The whole settlement was in a state of religious exaltation. As the Iroquois were regarded as actual myrmidons of Satan in his malign warfare against Mary and her divine Son, those who died in fighting them were held to merit the reward of martyrs, assured of a seat in paradise. And now it remains to record one of the most heroic feats of arms ever achieved on this continent. That it may be rated as it merits, it will be well to glance for a moment at the condition of Canada, under the portentous cloud of war which constantly overshadowed it. ** * This is no figure of speech. The Associates of Montreal, after receiving a grant of the island from Jean de Lauson, placed it under the protection of the Virgin, and formally declared her to be the proprietor of it from that day forth for ever. ** In all that relates to Montreal, I cannot be sufficiently grateful to the Abbé Faillon, the indefatigable, patient, conscientious chronicler of its early history; an ardent and prejudiced Sulpitian, a priest who three centuries ago would have passed for credulous, and, withal, a kind-hearted and estimable man. His numerous books on his favorite theme, with the vast and heterogeneous mass of facts which they embody, are invaluable, provided their partisan character be well kept in mind. His recent death leaves his principal work unfinished. His Histoire de la Colonie Française en Canada--it might more fitly be called Histoire du Montréal--is unhappily little more than half complete. CHAPTER III. 1660, 1661. THE HEROES OF THE LONG SAUT. _Suffering and Terror.--Francois Hertel.--The Captive Wolf--The threatened Invasion.--Daulac des Ormeaux.--The Adventurers at the Long Saut.--The Attack.--A Desperate Defence.--A Final Assault.--The Fort taken._ |Canada had writhed for twenty years, with little respite, under the scourge of Iroquois war. During a great part of this dark period the entire French population was less than three thousand. What, then, saved them from destruction? In the first place, the settlements were grouped around three fortified posts, Quebec, Three Rivers, and Montreal, which in time of danger gave asylum to the fugitive inhabitants. Again, their assailants were continually distracted by other wars, and never, except at a few spasmodic intervals, were fully in earnest to destroy the French colony. Canada was indispensable to them. The four upper nations of the league soon became dependent on her for supplies; and all the nations alike appear, at a very early period, to have conceived the policy on which they afterwards distinctly acted, of balancing the rival settlements of the Hudson and the St. Lawrence, the one against the other. They would torture, but not kill. It was but rarely that, in fits of fury, they struck their hatchets at the brain; and thus the bleeding and gasping colony fingered on in torment.