* A Project Gutenberg Canada Ebook * This ebook is made available at no cost and with very few restrictions. These restrictions apply only if (1) you make a change in the ebook (other than alteration for different display devices), or (2) you are making commercial use of the ebook. If either of these conditions applies, please check gutenberg.ca/links/licence.html before proceeding. This work is in the Canadian public domain, but may be under copyright in some countries. If you live outside Canada, check your country's copyright laws. IF THE BOOK IS UNDER COPYRIGHT IN YOUR COUNTRY, DO NOT DOWNLOAD OR REDISTRIBUTE THIS FILE. Title: Brébeuf and His Brethren Author: Pratt, E. J. [Edwin John Dove] (1882-1964) Date of first publication: 1940 Edition used as base for this ebook: Toronto: Macmillan, 1940 [first edition] Date first posted: 13 March 2016 Date last updated: 13 March 2016 Project Gutenberg Canada ebook #1307 This ebook was produced by Al Haines PUBLISHER'S NOTE Italics in the original printed edition are indicated _thus_. As part of the conversion of the book to its new digital format, we have made certain minor adjustments in its layout. Brébeuf and His Brethren BY E. J. PRATT TORONTO: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY OF CANADA LIMITED, AT ST. MARTIN'S HOUSE 1940 TO MY FATHER BREBEUF AND HIS BRETHREN I The winds of God were blowing over France, Kindling the hearths and altars, changing vows Of rote into an alphabet of flame. The air was charged with song beyond the range Of larks, with wings beyond the stretch of eagles. Skylines unknown to maps broke from the mists And there was laughter on the seas. With sound Of bugles from the Roman catacombs, The saints came back in their incarnate forms. Across the Alps St. Francis of Assisi In his brown tunic girt with hempen cord, Revisited the plague-infected towns. The monks were summoned from their monasteries, Nuns from their convents; apostolic hands Had touched the priests; foundlings and galley slaves Became the charges of Vincent de Paul; Francis de Sales put his heroic stamp Upon his order of the Visitation. Out of Numidia by way of Rome, The architect of palaces, unbuilt Of hand, again was busy with his plans, Reshaping for the world his _City of God_. Out of the Netherlands was heard the call Of Kempis through the _Imitatio_ To leave the dusty marts and city streets And stray along the shores of Galilee. The flame had spread across the Pyrenees-- The visions of Theresa burning through The adorations of the Carmelites; The very clouds at night to John of the Cross Being cruciform--chancel, transept and aisle Blazing with light and holy oracle. Xavier had risen from his knees to drive His dreams full-sail under an ocean compass. Loyola, soldier-priest, staggering with wounds At Pampeluna, guided by a voice, Had travelled to the Montserrata Abbey To leave his sword and dagger on an altar That he might lead the _Company of Jesus_. The story of the frontier like a saga Sang through the cells and cloisters of the nation, Made silver flutes out of the parish spires, Troubled the ashes of the canonized In the cathedral crypts, soared through the nave To stir the foliations on the columns, Roll through the belfries, and give deeper tongue To the _Magnificat_ in Notre Dame. It brought to earth the prophets and apostles Out of their static shrines in the stained glass. It caught the ear of Christ, reveined his hands And feet, bidding his marble saints to leave Their pedestals for chartless seas and coasts And the vast blunders of the forest glooms. So, in the footsteps of their patrons came A group of men asking the hardest tasks At the new outposts of the Huron bounds Held in the stern hand of the Jesuit Order. And in Bayeux a neophyte while rapt In contemplation saw a bleeding form Falling beneath the instrument of death, Rising under the quickening of the thongs, Stumbling along the Via Dolorosa. No play upon the fancy was this scene, But the Real Presence to the naked sense. The fingers of Brébeuf were at his breast, Closing and tightening on a crucifix, While voices spoke aloud unto his ear And to his heart--_Per ignem et per aquam_. Forests and streams and trails thronged through his mind, The painted faces of the Iroquois and Huron, Nomadic bands and smoking bivouacs Along the shores of western inland seas, With forts and palisades and fiery stakes. The stories of Champlain, Brulé, Viel, Sagard and Le Caron had reached his town-- The stories of those northern boundaries Where in the winter the white pines could brush The Pleiades, and at the equinoxes Under the gold and green of the auroras Wild geese drove wedges through the zodiac. The vows were deep he laid upon his soul. "I shall be broken first before I break them." He knew by heart the manual that had stirred The world--the clarion calling through the notes Of the Ignatian preludes. On the prayers, The meditations, points and colloquies, Was built the soldier and the martyr programme. This is the end of man--_Deum laudet_, To seek and find the will of God, to act Upon it for the ordering of life, And for the soul's beatitude. This is To do, this not to do. To weigh the sin; The interior understanding to be followed By the amendment of the deed through grace; The abnegation of the evil thought And act; the trampling of the body under; The daily practice of the counter virtues. "In time of desolation to be firm And constant in the soul's determination, Desire and sense obedient to the reason." The oath Brébeuf was taking had its root Firm in his generations of descent. The family name was known to chivalry-- In the Crusades; at Hastings; through the blood Of the English Howards; called out on the rungs Of the siege ladders; at the castle breaches; Proclaimed by heralds at the lists, and heard In Council Halls:--the coat-of-arms a bull In black with horns of gold on a silver shield. So on that toughened pedigree of fibre Were strung the pledges. From the novice stage To the vow-day he passed on to the priesthood, And on the anniversary of his birth He celebrated his first mass at Rouen. [Sidenote: April 26, 1625] And the first clauses of the Jesuit pledge Were honoured when, embarking at Dieppe, Brébeuf, Massé and Charles Lalemant Travelled three thousand miles of the Atlantic, And reached the citadel in seven weeks. A month in preparation at Notre Dame Des Anges, Brébeuf in company with Daillon Moved to Three Rivers to begin the journey. Taking both warning and advice from traders, They packed into their stores of altar-ware And vestments, strings of coloured beads with knives. Kettles and awls, domestic gifts to win The Hurons' favour or appease their wrath. There was a touch of omen in the warning, For scarcely had they started when the fate Of the Franciscan mission was disclosed-- News of Viel, delivered to Brébeuf,-- Drowned by the natives in the final league Of his return at Sault-au-Récollet! Back to Quebec by Lalemant's command; A year's delay of which Brébeuf made use By hardening his body and his will, Learning the rudiments of the Huron tongue, Mastering the wood-lore, joining in the hunt For food, observing habits of speech, the ways Of thought, the moods and the long silences. Wintering with the Algonquins, he soon knew The life that was before him in the cabins-- The troubled night, branches of fir covering The floor of snow; the martyrdom of smoke That hourly drove his nostrils to the ground To breathe, or offered him the choice of death Outside by frost, inside by suffocation; The forced companionship of dogs that ate From the same platters, slept upon his legs Or neck; the nausea from sagamite, Unsalted, gritty, and that bloated feeling, The February stomach touch when acorns, Turk's cap, bog-onion bulbs dug from the snow And bulrush roots flavoured with eel skin made The menu for his breakfast-dinner-supper. Added to this, the instigated taunts Common as daily salutations; threats Of murderous intent that just escaped The deed--the prologue to Huronia! [Sidenote: July 1626] Midsummer and the try again--Brébeuf, Daillon, de Nouë just arrived from France; Quebec up to Three Rivers; the routine Repeated; bargaining with the Indians, Axes and beads against the maize and passage; The natives' protest when they saw Brébeuf, High as a totem-pole. What if he placed His foot upon the gunwale, suddenly Shifted an ounce of those two hundred pounds Off centre at the rapids! They had visions Of bodies and bales gyrating round the rocks, Plunging like stumps and logs over the falls. The Hurons shook their heads: the bidding grew; Kettles and porcelain necklaces and knives, Till with the last awl thrown upon the heap, The ratifying grunt came from the chief. Two Indians holding the canoe, Brébeuf, Barefooted, cassock pulled up to his knees, Planted one foot dead in the middle, then The other, then slowly and ticklishly Adjusted to the physics of his range And width, he grasped both sides of the canoe, Lowered himself and softly murmuring An _Ave_, sat, immobile as a statue. So the flotilla started--the same route Champlain and Le Caron eleven years Before had taken to avoid the swarm Of hostile Iroquois on the St. Lawrence. Eight hundred miles--along the Ottawa Through the steep gorges where the river narrowed, Through calmer waters where the river widened, Skirting the island of the Allumettes, Thence to the Mattawa through lakes that led To the blue waters of the Nipissing, And then southward a hundred tortuous miles Down the French River to the Huron shore. The record of that trip was for Brébeuf A memory several times to be re-lived; Of rocks and cataracts and portages, Of feet cut by the river stones, of mud And stench, of boulders, logs and tangled growths, Of summer heat that made him long for night, And when he struck his bed of rock--mosquitoes That made him doubt if dawn would ever break. 'Twas thirty days to the Georgian Bay, then south One hundred miles threading the labyrinth Of islands till he reached the western shore That flanked the Bay of Penetanguishene. Soon joined by both his fellow priests he followed The course of a small stream and reached Toanché, Where for three years he was to make his home And turn the first sod of the Jesuit mission. 'Twas ploughing only--for eight years would pass Before even the blades appeared. The priests Knew well how barren was the task should signs, Gestures and inarticulate sounds provide The basis of the converse. And the speech Was hard. De Nouë set himself to school, Unfalteringly as to his Breviary, Through the long evenings of the fall and winter. But as light never trickled through a sentence, Either the Hurons' or his own, he left With the spring's expedition to Quebec, Where intermittently for twenty years He was to labour with the colonists, Travelling between the outposts, and to die Snow-blind, caught in the circles of his tracks Between Three Rivers and Fort Richelieu. Daillon migrated to the south and west To the country of the Neutrals. There he spent The winter, fruitless. Jealousies of trade Awoke resentment, fostered calumnies, Until the priest under a constant threat That often issued in assault, returned Against his own persuasion to Quebec. Brébeuf was now alone. He bent his mind To the great end. The efficacious rites Were hinged as much on mental apprehensions As on the disposition of the heart. For that the first equipment was the speech. He listened to the sounds and gave them letters, Arranged their sequences, caught the inflections, Extracted nouns from objects, verbs from actions And regimented rebel moods and tenses. He saw the way the chiefs harangued the clans, The torrent of compounded words, the art Concealed within the pause, the look, the gesture, Lacking all labials, the open mouth Performed a double service with the vowels Directed like a battery at the hearers. With what forebodings did he watch the spell Cast on the sick by the Arendiwans: The sorcery of the Huron rhetoric Extorting bribes for cures, for guarantees Against the failure of the crop or hunt! The time would come when steel would clash on steel, And many a battle would be won or lost With weapons from the armoury of words. Three years of that apprenticeship had won The praise of his Superior and no less Evoked the admiration of Champlain. That soldier, statesman, navigator, friend, Who had combined the brain of Richelieu With the red blood of Cartier and Magellan, Was at this time reduced to his last keg Of powder at the citadel. Blockade, The piracy of Kirke on the Atlantic, The English occupation of Quebec, [Sidenote: 1629] And famine, closed this chapter of the Mission. II Four years at home could not abate his zeal. Brébeuf, absorbed within his meditations, Made ready to complete his early vows. Each year in France but served to clarify His vision. At Rouen he gauged the height Of the Cathedral's central tower in terms Of pines and oaks around the Indian lodges. He went to Paris. There as worshipper, His eyes were scaling transepts, but his mind, Straying from window patterns where the sun Shed rose ellipses on the marble floor, Rested on glassless walls of cedar bark. To Rennes--the Jesuits' intellectual home, Where, in the _Summa_ of Aquinas, faith Laid hold on God's existence when the last Link of the Reason slipped, and where Loyola Enforced the high authoritarian scheme Of God's vicegerent on the priestly fold. Between the two nostalgic fires Brébeuf Was swung--between two homes; in one was peace Within the holy court, the ecstasy Of unmolested prayer before the Virgin, The daily and vicarious offering On which no hand might dare lay sacrilege: But in the other would be broken altars And broken bodies of both Host and priest. Then of which home, the son? From which the exile? With his own blood Brébeuf wrote his last vow-- "Lord Jesus! You redeemed me with your blood; By your most precious death; and this is why I make this pledge to serve you all my life In the Society of Jesus--never To serve another than Thyself. Hereby I sign this promise in my blood, ready To sacrifice it all as willingly As now I give this drop."--Jean de Brébeuf. Nor did the clamour of the _Thirty Years_, The battle-cries at La Rochelle and Fribourg, Blow out the flame. Less strident than the names Of Richelieu and Mazarin, Condé, Turenne, but just as mighty, were the calls Of the new apostolate. A century Before had Xavier from the Indies summoned The world to other colours. Now appeals Were ringing through the history of New France. Le Jeune, following the example of Biard And Charles Lalemant, was capturing souls By thousands with the fire of the _Relations_: Noble and peasant, layman, priest and nun Gave of their wealth and power and personal life. Among his new recruits were Chastellain, Pijart, Le Mercier, and Isaac Jogues, The Lalemants--Jerome and Gabriel-- Jerome who was to supervise and write, With Ragueneau, the drama of the Mission; Who told of the survivors reaching France When the great act was closed that "all of them Still hold their resolution to return To the combat at the first sound of the trumpets." The other, Gabriel, who would share the crown With Jean Brébeuf, pitting the frailest body Against the hungers of the wilderness, The fevers of the lodges and the fires That slowly wreathed themselves around a stake. Then Garnier, comrade of Jogues. The winds Had fanned to a white heat the hearth and placed Three brothers under vows--the Carmelite, The Capuchin, and his, the Jesuit. The gentlest of his stock, he had resolved To seek and to accept a post that would Transmit his nurture through a discipline That multiplied the living martyrdoms Before the casual incident of death. To many a vow did Chabanel subject His timid nature as the evidence Of trial came through the Huronian records. He needed every safeguard of the soul To fortify the will, for every day Would find him fighting, mastering his revolt Against the native life and practices. Of all the priests he could the least endure The sudden transformation from the Chair Of College Rhetoric to the heat and drag Of portages, from the monastic calm To the noise and smoke and vermin of the lodges, And the insufferable sights and stinks When, at the High Feast of the Dead, the bodies Lying for months or years upon the scaffolds Were taken down, stripped of their flesh, caressed, Strung up along the cabin poles and then Cast in a pit for common burial. The day would come when in the wilderness, The weary hand protesting, he would write This final pledge--"I, Noel Chabanel, Do vow, in presence of the Sacrament Of Thy most precious blood and body, here To stay forever with the Huron Mission, According to commands of my Superiors. Therefore I do beseech Thee to receive me As Thy perpetual servant and to make Me worthy of so sublime a ministry." And the same spirit breathed on Chaumonot, Making his restless and undisciplined soul At first seek channels of renunciation In abstinence, ill health and beggary. His months of pilgrimages to the shrines At Rome and to the Lady of Loretto, The static hours upon his knees had sapped His strength, turning an introspective mind Upon the weary circuit of its thoughts, Until one day a letter from Brébeuf Would come to burn the torpors of his heart And galvanize a raw novitiate. III [Sidenote: 1633] New France restored! Champlain, Massé, Brébeuf Were in Quebec, hopes riding high as ever. Davost and Daniel soon arrived to join The expedition west. Midsummer trade, The busiest the Colony had known, Was over: forty-three canoes to meet The hazards of return; the basic sense Of safety, now Champlain was on the scene; The joy of the Toanché Indians As they beheld Brébeuf and heard him speak In their own tongue, was happy augury. But as before upon the eve of starting The path was blocked, so now the unforeseen Stepped in. A trade and tribal feud long-blown Between the Hurons and the Allumettes Came to a head when the Algonquin chief Forbade the passage of the priests between His island and the shore. The Hurons knew The roughness of this channel, and complied. In such delays which might have been construed By lesser wills as exits of escape, As providential doors on a light latch, The Fathers entered deeper preparation. They worked incessantly among the tribes In the environs of Quebec, took hold Of Huron words and beat them into order. Davost and Daniel gathered from the store Of speech, manners, and customs that Brébeuf Had garnered, all the subtleties to make The bargain for the journey. The next year Seven canoes instead of forty! Fear Of Iroquois following a recent raid And massacre; growing distrust of priests; The sense of risk in having men aboard Unskilled in fire-arms, helpless at the paddles And on the portages--all these combined To sharpen the terms until the treasury Was dry of presents and of promises. [Sidenote: 1634] The ardours of his trip eight years before Fresh in his mind, Brébeuf now set his face To graver peril, for the native mood Was hostile. On the second week the corn Was low, a handful each a day. Sickness Had struck the Huron, slowing down the blades, And turning murmurs into menaces Against the Blackrobes and their French companions. The first blow hit Davost. Robbed of his books, Papers and altar linens, he was left At the Island of the Allumettes; Martin[1] Was put ashore at Nipissing; Baron[1] And Daniel were deserted, made to take Their chances with canoes along the route, Yet all in turn, tattered, wasted, with feet Bleeding--broken though not in will, rejoined Their great companion after he had reached The forest shores of the Fresh Water Sea, And guided by the sight of smoke had entered The village of Ihonatiria. [1] French assistants. A year's success flattered the priestly hope That on this central field seed would be sown On which the yield would be the Huron nation Baptized and dedicated to the Faith; And that a richer harvest would be gleaned Of duskier grain from the same seed on more Forbidding ground when the arch-foes themselves Would be re-born under the sacred rites. For there was promise in the auspices. Ihonatiria received Brébeuf With joy. Three years he had been there, a friend Whose visit to the tribes could not have sprung From inspiration rooted in private gain. He had not come to stack the arquebuses Against the mountains of the beaver pelts. He had not come to kill. Between the two-- Barter and battle--what was left to explain A stranger in their midst? The name Echon[2] Had solved the riddle. [2] _Echon_--he who pulls the heavy load. So with native help The Fathers built their mission house--the frame Of young elm-poles set solidly in earth; Their supple tops bent, lashed and braced to form The arched roof overlaid with cedar-bark. "No Louvre or palace is this cabin," wrote Brébeuf, "no stories, cellar, garret, windows, No chimney--only at the top a hole To let the smoke escape. Inside, three rooms With doors of wood alone set it apart From the single long-house of the Indians. The first is used for storage; in the second Our kitchen, bedroom and refectory; Our bedstead is the earth; rushes and boughs For mattresses and pillows; in the third, Which is our chapel, we have placed the altar, The images and vessels of the Mass." It was the middle room that drew the natives, Day after day, to share the sagamite And raisins, and to see the marvels brought From France--marvels on which the Fathers built A basis of persuasion, recognizing The potency of awe for natures nurtured On charms and spells, invoking kindly spirits And exorcising demons. So the natives Beheld a mass of iron chips like bees Swarm to a lodestone: was it gum that held Them fast? They watched the handmill grind the corn; Gaped at a lens eleven-faceted That multiplied a bead as many times, And at a phial where a captive flea Looked like a beetle. But the miracle Of all, the clock! It showed the hours; it struck Or stopped upon command. Le Capitaine Du Jour which moved its hands before its face, Called up the dawn, saluted noon, rang out The sunset, summoned with the count of twelve The Fathers to a meal, or sent at four The noisy pack of Indians to their cabins. "What did it say?" "Yo eiouahaoua-- Time to put on the cauldron." "And what now?" "Time to go home at once and close the door." It was alive: an old dwelt inside, Peering out through that black hub on the dial. As great a mystery was writing--how A Frenchman fifteen miles away could know The meaning of black signs the runner brought. Sometimes the marks were made on peel of bark, Sometimes on paper--in itself a wonder! From what strange tree was it the inside rind? What charm was in the ink that transferred thought Across such space without a spoken word? This growing confirmation of belief Was speeded by events wherein good fortune Waited upon the priestly word and act. [Sidenote: Aug. 27, 1635] A moon eclipse was due--Brébeuf had known it-- Had told the Indians of the moment when The shadow would be thrown across the face. Nor was there wastage in the prayers as night, Uncurtained by a single cloud, produced An orb most perfect. No one knew the lair Or nest from which the shadow came; no one The home to which it travelled when it passed. Only the vague uncertainties were left-- Was it the dread invasion from the south? Such portent was the signal for the braves To mass themselves outside the towns and shoot Their multitudes of arrows at the sky And fling their curses at the Iroquois. Like a crow's wing it hovered, broodily Brushing the face--five hours from rim to rim While midnight darkness stood upon the land. This was prediction baffling all their magic. Again, when weeks of drought had parched the land And burned the corn, when dancing sorcerers Brought out their tortoise shells, climbed on the roofs, Clanging their invocation to the Bird Of Thunder to return, day after day, Without avail, the priests formed their processions, Put on their surplices above their robes, And the Bird of Thunder came with heavy rain, Released by the nine masses at Saint Joseph. Nor were the village warriors slow to see The value of the Frenchmen's strategy In war. Returning from the eastern towns, They told how soldiers had rebuilt the forts, And strengthened them with corner bastions Where through the embrasures enfilading fire Might flank the Iroquois bridging the ditches, And scaling ramparts. Here was argument That pierced the thickest prejudice of brain And heart, allaying panic ever present, When with the first news of the hated foe From scouts and hunters, women with their young Fled to the dubious refuge of the forest From terror blacker than a pestilence. On such a soil tilled by those skilful hands Those passion flowers and lilies of the East, The _Aves_ and the _Paternosters_ bloomed. The _Credos_ and the _Thou-shalt-nots_ were turned By Daniel into simple Huron rhymes And taught to children, and when points of faith Were driven hard against resistant rock, The Fathers found the softer crevices Through deeds which readily the Indian mind Could grasp--where hands were never put to blows Nor the swift tongues used for recrimination. Acceptance of the common lot was part Of the original vows. But that the priests Who were to come should not misread the text, Brébeuf prepared a sermon on the theme Of Patience:--"Fathers, Brothers, under call Of God! Take care that you foresee the perils, Labours and hardships of this Holy Mission. You must sincerely love the savages As brothers ransomed by the blood of Christ. All things must be endured. To win their hearts You must perform the smallest services. Provide a tinder-box or burning mirror To light their fires. Fetch wood and water for them; And when embarking never let them wait For you; tuck up your habits, keep them dry To avoid water and sand in their canoes. Carry Your load on portages. Always appear Cheerful--their memories are good for faults. Constrain yourselves to eat their sagamite The way that they prepare it, tasteless, dirty." And by the priests upon the ground all dots And commas were observed. They suffered smoke That billowed from the back-draughts at the roof, Smothered the cabin, seared the eyes; the fire That broiled the face, while frost congealed the spine; The food from unwashed platters where refusal Was an offence; the rasp of speech maintained All day by men who never learned to talk In quiet tones; the drums of the Diviners Blasting the night--all this without complaint! And more--whatever sleep was possible To snatch from the occasional lull of cries Was broken by uncovenanted fleas That fastened on the priestly flesh like hornets. Carving the curves of favour on the lips, Tailoring the man into the Jesuit coat, Wrapping the smiles round inward maledictions, And sublimating hoary Gallic oaths Into the _Benedicite_ when dogs And squaws and reeking children violated The hours of rest, were penances unnamed Within the iron code of good Ignatius. Was there a limit of obedience Outside the jurisdiction of this Saint? How often did the hand go up to lower The flag? How often by some ringing order Was it arrested at the halliard touch? How often did Brébeuf seal up his ears When blows and insults woke ancestral fifes Within his brain, blood-cells, and viscera, Is not explicit in the written story. But never could the Indians infer Self-gain or anything but simple courage Inspired by a zeal beyond reproof, As when the smallpox spreading like a flame Destroying hundreds, scarifying thousands, The Fathers took their chances of contagion, Their broad hats warped by rain, their moccasins Worn to the kibes, that they might reach the huts, Share with the sick their dwindled stock of food-- A sup of partridge broth or raisin juice, Inscribe the sacred sign of the cross, and place A touch of moisture from the Holy Water Upon the forehead of a dying child. Before the year was gone the priests were shown The way the Hurons could prepare for death A captive foe. The warriors had surprised A band of Iroquois and had reserved The one survivor for a fiery pageant. No cunning of an ancient Roman triumph, Nor torment of a Medici confession Surpassed the subtle savagery of art Which made the dressing for the sacrifice A ritual of mockery for the victim. What visions of the past came to Brébeuf, And what forebodings of the days to come, As he beheld this weird compound of life In jest and intent taking place before His eyes--the crude unconscious variants Of reed and sceptre, robe and cross, brier And crown! Might not one day baptismal drops Be turned against him in a rain of death? Whatever the appeals made by the priests, They could not break the immemorial usage Or vary one detail. The prisoner Was made to sing his death-song, was embraced. Hailed with ironic greetings, forced to state His willingness to die. "See how your hands Are crushed. You cannot thus desire to live. No. Then be of good courage--you shall die. True!--What shall be the manner of my death? By fire." When shall it be? Tonight. What hour? At sunset. All is well." Eleven fires Were lit along the whole length of the cabin. His body smeared with pitch and bound with belts Of bark, the Iroquois was forced to run The fires, stopped at each end by the young braves, And swiftly driven back, and when he swooned, They carried him outside to the night air, Laid him on fresh damp moss, poured cooling water Into his mouth, and to his burns applied The soothing balsams. With resuscitation They lavished on him all the courtesies Of speech and gesture, gave him food and drink, Compassionately spoke of his wounds and pain. The ordeal every hour was resumed And halted, but, with each recurrence, blows Were added to the burns and gibes gave place To yells until the sacrificial dawn, Lighting the scaffold, dimming the red glow Of the hatchet collar, closed the festival. Brébeuf had seen the worst. He knew that when A winter pack of wolves brought down a stag There was no waste of time between the leap And the business click upon the jugular, Such was the forthright honesty in death Among the brutes. They had not learned the sport Of dallying around the nerves to halt A quick despatch. A human art was torture, Where Reason crept into the veins, mixed tar With blood and brewed its own intoxicant. Brébeuf had pleaded for the captive's life, But as the night wore on, would not his heart, Colliding with his mind, have wished for death? The plea refused, he gave the Iroquois The only consolation in his power. He went back to his cabin, heavy in heart. To stem that viscous melanotic current Demanded labour, time, and sacrifice. Those passions were not altered over-night. Two plans were in his mind--the one concerned The seminary started in Quebec. The children could be sent there to be trained In Christian precepts, weaned from superstition And from the savage spectacle of death. He saw the way the women and their broods Danced round the scaffold in their exaltation. How much of this was habit and how much Example? Curiously Brébeuf revolved The facets of the Indian character. A fighting courage equal to the French-- It could be lifted to crusading heights By a battle speech. Endurance was a code Among the braves, and impassivity. Their women wailing at the Feast of Death, The men sat silent, heads bowed to the knees. "Never in nine years with but one exception," Wrote Ragueneau, "did I see an Indian weep For grief." Only the fires evoked the cries, And these like scalps were triumphs for the captors. But then their charity and gentleness To one another and to strangers gave A balance to the picture. Fugitives From villages destroyed found instant welcome To the last communal share of food and land. Brébeuf's stay at Toanché gave him proof Of how the Huron nature could respond To kindness. But last night upon that scaffold! Could that be scoured from the heart? Why not Try out the nurture plan upon the children And send the boys east, shepherded by Daniel? The other need was urgent--labourers! The villages were numerous and were spread Through such a vast expanse of wilderness And shore. Only a bell with a bronze throat Must summon missionaries to these fields. With the last cry of the captive in his ears, Brébeuf strode from his cabin to the woods To be alone. He found his tabernacle Within a grove, picked up a stone flat-faced, And going to a cedar-crotch, he jammed It in, and on this table wrote his letter. "Herein I show you what you have to suffer. I shall say nothing of the voyage--that You know already. If you have the courage To try it, that is only the beginning, For when after a month of river travel You reach our village, we can offer you The shelter of a cabin lowlier Than any hovel you have seen in France. As tired as you may be, only a mat Laid on the ground will be your bed. Your food May be for weeks a gruel of crushed corn That has the look and smell of mortar paste. This country is the breeding place of vermin. Sandflies, mosquitoes haunt the summer months. In France you may have been a theologian, A scholar, master, preacher, but out here You must attend a savage school; for months Will pass before you learn even to lisp The language. Here barbarians shall be Your Aristotle and Saint Thomas. Mute Before those teachers you shall take your lessons. What of the winter? Half the year is winter. Inside your cabins will be smoke so thick You may not read your Breviary for days. Around your fireplace at mealtime arrive The uninvited guests with whom you share Your stint of food. And in the fall and winter, You tramp unbeaten trails to reach the missions, Carrying your luggage on your back. Your life Hangs by a thread. Of all calamities You are the cause--the scarcity of game, A fire, famine or an epidemic. There are no natural reasons for a drought And for the earth's sterility. You are The reasons, and at any time a savage May burn your cabin down or split your head. I tell you of the enemies that live Among our Huron friends. I have not told You of the Iroquois our constant foes. Only a week ago in open fight They killed twelve of our men at Contarca, A day's march from the village where we live. Treacherous and stealthy in their ambuscades, They terrorize the country, for the Hurons Are very slothful in defence, never On guard and always seeking flight for safety. "Wherein the gain, you ask, of this acceptance? There is no gain but this--that what you suffer Shall be of God: your loneliness in travel Will be relieved by angels overhead; Your silence will be sweet for you will learn How to commune with God; rapids and rocks Are easier than the steeps of Calvary. There is a consolation in your hunger And in abandonment upon the road, For once there was a greater loneliness And deeper hunger. As regards the soul There are no dangers here, with means of grace At every turn, for if we go outside Our cabin, is not heaven over us? No buildings block the clouds. We say our prayers Freely before a noble oratory. Here is the place to practise faith and hope And charity where human art has brought No comforts, where we strive to bring to God A race so unlike men that we must live Daily expecting murder at their hands, Did we not open up the skies or close Them at command, giving them sun or rain. So if despite these trials you are ready To share our labours, come; for you will find A consolation in the cross that far outweighs Its burdens. Though in many an hour your soul Will echo--'Why hast Thou forsaken me,' Yet evening will descend upon you when, Your heart too full of holy exultation, You call like Xavier--'Enough, O Lord!'" This letter was to loom in history, For like a bulletin it would be read In France, and men whose bones were bound for dust Would find that on those jagged characters Their names would rise from their oblivion To flame on an eternal Calendar. Already to the field two young recruits Had come--Pijart, Le Mercier; on their way Were Chastellain with Garnier and Jogues Followed by Ragueneau and Du Peron. On many a night in lonely intervals, The priest would wander to the pines and build His oratory where celestial visions Sustained his soul. As unto Paul and John Of Patmos and the martyr multitude The signs were given--voices from the clouds, Forms that illumined darkness, stabbed despair, Turned dungeons into temples and a brand Of shame into the ultimate boast of time-- So to Brébeuf had Christ appeared and Mary. One night at prayer he heard a voice command-- "Rise, Read!" Opening the _Imitatio Christi_, His eyes "without design" fell on the chapter, _Concerning the royal way of the Holy Cross_, Which placed upon his spirit "a great peace". And then, day having come, he wrote his vow-- "My God, my Saviour, I take from your hand The cup of your sufferings. I invoke your name; I vow never to fail you in the grace Of martyrdom, if by your infinite mercy You offer it to me. I bind myself, And when I have received the stroke of death, I will accept it from your gracious hand With all pleasure and with joy in my heart; To you my blood, my body and my life." IV The labourers were soon put to their tasks,-- The speech, the founding of new posts, the sick: Ihonatiria, a phantom town, Through plague and flight abandoned as a base, The Fathers chose the site--Teanaostayé, To be the second mission of St. Joseph. But the prime hope was on Ossossané, A central town of fifty cabins built On the east shore of Nottawasaga Bay. The native council had approved the plans. The presence of the priests with their lay help Would be defence against the Iroquois. Under the supervision of Pijart The place was fortified, ramparts were strengthened, And towers of heavy posts set at the angles. And in the following year the artisans And labourers from Quebec with Du Peron, Using broad-axe and whipsaw built a church, The first one in the whole Huronian venture To be of wood. Close to their lodge, the priests Dug up the soil and harrowed it to plant A mere handful of wheat from which they raised A half a bushel for the altar bread. From the wild grapes they made a cask of wine For the Holy Sacrifice. But of all work The hardest was instruction. It was easy To strike the Huron sense with sound and colour-- The ringing of a bell; the litanies And chants; the surplices worn on the cassocks; The burnished ornaments around the altar; The pageant of the ceremonial. But to drive home the ethics taxed the brain To the limit of its ingenuity. Brébeuf had felt the need to vivify His three main themes of God and Paradise And Hell. The Indian mind had let the cold Abstractions fall: the allegories failed To quicken up the logic. Garnier Proposed the colours for the homilies. The closest student of the Huron mind, He had observed the fears and prejudices Haunting the shadows of their racial past; Had seen the flaws in Brébeuf's _points_; had heard The Indian comments on the moral law And on the Christian scheme of Paradise. Would Iroquois be there? Yes, if baptized. Would there be hunting of the deer and beaver? No. Then starvation. War? And Feasts? Tobacco? No. Garnier saw disgust upon their faces, And sent appeals to France for pictures--one _Only_ of souls in bliss: of _âmes damnées_ Many and various--the horned Satan, His mastiff jaws champing the head of Judas; The plummet fall of the unbaptized pursued By demons with their fiery forks; the lick Of flames upon a naked Saracen; Dragons with scarlet tongues and writhing serpents In ambush by the charcoal avenues Just ready at the Judgment word to wreak Vengeance upon the unregenerate. The negative unapprehended forms Of Heaven lost in the dim canvas oils Gave way to glows from brazier pitch that lit The visual affirmatives of Hell. Despite the sorcerers who laid the blame Upon the French for all their ills--the plague, The drought, the Iroquois--the Fathers counted Baptisms by the hundreds, infants, children And aged at the point of death. Adults In health were more intractable, but here The spade had entered soil in the conversion Of a Huron in full bloom and high in power And counsel, Tsiouendaentaha Whose Christian name--to aid the tongue--was Peter. Being the first, he was the Rock on which The priests would build their Church. He was baptized With all the pomp transferable from France Across four thousand miles combined with what A sky and lake could offer, and a forest Strung to the _aubade_ of the orioles. The wooden chapel was their Rheims Cathedral. In stole and surplice Lalemant intoned-- "If therefore thou wilt enter into life, Keep the commandments. Thou shalt love the Lord Thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, With all thy might, and thy neighbour as thyself." With salt and water and the holy chrism, And through the signs made on his breast and forehead The Huron was exorcised, sanctified, And made the temple of the Living God. The holy rite was followed by the Mass Before the motliest auditory known In the annals of worship. Oblates from Quebec, Blackrobes, mechanics, soldiers, labourers, With almost half the village packed inside, Or jammed with craning necks outside the door. The warriors lean, lithe, and elemental, "As naked as your hand"[1] but for a skin Thrown loosely on their shoulders, with their hair Erect, boar-brushed, matted, glued with the oil Of sunflower larded thickly with bear's grease; Papooses yowling on their mothers' backs, The squatting hags, suspicion in their eyes, Their nebulous minds relating in some way The smoke and aromatics of the censer, The candles, crucifix and Latin murmurs With vapours, sounds and colours of the Judgment. [1] Lalemant's phrase. V (_The Founding of Fort Sainte Marie_) [Sidenote: 1639] The migrant habits of the Indians With their desertion of the villages Through pressure of attack or want of food Called for a central site where, undisturbed The priests with their attendants might pursue Their culture, gather strength from their devotions, Map out the territory, plot the routes, Collate their weekly notes and write their letters. The roll was growing--priests and colonists, Lay brothers offering services for life. For on the ground or on their way to place Themselves at the command of Lalemant, Superior, were Claude Pijart, Poncet, Le Moyne, Charles Raymbault, René Menard And Joseph Chaumonot: as oblates came Le Coq, Christophe Reynaut, Charles Boivin, Couture and Jean Guérin. And so to house Them all the Residence--Fort Sainte Marie! Strategic as a base for trade or war The site received the approval of Quebec, Was ratified by Richelieu who saw Commerce and exploration pushing west, Fulfilling the long vision of Champlain-- "Greater New France beyond those inland seas." The fort was built, two hundred feet by ninety, Upon the right bank of the River Wye: Its north and eastern sides of masonry, Its south and west of double palisades, And skirted by a moat, ran parallel To stream and lake. Square bastions at the corners, Watch-towers with magazines and sleeping posts, Commanded forest edges and canoes That furtively came up the Matchedash, And on each bastion was placed a cross. Inside, the Fathers built their dwelling house, No longer the bark cabin with the smoke Ill-trained to work its exit through the roof, But plank and timber--at each end a chimney Of lime and granite field-stone. Rude it was But clean, capacious, full of twilight calm. Across the south canal fed by the river, Ringed by another palisade were buildings Offering retreat to Indian fugitives Whenever war and famine scourged the land. The plans were supervised by Lalemant, Assigning zones of work to every priest. He made a census of the Huron nation; Some thirty villages--twelve thousand persons. Nor was this all: the horizon opened out On larger fields. To south and west were spread The unknown tribes--the Petuns and the Neutrals. VI (_The mission to the Petuns and Neutrals_) [Sidenote: 1641] In late November Jogues and Garnier Set out on snow-obliterated trails Towards the Blue Hills south of the Nottawasaga, A thirty mile journey through a forest Without a guide. They carried on their backs A blanket with the burden of the altar. All day confronting swamps with fallen logs, Tangles of tamarack and juniper, They made detours to avoid the deep ravines And swollen creeks. Retreating and advancing, Ever in hope their tread was towards the south, Until, "surprised by night in a fir grove", They took an hour with flint and steel to nurse A fire from twigs, birch rind and needles of pine; And flinging down some branches on the snow, They offered thanks to God, lay down and slept. Morning--the packs reshouldered and the tramp Resumed, the stumble over mouldering trunks Of pine and oak, the hopeless search for trails, Till after dusk with cassocks torn and "nothing To eat all day save each a morsel of bread", They saw the smoke of the first Indian village. And now began a labour which for faith And triumph of the spirit over failure Was unsurpassed in records of the mission. Famine and pest had struck the Neutral tribes, And fleeing squaws and children had invaded The Petun villages for bread and refuge, Inflicting on the cabins further pest And further famine. When the priests arrived, They found that their black cassocks had become The symbols of the scourge. Children exclaimed-- "Disease and famine are outside." The women Called to their young and fled to forest shelters, Or hid them in the shadows of the cabins. The men broke through a never-broken custom, Denying the strangers right to food and rest. Observing the two priests at prayer, the chief Called out in _council voice_--"What are these demons Who take such unknown postures, what are they But spells to make us die--to finish those Disease had failed to kill inside our cabins?" Driven from town to town with all doors barred, Pursued by storms of threats and flying hatchets, The priests sought refuge through the forest darkness Back to the palisades of Sainte Marie. As bleak an outlook faced Brébeuf when he And Chaumonot took their November tramp-- Five forest days--to the north shores of Erie, Where the most savage of the tribes--the Neutrals Packed their twelve thousand into forty towns. Evil report had reached the settlements By faster routes, for when upon the eve Of the new mission Chaumonot had stated The purpose of the journey, Huron chiefs, Convinced by their own sorcerers that Brébeuf Had laid the epidemic on the land, Resolved to make the Neutral leaders agents Of their revenge: for it was on Brébeuf, The chieftain of the robes, that hate was centred. They had the reason why the drums had failed The hunt, why moose and deer had left the forest, And why the Manitou who sends the sun And rain upon the corn, lures to the trap The beaver, trains the arrow on the goose, Had not responded to the chants and cries. The magic of the "breathings" had not cured The sick and dying. Was it not the prayers To the new God which cast malignant spells? The rosary against the amulet? The Blackrobes with that water-rite performed Upon their children--with that new sign Of wood or iron held up before the eyes Of the stricken? Did the Indian not behold Death following hard upon the offered Host? Was not _Echon_ Brébeuf the evil one? Still, all attempts to kill him were forestalled, For awe and fear had mitigated fury: His massive stature, courage never questioned, His steady glance, the firmness of his voice, And that strange nimbus of authority, In some dim way related to their gods, Had kept the bowstrings of the Hurons taut At the arrow feathers, and the javelin poised And hesitant. But now cunning might do What fear forbade. A brace of Huron runners Were sped to the Neutral country with rich bribes To put the priests to death. And so Brébeuf And his companion entered the first town With famine in their cheeks only to find Worse than the Petun greetings--corn refused, Whispers of death and screams of panic, flight From incarnated plague, and while the chiefs In closest council on the Huron terms Voted for life or death, the younger men Outside drew nearer to the priests, cursed them, Spat at them while convulsive hands were clutching At hatchet helves, waiting impatiently The issue of that strident rhetoric Shaking the cabin bark. The council ended, The feeling strong for death but ruled by fears, For if those foreign spirits had the power To spread the blight upon the land, what could Their further vengeance not exact? Besides, What lay behind those regimental colours And those new drums reported from Quebec? The older men had qualified the sentence-- The priests at once must leave the Neutral land, All cabins to be barred against admission, No food, no shelter, and return immediate. Defying threats, the Fathers spent four months, Four winter months, besieging half the towns In their pursuit of souls, for days their food Boiled lichens, ground-nuts, star-grass bulbs and roots Of the wild columbine. Met at the doors By screams and blows, they would betake themselves To the evergreens for shelter over-night. And often, when the body strength was sapped By the day's toil and there were streaks of blood Inside the moccasins, when the last lodge Rejected them as lepers and the welts Hung on their shoulders, then the Fathers sought The balm that never failed. Under the stars, Along an incandescent avenue The visions trembled, tender, placid, pure, More beautiful than the doorway of Rheims And sweeter than the Galilean fields. For what was hunger and the burn of wounds In those assuaging, healing moments when The clearing mists revealed the face of Mary And the lips of Jesus breathing benedictions? At dawn they came back to the huts to get The same rebuff of speech and club. A brave Repulsed them at the palisade with axe Uplifted--"I have had enough," he said, "Of the dark flesh of my enemies. I mean To kill and eat the white flesh of the priests." So close to death starvation and assault Had led them and so meagre of result Were all their ministrations that they thought This was the finish of the enterprise. The winter ended in futility. And on their journey home the Fathers took A final blow when March leagued with the natives Unleashed a northern storm, piled up the snow-drifts, Broke on the ice the shoulder of Brébeuf, And stumbled them for weeks before she sent Them limping through the postern of the fort. Upon his bed that night Brébeuf related A vision he had seen--a moving cross, Its upright beam arising from the south-- The country of the Iroquois: the shape Advanced along the sky until its arms Cast shadows on the Huron territory, "And huge enough to crucify us all". VII (_The story of Jogues_) Bad days had fallen on Huronia. A blight of harvest, followed by a winter In which unusual snowfall had thinned out The hunting and reduced the settlements To destitution, struck its hardest blow At Sainte Marie. The last recourse in need, The fort had been a common granary And now the bins were empty. Altar-ware, Vessels, linens, pictures lost or damaged; Vestments were ragged, writing paper spent. The Eucharist requiring bread and wine, Quebec eight hundred miles away, a war Freshly renewed--the Iroquois (Dutch-armed And seething with the memories of Champlain) Arrayed against the French and Huron allies. The priests assessed the perils of the journey, [Sidenote: 1642] And the lot fell on Jogues to lead it. He, Next to Brébeuf, had borne the heaviest brunt-- The Petun mission, then the following year, The Ojibway where, after a hundred leagues, Canoe and trail, accompanied by Raymbault, He reached the shores of Lake Superior, "And planted a great cross, facing it west". The soundest of them all in legs, he gathered A band of Huron traders and set out, His task made double by the care of Raymbault Whose health was broken mortally. He reached Quebec with every day of the five weeks A miracle of escape. A few days there, With churches, hospitals, the Indian school At Sillery, pageant and ritual, Making their due impression on the minds Of the Huron guides, Jogues with his band of forty Packed the canoes and started back. Mohawks, Enraged that on the east-bound trip the party Had slipped their hands, awaited them, ambushed Within the grass and reeds along the shore. (_The account of Jogues' capture and enslavement by the Mohawks as taken from his letter to his Provincial, Jean Filleau, dated August 5, 1643._) "Unskilled in speech, in knowledge and not knowing The precious hour of my visitation, I beg you, if this letter chance to come Unto your hands that in your charity You aid me with your Holy Sacrifices And with the earnest prayers of the whole Province, As being among a people barbarous In birth and manners, for I know that when You will have heard this story you will see The obligation under which I am To God and my deep need of spiritual help. Our business finished at Quebec, the feast Of Saint Ignatius celebrated, we Embarked for the Hurons. On the second day Our men discovered on the shore fresh tracks Thought by Eustache, experienced in war, To be the footprints of our enemies. A mile beyond we met them, twelve canoes And seventy men. Abandoning the boats, Most of the Hurons fled to a thick wood, Leaving but twelve to put up the best front We could, but seeing further Iroquois Paddling so swiftly from the other shore, We ceased from our defence and fled to cover Of tree and bulrush. Watching from my shelter The capture of Goupil and Indian converts, I could not find it in my mind to leave them; But as I was their comrade on the journey, And should be made their comrade in the perils, I gave myself as prisoner to the guard. Likewise Eustache, always devoted, valiant, Returned, exclaiming 'I praise God that He Has granted me my prayer--that I should live And die with you.' And then Guillaume Couture Who, young and fleet, having outstripped his foe, But finding flight intolerable came back Of his free will, saying 'I cannot leave My father in the hands of enemies.' On him the Iroquois let loose their first Assault for in the skirmish he had slain A chief. They stripped him naked; with their teeth They macerated his finger tips, tore off The nails and pierced his right hand with a spear, Couture taking the pain without a cry. Then turning on Goupil and me they beat Us to the ground under a flurry of fists And knotted clubs, dragging us up half-dead To agonize us with the finger torture. And this was just the foretaste of our trials: Dividing up as spoils of war our food, Our clothes and books and vessels for the church, They led or drove us on our six weeks' journey. Our wounds festering under the summer sun. At night we were the objects of their sport-- They mocked us by the plucking of our hair From head and beard. And on the eighth day meeting A band of warriors from the tribe on march To attack the Richelieu fort, they celebrated By disembarking all the captives, making Us run the line beneath a rain of clubs. And following that they placed us on the scaffolds, Dancing around us hurling jests and insults. Each one of us attempted to sustain The other in his courage by no cry Or sign of our infirmities. Eustache, His thumbs wrenched off, withstood unconquerably The probing of a stick which like a skewer Beginning with the freshness of a wound On the left hand was pushed up to the elbow. And yet next day they put us on the route Again--three days on foot and without food. Through village after village we were led In triumph with our backs shedding the skin Under the sun--by day upon the scaffolds, By night brought to the cabins where, cord-bound, We lay on the bare earth while fiery coals Were thrown upon our bodies. A long time Indeed and cruelly have the wicked wrought Upon my back with sticks and iron rods. But though at times when left alone I wept, Yet I thank Him who always giveth strength To the weary (I will glory in the things Concerning my infirmity, being made A spectacle to God and to the angels, A sport and a contempt to the barbarians) That I was thus permitted to console And animate the French and Huron converts, Placing before their minds the thought of Him Who bore against Himself the contradiction Of sinners. Weak through hanging by my wrists Between two poles, my feet not touching ground, I managed through His help to reach the stage, And with the dew from leaves of Turkish corn Two of the prisoners I baptized. I called To them that in their torment they should fix Their eyes on me as I bestowed the sign Of the last absolution. With the spirit Of Christ, Eustache then in the fire entreated His Huron friends to let no thought of vengeance Arising from this anguish at the stake Injure the French hope for an Iroquois peace. Onnonhoaraton, a youthful captive, They killed--the one who seeing me prepared For torture interposed, offering himself A sacrifice for me who had in bonds Begotten him for Christ. Couture was seized And dragged off as a slave. René Goupil, While placing on a child's forehead the sign Of the Cross was murdered by a sorcerer, And then, a rope tied to his neck, was dragged Through the whole village and flung in the River." (_The later account_) A family of the Wolf Clan having lost A son in battle, Jogues as substitute Was taken in, half-son, half-slave, his work The drudgery of the village, bearing water, Lighting the fires, and clad in tatters made To join the winter hunt, bear heavy packs On scarred and naked shoulders in the trade Between the villages. His readiness To execute his tasks, unmurmuring, His courage when he plunged into a river To save a woman and a child who stumbled Crossing a bridge made by a fallen tree, Had softened for a time his master's harshness. It gained him scattered hours of leisure when He set his mind to work upon the language To make concrete the articles of Faith. At intervals he stole into the woods To pray and meditate and carve the Name Upon the bark. Out of the Mohawk spoils At the first battle he had found and hid Two books--_The Following of Christ_ and one Of Paul's _Epistles_, and with these when "weary Even of life and pressed beyond all measure Above his strength" he followed the "running waters" To quench his thirst. But often would the hate Of the Mohawk foes flame out anew when Jogues Was on his knees muttering the magic words, And when a hunting party empty-handed Returned or some reverse was met in battle, Here was the victim ready at their door. Believing that a band of warriors Had been destroyed, they seized the priest and set His day of death, but at the eleventh hour, With the arrival of a group of captives, The larger festival of torture gave Him momentary reprieve. Yet when he saw The holocaust and rushed into the flames To save a child, a heavy weight laid hold Upon his spirit lasting many days-- "My life wasted with grief, my years with sighs; Oh wherefore was I born that I should see The ruin of my people! Woe is me! But by His favour I shall overcome Until my change is made and He appear." This story of enslavement had been brought To Montmagny, the Governor of Quebec, And to the outpost of the Dutch, Fort Orange. Quebec was far away and, short of men, Could never cope with the massed Iroquois, Besides, Jogues' letter begged the Governor That no measures "to save a single life" Should hurt the cause of France. To the Provincial He wrote--"Who in my absence would console The captives? Who absolve the penitent? Encourage them in torments? Who baptize The dying? On this cross to which our Lord Has nailed me with Himself am I resolved To live and die." And when the commandant Of the Dutch fort sent notice that a ship At anchor in the Hudson would provide Asylum, Jogues delayed that he might seek Counsel of God and satisfy his conscience, Lest some intruding self-preserving thought Conflict with duty. Death was certain soon. He knew it--for that mounting tide of hate Could not be checked: it had engulfed his friends; 'Twould take him next. How close to suicide Would be refusal? Not as if escape Meant dereliction: no, his early vows Were still inviolate--he would return. He pledged himself to God there on his knees Before two bark-strips fashioned as a cross Under the forest trees--his oratory. And so, one night, the Indians asleep, Jogues left the house, fumbling his darkened way, Half-walk, half-crawl, a lacerated leg Making the journey of one-half a mile The toil of half a night. By dawn he found The shore, and, single-handed, pushed a boat, Stranded by ebb-tide, down the slope of sand To the river's edge and rowed out to the ship, Where he was lifted up the side by sailors Who, fearful of the risk of harbouring A fugitive, carried him to the hatch And hid him with the cargo in the hold. The outcry in the morning could be heard Aboard the ship as Indians combed the cabins, Threatened the guards and scoured the neighbouring woods, And then with strong suspicion of the vessel Demanded of the officers their captive. After two days Jogues with his own consent Was taken to the fort and hid again Behind the barrels of a store. For weeks He saw and heard the Mohawks as they passed, Examining cordage, prying into casks, At times touching his clothes, but missing him As he lay crouched in darkness motionless. With evidence that he was in the fort, The Dutch abetting the escape, the chiefs Approached the commandant--"The prisoner Is ours. He is not of your race or speech. The Dutch are friends: the Frenchmen are our foes. Deliver up this priest into our hands." The cries were countered by the officer-- "He is like us in blood if not in tongue. The Frenchman here is under our protection. He is our guest. We treat him as you treat The strangers in your cabins, for you feed And shelter them. That also is our law, The custom of our nation." Argument Of no avail, a ransom price was offered, Refused, but running up the bargain scale, It caught the Mohawks at three hundred livres, And Jogues at last was safely on the Hudson. The tale of Jogues' first mission to the Hurons Ends on a sequel briefly sung but keyed To the tune of the story, for the stretch Home was across a wilderness, his bed A coil of rope on a ship's open deck Swept by December surge. The voyage closed At Falmouth where, robbed by a pirate gang, He wandered destitute until picked up By a French crew who offered him tramp fare. He landed on the shore of Brittany On Christmas Eve, and by New Year he reached The Jesuit establishment at Rennes. The trumpets blew once more, and Jogues returned With the spring expedition to Quebec. Honoured by Montmagny, he took the post Of peace ambassador to hostile tribes, And then the orders came from Lalemant That he should open up again the cause Among the Mohawks at Ossernenon. Jogues knew that he was travelling to his death, And though each hour of that former mission Burned at his finger stumps, the wayward flesh Obeyed the summons. Lalemant as well Had known the peril--had he not re-named Ossernenon, the Mission of the Martyrs? So Jogues, accompanied by his friend Lalande Departed for the village--his last letter To his Superior read: "I will return Cost it a thousand lives. I know full well That I shall not survive, but He who helped Me by His grace before will never fail me Now when I go to do His holy will." And to the final consonant the vow Was kept, for two days after they had struck The town, their heads were on the palisades, [Sidenote: 1646] And their dragged bodies flung into the Mohawk. VIII (_Bressani_) The western missions waiting Jogues' return Were held together by a scarlet thread. The forays of the Iroquois had sent The fugitive survivors to the fort. Three years had passed--and where was Jogues? The scant Supplies of sagamite could never feed The inflow from the stricken villages. The sparse reports had filtered to Quebec, And the command was given to Bressani To lead the rescue band to Sainte Marie. Leaving Three Rivers in the spring when ice Was on the current, he was caught like Jogues, With his six Hurons and a French oblate, A boy of twelve; transferred to Iroquois' Canoes and carried up the Richelieu; Disbarked and driven through the forest trails To Lake Champlain; across it; and from there Around the rocks and marshes to the Hudson. And every time a camp was built and fires Were laid the torment was renewed; in all The towns the squaws and children were regaled With evening festivals upon the scaffolds. Bressani wrote one day when vigilance Relaxed and his split hand was partly healed-- "I do not know if your Paternity Will recognize this writing for the letter Is soiled. Only one finger of the hand Is left unburned. The blood has stained the paper. My writing table is the earth; the ink Gunpowder mixed with water." And again-- This time to his Superior--"I could Not have believed it to be possible That a man's body was so hard to kill." The earlier fate of Jogues was his--enslaved, But ransomed at Fort Orange by the Dutch; Restored to partial health; sent to Rochelle In the autumn, but in April back again And under orders for the Huron mission, Where he arrived this time unscathed to take A loyal welcome from his priestly comrades. Bressani's presence stimulated faith Within the souls of priests and neophytes. The stories burned like fuel of the faggots-- Jogues' capture and his rock stability, And the no less triumphant stand Eustache Had made showing the world that native metal Could take the test as nobly as the French. And Ragueneau's letter to his General stated-- "Bressani ill-equipped to speak the Huron Has speech more eloquent to capture souls: It is his scars, his mutilated hands. 'Only show us,' the neophytes exclaim, 'The wounds, for they teach better than our tongues Your faith, for you have come again to face The dangers. Only thus we know that you Believe the truth and would have us believe it.'" IX In those three years since Jogues' departure doubts Though unexpressed had visited the mission. For death had come to several in the fold-- Raymbault, Goupil, Eustache, and worse than death To Jogues, and winter nights were bleaker, darker Without the company of Brébeuf. Lion Of limb and heart, he had entrenched the faith, Was like a triple palisade himself. But as his broken shoulder had not healed, And ordered to Quebec by Lalemant, He took the leave that seven years of work Deserved. The city hailed him with delight. For more than any other did he seem The very incarnation of the age-- Champlain the symbol of exploring France, Tracking the rivers to their lairs, Brébeuf The token of a nobler chivalry. He went the rounds of the stations, saw the gains The East had made in converts--Sillery For Indians and Notre Dame des Anges For the French colonists; convents and schools Flourished. Why should the West not have the same Yield for the sowing? It was labourers They needed with supplies and adequate Defence. St. Lawrence and the Ottawa Infested by the Iroquois were traps Of death. Three bands of Hurons had been caught That summer. Montmagny had warned the priest Against the risk of unprotected journeys. So when the reinforcements came from France, Brébeuf set out under a guard of soldiers Taking with him two young recruits--Garreau And Chabanel--arriving at the fort In the late fall. The soldiers wintered there And supervised defensive strategy. Replaced the forlorn feelings with fresh hopes, And for two years the mission enterprise Renewed its lease of life. Rumours of treaties Between the French and Mohawks stirred belief That peace was in the air, that other tribes Inside the Iroquois Confederacy Might enter--with the Hurons sharing terms. This was the pipe-dream--was it credible? The ranks of missionaries were filling up: At Sainte Marie, Brébeuf and Ragueneau, Le Mercier, Chastellain and Chabanel; St. Joseph--Garnier and René Menard; St. Michel--Chaumonot and Du Peron; The others--Claude Pijart, Le Moyne, Garreau And Daniel. What validity the dream Possessed was given by the seasonal Uninterrupted visits of the priests To their loved home, both fort and residence. Here they discussed their plans, and added up In smiling rivalry their tolls of converts: They loitered at the shelves, fondled the books, Running their fingers down the mellowed pages As if they were the faces of their friends. They stood for hours before the saints or knelt Before the Virgin and the crucifix In mute transfiguration. These were hours That put the bandages upon their hurts, Making their spirits proof against all ills That had assailed or could assail the flesh, Turned winter into spring and made return To their far mission posts an exaltation. The bell each morning called the neophytes To Mass, again at evening, and the tones Lured back the memories across the seas. And often in the summer hours of twilight When Norman chimes were ringing, would the priests Forsake the fort and wander to the shore To sing the _Gloria_ while hermit thrushes Rivalled the rapture of the nightingales. The native register was rich in name And number. Earlier years had shown results Mainly among the young and sick and aged, Where little proof was given of the root Of faith, but now the Fathers told of deeds That flowered from the stems. Had not Eustache Bequeathed his record like a Testament? The sturdiest warriors and chiefs had vied Among themselves within the martyr ranks:-- Stories of captives led to sacrifice, Accepting scaffold fires under the rites, Enduring to the end, had taken grip Of towns and clans. St. Joseph had its record For Garnier reported that Totiri, A native of high rank, while visiting St. Ignace when a torture was in progress, Had emulated Jogues by plunging through The flaming torches that he might apply The Holy Water to an Iroquois. Garreau and Pijart added lists of names From the Algonquins and the Nipissings, And others told of Pentecostal meetings In cabins by the Manitoulin shores. Not only was the faith sustained by hopes Nourished within the bosom of their home And by the wish-engendered talk of peace, But there outside the fort was evidence Of tenure for the future. Acres rich In soil extended to the forest fringe. Each year they felled the trees and burned the stumps, Pushing the frontier back, clearing the land, Spading, hoeing. The stomach's noisy protest At sagamite and wild rice found a rest With bread from wheat, fresh cabbages and pease, And squashes which when roasted had the taste Of Norman apples. Strawberries in July, October beechnuts, pepper roots for spice, And at the bottom of a spring that flowed Into a pond shaded by silver birches And ringed by marigolds was water-cress In chilled abundance. So, was this the West? The Wilderness? That flight of tanagers; Those linguals from the bobolinks; those beeches, Roses and water-lilies; at the pools Those bottle-gentians! For a time the fields Could hypnotize the mind to scenes of France. Within five years the change was wrought. The cocks Were crowing in the yards, and in the pasture Were sheep and cows and pigs that had been brought As sucklings that immense eight hundred miles In sacks--canoed, and portaged on the shoulders. The traders, like the soldiers, too, had heard Of a great ocean larger than the Huron. Was it the western gateway to Cathay? The Passage? Master-theme of song and ballad; The _myth_ at last resolved into the _fact_! Along that route, it was believed, French craft Freighted with jewels, spices, tapestries, Would sail to swell the coffers of the Bourbons. Such was the dream though only buffalo roamed The West and autumn slept upon the prairies. This dream was at its brightest now, Quebec Was building up a western citadel In Sainte Marie. With sixty Frenchmen there, The eastern capital itself had known Years less auspicious. Might the fort not be The bastion to one-half the continent, New France expanding till the longitudes Staggered the daring of the navigators? The priests were breathless with another space Beyond the measure of the astrolabe-- A different empire built upon the pulses, Where even the sun and moon and stars revolved Around a Life and a redemptive Death. They pushed their missions to the north and west Further into Algonquin territories, Among the Ottawas at Manitoulin, And towards the Ojibways at Sault Sainte Marie. New village groups were organized in stations-- St. Magdalen, St. Jean, and St. Matthias. Had Chabanel, ecstatic with success, Not named one fort the Village of Believers? Brébeuf was writing to his General-- "Peace, union and tranquility are here Between the members of our Order. We need More workers for the apostolic field, Which more than ever whitens for the harvest." And to this call came Gabriel Lalemant, Bonin, Daran, Greslon, besides a score Of labourers and soldiers. In one year Twelve hundred converts, churches over-crowded, With Mass conducted in the open air! And so the seasons passed. When the wild ducks Forsook the Huron marshes for the south, It was the signal for the priests to pack Their blankets. Not until the juncos came, And flickers tapped the crevices of bark, And the bloodroot was pushing through the leaf-mould, Would they reset their faces towards their home. X But while Ragueneau's _Relations_ were being sent Homeward, picturing the promise of the west, The thunder clouds were massing in the east Under the pounding drums. The treaty signed Between the Iroquois and Montmagny Was broken by the murder of Lalande And Jogues. The news had drifted to the fort-- The prelude only to the heavier blows And deeper treachery. The Iroquois, Infesting lake and stream, forest and shore, Were trapping soldiers, traders, Huron guides: The whole confederacy was on the march. Both waterways were blocked, the quicker route-- St. Lawrence, and the arduous Ottawa. They caught the Hurons at their camps, surprised Canoe-fleets from the reeds and river bends And robbed them, killed them on the portages. So widespread were their forays, they encountered Bands of Algonquins on the hunt, slew them, Dispersed them from their villages and sent Survivors to the northern wilderness. So keen their lust for slaughter, they enticed The Huron chieftains under pledge of truce And closed negotiations with their scalps. As the months passed the pressure of attack Moved grimly towards the west, making complete The isolation of Huronia. No commerce with Quebec--no traveller For a whole year came to the Residence. But constant was the stream of fugitives From smaller undefended villages, Fleeing west and ever west. The larger towns, The deluge breaking down their walls, drove on The surplus to their neighbours which, in turn, Urged on the panic herd to Sainte Marie. This mother of the missions felt the strain As one by one the buffers were destroyed, And the flocks came nearer for their pasturage. There could be only one conclusion when The priests saw the migration of the missions That of St. Jean four times abandoning Its stations and four times establishing New centres with more improved defence; That of St. Ignace where a double raid That slaughtered hundreds, lifted bodily Both town and mission, driving to their last Refuge the ragged remnants. Yet Ragueneau Was writing--"We are here as yet intact But all determined to shed blood and life If need be. In this Residence still reigns The peace and love of Heaven. Here the sick Will find a hospital, the travellers A place of rest, the fugitives, asylum. During the year more than three thousand persons Have sought and found shelter under our roof. We have dispensed the Bread of Life to all And we have fed their bodies, though our fare Is down to one food only, crushed corn boiled And seasoned with the powder of smoked fish." Despite the perils, Sainte Marie was sending Her missionaries afield, revisiting The older sites, establishing the new, With that same measure of success and failure Which tested courage or confirmed a faith. Garreau, sick and expecting death, was brought By Fijart and a French assistant back From the Algonquin wastes, for thirteen days Borne by a canoe and by his comrades' shoulders. Recovering even after the last rites Had been administered, he faced the task Again. Fresh visits to the Petun tribes Had little yield but cold and starving days, Unsheltered nights, the same fare at the doors, Savoured by Jogues and Garnier seven years Before. And everywhere the labourers worked Under a double threat--the Iroquois, And the Huron curse inspired by sorcerers Who saw black magic in the Jesuit robes And linked disaster with their ritual. Between the hammer and the anvil now Huronia was laid and the first priest To take the blow was Daniel. Fourteen years This priest had laboured at the Huron mission. Following a week of rest at Sainte Marie He had returned to his last post, St. Joseph, Where he had built his church and for the year Just gone had added to his charge the hundreds Swarming from villages stormed by the foe. And now in that inexorable order, Station by station, town by town, it was St. Joseph's turn. Aware that the main force Of Huron warriors had left the town, The Iroquois had breached the palisade And, overwhelming the defenders, sacked And burned the cabins. Mass had just been offered, When the war yells were heard and Daniel came Outside. Seeing the panic, fully knowing Extinction faced the town with this invasion, And that ten precious minutes of delay Might give his flock the refuge of the woods, He faced the vanguard of the Iroquois, And walked with firm selective dignity As in the manner of a parley. Fear And wonder checked the Indians at the sight Of a single dark-robed, unarmed challenger Against arrows, muskets, spears and tomahawks. That momentary pause had saved the lives Of hundreds as they fled into the forest, But not the life of Daniel. Though afraid At first to cross a charmed circumference To take a struggle hand-to-hand, they drove Their arrows through him, then in frenzied rush Mastering their awe, they hurled themselves upon The body, stripped it of its clothes and flung it Into the burning church. By noon nothing Remained but ashes of the town, the fort, [Sidenote: July 1648] The cabins and their seven hundred dead. XI Ragueneau was distraught. He was shepherd-priest. Daniel was first to die under his care, And nigh a score of missionaries were lost In unprotected towns. Besides, he knew He could not, if he would, resist that mob That clamoured at the stockades, day by day. His moral supervision was bound up With charity that fed and warmed and healed. And through the winter following Daniel's death Six thousand Indians sought shelter there. The season's crops to the last grain were garnered And shared. "Through the kind Providence of God, We managed, as it were, to draw both oil And honey from the very stones around us. The obedience, patience of our missionaries Excel reward--all with one heart and soul Infused with the high spirit of our Order; The servants, boys, and soldiers day and night Working beyond their strength! Here is the service Of joy, that we will take whatever God Ordains for us whether it be life or death." The challenge was accepted, for the spring Opened upon the hardest tragic blows The iron in the human soul could stand. St. Louis and St. Ignace still remained The flying buttresses of Sainte Marie. From them the Residence received reports Daily of movements of the Iroquois. Much labour had been spent on their defence. Ramparts of pine fifteen feet high enclosed St. Louis. On three sides a steep ravine Topped by the stakes made nigh impregnable St. Ignace, as the palisaded fourth, Subject alone to a surprise assault, Could rally the main body of defenders. The Iroquois, alert as eagles, knew The weakness of the Hurons, the effect On the morale of unexpected raids Committing towns to fire and pushing back The eastern ramparts. Piece by piece, the rim Was being cracked and fissures driven down The bowl: and stroke by stroke the strategy Pointed to Sainte Marie. Were once the fort Now garrisoned by forty Frenchmen taken, No power predicted from Quebec could save The Huron nation from its doom. St. Ignace Lay in the path but during the eight months After St. Joseph's fall the enemy Had leisurely prepared their plans. Their scouts Reported that one-half of the town's strength Was lost by flight and that an apathy, In spite of all the priests could do to stem it, Had seized the invaded tribes. They knew that when The warriors were hunting in the forest This weaker palisade was scalable. And the day came in March when the whole fate That overtook St. Joseph in July Swept on St. Ignace--sudden and complete. The Mohawks and the Senecas uniting, A thousand strong, the town bereft of fighters, Four hundred old and young inside the stakes, The assault was made two hours before the dawn. But half-aroused from sleep, many were killed Within their cabins. Of the four hundred three Alone managed to reach the woods to scream The alarm to the drowsed village of St. Louis. At nine o'clock that morning--such the speed Of the pursuit--a guard upon the hill Behind the Residence was watching whiffs Of smoke to the south, but a league away. Bush fires? Not with this season's depth of snow. The Huron bivouacs? The settlements Too close for that. Camps of the Iroquois? Not while cunning and stealth controlled their tactics. The smoke was in the town. The morning air, Clearing, could leave no doubt of that, and just As little that the darkening pall could spring Out of the vent-holes from the cabin roofs. Ragueneau rushed to the hill at the guard's call; Summoned Bressani; sheets and tongues of flame Leaping some fifty feet above the smoke Meant to their eyes the capture and the torch-- St. Louis with Brébeuf and Lalemant! Less than two hours it took the Iroquois To capture, sack and garrison St. Ignace, And start then for St. Louis. The alarm Sounded, five hundred of the natives fled To the mother fort only to be pursued And massacred in the snow. The eighty braves That manned the stockades perished at the breaches; And what was seen by Ragueneau and the guard Was smoke from the massed fire of cabin bark. Brébeuf and Lalemant were not numbered In the five hundred of the fugitives. They had remained, infusing nerve and will In the defenders, rushing through the cabins Baptizing and absolving those who were Too old, too young, too sick to join the flight. And when, resistance crushed, the Iroquois Took all they had not slain back to St. Ignace, The vanguard of the prisoners were the priests. [Sidenote: March 16 1649] Three miles from town to town over the snow, Naked, laden with pillage from the lodges, The captives filed like wounded beasts of burden, Three hours on the march, and those that fell Or slowed their steps were killed. Three days before Brébeuf had celebrated his last mass. And he had known it was to be the last. There was prophetic meaning as he took The cord and tied the alb around his waist, Attached the maniple to his left arm And drew the seamless purple chasuble With the large cross over his head and shoulders, Draping his body: every vestment held An immediate holy symbol as he whispered-- "Upon my head the helmet of Salvation. So purify my heart and make me white; With this cincture of purity gird me, O Lord. May I deserve this maniple Of sorrow and of penance. Unto me Restore the stole of immortality. My yoke is sweet, my burden light. Grant that I may so bear it as to merit Thy grace." Entering, he knelt before as rude an altar As ever was reared within a sanctuary, But hallowed as that chancel where the notes Of Palaestrina's score had often pealed The _Assumpta est Maria_ through Saint Peter's. For, covered in the centre of the table, Recessed and sealed, a hollowed stone contained A relic of a charred or broken body Which perhaps a thousand years ago or more Was offered as a sacrifice to Him Whose crucifix stood there between the candles. And on the morrow would this prayer be answered:-- "Eternal Father, I unite myself With the affections and the purposes Of Our Lady of Sorrows on Calvary. And now I offer Thee the sacrifice Which Thy Beloved Son made of Himself Upon the Cross and now renews on this, His holy altar... Graciously receive My life for His life as he gave His life For mine... This is my body. In like manner Take ye and drink--the chalice of my blood." XII No doubt in the mind of Brébeuf that this was the last Journey--three miles over the snow. He knew That the margins as thin as they were by which he escaped From death through the eighteen years of his mission toil Did not belong to this chapter: not by his pen Would this be told. He knew his place in the line, For the blaze of the trail that was cut on the bark by Jogues Shone still. He had heard the story as told by writ And word of survivors--of how a captive slave Of the hunters, the skin of his thighs cracked with the frost, He would steal from the tents to the birches, make a rough cross From two branches, set it in snow and on the peel Inscribe his vows and dedicate to the Name In "litanies of love" what fragments were left From the wrack of his flesh; of his escape from the tribes; Of his journey to France where he knocked at the door of the College Of Rennes, was gathered in as a mendicant friar, Nameless, unknown, till he gave for proof to the priest His scarred credentials of faith, the nail-less hands And withered arms--the signs of the Mohawk fury. Nor yet was the story finished--he had come again Back to his mission to get the second death. And the comrades of Jogues--Goupil, Eustache and Couture, Had been stripped and made to run the double files And take the blows--one hundred clubs to each line-- And this as the prelude to torture, leisured, minute, Where thorns on the quick, scallop shells to the joints of the thumbs, Provided the sport for children and squaws till the end. And adding salt to the blood of Brébeuf was the thought Of Daniel--was it months or a week ago? So far, so near, it seemed in time, so close In leagues--just over there to the south it was He faced the arrows and died in front of his church. But winding into the greater artery Of thought that bore upon the coming passion Were little tributaries of wayward wish And reminiscence. Paris with its vespers Was folded in the mind of Lalemant, And the soft Gothic lights and traceries Were shading down the ridges of his vows. But two years past at Bourges he had walked the cloisters, Companioned by Saint Augustine and Francis, And wrapped in quiet holy mists. Brébeuf, His mind a moment throwing back the curtain Of eighteen years, could see the orchard lands, The _cidreries_, the peasants at the Fairs, The undulating miles of wheat and barley, Gardens and pastures rolling like a sea From Lisieux to Le Havre. Just now the surf Was pounding on the limestone Norman beaches And on the reefs of Calvados. Had dawn This very day not flung her surplices Around the headlands and with golden fire Consumed the silken argosies that made For Rouen from the estuary of the Seine? A moment only for that veil to lift-- A moment only for those bells to die That rang their matins at Condé-sur-Vire. By noon St. Ignace! The arrival there The signal for the battle-cries of triumph, The gauntlet of the clubs. The stakes were set And the ordeal of Jogues was re-enacted Upon the priests--even with wilder fury, For here at last was trapped their greatest victim, _Echon_. The Iroquois had waited long For this event. Their hatred for the Hurons Fused with their hatred for the French and priests Was to be vented on this sacrifice, And to that camp had come apostate Hurons, United with their foes in common hate To settle up their reckoning with _Echon_. /tb Now three o'clock, and capping the height of the passion, Confusing the sacraments under the pines of the forest, Under the incense of balsam, under the smoke Of the pitch, was offered the rite of the font. On the head, The breast, the loins and the legs, the boiling water! While the mocking paraphrase of the symbols was hurled At their faces like shards of flint from the arrow heads-- "We baptize thee with water... That thou mayest be led To Heaven... To that end we do anoint thee. We treat thee as a friend: we are the cause Of thy happiness; we are thy priests; the more Thou sufferest, the more thy God will reward thee, So give us thanks for our kind offices." The fury of taunt was followed by fury of blow. Why did not the flesh of Brébeuf cringe to the scourge, Respond to the heat, for rarely the Iroquois found A victim that would not cry out in such pain--yet here The fire was on the wrong fuel. Whenever he spoke, It was to rally the soul of his friend whose turn Was to come through the night while the eyes were uplifted in prayer, Imploring the Lady of Sorrows, the mother of Christ, As pain brimmed over the cup and the will was called To stand the test of the coals. And sometimes the speech Of Brébeuf struck out, thundering reproof to his foes, Half-rebuke, half-defiance, giving them roar for roar. Was it because the chancel became the arena, Brébeuf a lion at bay, not a lamb on the altar, As if the might of a Roman were joined to the cause Of Judaea? Speech they could stop for they girdled his lips, But never a moan could they get. Where was the source Of his strength, the home of his courage that topped the best Of their braves and even out-fabled the lore of their legends? In the bunch of his shoulders which often had carried a load Extorting the envy of guides at an Ottawa portage? The heat of the hatchets was finding a path to that source. In the thews of his thighs which had mastered the trails of the Neutrals? They would gash and beribbon those muscles. Was it the blood? They would draw it fresh from its fountain. Was it the heart? They dug for it, fought for the scraps in the way of the wolves. But not in these was the valour or stamina lodged; Nor in the symbol of Richelieu's robes or the seals Of Mazarin's charters, nor in the stir of the _lilies_ Upon the Imperial folds; nor yet in the words Loyola wrote on a table of lava-stone In the cave of Manresa--not in these the source-- But in the sound of invisible trumpets blowing Around two slabs of board, right-angled, hammered By Roman nails and hung on a Jewish hill. The wheel had come full circle with the visions In France of Brébeuf poured through the mould of St. Ignace. Lalemant died in the morning at nine, in the flame Of the pitch belts. Flushed with the sight of the bodies, the foes Gathered their clans and moved back to the north and west To join in the fight against the tribes of the Petuns, And, with the attack to be made on Sainte Marie, Secure no less than the death of the Huron tribes. Garnier was at the mission of St. Jean, Covering again the ground which he and Jogues Had pioneered nine years before. The town Under the impact of the Iroquois Broke like St. Joseph and the fate of Daniel Became the fate of Garnier. Chabanel, Ordered by his Superior to return From St. Matthias was the last to add His name to the great roll when in the woods, Exhausted on his knees, he was discovered And murdered through the treachery of a Huron. Within a year dispersion was complete. The nation perished with its priests. Ragueneau, To avoid the capture of the fort, applied The torch himself. "Inside an hour," he wrote, "We saw the fruit of ten years' labour end In smoke. We took a last look at the fields, Put our belongings on a raft of logs, And made our way to the Island of St. Joseph." But even there the old tale was retold-- Of hunger and the search for roots and acorns, Of cold, of persecution unto death By Iroquois, of Jesuit will and courage As Ragueneau and Chaumonot led back The remnant of a nation to Quebec. * * * * Three hundred years have gone, but the voices that led The martyrs through death unto life are heard again In the pines and elms by the great Fresh Water Sea. The Mission sites have returned to the fold of the Order. Near to the ground where the cross broke under the hatchet, And went with it into the soil to come back at the turn Of the spade with the carbon and calcium char of the bodies, The shrines and altars are built anew; the _Aves_ And prayers ascend and the Holy Bread is broken. [Illustration: Map of Huronia] [End of Brébeuf and His Brethren, by E. J. Pratt]