us, "now in one place, now in another, sometimes on water, sometimes on land, " were often crude, or that they required carefulediting before being sent home to France for publication. In theirprinted form, however, these _Rélations des Jésuites_ gained a widecircle of European readers; they inspired more missionaries to come, and they drew from well-to-do laymen large donations of money forcarrying on the crusade. 

The royal authorities also gave their earnest support, for they sawin the Jesuit missionary not merely a torchbearer of his faith or aservant of the Church. They appreciated his loyalty and rememberedthat he never forgot his King, nor shirked his duty to the cause ofFrance among the tribes. Every mission post thus became an embassy, and every Jesuit an ambassador of his race, striving to strengthen thebonds of friendship between the people to whom he went and the peoplefrom whom he came. The French authorities at Quebec were not slow torecognize what an ever-present help the Jesuit could be in times ofIndian trouble. One governor expressed the situation with fidelitywhen he wrote to the home authorities that, "although the interests ofthe Gospel do not require us to keep missionaries in all the Indianvillages, the interests of the civil government for the advantage oftrade must induce us to manage things so that we may always have atleast one of them there. " It must therefore be admitted that, when thecivil authorities did encourage the missions, they did not always doso with a purely spiritual motive in mind. 

As the political and commercial agent of his people, the Jesuit hadgreat opportunities, and in this capacity he usually gave a fullmeasure of service. After he had gained the confidence of the tribes, the missionary always succeeded in getting the first inkling of whatwas going on in the way of inter-tribal intrigues. He learned tofathom the Indian mind and to perceive the redskin's motives. He wasthus able to communicate to Quebec the information and advice whichso often helped the French to outwit their English rivals. Asinterpreters in the conduct of negotiations and the making of treatiesthe Jesuits were also invaluable. How much, indeed, these blackrobesachieved for the purely secular interests of the French colony, forits safety from sudden Indian attack, for the development of itstrade, and for its general upbuilding, will never be known. Themissionary did not put these things on paper, but he rendered serviceswhich in all probability were far greater than posterity will everrealize. 

It was not, however, with the conversion of the Indians or with theservice of French secular interests among the savages that the work ofthe Jesuits was wholly, or even chiefly, concerned. During the middleyears of the seventeenth century, these services at the outpostsof French territory may have been most significant, for the Frenchpopulation along the shores of the St. Lawrence remained small, thesettlements were closely huddled together, and a few priests couldserve their spiritual needs. The popular impression of Jesuitenterprises in the New World is connected almost wholly with workamong the Indians. This pioneer phase of the Jesuit's work waspicturesque, and historians have had a great deal to say about it. Itwas likewise of this service in the depths of the interior that themissionary himself wrote most frequently. But as the colony grew andbroadened its bounds until its settlements stretched all the way fromthe Saguenay to Montreal and beyond, a far larger number of _curés_was needed. Before the old régime came to a close there were farmore Frenchmen than Indians within the French sphere of influencein America, and they required by far the greater share of Jesuitministration, and, long before the old dominion ended, the Indianmissions had to take a subordinate place in the general program ofJesuit undertakings. The outposts in the Indian country were the chiefscene of Jesuit labors from 1615 to about 1700, when the emphasisshifted to the St. Lawrence valley. Some of the mission fields heldtheir own to the end, but in general they failed to make much headwayduring the last half-century of French rule. The Church in the settledportions of the colony, however, kept on with its steady progress inachievement and power. 

New France was the child of missionary fervor. Even from the outset, in the scattered settlements along the St. Lawrence, the interestsof religion were placed on a strictly missionary basis. There wereso-called parishes in the colony almost from its beginning, butnot until 1722 was the entire colony set off into recognizedecclesiastical parishes, each with a fixed _curé_ in charge. Throughall the preceding years each village or _côte_ had been served by amissionary, by a movable _curé_, or by a priest sent out fromthe Seminary at Quebec. No priest was tied to any parish but wasabsolutely at the immediate beck and call of the bishop. Some reasonfor this unsettled arrangement might be found in the conditionsunder which the colony developed in its early years; with its sparsepopulation ranging far and wide, with its lack of churches andof _presbytères_ in which the priest might reside. But the realexplanation of its long continuance lies in the fact that, if regular_curés_ were appointed, the seigneurs would lay claim to variousrights of nomination or patronage, whereas the bishop could controlabsolutely the selection of missionary priests and could thus moreeasily carry through his policy of ecclesiastical centralization. 

Not only in this particular, but in every other phase of religiouslife and organization during these crusading days in Canada, one mustreckon not only with the logic of the situation, but also with thedominating personality of the first and greatest Ultramontane, BishopLaval. Though not himself a Jesuit, for no member of the Order couldbe a bishop, Laval was in tune with their ideals and saw eye to eyewith the Jesuits on every point of religious and civil policy. 

François Xavier de Laval, Abbé de Montigny, was born in 1622, a scionof the great house of Montmorency. He was therefore of high nobility, the best-born of all the many thousands who came to New Francethroughout its history. As a youth his had come into close associationwith the Jesuits, and had spent four years in the famous Hermitage atCaen, that Jesuit stronghold which served so long as the nursery forthe spiritual pioneers of early Canada. When he came to Quebec asVicar-Apostolic in 1659, he was only thirty-seven years of age. His position in the colony at the time of his arrival was somewhatunusual, for although he was to be in command of the colony'sspiritual forces. New France was not yet organized as a diocese andcould not be so organized until the Pope and the King should agreeupon the exact status of the Church in the French colonial dominions. Laval was nevertheless given his titular rank from the ancient see ofPetraea in Arabia which had long since been _in partibus infidelium_and hence had no bishop within its bounds. From his first arrival inCanada his was Bishop Laval, but without a diocese over which he couldactually hold sway. His commission as Vicar-Apostolic gave him powerenough, however, and his responsibility was to the Pope alone. 

For the tasks which, he was sent to perform, Laval had eminentqualifications. A haughty spirit went with the ultra-blue blood in hisveins; he had a temperament that loved to lead and to govern, and thatcould not endure to yield or to lag behind. His intellectual talentswere high beyond question, and to them he added the blessing of arugged physical frame. No one ever came to a new land with moredefinite ideas of what he wanted to do or with a more unswervingdetermination to do it in his own way. 

It was not long before the stamp of Laval's firm hand was laid uponthe life of the colony. In due course, too, he found himself at oddswith the governor. The dissensions smouldered at first, and then brokeout into a blaze that warmed the passions of all elements in thecolony. The exact origin of the feud is somewhat obscure, and it isnot necessary to put down here the details of its development to thewar _à outrance_ which soon engaged the civil and ecclesiasticalauthorities in the colony. In the background was the question of the_coureurs-de-bois_ and the liquor traffic which now became a definiteissue and which remained the storm centre of colonial politics formany generations. The merchants insisted that if this traffic wereextinguished it would involve the ruin of the French hold upon theIndian trade. The bishop and the priests, on the other hand, wereready to fight the liquor traffic to the end and to exorcise it as thegreatest blight upon the New World. Quebec soon became a cockpit wherethe battle of these two factions raged. Each had its ups and downs, until in the end the traffic remained, but under a makeshift system ofregulation. 

To portray Laval and his associates as always in bitter conflict withthe civil power, nevertheless, would be to paint a false picture. Church and state were not normally at variance in their views andaims. They clashed fiercely on many occasions, it is true, but aftertheir duels they shook hands and went to work with a will at thetask of making the colony stand upon its own feet. Historians havemagnified these bickerings out of all proportion. Squabbles overmatters of precedence at ceremonies, over the rate of the tithes, andover the curbing of the _coureurs-de-bois_ did not take the majorshare of the Church's attention. For the greater part of two wholecenturies it loyally aided the civil power in all things wherein thetwo could work together for good. 

And these ways of assistance were many. For example the Church, through its various institutions and orders, rendered a great serviceto colonial agriculture. As the greatest landowner in New France, it set before the seigneurs and the habitants an example of whatintelligent methods of farming and hard labor could accomplish inmaking the land yield its increase. The King was lavish in his grantsof territory to the Church: the Jesuits received nearly a million_arpents_ as their share of the royal bounty; the bishop and theQuebec Seminary, the Sulpicians, and the Ursulines, about as muchmore. Of the entire granted acreage of New France the Churchcontrolled about one-quarter, so that its position as a greatlandowner was even stronger in the colony than at home. Nor did itfold its talents in a napkin. Colonists were brought from France, farms were prepared for them in the church seigneuries, and the newsettlers were guided and encouraged through, the troublous years ofpioneering. With both money and brains at its command, the Church wasable to keep its own lands in the front line of agricultural progress. 

When in 1722 the whole colony was marked off into definiteecclesiastical divisions, seventy-two parishes were established, andnearly one hundred _curés_ were assigned to them. As time went on, both parishes and _curés_ increased in number, so that every localityhad its spiritual leader who was also a philosopher and guide in allsecular matters. The priest thus became a part of the community andnever lost touch with his people. The habitant of New France for hispart never neglected his Church on week-days. The priest and theChurch were with him at work and at play, the spirit and the life ofevery community. Though paid a meager stipend, the _curé_ worked hardand always proved a laborer far more than worthy of his hire. Theclergy of New France never became a caste, a privileged order; theydid not live on the fruits of other men's labor, but gave to thecolony far more than the colony ever gave to them. 

As for the Church revenues, these came from several sources. Theroyal treasury contributed large sums, but, as it was not full tooverflowing, the King preferred to give his benefactions in generousgrants of land. Yet the royal subsidies amounted to many thousandlivres each year. The diocese of Quebec was endowed with the revenuesof three French abbeys. Wealthy laymen in France followed the royalexample and sent contributions from time to time, frequently of largeamount. While the Company of One Hundred Associates controlled thetrade of the colony, it made from its treasury some provisions forthe support of the missionaries. After 1663, a substantial source ofecclesiastical income was the tithe, an ecclesiastical tax leviedannually upon all produce of the land, and fixed in 1663 atone-thirteenth. Four years later it was reduced to one-twenty-sixth, and Bishop Laval's strenuous efforts to have the old rate restoredwere never successful. 

In education, yet another field of colonial life, the Church renderedsome service. Here the civil authorities did nothing at all, and hadit not been for the Church the whole colony would have grown up inabsolute illiteracy. A school for boys was established at Quebec inChamplain's day, and during the next hundred and fifty years it wasfollowed by about thirty others. More than a dozen elementary schoolsfor girls were also established under ecclesiastical auspices. Yetthe amount of secular education imparted by all these seminaries wasastoundingly small, and they did but little to leaven the generalilliteracy of the population. Only the children of the towns attendedthe schools, and the program of study was of the most elementarycharacter. Religious instruction was given the first place andreceived so much attention that there was little time in school hoursfor 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 towrite. 

So far as secular education was concerned, therefore, the Englishconquest found the colony in almost utter stagnation. Not one in fivehundred among the habitants, it was said, could read or write. Outsidethe immediate circle of clergy, officials, and notaries, ignorance ofeven the rudiments of education was almost universal. There were nonewspapers in the colony and very few books save those used in theservices of worship. Greysolon Du Lhut, the king of the voyageurs, forexample, was a man of means and education, but his entire library, as disclosed by his will, consisted of a world atlas and a set ofJosephus. The priests did not encourage the reading of secular books, and La Hontan recounts the troubles which he had in keeping onemilitant _curé_ from tearing his precious volumes to pieces. NewFrance was at that period not a land where freedom dwelt withknowledge. 

Intellectually, the people of New France comprised on the one hand asmall élite and on the other a great unlettered mass. There wasno middle class between. Yet the population of the colony alwayscontained, especially among its officials and clergy, a sprinkling ofeducated and scholarly men. These have given us a literature of traveland description which is extensive and of high, quality. No otherAmerican colony of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries put somuch, of its annals into print; the _Rélations_ of the Jesuits alonewere sufficient to fill forty-one volumes, and they form but a smallpart of the entire literary output. 

CHAPTER VIII

SEIGNEURS OF OLD CANADA

From the beginning of the colony there ran in the minds of Frenchofficialdom the idea that the social order should rest upon aseigneurial basis. Historians have commonly attributed to Richelieuthe genesis of New World feudalism, but without good reason, for itsbeginnings antedated the time of the great minister. The charterissued to the ill-starred La Roche in 1598 empowered him "to grantlands to gentlemen in the forms of fiefs and seigneuries, " and thedifferent viceroys who had titular charge of the colony before theCompany of One Hundred Associates took charge in 1627 had similarpowers. Several seigneurial grants in the region of Quebec had, infact, been made before Richelieu first turned his attention to thecolony. 

Nor was the adoption of this policy at all unnatural. Despite itsincreasing obsolescence, the seigneurial system was still strong inFrance and dominated the greater part of the kingdom. The nobility andeven the throne rested upon it. The Church, as suzerain of enormouslanded estates, sanctioned and supported it. The masses of the Frenchpeople were familiar with no other system of landholding. No prolongedquest need accordingly be made to explain why France transplantedfeudalism to the shores of the great Canadian waterway; in fact, an explanation would have been demanded had any other policy beenconsidered. No one asks why the Puritans took to Massachusetts Bay theEnglish system of freehold tenure. They took the common law of Englandand the tenure that went with it. Along with the fleur-de-lis, likewise, went the Custom of Paris and the whole network of socialrelations based upon a hierarchy of seigneurs and dependents. 

The seigneurial system of land tenure, as all students of historyknow, was feudalism in a somewhat modernized form. During the chaoswhich came upon Western Europe in the centuries following the collapseof Roman imperial supremacy, every local magnate found himself forcedto depend for existence upon the strength of his own castle, underwhose walls he gathered as many vassals as he could induce to come. To these he gave the surrounding lands free from all rents, but oncondition of aid in time of war. The lord gave the land and promisedto protect his vassals, who, on their part, took the land and promisedto 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 mutualwardship and fidelity which bound liegeman and lord with hoops ofsteel. The whole social order rested upon this bond and upon thegradations in privilege which it involved in a sequence which becamestereotyped. In its day feudalism was a great institution and onewhich shared with the Christian Church the glory of having mademediaeval life at all worth living. It helped to keep civilizationfrom perishing utterly in a whirl of anarchy, and it enabled Europe torecover inch by inch its former state of order, stability, and law. 

But, having done its service to humanity, feudalism did not quietlymake way for some other system more suited to the new conditions. Ithung on grimly long after the forces which had brought it into beingceased to exist, long after the growth of a strong monarchy in Francewith a powerful standing army had removed the necessity of mutualguardianship and service. To meet the new conditions the system merelychanged its incidents, never its general form. The ancient obligationof military service, no longer needed, gave place to dues andpayments. The old personal bond relaxed; the feudal lord became theseigneur, a mere landlord. The vassal became the _censitaire_, a meretenant, paying heavy dues each year in return for protection which, he no longer received nor required. In a word, before 1600 the feudalsystem had become the seigneurial system, and it was the latter whichwas established in the French colony of Canada. 

In the new land there was reason to hope, however, that this system ofsocial relations based upon landholding would soon work its way backto the vigor which it had displayed in mediaeval days. Here in themidst of an unfathomed wilderness was a small European settlement withhostile tribes on every hand. The royal arm, so strong in affordingprotection at home, could not strike hard and promptly in behalfof subjects a thousand leagues away. New France, accordingly mustorganize itself for defense and repel her enemies just as the earldomsand duchies of the crusading centuries had done. And that is justwhat the colony did, with the seigneurial system as the groundwork ofdefensive strength. Under stress of the new environment, which was notwholly unlike that of the former feudal days, the military aspects ofthe system revived and the personal bond regained much of itsancient vigor. The sordid phases of seigneurialism dropped into thebackground. It was this restored vitality that helped, more thanall else, to turn New France into a huge armed camp which hordes ofinvaders, both white and red, strove vainly to pierce time after timeduring more than a full century. 

The first grant of a seigneury in the territory of New France was madein 1623 to Louis Hébert, a Paris apothecary who had come to Quebecwith Champlain some years before this date. His land consisted of atract upon the height above the settlement, and here he had clearedthe fields and built a home for himself. By this indenture feudalismcast its first anchor in New France, and Hébert became the colony'sfirst patron of husbandry. Other grants soon followed, particularlyduring the years when the Company of One Hundred Associates wasin control of the land, for, by the terms of its charter, thisorganization was empowered to grant large tracts as seigneuries andalso to issue patents of nobility. It was doubtless assumed by theKing that such grants would be made only to persons who would actuallyemigrate to New France and who would thus help in the upbuilding ofthe colony, but the Company did not live up to this policy. Instead, it made lavish donations, some of them containing a hundred squaremiles or more, to directors and friends of the Company in France whoneither came to the colony themselves nor sent representatives toundertake the clearing of these large estates. One director took theentire Island of Orleans; others secured generous slices of the bestlands on both shores of the St. Lawrence; but not one of them lifted afinger in the way of redeeming these huge concessions from a state ofwilderness primeval. The tracts were merely held in the hope that someday they would become valuable. Out of sixty seigneuries which weregranted by the Company during the years from 1632 to 1663 not morethan a half-dozen grants were made to _bona fide_ colonists. At thelatter date the total area of cleared land was scarcely four thousand_arpents_. [1]

[Footnote 1: An _arpent_ was about five-sixths of an acre. ]

With the royal action of 1663 which took the colony from the Companyand reconstructed its government, the seigneurial system wasgalvanized at once with new energy. The uncleared tracts which theofficials of the Company had carved out among themselves were declaredto be forfeited to the Crown and actual occupancy was held to be, for the future, the essential of every seigneurial grant. A vigorouseffort was made to obtain settlers, and with considerable success, forin the years 1665-1667 the population of the colony more than doubled. Nothing was left undone by the royal authorities in securing andtransporting emigrants. Officials from Paris scoured the provinces, offering free passage to Quebec and free grants of land upon arrival. The campaign was successful, and many shiploads of excellentcolonists, 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 byofficials and were turned over to the various seigneurs who were readyto 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, andparticularly if he brought some money with him, he had the opportunityto become a seigneur himself. He merely applied to the intendant, who was quite willing to endow with a seigneury any one who appearedlikely to get it cleared and ready for future settlers. In this matterthe officials, following out the spirit of the royal orders, wereprone to err on the side of liberality. Too often they gave largeseigneurial grants to men who had neither the energy nor the funds todo what was expected of a seigneur in the new land. 

As for extent, the seigneuries varied greatly. Some were as large asa European dukedom; others contained only a few thousand _arpents_. There was no fixed rule; within reasonable limits each applicantobtained what he asked for, but it was generally understood that menwho had been members of the French _noblesse_ before coming to thecolony were entitled to larger areas than those who were not. In anycase little attention was paid to exact boundaries, and no surveyswere made. In making his request for a seigneury each applicant setforth what he wanted, and this he frequently did in such broad termsas, "all lands between such-and-such a river and the seigneury of theSieur de So-and-So. " These descriptions, rarely adequate or accurate, were copied into the patent, causing often hopeless confusion ofboundaries and unneighborly squabbles. It was fortunate that mostseigneurs had more land than they could use; otherwise there wouldhave been as many lawsuits as seigneuries. 

The obligations imposed upon the seigneurs were not burdensome. Noinitial payment was asked, and there were no annual rentals to be paidto the Crown. Each seigneur had to render the ceremony of fealty andhomage to the royal representative at Quebec. Each was liable formilitary service, although that obligation was not written into thegrant. When a seigneury changed owners otherwise than by inheritancein direct succession, a payment known as the _quint_ (being, as thename connotes, one-fifth of the reported value) became payable to theroyal treasury, but this was rarely collected. The most importantobligation imposed upon the Canadian seigneur, and one which did notexist at all in France, was that of getting settlers established uponhis lands. This obligation the authorities insisted upon above allothers. The Canadian seigneur was expected to live on his domain, to gather dependents around him, to build a mill for grinding theirgrain, to have them level the forest, clear the fields, and maketwo blades of grass grow where one grew before. In other words, the Canadian seigneur was to be a royal immigration and land agentcombined. He was not given his generous landed patrimony in order thathe should sit idly by and wait for the unearned increment to come. 

Many of the seigneurs fulfilled this trust to the letter. RobertGiffard, who received the seigneury of Beauport just below Quebec, wasone of these; Charles Le Moyne, Sieur de Longueuil, was another. Bothbrought many settlers from France and saw them safely through theyears of pioneering. Others, however, did no more than flock to Quebecwhen ships were expected, like so many real estate agents explainingto the new arrivals what they had to offer in the way of lands fertileand well situated. Still others did not even do so much, but merelyput forth one excuse after another to explain why their tractsremained without settlements at all. From time to time the authoritiesprodded these seigneurial drones and threatened them with theforfeiture of their estates; but some of the laggards had friendsamong the members of the Sovereign Council or possessed other means ofwarding off action, so that final decrees of forefeiture were rarelyissued. Occasionally there were seigneurs whose estates were sofavorably situated that they could exact a bonus from intendingsettlers, but the King very soon put a stop to this practice. By theArrêts of Marly in 1711 he decreed that no bonus or _prix d'entrée_should be exacted by any seigneur, but that every settler was to haveland for the asking and at the rate of the annual dues customary inthe neighborhood. 

At this date there were some ninety seigneuries in the colony, aboutwhich we have considerable information owing to a careful survey whichwas made in 1712 at the King's request. This work was entrusted to anengineer, Gedéon de Catalogne, who had come to Quebec a quarter of acentury earlier to help with the fortifications. Catalogne spent twoyears in his survey, during which time he visited practically all thecolonial estates. As a result he prepared and sent to France a fullreport giving in each case the location and extent of the seigneury, the name of its owner, the nature of the soil, and its suitabilityfor various uses, the products, the population, the condition of thepeople, the provisions made for religious instruction, and variousother matters. [1] With the report he sent three maps, one of which hasdisappeared. The others show the location of all seigneuries in theregions of Quebec and Three Rivers. 

[Footnote 1: This report was printed for the first time in theauthor's _Documents relating to the Seigniorial Tenure in Canada_(Toronto: The Champlain Society, 1908). ]

From Catalogne's survey we know that before 1712 nearly all theterritory on both shores of the St. Lawrence from below Quebec toabove Montreal had been parceled into seigneuries. Likewise theislands in the river and the land on both sides of the Richelieuin the region toward Lake Champlain had been allotted. Many of theseigneuries in this latter belt had been given to officers of theCarignan-Salières regiment which had come out with Tracy in 1665to chastise the Mohawks. After the work of the regiment had beenfinished, Talon suggested to the King that it be disbanded in Canada, that the officers be persuaded to accept seigneuries, and that thesoldiers be given lands within the estates of their officers. TheGrand Monarque not only assented but promised a liberal money bonus toall who would remain. Accordingly, more than twenty officers, chieflycaptains or lieutenants, and nearly four hundred men, agreed to stayin New France under these arrangements. 

Here was an experiment in the system of imperial Rome repeated in theNew World. When the empire of the Caesars was beginning to give waybefore the oncoming Goths and Huns, the practice of disbanding thelegions on the frontier so that they might settle there and form aniron ring against the invaders was adopted and served its purpose fora time. It was from these _praedia militaria_ that Talon got the ideawhich he now transmitted to the French King with the suggestionthat "the practice of these sagacious and warlike Romans might beadvantageously followed in a land which, being so far away from itssovereign, must trust for existence to the strength, of its ownarms. " In keeping with the same precedent, Talon located the militaryseigneuries in that section of the colony where they would be mostuseful as a barrier against the enemy; that is to say, he placed themin the colony's most vulnerable region. This was the area along theRichelieu from Lake Champlain to its confluence with the St. Lawrenceat Sorel. It was by this route that the Mohawks had already come morethan once on their errands of massacre, and it was by this portalthat the English were likely to come if they should ever attemptto overwhelm New France by an overland assault. The region of theRichelieu was therefore made as strong against incursion as thiscolonizing 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 musketsthey kept for service, and never during subsequent years was such acall without response. These military settlers and their sons afterthem were only too ready to rally around the royal _oriflamme_ at anyopportunity. It was from the armed seigneuries of the Richelieu thatHertel de Rouville, St. Ours, and others quietly slipped forth andleaped with all the advantage of surprise upon the lonely hamletsof outlying Massachusetts or New York. How the English feared these_gentilshommes_ let their own records tell, for there these Frenchcolonials put many a streak of blood and fire. 

But not all of the seigneuries were settled in this way, and it waswell for the best interests of the colony that they were not. Toooften the good soldier made only an indifferent yeoman. First in war, he was last in peace. The task of hammering spears into ploughsharesand swords into pruning-hooks was not altogether to his liking. Mostof the officers gradually grew tired of their rôle as gentlemen of thewilderness, and eventually sold or mortgaged their seigneuries andmade their way back to France. Many of the soldiers succumbed to thelure of the western fur traffic and became _coureurs-de-bois_. Butmany others stuck valiantly to the soil, and today their descendantsby the thousand possess this fertile land. 

What were the obligations of the settler who took a grant of landwithin a seigneury? On the whole they were neither numerous norburdensome, and in no sense were they comparable with those laid uponthe hapless peasantry in France during the days before the greatRevolution. Every habitant had a written title-deed from his seigneurand the terms of this deed were explicit. The seigneur could exactnothing that was not stipulated therein. These title-deeds were madeby 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 apopulation which had not yet reached ten thousand. When the deed hadbeen signed, the notary gave one copy to each of the parties; theoriginal he kept himself. These scribes were men of limited educationand did not always do their work with proper care, but on the wholethey rendered useful service. 

The deed first set forth the situation and area of the habitant'sfarm. The ordinary extent was from one hundred to four hundred_arpents_, usually in the shape of a parallelogram with a narrowfrontage on the river, and extending inland to a much greaterdistance. Every one wanted to be near the main road which ran alongthe shore; it was only after all this land had been taken up that theincoming settlers were willing to have farms in the "second range" onthe uplands away from the stream. At any rate, the habitant took hisland subject to yearly payments known as the _cens et rentes_. Theamount was small, a few sous together with a stated donation ingrain or poultry to be delivered each autumn. Reckoned in terms ofpresent-day rentals, the _cens et rentes_ amounted to half a dozenchickens or a bushel of grain for each fifty or sixty acres of land. Yet this was the only payment which the habitants of New Franceregularly made in return for their lands. Each autumn at Michaelmasthey gathered at the seigneur's house, their carryalls filling hisyard. One by one they handed over their quota of grain or poultryand counted out their _cens_ in copper coins. The occasion became aneighborhood festival to which the women came with the men. There wasa general retailing of local gossip and a squaring-up of accountsamong the neighbors themselves. 

But while this was the only regular payment made by the habitant, it was not the only obligation imposed upon him. In New France theseigneur had the exclusive right of grinding all grain, and thehabitants were bound by their title-deeds to bring their grist to hismill and to pay the legal toll for milling. This _banalité_, as it wascalled, did not bear heavily upon the people; most of the complaintsconcerning it came rather from the seigneurs who claimed that thelegal toll, which amounted to one-fourteenth of the grain, did notsuffice to pay expenses. Some of the seigneurs did not build mills atall, but the authorities eventually moved them to action by orderingthat those who did not provide mills at once would not be allowedto enforce the obligation of toll at any future date. Most of theseigneurial mills were crude, wind-driven affairs which made poorflour and often kept the habitants waiting for days to get it. Usuallybuilt in tower-like fashion, they were loopholed in order to affordplaces of refuge and defense against Indian attack. 

Another seigneurial obligation was that of giving to the seigneurcertain days of _corvée_, or forced labor, in each year. In Francethis was a grievous burden; peasants were taken from their own landsat inconvenient seasons and forced to work for weeks on the seigneur'sdomain. But there was nothing of this sort in Canada. The amount of_corvée_ was limited to six days at the most in any year, of whichonly 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 bothfood and tools to those whom he called upon to work for him. 

Besides, there were various details of a minor sort incidental to theseigneurial system. If the habitant caught fish in the river, one fishin every eleven belonged to the seigneur. But seldom was any attentionpaid to this stipulation. The seigneur was entitled to take firewoodand building materials from the lands of his habitants if he desired, but he rarely availed himself of this right. On the morning of everyMay Day the habitants were under strict injunction to plant a Maypolebefore the seigneur's house, and this they never failed to do, becausethe seigneur in return was expected to dispense hospitality to all whocame. Bright and early in the morning the whole community appeared andgreeted the seigneur with a salvo of blank musketry. With them theycarried a tall fir-tree, pulled bare to within a few feet of the topwhere a tuft of green remained. Having planted this Maypole in theground, they joined in dancing and a _feu de joie_ in the seigneur'shonor, and then adjourned for cakes and wine at his table. There is nodoubt that such good things disappeared with celerity before appetiteswhetted by an hour's exercise in the clear spring air. After drinkingto the seigneur's health and to the health of all his kin, the merrycompany returned to their homes, leaving behind them the pole as asouvenir of their homage. That the seigneur was more than a merelandlord such an occasion testified. 

The seigneurs of New France had the right to hold courts for thesettlement of disputes among their tenantry, but they rarely availedthemselves of this privilege because, owing to the sparseness of thepopulation in most of the seigneuries, the fines and fees did notproduce enough income to make such a procedure worth while. In a fewpopulous districts there were seigneurial courts with regular judgeswho held sessions once or twice each week. In some others the seigneurhimself sat in judgment behind the living-room table in his own homeand meted out justice after his own fashion. The Custom of Pariswas the common law of the land, and all were supposed to know itsprovisions, though few save the royal judges had any such knowledge. When the seigneur himself heard the suitors, his decision wasnot always in keeping with the law but it usually satisfied thedisputants, so that appeals to the royal courts were not common. Theselatter tribunals, each with a judge of its own, sat at Quebec, ThreeRivers, and Montreal. Their procedure, like that of the seigneurialcourts, was simple, free from chicane, and inexpensive. A lawsuit inNew France did not bring ruinous costs. "I will not say, " remarks thefacetious La Hontan, "that the Goddess of Justice is more chaste herethan in France, but at any rate, if she is sold, she is sold morecheaply. In Canada we do not pass through the clutches of advocates, the talons of attorneys, and the claws of clerks. These vermin donot as yet infest the land. Every one here pleads his own cause. OurThemis is prompt, and she does not bristle with fees, costs, andcharges. "

Throughout the French period there was no complaint from the habitantsconcerning the burdens of the seigneurial tenure. Here and theredisputes arose as to the exact scope and nature of variousobligations, but these the intendant adjusted with a firm hand andan eye to the general interest. On the whole, the system rendered ahighly useful service, by bringing the entire rural population intoclose and neighborly contact, by affording a firm foundation forthe colony's social structure, and by contributing greatly to thedefensive unity of New France. So long as the land was weak anddepended for its very existence upon the solidarity of its people, solong as the intendant was there to guide the system with a praetorianhand and to prevent abuses, so long as strength was more to be desiredthan opulence, the seigneurial system served New France better thanany other scheme of landholding would have done. It was only whenthe administration of the country came into new and alien hands thatCanadian seigneurialism became a barrier to economic progress and anobsolete system which had to be abolished. 

CHAPTER IX

THE COUREURS-DE-BOIS

The center and soul of the economic system in New France was thetraffic in furs. Even before the colony contained more than a handfulof settlers, the profit-making possibilities of this trade wererecognized. It grew rapidly even in the early days, and for more thana hundred and fifty years furnished New France with its sinews of warand peace. Beginning on the St. Lawrence, this trade moved westwardalong the Great Lakes, until toward the end of the seventeenth centuryit passed to the headwaters of the Mississippi. During the twoadministrations of Frontenac the fur traffic grew to largeproportions, nor did it show much sign of shrinking for a generationthereafter. With the ebb-tide of French military power, however, thetrader's hold on these western lands began to relax, and before thefinal overthrow of New France it had become greatly weakened. 

In establishing commercial relations with the Indians, the Frenchvoyageur on the St. Lawrence had several marked advantages over hisEnglish and Dutch neighbors. By temperament he was better adapted thanthey to be a pioneer of trade. No race was more supple than his own inconforming its ways to the varied demands of place and time. When hewas among the Indians, the Frenchman tried to act like one of them, and he soon developed in all the arts of forest life a skill whichrivaled that of the Indian himself. The fascination of life in theuntamed wilderness with its hair-raising experiences, its romance, itsfree abandon, appealed more strongly to the French temperament than tothat of any other European race. _Non licet omnibus adire Corinthum_. And the French colonist of the seventeenth century had the qualitiesof personal courage and hardihood which enabled him to enjoy this lifeto the utmost. 

Then there was the Jesuit missionary. He was the first to visit theIndians in their own abodes, the first to make his home among them, the first to master their language and to understand their habits ofmind. This sympathetic comprehension gave the Jesuit a great influencein the councils of the savages. While first of all a soldier of theCross, the missionary never forgot, however, that he was also asentinel doing outpost duty for his own race. Apostle he was, butpatriot too. Besides, it was to the spiritual interest of themissionary to keep his flock in contact with the French alone; for ifthey became acquainted with the English they would soon come underthe smirch of heresy. To prevent the Indians from engaging in anycommercial dealings with Dutch or English heretics meant encouragingthem to trade exclusively with the French. In this way the Jesuitbecame one of the most zealous of helpers in carrying out the Frenchprogram for diverting to Montreal the entire fur trade of the westernregions. He was thus not only a pioneer of the faith but at the sametime a pathfinder of commercial empire. It is true, no doubt, that this service to the trading interests of the colony was butill-requited by those whom it benefited most. The trader too oftenrepaid the missionary in pretty poor coin by bringing the curse of theliquor traffic to his doors, and by giving denial by shameless conductto all the good father's moral teachings. In spite of such inevitabledrawbacks, the Jesuit rendered a great service to the tradinginterests of New France, far greater indeed than he ever claimed orreceived credit for. 

In the struggle for the control of the fur trade geographicaladvantages lay with the French. They had two excellent routes fromMontreal directly into the richest beaver lands of the continent. Oneof these, by way of the Ottawa and Mattawa rivers, had the drawbackof an overland portage, but on the other hand the whole route wasreasonably safe from interruption by Iroquois or English attack. Theother route, by way of the upper St. Lawrence and the lakes, passedCataraqui, Niagara, and Detroit on the way to Michilimackinac or toGreen Bay. This was an all-water route, save for the short detouraround the falls at Niagara, but it had the disadvantage of passing, for a long stretch, within easy reach of Iroquois interference. TheFrench soon realized, however, that this lake route was the mainartery of the colony's fur trade and must be kept open at any cost. They accordingly entrenched themselves at all the strategic pointsalong the route. Fort Frontenac at Cataraqui was built in 1674; thefortified post at Detroit, in 1686; the fort at Niagara, in 1678; andthe establishments at the Sault Ste. Marie and at Michilimackinac hadbeen constructed even earlier. 

But these places only marked the main channels through which the tradepassed. The real sources of the fur supply were in the great regionsnow covered by the states of Ohio, Wisconsin, Iowa, and Minnesota. Asit became increasingly necessary that the French should gain a firmfooting in these territories as well, they proceeded to establishtheir outposts without delay. The post at Baye des Puants (Green Bay)was established before 1685; then in rapid succession came tradingstockades in the very heart of the beaver lands, Fort St. Antoine, Fort St. Nicholas, Fort St. Croix, Fort Perrot, Port St. Louis, andseveral others. No one can study the map of this western country asit was in 1700 without realizing what a strangle-hold the French hadachieved upon all the vital arteries of its trade. 

The English had no such geographical advantages as the French, nordid they adequately appreciate the importance of being first upon theground. With the exception of the Hudson after 1664, they controlledno great waterway leading to the interior. And the Hudson with itstributaries tapped only the territories of the Iroquois which weredenuded of beaver at an early date. These Iroquois might have renderedgreat service to the English at Albany by acting as middlemen ingathering the furs from the West. They tried hard, indeed, to assumethis rôle, but, as they were practically always at enmity with thewestern tribes, they never succeeded in turning this possibility totheir full emolument. 

In only one respect were the French at a serious disadvantage. Theycould not compete with the English in the matter of prices. TheEnglish trader could give the Indian for his furs two or three timesas much merchandise as the French could offer him. To account forthis commercial discrepancy there were several reasons. The cost oftransportation to and from France was high--approximately twice thatof freighting from London to Boston or New York. Navigation on the St. Lawrence was dangerous in those days before buoys and beacons cameto mark the shoal waters, and the risk of capture at sea during theincessant wars with England was considerable. The staples most used inthe Indian trade--utensils, muskets, blankets, and strouds (a coarsewoolen cloth made into shirts)--could be bought more cheaply inEngland than in France. Rum could be obtained from the British WestIndies more cheaply than brandy from across the ocean. Moreover, therewere duties on furs shipped from Quebec and on all goods which cameinto that post. And, finally, a paternal government in New France setthe scale of prices in such a way as to ensure the merchants a largeprofit. It is clear, then, that in fair and open competition for theIndian trade the French would not have survived a single season. [1]Their only hope was to keep the English away from the Indiansaltogether, and particularly from the Indians of the fur-bearingregions. This was no easy task, but in general they managed to do itfor nearly a century. 

[Footnote 1: In the collection of _Documents Relating to the ColonialHistory of New York_ (ix. , 408-409) the following comparative table ofprices at Fort Orange (Albany) and at Montreal in 1689 is given:

 _The Indian pays for at Albany at Montreal_

 1 musket 2 beavers 5 beavers 8 pounds of powder 1 beaver 4 " 40 pounds of lead 1 " 3 " 1 blanket 1 " 2 " 4 shirts 1 " 2 " 6 pairs stockings 1 " 2 "]

The most active and at the same time the most picturesque figurein the fur-trading system of New France was the _coureur-de-bois_. Without him the trade could neither have been begun nor continuedsuccessfully. Usually a man of good birth, of some military training, and of more or less education, he was a rover of the forest by choiceand not as an outcast from civilization. Young men came from Franceto serve as officers with the colonial garrison, to hold minor civilposts, to become seigneurial landholders, or merely to seek adventure. Very few came out with the fixed intention of engaging in the foresttrade; but hundreds fell victims to its magnetism after they hadarrived in New France. The young officer who grew tired of garrisonduty, the young seigneur who found yeomanry tedious, the younghabitant who disliked the daily toil of the farm--young men of allsocial ranks, in fact, succumbed to this lure of the wilderness. "Icannot tell you, " wrote one governor, "how attractive this life is toall our youth. It consists in doing nothing, caring nothing, followingevery inclination, and getting out of the way of all restraint. " Inany case the ranks of the voyageurs included those who had the bestand most virile blood in the colony. 

Just how many Frenchmen, young and old, were engaged in the lawlessand fascinating life of the forest trader when the fur traffic was atits height cannot be stated with exactness. But the number must havebeen large. The intendant Duchesneau, in 1680, estimated that morethan eight hundred men, out of a colonial population numbering lessthan ten thousand, were off in the woods. "There is not a family ofany account, " he wrote to the King, "but has sons, brothers, uncles, and nephews among these _coureurs-de-bois_. " This may be anexaggeration, but from references contained in the dispatches ofvarious royal officials one may fairly conclude that Duchesneau'sestimate of the number of traders was not far wide of the mark. Andthere is other evidence as to the size of this exodus to the woods. Nicholas Perrot, when he left Montreal for Green Bay in 1688, tookwith him one hundred and forty-three voyageurs. [1] La Hontan found"thirty or forty _coureurs-de-bois_ at every post in the Illinoiscountry. "[2]

[Footnote 1: _Documents Relative to the Colonial History of New York_, ix. , 470. ]

[Footnote 2: _Voyages_ (ed. Thwaites), ii. , 175. ]

Among the leaders of the _coureurs-de-bois_ several names stand outprominently. François Dauphine de la Forêt, Nicholas Perrot, and Henride Tonty, the lieutenants of La Salle, Alphonse de Tonty, Antoine deLa Mothe-Cadillac, Greysolon Du Lhut and his brother Greysolon de laTourette, Pierre Esprit Radisson and Médard Chouart de Groseilliers, Olivier Morel de la Durantaye, Jean-Paul Le Gardeur de Repentigny, Louis de la Porte de Louvigny, Louis and Juchereau Joliet, PierreLeSueur, Boucher de la Perrière, Jean Peré, Pierre Jobin, Denis Massé, Nicholas d'Ailleboust de Mantet, François Perthuis, Etienne Brulé, Charles Juchereau de St. Denis, Pierre Moreau _dit_ La Toupine, JeanNicolet--these are only the few who connected themselves with somestriking event which has transmitted their names to posterity. Many ofthem have left their imprint upon the geographical nomenclature of theMiddle West. Hundreds of others, the rank and file of this picturesquearray, gained no place upon the written records, since they took partin no striking achievement worthy of mention in the dispatches andmemoirs of their day. The _coureur-de-bois_ was rarely a chronicler. If the Jesuits did not deign to pillory him in their _Rélations_, or if the royal officials did not single him out for praise inthe memorials which they sent home to France each year, the_coureur-de-bois_ might spend his whole active life in the forestwithout transmitting his name or fame to a future generation. And thatis what most of them did. A few of the voyageurs found that one tripto the wilds was enough and never took to the trade permanently. Butthe great majority, once the virus of the free life had entered theirveins, could not forsake the wild woods to the end of their days. Thedangers of the life were great, and the mortality among the traderswas high. _Coureurs de risques_ they ought to have been called, asLa Hontan remarks. But taken as a whole they were a vigorous, adventurous, strong-limbed set of men. It was a genuine complimentthat they paid to the wilderness when they chose to spend year afteryear in its embrace. 

In their methods of trading the _coureurs-de-bois_ were unlikeanything that the world had ever known before. The Hanseatic merchantsof earlier fur-trading days in Northern Europe had established theirforts or factories at Novgorod, at Bergen, and elsewhere, great_entrepôts_ stored with merchandise for the neighboring territories. The traders lived within, and the natives came to the posts to bartertheir furs or other raw materials. The merchants of the East IndiaCompany had established their posts in the Orient and traded with thenatives on the same basis. But the Norman voyageurs of the New Worlddid things quite differently. They established fortified poststhroughout the regions west of the Lakes, it is true, but they did notmake them storehouses, nor did they bring to them any considerablestock of merchandise. The posts were for use as the headquarters ofthe _coureurs-de-bois_, and usually sheltered a small garrison ofsoldiers during the winter months; they likewise served as placesof defense in the event of attack and of rendezvous when a tradingexpedition to Montreal was being organized. It was not the policy ofthe French authorities, nor was it the plan of the _coureurs-de-bois_, that any considerable amount of trading should take place at thesewestern stockades. They were only the outposts intended to keep thetrade running in its proper channels. In a word, it was the aim ofthe French to bring the trade to the colony, not to send the colonyoverland to the savages. That is the way Father Carheil phrased it, and he was quite right. [1]

[Footnote 1: Carheil to Champigny (August 30, 1702), in R. G. Thwaites, _Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents_, lxv. , 219. ]

Every spring, accordingly, if the great trade routes to Montreal werereasonably free from the danger of an overwhelming Iroquois attack, the _coureurs-de-bois_ rounded up the western Indians with theirstocks of furs from the winter's hunt. Then, proceeding to the grandrendezvous at Michilimackinac or Green Bay, the canoes were joinedinto one great flotilla, and the whole array set off down the lakesor by way of the Ottawa to Montreal. This annual fur flotilla oftennumbered hundreds of canoes, the _coureurs-de-bois_ acting as pilots, assisting the Indians to ward off attacks, and adding their Europeanintelligence to the red man's native cunning. [1] About midsummer, having covered the thousand miles of water, the canoes drew withinhail of the settlement of Montreal. Above the Lachine Rapids thepopulation came forth to meet it with a noisy welcome. Enterprising_cabaretiers_, in defiance of the royal decrees, had usually set uptheir booths along the shores for the sale of brandy, and there wassome brisk trading as well as a considerable display of aboriginalboisterousness even before the canoes reached Montreal. 

[Footnote 1: The flotilla of 1693 consisted of more than 400 canoes, with about 200 _coureurs-de-bois_, 1200 Indians, and furs to the valueof over 800, 000 _livres_. ]

Once at the settlement, the Indians set up their tepees, boiled theirkettles, and unpacked their bundles of peltry. A day was then givenover to a great council which, the governor of the colony, in scarletcloak and plumed hat, often came from Quebec to attend. There were theusual pledges of friendship; the peace-pipe went its round, and thesong of the calumet was sung. Then the trading really began. Themerchants of Montreal had their little shops along the shore wherethey spread out for display the merchandise brought by the springships from France. There were muskets, powder, and lead, blankets inall colors, coarse cloth, knives, hatchets, kettles, awls, needles, and other staples of the trade. But the Indian had a weakness fortrinkets of every sort, so that cheap and gaudy necklaces, bracelets, tin looking-glasses, little bells, combs, vermilion, and a hundredother things of the sort were there to tempt him. And last, but notleast in its purchasing power, was brandy. Many hogsheads of it weredisposed of at every annual fair, and while it lasted the Indiansturned bedlam loose in the town. The fair was Montreal's gala eventin every year, for its success meant everything to local prosperity. Indeed, in the few years when, owing to the Iroquois dangers, theflotilla failed to arrive, the whole settlement was on the verge ofbankruptcy. 

What the Indian got for his furs at Montreal varied from time totime, depending for the most part upon the state of the fur marketin France. And this, again, hinged to some extent upon the course offashions there. On one occasion the fashion of wearing low-crownedhats cut the value of beaver skins in two. Beaver was the fur of furs, and the mainstay of the trade. Whether for warmth, durability, orattractiveness in appearance, there was none other to equal it. Notall beaver skins were valued alike, however. Those taken from animalskilled during the winter were preferred to those taken at otherseasons, while new skins did not bring as high a price as those whichthe Indian had worn for a time and had thus made soft. The trade, in fact, developed a classification of beaver skins into soft andhalf-soft, green and half-green, wet and dry, and so on. Skins of goodquality brought at Montreal from two to four _livres_ per pound, andthey averaged a little more than two pounds each. The normal cargo ofa large canoe was forty packs of skins, each pack weighing about fiftypounds. Translated into the currency of today a beaver pelt of fairquality was worth about a dollar. When we read in the officialdispatches that a half-million _livres_' worth of skins changed ownersat the Montreal fair, this statement means that at least a hundredthousand animals must have been slaughtered to furnish a largeflotilla with its cargo. 

The furs of other animals, otter, marten, and mink, were also indemand but brought smaller prices. Moose hides sold well, and sodid bear skins. Some buffalo hides were brought to Montreal, but inproportion to their value they were bulky and took up so much room inthe canoes that the Indians did not care to bring them. The heydayof the buffalo trade came later, with the development of overlandtransportation. At any rate the dependence of New France upon thesefurs 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 GreatLakes. " The prosperity of the French colony hinged wholly upon twothings: whether the routes from the West were open, and whether themarket for furs in France was holding up. Upon the former depended thequantity of furs brought to Montreal; upon the latter, the amount ofprofit which the _coureurs-de-bois_ and the merchants of the colonywould obtain. 

For ten days or a fortnight the great fair at Montreal continued. Apicturesque bazaar it must have been, this meeting of the two ends ofcivilization, for trade has been, in all ages, a mighty magnet to drawthe ends of the earth together. When all the furs had been sold, the_coureurs-de-bois_ took some goods along with them to be used partlyin trade on their own account at the western posts and partly aspresents from the King to the western chieftains. There is reason tosuspect, however, that much of what the royal bounty provided for thislatter purpose was diverted to private use. There were annual fairs atThree Rivers for the Indians of the St. Maurice region; at Sorel, for those of the Richelieu; and at Quebec and at Tadoussac, forthe redskins of the Lower St. Lawrence. But Montreal, owing to itssituation at the confluence of the St. Lawrence and Ottawa traderoutes, was by far the greatest fur mart of all. 

It has been mentioned that the colonial authorities tried todiscourage trading at the western posts. Their aim was to bring theIndian with his furs to the colonial settlement. But this policy couldnot be fully carried out. Despite the most rigid prohibitions and theseverest penalties, some of the _coureurs-de-bois_ would take goodsand brandy to sell in the wilderness. Finding that this practice couldnot be exterminated, the authorities decided to permit a limitedamount of forest trading under strict regulation, and to this end theKing authorized the granting of twenty-five licenses each year. These licenses permitted a trader to take three canoes with as muchmerchandise as they would hold. As a rule the licenses were not issueddirectly to the traders themselves, but were given to the religiousinstitutions or to dependent widows of former royal officers. These inturn sold them to the traders, sometimes for a thousand _livres_ ormore. The system of granting twenty-five annual licenses did notof itself throw the door wide open for trade at the westernestablishments. But as time went on the plan was much abused by thegranting of private licenses to the friends of the officials atQuebec, and "God knows how many of these were issued, " as one writerof the time puts it. Traders often went, moreover, without any licenseat all, and especially in the matter of carrying brandy into theforest they frequently set the official orders at defiance. 

This brandy question was, in fact, the great troubler in Israel. Itbulks large in every chronicle, every memoir, every _Rélation_, andin almost every official dispatch during a period of more than fiftyyears. It worried the King himself; it set the officers of the Churchand State against each other; and it provoked more friction throughoutthe western dominions of France than all other issues put together. 

As to the ethics of the liquor traffic in New France, there wasnever any serious disagreement. Even the secular authorities readilyadmitted that brandy did the Indians no good, and that it would bebetter to sell them blankets and kettles. But that was not the point. The traders believed that, if the western Indians could not securebrandy from the French, they would get rum from the English. TheIndian would be no better off in that case, and the French would losetheir hold on him into the bargain. Time and again they reiterated theargument that the prohibition of the brandy trade would make an end totrade, to French influence, and even to the missionary's own labors. For if the Indian went to the English for rum, he would get into touchwith heresy as well; he would have Protestant missionaries come to hisvillage, and the day of Jesuit propaganda would be at an end. 

This, throughout the whole trading period, was the stock argument ofpublicans and sinners. The Jesuit missionaries combated it with alltheir power; yet they never fully convinced either the colonial or thehome authorities. Louis XIV, urged by his confessor to take one standand by his ministers to take the other, was sorely puzzled. He wantedto do his duty as a Most Christian King, yet he did not want to haveon his hands a bankrupt colony. Bishop Laval pleaded with Colbert thatbrandy would spell the ruin of all religion in the new world, but thesubtle minister calmly retorted that the _eau-de-vie_ had not yetovercome the ancient church in older lands. To set his conscienceright, the King referred the whole question to the savants of theSorbonne, and they, like good churchmen, promptly gave their opinionthat to sell intoxicants to the heathen was a heinous sin. But thatcounsel afforded the Grand Monarch scant guidance, for it was notthe relative sinfulness of the brandy trade that perplexed him. Thepractical expediency of issuing a decree of prohibition was what layupon his mind. On that point Colbert gave him sensible advice, namely, that a question of practical policy could be better settled by thecolonists themselves than by cloistered scholars. Guided by thissuggestion, the King asked for a limited plebiscite; the governor ofNew France was requested to call together "the leading inhabitants ofthe colony" and to obtain from each one his opinion in writing. Herewas an inkling of colonial self-government, and it is unfortunate thatthe King did not resort more often to the same method of solving thecolony's problems. 

On October 26, 1678, Frontenac gathered the "leading inhabitants" inthe Château at Quebec. Apart from the officials and military officerson the one hand and the clergy on the other, most of the solid men ofNew France were there. One after another their views were called forand written down. Most of those present expressed the opinion thatthe evils of the traffic had been exaggerated, and that if the Frenchshould prohibit the sale of brandy to the savages they would soon losetheir hold upon the western trade. There were some dissenters, amongthem a few who urged a more rigid regulation of the traffic. Onehard-headed seigneur, the Sieur Dombourg, raised the query whether thecolony was really so dependent for its existence upon the fur trade asthe others had assumed to be the case. If there were less attention totrade, he urged, there would be more heed paid to agriculture, and inthe long run it would be better for the colony to ship wheat to Franceinstead of furs. "Let the western trade go to the English in exchangefor their rum; it would neither endure long nor profit them much. "This was sound sense, but it did not carry great weight withDombourg's hearers. 

The written testimony was put together and, with comments by thegovernor, was sent to France for the information of the King and hisministers. Apparently it had some effect, for, without altogetherprohibiting the use of brandy in the western trade, a royal decree of1679 forbade the _coureurs-de-bois_ to carry it with them on theirtrips up the lakes. The issue of this decree, however, made noperceptible change in the situation, and brandy was taken to thewestern posts as before. So far as one can determine from the actualfigures of the trade, however, the quantity of intoxicants used bythe French in the Indian trade has been greatly exaggerated by themissionaries. Not more than fifty barrels (_barriques_) ever went tothe western regions in the course of a year. A barrel held about twohundred and fifty pints, so that the total would be less than onepint per capita for the adult Indians within the French sphereof influence. That was a far smaller per capita consumption thanFrenchmen guzzled in a single day at a Breton fair, as La Salle oncepointed out. The trouble was, however, that thousands of Indians gotno brandy at all, while a relatively small number obtained too muchof it. What they got, moreover, was poor stuff, most of it, and welldiluted with water. The Indian drank to get drunk, and when brandyconstituted the other end of the bargain he would give for it the veryfurs off his back. 

But if the Jesuits exaggerated the amount of brandy used in the trade, they did not exaggerate its demoralizing effect upon both the Indianand the trader. They believed that brandy would wreck the Indian'sbody and ruin his soul. They were right; it did both. It made of everywestern post, in the words of Father Carheil, a den of "brutality andviolence, of injustice and impiety, of lewd and shameless conduct, ofcontempt and insults. " No sinister motives need be sought to explainthe bitterness with which the blackrobes cried out against theiniquities of a system which swindled the redskin out of his furs anddebauched him into the bargain. Had the Jesuits done otherwisethan fight it from first to last they would have been false to thetraditions of their Church and their Order. They were, when all issaid and done, the truest friends that the North American Indian hasever had. 

The effects of the fur trade upon both Indians and French werefar-reaching. The trade changed the red man's order of life, took himin a single generation from the stone to the iron age, demolished hisold notions of the world, carried him on long journeys, and made him adifferent man. French brandy and English rum sapped his stamina, andthe _grand libertinage_ of the traders calloused whatever moral sensehe had. His folklore, his religion, and his institutions made noprogress 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 thevigorous blood of the colony. It cast its spell over New France fromLachine to the Saguenay. Men left their farms, their wives, and theirfamilies, they mortgaged their property, and they borrowed from theirfriends in order to join the annual hegira to the West. Yet very fewof these traders accumulated fortunes. It was not the trader but themerchant at Montreal or Quebec who got the lion's share of the profitand took none of the risks. Many of the _coureurs-de-bois_ entered thetrade with ample funds and emerged in poverty. Nicholas Perrotand Greysolon Du Lhut were conspicuous examples. It was a highlyspeculative game. At times large profits came easily and were spentrecklessly. The trade encouraged profligacy, bravado, and garishness;it deadened the moral sense of the colony, and even schooled men intrickery and peculation. It was a corrupting influence in the officiallife of New France, and even governors could not keep from soilingtheir hands in it. But most unfortunate of all, the colony wasimpelled to put its economic energies into what was at best anephemeral and transitory source of national wealth and to neglect thesolid foundations of agriculture and industry which in the long runwould have profited its people much more. 

CHAPTER X

AGRICULTURE, INDUSTRY, AND TRADE

It was the royal desire that New France should some day become apowerful and prosperous agricultural colony, providing the motherlandwith an acceptable addition to its food supply. To this end largetracts of land were granted upon most liberal terms to incomingsettlers, and every effort was made to get these acres cultivated. Encouragement and coercion were alike given a trial. Settlers who didwell were given official recognition, sometimes even to the extent ofrank in the _noblesse_. On the other hand those who left their landsuncleared were repeatedly threatened with the revocation of theirland-titles, and in some cases their holdings were actually takenaway. From the days of the earliest settlement down to the eve of theEnglish conquest, the officials of both the Church and the Statenever ceased to use their best endeavors in the interests of colonialagriculture. 

Yet with all this official interest and encouragement agriculturaldevelopment was slow. Much of the land on both the north and the southshores of the St. Lawrence was heavily timbered, and the work ofclearing proved tedious. It was estimated that an industrious settler, working by himself, could clear not more than one superficial _arpent_in a whole season. So slowly did the work make progress, in fact, thatin 1712, after fifty years of royal paternalism, the cultivable areaof New France amounted to only 150, 000 _arpents_, and at the closeof the French dominion in 1760 it was scarcely more than twice thatfigure, --in other words, about five _arpents_ for each head ofpopulation. 

While industry and trade, particularly the Indian trade, took theattention and interest of a considerable portion in the population ofNew France, agriculture was from first to last the vocation of thegreat majority. The census of 1695 showed more than seventy-five percent of the people living on the farms of the colony and this ratiowas almost exactly maintained, nearly sixty years later, when thecensus of 1754 was compiled. This population was scattered along bothbanks of the St. Lawrence from a point well below Quebec to the regionsurrounding Montreal. Most of the farms fronted on the river so thatevery habitant had a few _arpents_ of marshy land for hay, a tract ofcleared upland for ploughing, and an area extending to the rear whichmight be turned into meadow or left uncleared to supply him withfirewood. 

Wheat and maize were the great staples, although large quantitiesof oats, barley, and peas were also grown. The wheat was invariablyspring-sown, and the yield averaged from eight to twelvehundredweights per _arpent_, or from ten to fourteen bushels per acre. Most of the wheat was made into flour at the seigneurial mills andwas consumed in the colony, but shipments were also made withfair regularity to France, to the West Indies, and for a time toLouisbourg. In 1736 the exports of wheat amounted to nearly 100, 000bushels, and in the year following the banner harvest of 1741 thistotal was nearly doubled. The price which the habitant got for wheatat Quebec ranged normally from two to four _livres_ per hundredweight(about thirty to sixty cents per bushel) depending upon the harvestsin the colony and the safety with which wheat could be shipped toFrance, which, again, hinged upon the fact whether France and Englandwere at peace or at war. Indian corn was not exported to any largeextent, but many cargoes of dried peas were sent abroad, andoccasionally 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 thecolony was coarse and ill-flavored. It was smoked by both the habitantand the Indian because it was cheap; but Brazilian tobacco was greatlypreferred by those who could afford to buy it, and large quantitiesof this were brought in. The French Government frowned upontobacco-growing in New France, believing, as Colbert wrote to Talon in1672, that any such policy would be prejudicial to the interests ofthe French colonies in the tropical zones which were much betteradapted to this branch of cultivation. 

Cattle raising made substantial progress, and the King urged theSovereign Council to prohibit the slaughter of cattle so that theherds might keep on growing; but the stock was not of a high standard, but undersized, of mongrel breed, and poorly cared for. Sheep raising, despite the brisk demand for wool, made slow headway. Most of the woolneeded in the colony had to be brought from France, and the demand wasgreat because so much woolen clothing was required for winter use. Thekeeping of poultry was, of course, another branch of husbandry. Thehabitants were fond of horses; even the poorest managed to keep two orthree, which was a wasteful policy as there was no work for the horsesto do during nearly half the year. Fodder, however, was abundant andcost nothing, as each habitant obtained from the flats along theriver all that he could cut and carry away. This marsh hay was not ofsuperior quality, but it at least served to carry the horses and stockthrough the winter. 

The methods of agriculture were beyond question slovenly and crude. Catalogne, the engineer whom the authorities commissioned to make anagricultural census of the colony, ventured the opinion that, ifthe fields of France were cultivated as the farms of Canada were, three-quarters of the French people would starve. Rotation of cropswas practically unknown, and fertilization of the land was rare, although the habitant frequently burned the stubble before puttingthe plough to his fields. From time to time a part of each farm wasallowed to lie fallow, but such fallow fields were left unploughed andsoon 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 welldone at that, for the land was ploughed in ridges which left muchwaste between the furrows. Too often the seed became poor, as a resultof the habitant using seed from his own crops year after year untilit became run out. Most of the cultivated land was high and dry andneeded no artificial drainage. Even where the water lay on the landlate in the spring, however, there was rarely an attempt, as PeterKalm in his _Travels_ remarks, to drain it off. The habitant hadpatience in greater measure than industry, and he was always ready towait for nature to do his work. Everybody depended for his implementslargely upon his own workmanship, so that the tools of agriculturewere of poor construction. The cultivation of even a few _arpents_required a great deal of manual drudgery. On the other hand, the landof New France was fertile, and every one could have plenty of itfor the asking. Kalm thought it quite as good as the average in theEnglish colonies and far better than most arable land in his ownScandinavia. 

Why, then, did French-Canadian agriculture, despite the warm officialencouragement given to it, make such relatively meager progress? Thereare several reasons for its backwardness. The long winters, whichdeveloped in the habitant an inveterate disposition to idleness, afford the clue to one of them. A general aversion to unremittingmanual toil was one of the colony's besetting sins. Notwithstandingthe small per capita acreage, accordingly, there was a continualcomplaint that not enough labor could be had to work the farms. Womenand children were pressed into service in the busy seasons. Yet thecolony abounded in idle men, and mendicancy at one time assumed suchproportions as to require the enforcement of stringent penalties. Theauthorities were partly to blame for the development of this trait, for upon the slightest excuse they took the habitant from his dailyroutine and set him to help with warlike expeditions against theIndians and the English, or called him to build roads or to repair thefortifications. And the lure of the fur trade, which drew the mostvigorous young men of the land off the farms into the forest, wasanother obstacle to the growth of yeomanry. Moreover, the curious andinconvenient shape of the farms, most of them mere ribbons of land, with a narrow frontage and disproportionate depth, handicapped allefforts to cultivate the fields in an intelligent way. Finally, therewas the general poverty of the people. With a large family to support, for families of ten to fifteen children were not uncommon, it was hardfor the settler to make both ends meet from the annual yield of a few_arpents_, however fertile. The habitant, therefore, took the shortestcut to everything, getting what he could out of his land in thequickest possible way with no reference to the ultimate improvementof the farm itself. If he ever managed to get a little money, he waslikely to spend it at once and to become as impecunious as before. Such a propensity did not make for progress, for poverty begetsslovenliness in all ages and among all races of men. 

If anything like the industry and intelligence that was bestowedupon agriculture in the English colonies had been applied to the St. Lawrence valley, New France might have shipped far more wheat thanbeaver skins each year to Europe. But in this respect the colony neverhalf realized the royal expectations. On the other hand, the attemptto make the land a rich grain-growing colony was far from being a flatfailure. It was supporting its own population, and had a modest amountof 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 thetraveler who passed along the great river from Quebec to Montreal inthe late autumn might see, as Kalm in his _Travels_ tells us he saw, field upon field of waving grain extending from the shores inward asfar as the eye could reach, broken only here and there by tracts ofmeadow and woodland. Here was at least the nucleus of a Golden West. 

Of colonial industry, however, not as much can be said as ofagriculture. Down to about 1663 it had given scarcely a single tokenof existence. The colony, until that date, manufactured nothing. Everything in the way of furnishings, utensils, apparel, and ornamentwas brought in the company's ships from France, and no one seemed tolook upon this procedure as at all unusual. On the coming of Talon in1665, however, the idea of fostering home industries in the colonytook active shape. By persuasion and by promise of reward, the"Colbert of New France" interested the prominent citizens of Quebec inmodest industrial enterprises of every sort. 

But the outcome soon belied the intendant's airy hopes. It was easyenough to make a brave start in these things, especially with the aidof an initial subsidy from the treasury; but to keep the wheels ofindustry moving year after year without a subvention was an altogetherdifferent thing. A colony numbering less than ten thousand souls didnot furnish an adequate market for the products of varied industries, and the high cost of transportation made it difficult to exportmanufactured wares to France or to the West Indies with any hopeof profit. A change of tone, moreover, soon became noticeable inColbert's dispatches with reference to industrial development. In1665, when giving his first instructions to Talon, the minister haddilated upon his desire that Canada should become self-sustaining inthe matter of clothing, shoes, and the simpler house-furnishings. But within a couple of years Colbert's mind seems to have taken adifferent shift, and we find him advising Talon that, after all, it might be better if the people of New France would devote theirenergies to agriculture and thus to raise enough grain wherewith tobuy manufactured wares from France. So, for one reason or another, the infant industries languished, and, after Talon was gone, theygradually dropped out of existence. 

Another of Talon's ventures was to send prospectors in search ofminerals. The use of malleable copper by the Indians had been noted bythe French for many years and various rumors concerning the sourceof supply had filtered through to Quebec. Some of Talon's agents, including Jean Peré, went as far as the upper lakes, returning withsamples of copper ore. But the distance from Quebec was too great forprofitable transportation and, although Père Dablon in 1670 sentdown an accurate description of the great masses of ore in the LakeSuperior region, many generations were to pass before any seriousattempt could be made to develop this source of wealth. Nearer at handsome titaniferous iron ore was discovered, at Baie St. Paul belowQuebec, but it was not utilized, although on being tested it wasfound to be good in quality. Then the intendant sent agents to verifyreports as to rich coal deposits in Isle Royale (Cape Breton), andthey returned with glowing accounts which, subsequent industrialhistory has entirely justified. Shipments of this coal were broughtto Quebec for consumption. A little later the intendant reported toColbert that a vein of coal had been actually uncovered at the foot ofthe great rock which frowns upon the Lower Town at Quebec, adding thatthe vein could not be followed for fear of toppling over the Châteauwhich stood above. No one has ever since found any trace of Talon'scoal deposit, and the geologists of today are quite certain that theintendant had more imagination than accuracy of statement or even ofelementary mineralogical knowledge. 

Above the settlement at Three Rivers some excellent deposits of bogiron ore were found in 1668, but it was not until five decades laterthat the first forges were established there. These were successfullyoperated throughout the remainder of the Old Régime, and much of thecolony's iron came from them to supply the blacksmiths. From timeto time rumors of other mineral discoveries came to the ears of thepeople. A find of lead was reported from the Gaspé peninsula, but aninvestigation proved it to be a hoax. Copper was actually found ina dozen places within the settled ranges of the colony, but not inpaying quantities. Every one was always on the _qui vive_ for a veinof gold or silver, but no part of New France ever gave the slightesthint of an El Dorado. Prospecting engaged the energies of manycolonists in every generation, but most of those who thus spent theiryears at it got nothing but a princely dividend of chagrin. 

Mention should also be made of the brewing industry which Talon setupon its feet during his brief intendancy but which, like all the restof his schemes, did not long survive his departure. In establishing abrewery at Quebec the paternal intendant had two ends in mind: first, to reduce the large consumption of _eau-de-vie_ by providing a cheaperand more wholesome substitute; and second, to furnish the farmers ofthe colony with a profitable home market for their grain. In 1671Talon reported to the French authorities that the Quebec brewery wascapable of turning out four thousand hogsheads of beer per annum, andthus of creating a demand for many thousand bushels of malt. Hops werealso needed and were expensive when brought from France, so that thepeople were encouraged to grow hop-vines in the colony. But even withgrain and hops at hand, the brewing industry did not thrive, andbefore many years Talon's enterprise closed its doors. The buildingwas finally remodeled and became the headquarters of the laterintendants. 

Flour-making and lumbering were the two industries which made mostconsistent progress in the colony. Flour-mills were established bothin and near Quebec at an early date, and in course of time there werescores of them scattered throughout the colony, most of them builtand operated as _banal_ mills by the seigneurs. The majority werewindmills after the Dutch fashion, but some were water-driven. Onthe whole, they were not very efficient and turned out flour of suchindifferent grade that the bakers of Quebec complained loudly on morethan one occasion. In response to a request from the intendant, theKing sent out some fanning-mills which were distributed to variousseigneuries, but even this benefaction did not seem to make any greatimprovement in the quality of the product. Yet in some years thecolony had flour of sufficiently good quality for export, and sentsmall 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 Baie St. Paul. Beam-timbers, planks, staves, and shingles were made in large quantities both for use in thecolony and for export to France, where the timbers and planks werein demand at the royal shipyards. Wherever lands were granted by theCrown, a provision was inserted in the title-deed reserving all oaktimber and all pine of various species suitable for mastings. Thoughsuch timber was not to be cut without official permission, the peopledid not always respect this reservation. Yet the quantity of timbershipped to France was very large, and next to furs it formed theleading item in the cargoes of outgoing ships. For staves there was agood market at Quebec where barrels were being made for the packing ofsalted fish and eels. 

The various handicrafts or small industries, such as blacksmithing, cabinet-making, pottery, brick-making, were regulated quite asstrictly in Canada as in France. The artisans of the towns wereorganized into _jurés_ or guilds, and elected a master for each trade. These masters were responsible to the civil authorities for the properquality of the work done and for the observance of all the regulationswhich were promulgated by the intendant or the council from time totime. 

This relative proficiency in home industry accounts in part forthe tardy progress of the colony in the matter of large industrialestablishments. But there were other handicaps. For one thing, the Paris authorities were not anxious to see the colony becomeindustrially self-sustaining. Colbert in his earliest instructionsto Talon wrote as though this were the royal policy, but no otherminister ever hinted at such a desire. Rather it was thought best thatthe colony should confine itself to the production of raw materials, leaving it to France to supply manufactured wares in return. Themercantilist doctrine that a colony existed for the benefit of themother country was gospel at Fontainebleau. Even Montcalm, a man ofliberal inclinations, expressed this idea with undiminished vigor ina day when its evil results must have been apparent to the nakedeye. "Let us beware, " he wrote, "how we allow the establishment ofindustries in Canada or she will become proud and mutinous like theEnglish colonies. So long as France is a nursery to Canada, let notthe Canadians be allowed to trade but kept to their laborious life andmilitary services. "

The exclusion of the Huguenots from Canada was another industrialmisfortune. A few Huguenot artisans came to Quebec from Rochelle at anearly date, and had they been welcomed, more would soon have followed. But they were promptly deported. From an economic standpoint this wasan unfortunate policy. The Huguenots were resourceful workmen, skilledin many trades. They would have supplied the colony with a vigorousand enterprising stock. But the interests of orthodoxy in religionwere paramount with the authorities, and they kept from Canada theone class of settlers which most desired to come. Many of those sameHuguenots went to England, and every student of economic history knowshow greatly they contributed to the upbuilding of England's latersupremacy in the textile and related industries. 

If we turn to the field of commerce, the spirit of restriction appearsas prominently as in the domain of industry. The Company of OneHundred Associates, during its thirty years of control, allowed no oneto proceed to Quebec except on its own vessels, and nothing could beimported except through its storehouses. Its successor, the Company ofthe West Indies, which dominated colonial commerce from 1664 to1669, was not a whit more liberal. Even under the system of royalgovernment, the consistent keynotes of commercial policy wereregulation, paternalism, and monopoly. 

This is in no sense surprising. Spain had first given to the worldthis policy of commercial constraint and the great enrichment of theSpanish monarchy was everywhere held to be its outcome. France, byreason of her similar political and administrative system, found iteasy to drift into the wake of the Spanish example. The officialclasses in England and Holland would fain have had these countries dolikewise, but private initiative and enterprise proved too strong inthe end. As for New France, there were spells during which the grip ofthe trading monopolies relaxed, but these lucid intervals were neververy long. When the Company of the West Indies became bankrupt in1669, the trade between New France and Old was ostensibly thrown opento the traders of both countries, and for the moment this freedom gaveColbert and his Canadian apostle, Talon, an opportunity to carry outtheir ideas of commercial upbuilding. 

The great minister had as his ideal the creation of a huge fleet ofmerchant vessels, built and operated by Frenchmen, which would ply toall quarters of the globe, bringing raw products to France and takingmanufactured wares in return. It was under the inspiration of thisideal that Talon built at Quebec a small vessel and, having freightedit with lumber, fish, corn, and dried pease, sent it off to the FrenchWest Indies. After taking on board a cargo of sugar, the vessel wasthen to proceed to France and, exchanging the sugar for goods whichwere needed in the regions of the St. Lawrence, it was to return toQuebec. The intendant's plans for this triangular trade were wellconceived, and in a general way they aimed at just what the Englishcolonies along the Atlantic seaboard were beginning to do at the time. The keels of other ships were being laid at Quebec and the officialswere dreaming of great maritime achievements. But as usual theenterprise never got beyond the sailing of the first vessel, for itsvoyage did not yield a profit. 

The ostensible throwing-open of the colonial trade, moreover, did notactually change to any great extent the old system of paternalism andmonopoly. Commercial companies no longer controlled the channels oftransportation, it is true, but the royal government was not mindedto let everything take its own course. So the trade was taxed for thebenefit of the royal treasury, and the privilege of collecting thetaxes, according to the custom of the old régime, was farmed out. Allthe commerce of the colony, imports and exports, had to pass throughthe hands of these farmers-of-the-revenue who levied ten per cent onall goods coming and kept for the royal treasury one-quarter ofthe price fixed for all skins exported. Traders as a rule were notpermitted to ship their furs directly to France. They turned them into farmers-of-the-revenue at Quebec, where they received the price asfixed by ordinance, less one-quarter. This price they usually took inbills of exchange on Paris which, they handed over to the colonialmerchants in payment for goods, and which the merchants in turn senthome to France to pay for new stocks. Nor were the authorities contentwith the mere fixing of prices. By ordinance they also set the rate ofprofit which traders should have upon all imported wares brought intothe colony. This rate of profit was fixed at sixty-five per cent, butthe traders had no compunction in going above it whenever they sawan opportunity which was not likely to be discovered. As far as theforest trade was concerned, the regulation was, of course, absurd. 

Every year, about the beginning of May, the first ships left Francefor the St. Lawrence with general cargoes consisting of goods for thecolonists themselves and for the Indians, as well as large quantitiesof brandy. When they arrived at Quebec, the vessels were met by themerchants of the town and by those who had come from Three Rivers andMontreal. For a fortnight lively trading took place. Then the goodswhich had been bought by the merchants of Montreal and Three Riverswere loaded upon small barques and brought to these towns to be inreadiness for the annual fairs when the _coureurs-de-bois_ and theirIndians came down to trade in the late summer. As for the vesselswhich had come from France, these were either loaded with timber orfurs and set off directly home again, or else they departed light toCape Breton and took cargoes of coal for the French West Indies, wherethe refining of sugar occasioned a demand for fuel. The last shipsleft in November, and for seven months the colony was cut off fromEurope. 

Trade at Quebec, while technically open to any one who would pay theduties and observe the regulations as to rates of profit, was actuallyin the hands of a few merchants who had large warehouses and who tookthe greater part of what the ships brought in. These men were, inturn, affiliated more or less closely with the great trading houseswhich sent goods from Rouen or Rochelle, so that the monopoly wasnearly as ironclad as when commercial companies were in control. Whenan outsider broke into the charmed circle, as happened occasionally, there was usually some way of hustling him out again by means eitherfair or foul. The monopolists made large profits, and many of them, after they had accumulated a fortune, went home to France. "I haveknown twenty of these pedlars, " quoth La Hontan, "that had not abovea thousand crowns stock when I arrived at Quebec in the year 1683 andwhen I left that place had got to the tune of twelve thousand crowns. "

Glancing over the whole course of agriculture, industry, and commercein New France from the time when Champlain built his little post atthe foot of Cape Diamond until the day when the fleur-de-lis fluttereddown from the heights above, the historian finds that there is oneword which sums up the chief cause of the colony's economic weakness. That word is "paternalism. " The Administration tried to take the placeof Providence. It was as omnipresent and its ways were as inscrutable. Like as a father chasteneth his children, so the King and hisofficials felt it their duty to chasten every show of privateinitiative which did not direct itself along the grooves that they hadmarked out for the colony to follow. By trying to order everythingthey eventually succeeded in ordering nothing aright. 

CHAPTER XI

HOW THE PEOPLE LIVED

In New France there were no privileged orders. This, indeed, was themost marked difference between the social organization of the homeland and that of the colony. There were social distinctions in Canada, to be sure, but the boundaries between different elements of thepopulation were not rigid; there were no privileges based upon thelaws of the land, and no impenetrable barrier separated one class fromanother. Men could rise by their own efforts or come down throughtheir own defaults; their places in the community were not determinedfor 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 affairsof New France, some of the social leaders, some of those who attainedthe highest rank in the _noblesse_, came of relatively humbleparentage. 

In France of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the chiefofficials of state, the seigneurs, the higher ecclesiastics, eventhe officers of the army and the marine, were always drawn from thenobility. In the colony this was very far from being the case. Somecolonial officials and a few of the seigneurs were among the numerous_noblesse_ of France before they came, and they of course retainedtheir social rank in the new environment. Others were raised to thisrank by the King, usually for distinguished services in the colony andon the recommendation of the governor or the intendant. But, even iftaken all together, these men constituted a very small proportion ofthe people in New France. Even among the seigneurs the great majorityof these landed gentlemen came from the ranks of the people, and notone in ten was a member of the _noblesse_. There was, therefore, asocial solidarity, a spirit of fraternity, and a feeling of universalcomradeship 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 thecouncil, the only town in the colony large enough to have all thetrappings and tinsel of a well-rounded social set. Here, too, camesome of the seigneurs to spend the winter months. The royal officials, the officers of the garrison, the leading merchants, the judges, thenotaries and a few other professional men--these with their familiesmade up an élite which managed to echo, even if somewhat faintly, thepomp and glamor of Versailles. Quebec, from all accounts, waslively in the long winters. Its people, who were shut off from allintercourse with Europe for many months at a time, soon learnedthe art of providing for their own recreation and amusement. Theknight-errant La Hontan speaks enthusiastically of the events in thelife of this miniature society, of the dinners and dances, the salonsand receptions, the intrigues, rivalries, and flirtations, all ofwhich were well suited to his Bohemian tastes. But the clergy frownedupon this levity, of which they believed there was far too much. Onone or two occasions they even laid a rigorous and restraining handupon activities of which they disapproved, notably when the youngofficers of the Quebec garrison undertook an amateur performance ofMoliere's _Tartuffe_ in 1694. At Montreal and Three Rivers, the twosmaller towns of the colony, the social circle was more contracted andcorrespondingly less brilliant. The capital, indeed, had no rival. 

Only a small part of the population, however, lived in the towns. Atthe beginning of the eighteenth century the census (1706) showeda total of 16, 417, of whom less than 3000 were in the three chiefsettlements. The others were scattered along both banks of the St. Lawrence, but chiefly on the northern shore, with the houses groupedinto _côtes_ or little villages which almost touched elbows along thebanks of the stream. In each of these hamlets the manor-house or homeof the seigneur, although not a mansion by any means, was the focus ofsocial life. Sometimes built of timber but more often of stone, withdimensions rarely exceeding twenty feet by forty, it was not much morepretentious than the homes of the more prosperous and thrifty amongthe seigneur's dependents. Its three or four spacious rooms were, however, more comfortably equipped with furniture which in many caseshad been brought from France. Socially, the seigneur and his familydid not stand apart from his neighbors. All went to the same church, took part in the same amusements upon days of festival, and notinfrequently worked together at the common task of clearing the lands. Sons and daughters of the seigneurs often intermarried with those ofhabitants in the seigneury or of traders in the towns. There was nosocial _impasse_ such as existed in France among the various elementsin a community. 

As for the habitants, the people who cleared and cultivated the landsof the seigneuries, they worked and lived and dressed as pioneers arewont to do. Their homes were commonly built of felled timber or ofrough-hewn stone, solid, low, stocky buildings, usually about twentyby forty feet or thereabouts in size, with a single doorway and veryfew windows. The roofs were steep-pitched, with a dormer window or twothrust out on either side, the eaves projecting well over the walls insuch manner as to give the structures a half-bungalow appearance. Withalmost religious punctuality the habitants whitewashed the outside oftheir walls every spring, so that from the river the country houseslooked trim and neat at all seasons. Between the river and the uplandsran the roadway, close to which the habitants set their conspicuousdwellings with only in rare cases a grass plot or shade tree at thedoor. In winter they bore the full blast of the winds that droveacross the expanse of frozen stream in front of them; in summer thehot sun blazed relentlessly upon the low roofs. As each house stoodbut a few rods from its neighbor on either side, the colony thustook on the appearance of one long, straggling, village street. Thehabitant liked to be near his fellows, partly for his own safetyagainst marauding redskins, but chiefly because the colony was at besta lonely place in the long cold season when there was little for anyone to do. 

Behind each house was a small addition used as a storeroom. Not faraway were the barn and the stable, built always of untrimmed logs, theintervening chinks securely filled with clay or mortar. There was alsoa root-house, half-sunk in the ground or burrowed into the slope of ahill, where the habitant kept his potatoes and vegetables secure fromthe frost through the winter. Most of the habitants likewise had theirown bake-ovens, set a convenient distance behind the house and risingfour or five feet from the ground. These they built roughly ofboulders and plastered with clay. With an abundance of wood from thevirgin forests they would build a roaring fire in these ovens andfinish the whole week's baking at one time. The habitant would oftenenclose a small plot of ground surrounding the house and outbuildingswith a fence of piled stones or split rails, and in one corner hewould plant his kitchen-garden. 

Within the dwelling-house there were usually two, and never more thanthree, rooms on the ground floor. The doorway opened into the greatroom of the house, parlor, dining-room, and kitchen combined. A"living" room it surely was! In the better houses, however, this roomwas divided, with the kitchen partitioned off from the rest. Most ofthe furnishings were the products of the colony and chiefly of thefamily's own workmanship. The floor was of hewn timber, rubbed andscrubbed to smoothness. A woolen rug or several of them, always ofvivid hues, covered the greater part of it. There were the familydinner-table of hewn pine, chairs made of pine saplings with, seats ofrushes or woven underbark, and often in the corner a couch that wouldserve as an extra bed at night. Pictures of saints hung on the walls, sharing the space with a crucifix, but often having for ominouscompany the habitant's flint-lock and his powder-horn hanging from thebeams. At one end of the room was the fireplace and hearth, the solemeans of heating the place, and usually the only means of cookingas well. Around it hung the array of pots and pans, almost the onlythings in the house which the habitant and his family were not able tomake for themselves. The lack of colonial industries had the advantageof throwing each home upon its own resources, and the people developedgreat versatility in the cruder arts of craftsmanship. 

Upstairs, and reached by a ladder, was a loft or attic running thefull area of the house, but so low that one could touch, the rafterseverywhere. Here the children, often a dozen or more of them, werestowed away at night on mattresses of straw or feathers laid alongthe floor. As the windows were securely fastened, even in the coldestweather this attic was warm, if not altogether hygienic. The love offresh air in his dwelling was not among the habitant's virtues. Everyone went to bed shortly after darkness fell upon the land, and allrose with the sun. Even visits and festivities were not at that timeprolonged into the night as they are nowadays. Therein, however, NewFrance did not differ from other lands. In the seventeenth centurymost of the world went to bed at nightfall because there was nothingelse to do, and no easy or inexpensive artificial light. Candles werein use, to be sure, but a great many more of them were burned onthe altars of the churches than in the homes of the people. For hisreading, the habitant depended upon the priest, and for his writing, upon the notary. 

Clothing was almost wholly made at home. It was warm and durable, as well as somewhat distinctive and picturesque. Every parish hadspinning wheels and handlooms in some of its homes on which the womenturned out the heavy druggets or _étoffes du pays_ from which most ofthe men's clothing was made. A great fabric it was, this homespun, with nothing but wool in it, not attractive in pattern but able tostand no end of wear. It was fashioned for the habitant's use intoroomy trousers and a long frock coat reaching to the knees which hetied around his waist with a belt of leather or of knitted yarn. Thewomen also used this _étoffe_ for skirts, but their waists and summerdresses were of calico, homemade as well. As for the children, most ofthem ran about in the summer months wearing next to nothing at all. Asingle garment without sleeves and reaching to the knees was all thatcovered their nakedness. For all ages and for both sexes there werefurs in plenty for winter use. Beaver skins were cheap, in some yearsabout as cheap as cloth. When properly treated they were soft andpliable, and easily made into clothes, caps, and mittens. 

Most of the footwear was made at home, usually from deerhides. Inwinter every one wore the _bottes sauvages_, or oiled moccasins lacedup halfway or more to the knees. They were proof against cold and wereserviceable for use with snowshoes. Between them and his feet thehabitant wore two or more pairs of heavy woolen socks made fromcoarse homespun yarn. In summer the women and children of the ruralcommunities usually went barefoot so that the soles of their feetgrew as tough as pigskin; the men sometimes did likewise, but morefrequently they wore, in the fields or in the forest, clogs made ofcowhide. 

On the week-days of summer every one wore a straw hat which the womenof the household spent part of each winter in plaiting. In coldweather the knitted _tuque_ made in vivid colors was the greatfavorite. It was warm and picturesque. Each section of the colonyhad its own color; the habitants in the vicinity of Quebec wore blue_tuques_, while those around Montreal preferred red. The apparel ofthe people was thus in general adapted to the country, and it had adistinctiveness that has not yet altogether passed away. 

On Sundays and on the numerous days of festival, however, the habitantand his family brought out their best. To Mass the men wore clothesof better texture and high, beaver hats, the women appeared in theirbrighter plumage of dresses with ribbons and laces imported fromFrance. Such finery was brought over in so large a quantity that morethan one _mémoire_ to the home government censured the "spirit ofextravagance" of which this was one outward manifestation. In thetowns the officials and the well-to-do merchants dressed elaboratelyon all occasions of ceremony, with scarlet cloaks and perukes, buckledslippers and silk stockings. In early Canada there was no austerity ofgarb such as we find in Puritan New England. New France on a _jour defête_ was a blaze of color. 

As for his daily fare, the habitant was never badly off even in theyears when harvests were poor. He had food that was more nourishingand more abundant than the French peasant had at home. Bread was madefrom both wheat and rye flour, the product of the seigneurial mills. Corn cakes were baked in Indian fashion from ground maize. Fat saltedpork was a staple during the winter, and nearly every habitant laidaway each autumn a smoked supply of eels from the river. Game of allsorts he could get with little trouble at any time, wild ducks andgeese, partridges, for there were in those days no game laws toprotect them. In the early winter, likewise, it was indeed a lucklesshabitant who could not also get a caribou or two for his larder. Following the Indian custom, the venison was smoked and hung on thekitchen beams, where it kept for months until needed. Salted or smokedfish had also to be provided for family use, since the usages of theChurch 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 suitedfor this branch of husbandry. Peas were the great stand-by, and in theold days whole families were reared upon _soupe aux pois_, which was, and may even still be said to be, the national dish of the FrenchCanadians. Beans, cucumbers, melons, and a dozen other products werealso grown in the family gardens. There were potatoes, which thehabitant called _palates_ and not _pommes de terre_, but they werealmost a rarity until the closing days of the Old Régime. Wild fruits, chiefly raspberries, blueberries, and wild grapes, grew in abundanceamong the foothills and were gathered in great quantities everysummer. There was not much orchard fruit, although some seedling treeswere brought from France and had managed to become acclimated. 

On the whole, even in the humbler homes there was no need for any oneto go hungry. The daily fare of the people was not of great variety, but it was nourishing, and there was plenty of it save in rareinstances. More than one visitor to the colony was impressed by therude comfort in which the people lived, even though they made nopretense of being well-to-do. "In New France, " wrote Charlevoix, "poverty is hidden behind an air of comfort, " while the gossipy LaHontan was of the opinion that "the boors of these seigneuries livewith, greater comfort than an infinity of the gentlemen in France. "Occasionally, when the men were taken from the fields to serve in thedefense of the colony against the English attacks, the harvests weresmall and the people had to spend the ensuing winter on short rations. Yet, as the authorities assured the King, they were "robust, vigorous, and able in time of need to live on little. "

As for beverages, the habitant was inordinately fond of sour milk. Teawas scarce and costly. Brandy was imported in huge quantities, and notall this _eau-de-vie_, as some writers imagine, went into the Indiantrade. The people themselves consumed most of it. Every parish in thecolony had its grog-shop; in 1725 the King ordered that no parishshould have more than two. Quebec had a dozen or more, and complaintwas made that the people flocked to these resorts early in themorning, thus rendering themselves unfit for work during most of theday, and soon ruining their health into the bargain. There is no doubtthat the people of New France were fond of the flagon, for not onlythe priests but the civil authorities complained of this failing. Idleness due to the numerous holidays and to the long winters combinedwith the tradition of hospitality to encourage this taste. Thehabitants were fond of visiting one another, and hospitality demandedon every such occasion the proffer of something to drink. On the otherhand, the scenes of debauchery which a few chroniclers have describedwere not typical of the colony the year round. When the ships camein with their cargoes, there was a great indulgence in feasting anddrink, and the excesses at this time were sure to impress the casualvisitor. But when the fleet had weighed anchor and departed forFrance, there was a quick return to the former quietness and to areasonable measure of sobriety. 

Tobacco was used freely. "Every farmer, " wrote Kalm, "plants aquantity of tobacco near his house because it is universally smoked. Boys of twelve years of age often run about with the pipe in theirmouths. " The women were smokers, too, but more commonly they usedtobacco in the form of snuff. In those days, as in our own, thisFrench-Canadian tobacco was strong stuff, cured in the sun till theleaves were black, and when smoked emitting an odor that scented thewhole parish. The art of smoking a pipe was one of several profitlesshabits which, the Frenchman lost little time in acquiring from hisIndian friends. 

This convivial temperament of the inhabitants of New France has beennoted by more than one contemporary. The people did not spend alltheir energies and time at hard labor. From October, when the cropswere in, until May, when the season of seedtime came again, there was, indeed, little hard work for them to do. Aside from the cutting offirewood and the few household chores the day was free, and thehabitants therefore spent it in driving about and visiting neighbors, drinking and smoking, dancing and playing cards. Winter, accordingly, was the great social season in the country as well as in the town. 

The chief festivities occurred at Michaelmas, Christmas, Easter, andMay Day. Of these, the first and the last were closely connected withthe seigneurial system. On Michaelmas the habitant came to pay theannual rental for his lands; on May Day he rendered the Maypole homagewhich, has been already described. Christmas and Easter were the greatfestivals of the Church and as such were celebrated with religiousfervor and solemnity. In addition, minor festivals, chiefly religiousin character, were numerous, so much so that their frequency even inthe months of cultivation was the subject of complaint by the civilauthorities, who felt that these holidays took altogether toomuch time from labor. Sunday was a day not only of worship but ofrecreation. Clad in his best raiment, every one went to Mass, whateverthe distance or the weather. The parish church indeed was the emblemof village solidarity, for it gathered within its walls each Sundaymorning all sexes and ages and ranks. The habitant did notseparate his religion from his work or his amusements; the outwardmanifestations of his faith were not to his mind things of anotherworld; the church and its priests were the center and soul of hislittle community. The whole countryside gathered about the churchdoors after the service while the _capitaine de la côte_, the localrepresentative of the intendant, read the decrees that had been sentto him from the seals of the mighty at the Château de St. Louis. Thatduty over, there was a garrulous interchange of local gossip with aretailing of such news as had dribbled through from France. The crowdthen melted away in groups to spend the rest of the day in games ordancing or in friendly visits of one family with another. 

Especially popular among the young people of each parish were the_corvées récréatives_, or "bees" as we call them nowadays in ourrural communities. There were the _épuchlette_ or corn-husking, the _brayage_ or flax-beating, and others of the same sort. Theharvest-home or _grosse-gerbe_, celebrated when the last load had beenbrought in from the fields, and the _Ignolée_ or welcoming of the NewYear, were also occasions of goodwill, noise, and revelry. Dancingwas by all odds the most popular pastime, and every parish had itsfiddler, who was quite as indispensable a factor in the life of thevillage as either the smith or the notary. Every wedding was theoccasion for terpsichorean festivities which lasted all day long. 

The habitant liked to sing, especially when working with others in thewoods or when on the march. The voyageurs relieved the tedium of theirlong journeys by breaking into song at intervals. But the popularrepertoire was limited to a few folksongs, most of them songs of OldFrance. They were easy to learn, simple to sing, but sprightly andmelodious. Some of them have remained on the lips and in the hearts ofthe French-Canadian race for over two hundred years. Those who do notknow the _Claire fontaine_ and _Ma boulë roulant_ have never knownFrench Canada. The _forêtier_ of today still goes to the woodschanting the _Malbrouck s'en va-t-en guerre_ which his ancestorscaroled in the days of Blenheim and Malplaquet. When the habitantsang, moreover, it was in no pianissimo tones; he was lusty andcheerful about giving vent to his buoyant spirits. And his descendantof today has not lost that propensity. 

The folklore of the old dominion, unlike the folk music, wasextensive. Some of it came with the colonists from their Normanfiresides, but more, perhaps, was the outcome of a superstitiouspopular imagination working in the new and strange environment of thewilderness. The habitant had a profound belief in the supernatural, and was prone to associate miraculous handiwork with every unusualevent. He peopled the earth and the air, the woods and the rivulets, with spirits of diverse forms and varied motives. The red man'sabounding superstition, likewise, had some influence upon thehabitant's highstrung temperament. At any rate, New France was full oflegends and weird tales. Every island, every cove in the river, hadone or more associated with it. Most of these legends had some morallessons attached to them: they were tales of disaster which came fromdisobeying the teachings of the Church or of miraculous escape fromdeath or perdition due to the supernatural rewarding of righteousness. Taken together, they make up a wholesome and vigorous body offolklore, reflecting both the mystic temper of the colony and thereligious fervor of its common life. A distinguished son of FrenchCanada has with great industry gathered these legends together, aservice for which posterity will be grateful. [1]

[Footnote 1: Sir J. M. Lemoine, _Legends of the St. Lawrence_ (Quebec, 1878). ]

Various chroniclers have left us pen portraitures of the habitant asthey saw him in the olden days. Charlevoix, La Hontan, Hocquart, andPeter Kalm, men of widely different tastes and aptitudes, all beartestimony to his vigor, stamina, and native-born vivacity. He wascourteous and polite always, yet there was no flavor of servility inthis most benign trait of character. It was bred in his bone andwas fostered by the teachings of his church. Along with this went a_bonhomie_ and a lightheartedness, a touch of personal vanity, with aliking for display and ostentation, which unhappily did not make forthrift. The habitant "enjoys what he has got, " writes Charlevoix, "andoften makes a display of what he has not got. " He was also fondof honors, even minor ones, and plumed himself on the slightestrecognition from official circles. Habitants who by years of hardlabor had saved enough to buy some uncleared seigneury strutted aboutwith the airs of genuine aristocrats while their wives, in the wordsof Governor Denonville, "essayed to play the fine lady. " More than oneintendant was amused by this broad streak of vanity in the colonialcharacter. "Every one here, " wrote Meulles, "begins by calling himselfan esquire and ends by thinking himself a nobleman. "

Yet despite this attempt to keep up appearances, the people werepoor. Clearing the land was a slow process, and the cultivable areaavailable for the support of each household was small. Early marriageswere the rule, and families of a dozen or more children had to besupported from the produce of a few _arpents_. To maintain such afamily as this every one had to work hard in the growing season, andeven the women went to the fields in the harvest-time. One seriousshortcoming of the habitant was his lack of steadfastness in labor. There was a roving strain in his Norman blood. He could not stay longat any one job; there was a restlessness in his temperament whichwould not down. He would leave his fields unploughed in order to gohunting or to turn a few _sous_ in some small trading adventure. Unstable as water, he did not excel in tasks that required patience. But he could do a great many things after a fashion, and some thatcould be done quickly he did surprisingly well. 

One racial characteristic which drew comment from observers of the daywas the litigious disposition of the people. The habitant would havemade lawsuits his chief diversion had he been permitted to do so. "Ifthis propensity be not curbed, " wrote the intendant Raudot, "therewill soon be more lawsuits in this country than there are persons. "The people were not quarrelsome in the ordinary sense, but they werevery jealous each one of his private rights, and the opportunities forlitigation over such matters seemed to provide themselves without end. Lands were given to settlers without accurate description of theirboundaries; farms were unfenced and cattle wandered into neighboringfields; the notaries themselves were almost illiterate, and as aresult scarcely a legal document in the colony was properly drawn. Nobody lacked pretexts for controversy. Idleness during the winter wasalso a contributing factor. But the Church and the civil authoritiesfrowned upon this habit of rushing to court with every trivialcomplaint. _Curés_ and seigneurs did what they could to have suchdifficulties settled amicably at home, and in a considerable measurethey succeeded. 

New France was born and nurtured in an atmosphere of religiousdevotion. To the habitant the Church was everything--his school, hiscounselor, his almsgiver, his newspaper, his philosopher of thingspresent and of things to come. To him it was the source of allknowledge, experience, and inspiration, and to it he never faltered inungrudging loyalty. The Church made the colony a spiritual unit andkept it so; undefiled by any taint of heresy. It furnished the onestrong, well-disciplined organization that New France possessed, andits missionaries blazed the way for both yeoman and trader whereverthey went. 

Many traits of the race have been carried on to the present daywithout substantial change. The habitant of the old dominion was avoluble talker, a teller of great stories about his own feats of skilland endurance, his hair-raising escapes, or his astounding prowesswith musket and fishing-line. Stories grew in terms of prodigiousachievement as they passed from tongue to tongue, and the scant regardfor anything approaching the truth in these matters became a nationaleccentricity. The habitant was boastful in all that concerned himselfor his race; never did a people feel more firmly assured that it wasthe salt of the earth. He was proud of his ancestry, and proud of hisallegiance; and so are his descendants of today even though theirallegiance has changed. 

To speak of the habitants of New France as downtrodden or oppressed, dispirited or despairing, like the peasantry of the old land in thedays before the great Revolution, as some historians have done, is tospeak untruthfully. These people were neither serfs nor peons. Thehabitant, as Charlevoix puts it, "breathed from his birth the air ofliberty"; he had his rights and he maintained them. Shut off from therest of the world, knowing only what the Church and civil governmentallowed him to know, he became provincial in his horizon andconservative in his habits of mind. The paternal policy of theauthorities sapped his initiative and left him little scope forpersonal enterprise, so that he passed for being a dull fellow. Yetthe annals of forest trade and Indian diplomacy prove that the NewWorld possessed no sharper wits than his. Beneath a somewhat ungainlyexterior the yeoman and the trader of New France concealed qualitiesof cunning, tact, and quick judgment to a surprising degree. 

These various types in the population of New France, officials, missionaries, seigneurs, voyageurs, habitants, were all the scions ofa proud race, admirably fitted to form the rank and file in a greatcrusade. It was not their fault that France failed to dominate theWestern Hemisphere. 

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

On the earlier voyages of discovery to the northern coasts of the NewWorld the most informing book is H. P. Biggar's _Precursors of JacquesCartier_ (Ottawa, 1911). Hakluyt's _Voyages_ contain an Englishtranslation of Cartier's own writings which cover the whole ofthe first two expeditions and a portion of the third. Champlain'sjournals, which describe in detail his sea voyages and inland trips ofexploration during the years 1604-1618 inclusive, were translated intoEnglish and published by the Prince Society of Boston during the years1878-1882. 

For further discussions of these explorations and of the various othertopics dealt with in this book the reader may be referred to severalworks in the _Chronicles of Canada_ (32 vols. Toronto, 1914-1916), namely, to Stephen Leacock's _Dawn of Canadian History_ and _Marinerof St. Malo_; Charles W. Colby's _Founder of New France_ and _TheFighting Governor_; Thomas Chapais's _Great Intendant_; Thomas G. Marquis's _Jesuit Missions_, also to _Seigneurs of Old Canada_ and_Coureurs-de-Bois_ by the author of the present volume. In each ofthese books, moreover, further bibliographical references covering theseveral topics are provided. 

The series known as _Canada and Its Provinces_ (22 vols. And index, Toronto, 1914) contains accurate and readable chapters upon everyphase of Canadian history, political, military, social, economic, andliterary. The first two volumes of this series deal with the Frenchregime. Mention should also be made of the biographical seriesdealing with _The Makers of Canada_ (22 vols. Toronto, 1905-1914) andespecially to the biographies of Champlain, Laval, and Frontenac whichthis series includes among its earlier volumes. 

The writings of Francis Parkman, notably his _Pioneers of New France, Old Régime in Canada, Jesuits in North America, La Salle and theDiscovery of the Great West_, and _Count Frontenac_ are of the highestinterest and value. Although given to the world nearly two generationsago, these volumes still hold an unchallenged supremacy over all otherbooks relating to this field of American history. 

Other works which may be commended to readers who seek pleasure aswell as instruction from books of history are the following:

PÈRE F. -X. CHARLEVOIX, _Histoire et description générale de laNouvelle-France_, translated by John Gilmary Shea (6 vols. N. Y. , 1866-1872). 

C. W. COLBY, _Canadian Types of the Old Régime_ (N. Y. , 1908). 

A. G. DOUGHTY, _A Daughter of New France_ (Edinburgh, 1916). 

JAMES DOUGLAS, _Old France in the New World_ (Cleveland, 1906). 

F. -X. GARNEAU, _Histoire du Canada_ (5th ed. By Hector Garneau, Paris, 1913. As yet only the first volume of this edition has appeared. )

P. KALM, _Travels into North America_ (2 vols. London, 1772). 

LE BARON DE LA HONTAN, _New Voyages to North_ _America_ (ed. R. G. Thwaites. 2 vols. Chicago, 1905). 

MARC LESCARBOT, _Histoire de la Nouvelle-France_ (translated by W. L. Grant. 3 vols. Toronto, 1907-1914. Publications of the ChamplainSociety). 

FREDERIC A. OGG, _The Opening of the Mississippi_ (N. Y. , 1904). 

A. SALONE, _La colonisation de la Nouvelle-France_ (Paris, 1905). 

G. M. WRONG, _A Canadian Manor and its Seigneurs_ (Toronto, 1908). 

For further references the reader should consult, in _TheEncyclopaedia Britannica_, the articles on _France, Canada, Louis XIV, Richelieu, Colbert_, and _The Jesuits_. 

Index

Algonquins, The, act as guides to Champlain, 41; friendly to the French, 45Anticosti, Island of, 19, 20_Arrêts of Marly_ (1711), 143

Belle Isle, 18, 19, 20Bigot, François, 68Brébeuf, Jean de, Jesuit missionary, 56Brouage, birthplace of Champlain, 33

Cambrai, Peace of (1729), 15Canada, _see_ New FranceCap Rouge, Cartier winters at, 26; Roberval winters at, 28Cartier, Jacques, sets out on first voyage of discovery, (1534), 16; a corsair, 16; former voyages, 17; reaches New World, 18; purpose of expedition, 19; returns home, 19; begins second voyage, 19-20; his ships, 20; winters at Stadacona, 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 patron, Roberval, 27; personal characteristics, 29; later life, 29; death (1557), 29; bibliography, 29Catalogne, Gedéon de, makes survey and maps of Quebec region (1712), 143-44; makes agricultural census, 184Cataraqui (Kingston), fort established at, 85-86; La Salle receives grant of land at, 103_Chaleurs, Baie des_, 18Champlain, Samuel de, born at Brouage (1567), 33; sails with expedition of De Chastes (1603), 33; personal characteristics, 33-34; embarks as chief geographer (1604), 35; winters at St. Croix, 36-37; _Order de Bon Temps_, 38; returns to France, 39; sails again for the St. Lawrence (1608), 39; raid against the Iroquois, 41; seeks western passage to Cathay, 44; takes journeys into interior (1613 and 1616), 44-47; journals, 47; as viceroy's deputy, 48; surrenders to English, 51-52; returns to Quebec as representative of Company of One Hundred Associates, 52; death (1635), 53; appreciation of, 53-54Champlain, Lake, 41Chastes, Amyar, Sieur de, 32, 33, 34. Chauvin of Honfleur, 32Church in New France, loyalty to, 113; Récollets, 115; Jesuits, 116 _et seq_. ; aid to civil power, 127-28; revenues, 129-130; _see also_ JesuitsColbert, Jean Baptiste, personal characteristics, 8; interest in colonial ventures, 8-9; plans for French interest, 60-61; plans fleet of merchant vessels, 197-98Courcelle, Daniel de Rémry, Sieur de, Governor of New France, 75Coureurs-de-bois, attack Indians (1687), 95-96; kind of men engaged as, 161-62; number, 162-63; leaders, 163-64; methods of trading, 165 et seq. ; licenses granted to, 172Crèvecoeur, Fort, 106, 107

D'Ailleboust, Governor of New France, 55Denonville, Marquis de, Governor of New France, 94Donnacona, head of Indian village, 23Duchesneau, Jacques, Intendant of New France, 88; quarrels with Frontenac, 89-91; recalled, 91Du Lhut, Daniel Greysolon, 87, 95, 131Dumesnil, Péronne, 73

Education in New France, 130-132England, early explorations, 15, 16; colonial ventures, 49

Five nations, appellation of the Iroquois Indians, 42France in the seventeenth century, population, 1, 3; army, 1; power and prestige, 2-4; outstripped in commerce, 3; racial qualities, 3-4; government, 4-5; church, 5; tardiness in American colonization, 6-8; weakness of colonial policy, 10-14Frontenac, Louis de Buade, Count, chosen to carry out colonial policy, 9; sent as Governor to Quebec (1672), 80; early life, 80; personal characteristics, 81-82; inauguration, 83; plans checked by King, 83-84; expansion policy, 84 et seq. ; builds fort at Cataraqui, 86; opposed by Bishop and Intendant, 89-91; recalled (1682), 91; returns to Quebec as Governor (1689), 97-98: death (1698), 98Frontenac, Fort, 85-86, 103, 108Fur trade with the Indians, 155 et seq. 

Gallican branch of the Catholic Church, 5, 114Gaspé Bay, 18Georgian Bay, Champlain's journey to, 46-47Giffard, Robert, 142Green Bay, 163_Griffin_, The, ship, 104-105, 106

Habitants, 147-51, 207-26Hakluyt, account of meeting of Cartier and Roberval, 27Hébert, Louis, 137Hennepin, Louis, Récollet friar, 104Hochelaga (Montreal), 21-22, 26, 34Huguenots excluded from Canada, 195-96Hurons, The, act as guides to Champlain, 41; friendly to the French, 45-46; destroyed by the Iroquois, 55-56; Jesuits among, 118-19Hurons, Lake of the, _see_ Georgian Bay

Illinois River, La Salle reaches, 106, 109Indians, hostility toward Cartier, 26; fur trade with, 156 et seq. ; effect of trade upon, 178; _see also_ Algonquins, Hurons, Iroquois, OnondagasIrondequoit Bay, 102Iroquois, The, Champlain's encounter with, 41-43; friends of English, enemies of French, 42-43; troubles with, 56-58, 74-78, 93 _et seq_. 

Jesuit _Relations_, 54, 119-20, 132Jesuits, The, settle Montreal, 54-55; oppose Frontenac, 88; come to Canada (1625), 115-16; characteristics, 110, 117-18; missionaries to Indians, 118 _et seq_. ; progress among French settlers, 122 _et seq_. ; service to trade interests, 156-58Joliet, Louis, 103, 164

Kalm, Peter, _Travels_, 185-86, 188Kirke, Sir David, Commander of English privateers, 51

La Barre, Le Febvre de, Governor of New France, 92-94, 109La Durantaye, Olivier Morel de, 95, 164La Forêt, François Dauphine de, 87, 95, 163Lalemant, Jesuit missionary, 56La Mothe-Cadillac, Antoine de 87, 163La Roche, Sieur de, 32La Salle, René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de, foremost among French pathfinders, 87; born (1643), 100; comes to Montreal (1666), 100-01; equips expedition (1669), 102; receives trading 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 of, 111-12Lauzon, Jean de, Governor of New France, 57Laval, François-Xavier de, Abbé de Montigny, Bishop of Quebec, arrives in New France (1659), 58; friction with civil authorities, 58-69; relations with Mézy, 72-73; returns to colony, 88; opposed to Frontenac, 89 _et seq_. ; born (1622), 124; personal characteristics, 125-26; opposed to liquor traffic. 126-27Law, John, 67Le Caron, Joseph, Récollet, missionary, 46Le Moyne, Jesuit missionary, 57Lescarbot, Marc, 38Liquor traffic with the Indians, 126-27, 173-78Longueuil, Baron de, 142Louis XIV, centralization of power under, 4-5; interest in colonial ventures, 9; assumes power (1658), 60; edict of 1663, 62-63; personal interest in New France, 70-71

Maisonneuve, Paul de Chomedey, Sieur de, 54-55Mance, Jeanne, 55Marquette, Jacques, Jesuit missionary, 103Matagorda Bay, 110Mazarin, Jules, not interested in colonial ventures, 8Meules, Intendant of New France, 93Mézy, de, Governor of New France, 72-74Miami, Fort, 108Michilimackinac, 105, 108Mingan Islands, 20Mississippi River, La Salle reaches, 108Montmagny, Charles Jacques Huault. Sieur de, 54, 55Montreal, settled, 54-55; annual fur fair at, 166-71; _see also_ HochelagaMonts, Pierre du Guast, Sieur de, granted trade monopoly, 35; organizes company, 35-39; loses influence at court, 48

New France, reflects old France, 10, 14; difficulty of communication with Europe, 12-13; population (1663), 61-62; colonial intendant, 67-69; administration, 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; effect 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 organization, 203 et seq. ; seigneurs, 206-07; homes of habitants, 207-11; clothing, 211-13; food, 213-17; use of tobacco, 217; festivities, 217-21; folklore, 221-22; poverty of habitants, 223; litigious disposition of people, 224-25; religion, 225; characteristics of people, 225-26; types of population, 227; bibliography, 229-31New France, Company of, _see_ One Hundred Associates, Company ofNewfoundland, Cartier's expeditions rests at, 18Niagara, fort rebuilt by Denonville, 96; La Salle builds post at, 104

Old Council, 55One Hundred Associates, Company of, organization, 50; powers and duties, 50-51; 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, 196Onondagas, The, Champlain's attack upon, 46Ontario, Lake, 46Ottawa River, 44

Perrot, Nicholas, 95, 163Pontgravé of St. Malo, 32, 29Port Royal (Annapolis), 36, 37Portugal, early explorations, 15, 16; colonial ventures, 49Poutrincourt, Biencourt de, 35, 36, 38

Quebec, Champlain settles, 39-40; population, 48; surrenders to English, 51-52; burns, 93; pivot of social life, 204-05; _see also_ Stadacona

Récollets, The, 115Richelieu, Cardinal, interest in colonial ventures under, 7-8; becomes chief minister of Louis XIII, 49; prevails upon King to organize colonizing company (1627), 50; interest in New France not lasting, 60Richelieu River, 41Roberval, Jean François de la Roque, Sieur de, enlists services of Cartier, 25-26, meets Cartier returning to France, 27; winters at Cap Rouge, 28Rouen, birthplace of La Salle, 100

Sable Island, 32Saguenay River, 34St. Croix, 36-37St. Germain-en-Laye, Treaty of (1632), 52St. John's, Newfoundland, 27§t. Lawrence, Gulf of, 18St. Louis, Fort, 109St. Malo, 16-17, 19, 25, 29St. Maurice, 28Seigneurs of New France, 133 et seq. , 206-07Sovereign Council, 63-66Spain, early explorations, 15, 16; colonial ventures, 49Stadacona (Lower Quebec), 21, 26, 39Sully, Due de, opposed to colonial ventures, 7Sulpicians, The, 102, 128Superior Council, _see_ Sovereign Council

Talon, Jean, first Intendant of New France (1665), 63; arrives in Quebec, 66-67, 68, 75; report to the King, 80-81; fosters industries, 188-89; plans trade with West Indies and France, 197-98Three Rivers, 28, 53Ticonderoga, fight between French and Indians at, 41Tocqueville, de, French historian, 10Tonty, Henri de, 87, 95, 104, 163Tracy, Prouville de, 74-78

Ursulines, The, 128

Vignau tells Champlain of English shipwreck, 44-45

West Indies, Company of the, 78, 196, 197