France and England in North America, Part III: La Salle, Discovery of The Great West
Ontario. Frontenac, on his way back, quarrelled with Perrot, the
governor of Montreal, whom, in view of his speculations in the
fur-trade, he seems to have regarded as a rival in business; but who, by
his folly and arrogance, would have justified any reasonable measure of
severity. Frontenac, however, was not reasonable. He arrested Perrot,
threw him into prison, and set up a man of his own as governor in his
place; and as the judge of Montreal was not in his interest, he removed
him, and substituted another on whom he could rely. Thus for a time he
had Montreal well in hand.
The priests of the Seminary, seigniors of the island, regarded these
arbitrary proceedings with extreme uneasiness. They claimed the right of
nominating their own governor; and Perrot, though he held a commission
from the King, owed his place to their appointment. True, he had set
them at nought, and proved a veritable King Stork; yet nevertheless they
regarded his removal as an infringement of their rights.
During the quarrel with Perrot, La Salle chanced to be at Montreal,
lodged in the house of Jacques Le Ber, who, though one of the principal
merchants and most influential inhabitants of the settlement, was
accustomed to sell goods across his counter in person to white men and
Indians, his wife taking his place when he was absent. Such were the
primitive manners of the secluded little colony. Le Ber, at this time,
was in the interest of Frontenac and La Salle; though he afterwards
became one of their most determined opponents. Amid the excitement and
discussion occasioned by Perrot's arrest, La Salle declared himself an
adherent of the governor, and warned all persons against speaking ill of
him in his hearing.
[Sidenote: ABBÉ FÉNELON.]
The Abbé Fénelon, already mentioned as half-brother to the famous
Archbishop, had attempted to mediate between Frontenac and Perrot, and
to this end had made a journey to Quebec on the ice, in midwinter. Being
of an ardent temperament, and more courageous than prudent, he had
spoken somewhat indiscreetly, and had been very roughly treated by the
stormy and imperious Count. He returned to Montreal greatly excited, and
not without cause. It fell to his lot to preach the Easter sermon. The
service was held in the little church of the Hôtel-Dieu, which was
crowded to the porch, all the chief persons of the settlement being
present. The curé of the parish, whose name also was Perrot, said High
Mass, assisted by La Salle's brother, Cavelier, and two other priests.
Then Fénelon mounted the pulpit. Certain passages of his sermon were
obviously levelled against Frontenac. Speaking of the duties of those
clothed with temporal authority, he said that the magistrate, inspired
with the spirit of Christ, was as ready to pardon offences against
himself as to punish those against his prince; that he was full of
respect for the ministers of the altar, and never maltreated them when
they attempted to reconcile enemies and restore peace; that he never
made favorites of those who flattered him, nor under specious pretexts
oppressed other persons in authority who opposed his enterprises; that
he used his power to serve his king, and not to his own advantage; that
he remained content with his salary, without disturbing the commerce of
the country, or abusing those who refused him a share in their profits;
and that he never troubled the people by inordinate and unjust levies of
men and material, using the name of his prince as a cover to his own
designs.[69]
[Sidenote: LA SALLE AND FÉNELON.]
La Salle sat near the door; but as the preacher proceeded he suddenly
rose to his feet in such a manner as to attract the notice of the
congregation. As they turned their heads, he signed to the principal
persons among them, and by his angry looks and gesticulation called
their attention to the words of Fénelon. Then meeting the eye of the
curé, who sat beside the altar, he made the same signs to him, to which
the curé replied by a deprecating shrug of the shoulders. Fénelon
changed color, but continued his sermon.[70]
This indecent proceeding of La Salle, and the zeal with which throughout
the quarrel he took the part of the governor, did not go unrewarded.
Henceforth, Frontenac was more than ever his friend; and this plainly
appeared in the disposition made, through his influence, of the new fort
on Lake Ontario. Attempts had been made to induce the king to have it
demolished; but it was resolved at last that, being built, it should be
allowed to stand; and, after long delay, a final arrangement was made
for its maintenance, in the manner following: In the autumn of 1674, La
Salle went to France, with letters of strong recommendation from
Frontenac.[71] He was well received at Court; and he made two petitions
to the King,--the one for a patent of nobility, in consideration of his
services as an explorer; and the other for a grant in seigniory of Fort
Frontenac, for so he called the new post, in honor of his patron. On his
part, he offered to pay back the ten thousand francs which the fort had
cost the King; to maintain it at his own charge, with a garrison equal
to that of Montreal, besides fifteen or twenty laborers; to form a
French colony around it; to build a church, whenever the number of
inhabitants should reach one hundred; and, meanwhile, to support one or
more Récollet friars; and, finally, to form a settlement of domesticated
Indians in the neighborhood. His offers were accepted. He was raised to
the rank of the untitled nobles; received a grant of the fort and lands
adjacent, to the extent of four leagues in front and half a league in
depth, besides the neighboring islands; and was invested with the
government of the fort and settlement, subject to the orders of the
governor-general.[72]
La Salle returned to Canada, proprietor of a seigniory which, all things
considered, was one of the most valuable in the colony. His friends and
his family, rejoicing in his good fortune and not unwilling to share it,
made him large advances of money, enabling him to pay the stipulated sum
to the King, to rebuild the fort in stone, maintain soldiers and
laborers, and procure in part, at least, the necessary outfit. Had La
Salle been a mere merchant, he was in a fair way to make a fortune, for
he was in a position to control the better part of the Canadian
fur-trade. But he was not a mere merchant; and no commercial profit
could content his ambition.
Those may believe, who will, that Frontenac did not expect a share in
the profits of the new post. That he did expect it, there is positive
evidence; for a deposition is extant, taken at the instance of his enemy
the Intendant Duchesneau, in which three witnesses attest that the
governor, La Salle, his lieutenant La Forest, and one Boisseau, had
formed a partnership to carry on the trade of Fort Frontenac.
[Sidenote: ENEMIES OF LA SALLE.]
No sooner was La Salle installed in his new post than the merchants of
Canada joined hands to oppose him. Le Ber, once his friend, became his
bitter enemy; for he himself had hoped to share the monopoly of Fort
Frontenac, of which he and one Bazire had at first been placed
provisionally in control, and from which he now saw himself ejected. La
Chesnaye, Le Moyne, and others of more or less influence took part in
the league, which, in fact, embraced all the traders in the colony
except the few joined with Frontenac and La Salle. Duchesneau, intendant
of the colony, aided the malcontents. As time went on, their bitterness
grew more bitter; and when at last it was seen that, not satisfied with
the monopoly of Fort Frontenac, La Salle aimed at the control of the
valleys of the Ohio and the Mississippi, and the usufruct of half a
continent, the ire of his opponents redoubled, and Canada became for him
a nest of hornets, buzzing in wrath and watching the moment to sting.
But there was another element of opposition, less noisy, but not less
formidable; and this arose from the Jesuits. Frontenac hated them; and
they, under befitting forms of duty and courtesy, paid him back in the
same coin. Having no love for the governor, they would naturally have
little for his partisan and _protégé_; but their opposition had another
and a deeper root, for the plans of the daring young schemer jarred with
their own.
[Sidenote: PURPOSES OF THE JESUITS.]
We have seen the Canadian Jesuits in the early apostolic days of their
mission, when the flame of their zeal, fed by an ardent hope, burned
bright and high. This hope was doomed to disappointment. Their avowed
purpose of building another Paraguay on the borders of the Great
Lakes[73] was never accomplished, and their missions and their converts
were swept away in an avalanche of ruin. Still, they would not despair.
From the lakes they turned their eyes to the Valley of the Mississippi,
in the hope to see it one day the seat of their new empire of the Faith.
But what did this new Paraguay mean? It meant a little nation of
converted and domesticated savages, docile as children, under the
paternal and absolute rule of Jesuit fathers, and trained by them in
industrial pursuits, the results of which were to inure, not to the
profit of the producers, but to the building of churches, the founding
of colleges, the establishment of warehouses and magazines, and the
construction of works of defence,--all controlled by Jesuits, and
forming a part of the vast possessions of the Order. Such was the old
Paraguay;[74] and such, we may suppose, would have been the new, had the
plans of those who designed it been realized.
I have said that since the middle of the century the religious
exaltation of the early missions had sensibly declined. In the nature of
things, that grand enthusiasm was too intense and fervent to be long
sustained. But the vital force of Jesuitism had suffered no diminution.
That marvellous _esprit de corps_, that extinction of self and
absorption of the individual in the Order which has marked the Jesuits
from their first existence as a body, was no whit changed or
lessened,--a principle, which, though different, was no less strong
than the self-devoted patriotism of Sparta or the early Roman Republic.
The Jesuits were no longer supreme in Canada; or, in other words, Canada
was no longer simply a mission. It had become a colony. Temporal
interests and the civil power were constantly gaining ground; and the
disciples of Loyola felt that relatively, if not absolutely, they were
losing it. They struggled vigorously to maintain the ascendency of their
Order, or, as they would have expressed it, the ascendency of religion;
but in the older and more settled parts of the colony it was clear that
the day of their undivided rule was past. Therefore, they looked with
redoubled solicitude to their missions in the West. They had been among
its first explorers; and they hoped that here the Catholic Faith, as
represented by Jesuits, might reign with undisputed sway. In Paraguay,
it was their constant aim to exclude white men from their missions. It
was the same in North America. They dreaded fur-traders, partly because
they interfered with their teachings and perverted their converts, and
partly for other reasons. But La Salle was a fur-trader, and far worse
than a fur-trader: he aimed at occupation, fortification, and
settlement. The scope and vigor of his enterprises, and the powerful
influence that aided them, made him a stumbling-block in their path. He
was their most dangerous rival for the control of the West, and from
first to last they set themselves against him.
[Sidenote: SPIRIT OF LA SALLE.]
What manner of man was he who could conceive designs so vast and defy
enmities so many and so powerful? And in what spirit did he embrace
these designs? We will look hereafter for an answer.