In the fog the flagship lost touch with the Saint-Jean. Champlain was confident that she would find her way toward the funnel-shaped estuary of the St. Lawrence River, as indeed she did, and the ships found each other the next day. Champlain led his ships safely through Cabot Strait to the protected waters of Cape Breton, where a sub-company of the Hundred Associates had built Fort St. Anne. Champlain had probably been there the year before and was well acquainted with its commander, the sieur de Mercier. As the ships approached, they hoisted a secret signal and the French fort replied with a sign of its own. Champlain’s little squadron entered the harbor to a tumultuous welcome. He had completed another Atlantic voyage and preserved his perfect record. In twenty-seven ocean crossings he had never lost a major ship under his command.10
• • •
From Fort Sainte-Anne the French ships sailed up the St. Lawrence River to Tadoussac, and found two English ships anchored there. Each carried thirty-eight guns, enough to over-match Champlain’s entire fleet in weight of metal. But the English were not there to fight. They were traders and had nearly filled their holds with cargoes of fish and fur. Champlain engaged them in an amicable discussion, and they departed in peace.11
Champlain hurried up the river to Quebec in high uncertainty, and arrived on May 22. He was delighted to discover that the English were gone, and that the French habitants had recovered control of the settlement. They were few in number, but full of enthusiasm, and they turned out to welcome him in high style. Prominent among them were a party of Jesuit fathers who had come in 1632. Father Le Jeune wrote, “We were in doubt if Monsieur de Champlain would come, or someone else on the part of the gentlemen of the Company of New France, or sieur Guillaume de Caën.” He tells us that they prayed to God for Champlain. Then the ships arrived and Champlain it was. The habitants were overjoyed. One of them wrote, “all at once Champlain had come.” Le Jeune remembered that “it was for us one of the good days of the year; we were full of strong hopes after so many storms.”12
The vessels were welcomed with a salute of three guns, and Champlain answered with three more, in billowing clouds of white smoke that rolled across the river. A boat splashed into the water, and Champlain was rowed ashore with “a squad of French soldiers, armed with pikes and muskets.” They paraded through the settlement, entered the fort, and the soldiers summoned the habitants with a roll of drums. Champlain assembled all the people, and read his dual commission as Lord Lieutenant to Richelieu and representative of the Company of the Hundred Associates. The habitants listened attentively. After much strife surrounding the old companies, they were greatly relieved by the terms of Champlain’s commission, and his “orders from Monsieur le Cardinal,” which “ended the dispute in favor of the Company of New France.”13
The commercial affairs of the settlement were still in the hands of Émery de Caën, an old rival and distant friend. He stepped forward and with a gesture of deference handed the keys of the settlement to an intermediary, the sieur Du Plessis-Bochart, who in turn presented them to Champlain. It was a symbol of the transfer of power from the old Company de Caën to the new Company of the Hundred Associates. Everything was done with ritual acts of fealty and obeisance.14
• • •
Champlain’s second habitation, as reconstructed by him in 1633–35. This drawing, based on archaeological research, shows its defenses, the battery that controlled the narrows of the river and five outbuildings and small farms. An even stronger fortress was built on the heights above.
Then the hard work began. Champlain looked about and found once again that much of the town was a ruin. The old habitation where Champlain and Hélène had lived together in their happiest years was a tangle of broken stone and charred timber. The English had burned it, and the fort was also a wreck. Nothing had been built since Champlain had left four years before. In the absence of authority, Quebec had become a wide-open frontier town. In the filthy streets Champlain found a scattering of fur traders who were a law unto themselves—English, French, and Indian alike. Only one French family was living there—the long-suffering Héberts, still working the farm that Champlain had given them. They loved the land but lived in daily fear of violence by Indians and Europeans alike. The Héberts were delighted to see Champlain, and hopeful that he would restore order.
Champlain had only a handful of pikemen and musketeers, but disciplined troops with a determined leader swiftly worked their will upon the settlement. He did it with a grace that made it look easy, which it was not, as the tragic history of many a colony made clear. In 1633 Champlain’s energy seemed undiminished, even after thirty years of labor in New France. He mustered the men of the colony and set them to work rebuilding the settlement. The most urgent task was to make the colony defensible. The fort was a ruin—looted, burned, and struck by lightning. Champlain repaired its broken palisade, rebuilt its eroded ramparts, reinforced gates, and added platforms for great guns that commanded the river. In the town below, no weather-tight building remained to shelter the company’s supplies. Champlain repaired a structure to serve as a storehouse, restored shops for artisans, and renovated living quarters for servants and soldiers. Within the fort he constructed a seat of royal government. The king’s arms went up on the building, and once again the flag of Bourbon France was hoisted above the rooftops of the little town. His habitation became a North American echo of the French court, perhaps more in the spirit of Henri IV than Louis XIII.
Champlain also built a new chapel for Quebec and named it Notre-Dame-de-la-Recouvrance, Our Lady of the Recovery, to honor the restoration of New France. Champlain ordered the Angelus to be sounded three times a day, morning, noon, and night. He actively encouraged worship, and the chapel became an important center for the life of the settlement; Quebec’s Notre-Dame Cathedral stands today near the same site.15
The result was a full-scale revival of religion at Quebec during the winter and spring of 1633–34. This was a common occurrence in European colonies during the seventeenth century. Something similar happened in English settlements at Jamestown and Boston, but it took different forms in Catholic and Protestant colonies. Among Protestant populations, revivals centered on conversion experiences. The Catholic revival in Quebec appeared in exercises of piety. Father Le Jeune reported many acts of “extraordinary devotion in soldiers and artisans, such as are the greater part of our Frenchmen here.”
Jesuit rings were given to Indian converts by Father Paul Le Jeune, head of the order in New France. The emblem of the order was a crucifix with the initials IHS, which stood for Jesu Hominum Salvator, Jesus the Savior, and also for Constantine’s In Hoc Signo. They also became an article of trade.
Some made barefoot pilgrimages in deep snow. Le Jeune wrote of one penitent who “came on last Shrove Tuesday [1634], with bare head and feet over the snow and ice from Quebec all the way to our Chapel, that is a good half league, fasting the same day, to fulfill a vow made to Our Lord; and all this was done without any other witnesses than God and our fathers.” Other habitants practiced “abstinence and fasting.” One “took the discipline more than thirty times.” A third devoted a tithe of his profits to “works of piety.” Le Jeune observed the revival with gratification, and attributed much of it to Champlain’s example. The Jesuit father concluded that “the winter in New France is not so severe that some flowers of Paradise may not be gathered here.”16
While Champlain’s habitation was under construction, he moved in with the Jesuit fathers. The mission of these Black Robes in New France had not been Champlain’s idea. He favored the Franciscan piety of the brown-robed Récollets, much as Cardinal Richelieu had preferred the gray-gowned Capuchins. The Jesuits in New France had been sponsored by the relentless Madame de Guercheville, who applied her wealth and beauty to their cause. In Quebec, their presence was resented by some habitants and would continue to be controversial among Catholics even to our own time. But Champlain got on well with them, and especially with Father Paul Le Jeune, a former Protes
tant who had converted to Catholicism.
Le Jeune told a happy story that is a clue to their relationship. On May 29, Champlain attended Mass in the chapel of the Jesuit fathers, and afterward was invited to dine with them. Le Jeune remembered that “as luck would have it, an Indian friend of the mission” had given them “a choice piece of bear meat, which we served to Champlain. Having tasted it he began to laugh and said to me, ‘If they knew in France that we were eating bear, they would turn their faces away from our breath, and yet you see how good and delicate the meat is.’”17
In that snatch of conversation we hear Champlain’s laughter, feel his easy way with others, and see his pleasure in bountiful food, abundant drink, good company, and cheerful conversation. Here again, we observe his happy gift for working with people whose purposes were different from his own. In his advice to leaders, Champlain recommended an “affable manner” as an act of policy. But for him it was not a mask. Champlain genuinely delighted in the company of others, and they delighted in him.18
Le Jeune and Champlain became fast friends. Both men were probably catechized as Protestants, converted to Catholicism, and embraced that faith with a whole heart. Although their goals for New France were not the same, they worked together to strengthen the colony and to improve relations between church and state in Quebec. Champlain also encouraged the Jesuits to found a seminary for the training of priests. It opened in 1635, a year before the first college in New England. Within two years it was called the Collège de Québec.19
A major source for Champlain and New France are the Jesuit Relations, especially those that Father Paul Le Jeune sent home every year. They tell us how Champlain succeeded in realizing his dream of New France during his last years there.
With Champlain’s support, the Jesuits became an active presence in the colony. They met the immigrant ships that began to arrive from France. The Jesuit fathers rowed out to vessels in the river, climbed the high companion ladders in their billowing black robes, and performed mass on the weather deck, with their communion silver sparkling in the bright Canadian light. Once they brought a choir of seven Indian boys who sang the Paternoster in their own language, to Champlain’s delight and everyone’s pleasure.20
After the fort was repaired, Champlain invited the Jesuits to dine in his quarters, which they did frequently. Le Jeune recalled that “the fort … seemed like a well-ordered Academy. Monsieur Champlain has someone read at his table in the morning from some good historians, and in the evening from the lives of the saints.”21 The tone of the settlement was transformed by Champlain’s spirit. Le Jeune wrote, “We have passed this year in great peace and on very good terms with our French [habitants].” He attributed that success to “the wise conduct and prudence of Monsieur de Champlain, governor of Quebec of the Saint Lawrence River, who honors us with his good will, holding everyone to the path of duty. In a word we have reason to console ourselves when we see a chief so zealous for the glory of our Lord, and for the welfare of these gentlemen.”22
Another of Champlain’s many responsibilities was to control the river. Illegal traders continued to appear in the St. Lawrence. Champlain complained again and again that they used any means to make a profit, and gave no thought to the future. These interlopers offered firearms and alcohol to the Indians, and threatened to burn Indian settlements that traded with the French. As the flow of French shipping increased in the St. Lawrence Valley, the company ordered its captains to attack unlicensed traders when they had the power to do so. In 1634, an English ship was captured after a battle in the river.
Champlain lacked the strength to remove interlopers from the lower reaches of the river. He decided to deal with the problem in another way, by building a new fort and trading post on the small, rocky island of Sainte-Croix, in the St. Lawrence River near the present village of Deschambault, fifteen leagues upstream from Quebec. The channel was narrow there, and, in Champlain’s words, the fort “held the entire river in check.” Its guns kept the English from coming upstream, and Champlain erected a trading post there to provide opportunities for commerce with the licensed traders. Later he changed its name from Sainte-Croix to Richelieu Island, in hope of improving relations with the cardinal. In 1633 Champlain was often on the water, visiting the island, supervising construction, talking with the garrison, and meeting with the Indians. This policy of controlling choke points on the river met with mixed results, but it helped Champlain to keep the peace along the river.23
Champlain’s next task was, yet again, to repair relations with the Indians. When he arrived in Quebec, scattered acts of violence were increasing dangerously between Indians and French. The English conquest had done real damage that way. The Indians could not understand why a kingdom as great as France could be defeated by a small force of freebooters. Some Indians felt abandoned by the French. Others thought that the French could not be trusted as allies or even as trading partners. A few saw them as ripe for the plucking.
On May 30, 1633, an Algonquin warrior killed a Frenchman. The murderer was caught and confined in chains at the French fort in Quebec. Then on July 2, another Frenchman was murdered by an Indian of the Petite-Nation as he was washing his clothes in a stream near the settlement. The killer tried to disguise his crime as the work of the Iroquois. When Champlain and Indian leaders discovered the truth, the murderer was captured and taken to the fort. French leaders asked what should be done with him. Champlain posed the question in another way. What sort of justice would satisfy both the Indians and the French? It was a problem that Champlain had dealt with several times before, always in the same spirit, but each time with more refinement.
Long discussions followed between Champlain and large assemblies of Indians, mostly about standards of justice. The Indians made several proposals. Some suggested that they should kill an Indian who was related to the murderer. Champlain refused, and said to them, “Your law is much more brutal than ours. It would kill another innocent person and allow the criminal to go free.”24 Montagnais leaders proposed that their nation should give Champlain several children as hostages. They took two small children by the hand, laid them at his feet, and said to him: “We give them to you. Do whatever you wish.” Champlain had done something like this before, but this time he said no. “Innocent children cannot carry the guilt of the murderer,” he explained. “I desire no further hostage than the guilty one to be in my hands—a perfidious traitor, with no more courage or friendship than a tiger.”25 Champlain proposed that only the perpetrator should be punished, and in a way that all nations could recognize as just. The killer remained in a condition of “open confinement,” so that his wife and others of his nation could visit him. How it ended is not known. The murderer was still in that condition when the only account was written. But Champlain succeeded in finding a path of coexistence among the French, the Algonquin, and Montagnais, both in what was done and in how they did it. As always, he kept working to restore the rule of law in the St. Lawrence Valley on that basis.26
Another incident happened on May 23, 1633, when the French at Quebec were visited by twelve or fourteen canoes of the Nipissing nation, whom the French called the nation des Sorciers. The Indians were fascinated by the exercises of a young French drummer boy. One pressed too close, and the drummer accidentally hit him in the head with a drumstick. The wound bled abundantly, and the Indians asked for justice, which in their nation called for the payment of presents. Champlain answered that justice would be done in a different way and he ordered the French drummer boy to be whipped. As the “switches were being made ready,” the Indians rushed forward to protect the French lad. One Nipissing stripped himself naked, and threw his blanket over the French boy and said, “If you wish to beat someone, beat me, but do not beat him.” The drummer was spared a beating, and Champlain himself got a lesson in humanity.27
Champlain’s task of restoring relations was compounded by the cultural complexity of the St. Lawrence Valley. Each Indian nation presented a different challenge. C
hamplain had to find solutions that worked for the Montagnais, for the many Algonquin groups, the Huron, and especially the Iroquois. His first step was to expand communications. Champlain’s main recourse was, as always, to listen and talk. He had a smattering of Indian languages, not enough to speak directly on sensitive questions. Most of his communications had to happen through interpreters.
Some of Champlain’s old corps of French interpreters were still living in the St. Lawrence Valley. When the English had arrived, several interpreters had gone to live among the Indians. Others chose to work for the conquerors. Champlain had made these men what they were and he was appalled by what some of them became. He had come to detest Étienne Brûlé, and disliked Marsolet for having lent aid and comfort to British mercenaries. After 1633, he worked more closely with other interpreters who were held in high respect. Everyone thought well of Olivier le Tardif, who became fluent in Montagnais, Algonquian, and Huron, and was also perceived as an honneste homme. The Indians held him in high esteem. He often appeared at Champlain’s side and became a major figure in New France.28
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