The Arguments, However Irresistible They
May Have Been, Champlain Observes, Were Not Edifying Either To The Savages
Or To The French:
"J'ay veu le ministre et nostre cure s'entre battre e
coup de poing sur le differend de la religion.
Je ne scay pas qui estait
le plus vaillant et qui donnait le meilleur coup; mais je scay tres bien
que le ministre se plaignoit quelque fois au Sieur de Mons (Calviniste,
directeur de la compagnie) d'avoir este battu et vuoidoient en ceste
faccon les poincts de controverse. Je vois laisse a penser si cela estait
beau a voir; les sauvages estoient tantot d'un cote, tantot de l'autre, et
les Francois meslez selon leur diverse croyance, disaient pis que pendre
de l'une et de l'autre religion." The fighting parson had evidently caught
a tartar. However, this controversial sparring did not take place at
Sillery.
The winter of 1666 was marked by a novel incident in the annals of the
settlement. On the 9th of January, [183] 1666, the Governor of the colony,
M. de Courcelles, with M. du Gas as second in command, and M. de Salampar,
a volunteer, together with two hundred colonists who had volunteered, and
three hundred soldiers of the dashing regiment of Carignan, [184] which
the viceroy, the proud Marquis de Tracy, had brought over from Europe,
after their return from their campaign in Hungary, sallied forth from the
capital on snow-shoes. A century and a half later one might have met, with
his gaudy state carriage and outriders, on that same road, another
viceroy - this time an English one, as proud, as fond of display, as the
Marquis de Tracy - with the Queen's Household Troops, the British
Grenadiers, and Coldstream Guards - the Earl of Durham, one of our ablest,
if not one of the most popular of our administrators.
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