[11] CHAP. II.
OF THE PERSECUTIONS EXCITED AGAINST US (Jesuit Relations vol. 19)
THE villages nearer to our new house having been the first ones attacked, and most afflicted, the devil did not fail to seize
this opportunity for reawakening all the old imaginations, and causing, the former complaints of us, and of our sojourn
in these quarters, to be renewed; as if it were the sole cause of all their misfortunes, and especially of the sick. They no
longer speak of aught else, they cry aloud that the French must be massacred. These barbarians animate one another to
that effect; the death of their nearest relatives takes away their reason, and increases their rage against us so strongly in
each village that the best informed can hardly believe that we can survive so horrible a storm. They observed, with some
sort of reason, that, since our arrival in these lands, those who [12] had been the nearest to us, had happened to be the most
ruined by the diseases, and that the whole villages of those who had received us now appeared utterly exterminated; and
certainly, they said, the same would be the fate of all the others if the course of this misfortune were not stopped by the
massacre of those who were the cause of it. This was a common opinion, not only in private conversation but in the
general councils held on this account, where the plurality of the votes went for our death, there being only a few elders,
[Page 91] who thought they greatly obliged us by resolving upon banishment.
What powerfully confirmed this false imagination was that, at the same time, they saw us dispersed throughout the
country, seeking all sorts of ways to enter the cabins, instructing and baptizing those most ill with a care which they
had never seen. No doubt, they said, it must needs be that we had a secret understanding with the disease (for they believe
that it is a demon), since we alone were all full of life and health, although [13] we constantly breathed nothing but a totally
infected air, staying whole days close by the side of the most foul-smelling patients, for whom every one felt horror; no
doubt we carried the trouble with us, since, wherever we set foot, either death or disease followed us. In consequence of all
these sayings, many had us in abomination; they expelled us from their cabins, and did not allow us to approach their sick,
and especially children: not even to lay eyes on them, in a word, we were dreaded as the greatest sorcerers on earth.
Wherein truly it must be acknowledged that these poor people are in some sense excusable. For it has happened very
often, and has been remarked more than a hundred times, that where we were most welcome, where we baptized most
people, there it was in fact where they died the most; and, on the contrary, in the cabins to which we were denied entrance,
although they were sometimes sick to extremity, at the end of a few days one saw every [14] person prosperously cured.
We shall see in heaven the secret, but ever adorable, judgments of God therein. Meanwhile, it is one of our most usual
astonishments [Page 93] and one of our most solid pleasures, to consider, in the midst of all those things, the gracious
bounties of God in the case of those whom he wishes for himself; and to see oftener than every day his sacred and
efficadious acts of providence, which so arrange matters that it comes about that not one of the elect is lost, though hell
and earth oppose. We shall see as much, in the course of this Relation. I will only say in passing, with reference to the
little children who were in danger of death, and who were nowise guilty of the refusal which their parents often made us, to
approach them, that hardly did a dozen of them die without receiving their passport for going to heaven, during the time
when we had free access to the villages, the zeal and the charity of our evangelistic laborers having been more
industrious and more active to procure them this happiness than the rage and the hatred of the devil to hinder them.
[15] The reasons which we have thus far adduced, on account of which the barbarians suspect us of being the cause of
their diseases, seem to have some foundation; but the devil did not stop there, it would be a miracle if he did not build
the worst of his calumnies on sheer lies.
Robert le Coq,[5] one of our domestics, had returned from Kebec in a state of sickness which caused as much horror as
compassion to all those who had courage enough to examine the ulcers with which all his limbs were covered. Never
would a Huron have believed that a body so filled with miseries could have returned to health; regarding him then as good
as dead, there were found slanderers so assured in their falsehood that they publicly maintained that this young
Frenchman had told them in confidence that [Page 95] the Jesuits alone were the authors and the cause of the diseases
which from year to year kept depopulating the country; that he had discovered our mysteries, and the most hidden secrets
of our enchantments. Some said that we nourished, in a retired place of our house, a certain serpent [16] of which their
fables make mention, and that this was the disease. Others said that it was a kind of toad, all marked with pits, and that
somebody had even perceived it. Certain ones made out that this disease was a somewhat more crafty demon; and, by what
they said, we kept it concealed in the barrel of an arquebus, and thence it was easy for us to send it wherever we would.
They reported a thousand like fables, and all that was held to be true, since it proceeded, they said, from the very lips of a
Frenchman, who before his death had rendered this good office to the whole country of the Hurons, of apprising them
of so black a magic, by which in fact all their villages appeared to be desolated. Those were the most powerful weapons
with which they combatted us; this was the imperative reason which made us all criminals. The surrounding nations were
soon informed of this; everybody was imbued with it, and even the children, as well as the fathers, in whatever place we
might go to, favored in that matter the definite decree for our death.
Before we pass on, I think that it is a thing which deserves [17] to be remarked, the sickness and the health of this
young man. It would be in some sort to slight the providence of God, not to bless him therefor, since that has greatly
shone forth in it.
This good young man, returning here from Kebec in a company of several canoes of Hurons, who had [Page 97]
promised him every assistance by the way, soon saw himself abandoned by those barbarians, who broke faith with him as
soon as they were past fear of the enemies, and within a region where, the chase being no longer successful, they no
longer enjoyed the effects of an arquebus which he carried. He remained alone, accompanied by two Savages, in a small
canoe that he had bought. While in the rapids, he wishes to relieve them; he loads himself at the portages with some
bundles so heavy that, succumbing beneath the burden, there followed a sprain and a rupture in the loins so painful that he
hardly believed he could proceed further. Those Savages were already speaking of leaving him; but God was reserving for
him a heavier cross. He was soon seized with a violent fever, and thereafter the current malady, [18] smallpox, covered his
whole body in a manner so extraordinary that on all his members there appeared but one crust of foulness. Instead of
paddling, and relieving his boatmen at the portages, he has himself become a new burden to people who straightway feel
horror for him; nor have they even sufficient courage to fix their eyes on his body, so hideously disfigured is he. Far,
indeed, from relieving him at the height of his pains, and from sympathizing with his trouble, on the contrary, they
speak at every moment of getting rid of him, and of throwing him on the shore like a corpse which was already
confiscated by death. They come to the point of execution; but this poor sick man, to whom nothing was left intact but
sense and speech, effected so much by dint of reasons, prayers, threats, promises, and especially by inordinate gifts, that
they promised him not to abandon him. That was all the [Page 99] favor that he could hope from them; for in other
matters they treated him with less respect and compassion than we would show to a dead body, even to the pass that
they were ashamed to be [19] charged with him, so that, when they encountered some canoes, they hid him like foul
carrion and a dunghill, which one dare not expose to view.
He was 12 or 13 days dragging out in this way such a wretched life, and at last saw himself in hopes of contriving, within
two good days, to reach this house, where it would be his consolation to die assisted by us, and to enjoy once again the
pleasure of the Sacraments in the midst of a company which would serve him not a little to obtain for him the feelings of
piety in which he would have desired to render his soul to God. But what? an infidel Huron is always a barbarian.
These wretches forsake him, all alone on a long rock which is on the shore of the great lake that comes to bathe these
shores; they carry off his canoe, and all the gifts which they had extracted from him by the way, without leaving him even
a piece of bark to cover himself with, nor any food wherewith he could sustain the meagre life which he had left. No
doubt, if the very rocks on which he was exposed [20] had had any feeling, they would have taken pity to see this poor
young man forsaken by all human aid, wholly burdened with sores and ulcers, covered with a disease so full of pain,
without fire, without provisions, and without shelter; lying on a naked rock, which had nothing smooth about it, any
more than his body, and wet from head to foot with a furious rain, which fell upon him almost an entire day.
Notwithstanding all that, his courage does not [Page 101] give in to his misery; he has recourse to God, and, dragging
his miserable body on his elbows and on his knees (for he could not stand on his feet, nor lean on anything else), with his
eyes all stopped up with sores, he goes into the bushes and among the briars, to seek by feeling about whether he will
not find some root or some fruit to satisfy his hunger, which oppresses him as much as and more than all his troubles
together.
It must be that God was guiding him, for his hands so fortunately fell on what he sought, that in a little while he found a
certain kind of currants, enough to relieve his hunger to some extent. [21]
Judge what this poor sick mans night was. The next day, while he lay almost naked on the shore, some Huron canoes,
which had perceived him from a distance, thinking that he was some dead body, drew near to make him out; but he, having
risen a little at the noise, in order to cry them mercy, gave them so much horror that, not daring to approach nearer, they
pitilessly left him, without lending him any assistance, not even a handful of corn or meal. A little while after, some
others passed, who finally having suffered themselves to be swayed by the gifts which he offered them, resolved to take
charge of him: but alas, this joy was very brief; hardly had they carried him about half a league when, unable to endure
him longer, they put him ashore again with his clothing, and a bundle of about 50 or 60 pounds, more faithful in that
than the first ones, who carried off his presents.
So there was this poor fellow again abandoned to all these miseries, but worse than before, for, his strength [22] being
diminished for want of food, and [Page 103] the disease having increased, he found himself at last almost powerless to
stir further. It was then that he had most to suffer, for a great storm of rain having come up, and he chancing to be lying
between two rocks along which the waters from the hills and neighboring knolls poured down, he could not withdraw
from them, and was constrained to crouch therein as long as the storm lasted. It was much worse at the return of fair
weather: for then the gnats, coming in swarms, attached themselves to the matter which issued from his sores; whence
there ensued a teeming nest of vermin and of worms, everywhere on his body.
For less than that, one dies; accordingly this good young man, altogether despairing of his life, now thought of nothing
but Heaven. He looked at death with as peaceful a gaze as those do who contemplate their happiness.
He had charged himself, on leaving the Three Rivers, with a bundle which he was bringing to us, in which were several
quite notable relics. That was the sole support which was left to him on earth: and at least, if unable [23] to come and die
in our arms, he consoled himself that his body would rest in peace beside the relics of the Saints; but God willed to see
him in a desolation more complete.
Those who had forsaken him told the other Hurons whom they met, the miserable condition of this poor fellow. Among
those who heard these tidings was a certain barbarian with whom he had formerly made several journeys in the country,
and who professed to love him. This man, who was going away on a rather long trade, leaves his course, moves straight to
where the sick man was, to relieve him: [Page 105] but having approached him and considered his misery, and still more
the bundle which was near him, this barbarian came to the conclusion that he was a person of whom death had already
taken possession, and that thus one might with impunity rob him. 1 Nevertheless, in order not to do so openly the deed of
an enemy, he greets him in the Huron style, and, for all comfort offering him a piece of sorry bread, almost mouldy,
he takes his time, and craftily removes the said [24] bundle. The poor sick man, who from time to time gave heed to
what comfort there was left to him in the world, no longer feeling his treasure, straightway suspected what had
happened. That blow pierced his heart, accounting himself thenceforth, as it were, abandoned by any help of heaven
and earth. But that was precisely the moment which Our Lord was awaiting, in order to manifest his glory, and the paternal
care that he has for those who put their whole confidence in him.
A year before, while returning from the same voyage, he had met, five or six days journey on this side of the Three
Rivers, a poor Huron barbarian, forsaken by his companions for a like reason of sickness. He was touched with
compassion, and resolved to assist this poor unfortunate; he erects for him a little cabin, and covers him with a skin and
with his jacket; he goes both hunting and fishing for him; he prepares for him his food. In short, he renders him night and
day so much charity, and so many kind offices, that he puts him on his feet again, and restores him to a condition for
taking the first opportunity, by the canoes which should pass there, to [25] bring him back. The year had elapsed, and this
[Page 107] barbarian had shown his benefactor no gratitude; but the God of justice and of goodness did not allow this
ingratitude to last longer. Here, then, this barbarian returning in a canoe with another, a comrade of his, from I know
not what journey approaches, by a happy coincidence, the place where his former benefactor was, not thinking of him.
He is surprised to see there so hideous a spectacle, but he has no thought of recognizing it. This poor sick man could
hardly open his eyes, stopped shut with sores; he feels himself quite revived on perceiving the one whom he had formerly
so much obliged. "Ha!" he said to him, "my comrade, it is I who am dying here, unhappily forsaken; it is in your power
to render me what I gave you." The barbarian recognized his voice, and touched with compassion, and with gratitude for
the boon of life which in fact, the year before, he had received through his assistance he gives his word that he will not
abandon him until he has put him in a place of safety, and that they will run the same risk.
[26] In fact, although these two barbarians had no more than one days meal, and though the weather was very irksome,
they burdened themselves with this living carcass, abandoned for four days to all the inclemencies of wind and weather;
and night and day they rendered him all the assistance they could think of. But it seemed that the demons envied this
charity in infidel persons; the tempest increased, the winds doubled their force, and the gusts were so vehement that they
thought they should never escape from them again. Howbeit, their courage overcame the rage of the waves; for finally,
after having paddled vigorously for the space of five [Page 109] days, during which they nearly died of hunger, and
having crossed the lake (which at a time of calm would have been but the work of two days), they landed at the foot of
our house, and delivered into our hands the one with whom they had charged themselves. I do not suppose that one can
see a human body more covered with miseries, not one of us could ever have recognized him; there was no part of him
which did not feel his pain, but yet his courage having [27] remained, the evil which most oppressed him was an inordinate
hunger, which had almost taken from him the sense of all his other troubles.
God knows how great was the consolation which he felt: it was surely then that he could have died the most contented
man in the world. We gave him the Sacraments to dispose him the better thereto; but it so pleased God to bless the charity
which was rendered him that, about forty days after his arrival, he found himself in perfect health.
But if he was consoled by seeing us, perhaps our joy was not less than his; for we were expecting him dead, and we saw
him alive. Some Hurons, of those who had last left him, first brought us news of him; those who first of all had most
faithlessly abandoned him having concealed from us their knowledge of the matter, for fear, as one may think, lest, if
the sick man were aided, they would have to give back the presents and the canoe, by which they desired to profit. Be this
as it may, they had represented to us that he was dead; and [28] straightway we manned a canoe belonging to one of our
Fathers, with one of our domestics and with four excellent Savages, to go and either assist him alive or fetch him dead.
[Page 111] But, having reached the place which had been designated, and after having explored almost the whole shore
with much labor, without finding aught, God having thus provided, moreover, they did not see him till their return.
Now for culmination of blessing, on the day of All Saints, as we were on the point of saying Vespers, our Fathers of the
Mission of la Conception arrived here, and brought us that of which we had lost nearly all hope, the Relics of the
Saints, which that treacherous barbarian had taken away from the poor sick man. This wretched robber, not having found
in the bundle what he thought to be there, and having seen scarcely anything but articles from which he could have derived
no use, resolved, from I know not what secret impulse, to conceal the said bundle in the woods, and to pursue his course.
The result was that, on returning from his journey, which lasted 40 or 50 days, having learned that Robert le Coq was still
alive, suspecting, indeed, that his robbery would be [29] known, he recovered and brought back the said bundle, and
had not sufficient effrontery to deny it to our Fathers, who addressed themselves to him as soon as he had arrived. No
doubt these good Saints to whom we often affectionately commended this matter, which concerned themselves as much
as us had listened to our prayers. They could not have given us this joy on a better day; we forthwith exposed upon our
Altar all these glorious and auspicious Relics, with a goodly number of others which had come to us from France this
year. The Vespers of this holy day were sung with a consolation which it would be difficult to explain. [Page 113]
But let us return to our Savages, excited against us on account of the disease, and to those impostors who had maintained
that Robert le Coq had so confidentially informed them of the black magic arts and the execrable spells with which we
were causing them all to die. It was not very difficult to refute these calumnies, since he who was said to have been the sole
source of all these rumors not being dead, as they had supposed, but having recovered [30] perfect health could
belie all those who previously maintained they had heard the thing from his lips. But what? falsehood gets the better of the
truth; the slanderers find more credit than the one who justifies us. The devil goes much further, for this poor young
Frenchmans sickness having for quite a long time kept the minds of several in suspense, seeing us involved in the same
misery when they saw him in health whom all men would have accounted dead, it came to their thought that the whole
affair had been only collusion with the disease; and that, having an understanding with it, we had disposed of it in this way,
in order to throw dust in their eyes. However this be, they openly cry "murder;" but the demons are like thunders, which
make more noise than they do harm, for all these threats have had but little effect. We are alive, thank God, all full of
life and health. It is indeed true that the crosses have been stricken down from above our houses; that people have entered
our cabins, hatchet in hand, in order to deal some evil blow there; [31] they have, it is said, awaited some of ours on the
roads, with the intention of killing them; the hatchet has been lifted above others, and the blow brought within a
finger-length of their bare heads; [Page 115] the Crucifixes which were carried to the sick have been violently snatched
from us; blows with a club have been mightily inflicted upon one of our missionaries, to prevent him from conferring
some baptism. Sed nondum usque ad sanguinem restitimus; our blood and our lives have not yet been poured out for
him to whom we owe all our hearts. Our soul is in our hands, and this is the greatest favor that we hope to receive from the
great Master who employs us, namely, to die for his holy name, after having suffered much.
Not that I do not forever praise this great God of goodness, for having thus far protected us with so much love: for it is
truly an unspeakable happiness for us, in the midst of this barbarism, to hear the roarings of the demons, and to see all hell
and almost all men animated and filled with fury against a little handful of [32] people who would not defend themselves;
to see ourselves shut up in a place fifteen hundred leagues from our native land, where all the powers of the earth could
not warrant us against the anger of the weakest man who might have designs .on our lives, and where we have not even a
bag of corn which has not been furnished us by those who incessantly parley about killing us; and to feel at the same time
so special a confidence in the goodness of God, so firm an assurance in the midst of dangers, a zeal so active, and a
courage so resolute to do all and to suffer all for the glory of our Master, so indefatigable a constancy in the labors which
increase from day to day. So that it is easy to conceive that God is the one who espouses our cause; that it is he alone who
protects us, and that his providence takes pleasure in manifesting itself where we see least of the human. [Page 117]
I speak with this freedom concerning the courage of our Evangelistic laborers in their toils, because I have no share in this
glory, save having seen and closely examined the situation, feeling myself withal [33] constrained to render this
testimony to their virtue. We shall see the effects of it more specifically in the following Chapters.