Bride of New France (13 page)

The convoy makes its way down the Seine throughout the morning and well into the afternoon. When night falls, the girls strain by the light of the archers’ torches to make out the shore of the country they are leaving behind. They pass towns and villages along the way: Poissy, Mantes-la-Jolie, Louviers, and Elbeuf. The archers complain that they should stop and spend the night in one of these towns, but the officers insist that no money has been allotted for such a purpose. They travel for
the better part of two days down the wending river and are exhausted when they reach Rouen.

A priest welcomes them to shore and they spend the night in the monastery. In the morning, another dozen or so girls from Normandie are waiting to join them. These girls have been recruited by the priests from poor farms. They are dressed in their best country clothes, although Laure would prefer to be wearing her hospital day dress rather than one of their bonnets and sagging dresses. Laure overhears the priest tell one of these hardy girls, who stares with disdain at the hospital girls, that the sea crossing will rid them of their city filth.

They arrive in Le Havre, where they are to board the ship, later that afternoon. The city itself is small and less impressive than Rouen. But Laure catches her first glimpse of the sea beyond the swampy shore. By now there are only a few archers still with them and a new woman, Madame Bourdon, who is from Canada and met them in Rouen. She will accompany them throughout the ship’s crossing. It strikes Laure that she will never see Madame du Clos, Madame Gage, or any of the other women of the Salpêtrière again. Her past is behind her; there is no turning back. Who will be waiting for her in New France, and will they be kind? Who will ring the bells at mealtime, for prayers, and when it is time to go to sleep?

An angry mob of twenty or thirty people waits for the girls when they moor. They are poor men and women, farmers and sailors carrying the instruments of their trade as weapons. As their boat pulls into port, the archers shout into the air for the crowd to back up. Women and men scream that they will not allow their daughters to be banished to a frozen land of misery or to meet their death at sea. That Canada is no place for
women and that the King had better hang his criminals rather than send them across the sea to Canada.

Along with the chilly wind and the strength of the foaming waves crashing against the port town, this brutish group of protestors only serves to frighten the girls. There is much excitement at the port as the ships returned from distant, mostly warmer, seas are unloaded of riches: coffee, sugar, cotton, tobacco, and spices. Already this merchandise is being bargained for and sold for dispersal down the very river Laure has just left behind. Laure has never felt smaller or more alone in all her life. Madeleine has been praying her rosary for most of the journey and conversing with some of the other girls from the hospital, who talk mostly of the contents of their coffers, the ribbons and fabric they have brought with them. Madeleine is so kind to all of them, listening to their plans for marriage and a better life in Canada. Laure wishes Madeleine would stop talking to these girls.

Beyond, at some distance into the sea, is the ship they will board for Canada. Laure doesn’t know if it is the cold misty air or terror at what lies ahead that makes her shiver. The boat, although one of the largest of its type, looks fragile, almost ridiculous, against the immense backdrop of the ocean. Laure has heard that early summer is the best time to undertake this journey to New France. Attempted too early or too late, their vessel would be shattered on rocks along the coast before they even reached the cruel centre of the North Atlantic.

    9    

S
ince the passengers bound for Canada boarded the
Saint-Jean-Baptiste
almost three weeks ago, the vessel has not moved out of the Bay of the Seine. The sailors worry that the lack of wind is an inauspicious sign that the journey to Canada will be a long one. Throughout the late spring days, Laure has been standing with the other passengers on deck looking back across the calm water to the shore. It is too far to swim back, to scream across to the tiny bodies moving on the land, but too close to feel that they have really left France behind.

Beside them, also waiting for the winds to pick up, is another ship, the
Amitié
. Laure has heard much talk on the deck about this other ship. The
Amitié
is bound for the sugar plantations of Saint-Domingue and carries in its hold three hundred
nègres
recently acquired from the Dahomey coast in Africa. The slave ship is larger than the
Saint-Jean-Baptiste
. Normally, Laure only sees the sailors and patrolling soldiers of the
Amitié
, but today there are commands being shouted out and weapons raised. The
nègres
from below deck will be brought up for air.

One of the soldiers on the
Amitié
yells across to a sailor on their ship that it is time to have a little dance. The men in
charge of sailing the
Saint-Jean-Baptiste
have spent the past few days grumbling at the sight of the
Amitié
. Laure heard one of them say that there is no money in bringing nuns and priests and a few starving women to Canada, that it costs more to feed them on the journey than they get paid to carry them across.

According to the crew of the
Saint-Jean-Baptiste
, the trade of
nègres
to the Islands is the way for a seaman to make money. One particularly spindly sailor bragged about how he once had to fit a
nègre
the size of a horse with an iron mask to keep him from the sugar cane onboard the ship. Laure could not imagine this sailor with wrists as thin as her own doing anything of the sort. Today this sailor and the others are quiet as they wait with the other passengers for a glimpse of the
Amitié
’s cargo.

After some time, three male slaves, two adults and a child, are brought up on the deck of the
Amitié
. One of the sailors, a fat and bearded man, bends to unbind their legs, but he keeps their hands shackled in iron. A dozen or so soldiers and sailors make a circle around the two adult
nègres
and the
négrillon
. The two large slaves raise their shackled hands to cover their faces as the men around them jeer. But the
négrillon
, unlike the other two, stands with his back straight and his head cocked. When the French men scream out orders for the dance to begin, the
négrillon
, like the other two, moves his recently freed legs, bending them at the knee and raising each of them in slow motion. But the eyes of the
négrillon
remained fixed on the French men, his head moving to look from one sailor to the other. The sailor in charge of the stick raises it when the boy looks at him. The
négrillon
moves his legs faster but doesn’t avert his eyes from the sailor. After a few minutes, the three slaves are returned below deck and three more are brought up.

The passengers of the
Saint-Jean-Baptiste
are cheering at the entertainment. But when Laure turns around, she sees that Madeleine has already gone below. Madame Bourdon, the woman who has been assigned to escort the girls to Canada, comes to Laure and leads her by the elbow toward the hold.

“Do you think that
négrillon
was the child of one of those big men?” Laure asks Madeleine.

“I don’t know what father and mother he had before he was put on that ship. But all he has looking out for him now is the
bon Dieu
.” Madeleine is lying on the grey blanket issued to each passenger. The wool of the blankets has been chewed at by the rats of previous journeys, and they smell of stale vomit. Madeleine has not been well since the afternoon, so she has the dirty blanket raised to her chin. Madame Bourdon says that Madeleine probably got too much sun on deck. “Laure, why do you spend your time thinking about the fate of prostitutes and
négrillons
? Only God can understand these things.”

Laure looks at Madeleine’s tiny face. Her eyes are wide and sad. She has to pray day and night to have the courage that comes easily for Laure.

She reaches for Madeleine’s fingers and squeezes them. Laure then closes her eyes and offers two prayers: one for the little slave who has only God to care for him now and the other for her best friend.

The passengers are gathered in the hold at dusk for their dinner. The cook’s helpers, each carrying an end of the iron cauldron, descend below. One of the Jesuit priests comes out from behind his chamber curtain and heads upstairs for the captain’s table. The captain has his apartment and deck that looks out over the water. A few members of the nobility and the clergy, each with their own compartment below deck separated by a curtain from the public area, go up each night to dine with the captain. In the hold, along with the three hundred or so passengers, are the ship’s livestock. The animals are separated from the passengers by the boards of their pen, but the dirty straw makes its way through the cracks into the general filth of the ship’s bottom, and the smell of the animals permeates the air. A few of the sheep, cattle, and chickens are destined for the colony, but most are to be eaten during the crossing. But the animals are not intended for the indentured servants, ordinary soldiers, and women from the General Hospital. One calf was already killed for the first feast in the captain’s chamber. The passengers grumble that they hope the notables will be quick about eating the animals, as they are tired of sleeping with the smells and bleating of a stable.

Between the passenger hold, or the Sainte-Barbe as it is called, and the captain’s quarters is the
entrepont
. This is where the mail for the colony is kept, including letters from the King to the Intendant and the Governor. These bags are weighed down with cannonballs and are to be thrown overboard if their ship is accosted. In addition, there are religious supplies for the orders of New France, bolts of cloth, wooden furniture, dishes, tools, books, paper, spices, flour, oil, and wine, as well as the passengers’ rations for the journey: sea biscuits and lard in barrels, beans, dried cod and herring, olive oil, butter, mustard,
vinegar, water, and cider for when the fresh water supply runs out or becomes too putrid to drink. If the passengers wanted additional supplies for the journey, they were responsible for packing them in their luggage. The girls from the Salpêtrière have nothing more with them.