France and England in N America, Part V: Count Frontenac, New France, Louis XIV

CHAPTER XX

1698

Death of Frontenac

His Last Hours • His Will • His Funeral • His Eulogist and his Critic • His Disputes with the Clergy • His Character.

In November, when the last ship had gone, and Canada was sealed from the world for half a year, a mortal illness fell upon the governor. On the twenty-second, he had strength enough to dictate his will, seated in an easy-chair in his chamber at the château. His colleague and adversary, Champigny, often came to visit him, and did all in his power to soothe his last moments. The reconciliation between them was complete. One of his Récollet friends, Father Olivier Goyer, administered extreme unction; and, on the afternoon of the twenty-eighth, he died, in perfect composure and full possession of his faculties. He was in his seventy-eighth year.

He was greatly beloved by the humbler classes, who, days before his death, beset the château, praising and lamenting him. Many of higher station shared the popular grief. "He was the love and delight of New France," says one of them: "churchmen honored him for his piety, nobles esteemed him for his valor, merchants respected him for his equity, and the people loved him for his kindness." [430 - La Potherie, I. 244, 246.] "He was the father of the poor," says another, "the protector of the oppressed, and a perfect model of virtue and piety." [431 - Hennepin, 41 (1704). Le Clerc speaks to the same effect.] An Ursuline nun regrets him as the friend and patron of her sisterhood, and so also does the superior of the Hôtel-Dieu. [432 - Histoire des Ursulines de Québec, I. 508; Juchereau, 378.] His most conspicuous though not his bitterest opponent, the intendant Champigny, thus announced his death to the court: "I venture to send this letter by way of New England to tell you that Monsieur le Comte de Frontenac died on the twenty-eighth of last month, with the sentiments of a true Christian. After all the disputes we have had together, you will hardly believe, Monseigneur, how truly and deeply I am touched by his death. He treated me during his illness in a manner so obliging, that I should be utterly void of gratitude if I did not feel thankful to him." [433 - Champigny au Ministre, 22 Dec., 1698.]

As a mark of kind feeling, Frontenac had bequeathed to the intendant a valuable crucifix, and to Madame de Champigny a reliquary which he had long been accustomed to wear. For the rest, he gave fifteen hundred livres to the Récollets, to be expended in masses for his soul, and that of his wife after her death. To her he bequeathed all the remainder of his small property, and he also directed that his heart should be sent her in a case of lead or silver. [434 - Testament du Comte de Frontenac. I am indebted to Abbé Bois of Maskinongé for a copy of this will. Frontenac expresses a wish that the heart should be placed in the family tomb at the Church of St. Nicolas des Champs.] His enemies reported that she refused to accept it, saying that she had never had it when he was living, and did not want it when he was dead.

On the Friday after his death, he was buried as he had directed, not in the cathedral, but in the church of the Récollets, a preference deeply offensive to many of the clergy. The bishop officiated; and then the Récollet, Father Goyer, who had attended his death-bed, and seems to have been his confessor, mounted the pulpit, and delivered his funeral oration. "This funeral pageantry," exclaimed the orator, "this temple draped in mourning, these dim lights, this sad and solemn music, this great assembly bowed in sorrow, and all this pomp and circumstance of death, may well penetrate your hearts. I will not seek to dry your tears, for I cannot contain my own. After all, this is a time to weep, and never did people weep for a better governor."

A copy of this eulogy fell into the hands of an enemy of Frontenac, who wrote a running commentary upon it. The copy thus annotated is still preserved at Quebec. A few passages from the orator and his critic will show the violent conflict of opinion concerning the governor, and illustrate in some sort, though with more force than fairness, the contradictions of his character:—

The Orator. "This wise man, to whom the Senate of Venice listened with respectful attention, because he spoke before them with all the force of that eloquence which you, Messieurs, have so often admired,—" [435 - Alluding to an incident that occurred when Frontenac commanded a Venetian force for the defence of Candia against the Turks.]

The Critic. "It was not his eloquence that they admired, but his extravagant pretensions, his bursts of rage, and his unworthy treatment of those who did not agree with him."

The Orator. "This disinterested man, more busied with duty than with gain,—"

The Critic. "The less said about that the better."

The Orator. "Who made the fortune of others, but did not increase his own,—"

The Critic. "Not for want of trying, and that very often in spite of his conscience and the king's orders."

The Orator. "Devoted to the service of his king, whose majesty he represented, and whose person he loved,—"

The Critic. "Not at all. How often has he opposed his orders, even with force and violence, to the great scandal of everybody!"

The Orator. "Great in the midst of difficulties, by that consummate prudence, that solid judgment, that presence of mind, that breadth and elevation of thought, which he retained to the last moment of his life,—"

The Critic. "He had in fact a great capacity for political manœuvres and tricks; but as for the solid judgment ascribed to him, his conduct gives it the lie, or else, if he had it, the vehemence of his passions often unsettled it. It is much to be feared that his presence of mind was the effect of an obstinate and hardened self-confidence by which he put himself above everybody and every thing, since he never used it to repair, so far as in him lay, the public and private wrongs he caused. What ought he not to have done here, in this temple, to ask pardon for the obstinate and furious heat with which he so long persecuted the Church; upheld and even instigated rebellion against her; protected libertines, scandal-mongers, and creatures of evil life against the ministers of Heaven; molested, persecuted, vexed persons most eminent in virtue, nay, even the priests and magistrates, who defended the cause of God; sustained in all sorts of ways the wrongful and scandalous traffic in brandy with the Indians; permitted, approved, and supported the license and abuse of taverns; authorized and even introduced, in spite of the remonstrances of the servants of God, criminal and dangerous diversions; tried to decry the bishop and the clergy, the missionaries, and other persons of virtue, and to injure them, both here and in France, by libels and calumnies; caused, in fine, either by himself or through others, a multitude of disorders, under which this infant church has groaned for many years! What, I say, ought he not to have done before dying to atone for these scandals, and give proof of sincere penitence and compunction? God gave him full time to recognize his errors, and yet to the last he showed a great indifference in all these matters. When, in presence of the Holy Sacrament, he was asked according to the ritual, 'Do you not beg pardon for all the ill examples you may have given?' he answered, 'Yes,' but did not confess that he had ever given any. In a word, he behaved during the few days before his death like one who had led an irreproachable life, and had nothing to fear. And this is the presence of mind that he retained to his last moment!"

The Orator. "Great in dangers by his courage, he always came off with honor, and never was reproached with rashness,—"

The Critic. "True; he was not rash, as was seen when the Bostonnais besieged Quebec."

The Orator. "Great in religion by his piety, he practised its good works in spirit and in truth,—"

The Critic. "Say rather that he practised its forms with parade and ostentation: witness the inordinate ambition with which he always claimed honors in the Church, to which he had no right; outrageously affronted intendants, who opposed his pretensions; required priests to address him when preaching, and in their intercourse with him demanded from them humiliations which he did not exact from the meanest military officer. This was his way of making himself great in religion and piety, or, more truly, in vanity and hypocrisy. How can a man be called great in religion, when he openly holds opinions entirely opposed to the True Faith, such as, that all men are predestined, that Hell will not last for ever, and the like?"

The Orator. "His very look inspired esteem and confidence,—"

The Critic. "Then one must have taken him at exactly the right moment, and not when he was foaming at the mouth with rage."

The Orator. "A mingled air of nobility and gentleness; a countenance that bespoke the probity that appeared in all his acts, and a sincerity that could not dissimulate,—"

The Critic. "The eulogist did not know the old fox."

The Orator. "An inviolable fidelity to friends,—"

The Critic. "What friends? Was it persons of the other sex? Of these he was always fond, and too much for the honor of some of them."

The Orator. "Disinterested for himself, ardent for others, he used his credit at court only to recommend their services, excuse their faults, and obtain favors for them,—"

The Critic. "True; but it was for his creatures and for nobody else."

The Orator. "I pass in silence that reading of spiritual books which he practised as an indispensable duty more than forty years; that holy avidity with which he listened to the word of God,—"

The Critic. "Only if the preacher addressed the sermon to him, and called him Monseigneur. As for his reading, it was often Jansenist books, of which he had a great many, and which he greatly praised and lent freely to others."

The Orator. "He prepared for the sacraments by meditation and retreat,—"

The Critic. "And generally came out of his retreat more excited than ever against the Church."

The Orator. "Let us not recall his ancient and noble descent, his family connected with all that is greatest in the army, the magistracy, and the government; Knights, Marshals of France, Governors of Provinces, Judges, Councillors, and Ministers of State: let us not, I say, recall all these without remembering that their examples roused this generous heart to noble emulation; and, as an expiring flame grows brighter as it dies, so did all the virtues of his race unite at last in him to end with glory a long line of great men, that shall be no more except in history."

The Critic. "Well laid on, and too well for his hearers to believe him. Far from agreeing that all these virtues were collected in the person of his pretended hero, they would find it very hard to admit that he had even one of them." [436 - Oraison Funèbre du très-haut et très-puissant Seigneur Louis de Buade, Comte de Frontenac et de Palluau, etc., avec des remarques critiques, 1698. That indefatigable investigator of Canadian history, the late M. Jacques Viger, to whom I am indebted for a copy of this eulogy, suggested that the anonymous critic may have been Abbé la Tour, author of the Vie de Laval. If so, his statements need the support of more trustworthy evidence. The above extracts are not consecutive, but are taken from various parts of the manuscript.]

It is clear enough from what quiver these arrows came. From the first, Frontenac had set himself in opposition to the most influential of the Canadian clergy. When he came to the colony, their power in the government was still enormous, and even the most devout of his predecessors had been forced into conflict with them to defend the civil authority; but, when Frontenac entered the strife, he brought into it an irritability, a jealous and exacting vanity, a love of rule, and a passion for having his own way, even in trifles, which made him the most exasperating of adversaries. Hence it was that many of the clerical party felt towards him a bitterness that was far from ending with his life.

The sentiment of a religion often survives its convictions. However heterodox in doctrine, he was still wedded to the observances of the Church, and practised them, under the ministration of the Récollets, with an assiduity that made full amends to his conscience for the vivacity with which he opposed the rest of the clergy. To the Récollets their patron was the most devout of men; to his ultramontane adversaries, he was an impious persecutor.

His own acts and words best paint his character, and it is needless to enlarge upon it. What perhaps may be least forgiven him is the barbarity of the warfare that he waged, and the cruelties that he permitted. He had seen too many towns sacked to be much subject to the scruples of modern humanitarianism; yet he was no whit more ruthless than his times and his surroundings, and some of his contemporaries find fault with him for not allowing more Indian captives to be tortured. Many surpassed him in cruelty, none equalled him in capacity and vigor. When civilized enemies were once within his power, he treated them, according to their degree, with a chivalrous courtesy, or a generous kindness. If he was a hot and pertinacious foe, he was also a fast friend; and he excited love and hatred in about equal measure. His attitude towards public enemies was always proud and peremptory, yet his courage was guided by so clear a sagacity that he never was forced to recede from the position he had taken. Towards Indians, he was an admirable compound of sternness and conciliation. Of the immensity of his services to the colony there can be no doubt. He found it, under Denonville, in humiliation and terror; and he left it in honor, and almost in triumph.

In spite of Father Goyer, greatness must be denied him; but a more remarkable figure, in its bold and salient individuality and sharply marked light and shadow, is nowhere seen in American history. [437 - There is no need to exaggerate the services of Frontenac. Nothing could be more fallacious than the assertion, often repeated, that in his time Canada withstood the united force of all the British colonies. Most of these colonies took no part whatever in the war. Only two of them took an aggressive part, New York and Massachusetts. New York attacked Canada twice, with the two inconsiderable war-parties of John Schuyler in 1690 and of Peter Schuyler in the next year. The feeble expedition under Winthrop did not get beyond Lake George. Massachusetts, or rather her seaboard towns, attacked Canada once. Quebec, it is true, was kept in alarm during several years by rumors of another attack from the same quarter; but no such danger existed, as Massachusetts was exhausted by her first effort. The real scourge of Canada was the Iroquois, supplied with arms and ammunition from Albany.]

CHAPTER XXI

1699-1701

Conclusion

The New Governor • Attitude of the Iroquois • Negotiations • Embassy to Onondaga • Peace • The Iroquois and the Allies • Difficulties • Death of the Great Huron • Funeral Rites • The Grand Council • The Work of Frontenac finished • Results.

It did not need the presence of Frontenac to cause snappings and sparks in the highly electrical atmosphere of New France. Callières took his place as governor ad interim, and in due time received a formal appointment to the office. Apart from the wretched state of his health, undermined by gout and dropsy, he was in most respects well fitted for it; but his deportment at once gave umbrage to the excitable Champigny, who declared that he had never seen such hauteur since he came to the colony. Another official was still more offended. "Monsieur de Frontenac," he says, "was no sooner dead than trouble began. Monsieur de Callières, puffed up by his new authority, claims honors due only to a marshal of France. It would be a different matter if he, like his predecessor, were regarded as the father of the country, and the love and delight of the Indian allies. At the review at Montreal, he sat in his carriage, and received the incense offered him with as much composure and coolness as if he had been some divinity of this New World." In spite of these complaints, the court sustained Callières, and authorized him to enjoy the honors that he had assumed. [438 - Champigny au Ministre, 26 Mai, 1699; La Potherie au Ministre, 2 Juin, 1699; Vaudreuil et La Potherie au Ministre, même date.]

His first and chief task was to finish the work that Frontenac had shaped out, and bring the Iroquois to such submission as the interests of the colony and its allies demanded. The fierce confederates admired the late governor, and, if they themselves are to be believed, could not help lamenting him; but they were emboldened by his death, and the difficulty of dealing with them was increased by it. Had they been sure of effectual support from the English, there can be little doubt that they would have refused to treat with the French, of whom their distrust was extreme. The treachery of Denonville at Fort Frontenac still rankled in their hearts, and the English had made them believe that some of their best men had lately been poisoned by agents from Montreal. The French assured them, on the other hand, that the English meant to poison them, refuse to sell them powder and lead, and then, when they were helpless, fall upon and destroy them. At Montreal, they were told that the English called them their negroes; and, at Albany, that if they made peace with Onontio, they would sink into "perpetual infamy and slavery." Still, in spite of their perplexity, they persisted in asserting their independence of each of the rival powers, and played the one against the other, in order to strengthen their position with both. When Bellomont required them to surrender their French prisoners to him, they answered: "We are the masters; our prisoners are our own. We will keep them or give them to the French, if we choose." At the same time, they told Callières that they would bring them to the English at Albany, and invited him to send thither his agents to receive them. They were much disconcerted, however, when letters were read to them which showed that, pending the action of commissioners to settle the dispute, the two kings had ordered their respective governors to refrain from all acts of hostility, and join forces, if necessary, to compel the Iroquois to keep quiet. [439 - Le Roy à Frontenac, 25 Mars, 1699. Frontenac's death was not known at Versailles till April. Le Roy d' Angleterre à Bellomont, 2 Avril, 1699; La Potherie, IV. 128; Callières à Bellomont, 7 Août, 1699.] This, with their enormous losses, and their desire to recover their people held captive in Canada, led them at last to serious thoughts of peace. Resolving at the same time to try the temper of the new Onontio, and yield no more than was absolutely necessary, they sent him but six ambassadors, and no prisoners. The ambassadors marched in single file to the place of council; while their chief, who led the way, sang a dismal song of lamentation for the French slain in the war, calling on them to thrust their heads above ground, behold the good work of peace, and banish every thought of vengeance. Callières proved, as they had hoped, less inexorable than Frontenac. He accepted their promises, and consented to send for the prisoners in their hands, on condition that within thirty-six days a full deputation of their principal men should come to Montreal. The Jesuit Bruyas, the Canadian Maricourt, and a French officer named Joncaire went back with them to receive the prisoners.

The history of Joncaire was a noteworthy one. The Senecas had captured him some time before, tortured his companions to death, and doomed him to the same fate. As a preliminary torment, an old chief tried to burn a finger of the captive in the bowl of his pipe, on which Joncaire knocked him down. If he had begged for mercy, their hearts would have been flint; but the warrior crowd were so pleased with this proof of courage that they adopted him as one of their tribe, and gave him an Iroquois wife. He lived among them for many years, and gained a commanding influence, which proved very useful to the French. When he, with Bruyas and Maricourt, approached Onondaga, which had long before risen from its ashes, they were greeted with a fusillade of joy, and regaled with the sweet stalks of young maize, followed by the more substantial refreshment of venison and corn beaten together into a pulp and boiled. The chiefs and elders seemed well inclined to peace; and, though an envoy came from Albany to prevent it, he behaved with such arrogance that, far from dissuading his auditors, he confirmed them in their resolve to meet Onontio at Montreal. They seemed willing enough to give up their French prisoners, but an unexpected difficulty arose from the prisoners themselves. They had been adopted into Iroquois families; and, having become attached to the Indian life, they would not leave it. Some of them hid in the woods to escape their deliverers, who, with their best efforts, could collect but thirteen, all women, children, and boys. With these, they returned to Montreal, accompanied by a peace embassy of nineteen Iroquois.

Peace, then, was made. "I bury the hatchet," said Callières, "in a deep hole, and over the hole I place a great rock, and over the rock I turn a river, that the hatchet may never be dug up again." The famous Huron, Kondiaronk, or the Rat, was present, as were also a few Ottawas, Abenakis, and converts of the Saut and the Mountain. Sharp words passed between them and the ambassadors; but at last they all laid down their hatchets at the feet of Onontio, and signed the treaty together. It was but a truce, and a doubtful one. More was needed to confirm it, and the following August was named for a solemn act of ratification. [440 - On these negotiations, La Potherie, IV. lettre xi.; N. Y. Col. Docs., IX. 708, 711, 715; Colden, 200; Callières au Ministre, 16 Oct., 1700; Champigny au Ministre, 22 Juillet, 1700; La Potherie au Ministre, 11 Aout, 1700; Ibid., 16 Oct., 1700; Callières et Champigny au Ministre, 18 Oct., 1700. See also N. Y. Col. Docs., IV., for a great number of English documents 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.