In The Days Of De Montmagny And Later, The Jesuits' Journal Retraces Gay
Scenes At The Chateau In Connection With The Festivals Of The Patron
Saints, Of St. Joseph, Whose Anniversary Occurred On The 19th March, And
Of St. John The Baptist, Whose Fete Happened On The 24th June.
For a long time the old Chateau, was the meeting place of the Superior
Council.
"On any Monday morning one would have found the Superior Council in
session in the antechamber of the Governor's apartment, at the Chateau
St. Louis. The members sat at a round table, at the head was the
Governor, with the Bishop on his right and the Intendant on his left.
The councillors sat in the order of their appointment, and the
attorney-general also had his place at the board. As La Hontan says,
they were not in judicial robes, but in their ordinary dress and all
but the Bishop wore swords. The want of the cap and the gown greatly
disturbed the Intendant Meules, and he begs the Minister to consider
how important it is that the councillors, in order to inspire respect,
should appear in public in long black robes, which on occasions of
ceremony they should exchange for robes of red. He thinks that the
principal persons of the colony should thus be induced to train up
their children to so enviable a dignity; "and" he concludes, "as none
of the councillors can afford to buy red robes, I hope that the King
will vouchsafe to send out nine such; as for the black robes, they can
furnish those themselves."
"The King did not respond, and the nine robes never arrived. 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.
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