Part 14

Membertou, as the one who has most associated with Monsieur de Potrincourt for a long time, is also the most zealous and shows the greatest faith, but even he complains of not understanding us well enough; he would like to become a preacher, he says, if he were properly taught. He gave me a witty answer the other day, as I was teaching him his _Pater_, according to the translation made of it by M. de Biancourt, when [27] I had him say: _Nui en caraco nac iquem esmoi ciscou_; that is, "Give us this day our daily bread." "But," said he, "if I did not ask him for anything but bread, I would be without moose-meat or fish."

The good old man told us, with a great deal of feeling, how God is helping him since he has become a Christian, saying that this spring it happened that he and his family were suffering much from hunger; then he remembered that he was a christian, and therefore prayed to God. After his prayer, he went to the river and found all the smelts he wanted. And while I am speaking of this old sagamore, the first fruit of this heathen nation, I will tell you also what happened this winter.

He was sick, and what is more, had been given up to die by the native _aoutmoins_, or sorcerers. Now it is the custom, when the Aoutmoins have pronounced the malady or wound to be mortal, for the sick man to cease eating from that time on, nor do they give him anything more. But, donning his beautiful robe, he begins chanting his own death-song; after this, if he lingers too long, a great many pails of water are thrown over him to hasten his death, and sometimes he is buried half alive. Now the children of Membertou, though christians, were prepared to exercise this noble and pious duty toward their father; already they had ceased giving him anything to eat and had taken away his [28] beautiful otter robe, and he had, like the swan, finished his Nænie, or funeral chant. One thing still troubled him, that he did not know how to die like a christian, and he had not taken farewell of Monsieur de Potrincourt. When M. de Potrincourt heard these things, he went to see him, remonstrated with him, and assured him that, in spite of all the Aoutmoins and Pilotois, he would live and recover his health if he would eat something, which he was bound to do, being a christian. The good man believed and was saved; to-day he tells this story with great satisfaction, and very aptly points out how God has thereby mercifully exposed the malice and deceit of their aoutmoins.

I shall here relate another act of the same Sieur de Potrincourt, which has been of great benefit to all these heathen. A christian savage had died, and (as a mark of his constancy) he had sent word here to the settlement during his sickness, that he desired our prayers. After his death the other Savages prepared to bury him in their way; they are accustomed to take everything that belongs to the deceased, skins, bows, utensils, wigwams, etc., and burn them all, howling and shouting certain cries, sorceries, and invocations to the evil spirit. M. de Potrincourt firmly resolved to oppose these ceremonies. So he armed all his men, and [29] going to the Savages in force, by this means obtained what he asked, namely, that the body should be given to the Patriarch, and so the burial took place according to christian customs. This act, inasmuch as it could not be prevented by the Savages, was and still is, greatly praised by them.

The chapel they have been using until now is very small, badly arranged, and in every way unsuited for religious services. To remedy this, M. de Poutrincourt has given us an entire quarter of his habitation, if we can roof it over and adapt it to our needs. But I shall add one more word which will be pleasant and edifying news to many.

After my arrival here at Port Royal, I went with M. de Potrincourt as far as the Etechemins. There God willed that I should meet young du Pont, of Sainct Malo,[44] who, having been for some reason frightened away [from the settlement],[XVI.] had passed the entire year with the Savages, living just as they did. He is a young man of great physical and mental strength, excelled by none of the savages in the chase, in alertness and endurance, and in his ability to speak their language. He was very much afraid of M. de [30] Potrincourt: but God inspired me with so much faith in him that, relying upon my word, Du Pont came with me to our ship; and after making some apologies and promises, peace was declared, to the great satisfaction of all. When he departed, as the cannon were sounding, he begged me to appoint an hour to receive his confession. The next morning, in his great eagerness, he anticipated the hour, and made his confession upon the shores of the sea in the presence of all the Savages, who were greatly astonished at thus seeing him upon his knees so long before me. Then he took communion in a most exemplary manner, at which I can say tears came into my eyes, and not into mine alone. The devil was confounded at this act; so he straightway planned trouble for us that very afternoon; but thank God, through the justice and goodness of M. de Potrincourt, harmony was everywhere restored.

And now you have had, my Reverend Father, an account of our voyage, of what happened in it, and before it, and since our arrival at this settlement. It now remains to tell you that the conversion of this country to the Gospel, and of these people to civilization, is not a small undertaking nor free from great difficulties; for, in the first place, if we consider the country, it is only a forest, without other conveniences of life than those which will be brought from France, and what in time may be obtained from the soil after [31] it has been cultivated. The nation is savage, wandering and full of bad habits; the people few and isolated. They are, I say, savage, haunting the woods, ignorant, lawless and rude: they are wanderers, with nothing to attach them to a place, neither homes nor relationship, neither possessions nor love of country; as a people they have bad habits, are extremely lazy, gluttonous, profane, treacherous, cruel in their revenge, and given up to all kinds of lewdness, men and women alike, the men having several wives and abandoning them to others, and the women only serving them as slaves, whom they strike and beat unmercifully, and who dare not complain; and after being half killed, if it so please the murderer, they must laugh and caress him.

With all these vices, they are exceedingly vainglorious: they think they are better, more valiant and more ingenious than the French; and, what is difficult to believe, richer than we are. They consider themselves, I say, braver than we are, boasting that they have killed Basques and Malouins, and that they do a great deal of harm to the ships, and that no one has ever resented it, insinuating that it was from a lack of courage. They consider themselves better than the French; "For," they say, "you are always fighting and quarreling among yourselves; we live peaceably. You are envious and are all the time slandering each other; [32] you are thieves and deceivers; you are covetous, and are neither generous nor kind; as for us, if we have a morsel of bread we share it with our neighbor."

They are saying these and like things continually, seeing the above-mentioned imperfections in some of us, and flattering themselves that some of their own people do not have them so conspicuously, not realizing that they all have much greater vices, and that the better part of our people do not have even these defects, they conclude generally that they are superior to all christians. It is self-love that blinds them, and the evil one who leads them on, no more nor less than in our France, we see those who have deviated from the faith holding themselves higher and boasting of being better than the catholics, because in some of them they see many faults; considering neither the virtues of the other catholics, nor their own still greater imperfections; wishing to have, like Cyclops, only a single eye, and to fix that one upon the vices of a few catholics, never upon the virtues of the others, nor upon themselves, unless it be for the purpose of self-deception.

Also they [the savages] consider themselves more ingenious, inasmuch as they see us admire some of their productions as the work of people so rude and ignorant; [33] lacking intelligence, they bestow very little admiration upon what we show them, although much more worthy of being admired. Hence they regard themselves as much richer than we are, although they are poor and wretched in the extreme.

Cacagous, of whom I have already spoken, is quite gracious when he is a little elated about something; to show his kindly feelings toward the French he boasts of his willingness to go and see the King, and to take him a present of a hundred beaver skins, proudly suggesting that in so doing he will make him richer than all his predecessors. They get this idea from the extreme covetousness and eagerness which our people display to obtain their beaver skins.

Not less amusing is the remark of a certain Sagamore, who, having heard M. de Potrincourt say that the King was young and unmarried: "Perhaps," said he, "I may let him marry my daughter; but according to the usages and customs of the country, the King must make me some handsome presents; namely, four or five barrels of bread, three of peas or beans, one of tobacco, four or five cloaks worth one hundred sous apiece, bows, arrows, harpoons, and other similar articles."

Such are the marks of intelligence in the people of these countries, which are very sparsely populated, especially those of the Soriquois and Etechemins, which are near the sea; although [34] Membertou assures us that in his youth he has seen _chimonuts_, that is to say, Savages, as thickly planted there as the hairs upon his head. It is maintained that they have thus diminished since the French have began to frequent their country; for, since then they do nothing all summer but eat; and the result is that, adopting an entirely different custom and thus breeding new diseases, they pay for their indulgence during the autumn and winter by pleurisy, quinsy and dysentery, which kill them off. During this year alone sixty have died at Cape de la Hève, which is the greater part of those who lived there; yet not one of all M. de Potrincourt's little colony has even been sick, notwithstanding all the privations they have suffered; which has caused the Savages to apprehend that God protects and defends us as his favorite and well-beloved people.

What I say about the sparseness of the population of these countries must be understood as referring to the people who live upon the coast; for farther inland, principally among the Etechemins, there are, it is said, a great many people. All these things, added to the difficulty of acquiring the language, the time that must be consumed, the expenses that must be incurred, the great distress, toil and poverty that must be endured, fully proclaim the greatness of this enterprise and the difficulties which beset it. Yet [35] many things encourage me to continue in it.

First, my trust in the goodness and providence of God. Isaiah assures us that the kingdom of our Redeemer shall be recognized throughout the earth; and that there shall be neither caves of dragons nor dens of cockatrices, nor inaccessible rocks, nor abysses so deep, that his grace will not soften and his salvation cure, his abundance fertilize, his humility raise up, and over which his cross will not at last victoriously triumph. And why shall I not hope that the time has come when this prophecy is to be fulfilled in these lands? If that be so, what can there be so difficult that our Lord cannot make it easy?

In the second place, I rely upon the King, our Sire. He is a Sovereign who promises us nothing less than the late King, his father, the incomparable Henry the Great. This work began in the latter's reign, and it may be said that in the century since France has appropriated this country, or has so completely taken possession of it, there has not been so much accomplished at any time as since our present king became sovereign; may God fill his reign with all blessings. He will not permit his name and arms to stand in these regions side by side with paganism, his authority with barbarism, his renown with savagery, his power with poverty, [36] his faith with lack of works, nor leave his subjects without aid or succor. His mother also, another Queen Blanche,[45] looking to the glory of God, will contemplate these lately-acquired wildernesses, where in the beginning of her Regency the Gospel plough has, through her instrumentality, created some hope of a harvest; and will recall what the late King, great in wisdom as well as in courage, said to Sieur de Potrincourt when he came to this country: "Go," said he. "I plan the edifice; my son will build it." We beg your Reverence to lay this matter before him, together with the work which might be done by their Majesties in these lands, if it were their good pleasure to endow and to give a fair revenue to this mission, from which all those who would be educated and maintained here might go forth through the whole country.

That is the second resource upon which our hopes are founded; to which I will add the piety and liberality which we experienced upon our departure from the lords and ladies of this most noble and most christian court, who promised me that they would not fail to assist this enterprise with their means, in order not to lose what they have already invested in it, which serves them as monuments of glory and of eternal happiness before God.

M. de Potrincourt, a mild and upright Gentleman, [37] brave, beloved and well-known in these parts, and M. de Biancourt, his son, who reflects the virtues and good qualities of his father, both zealous in serving God, and who honor and cherish us more than we deserve, also encourage us in devoting all our energy to this work.

Finally, we are encouraged by the situation and condition of this place, which, if it is cultivated, promises to furnish a great deal for the needs of human life; and its beauty causes me to wonder that it has been so little sought up to the present time. From this port where we now are, it is very convenient for us to spread out to the Armouchiquois, Iroquois, and Montagnais, our neighbors, which are populous nations and till the soil as we do; this situation, I say, makes us hope something for the future. For, if our Souriquois are few, they may become numerous; if they are savages, it is to domesticate and civilize them that we have come here; if they are rude, that is no reason that we should be idle; if they have until now profited little, it is no wonder, for it would be too much to expect fruit from this grafting, and to demand reason and maturity from a child.

In conclusion, we hope in time to make them susceptible of receiving the doctrines of the faith and of the christian and catholic religion, and later, to penetrate [38] farther into the regions beyond, which they say are more populous and better cultivated. We base this hope upon Divine goodness and mercy, upon the zeal and fervent charity of all good people who earnestly desire the kingdom of God, particularly upon the holy prayers of Your Reverence and of our Reverend Fathers and very dear Brothers, to whom we most affectionately commend ourselves.

From Port Royal, New France, this tenth day of June, one thousand six hundred and eleven.

PIERRE BIARD.

FOOTNOTES:

[X.] Charles de Biencourt, esquire, sieur de Saint-Just and son of Monsieur de Poutrincourt. He was then nineteen or twenty years old. (_Lescarbot_ and _Champlain_.)--[Carayon.]

[XI.] Thomas Robin, esquire, sieur de Cologne, living in the city of Paris. (_Lescarbot._)--[Carayon.]

[XII.] Champlain and Charlevoix, who copied this, were wrong in saying the 12th of June.--[Carayon.]

[XIII.] Lescarbot says: "His father accompanied him as far as port de la Hève, a hundred leagues, more or less, from Port Royal." This makes it appear that Chachippè, Port Saint John, and la Hève are one and the same place.--[Carayon.]

[XIV.] To sail on a bowline means to sail close to the wind.--[Carayon.]

[XV.] The _cormorant_ is a long-necked, high-stepping sea-bird, which lives upon fish.--[Carayon.]

[XVI.] "The year before he had been made a prisoner by Sieur de Potrincourt; and having slyly escaped from him, he had been obliged to wander about in the woods in great misery."--(_Printed Relation._)--[Carayon.]

[39] Lettre du Père Ennemond Masse au R. P. Claude Aquaviva, Général de la Compagnie de Jésus.

_(Traduite sur l'original latin._)

PORT-ROYAL, 10 juin 1611.

MON TRÈS-RÉVÉREND PÈRE, Pax Christi.

Si Votre Paternité a vu avec plaisir ma lettre du 13 octobre, j'en ai éprouvé bien davantage à recevoir la sienne du 7 décembre; d'autant plus que je suis le premier de la Compagnie qui ait reçu la première lettre que Votre Paternité ait jamais envoyée au Canada. Je prends ce fait comme un heureux augure, et je l'accepte comme venant du ciel, pour m'exciter _à courir avec ferveur dans la carrière_, afin de mériter et de recevoir _le prix de cette vocation céleste_, et enfin de me sacrifier moi-même plus promptement et plus complétement pour le salut de ces peuples.

Je vous l'avoue; _j'ai dit alors_ franchement à Dieu: _Me voici: Si vous choisissez ce qu'il y a de faible et de méprisable dans ce monde, pour renverser_ [40] et _détruire ce qui est fort_, vous trouverez tout cela dans Ennemond. _Me voici: envoyez-moi, et rendez ma langue_ et _ma parole intelligible, afin que je ne sois pas barbare pour ceux qui m'entendront._

Vos prières, j'en ai la confiance, ne seront pas sans succès, comme semble le présager notre arrivée ici, le très-saint jour de la Pentecôte. _Nous sommes faibles en Jésus-Christ, mais_, je l'espère, _nous vivrons avec lui par la force de Dieu_. Que Votre Paternité, je l'en conjure, obtienne par ses saintes prières et ses saints sacrifices, que le Seigneur accomplisse toutes ces choses en nous.

Le fils indigne en Jésus-Christ de la Compagnie de Jésus.

ENNEMOND MASSE.

Port-Royal, dans la Nouvelle-France, le 10 juin 1611.

[39] Letter from Father Ennemond Masse to Reverend Father Claude Aquaviva, General of the Society of Jesus.

(_Translated from the Latin original._)

PORT ROYAL, June 10, 1611.

MY VERY REVEREND FATHER, The peace of Christ be with you

If Your Reverence read with pleasure my letter of October 13th, I felt a great deal more in receiving yours of December 7th, especially as I am the first of the Society to receive from Your Reverence the first letter which you have ever sent to Canada. I take this event as a happy omen, and accept it as coming from heaven, to incite me _to run with ardor in the race_, in order to merit and receive _the reward of this heavenly vocation_, and to sacrifice myself more promptly and more completely for the salvation of these people.

I admit to you _that I said then_ freely to God: _Here I am; if you choose what is weak and despicable in this world to overthrow_ [40] _and destroy that which is strong_, you will find all this in Ennemond. _Here I am; send me, and make my tongue and my words intelligible, so that I may not be a barbarian to those who will hear me._

Your prayers, I am sure, will not be in vain, as our arrival here upon the most holy day of Pentecost seems to presage. _We are weak in Jesus Christ, but_, I hope, _we shall live with him by the power of God_. It is my earnest entreaty that Your Reverence, by your prayers and holy sacrifices, may prevail upon the Lord to accomplish all these things in us.

The unworthy son in Jesus Christ, of the Society of Jesus,

ENNEMOND MASSE.

Port Royal, New France, June 10, 1611.

[41] Lettre du P. Pierre Biard, au T.-R. P. Claude Aquaviva, Général de la Compagnie de Jésus.

(_Traduite sur l'original latin._)

PORT-ROYAL, 11 juin 1611.

MON TRÈS-RÉVÉREND PÈRE, Pax Christi.

Après quatre mois d'une navigation vraiment trèspénible et très-périlleuse, nous sommes enfin arrivés, grâce à la protection de Dieu et aux prières de Votre Paternité, à Port-Royal, dans cette Nouvelle-France, terme de notre voyage.

Nous avons en effet quitté Dieppe le 26 janvier de cette année 1611, et nous sommes arrivés cette même année le 22 mai. Je donne en français au R. P. Provincial la relation de toute notre entreprise et de l'état où nous avons trouvé les choses ici. C'est ce qui me paraissait plus urgent et plus utile, puisque j'étais dans l'impossibilité de le faire en même temps en latin. Je ne me suis pas encore arrêté huit jours à Port-Royal, et tout le temps est [42] absorbé par des interruptions continuelles et par les nécessités de la vie. Au reste, le P. Masse et moi, nous nous portons assez bien, grâce à Dieu: mais il nous a fallu prendre un serviteur pour les travaux matériels. Nous ne pouvions nous en passer sans un grand détriment pour l'esprit et pour le coeur.

M. de Potrincourt, qui commande ici au nom du Roi, nous aime et nous estime en proportion de sa piété.

A la première occasion nous nous empresserons, avec la grâce de Dieu, de dire quelles sont nos espérances de succès.

Le vaisseau s'est déjà éloigné. Je vais être obligé d'aller le rejoindre en canot, pour qu'il ne parte sans mes lettres.

Je conjure Votre Paternité, par les mérites de Jésus-Christ, de se souvenir de nous et de ces contrées très-solitaires, et de venir à notre secours, autant qu'elle le pourra, non-seulement par le moyen des prières très-ferventes de notre Compagnie, mais aussi par la bénédiction et les faveurs de notre Saint-Père le Pape (comme je les ai déjà demandées).

Assurément nous semons dans une grande pauvreté et dans les larmes; daigne le Seigneur nous accorder de moissonner un jour dans la joie. C'est ce qui arrivera, comme je l'espère et comme je l'ai [43] dit, grâce aux prières et aux bénédictions de Votre Paternité, que je sollicite humblement,

de Votre Paternité, Le fils et serviteur indigne, PIERRE BIARD, S. J.

A Port-Royal, dans la Nouvelle-France, ou Canada, le 11 de juin 1611.

[41] Letter from Father Pierre Biard, to the Very Reverend Father Claude Aquaviva, General of the Society of Jesus.

(_Translated from the Latin original._)

PORT ROYAL, June 11, 1611.

MY VERY REVEREND FATHER, The peace of Christ be with you.

After four months of very painful and perilous navigation, we have at last arrived, thanks to the protection of God and to the prayers of Your Reverence, at Port Royal, in New France, the end of our journey.

In truth we left Dieppe the 26th of January this year, 1611, and arrived May 22nd of this same year. I am giving to the Reverend Father Provincial the narrative in French of our whole undertaking, and of the condition in which we found things here. This seemed to me the more necessary and useful, as it was impossible for me to write it at the same time in Latin. I have not yet been settled a week in Port Royal, and all the time has [42] been taken up by continual interruptions and in providing the necessities of life. As to ourselves, Father Masse and I, we are feeling very well, thank God; but we have been obliged to take a servant to do the drudgery. We could not dispense with one without a great deal of anxiety and trouble.

M. de Potrincourt, who commands here in the name of the King, loves and esteems us in proportion to his piety.

We shall take the first opportunity to impart to you what may be, by the grace of God, our prospects of success in this country.

The ship has already gone. I shall be obliged to overtake it in a canoe, that it may not leave without my letters.