During That Winter No Other French Inhabitants
Resided Near Them Except The Missionaries, And They Suffered Much From
Cold And Want.
But the following year they had the happiness to have in
the neighbourhood a good number of their countrymen.
M. de Maisonneuve,
Mlle. Mance, the soldiers and farmers recently arrived from France, took
up their abode at M. de Puiseaux.... They spent the winter there, and paid
us frequent visits, to our mutual satisfaction." [173]
The mission of St. Joseph at Sillery being constantly threatened by the
Five Nations, the Hospitalieres ladies were compelled to leave their
convent and seek refuge in Quebec on the 29th May, 1644, having thus
spent about three years and a half amongst the savages. [174] The locality
where they then resided still goes under the name of "Convent Cove."
"Monsieur Pierre Puiseaux, Sieur de l'habitation de Sainte Foye, after
whom was, called Pointe-a-Pizeau, at Sillery, seems to have been a
personage of no mean importance in his day. Having realized a large
fortune in the West Indies, he had followed Champlain to Canada, bent on
devoting his wealth to the conversion of the aboriginal tribes. His manor
stood, according to the Abbe Ferland, on that spot in St Michael's Cove on
which the St. Michael's Hotel [175] - long kept by Mr. W. Scott - was
subsequently built, to judge from the heavy foundation walls there. Such
was the magnificence of the structure that it was reckoned "the gem of
Canada' - "Une maison regardee dans le temps comme le bijou du Canada,"
says the old chronicler. Paul de Chomedey de Maisonneuve having arrived,
in 1641, with colonists for Montreal, the laird of Ste. Foye [176]
generously tendered him the use of his manor. Under the hospitable roof of
this venerable old gentleman, M. de Maisonneuve, Mlle. Mance, the founder
of the Hotel Dieu Hospital at Montreal, and Mdme. de la Peltrie spent the
winter of 1641-2, whilst the intended colonists [177] for Ville-Marie were
located close by in the Sillery settlement. During the winter, dissensions
took place between the future Governor of Montreal, M. de Maisonneuve, and
the then present Governor of Quebec, Chevalier de Montmagny. It appears
that on a certain festival a small cannon and also fifteen musket shots
had been fired without authority; His Excellency Governor Montmagny, in
high dudgeon at such a breach of military discipline, ordered Jean Gorry,
the person who had fired the shots, to be put in irons; Mlle. Mance had
furnished the powder for this military display The future Governor of
Montreal, Monsieur de Maisonneuve, is said to have, on this occasion,
publicly exclaimed: "Jehan Gorry, you have been put in irons for my sake
and I affronted! I raise your wages of ten half crowns (dix ecus), let us
only reach Montreal; no one there will prevent us from firing." [178]
Bravo! M. de Maisonneuve! Peace, however, was restored, and His Excellency
Governor Montmagny headed in person the expedition which, on the 8th May
following, sailed from St Michael's Cove, Sillery, to found at Montreal
the new colony.
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