I I 6 4 I which Brébeuf had spent three years and in which 1 6 4 2 Etienne Brulé had been lately murdered. They offered thanks to God and began anew the greatest of the Jesuit missions. Father Jogues Maisonneuve In 1641, Isaac Jogues went to the natives at the Sault Sainte Marie. In the following year, he and his Indian companions were captured in the Saint Lawrence by the dreaded Iroquois who were lying in wait for them. Jogues refused to make his escape because his unbaptized converts needed absolution. From the Saint Lawrence to the Mohawk, torture was their constant companion. In village after village, the Jesuit father ran the gauntlet but he found full recompense when from a stalk of Indian corn he gathered enough of rain or dew to baptize two of his captive converts. He escaped with the help of the Dutch and returned to his native land. He soon returned to New France and martyrdom. Насс Родин About this time, a few enraptured visionaries in France and Montreal secured a grant of the island at the mouth of the Ottawa. In August, 1641, Sieur de Maisonneuve and Mademoiselle Jeanne Mance arrived at Quebec with a colony of forty men and four women. Back of the enterprise were the benefactions of a rich widow, Madame de Boullion. In the following spring, the party left Quebec accompanied by Madame de la Peltrie. At the island that had been pointed out in visions, Maisonneuve and his "miraculously compounded company" raised an altar and celebrated the mass. Then began the work of building homes which were quickly enclosed with palisades defended by cannons-the special dread of the dreaded Iroquois. Outside the palisades a hospital was soon May 17, 1642 built with Madame Boullion's money-a "pious though 1 6 4 4 superfluous task." It was a massive stone structure, a 1 6 5 3 little fortress in itself, so strong that it withstood all the Hôtel Dieu assaults of the Iroquois and the depredations of time until, a few years ago, it gave way before the pressure of trade. The little settlement was first called Ville Marie; its site is marked in the custom-house square of A few years later, the maiden Margaret Bourgeoys Woman's came to Ville-Marie and established there the institution Work from which have sprung like twigs from tree the schools 1653 of Notre Dame which now dot the way from Cape Breton Island to the western ocean. As Quebec was the work of men with trade as their master motive, so Ville-Marie was set upon the frontier by women in the name of religion, education, and humanity. I 645 In 1645, some of the Iroquois made a treaty of peace 1648 with the French and their Indian friends; for one winter The Death of the hitherto hostile tribes joined as brethren in the Father Jogues chase. In the following year, Father Jogues went to found a mission among the Mohawks. He was soon accused as an enchanter who had blighted the Indian October 18, harvest and was treacherously murdered; his head was hung upon the village palisades and his body thrown into the waters of the Mohawk. Then the fearful war began. 1646 By this time, the "Black Robes" were conspicuous in nearly every Indian community of New France but their French Arms, Woven upon a Cope (supposed to greatest work was among the Hurons, the most progressive of the Canadian tribes. In the region between Georgian Bay and Lake Simcoe, Brébeuf, Daniel, and Davoust established several stations with a central mission house at Sainte Marie, not far from the present town of Midland. Gradually the Hurons came to lean heavily on the counsel of the missionaries and grew less watchful of the menace of the Long House beyond Lake Ontario. The Iroquois saw that the union of the French and the northern tribes would be fatal to their confederacy; they therefore resolved upon the annihilation of the Hurons. Startled by the war-cry of the Mohawks, Father Antoine Daniel hastened to baptize the sick and I 6 4 I 8 suppliant at the mission of Saint Joseph, pronounced a 1 6 5 9 general absolution, and calmly awaited the onrush of the foe who were swooping down on the cross-crowned March 16, 17, 1649 François de Laval 1636-1665 June, 1659 MONTMORENCE Bishop Laval PREMIER EVEQUE DE QUEBEC church. Pierced with arrows and ridIdled with bullets, his body was cast upon the burning ruins of the chapel. Early in the following year, other missions were attacked. At Saint Louis, Fathers Brébeuf and Lalemant were captured. With the fortitude of the early Christian martyrs, they endured unspeakable atrocities until death came to their relief at Saint Ignace-death by fire at the stake. Other villages were destroyed, other prisoners were put to death with tortures the details of which need not be recorded here. The head mission at Sainte Marie escaped destruction but the Huron country had been made a desert and the power of the Huron nation had been destroyed. There is no need to follow in detail the feeble successes and the frequent failures of the governors who followed Champlain and preceded Courcelles and Frontenac. Montmagny, Ailleboust, Lauson, Argenson, Avaugour, and Mézy-their names in order meet present demands. A struggle between the priestly orders for a partisan bishop was ended by the appointment of the Jesuit, Laval. His was a militant spirit and the civil rule soon felt his power. In 1663, the |