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Old Quebec: The Fortress of New France, a non-fiction book by Gilbert Parker |
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Chapter 2. The Era Of Champlain |
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_ CHAPTER II. THE ERA OF CHAMPLAIN The name of Champlain must ever stand before all others in the history of Quebec. He was the founder of the city, and for more than a quarter of a century he was its very life. If repeated disappointment and misfortune could have brought this great empire-builder to despair; if obstacles apparently impossible to overcome could have turned the hero from his purpose, Quebec would not be to-day the oldest city in the western hemisphere. As it was, his character gave the keynote not only to the great fortress-capital, but to the whole history of New France. He was an embodiment at once of the religious zeal and of the mediaeval spirit of romance which carried the Bourbon lilies into the trackless wilderness of North America, at a time when English colonisation contented itself with a narrow strip on the Atlantic seaboard. Samuel de Champlain was born in 1567 at the small seaport of Brouage, on the Bay of Biscay. His father was a captain in the French navy, in which profession the son also received early training. In the conflict between the King and the rebellious Duc de Mercoeur and the League, Champlain was found on the Royalist side; and Henry the Fourth rewarded his faithful subject with a pension and a place at court. But the war in Brittany was not long over before Champlain became restless. The spirit of adventure beat strong in his veins, and at length he determined upon a project which, while it should serve the purpose of the King, was also well spiced with peril. Proceeding to Cadiz, where his uncle was Pilot-General of the Spanish marine, Champlain obtained command of one of the ships in Don Francisco Colombo's fleet, bound for the West Indies. On this voyage he was absent from France more than two years, visiting not only the West Indies, but also Mexico and Central America. On his return, these travels gave him an unusual importance at the French court; and when, in 1603, the aged De Chastes, Governor of Dieppe, decided to seal his pious life with an enterprise for the King and for the Church, the adventurous Champlain became the instrument of his purpose. De Chastes' two small vessels set sail from Honfleur, one commanded by Pontgrave, the other by Champlain. The voyage was long but uneventful. Pontgrave's former trading-post at Tadousac had been abandoned, and they held their lonely way up the St. Lawrence, past the mantling rock of Stadacone, on to the wooded heights of Hochelaga. Cartier's Indian village of sixty-eight years before had disappeared--undoubtedly swept from existence by the relentless Iroquois. At this point, however, the foaming St. Louis rapids barred their way, and the caravels were turned homeward. With wind and current down the river, and out through the Gulf, in due season they came safely to Havre de Grace. In their absence the Sieur de Chastes had died; but De Monts, another courtier at the Louvre, succeeded to the patent for colonising in the New World. Exploration was not to rest, and Champlain and the Baron de Poutrincourt accompanied the new Deputy in his Acadian expedition of 1604. Once more the Atlantic was crossed. Passing Cap la Heve the explorers sought a suitable site for their colony along this coast, and when they reached the beautiful basin of Annapolis, hemmed in by a circle of wooded hills, the artistic Poutrincourt was charmed, and forthwith obtained from De Monts a private grant of the surrounding country. He established his demesne here, naming the place Port Royal, while Champlain and De Monts, continuing their way around the Bay of Fundy, came at length to the bleak island of St. Croix, where they founded their colony. There is no need to present fully the vicissitudes of the tiny settlement. Scurvy and the rigours of the first winter carried off thirty-five colonists out of a total of seventy-nine. The winter of 1606-1607 was happily much less severe; moreover, Champlain's "Ordre de Bon-Temps," and Lescarbot's wit and gaiety contributed to cheer the shivering exiles. In the spring, however, the first ship from St. Malo brought bad news from France. The enemies of De Monts at home had triumphed, and had persuaded the King to cancel the charter of the Deputy. In a way this contretemps led to the founding of Quebec. Although De Monts was no longer Lieutenant-General of Acadia, he was yet unwilling to give up the scheme which appealed so strongly to his adventurous nature. On his return to Paris, his influence had been sufficient to secure for one year a monopoly of the new fur trade. Champlain, cherishing the memory of the voyage of the previous year, persuaded him that the valley of the St. Lawrence would serve his purpose better even than Acadia, and between them they planned an expedition in which profit and adventure were evenly mingled. Two ships were fitted out--the one commanded by Champlain, the other by the elder Pontgrave. The latter was to revive the old trading-station of Tadousac, while Champlain was to establish, further inland, a fortified post from which expeditions might set forth to find the hoped-for passage to Cathay. Pontgrave sailed from Honfleur on the 5th of April, 1608, Champlain following on the 13th of the same month. His was the first ship to carry a permanent colony to New France. Crossing the wide gulf by Anticosti, the little vessel of Champlain stopped at Tadousac to do a timely service for his colleague who was now further up the river. The stately grandeur of the scene was not new to Champlain. Five years before he had glided past the yawning canyon through which the dark Saguenay rushed down from the north; he had gazed upon the blue sky-line of the Laurentian mountains; in the caravel of De Chastes the surging tide had carried him past the Isle of Bacchus and the milky cataract of Montmorency. Anon the channel narrows; on the left are the Heights of Levi, and on the right a frowning cliff shoulders far into the stream. Here ancient Stadacone stood; but the Iroquois passed over it long since, and the village is gone. On this spot Champlain decided to establish his post, and what site could be more suitable than that found by the Breton mariners as they rounded the point of Orleans? They had entered a beautiful harbour where an armada might safely ride at anchor. On their left the Heights of Levi formed the southern boundary of the glistening basin; on their right, a tiny river murmured through the lowlands; and beyond it a rugged promontory thrust into the current a tower of rock, commanding the narrow channel into which the mighty St. Lawrence was here compressed. The solitude of a forest wilderness now hung over the site of Stadacone. On the narrow wooded strand at the base of this rocky eyrie, Champlain made a landing. Trees were felled, and in the clearing the log foundations of "L'Habitation" were laid. Ere the summer ended it was completed; and a sketch from Champlain's own unskilled pencil has preserved its grotesque likeness. First of all there was a moat, then a staunch wall of logs, with loopholes for musketry, and, inside, three buildings and a courtyard. Over all rose a dove-cot, quaintly mediaeval, and prettily symbolical of Champlain's peaceful invasion. But Indians were Indians, and two or three small cannon were accordingly mounted on salient platforms on the riverside. A large storehouse was also built inside the palisade; and presently Champlain laid out a flower garden. In preparing against foes without, however, Champlain had taken no thought for foes within. Not all of the little company had the same enthusiasm as their leader, and a plot was set on foot to destroy him, and sell Quebec to the Spaniards and the Basques. Fortunately the fidelity of his pilot saved Champlain from assassination. Warning reached him in time, and he dealt fearlessly and rigorously with the mutinous crew. The four ringleaders were decoyed on board a pinnace from Tadousac, and seized and put in irons. The body of the chief conspirator swung next morning from the cross-trees, and his three companions were sent back to the galleys of France. A free pardon for the minor malcontents secured their loyalty from that time forward. In September, Pontgrave set sail for France, and Champlain and his twenty-eight companions made ready for the winter. Frost and snow came early that year, and a devastating scurvy invaded the Habitation. The improvident Montagnais huddled in their birch tepees about the fort, raving for food, and perishing with disease; while of the twenty-eight Frenchmen there were only eight despairing survivors to greet the returning spring. On the 5th of June, however, Pontgrave's ship again arrived at Quebec, to the joy of Champlain and his stricken companions. Summer warmed their enthusiasm anew, and the dauntless explorer now thought only of pressing on westward to Cathay. To further this project, he consented to ally himself with the Hurons and Algonquins in an attack upon the Iroquois, and for several days their dusky allies swarmed in and around Quebec. At length, towards the end of June, the war-party set out. Champlain embarked in a shallop with eleven men, armed with arquebuse and match-lock, sword and breast-plate; and the painted, shrilling foresters swarmed up the river in their bark canoes. From the St. Lawrence they passed into the Iroquois River.[4] After destroying one of the Mohawk towns, the victorious raiders returned to Quebec. Champlain, "the man with the iron breast," had cemented his alliance with the northern tribes, and from this time forth Quebec became the great emporium for the fur trade of the continent.
Meanwhile, De Monts had wearied of his New World enterprise, and to secure the interests of his colony Champlain was constrained to make annual voyages to France. In 1612 he found a protector in the Comte de Soissons, who appointed the discoverer his deputy in New France. Soissons, however, died in the same year; but fortunately the Prince of Conde, by whom he was succeeded, was also well-disposed, and retained Champlain as his lieutenant. Up to this time Quebec had realised only an elementary form of colonisation. The entire population numbered less than fifty persons, and the city consisted of the fortified post at the foot of the cliff, with a few cabins clustering about the log palisades. But on his visit to France in 1615, Champlain took a step forward in his policy. Hitherto the dwellers at Quebec had been transients. They came not to take up residence, but to trade, intending to return again to France as soon as possible. The fear of a death unshriven likewise contributed to tentative settlement; and to meet the latter want, Champlain resolved to establish a church in his colony. Four Recollet friars--Franciscans of the Strict Observance--were easily persuaded to return with him to Quebec. Burning with holy zeal, they confessed their sins, received absolution, and embarked at Honfleur on the 24th of April, 1615. A month later they arrived at Tadousac, and sailed on to Quebec. Every new arrival increased the surprise of the bewildered Indians, who gazed with suspicion upon the four mendicant friars, in their coarse, gray _soutanes_ girt at the waist with the knotted cord of St. Francis of Assisi, and wearing peaked _capotes_ and thick wooden sandals. The site of the first church in New France was selected without delay. It stood on the strand near the Cul-de-sac, a little distance from the Habitation. Its construction was simple and speedy, and before the end of June the half-hundred citizens of Quebec knelt upon the bare ground and reverently listened to the first Mass ever said in Canada. The guns of the ship in the harbour, and the cannon on the ramparts, boomed forth in honour of the event. That day the priesthood began its long _regime_. The colonial policy of New France had now been definitely shaped. Henceforth this new Power would stride into the wilderness with the crucifix in one hand and the sword in the other--for God and for the King; by baptism, binding the heathen to the faith, and by co-operation with the native tribes against the Iroquois, making Quebec the heart and soul of the vast Indian country, whose boundaries no one knew, and whose wealth none could divine. In pursuance of this policy, Father Dolbeau, with much suffering, accompanied the roving Montagnais to their northern hunting-grounds. Their wanderings were so wide that, before he returned, the priest had encountered the Esquimaux of Labrador. Meanwhile, Pere Joseph made his way to the Sault St. Louis, where a mighty concourse of savages was assembled; and when the war-conference was ended he went back with the Hurons to their villages. Champlain and Etienne Brule, the most daring bushman in New France, followed him thither by way of the Ottawa, Lake Nipissing, French River, and the Georgian Bay. Thus Lake Huron was discovered. Then, from Cahiague, the Huron capital, set out the memorable war-party of 1615, which came near to altering the fate of the Colony. Up the Severn, across Lake Simcoe, thence by portage route to the valley of the Trent, they arrived at Lake Ontario. Crossing to the south shore, they hid their canoes in the forest and were soon in Iroquois territory; but when they came within sight of the Onondaga town, Champlain was no longer able to control his naked allies, and in spite of his precautions they rushed the palisade, only to be beaten back and scattered. The muskets of the twelve Frenchmen alone saved a rout, Champlain himself being wounded; and with much chagrin the dispersed Hurons made their way back to Lake Ontario. They refused even to escort their wounded leader to Quebec as they had promised, and he was obliged to spend the winter in the lodge of one of the chiefs. He hunted and fished with the Hurons, and in one of these expeditions he was lost in the forest for several days, being only saved by that wonderful resource which marked his character. When the spring came again Champlain set off for Quebec, guided by his kind host Durantal. He reached the fort in July, after an absence of a year, and the inhabitants, who had long since believed him dead, assembled in the Recollet church for a special thanksgiving service--nor without good reason, for upon the inveterate ruler and leader depended the destiny of France in America. The condition of the little colony had not improved during the absence of the governing and inspiring spirit. From the force of circumstances, it did not at once improve upon Champlain's return. These first settlers of Quebec, whose food and living were easily got, and with no ambition to work or trade, idled their time away. Gambling and drinking were their common diversions, the more reckless spirits taking to the woods and adopting the savage life of the hunting tribes. These became the famous _coureurs de bois_, the picturesque vagrants who were destined in the succeeding years to constitute so serious a "problem" in the administration of New France. At first Champlain could do little more than hold his colony together. Intelligent as his purposes were, he received no help from the Court of France or from the Viceroy De Monts, though the importance of the enterprise of colonisation was set before Europe with every circumstance of national pride and no detail of responsibility. A painful evidence of the slight importance which the Louvre attached to New France is furnished by the frequent and easy changes in its patronage to which reference has already been made. On the imprisonment of Conde, the young Duc de Montmorency purchased for a song the Lieutenancy of New France, and he in turn sold it to his nephew, Henri Levis, the Duc de Ventadour. All except De Ventadour had been moved by the lust of gain; in his case, however, the motive was religious--to win the infidels of the New World to the faith of the Old. The Jesuits were his chosen instruments; and accordingly, in the summer of 1625, Charles Lalement, Enemond Masse, and Jean de Brebeuf, landed at Quebec. No guns boomed a welcome to the disciples of Loyola. No salvos of artillery hailed their arrival. Their reception was even distressing. In the temporary absence of Champlain, the Calvinist Emery de Caen was in charge of the fort, and in the violence of his heresy refused them shelter. The inhabitants, likewise, declined to admit the newcomers to their homes. In despair at such treatment the three Jesuits were on the point of returning to France, when the hospitable Recollets invited them to the convent at Notre Dame des Anges. In September the Jesuits made a clearing on the opposite side of the St. Charles, and here they began to build a convent of their own. Thus had the forty-three French exiles, who now made the permanent population of Quebec, a sufficiency of both Recollets and Jesuits for their spiritual guidance. Lalement soon became the keeper of Champlain's conscience, and from this time forward the Jesuits were to have their way in New France. In 1627 Richelieu's policy of absolutism was extended also to the New World. Revoking the charter of De Caen the Huguenot merchant, he organised the Company of One Hundred Associates, of which he was himself the head. In return for sovereign powers and a perpetual monopoly of the fur trade, this society was to people New France with artisans and colonists, whom they were pledged to provide with cleared lands for agriculture and to maintain. Huguenots, moreover, were to be for ever excluded from the colony. For a time the new company took an honest view of its obligations--but only for a time. Within a year or so, Quebec was again on the verge of starvation; and in the spring of 1629 the famished inhabitants were eagerly awaiting the Company's ships from France. By July their patience was almost worn out, when at last the watchers at Cap Tourmente brought the news that a fleet of six vessels had reached Tadousac. Quebec could scarcely await their arrival, and the more eager inhabitants prepared to meet the ships down the river. But suddenly two Indian canoes swung round the point of Orleans. These made hot haste for the rock, and breathlessly announced that the fleet in the river was a hostile English squadron, and that a fishing village had already been pillaged and destroyed. Joy now became consternation. Unknown to the distant colony, war between France and England had been declared. Quebec was not left long in suspense, for next day the messengers of the English admiral, Sir David Kirke, himself a Huguenot refugee, arrived with a demand for surrender. The heart of the valiant Champlain was wrung. He had inspected his empty magazine and the rickety fort which the improvidence of the Company had allowed to fall into ruin. But even the weakness of his starved and paltry garrison did not affect his fortitude. Kirke's envoy was courteously dismissed, with the bold assurance that Quebec would defend itself to the last man. Champlain still clung to the hope that supplies would arrive from France; and even as he uttered his bold defiance, De Roquemont's convoy and fleet of transports had entered the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Quebec strained eager eyes for the succouring sail. Night and day the tiny garrison stood to the guns, resolving to spend their remaining fifty pounds of gunpowder with equal fervour in welcome of friend or foe. But weeks wore into months, and misery and despair proportionately increased. Here were nearly a hundred persons huddled in a decayed fortress in the wilderness, with seven ounces of pounded pease for a daily ration. By and by this supply also failed, and the starving inhabitants were driven into the wood in search of acorns and roots. Then came the news, which Champlain had long been dreading, that De Roquemont's fleet had fallen into the hands of Sir David Kirke. The last hope of saving Quebec was now brushed away. But the English fleet did not yet summon the garrison to surrender, and instead of making immediate assault, Kirke continued to blockade the River and the Gulf. Another winter dragged by, and spring came again. The people continued to starve, ever hoping that the enemy would raise the siege. This hope was not to be fulfilled. On the 19th of July three English ships sailed up the river, and with the apathy of despair the gallant Champlain and his sixteen famished soldiers watched them anchor in the basin. The bitter end was come. Next day, the 20th of July, 1629, the English flag floated, for the first time, over the fortress of Quebec. "There was not in the sayde forte at the tyme of the rendition of the same, to this examinate's knowledge, any victuals, save only one tubb of bitter roots"--such is the evidence of one of Kirke's captains. This, in brief, is the story of the first of the five sieges of Quebec. When Lewis Kirke, the Admiral's brother, took possession of the city in the name of King Charles, he treated his captives with high courtesy. The French inhabitants were given the option of remaining in peaceful possession of their homes, or being transported back to France. Louis Hebert, the chemist, and his relatives the Couillards, the only two families of colonists in the strict sense of the word, elected to remain on their small holdings. Champlain and the Jesuits, choosing to return to France, embarked in the ship of Thomas Kirke, who was sailing down the river to join his brother's fleet at Tadousac. When they were opposite Mal Baie, about twenty-five leagues below Quebec, a strange sail bore in sight. She proved to be a French ship which had stolen past Tadousac with succours for Quebec. The _George_ immediately gave chase, a sharp fight ensued, but in the end the Frenchman struck his flag, and the new prize was borne down the river. Sir David Kirke now continued homeward with his prisoners. They reached Plymouth in October, and from here the devoted and patriotic Champlain went to London to urge the French ambassador to seek the restitution of Quebec. Its capture had actually occurred after the declaration of peace, and on that ground was held invalid. Champlain pleaded well and in the end prevailed. It was not, however, until 1632 that the fortress was restored to France by the Treaty of St. Germain-en-Laye; and it is probable that the mercenary Charles held such a concession cheap when weighed in the scale with four hundred thousand golden crowns, the promised dowry of Henrietta Maria. During the three years of English occupation Quebec had made no progress. The Indians had found in the newcomers a spirit in rough contrast with the forbearance and good-fellowship of the French. Disliking the brusqueness of the new rulers, the Algonquins now shunned the city. Even the fort had been burned to the ground, and the Hebert homestead alone made a sweet oasis in a desert of neglect and dilapidation. Such was the condition of the settlement in the summer of 1632, when Emery de Caen again sailed into the harbour. He had come to take over possession from the English. Despite his old antipathy, his fierce Calvinism, he now brought with him--in some sense the price of his commission--the Jesuits Pere de Noue and Pere le Jeune; and joyfully the exiled French gathered at the house of honest Hebert to hear Mass after the lapse of three years. It is not clear why the Huguenot De Caen was chosen to retake possession of Quebec. The expedition was fitted out at his own expense; and for recompense, a monopoly of the fur trade was granted him for one year. At the end of that time the Company of One Hundred Associates was to resume the privileges of its charter. Thus it happened that, in 1633, Champlain was reappointed Governor of New France by the astute Richelieu. With three vessels Champlain set sail on the 23rd of March, and two months later he look over the command of Quebec from De Caen. The next two years passed placidly for the city. The Indians rejoiced to have "the man with the iron breast" back in their lodges, and the harbour swarmed once more with friendly canoes. Meanwhile, trade increased with the Indians, and the settlement became a genuine commercial colony. On one occasion as many as seven hundred Hurons flocked to Quebec with their hunting trophies, and at length every midsummer came to be marked by an Indian Fair. Pere le Jeune's _Relation_ gives a quaint description of one of the annual visits of the tribes. On the 24th of July, 1633, the harbour was dotted with fur-laden canoes from the Ottawa and from Lake Huron. Landing at the Cul-de-sac, the dusky braves took possession of the strand below the rock, where they hastily set up their portable huts of birch-bark. "Some," says the Jesuit chronicler, "had come only to gamble or to steal; others out of mere curiosity; while the wiser and more businesslike among them had come to barter their furs and sacks of tobacco leaves." The second day of the visitation was marked by a solemn conclave of the chiefs and the officers of Fort St. Louis--a smoking pow-wow for the exchange of compliments and wampum. The courtyard of the fort witnessed this garish function. The chiefs and principal men of each village grouped themselves together. Some were garbed in beaver skins, others in the shaggy hide of the bear. Still others were guiltless of apparel, and all bore themselves with an excessive dignity bordering on burlesque. Brebeuf, Daniel, and Davost stood by in their sable vestments; and in the midst of all was Champlain surrounded by the soldiers of his garrison. The next two days were given up to trade--a beaver-skin exchanging for a tin kettle, a bright cloth, or a string of beads. On the fifth day a huge feast was given, by means of which savage appetites forced the French to disgorge a moiety of their profit. But before another dawn the Indians had vanished, and Quebec smiled to see its storehouses full of furs. By this time the little settlement had more than ever taken on the appearance of a mission. The Recollets had virtually been excluded from New France, the influence of the Jesuits having permeated even the official atmosphere of Fort St. Louis. It has been claimed that, in his younger years, Champlain was a Huguenot. It is more likely he was a Catholic of a liberal type; and certainly in his last years a Jesuit became his spiritual adviser. Both the soldier and the merchant gave way to the priestly influence in the purposes of Government. The cross was to precede the sword of empire on the march into the wilderness. In the midst of peace and progress a heavy loss was now to befall Quebec. Champlain, beyond sixty-eight years of age, lay prostrate in the fort. His last illness had come upon him, and on Christmas Day, 1635, the father of New France passed away. Soldiers, priests, and settlers sorrowfully followed his remains to the little church on the cliff, Notre Dame de la Recouvrance, which Champlain himself had founded in honour of the restitution of the city, and where he had renewed so often his faith and hope and courage. A great spirit had crossed the bourne. The whole history of Canada has no fairer pages than those which deal with the deeds of the founder of Quebec. His was a character great and unselfish, often mistaken, but always high-minded and just; not free from the credulity that characterised his generation, but with a spirit of romantic endurance which leaves the New World still his debtor; with a love of high emprise unsullied by lust of gain or by cruelty or vain-glory. Like Moses, he went forth into a land of promise; and, like Moses, the place of his sepulchre is not known. It is, however, recorded that his remains were placed "_dans un sepulcre particulier_." During the administration of Montmagny a small chapel adjoining Notre Dame de la Recouvrance came to be known as "Champlain's Chapel," and for a long time this was believed to mark the founder's tomb. But in 1856 an excavation at the foot of Breakneck Stairs revealed a curious vault containing human bones; and later investigation has led to the belief that the last resting-place of Champlain was a rocky niche part way down Mountain Hill, in full view of the strand upon which his early Habitation was built. _ |
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