France and England in N. America, Part III: The Discovery of the Great West

It remained to determine what disposition should be made of the new fort. For some time it was uncertain whether the king would not order its demolition, as efforts had been made to influence him to that effect. It was resolved, however, that, being once constructed, it should be allowed to stand; and, after a considerable delay, a final arrangement was made for its maintenance, in the manner following: In the autumn of 1674, La Salle went to France, with letters of strong recommendation from Frontenac. [Footnote: In his despatch to the minister Colbert, of the fourteenth of November, 1674, Frontenac speaks of La Salle as follows: "I cannot help, Monseigneur, recommending to you the Sieur de la Salle, who is about to go to France, and who is a man of intelligence and ability,– more capable than anybody else I know here, to accomplish every kind of enterprise and discovery which may be entrusted to him,—as he has the most perfect knowledge of the state of the country, as you will see if you are disposed to give him a few moments of audience."] He was well received at Court; and he made two petitions to the king; the one for a patent of nobility, in consideration of his services as an explorer; and the other for a grant in seigniory of Fort Frontenac, for so he called the new post, in honor of his patron. On his part, he offered to pay back the ten thousand francs which the fort had cost the king; to maintain it at his own charge, with a garrison equal to that of Montreal, besides fifteen or twenty laborers; to form a French colony around it; to build a church, whenever the number of inhabitants should reach one hundred; and, meanwhile, to support one or more Récollet friars; and, finally, to form a settlement of domesticated Indians in the neighborhood. His offers were accepted. He was raised to the rank of the untitled nobles; received a grant of the fort, and lands adjacent, to the extent of four leagues in front and half a league in depth, besides the neighboring islands; and was invested with the government of the fort and settlement, subject to the orders of the Governor-General. [Footnote: Mémoire pour l'entretien du Fort Frontenac, par le Sr. de la Salle, 1674. MS. Pétition du Sr. de la Salle au Roi, MS. Lettres patentes de concession du Fort de Frontenac et terres adjacentes au profit du Sr. de la Salle; données à Compiègne le 13 Mai, 1675, MS. Arrêt qui accepte les offres faites par Robert Cavelier Sr. de la Salle; à Compiègne le 13 Mai, 1675, MS. Lettres de noblesse pour le Sr. Cavelier de la Salle; données à Compiègne le 13 Mai, 1675, MS. Papiers de Famille; Mémoire au Roi, MS.]

La Salle returned to Canada, proprietor of a seigniory, which, all things considered, was one of the most valuable in the colony. It was now that his family, rejoicing in his good fortune, and not unwilling to share it, made him large advances of money, enabling him to pay the stipulated sum to the king, to rebuild the fort in stone, maintain soldiers and laborers, and procure in part, at least, the necessary outfit. Had La Salle been a mere merchant, he was in a fair way to make a fortune, for he was in a position to control the better part of the Canadian fur trade. But he was not a mere merchant; and no commercial profit could content the broad ambition that urged his scheming brain.

Those may believe, who will, that Frontenac did not expect a share in the profits of the new post. That he did expect it, there is positive evidence, for a deposition is extant, taken at the instance of his enemy, the Intendant Duchesneau, in which three witnesses attest that the Governor, La Salle, his lieutenant La Forest, and one Boisseau, had formed a partnership to carry on the trade of Fort Frontenac.

CHAPTER VII. 1674-1678. LA SALLE AND THE JESUITS

THE ABBÉ FÉNELON.—HE ATTACKS THE GOVERNOR.—THE ENEMIES OF LA SALLE.—AIMS OF THE JESUITS.—THEIR HOSTILITY TO LA SALLE.

A curious incident occurred soon, after the building of the fort on Lake Ontario. A violent quarrel had taken place between Frontenac and Perrot, the Governor of Montreal, whom, in view of his speculations in the fur- trade, he seems to have regarded as a rival in business; but who, by his folly and arrogance, would have justified any reasonable measure of severity. Frontenac, however, was not reasonable. He arrested Perrot, threw him into prison, and set up a man of his own as governor in his place; and, as the judge of Montreal was not in his interest, he removed him, and substituted another, on whom he could rely. Thus for a time he had Montreal well in hand.

The priests of the Seminary, seigneurs of the island, regarded these arbitrary proceedings with extreme uneasiness. They claimed the right of nominating their own governor; and Perrot, though he held a commission from the king, owed his place to their appointment. True, he had set them at nought, and proved a veritable King Stork, yet nevertheless they regarded his removal as an infringement of their rights.

During the quarrel with Perrot, La Salle chanced to be at Montreal, lodged in the house of Jacques Le Ber; who, though one of the principal merchants and most influential inhabitants of the settlement, was accustomed to sell goods across his counter in person to white men and Indians, his wife taking his place when he was absent. Such were the primitive manners of the secluded little colony. Le Ber, at this time, was in the interest of Frontenac and La Salle; though he afterwards became one of their most determined opponents. Amid the excitement and discussion occasioned by Perrot's arrest, La Salle declared himself an adherent of the Governor, and warned all persons against speaking ill of him in his hearing.

The Abbé Fénelon, already mentioned as half-brother to the famous Archbishop, had attempted to mediate between Frontenac and Perrot; and to this end had made a journey to Quebec on the ice, in midwinter. Being of an ardent temperament, and more courageous than prudent, he had spoken somewhat indiscreetly, and had been very roughly treated by the stormy and imperious Count. He returned to Montreal greatly excited, and not without cause. It fell to his lot to preach the Easter sermon. The service was held in the little church of the Hôtel-Dieu, which was crowded to the porch, all the chief persons of the settlement being present. The curé of the parish, whose name also was Perrot, said High Mass, assisted by La Salle's brother, Cavelier, and two other priests. Then Fénelon mounted the pulpit. Certain passages of his sermon were obviously levelled against Frontenac. Speaking of the duties of those clothed with temporal authority, he said that the magistrate, inspired with the spirit of Christ, was as ready to pardon offences against himself as to punish those against his prince; that he was full of respect for the ministers of the altar, and never maltreated them when they attempted to reconcile enemies and restore peace; that he never made favorites of those who flattered him, nor under specious pretexts oppressed other persons in authority who opposed his enterprises; that he used his power to serve his king, and not to his own advantage; that he remained content with his salary, without disturbing the commerce of the country, or abusing those who refused him a share in their profits; and that he never troubled the people by inordinate and unjust levies of men and material, using the name of his prince as a cover to his own designs. [Footnote: Faillon, Colonie Française, iii. 497, and manuscript authorities there cited. I have examined the principal of these. Faillon himself is a priest of St. Sulpice. Compare H. Verreau, Les Deux Abbés de Fénelon, chap. vii.]

La Salle sat near the door, but as the preacher proceeded, he suddenly rose to his feet in such a manner as to attract the notice of the congregation. As they turned their heads, he signed to the principal persons among them, and by his angry looks and gesticulation called their attention to the words of Fénelon. Then meeting the eye of the curé, who sat beside the altar, he made the same signs to him, to which the curé replied by a deprecating shrug of the shoulders. Fénelon changed color, but continued his sermon. [Footnote: Information faicte par nous, Charles Le Tardieu, Sieur de Tilly, et Nicolas Dupont, etc. etc., contre le Sr. Abbé de Fénelon, MS. Tilly and Dupont were sent by Frontenac to inquire into the affair. Among the deponents is La Salle himself.]

This indecent procedure of La Salle filled the priests with anxiety, for they had no doubt that the sermon would speedily be reported to Frontenac. Accordingly they made all haste to disavow it, and their letter to that effect was the first information which the Governor received of the affair. He summoned the offender to Quebec, to answer a charge of seditious language, before the Supreme Council. Fénelon appeared accordingly, but denied the jurisdiction of the Council; claiming that as an ecclesiastic it was his right to be tried by the Bishop. By way of asserting this right, he seated himself in presence of his judges, and put on his hat; and being rebuked by Frontenac, who presided, he pushed it on farther. [Footnote: The Council always held its session with hats on. It seems that a priest, summoned before it as a witness, was also entitled to wear his hat, and Fénelon maintained that it had no right to require him to appear before it in any other character.] He was placed under arrest, and soon after required to leave Canada; but the king accompanied the recall with a sharp word of admonition to his too strenuous lieutenant. [Footnote: Lettre du Roi à Frontenac, 22 Avril, 1675, MS.]

This affair gives us a glimpse of the distracted state of the colony, racked by the discord of conflicting interests and passions. There were the quarrels of rival traders, the quarrels of priests among themselves, of priests with the civil authorities, and of the civil authorities among themselves. Prominent, if not paramount, among the occasions of strife, were the schemes of Cavelier de La Salle. All the traders not interested with him leagued together to oppose him; and this with an acrimony easily understood, when it is remembered that they depended for subsistence on the fur-trade, while La Salle had engrossed a great part of it, and threatened to engross far more. Duchesneau, Intendant of the colony, and in that capacity almost as a matter of course on ill terms with the Governor, was joined with this party of opposition, with whom he evidently had commercial interests in common. La Chesnaye, Le Moyne, and ultimately Le Ber, besides various others of more or less influence, were in the league against La Salle. Among them was Louis Joliet, whom his partisans put forward as a rival discoverer, and a foil to La Salle. Joliet, it will be remembered, had applied for a grant of land in the countries he had discovered, and had been refused. La Salle soon after made a similar application, and with a different result, as will presently appear. His adherents continually depreciated the merits of Joliet, and even expressed doubt of the reality, or at least the extent, of his discoveries.

But there was another element of opposition to La Salle, less noisy, but not less formidable, and this arose from the Jesuits. Frontenac hated them; and they, under befitting forms of duty and courtesy, paid him back in the same coin. Having no love for the Governor, they would naturally have little for his partisan and protégé; but their opposition had another and a deeper root, for the plans of the daring young schemer jarred with their own.

We have seen the Canadian Jesuits in the early apostolic days of their mission, when the flame of their zeal, fed by an ardent hope, burned bright and high. This hope was doomed to disappointment. Their avowed purpose of building another Paraguay on the borders of the Great Lakes [Footnote: This purpose is several times indicated in the Relations. For an instance, see "Jesuits in North America," 153.] was never accomplished, and their missions and their converts were swept away in an avalanche of ruin. Still, they would not despair. From the Lakes they turned their eyes to the Valley of the Mississippi, in the hope to see it one day the seat of their new empire of the Faith. But what did this new Paraguay mean? It meant a little nation of converted and domesticated savages, docile as children, under the paternal and absolute rule of Jesuit fathers, and trained by them in industrial pursuits, the results of which were to inure, not to the profit of the producers, but to the building of churches, the founding of colleges, the establishment of warehouses and magazines, and the construction of works of defence,—all controlled by Jesuits, and forming a part of the vast possessions of the Order. Such was the old Paraguay, [Footnote: Compare Charlevoix, Histoire de Paraguay, with Robertson, Letters on Paraguay.] and such, we may suppose, would have been the new, had the plans of those who designed it been realized.

I have said that since the middle of the century the religious exaltation of the early missions had sensibly declined. In the nature of things, that grand enthusiasm was too intense and fervent to be long sustained. But the vital force of Jesuitism had suffered no diminution. That marvellous esprit de corps, that extinction of self, and absorption of the individual in the Order, which has marked the Jesuits from their first existence as a body, was no whit changed or lessened; a principle, which, though different, was no less strong than the self-devoted patriotism of Sparta or the early Roman Republic.

The Jesuits were no longer supreme in Canada, or, in other words, Canada was no longer simply a mission. It had become a colony. Temporal interests and the civil power were constantly gaining ground; and the disciples of Loyola felt that relatively, if not absolutely, they were losing it. They struggled vigorously to maintain the ascendancy of their Order; or, as they would have expressed it, the ascendancy of religion: but in the older and more settled parts of the colony it was clear that the day of their undivided rule was past. Therefore, they looked with redoubled solicitude to their missions in the West. They had been among its first explorers; and they hoped that here the Catholic Faith, as represented by Jesuits, might reign with undisputed sway. In Paraguay, it was their constant aim to exclude white men from their missions. It was the same in North America. They dreaded fur-traders, partly because they interfered with their teachings and perverted their converts, and partly for other reasons. But La Salle was a fur-trader, and far worse than a fur-trader,– he aimed at occupation, fortification, settlement. The scope and vigor of his enterprises, and the powerful influence that aided them made him a stumbling-block in their path. As they would have put the case, it was the spirit of this world opposed to the spirit of religion; but I may perhaps be pardoned if I am constrained to think that the spirit which inspired these fathers was not uniformly celestial, notwithstanding the virtues which sometimes illustrated it.

Frontenac, in his letters to the Court, is continually begging that more Récollet friars may be sent to Canada. [Footnote: The Récollets, ejected from Canada on the irruption of the English in 1629 (see "Pioneers of France in the New World"), had not been allowed to return until 1669, when their missions were begun anew.] Not that he had any peculiar fondness for ecclesiastics of any kind, regular or secular, white, black, or gray; but he wanted the Récollets to oppose to the Jesuits. He had no fear of these mendicant disciples of St. Francis. Far less able and less ambitious than the Jesuits, he knew that he could manage them, because they would need his support against their formidable rivals. La Salle, too, wanted more Récollets, and for the same reason; but in one point he differed from his patron. He was a man, not only of regulated life, but of strong religious feeling, and, bating his violent prepossession against the Jesuits, he respected the Church and its ministers, as his letters and his life attest. Thus, in replying to a charge of undue severity towards some of his followers, he alleges in his justification the profane language of the men in question, and adds, "I am a Christian; I will have no blasphemers in my camp." [Footnote: Letter of La Salle in the hands of M. Margry.]

CHAPTER VIII. 1678. PARTY STRIFE

LA SALLE AND HIS REPORTER.—JESUIT ASCENDANCY.—THE MISSIONS AND THE FUR-TRADE.—FEMALE INQUISITORS.—PLOTS AGAINST LA SALLE.—HIS BROTHER THE PRIEST.—INTRIGUES OF THE JESUITS.– LA SALLE POISONED.—HE EXCULPATES THE JESUITS.—RENEWED INTRIGUES.

One of the most curious monuments of La Salle's time is a long memoir, written by a person who made his acquaintance at Paris, in the summer of 1678, when, as we shall soon see, he had returned to France, in prosecution of his plans. The writer knew the Sulpitian Galinée, [Footnote: Ante, p. 11.] who, as he says, had a very high opinion of La Salle; and he was also in close relations with the discoverer's patron, the Prince de Conti. [Footnote: Louis-Armand de Bourbon, second Prince de Conti. I am strongly inclined to think that this nobleman himself is author of the memoir.] He says that he had ten or twelve interviews with La Salle, and becoming interested in him and in that which he communicated, he wrote down the substance of his conversation. The paper is divided into two parts,—the first, called "Mémoire sur Mr. de la Salle," is devoted to the state of affairs in Canada, and chiefly to the Jesuits; the second, entitled "Histoire de Mr. de la Salle," is an account of the discoverer's life, or as much of it as the writer had learned from him. [Footnote: Extracts from this have already been given in connection with La Salle's supposed discovery of the Mississippi. Ante, p. 20.] Both parts bear throughout the internal evidence of being what they profess to be; but they embody the statements of a man of intense partisan feeling, transmitted through the mind of another person, in sympathy with him, and evidently sharing his prepossessions. In one respect, however, the paper is of unquestionable historical value; for it gives us a vivid and not an exaggerated picture of the bitter strife of parties which then raged in Canada, and which was destined to tax to the utmost the vast energy and fortitude of La Salle. At times the memoir is fully sustained by contemporary evidence; but often, again, it rests on its own unsupported authority. I give an abstract of its statements as I find them.

The following is the writer's account of La Salle: "All those among my friends who have seen him find in him a man of great intelligence and sense. He rarely speaks of any subject except when questioned about it, and his words are very few and very precise. He distinguishes perfectly between that which he knows with certainty and that which he knows with some mingling of doubt. When he does not know, he does not hesitate to avow it, and though I have heard him say the same thing more than five or six times, when persons were present who had not heard it before, he always said it in the same manner. In short, I never heard anybody speak whose words carried with them more marks of truth." [Footnote: "Tous ceux de mes amis qui l'ont vu luy trouve beaucoup d'esprit et un très grand sens; il ne parle guères que des choses sur lesquelles on l'interroge; il les dit en très-peu de mots et très-bien circonstanciés; il distingue parfaitement ce qu'il scait avec certitude, de ce qu'il scait avec quelque mélange de doute. Il avoue sans aucune façon ne pas savoir ce qu'il ne scait pas, et quoyque je lui aye ouy dire plus de cinq ou six fois les mesme choses à l'occasion de quelques personnes qui ne les avaient point encore entendues, je les luy ay toujours ouy dire de la mesme manière. En un mot je n'ay jamais ouy parler personne dont les paroles portassent plus de marques de vérité."]

After mentioning that he is thirty-three or thirty-four years old, and that he has been twelve years in America, the memoir declares that he made the following statements,—that the Jesuits are masters at Quebec; that the Bishop is their creature, and does nothing but in concert with them; [Footnote: "Il y a une autre chose qui me déplait, qui est l'entière dépendence dans laquelle les Prêtres du Séminaire de Québec et le Grand Vicaire de l'Evêque sont pour les Pères Jésuites, car il ne fait pas la moindre chose sans leur ordre; ce qui fait qu'indirectement ils sont les maîtres de ce qui regarde le spirituel, qui, comme vous savez, est une grande machine pour remuer tout le reste."—Lettre de Frontenac à Colbert, 2 Nov. 1672.] that he is not well inclined towards the Récollets, [Footnote: "Ces réligieux (les Récollets) sont fort protégés partout par le comte de Frontenac, gouverneur du pays, et à cause de cela assez maltraités par l'évesque, parceque la doctrine de l'évesque et des Jésuites est que les affaires de la Réligion chrestienne n'iront point bien dans ce pays-là que quand le gouverneur sera créature des Jésuites, ou que l'évesque sera gouverneur."—Mémoire sur Mr. de la Salle.] who have little credit, but who are protected by Frontenac; that in Canada the Jesuits think everybody an enemy to religion who is an enemy to them; that, though they refused absolution to all who sold brandy to the Indians, they sold it themselves, and that he, La Salle, had himself detected them in it; [Footnote: "Ils (les Jésuites) réfusent l'absolution a ceux qui ne veulent pas promettre de n'en plus vendre (de l'eau-de-vie), et s'ils meurent en cet étât, ils les privent de la sépulture ecclésiastique; au contraire ils se permettent à eux-memes sans aucune difficulté ce mesme trafic quoique tout sorte de trafic soit interdit à tous les ecclésiastiques par les ordonnances du Roy, et par une bulle expresse du Pape. La Bulle et les ordonnances sont notoires, et quoyqu'ils cachent le trafic qu'ils font d'eau-de-vie, M. de la Salle prétend qu'il ne l'est pas moms; qu' outre la notoriété il en a des preuves certaines, et qu'il les a surpris dans ce trafic, et qu'ils luy ont tendu des pièges pour l'y surprendre … Ils ont chasse leur valet Robert à cause qu'il révéla qu'ils en traitaient jour et nuit."—Ibid. The writer says that he makes this last statement, not on the authority of La Salle, but on that of a memoir made at the time when the Intendant, Talon, with whom he elsewhere says that he was well acquainted, returned to France. A great number of particulars are added respecting the Jesuit trade in furs.] that the Bishop laughs at the orders of the king when they do not agree with the wishes of the Jesuits; that the Jesuits dismissed one of their servants named Robert, because he told of their trade in brandy; that Albanel, [Footnote: Albanel was prominent among the Jesuit explorers at this time. He is best known by his journey up the Saguenay to Hudson's Bay in 1672.] in particular, carried on a great fur-trade, and that the Jesuits have built their college in part from the profits of this kind of traffic; that they admitted that they carried on a trade, but denied that they gained so much by it as was commonly supposed. [Footnote: "Pour vous parler franchement, ils (les Jésuites) songent autant à la conversion du Castor qu'à celle des âmes."—Lettre de Frontenac à Colbert, 2 Nov. 1672.

In his despatch of the next year, he says that the Jesuits ought to content themselves with instructing the Indians in their old missions, instead of neglecting them to make new ones, in countries where there are "more beaver-skins to gain than souls to save."]

The memoir proceeds to affirm that they trade largely with the Sioux, at Ste. Marie, and with other tribes at Michillimackinac, and that they are masters of the trade of that region, where the forts are in their possession. [Footnote: These forts were built by them, and were necessary to the security of their missions.] An Indian said, in full council, at Quebec, that he had prayed and been a Christian as long as the Jesuits would stay and teach him, but since no more beaver were left in his country, the missionaries were gone also. The Jesuits, pursues the memoir, will have no priests but themselves in their missions, and call them all Jansenists, not excepting the priests of St. Sulpice.

The bishop is next accused of harshness and intolerance, as well as of growing rich by tithes, and even by trade, in which it is affirmed he has a covert interest. [Footnote: François Xavier de Laval-Montmorency, first bishop of Quebec, was a prelate of austere character. His memory is cherished in Canada by adherents of the Jesuits and all ultramontane Catholics.] It is added that there exists in Quebec, under the auspices of the Jesuits, an association called the Sainte Famille, of which Madame Bourdon [Footnote: This Madame Bourdon was the widow of Bourdon, the engineer, (see "Jesuits in North America," 299). If we may credit the letters of Marie de l'Incarnation, she had married him from a religious motive, in order to charge herself with the care of his motherless children; stipulating in advance that he should live with her, not as a husband, but as a brother. As may be imagined, she was regarded as a most devout and saint-like person.] is superior. They meet in the cathedral every Thursday, with closed doors, where they relate to each other—as they are bound by a vow to do—all they have learned, whether good or evil, concerning other people, during the week. It is a sort of female inquisition, for the benefit of the Jesuits, the secrets of whose friends, it is said, are kept, while no such discretion is observed with regard to persons not of their party. [Footnote: "Il y a dans Québec une congrégation de femmes et de filles qu'ils [les Jésuits] appellent la sainte famille, dans laquelle on fait voeu sur les Saints Evangiles de dire tout ce qu'on sait de bien et de mal des personnes qu'on connoist. La Supérieure de cette compagnie s'appelle Madame Boudon; une Mde. D'Ailleboust est, je crois, l'assistante et une Mde. Charron, la Trésorière. La Compagnie s'assemble tous les Jeudis dans la Cathédrale, à porte fermée, et là elles se disent les unes aux autres tout ce qu'elles on appris. C'est une espèce d'Inquisition contre toutes les personnes qui ne sont pas unies avec les Jésuites. Ces personnes sont accusées de tenir secret ce qu'elles apprennent de mal des personnes de leur party et de n'avoir pas la mesme discretion pour les autres."—Mémoire sur Mr. de la Salle.