The White and the Gold (21 page)

The raiding of a thieves’ den in Alsatia, the section of London where the crooks gathered and the authority of the Upright Man (the name applied to criminal bosses) was recognized above the law, could not have been conducted with less lack of consideration.

It developed later that King Charles had decided to employ the restitution of Quebec as a weapon to compel the French Government to pay him the balance of the dowry of his Queen, who had been Princess Henrietta Maria of France, which amounted to eight hundred thousand crowns. He was in desperate need of money, having already embroiled himself with Parliament and so being without the financial supplies usually voted to the heads of state. The deal with the French Government was carried through. King Charles received the balance of the dowry and Quebec was handed back to the French.

The merchants of London lost every shilling they had invested in the effort to add Canada to the overseas possessions of the English Crown. Alexander, it is true, was elevated to the dignity of Earl of Stirling, but some years later he died in London in an insolvent condition. David Kirke was knighted for what he had done, but it
is not on record that any of the family received as much for their services as the ten pounds which another king had given John Cabot as his reward for discovering North America.

Twice Canada had been within the grasp of the English. Twice the great prize had slipped away from them.

Canada was officially handed back to France by the Treaty of St.-Germain-en-Laye, signed in March 1632. The Company of One Hundred Associates was teetering on the verge of dissolution at this point, but Cardinal Richelieu needed it for the carrying out of his plans in Canada. The official bellows were used to blow new life into it, and Champlain was sent back to Quebec to resume his lieutenancy.

The willing veteran, who had now reached the age of sixty-six, was received with delight by the few settlers left, among them the widow of Louis Hébert with her children and grandchildren. The guns boomed from the dilapidated citadel, and the happy inhabitants shed tears of gratitude. The Indians showed their delight at the return of the grand old man by holding a meeting. Long orations were delivered, in the course of which it was stated that “when the French were absent the earth was no longer the earth, the river was no longer the river, the sky was no longer the sky.”

In spite of his advanced years Champlain went briskly to work to repair the damages of war. He saw to it that new houses were built for the settlers who would be arriving. He repaired and strengthened the citadel, raising new towers and mounting larger cannon on the battlements. He erected a new chapel and called it Notre Dame de la Recouvrance as a token of gratitude for the restoration of Canada to the French people.

The atmosphere at Quebec had changed. The chaffering of free traders was no longer heard, nor the rough language of convict-settlers, the loud songs of men who lived in idleness. The Jesuits were in full control. The Récollet fathers had been released from captivity in England as soon as the treaty was signed and had been sent back to France. There they had found that they were not to resume their work in Canada. The Black-Gowns, as the Indians called the Jesuits, sat in council with Champlain and shared in his plans.

Champlain seems to have enjoyed some of his earlier vigor. He began to plan campaigns against the English, the Dutch on Manhattan Island, who were becoming active rivals in the fur trade, and the Iroquois, who were demonstrating the bitterness of their hatred. The last letter he addressed to Richielieu was a request for one hundred and twenty soldiers to defend the colony and police the Great Lakes. He raised a fort at Three Rivers and he willingly issued commissions to anyone desiring to explore the country to the west.

It was in the midst of such activities that death came to him. While his mind remained brisk and vital, his heavy frame had been showing the effect of his advanced years. In the fall of 1635 he was stricken with paralysis. He lingered for several months, unable to stir from his couch. It is to be hoped that as he lay in his narrow stone room in the citadel awaiting the slow approach of death there came to him for consolation a prophetic glimpse of the greatness which would grow out of the work to which he had devoted himself so loyally and so long.

He died on Christmas Day. Where he was buried has remained a mystery and has led to much research and earnest pursuit through the records of the day. The conclusion to which most historians have given their assent is that he was laid away in the Mountain Hill Cemetery which adjoins the chapel of Notre Dame de la Recouvrance. The chapel was burned in 1640 and Champlain’s successor, the Sieur de Montmagny, erected a new one in its place. It is generally believed that this edifice was raised over the grave in which the brave and able leader had been buried.

The unhappy colonists would have restrained their tears, which flowed so freely and generously, if they had known that the death of the founder was a happy release from humiliation. As he lay on his last couch the Company of One Hundred Associates was meeting in Paris to choose his successor.

Why it was thought necessary to replace the man who had devoted his life to New France and whose faith alone had kept the fleur-de-lis flying over the high eminence of Quebec has never been explained.

T
HERE was born at the castle of Vaubougon in Alençon in France in the year 1603 a daughter to the Sieur de Chauvigny and his wife. The child was named Marie Madeleine and became in course of time an attractive and intelligent young woman. Although not strong, she had a will which enabled her to rise to every emergency. Sometimes she was cheerful and gay, sometimes thoughtful and somber as her thoughts turned from the purely mundane details of existence. It is always difficult to gain an accurate mental picture of people who live in the shadows of bygone centuries, and reliance has to be placed on chance phrases in letters and in small and seemingly unimportant bits of evidence which survive. In connection with Marie Madeleine de Chauvigny, who has come down in history as Madame de la Peltrie, there are enough such clues, and one in particular which is worth recalling. When she had succeeded in founding the Ursuline convent at Quebec she was so obsessed with the need of strengthening the institution as well as the small colony which existed outside its walls that she once said she would go out and plant corn herself. An old Huron Christian who overheard the remark said, “Tell lady that corn planted by hands so delicate take long time to ripen.”

Marie Madeleine de Chauvigny had the desire early to devote herself to the Church. Her family, particularly her father, were very much against the idea. So much pressure was brought to bear that she gave in and married a man much older than herself, Charles de la Peltrie. She seems to have been happy enough in the conjugal
relationship. Her husband died when she was twenty-two years of age and left her all his property. Secure now in her status of widow, she resisted the pressure brought upon her to marry again. The time had come when she intended to give herself to the role for which she had always longed. She had decided to join the Ursulines and devote her life and her property to the establishment of a convent for children in Quebec.

Her decision created a family storm, the outcome of which was that her sister and brother-in-law brought suit to have her declared incompetent and her property removed from her control. It is at this stage of her life that the firmness of will possessed by this outwardly gentle and delicate young woman becomes clear. To circumvent her insistent relatives she entered into an engagement to marry a gentleman of her acquaintance, one Monsieur de Bernières, who was royal treasurer at Cȧėn. The worthy treasurer had no desire to wed her or anyone else, but he entered into the engagement on the promise that it was a subterfuge. When this failed to lull the family suspicions, the determined young widow actually talked the reluctant Monsieur de Bernières into becoming her husband, with the understanding that it would be nothing more than a marriage of convenience. Her father had died in the meantime, but the antagonistic sister and her acquisitive husband suspected her design and even questioned the validity of her marriage. They went to court again, and at first it looked as though the family harpies would win. There was a long and despairing interval before a countersuit was declared in her favor. From that moment the zealous young woman, whose personality seems to have blossomed as difficulties grew up about her, proceeded with her plans.

It was at Tours, where she had gone to visit the Ursulines, that she met a woman of equal zeal and determination who was to join the enterprise and become in course of time its chief prop and stay.

Marie Guyart was born in the year 1599 at Tours, which claims to produce the most beautiful girls in France and can advance much evidence in support of its pretensions. This daughter of the old city could not be called beautiful, however, though she was tall and somewhat stately and distinguished by fineness of feature. She was
dark and in expression rather intense, in which respect her appearance matched her character, for she was the possessor of great will power and a capacity for ceaseless application. She was married when quite young to a worthy citizen named Claude Martin and within a very few years was left a widow with one son and a bankrupt business on her hands. Faced with the necessity of providing a living for herself and her son Claude, she entered the household of a brother-in-law named Buisson in a role which can best be described as manageress. She did so well that her indolent employer decided she might as well assume charge of his mercantile business. Taking over without any hesitation, she began to manage all the details, all the problems of employment and cartage and bookkeeping, displaying a sure head and a level sense of judgment; receiving, however, in return for the increased prosperity she brought to the crowded warehouses and dingy offices no substantial reward at all.

It was not this unfairness which turned her thoughts to serving another master in a far different field. She had always wanted to give herself to the Church. Even when overburdened with responsibility and work, she had been severe in her penances, wearing a hair shirt and flagellating her back with a knotted cord. For a few years she was held back by the need to provide for her young son. The latter, it seems, was at first much opposed to her idea of entering a religious order.

When Claude became old enough to go to a Jesuit college, Marie Guyart became a novice in the Ursulines at Tours. This was in 1631, and two years later she took her first vows, assuming the name of Mère Marie de l’Incarnation. It was at this time that Madame de la Peltrie came to Tours. The old archbishop, who had been watching the new member of the Ursulines arid knew that her desire was to go to Canada, suggested to Madame de la Peltrie that here was an instrument who might prove of great use. The two women seem to have understood and liked one another at first sight, and out of the meeting grew a partnership which would leave its mark on many of the pages over which historians ponder. The energy and perseverence as well as the truly saintly quality of self-abnegation which Marie de l’Incarnation would display in remarkable degree were to prove the most potent factors in the success of the institution.

It should be recorded that Claude ultimately joined the Benedictines and became Assistant Superior General in France. Before attaining that post he was offered a secretaryship under Cardinal
Richelieu but declined that great honor in the belief that he could be of more service in his work with the order.

The two zealous founders left France on May 4, 1639, sailing from Dieppe in a ship called the
St. Joseph
. They were accompanied by two nuns in the costume of the Ursulines, gray under a black tunic. One of the nuns was a delicate and pretty girl who also had met Madame de la Peltrie at Tours, Marie de la Troche of St. Bernard. She was a great blessing to them all on the long and arduous journey, her cheerful spirits introducing a bright note into the grim days when the little ship was in the grip of Atlantic gales.

On the
St. Joseph
also were three members of the order of Hospitalières who were sailing to carry out the plan conceived by Richelieu’s niece, the Duchess d’Aiguillon, for the establishment of an Hôtel-Dieu (the French name for hospital) in Quebec. Three Jesuit priests were on board, one of them Father Vincent, who had been chosen to succeed Paul le Jeune as Superior of the Society in Canada.

The party was enthusiastically received, although it soon became evident that little thought had been given to the question of their accommodation. Unaware of the difficulties they would have to face, the devoted young women, happy to have reached the scene of their mission, went down on their knees and kissed the soil of New France. They were then taken to a settlement a few miles above Quebec where Christian Indians had been established, with a church of their own, a mission house, and a small hospital, all of which had been made possible by funds from Noel Brulart de Sillery, a wealthy court official in the household of the Queen Mother. In this small community, which had been named quite properly Sillery, the newcomers remained for several days until other arrangements could be made for them. Then the Hospitalieres were lodged in a house on the summit of the rock and the Ursulines were moved to a small frame building on a wharf at the mouth of the St. Charles River.