“On the day of the Visitation of the Holy Virgin, the chief, Aontarisati, ** so regretted by the Iroquois, was taken prisoner by our Indians, instructed by our fathers, and baptized; and, on the same day, being put to death, he ascended to heaven. I doubt not that he thanked the Virgin for his misfortune and the blessing that followed, and that he prayed to God for his countrymen. “The people of Montreal made a solemn vow to celebrate publicly the _fête_ of this mother of all blessings; whereupon the Iroquois came to ask for peace. “It was on the day of the Assumption of this Queen of angels and of men that the Hurons took at Montreal that other famous Iroquois chief, whose capture caused the Mohawks to seek our alliance. “On the day when the Church honors the Nativity of the Holy Virgin, the Iroquois granted Father * According to Le Mercier, beaver to the value of from 200,000 to 300,000 livres was yearly brought down to the colony before the destruction of the Hurons (1649-50). Three years later, not one beaver skin was brought to Montreal during a twelvemonth, and Three Rivers and Quebec had barely enough to pay for keeping the fortifications in repair. ** The chief whose death had so enraged the Mohawks. Poncet his life; and he, or rather the Holy Virgin and the holy angels, labored so well in the work of peace, that on St. Michael’s Day it was resolved in a council of the elders that the father should be conducted to Quebec, and a lasting treaty made with the French.” * Happy as was this consummation, Father Poncet’s path to it had been a thorny one. He has left us his own rueful story, written in obedience to the command of his superior. He and his companion in misery had been hurried through the forests, from Cap Rouge on the St. Lawrence to the Indian towns on the Mohawk. He tells us how he slept among dank weeds, dropping with the cold dew; how frightful colics assailed him as he waded waist-deep through a mountain stream; how one of his feet was blistered and one of his legs benumbed; how an Indian snatched away his reliquary and lost the precious contents. “I had,” he says, “a picture of Saint Ignatius with our Lord bearing the cross, and another of Our Lady of Pity surrounded by the five wounds of her Son. They were my joy and my consolation; but I hid them in a bush, lest the Indians should laugh at them.” He kept, however, a little image of the crown of thorns, in which he found great comfort, as well as in communion with his patron saints, Saint Raphael, Saint Martha, and Saint Joseph. On one occasion he asked these celestial friends for something to soothe his thirst, and for a bowl of broth to revive his strength. Scarcely had he framed the petition when an Indian gave * Relation, 1653, 18.