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Old Quebec: The Fortress of New France, a non-fiction book by Gilbert Parker |
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Chapter 5. Royal Government |
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_ CHAPTER V. ROYAL GOVERNMENT In the year 1660 the French population of Quebec numbered something over six hundred. The fur company continued to drive a fair trade in peltries, but the prosperity of the city itself was woefully retarded by the constant menace of the Iroquois. The Baron d'Avaugour held the office of Governor, and his strong sense of military authority brought him into conflict with the Church, by this time become the real controller of the State. This revered power was still further to impose its authority and influence through and by the person of Francois-Xavier Laval, the first Bishop of Canada, a man of as great ability as piety, an ecclesiastical statesman trained in the school of Mazarin. His career gives significance to a later epoch. The fur traders had always found brandy their most attractive commodity in dealing with the thirsty savage; and Pere Lalement gives a sad picture of the misery entailed. "They have brought themselves to nakedness," he writes, "and their families to beggary. They have even gone so far as to sell their children to procure the means of satisfying their raging passion. I cannot describe the evils caused by these disorders to the infant Church. My ink is not black enough to paint them in proper colours. It would require the gall of the dragon to express the bitterness we have experienced from them. It may suffice to say that we lose in one month the fruits of the toil and labour of thirty years." Accordingly, the Church now decided to prohibit it entirely, and a law was passed making it a capital offence. Two men paid the extreme penalty; and a woman also was condemned to the scaffold. When, however, the clergy interfered to save her, the rigorous but consistent D'Avaugour declared he would punish no more breaches of this law. Brandy now flowed like water, and the thunder of the pulpit was henceforth disregarded. Exasperated by this treatment, the priests carried their grievance to the Louvre, where they received little satisfaction. In the same year a deputy of another sort journeyed to France. Pierre Boucher's mission was to lay before the King the desperate condition of the colony, particularly in the matter of defence. Louis XIV. had but recently ascended the throne of the Bourbons, and Richelieu and Mazarin had been in turn succeeded by Colbert as the royal adviser. The envoy from Quebec was presently received at the Court, and the tale of suffering and neglect which he unfolded convinced Colbert that the Company of One Hundred Associates was scandalously evading the obligations imposed by its charter. Accordingly, in 1663, a royal edict went forth revoking its powers and privileges. This was a turning-point in the history of New France; for although the company founded by Richelieu was succeeded by an unwieldy corporation of Colbert's design, from this time forward the Crown itself took over the control of the distant colony. The Grand Monarch, indeed, took a finely comprehensive view of his position. He held himself in every sense the father of his people, and by a nice condescension the citizens of Quebec were included in the patriarchal fold. The far-away city on the borders of the world was no longer to be abandoned to the avaricious whims of a trading company: the King himself would now take it under his royal care. Daniel de Remy, Sieur de Courcelles, was appointed Governor, with Jean Baptiste Talon as Intendant; and the valorous Marquis de Tracy was commissioned to New France as the King's personal representative, with instructions to settle the domestic friction of the colony, and to deal a fatal blow to the Iroquois, the "scourge of Canada." * * * * * On the 30th of June, 1665, De Tracy's caravels cast anchor in the basin of Quebec, the ships of De Courcelles and the Intendant being still at sea. The cannon of Fort St. Louis boomed a welcome down the gorge of the St. Lawrence, while the eager burghers crowded the ramparts and prepared to welcome the most distinguished company in the most brilliant pageant yet seen upon the soil of New France. The royal pennant flew at the flag-ship's masthead, and the decks were thronged with the brilliant uniforms of the regiment of Carignan-Salieres, whom the King had sent to destroy the enemies of New France. In the midst stood the stately Marquis, gorgeous in vice-regal robes and attended by a suite of nobles and gallants from the court of Fontainebleau. The mysteries and wonders of the West had stirred the romantic minds of the volatile courtiers, and the mission to convert New France to the Catholic faith gave to De Tracy's expedition the complexion of a mediaeval crusade. Presently the gaily-decked pinnace drew in to the landing-stage of the Cul-de-sac, where stood the notables of the New World city. Bishop Laval in pontificals, surrounded by the priests of his diocese, awaited the royal envoy at the top of Mountain Hill, which was then the only practicable highway between the Lower and the Upper Town. To-day the visitor landing at the quay reaches the terrace by the same route; but the present graceful declivity of Mountain Hill is little like the tortuous pathway of corduroy by which De Tracy and his glittering retinue made their toilsome way to the public square by the Jesuits' College. First came a company of guards in the royal livery, then four pages and six valets, and by the side of the King's Lieutenant-General, resplendent in gold lace and gay ribbons, walked the young nobles of his train. The cathedral bells pealed forth joyously, and the _Te Deum_ began a day of public rejoicing. The vessels bearing the new Governor and Intendant, however, suffered the most hapless violence. Talon's ship was 117 days at sea, and De Courcelles' was hardly more fortunate; but at length they, too, cast anchor beneath the rocky battlement, and Quebec was now flooded with soldiers of the regiment of Carignan-Salieres. These bronzed veterans of Savoy came to New France fresh from the Turkish wars, and the sight of their plumed helmets and leathern bandoleers, as they marched through the narrow streets, promised the colonists a speedy riddance of their enemies. The health of Louis XIV. was nowhere in his broad dominions drunk more heartily than in Quebec. At the close of the year extensive preparations were made for the chastisement of the Iroquois. De Courcelles had determined upon a stroke of almost foolhardy boldness: to march over the snow into the country of the Mohawks, a distance of three hundred leagues. Thick ice had formed on the St. Lawrence, and on the 9th of January the audacious Governor set off at the head of his fiery columns. Officers and men alike shared the burdens of transport, but the soldiers of Europe were embarrassed by the unaccustomed snow-shoes which the deep snow forced them to use. Some got no farther than Three Rivers, but the more hardy held their way up the valley of the Richelieu to Lake Champlain and across the Hudson. An unfortunate circumstance, however, had deprived them of guides, and all efforts to find and surprise the Mohawk towns proved unsuccessful. Wandering by mistake beyond Saratoga Lake, they came near to the Dutch village of Corlaer,[7] where, half-frozen and half-starved, they bivouacked in the neighbouring woods. A few days later envoys appeared from Albany to demand why the French had invaded the territories of the Duke of York; and then, for the first time, De Courcelles learned that the New Netherlands had passed into English hands. De Courcelles' explanation was courteously accepted, and having been supplied with provisions, he prepared to retrace his steps to Quebec. His intended victims, the Mohawks, harassed the retreat, killing and taking prisoners; while sixty of his men perished from hunger and exposure before he came in sight of the St. Lawrence, and many more fell before he reached Quebec. In spite of apparent failure, however, this expedition, like that undertaken by Daulac, had a good effect upon the Iroquois, who had come to regard themselves as too remote for French assault.
It was in early October, 1666, that De Tracy and De Courcelles left Quebec at the head of thirteen hundred men. Of these, six hundred were regulars of Carignan-Salieres, an equal number were irregulars from Quebec, under command of Repentigny, and a hundred Indian scouts from the missions ranged the woods. A hundred rugged colonists, commanded by the brave Charles le Moyne, joined the advancing column at Montreal. With confidence this imposing force swept on to annihilate the enemies of New France. At the mysterious sound of the French drum-beat the Mohawks of the first village fled in terror, and the invaders pressed on to the second, third, and fourth towns, to find them also deserted. At Andaraque, their largest village, the Mohawks prepared to make a final stand; but the first appearance of the French army and the roll of their "devil-drums" as they emerged from the forest put the savages to instant flight. Andaraque, the last native stronghold, being thus abandoned, with its stores of corn and winter supplies, the French took what provisions they needed for their return journey, set fire to the town, and having planted on the site a white cross in the name of the King, they turned their faces homeward. The remaining Indian villages were given to the flames, and although the Mohawks had escaped with their lives, the French were content to leave them to the severities of coming winter. This policy was successful, for by the time spring came again, not only the Mohawks, but their four confederate nations, were anxious to make a sincere peace with the avenging soldiers of New France. Hostages were exchanged, several representative chiefs remaining in Quebec. The Jesuits again undertook the Mission of the Martyrs, desiring both to win the savages into the fold of the Church and at the same time to wean the Iroquois from their friendliness towards the colonies of England, with whom the French were soon to enter into deadly conflict for the mastery of the North American continent. The Marquis de Tracy, having in due time fulfilled the King's commission, embarked for France, and with him departed the glittering _entourage_ which for almost two years had cast upon the court of Quebec some reflection of the glories of Versailles. The regiment of Carignan-Salieres was disbanded, but its officers, for the most part, elected to remain in Canada and accept the gift of seigneuries which the King distributed on conditions of fealty and homage. The soldiers settled on the fiefs as _censitaires_ and became the retainers of the seigneurs. The feudal system, with all its antique forms, was thus imported into French Canada, further to cripple her progress in the race with the English colonies, where the individual was allowed to develop freely, evolving his own laws, and creating conditions best suited to his new estate. Talon became the royal instrument of a system which had its beginning and end in the maintenance of kingly authority. _ |
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