Parkman Vol. 4, Chapter 7

Many years before, the company had ceded its monopoly of the fur trade to the inhabitants of the colony.

Previously in The Old Regime In Canada

Our special project presenting the definitive account of France in Canada by Francis Parkman, one of America’s greatest historians.

Continuing with Chapter 6.

It is perhaps needless to say that “specters and phantoms of fire, bearing torches in their hands,” took part in the convulsion. “The fiery figure of a man vomiting flames” also appeared in the air, with many other apparitions too numerous to mention. It is recorded that three young men were on their way through the forest to sell brandy to the Indians, when one of them, a little in advance of the rest, was met by a hideous specter which nearly killed him with fright. He had scarcely strength enough to rejoin his companions, who, seeing his terror, began to laugh at him. One of them, however, presently came to his senses, and said: “This is no laughing matter; we are going to sell liquor to the Indians against the prohibitions of the church, and perhaps God means to punish our disobedience.” On this they all turned back. That night they had scarcely lain down to sleep when the earthquake roused them, and they ran out of their hut just in time to escape being swallowed up along with it.

[Marie de l’Incarnation, Lettre du 20 Aout, 1663. It appears from Morton, Josselyn, and other writers, that the earthquake extended to New England and New Netherlands, producing similar effects on the imagination of the people.]

[Professor Sterry Hunt, whose intimate knowledge of Canadian geology is well known, tells me that the shores of the St. Lawrence are to a great extent formed of beds of gravel and clay resting on inclined strata of rock, so that earth-slides would be the necessary result of any convulsion like that of 1663. He adds that the evidence that such slides have taken place on a great scale is very distinct at various points along the river, especially at Les Eboulemcns.]

With every allowance, it is clear that the convulsion must have been a severe one, and it is remarkable that in all Canada not a life was lost. The writers of the day see in this a proof that God meant to reclaim the guilty and not destroy them. At Quebec there was for the time an intense revival of religion. The end of the world was thought to be at hand, and everybody made ready for the last judgment. Repentant throngs beset confessionals and altars; enemies were reconciled; fasts, prayers, and penances filled the whole season of Lent. Yet, as we shall see, the devil could still find wherewith to console himself.

It was midsummer before the shocks wholly ceased and the earth resumed her wonted calm. An extreme drought was followed by floods of rain, and then Nature began her sure work of reparation. It was about this time that the thorn which had plagued the church was at length plucked out. Avaugour was summoned home.

He took his recall with magnanimity, and on his way wrote at Gaspé a memorial to Colbert, in which he commends New France to the attention of the king. “The St. Lawrence,” he says, “is the entrance to what may be made the greatest state in the world;” and, in his purely military way, he recounts the means of realizing this grand possibility. Three thousand soldiers should be sent to the colony, to be discharged and turned into settlers after three years of service. During these three years they may make Quebec an impregnable fortress, subdue the Iroquois, build a strong fort on the river where the Dutch have a miserable wooden redoubt, called Fort Orange [Albany], and finally open a way by that river to the sea. Thus the heretics will be driven out, and the king will be master of America, at a total cost of about four hundred thousand francs yearly for ten years. He closes his memorial by a short allusion to the charges against him, and to his forty years of faithful service; and concludes, speaking of the authors of his recall, Laval and the Jesuits:

“By reason of the respect I owe their cloth, I will rest content, monseigneur, with assuring you that I have not only served the king with fidelity, but also, by the grace of God, with very good success, considering the means at my disposal.” [1] He had, in truth, borne himself as a brave and experienced soldier; and he soon after died a soldier’s death, while defending the fortress of Zrin, in Croatia, against the Turks. [2]

[1: Avaugour, Mémoire, Gaspé 4 Août 1663.]

[2: Lettre de Colbert au Marquis de Tracy, 1664. Mémoire du Boy, pout servir d’instruction au Sieur Talon]

Chapter 7

Though the proposals of Avaugour’s memorial were not adopted, it seems to have produced a strong impression at court. For this impression the minds of the king and his minister had already been prepared. Two years before, the inhabitants of Canada had sent one of their number, Pierre Boucher, to represent their many grievances and ask for aid. [3] Boucher had had an audience of the young king, who listened with interest to his statements; and when in the following year he returned to Quebec, he was accompanied by an officer named Dumont, who had under his command a hundred soldiers for the colony, and was commissioned to report its condition and resources. The movement seemed to betoken that the government was wakening at last from its long inaction.

[3: To promote the objects of his mission, Boucher wrote a little book, Histoire Véritable et Naturelle des Mœurs et Productions du Pays de la Nouvelle France. He dedicates it to Colbert.]

Meanwhile the Company of New France, feudal lord of Canada, had also shown signs of returning life. Its whole history had been one of mishap, followed by discouragement and apathy; and it is difficult to say whether its ownership of Canada had been more hurtful to itself or to the colony. At the eleventh hour it sent out an agent invested with powers of controller-general, intendant, and supreme judge, to inquire into the state of its affairs. This agent, Péronne Dumesnil, arrived early in the autumn of 1660, and set himself with great vigor to his work. He was an advocate of the Parliament of Paris, an active, aggressive, and tenacious person, of a temper well fitted to rip up an old abuse or probe a delinquency to the bottom. His proceedings quickly raised a storm at Quebec.

It may be remembered that, many years before, the company had ceded its monopoly of the fur trade to the inhabitants of the colony, in consideration of that annual payment in beaver-skins which had been so tardily and so rarely made. The direction of the trade had at that time been placed in the hands of a council composed of the governor, the superior of the Jesuits, and several other members. Various changes had since taken place, and the trade was now controlled by another council, established without the consent of the company, [4] and composed of the principal persons in the colony. The members of this council, with certain prominent merchants in league with them, engrossed all the trade, so that the inhabitants at large profited nothing by the right which the company had ceded; [5] and as the councilors controlled not only the trade but all the financial affairs of Canada, while the remoteness of their scene of operations made it difficult to supervise them, they were able, with little risk, to pursue their own profit, to the detriment both of the company and the colony. They and their allies formed a petty trading oligarchy, as pernicious to the prosperity of Canada as the Iroquois war itself.

[4: A long journal of Dumont is printed anonymously in the Relation of 1663.]

[5: Registres du Conseil du Roy; Réponse a la requeste présentée au Roy.]

The company, always anxious for its beaver-skins, made several attempts to control the proceedings of the councilors and call them to account, but with little success, till the vigorous Dumesnil undertook the task, when, to their wrath and consternation, they and their friends found themselves attacked by wholesale accusations of fraud and embezzlement. That these charges were exaggerated there can be little doubt; that they were unfounded is incredible, in view of the effect they produced.

The councilors refused to acknowledge Dumesnil’s powers as controller, intendant, and judge, and declared his proceedings null. He retorted by charging them with usurpation. The excitement increased, and Dumesnil’s life was threatened.

He had two sons in the colony. One of them, Péronne de Mazé, was secretary to Avaugour, then on his way up the St. Lawrence to assume the government. The other, Péronne des Touches, was with his father at Quebec. Towards the end of August this young man was attacked in the street in broad daylight, and received a kick which proved fatal. He was carried to his father’s house, where he died on the twenty-ninth. Dumesnil charges four persons, all of whom were among those into whose affairs he had been prying, with having taken part in the outrage; but it is very uncertain who was the immediate cause of Des Touches’s death. Dumesnil, himself the supreme judicial officer of the colony, made complaint to the judge in ordinary of the company; but he says that justice was refused, the complaint suppressed by authority, his allegations torn in pieces, and the whole affair hushed.

[Arrêt du Conseil d’Etat, 7 Mars, 1657. Also Papiers d’Argenson, and Extrait des Registres du Conseil d’Etat, 15 Mars, 1656.]

At the time of the murder, Dumesnil was confined to his house by illness. An attempt was made to rouse the mob against him, by reports that he had come to the colony for the purpose of laying taxes; but he sent for some of the excited inhabitants, and succeeded in convincing them that he was their champion rather than their enemy. Some Indians in the neighborhood were also instigated to kill him, and he was forced to conciliate them by presents.

[Dumesnil, Mémoire. Under date August 31 the Journal des Jésuite makes this brief and guarded mention of the affair: “Le fils de Mons. du Mesnil… fut enterré le mesme jour, tué d’un coup de pié par N.” Who is meant by N. it is difficult to say. The register of the parish church records the burial as follows: —

L’an 1661. Le 30 Aoust a esté enterré au Cemetiere de Quebec Michel peronne dit Sr. des Touches fils de Mr. du Mesnil décédé le Jour precedent a sa Maison.]

He soon renewed his attacks, and in his quality of intendant called on the councilors and their allies to render their accounts, and settle the long arrears of debt due to the company. They set his demands at naught. The war continued month after month. It is more than likely that when in the spring of 1662 Avaugour dissolved and reconstructed the council, his action had reference to these disputes; and it is clear that when in the following August Laval sailed for France, one of his objects was to restore the tranquility which Dumesnil’s proceedings had disturbed. There was great need; for, what with these proceedings and the quarrel about brandy, Quebec was a little hell of discord, the earthquake not having as yet frightened it into propriety.

– The Old Regime In Canada, Chapter 7 by Francis Parkman

The below is from Francis Parkman’s Introduction.

If, at times, it may seem that range has been allowed to fancy, it is so in appearance only; since the minutest details of narrative or description rest on authentic documents or on personal observation.

Faithfulness to the truth of history involves far more than a research, however patient and scrupulous, into special facts. Such facts may be detailed with the most minute exactness, and yet the narrative, taken as a whole, may be unmeaning or untrue. The narrator must seek to imbue himself with the life and spirit of the time. He must study events in their bearings near and remote; in the character, habits, and manners of those who took part in them, he must himself be, as it were, a sharer or a spectator of the action he describes.

With respect to that special research which, if inadequate, is still in the most emphatic sense indispensable, it has been the writer’s aim to exhaust the existing material of every subject treated. While it would be folly to claim success in such an attempt, he has reason to hope that, so far at least as relates to the present volume, nothing of much importance has escaped him. With respect to the general preparation just alluded to, he has long been too fond of his theme to neglect any means within his reach of making his conception of it distinct and true.

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