- How The Reverend Fathers Showered Down The
Blessings Of St. Michael, The Patron Saint Of The Parish, On The Youth And
Chivalry Of France!
- How the Sillery duennas, the Capitainesses, closely
watched the gallant sons of Mars lest some of them [186] should attempt to
induce their guileless neophytes to seek again the forest wilds, and roam
at large - the willing wives of white men!
We shall clip a page from Father Barthelemy Vimont's Journal of the
Sillery Mission, (Relations des Jesuits, 1643, pp. 12, 13, 14) an
authentic record, illustrative of the mode of living there; it will, we
are sure, gladden the heart even of an anchorite: -
"In 1643, the St. Joseph or Sillery settlement was composed of between
thirty-five and forty Indian families, who lived there the whole year
round except during the hunting season; other nomadic savages occasionally
tarried at the settlement to procure food, or to receive religious
instruction. That year there were yet but four houses built in the
European fashion; the Algonquins were located in that part of the village
close to the French residences; the Montagnais, on the opposite side; the
houses accommodate chiefs only, their followers reside in bark huts until
we can furnish proper dwellings for them all. In this manner was spent the
winter season of 1642-3, the French ships left the St Lawrence for France
on the 7th October, 1642; a period of profound quiet followed. Our Indians
continued to catch eels, (this catch begins in September) - a providential
means of subsistence during winter.
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