Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV Part 20

lettre xi.; N. Y. Col. Docs., IX. 708, 711, 715; Colden, 200; Callieres au Ministre, 16 Oct., 1700; Champigny au Ministre, 22 Juillet, 1700; La Potherie au Ministre, 11 Aout, 1700; Ibid., 16 Oct., 1700; Callieres et Champigny au Ministre, 18 Oct., 1700. See also N.

Y. Col. Docs., IV., for a great number of English doc.u.ments bearing on the subject.]

Father Engelran was sent to Michillimackinac, while Courtemanche spent the winter and spring in toilsome journeyings among the tribes of the west. Such was his influence over them that he persuaded them all to give up their Iroquois prisoners, and send deputies to the grand council. Engelran had had scarcely less success among the northern tribes; and early in July a great fleet of canoes, conducted by Courtemanche, and filled with chiefs, warriors, and Iroquois prisoners, paddled down the lakes for Montreal. Meanwhile Bruyas, Maricourt, and Joncaire had returned on the same errand to the Iroquois towns; but, so far as concerned prisoners, their success was no greater than before. Whether French or Indian, the chiefs were slow to give them up, saying that they had all been adopted into families who would not part with them unless consoled for the loss by gifts.

This was true; but it was equally true of the other tribes, whose chiefs had made the necessary gifts, and recovered the captive Iroquois. Joncaire and his colleagues succeeded, however, in leading a large deputation of chiefs and elders to Montreal.

Courtemanche with his canoe fleet from the lakes was not far behind; and when their approach was announced, the chronicler, La Potherie, full of curiosity, went to meet them at the mission village of the Saut. First appeared the Iroquois, two hundred in all, firing their guns as their canoes drew near, while the mission Indians, ranged along the sh.o.r.e, returned the salute. The amba.s.sadors were conducted to a capacious lodge, where for a quarter of an hour they sat smoking with immovable composure. Then a chief of the mission made a speech, and then followed a feast of boiled dogs. In the morning they descended the rapids to Montreal, and in due time the distant roar of the saluting cannon told of their arrival.

They had scarcely left the village, when the river was covered with the canoes of the western and northern allies. There was another fusillade of welcome as the heterogeneous company landed, and marched to the great council-house. The calumet was produced, and twelve of the a.s.sembled chiefs sang a song, each rattling at the same time a dried gourd half full of peas. Six large kettles were next brought in, containing several dogs and a bear suitably chopped to pieces, which being ladled out to the guests were despatched in an instant, and a solemn dance and a supper of boiled corn closed the festivity.

The strangers embarked again on the next day, and the cannon of Montreal greeted them as they landed before the town. A great quant.i.ty of evergreen boughs had been gathered for their use, and of these they made their wigwams outside the palisades. Before the opening of the grand council, a mult.i.tude of questions must be settled, jealousies soothed, and complaints answered. Callieres had no peace. He was busied for a week in giving audience to the deputies. There was one question which agitated them all, and threatened to rekindle the war.

Kondiaronk, the Rat, the foremost man among all the allied tribes, gave utterance to the general feeling: "My father, you told us last autumn to bring you all the Iroquois prisoners in our hands. We have obeyed, and brought them. Now let us see if the Iroquois have also obeyed, and brought you our people whom they captured during the war.

If they have done so, they are sincere; if not, they are false. But I know that they have not brought them. I told you last year that it was better that they should bring their prisoners first. You see now how it is, and how they have deceived us."

The complaint was just, and the situation became critical. The Iroquois deputies were invited to explain themselves. They stalked into the council-room with their usual haughty composure, and readily promised to surrender the prisoners in future, but offered no hostages for their good faith. The Rat, who had counselled his own and other tribes to bring their Iroquois captives to Montreal, was excessively mortified at finding himself duped. He came to a later meeting, when this and other matters were to be discussed; but he was so weakened by fever that he could not stand. An armchair was brought him; and, seated in it, he harangued the a.s.sembly for two hours, amid a deep silence, broken only by e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns of approval from his Indian hearers. When the meeting ended, he was completely exhausted; and, being carried in his chair to the hospital, he died about midnight. He was a great loss to the French; for, though he had caused the ma.s.sacre of La Chine, his services of late years had been invaluable. In spite of his unlucky name, he was one of the ablest North American Indians on record, as appears by his remarkable influence over many tribes, and by the respect, not to say admiration, of his French contemporaries.

The French charged themselves with the funeral rites, carried the dead chief to his wigwam, stretched him on a robe of beaver skin, and left him there lying in state, swathed in a scarlet blanket, with a kettle, a gun, and a sword at his side, for his use in the world of spirits.

This was a concession to the superst.i.tion of his countrymen; for the Rat was a convert, and went regularly to ma.s.s. [Footnote: La Potherie, IV. 229. Charlevoix suppresses the kettle and gun, and says that the dead chief wore a sword and a uniform, like a French officer. In fact, he wore Indian leggins and a capote under his scarlet blanket.] Even the Iroquois, his deadliest foes, paid tribute to his memory. Sixty of them came in solemn procession, and ranged themselves around the bier; while one of their princ.i.p.al chiefs p.r.o.nounced an harangue, in which he declared that the sun had covered his face that day in grief for the loss of the great Huron. [Footnote: Charlevoix says that these were Christian Iroquois of the missions. Potherie, his only authority, proves them to have been heathen, as their chief mourner was a noted Seneca, and their spokesman, Avenano, was the accredited orator of the Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, and Senecas, in whose name he made the funeral harangue.] He was buried on the next morning. Saint-Ours, senior captain, led the funeral train with an escort of troops, followed by sixteen Huron warriors in robes of beaver skin, marching four and four, with faces painted black and guns reversed. Then came the clergy, and then six war-chiefs carrying the coffin. It was decorated with flowers, and on it lay a plumed hat, a sword, and a gorget. Behind it were the brother and sons of the dead chief, and files of Huron and Ottawa warriors; while Madame de Champigny, attended by Vaudreuil and all the military officers, closed the procession. After the service, the soldiers fired three volleys over the grave; and a tablet was placed upon it, carved with the words,--

CY GIT LE RAT, CHEF DES HURONS.

All this ceremony pleased the allied tribes, and helped to calm their irritation. Every obstacle being at length removed or smoothed over, the fourth of August was named for the grand council. A vast, oblong s.p.a.ce was marked out on a plain near the town, and enclosed with a fence of branches. At one end was a canopy of boughs and leaves, under which were seats for the spectators. Troops were drawn up in line along the sides; the seats under the canopy were filled by ladies, officials, and the chief inhabitants of Montreal; Callieres sat in front, surrounded by interpreters; and the Indians were seated on the gra.s.s around the open s.p.a.ce. There were more than thirteen hundred of them, gathered from a distance of full two thousand miles, Hurons and Ottawas from Michillimackinac, Ojibwas from Lake Superior, Crees from the remote north, Pottawatamies from Lake Michigan, Mascontins, Sacs, Foxes, Winnebagoes, and Menominies from Wisconsin, Miamis from the St.

Joseph, Illinois from the river Illinois, Abenakis from Acadia, and many allied hordes of less account; each savage painted with diverse hues and patterns, and each in his dress of ceremony, leathern s.h.i.+rts fringed with scalp-locks, colored blankets or robes of bison hide and beaver skin, bristling crests of hair or long lank tresses, eagle feathers or horns of beasts. Pre-eminent among them all sat their valiant and terrible foes, the warriors of the confederacy. "Strange,"

exclaims La Potherie, "that four or five thousand should make a whole new world tremble. New England is but too happy to gain their good graces; New France is often wasted by their wars, and our allies dread them over an extent of more than fifteen hundred leagues." It was more a marvel than he knew, for he greatly overrates their number.

Callieres opened the council with a speech, in which he told the a.s.sembly that, since but few tribes were represented at the treaty of the year before, he had sent for them all to ratify it; that he now threw their hatchets and his own into a pit so deep that n.o.body could find them; that henceforth they must live like brethren; and, if by chance one should strike another, the injured brother must not revenge the blow, but come for redress to him, Onontio, their common father.

Nicolas Perrot and the Jesuits who acted as interpreters repeated the speech in five different languages; and, to confirm it, thirty-one wampum belts were given to the thirty-one tribes present. Then each tribe answered in turn. First came Ha.s.saki, chief of an Ottawa band known as Cut Tails. He approached with a majestic air, his long robe of beaver skin trailing on the gra.s.s behind him. Four Iroquois captives followed, with eyes bent on the ground; and, when he stopped before the governor, they seated themselves at his feet. "You asked us for our prisoners," he said, "and here they are. I set them free because you wish it, and I regard them as my brothers." Then turning to the Iroquois deputies: "Know that if I pleased I might have eaten them; but I have not done as you would have done. Remember this when we meet, and let us be friends." The Iroquois e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed their approval.

Next came a Huron chief, followed by eight Iroquois prisoners, who, as he declared, had been bought at great cost, in kettles, guns, and blankets, from the families who had adopted them. "We thought that the Iroquois would have done by us as we have done by them; and we were astonished to see that they had not brought us our prisoners. Listen to me, my father, and you, Iroquois, listen. I am not sorry to make peace, since my father wishes it, and I will live in peace with him and with you." Thus, in turn, came the spokesmen of all the tribes, delivering their prisoners and making their speeches. The Miami orator said: "I am very angry with the Iroquois, who burned my son some years ago; but to-day I forget all that. My father's will is mine. I will not be like the Iroquois, who have disobeyed his voice." The orator of the Mississagas came forward, crowned with the head and horns of a young bison bull, and, presenting his prisoners, said: "I place them in your hands. Do with them as you like. I am only too proud that you count me among your allies."

The chief of the Foxes now rose from his seat at the farther end of the enclosure, and walked sedately across the whole open s.p.a.ce towards the stand of spectators. His face was painted red, and he wore an old French wig, with its abundant curls in a state of complete entanglement. When he reached the chair of the governor, he bowed, and lifted the wig like a hat, to show that he was perfect in French politeness. There was a burst of laughter from the spectators; but Callieres, with ceremonious gravity, begged him to put it on again, which he did, and proceeded with his speech, the pith of which was briefly as follows: "The darkness is gone, the sun s.h.i.+nes bright again, and now the Iroquois is my brother."

Then came a young Algonquin war-chief, dressed like a Canadian, but adorned with a drooping red feather and a tall ridge of hair like the crest of a c.o.c.k. It was he who slew Black Kettle, that redoubted Iroquois whose loss filled the confederacy with mourning, and who exclaimed as he fell, "Must I, who have made the whole earth tremble, now die by the hand of a child!" The young chief spoke concisely and to the purpose: "I am not a man of counsel: it is for me to listen to your words. Peace has come, and now let us forget the past."

When he and all the rest had ended, the orator of the Iroquois strode to the front, and in brief words gave in their adhesion to the treaty.

"Onontio, we are pleased with all you have done, and we have listened to all you have said. We a.s.sure you by these four belts of wampum that we will stand fast in our obedience. As for the prisoners whom we have not brought you, we place them at your disposal, and you will send and fetch them."

The calumet was lighted. Callieres, Champigny, and Vaudreuil drew the first smoke, then the Iroquois deputies, and then all the tribes in turn. The treaty was duly signed, the representative of each tribe affixing his mark, in the shape of some bird, beast, fish, reptile, insect, plant, or nondescript object.

"Thus," says La Potherie, "the labors of the late Count Frontenac were brought to a happy consummation." The work of Frontenac was indeed finished, though not as he would have finished it. Callieres had told the Iroquois that till they surrendered their Indian prisoners he would keep in his own hands the Iroquois prisoners surrendered by the allied tribes. To this the spokesman of the confederacy coolly replied: "Such a proposal was never made since the world began. Keep them, if you like. We will go home, and think no more about them; but, if you gave them to us without making trouble, and gave us our son Joncaire at the same time, we should have no reason to distrust your sincerity, and should all be glad to send you back the prisoners we took from your allies." Callieres yielded, persuaded the allies to agree to the conditions, gave up the prisoners, and took an empty promise in return. It was a triumph for the Iroquois, who meant to keep their Indian captives, and did in fact keep nearly all of them. [1]

The chief objects of the late governor were gained. The power of the Iroquois was so far broken that they were never again very formidable to the French. Canada had confirmed her Indian alliances, and reb.u.t.ted the English claim to sovereignty over the five tribes, with all the consequences that hung upon it. By the treaty of Ryswick, the great questions at issue in America were left to the arbitrament of future wars; and meanwhile, as time went on, the policy of Frontenac developed and ripened. Detroit was occupied by the French, the pa.s.ses of the west were guarded by forts, another New France grew up at the mouth of the Mississippi, and lines of military communication joined the Gulf of Mexico with the Gulf of St. Lawrence; while the colonies of England lay pa.s.sive between the Alleghanies and the sea till roused by the trumpet that sounded with wavering notes on many a b.l.o.o.d.y field to peal at last in triumph from the Heights of Abraham.

[1] The council at Montreal is described at great length by La Potherie, a spectator. There is a short official report of the various speeches, of which a translation will be found in _N. Y. Col. Docs.,_ IX. 722. Callieres himself gives interesting details. (_Callieres au Ministre,_ 4 _Oct.,_ 1701.) A great number of papers on Indian affairs at this time will be found in _N. Y. Col. Docs.,_ IV.

Joncaire went for the prisoners whom the Iroquois had promised to give up, and could get but six of them. _Callieres au Ministre,_ 31 _Oct.,_ 1701. The rest were made Iroquois by adoption.

According to an English official estimate made at the end of the war, the Iroquois numbered 2,550 warriors in 1689, and only 1,230 in 1698.

_N. Y. Col. Docs.,_ IV. 420. In 1701, a French writer estimates them at only 1,200 warriors. In other words, their strength was reduced at least one half. They afterwards partially recovered it by the adoption of prisoners, and still more by the adoption of an entire kindred tribe, the Tuscaroras. In 1720, the English reckon them at 2,000 warriors. _N. Y. Col Docs.,_ V. 557.

APPENDIX.

THE FAMILY OF FRONTENAC.

COUNT FRONTENAC'S grandfather was

ANTOINE DE BUADE, Seigneur de Frontenac, Baron de Palluau, Conseiller d'Etat, Chevalier des Ordres du Roy, son premier maitre d'hotel, et gouverneur de St. Germain-en-Laye. By Jeanne Secontat, his wife, he had, among other children,

HENRI DE BUADE, Chevalier, Baron de Palluau et mestre de camp (_colonel_) du regiment de Navarre, who, by his wife Anne Phelippeaux, daughter of Raymond Phelippeaux, Secretary of State, had, among other children,

LOUIS DE BUADE, Comte de Palluau et Frontenac. Seigneur de l'Isle-Savary, mestre de camp du regiment de Normandie, marechal de camp dans les armees du Roy, et gouverneur et lieutenant general en Canada, Acadie, Isle de Terreneuve, et autres pays de la France septentrionale. Louis de Buade had by his wife, Anne de La Grange-Trianon, one son, Francois Louis, killed in Germany, while in the service of the king, and leaving no issue.

The foregoing is drawn from a comparison of the following authorities, all of which will be found in the Bibliotheque Nationale of Paris, where the examination was made: _Memoires de Marolles, abbe de Villeloin_, II. 201; L'Hermite-Souliers, _Histoire Genealogique de la n.o.blesse de Touraine_; Du Chesne, _Recherches Historiques de l'Ordre du Saint-Esprit_; Morin, _Statuts de l'Ordre du Saint-Esprit_; Marolles de Villeloin, _Histoire des Anciens Comtes d'Anjou_; Pere Anselme, _Grands Officiers de la Couronne_; Pinard, _Chronologie Historique-militaire; Table de la Gazette de France_. In this matter of the Frontenac genealogy, I am much indebted to the kind offices of my friend, James Gordon Clarke, Esq. When, in 1600, Henry IV. was betrothed to Marie de Medicis, Frontenac, grandfather of the governor of Canada, described as "ung des plus antiens serviteurs du roy," was sent to Florence by the king to carry his portrait to his affianced bride. _Memoires de Philippe Hurault_, 448 (Pet.i.tot).

The appointment of Frontenac to the post, esteemed as highly honorable, of _maitre d'hotel_ in the royal household, immediately followed. There is a very curious book, the journal of Jean Heroard, a physician charged with the care of the infant Dauphin, afterwards Louis XIII., born in 1601. It records every act of the future monarch: his screaming and kicking in the arms of his nurses, his refusals to be washed and dressed, his resistance when his hair was combed; how he scratched his governess, and called her names; how he quarrelled with the children of his father's mistresses, and at the age of four declined to accept them as brothers and sisters; how his mother slighted him; and how his father sometimes caressed, sometimes teased, and sometimes corrected him with his own hand. The details of the royal nursery are, we may add, astounding for their grossness; and the language and the manners amid which the infant monarch grew up were worthy of the days of Rabelais.

Frontenac and his children appear frequently, and not unfavorably, on the pages of this singular diary. Thus, when the Dauphin was three years old, the king, being in bed, took him and a young Frontenac of about the same age, set them before him, and amused Himself by making them rally each other in their infantile language. The infant Frontenac had a trick of stuttering, which the Dauphin caught from him, and retained for a long time. Again, at the age of five, the Dauphin, armed with a little gun, played at soldier with two of the Frontenac children in the hall at St. Germain. They a.s.saulted a town, the rampart being represented by a bal.u.s.trade before the fireplace.

"The Dauphin," writes the journalist, "said that he would be a musketeer, and yet he spoke sharply to the others who would not do as he wished. The king said to him, 'My boy, you are a musketeer, but you speak like a general.'" Long after, when the Dauphin was in his fourteenth year, the following entry occurs in the physician's diary:--

St. Germain, Sunday, 22d (_July_, 1614). "He (_the Dauphin_) goes to the chapel of the terrace, then mounts his horse and goes to find M.

de Souvre and M. de Frontenac, whom he surprises as they were at breakfast at the small house near the quarries. At half past one, he mounts again, in hunting boots; goes to the park with M. de Frontenac as a guide, chases a stag, and catches him. It was his first stag-hunt."

Of Henri de Buade, father of the governor of Canada, but little is recorded. When in Paris, he lived, like his son after him, on the Quai des Celestiris, in the parish of St. Paul. His son, Count Frontenac, was born in 1620, seven years after his father's marriage. Apparently his birth took place elsewhere than in Paris, for it is not recorded with those of Henri de Buade's other children, on the register of St.

Paul (Jal, _Dictionnaire Critique, Biographique, et d'Histoire_). The story told by Tallemant des Reaux concerning his marriage (see page 6) seems to be mainly true. Colonel Jal says: "On concoit que j'ai pu etre tente de connaitre ce qu'il y a de vrai dans les recits de Saint-Simon et de Tallemant des Reaux; voici ce qu'apres bien des recherches, j'ai pu apprendre. Mlle. La Grange fit, en effet, un mariage a demi secret. Ce ne fut point a sa paroisse que fut benie son union avec M. de Frontenac, mais dans une des pet.i.tes eglises de la Cite qui avaient le privilege de recevoir les amants qui s'unissaient malgre leurs parents, et ceux qui regularisaient leur position et s'epousaient un peu avant--quelquefois apres--la naissance d'un enfant. Ce fut a, St. Pierre-aux-Boeufs que, le mercredy, 28 Octobre, 1648, 'Messire Louis de Buade, Chevalier, comte de Frontenac, conseiller du Roy en ses conseils, mareschal des camps et armees de S.

M., et maistre de camp du regiment du Normandie, 'epousa' demoiselle Anne de La Grange, fille de Messire Charles de La Grange, conseiller du Roy et maistre des comptes' de la paroisse de St. Paul comme M. de Frontenac, 'en vertu de la dispense ... obtenue de M. l'official de Paris par laquelle il est permis au Sr. de Buade et demoiselle de La Grange de celebrer leur marriage suyvant et conformement a la permission qu'ils en ont obtenue du Sr. Coquerel, vicaire de St. Paul, devant le premier cure ou vicaire sur ce requis, en gardant les solennites en ce cas requises et accoutumees.'" Jal then gives the signatures to the act of marriage, which, except that of the bride, are all of the Frontenac family.