The
Official Dignity Of The Council Was Sometimes Exposed To Trials
Against Which Even Red Gowns Might Have Proven An Insufficient
Protection.
The same Intendant urges that the tribunal ought to be
provided immediately with a house of its own."
"It is not decent," he says, "that it should sit in the Governor's
antechamber any longer. His guards and valets make such a noise, that
we cannot hear each other speak. I have continually to tell them to
keep quiet, which causes them to make a thousand jokes at the
councillors as they pass in and out. As the Governor and the council
were often on ill terms, the official head of the colony could not
always be trusted to keep his attendants on their good behaviour."
(Parkman's Old Regime, p. 273.)
At other times, startling incidents threw a pall over the old pile. Thus
in August 1666, we are told of the melancholy end of a famous Indian
warrior: "Tracy invited the Flemish Bastard and a Mohawk chief named
Agariata to his table, when allusion was made to the murder of Chasy. On
this the Mohawk, stretching out his arm, exclaimed in a Braggart tone,
"This is the hand that split the head of that young man." The indignation
of the company may be imagined. Tracy told his insolent guest that he
should never kill anybody else; and he was led out and hanged in presence
of the Bastard. [33]
Varied in language and nationality were the guests of the Chateau in days
of yore:
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