War, even on the smallest scale, means the destruction of property. In the troubles of '37 buildings were burned down in the course of military operations. For example, good Father Paquin of St Eustache had long to mourn the loss of his church and the adjoining school. As it stood on a point of land at the junction of two streams and was strongly built of stone, it was an excellent {113} place of defence against the attack of Colborne's troops. On the fatal fourteenth of December 1837 it was stoutly held by Chenier and his men, until two British officers broke into the sacristy and overset the stove. Soon the fire drove the garrison out of the building, which was destroyed along with the new school-house near by. His parishioners were loyal, Father Paquin contended in a well-reasoned petition; it was not they but the discontented people of Grand Brule who had seized the town; yet the result was ruin. In the affair of Odelltown in 1838 a citizen's barn was burnt down by orders of the British officer commanding because it gave shelter to the rebels. Near St Eustache the Swiss adventurer and leader of the rebels, Amury Girod, took possession of a farm belonging to a loyal Scottish family. His men cut down the trees about the farm-house, fortified it rudely, and lived in it at rack and manger until Colborne came to St Eustache. These were typical cases of loss, and surely, when order was again restored, they were cases for compensation. The loyal and the innocent should not have to suffer in their goods for their innocence and their loyalty. {114}