The White and the Gold

by Thomas B. Costain

  Durantaye is remembered and counted as one of the great seigneurs because he fulfilled the function which King Louis and the astute Talon had in mind when it was arranged to disband the Carignan regiment in Canada. Durantaye was a pillar of strength when the mistakes of Frontenac’s successors reopened the Iroquois wars, bringing the war parties of the Five Nations in unprecedented numbers against the unprotected parts of the colony. Durantaye had been in command of the trading posts around Michilimackinac, although his preference was always to remain with his agreeable family in the elegance and ease of life in Quebec. When Governor Denonville took an expedition against the Onondagas in 1684, Durantaye organized a force from among the Frenchmen and the friendly Indians at the Junction point of the three lakes and came down to share in the attack. Some years later, when tension was at its peak and the Iroquois were threatening the very life of the colony, Durantaye was stationed at Montreal, the focal point of the danger.

  The part he played in these troubled times brought him a pension from the French Government. He was appointed a member of the Superior Council and lived out the balance of his life in comfort, enjoying the high regard of his fellows.

  The Durantaye holdings were princely in scope and in course of time they became of tremendous value. He had six sons and three daughters to divide it among when the time came for him to die, which was in the year 1727.

  Olivier Morel de la Durantaye was representative of the class of seigneur who lent glamour to the colony, a man of good birth, personable and accomplished as well as brave. There was a distinct contrast between his kind and the native-born seigneurs who attained their land through their own efforts and achieved distinction and wealth by merit alone.

  The most outstanding family in the second category was the extraordinary Le Moynes.

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  Five years before his death Charles le Moyne was presented with an eighth son, who was named Jean Baptiste and was later given the title of De Bienville to distinguish him from his numerous brothers. Two more were to arrive before the fine old Indian fighter and indomitable citizen came to his end, not bound to the Iroquois stake which had been kept ready for him, but peacefully in his bed at Longueuil.

  The Le Moynes were a fabulous family. No other word can give any conception of this gallant sire and his ten sons. There is no adequate record of the parts they played in the drama of New France—very little, in fact, but a series of names and dates and the manner in which each of them died. But they were always there, fighting and contriving and dying, and it is clear that they were ambitious as well as self-sacrificing, keen-witted as well as fearless. What plans did they concoct when they gathered around their father’s long table? What designs of family policy did they discuss? Why did Iberville give up his Me in a sweltering Havana hospital and Bienville exist for forty years in the swamps of Louisiana if they had not a vision of empire between them as clear and great as that of La Salle?

  Lacking such clues to this mysterious and fascinating page of colonial history, it is left only to deal with each of the ten in turn and present the known statistics.

  The first-born, named Charles after his father, succeeded to Longueuil and made it the model seigneury of New France. He was a man of wisdom and foresight, a splendid businessman and financier, who not only created a fortune for himself but carried at least some of his brothers on his back. He undoubtedly acquired the funds for the historic adventures of the other nine. It was during his time that the old manor house at Longueuil was replaced by a fortified house which Frontenac said reminded him of the great châteaux of Normandy; Frontenac, who ordinarily boasted only of his own possessions. Longueuil became a cluster of rather imposing stone buildings behind a high wall, two hundred feet in length and one hundred and seventy in width, with high towers at each corner: a large dwelling house, a chapel, stables, sheep pens, and dovecotes, and outside the walls a banal mill and a brewery. This ambitious dwelling cost sixty thousand livres to build—a fortune in those days—and an astonishing contrast to the log houses where so many of the proud seigneurs existed. Charles, the architect of all this magnificence, was made a baron, served as lieutenant governor of Montreal, and was killed in action at Saratoga in 1729. Of all the leaders of New France, he best qualifies for the appellation of business titan. He had the Le Moyne courage and he was in addition wise, cool, and farseeing.

  The second son, Jacques le Moyne de Ste. Hélène, was born in 1659 and was killed during the siege of Quebec by the English in 1690.

  The third of the ten was the great man of the family, one of the truly remarkable figures of French Canada, Pierre le Moyne d’Iberville. The victories he won on land and sea are so remarkable that he would be ranked among the great fighting men of all time had he played to a European audience on a world stage. Iberville had the misfortune, though not counting it such, to perform his prodigies of daring leadership in the depths of the Canadian forest and on unknown seas, not on the familiar borders of France or on the English Channel. He died of a malignant fever in Havana before he had completed the great task to which he had been assigned in succession to La Salle, the occupation of the mouth of the Mississippi.

  Iberville is still a mysterious figure. His biographers acknowledge that nothing authentic is known of his appearance, whether he was tall or short, dark or fair. Fortunately his achievements are on record and, though nothing is known of him as a man, he can be accurately assessed as a leader and extravagantly praised. In later chapters his exploits will be told in some detail. The peerless Pierre was, it hardly needs saying, the leader of this Maccabean brood.

  The fourth son was Paul le Moyne de Maricourt, born in 1663. Although not so rugged or strong physically as his brothers, he became the ambassador of the family in their dealings with the Indians. The Iroquois called him Taouistaouisse, which meant Little-Bird-Always-in-Motion. He was much in the woods, visiting the various tribes and seeing that the family interests did not suffer. Apparently he had some of the ease of approach which made Frontenac so successful with the Indians, an instinctive understanding of the red men. There seems to have been a mutual liking, and it is probable that he sometimes acted as a spokesman for the savages in the family councils. Maricourt had been earlier a captain in the French marines. He died in 1704 as a result of overexertion in an expedition against the Five Nations.

  The fifth was François le Moyne de Bienville, born in 1666, who had without a doubt some of the great fighting quality of Pierre. He was always in the thick of things when the colony was in danger and was killed in 1691 while fighting the Oneidas at Repentigny.

  The sixth son, Joseph, known as De Serigny, was born in 1668. He served in the French Navy and seems to have possessed some of the executive ability of the oldest brother Charles, becoming governor of a French naval base, where he served with distinction. He died in 1687, leaving children from whom there are still direct descendants in France.

  The seventh could perhaps be called the Galahad of the family, Louis le Moyne de Châteauguay. In his eighteenth year, fighting under Pierre, the great brother he adored, in the first Hudson’s Bay campaign, he charged gallantly but recklessly in broad daylight against an English fort and was killed by a musket shot. In this family, where death in action was almost the rule, the premature ending of the splendid Louis was deeply and bitterly lamented and his memory was kept green in the manor house at Longueuil—in fact, wherever the Maccabean brothers gathered.

  This brings the record to the son mentioned at the beginning, the eighth in line, Jean Baptiste, who later was called de Bienville when François, who first carried the title, was killed at Repentigny. The eighth son seems to have been different from the others, a quiet and withdrawn but capable boy who was better adapted perhaps for a department at Versailles than a life in the wilds. He grew up, nevertheless, to play a part in the saga of the ten Le Moynes second only to that of the amazing Pierre. Accompanying the latter to the Mississippi, he assumed command after Iberville’s death and laid out the first
settlement at New Orleans. He remained governor of Louisiana for the better part of his life, a record for patience and endurance seldom equaled.

  The mark of destiny was on Jean Baptiste as surely as on Pierre. They will never be forgotten, even though the other eight brothers, heroes all, have become no more than shadowy figures with the passing of the years.

  Two sons arrived after the future governor of Louisiana, Gabriel d’Assigny, who was born in 1681 and also took part in the Mississippi adventure, dying in San Domingo of yellow fever in 1701, and Antoine de Châteauguay (another repetition of title), born in 1683, who perhaps survived all the others and became the governor of French Guiana.

  They were unique, these ten doughty brothers, and it is a serious deprivation that detailed records were not kept of their lives, their great exploits, their meetings, their discussions, their divergent personalities. What a pity it is that some Boswellian servitor did not live in the commodious château at Longueuil to preserve for history an enduring picture of the ten paladins.

  CHAPTER XXXIII

  Frontenac Places the Governor of Montreal under Arrest—He Becomes Involved in Feuds with His Fellow Officers—His Recall by the King

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  FRONTENAC’S first term had few peaceful moments. Bishop Laval was in France and no successor had been appointed to fill Talon’s post, so the strutting, imperious old Gascon had a free hand. He managed, nevertheless, to keep himself embroiled with those about him. The mails which progressed so slowly back and forth between Quebec and Versailles crackled with controversy.

  There was, above all else, the case of François Perrot. Married to a niece of Talon, Perrot had been appointed to the post of governor of Montreal. He was a far different man from the high-minded Maisonneuve. He had come to Canada to improve his fortunes and he took no special pains to conceal the fact. It soon became clear that he was a man of violent temper and rough manner. Although he could not engage openly in the fur trade, he did not hesitate to turn his seigneury, an island which he called Ile Perrot, lying off Montreal between Lake St. Louis and the Lake of Two Mountains, into an important cog in the trade wheel. An officer who had served with him in France, Antoine de Fresnay, Sieur de Brucey, was placed in charge there. Brucey proceeded to collect around him a group of deserters from the colonial forces and to intercept the Indian canoes as they came down the river en route to Montreal. By offering brandy in trade, these illicit traders succeeded in getting their hands on a large part of the furs. Stories of orgies occurring on the island did nothing to improve the relationship between the governor and the citizens of Montreal.

  A deputation of the citizens waited on Perrot very soon after the piratical activities of Ile Perrot became common knowledge. It consisted of men who had played courageous and important parts in the establishment of the town, Charles le Moyne, Jacques le Ber, Picoté de Belestre, and Migeon de Branssat, who acted as spokesman. Perrot took a high hand in dealing with them.

  “I am not like Monsieur de Maisonneuve,” he declared. This was probably the truest thing he had ever said; he was far different in every respect from the founder of Montreal. Scowling at the group confronting him, all men of better character and reputation than himself, he added in a violent tone, “I know how to keep you in your proper places.”

  The method he adopted of keeping them in their places was to dismiss the deputation with complete disregard of their demands and to place Branssat under arrest. When Dollier de Casson, as the head of the Sulpicians, remonstrated with him, Perrot brushed the words of censure aside. He did not free Branssat for several days.

  Frontenac could not tolerate conduct such as this. He kept a watchful eye on the Montreal governor, and when the latter provided him with an adequate excuse for interfering, he did so with characteristic energy. In attempting to follow out the King’s orders to lay hands on all men engaged in the fur trade without official permits, Charles d’Ailleboust, the judge of the Montreal court, had placed two of them under arrest. One of Perrot’s officers, named Carion, helped the pair to escape. Frontenac promptly sent an officer of his own to Montreal with three soldiers to take Carion into custody. To this emissary, whose name was Bizard, Frontenac entrusted a letter to be handed to Perrot in which he explained his course af action in thus invading the latter’s jurisdiction. Bizard, knowing the explosive nature of the Perrot temper, did not deliver the letter personally. He proceeded instead to arrest Carion and then gave the letter into the care of Jacques le Ber, to be handed to the governor after his own departure. Madame Carion sent word to Perrot that her husband had been laid by the heels and the governor arrived at the Le Ber house in a towering rage. Bizard had not succeeded yet in getting away and Perrot ordered his arrest, throwing Frontenac’s letter in his face without condescending to open it. Several days later the news leaked out that Le Ber had prepared a statement of everything that had occurred and had sent it on to Quebec. Perrot retaliated by throwing the merchant into prison.

  La Salle had been a witness of Bizard’s arrest and of Perrot’s violent actions on that occasion. Knowing that his own movements were being watched, the young explorer slipped out of his house at midnight, climbed the enclosing fence, and started off for Quebec. That Frontenac listened to his story with mounting indignation may be taken for granted, although he did not foam at the mouth, as one recorder has claimed. The course he followed indicates, in fact, that he did not rush into action without careful thought. There was a note of caution and certainly more than a touch of diplomatic guile in the steps he finally took. He wrote two letters, both couched in courteous terms, which most effectually concealed the purpose he had formed in his mind.

  The first was to Perrot, instructing the latter to set Jacques le Ber at liberty and inviting him to come to Quebec to discuss the situation with the governor. The second was to the Abbé de Salignac Fénelon, a member of the Sulpician Order, and contained an intimation that he, Frontenac, was anxious to establish a better relationship with Monsieur Perrot and to clear away the misunderstandings which existed between Quebec and Montreal.

  The letters had the desired effect. Perrot set off for Quebec, accompanied by Fénelon, who seemed to feel that he might be useful as a peacemaker. It was in the middle of winter, and the pair tramped most of the distance on snowshoes, a long and arduous trip. On arriving, Perrot made an official call at the Citadel of St. Louis and so discovered immediately that Frontenac, in extending his invitation, had been anything but candid. Lieutenant Bizard met him at the entrance, wearing no doubt a grin of intense personal satisfaction, and demanded his sword. He was under arrest, declared Bizard, and would remain so at the discretion of the King’s viceroy. Perrot was in no position to resist and so was led away to one of the cells in the château, a small and far from comfortable habitation in such bitterly cold weather. There he was to remain in solitary confinement until November of that year. Fénelon, shocked beyond measure by the nature of the trick which had been played upon them, sought out Frontenac at once and protested vigorously. The governor was cool and withdrawn in his attitude. He listened to the heated remarks of the Sulpician in silence and then refused to allow the latter a pass to see the prisoner in his cell. Seething with indignation, Fénelon returned to Montreal on foot, where he proceeded, for the benefit of the good citizens of the town, to paint the governor’s conduct in the bitterest terms.

  Up to this point the sympathies of the Montrealers had been with Frontenac rather than with the violent and openly venal Perrot. Frontenac alienated their support, however, by proceeding to appoint a new governor, selecting a man who had served with him in Flanders, one Monsieur de la Nouguère. It had been the rule that the office of governor of Montreal could be filled only with the consent of the messieurs of the seminary, and in ignoring this Frontenac lost the good will he might otherwise have counted upon. The attitude of Montreal hardened against him when he ordered the new governor to arrest Brucey and to start action against all coureurs de bois in Montreal, which was going ov
er the head of Charles d’Ailleboust. The stout men of the town at the trading crossroads had no stomach for a rule exercised from Quebec.

  The new appointee went to work without any delay to carry out Frontenac’s wishes. He arrested Brucey, put him on trial, and sentenced him to a term of imprisonment. He managed to get his hands on the two coureurs de bois whose seizure had precipitated the trouble in the first place and sent them off to Quebec to be dealt with by the now thoroughly aroused Frontenac. The latter decided the time had come to demonstrate the power and inflexibility of the law. One of the pair was sentenced to be hanged, and in due course he was led to the square in front of the château where the sentence was carried out. It is affirmed that Perrot, who had the benefit of a single small window commanding a view of the square, watched the proceedings from his cell. If such was the case, the spectacle did nothing to soften the Perrot temper or incline him to bow before the sharp will of his antagonist.

  In the meantime the Abbé Fénelon, who undoubtedly lacked discretion but had plenty of courage and zeal, was stirring things up in Montreal. A month after the execution—on Easter Day, in fact—he preached a sermon in the Hôtel-Dieu chapel in Montreal before a congregation which filled it to overflowing and included the Sieur de la Salle. It was an incendiary address and directed so clearly at Frontenac that La Salle is said to have flushed with anger and to have called the attention of those about him to the significance of the abbé’s remarks. The first result of the incident was that Dollier de Casson left a sickbed to call the abbé sharply to account. The bit had been taken firmly in the ecclesiastical teeth, however. Fénelon proceeded to circulate a petition in Perrot’s behalf and secured many signatures from among the citizens of the town. When word of the abbé’s activities reached the ears of the château autocrat, the churchman was summoned to Quebec and put on trial there with Perrot.