The White and the Gold (13 page)

T
HE assassination of Henry IV was a serious blow to the Sieur de Monts and his associates. What hope would there be for a Huguenot to retain any shred of influence at a court over which Italian-born Marie de’ Medici, the King’s widow, would preside as regent? The new ruler, Louis XIII, was too young to have any voice and there was no reason to assume that, had the power been his, the boy King would have looked with a lenient eye on the enterprise of the merchant adventurers.

Champlain sailed back to France in 1611 to take counsel with Monts and found the latter acting as governor of the city of Pons, a mere dot on the map of Saintonge. This was the clearest indication of impending disaster, that the resourceful Monts had found it necessary to leave court and bury himself in the humdrum details of a provincial post. The truth was that his personal fortune had been dissipated and that he stood on the threshold of bankruptcy when Champlain sought him out. This last glimpse of him which history affords shows him in a favorable light. He did not complain of his misfortunes. He wore his plumed hat as jauntily as ever and his handsome eyes still glowed with resolution. He transferred to Champlain full power to make such arrangements as he might for the struggling colony and urged him not to desist or lose heart. The latter, emboldened by his old comrade’s tenacity in the face of adversity, went to Fontainebleau to plead for continued support.

At this point the haughty and sometimes vindictive regent was seated firmly in the saddle of state, with her Italian favorites, the Concinis, pulling strings and amassing a great fortune for themselves. A certain very young bishop from the see of Luçon, “the poorest and
nastiest in France,” to quote his own phrase, one Armand Jean du Plessis de Richelieu, was most certainly not at court at this juncture, as his election to the States-General would not come about for three years. In any event, this almost adolescent cleric, who one day would rule France with steel-clad hand and put his whole weight behind the colonizing of America, was very discreet and very, very poor (he had to buy a secondhand bed when he took over the bishopric), and the questing eye of Champlain would have passed him over without so much as a pause.

Champlain was working on a plan which no doubt had been hatched in the course of his talks with Monts. The colony must be placed under the wing of someone close to the throne in order to command further help and patronage. The man from Quebec looked about him and his eye became fixed on a cousin of the late King, the Comte de Soissons, a dissolute and supercilious nobleman who was continuously in need of funds. Champlain showed himself in this matter a most resourceful negotiator. He first canvassed the members of the royal council and won support and authorization there for his plan. Then he approached the comte and made a bargain with him by which the noble spendthrift would receive a thousand crowns a year for the use of his illustrious name and his influence at court.

The Comte de Soissons, who was to be named viceroy, did not live long enough to profit from this arrangement. The organization of the new company had not been completed, in fact, when he was struck down with a fever and followed his cousin, the much-mourned Henry, to the grave. Champlain cast about for a successor and fastened his choice on the Prince de Condé, a nephew of the deceased comte and the possessor of one of the proudest names in France. The record of the noble house of Condé was like an agitated sea, majestic heights and wallowing depths following each other in quick succession. It was the lot of the heads of the family to be either sublimely great or completely mediocre and venal. The representative of the line who listened agreeably to Champlain’s arguments was to be the father of the greatest Condé, the victor of Rocroi, but he himself was a vain and greedy man who entertained ambitious plans but lacked the capacity to carry any of them out; but who possessed enough influence to put through a matter as relatively small as this. In the spring of 1614, after long negotiations, the merchants of the great ports were brought into one organization under the distinguished,
if sterile, patronage of Condé. The latter was to be viceroy with Champlain acting as his lieutenant in Canada. Condé was to receive his thousand crowns a year and the associated members were to send out six families as settlers each season. The monopoly was to extend for eleven years from the signing of the charter.

Champlain, who had been running back and forth between the two continents while the negotiations simmered, returned to Canada now in a jubilant mood. The success of the venture seemed assured at last. The little settlement clinging so tenaciously to the foot of the great rock at Quebec would prosper. Other posts would be started at strategic points. Champlain himself would be able to pursue his explorations and his work with the Indians. And finally the objective which had always been prominent in the minds of those two resolute pioneers, Champlain and Monts (the latter was being given a very humble holding in the new company), would at last be realized. The cassock and breviary of the missionary would be seen along the great rivers and lakes and in the palisaded villages of the savage tribes.

In the corner of Ontario which extends northward from Lake Simcoe and takes in all the beautifully wooded and lake-bespangled land around the great arm of Georgian Bay, and which laps over on the east into the present-day playground of summer enchantment known as Muskoka and in the other direction into the northern area of fertile Western Ontario, was the home of the Hurons. It was small indeed to hold a nation of such relative greatness. The Hurons, who numbered about twenty thousand, had provided themselves with more than thirty villages in this irregular triangle of peaceful country. That they were crowded for hunting grounds goes without saying, but the location provided them with one great advantage: they were widely separated from their enemies of long standing, the ambitious and predatory Iroquois. Between the Huron country and the Finger Lakes was Western Ontario, which belonged to the Tobacco Nation, and the western arm of New York, where the Cat People lived. This was neutral land, and although it did not serve as a defense against Iroquois raids it helped considerably.

Between visits to France to smooth the roiled financial waters, Champlain continued his explorations, the work which added more
luster to his name than all the confabulations at Fountainebleau and all his diplomatic triumphs over the Condés, the Legendres, and Colliers. It is impossible to tell in detail of the many journeys he made in the long canoes so proudly paddled by his Indian friends and guides, the fleur-de-lis always fluttering at the prow, or to tell of the many far parts of this fair land on which he set foot. The most important of his explorations was a long thrust northward in the summer of 1615 which was prolonged into the next year. He undertook it to fulfill a promise made earlier to the heads of the Huron nation. He ascended the Ottawa River, transferred to the Mattawa, and found himself finally at Lake Nipissing. Turning southward, he came into Huron country and found himself gazing on a body of water of sufficient size and grandeur to make him doubt the accuracy of his senses.

His conviction was that he had reached the great lake of which he had heard so much and which later would be called Huron. Because of this he named the water stretching far out beyond the horizon the Mer Douce, the Fresh-Water Sea. It was, in reality, Georgian Bay.

Progressing southward through the Huron country, which abounded in streams and lakes and waterfalls, he visited a number of the largest villages, coming at last to the most important of them, called Cahiagué, which had two hundred lodges and triple palisades thirty feet high. He found that pandemonium had taken possession of the place. The war kettle had been brought out and was simmering like the caldron of wizardry in the center court. Huron braves from all quarters had been coming in for days, their skulls shaven clean, none wearing more than a breechclout. The crowded lodges at Cahiagué, which will be described in detail later, were now packed as full as caterpillar tents. The warriors were feasting and dancing and singing war songs. The squaws were screaming, the children were joining in, and the innumerable dogs, unlike the barkless canines of Hochelaga, were adding to the din.

The Hurons were taking the warpath on a greater scale than ever before. An allied tribe, the Carantouans, who lived in what is now eastern Pennsylvania, had promised to join them with five hundred men. The plan was to move secretly and swiftly against the main village of the Onondagas, the senior of the Five Nations, and wipe them out once and for all. Now that Champlain, giver of victory, had come with many men, all of them carrying the deadly weapon which
killed at a distance, they knew that victory was assured. It was no wonder that the shrill voices rose to a triumphant pitch.

After one of the Frenchmen, a young man named Etienne Brulé (he had come to Canada as Champlain’s servant), had been dispatched to the Carantouan country to make sure that the five hundred allies arrived in time, the great war party started. They traveled down the lakes in what is now the Kawartha section and entered Lake Ontario by way of the Trent River. They struck across that great body of water, and as the paddles rose and fell, sending the frail canoes easily along the choppy waves, the white men were told of the great falling waters at the end of the lake and of the huge seas which lay still farther to the west.

The attack was a failure. The Carantouan allies did not put in an appearance, but the defeat was due more to the overconfidence and scatterbrained conduct of the Hurons. First they gave their presence away by attacking a party of Iroquois, women as well as men, who were harvesting their fall crops in fields planted high with rustling corn. As a result of this madness, caused by an irresistible hate which surged up at first sight of the enemy, the attack was delivered against aroused and thoroughly prepared defenders. The village was surrounded by four rows of wooden palisades sloping inward and supporting a gallery which swarmed with jeering Iroquois. Looking the situation over, Champlain realized that the attack would have to be launched with great care. He drew his dusky allies back into the shelter of the trees and set them to work first at making what was called in France a “cavalier,” a tower high enough to permit his musketeers to fire down over the heads of the defenders, as well as a number of “mantelets,” movable wooden shields behind which the attacking party could advance against the walls.

All would have gone well if the same madness had not taken possession of the Hurons when the attack was delivered. Five hundred strong, and thoroughly convinced that the rifle fire of the French would throw the Onondaga braves into a panic, the Hurons abandoned the shields and dashed madly instead to attack in the open. The arrows of the defenders fell among them like lethal hail and their losses were heavy. The French marksmen in the cavalier took steady toll of the defenders on the gallery, but gunfire no longer held any element of surprise. The men of the Onondaga tribe knew they must expect losses by reason of the magic of the white men. They flinched as their ranks were decimated, but they stood to their posts.
The wild efforts of the Hurons to set fire to the outer palisade failed and they slunk back to the cover of the trees, having lost all stomach for the devastating archery of the Iroquois. After three hours the attacking party decided they were beaten, and Champlain, who had been wounded in the leg by an arrow, could not rouse them to further efforts. All that the disheartened Hurons wanted now was to get back to the safety of their own country so far away. In the retreat which followed, the French leader was carried in a basket on the back of a powerful brave. He suffered intense pain, his unhappiness increased by speculation as to what effect the disaster would have on his unstable allies.

Sullen in defeat, the Hurons made it clear that they had lost faith in their white friends. Why had the long iron tubes failed to bring the Iroquois to their knees? The mutter of discontent which filled the canoes after they had reached Lake Ontario held no trace of self-blame. They had crossed the lake in ease and supreme confidence, but they made the return in better haste and with many a frightened backward glance.

It had been arranged that canoes would be provided to take the French to Montreal Island immediately after the expected victory. Now none would volunteer for the task, pointing out the danger of being picked off by the bands of Iroquois who would soon swarm in the woods. Champlain, who understood the Huron moods, realized that there was more than this back of the attitude of the chiefs. They expected the enemy to attack in turn and they needed the help of the white men and their muskets.

Champlain saw that, whether they liked it or not, he and his men faced the necessity of spending the winter in the Huron country.

The failure of Etienne Brulé to bring the Carantouan contingent was not due to any fault of his own. He had made a quick descent of Lake Orillia and down the Humber River (thus becoming the first white man to visit the side of the city of Toronto), at which point he and his Huron aides crossed Lake Ontario. They skirted the Iroquois country cautiously and reached in safety the upper waters of the Susquehanna River. The chief Carantouan village was located close to the site of the modern town of Waverly, and here they found the Carantouan chiefs. The latter were friendly but inclined to be
dilatory. Days were wasted in useless powwows and council meetings. They finally got the warriors out and on their way to join the Hurons, but it was then too late. They arrived two days after the retreat of the Huron war party.