[5] Parkman, in his “Pioneers of France in the New World,” adds to this narrative the following:  “At night the victors led out one of the prisoners, told him that he was to die by fire, and ordered him to sing his death-song, if he dared.  Then they began the torture, and presently scalped their victim alive, when Champlain, sickening at the sight, begged leave to shoot him.  They refused, and he turned away in anger and disgust; on which they called him back and told him to do as he pleased.  He turned again and a shot from his arquebuse put the wretch out of misery.  The scene filled him with horror; but, a few months later, on the Place de la Grave, at Paris, he might have witnessed tortures equally revolting and equally vindictive, inflicted on the regicide Ravaillac by the sentence of grave and learned judges. [Ravaillac was the assassin of Henry IV.]

“The allies made a prompt retreat from the scene of their triumph.  Three or four days brought them to the mouth of the Richelieu.  Here they separated; the Hurons and Algonquins made for the Ottawa, their homeward route, each with a share of prisoners for future torments.  At parting they invited Champlain to visit their towns, and aid them again in their wars, an invitation which the paladin of the woods failed not to accept.

“The companions now remaining to him were the Montagnais.  In their camp on the Richelieu, one of them dreamed that a war party of Iroquois was close upon them; on which, in a torrent of rain, they left their huts, paddled in dismay to the islands above the Lake of St. Peter, and hid themselves all night in the rushes.  In the morning they took heart, emerged from their hiding-places, descended to Quebec, and went thence to Tadousac, whither Champlain accompanied them.  Here the squaws, stark naked, swam out to the canoes to receive the heads of the dead Iroquois, and, hanging them from their necks, danced in triumph along the shore.  One of the heads and a pair of arms were then bestowed on Champiain,—­touching memorials of gratitude, which, however, he was by no means to keep for himself, but to present to the King.

“Thus did New France rush into collision with the redoubted warriors of the Five Nations.  Here was the beginning, and in some measure doubtless the cause, of a long suite of murderous conflicts, bearing havoc and flame to generations yet unborn.  Champlain had invaded the tiger’s den; and now, in smothered fury, the patient savage would lie biding his day of blood.”

MARQUETTE’S DISCOVERY OF THE MISSISSIPPI

(1673)

MARQUETTE’S OWN ACCOUNT[1]