“They prosper, sire.  There are Iroquois at the Sault and the mountain, Hurons at Lorette, and Algonquins along the whole river cotes from Tadousac in the East to Sault la Marie, and even the great plains of the Dakotas, who have all taken the cross as their token.  Marquette has passed down the river of the West to preach among the Illinois, and Jesuits have carried the Gospel to the warriors of the Long House in their wigwams at Onondaga.”

“I may add, your Majesty,” said Pere la Chaise, “that in leaving the truth there, they have too often left their lives with it.”

“Yes, sire, it is very true,” cried De Frontenac cordially.  “Your Majesty has many brave men within your domains, but none braver than these.  They have come back up the Richelieu River from the Iroquois villages with their nails gone, their fingers torn out, a cinder where their eye should be, and the scars of the pine splinters as thick upon their bodies as the fleurs-de-lis on yonder curtain.  Yet, with a month of nursing from the good Ursulines, they have used their remaining eye to guide them back to the Indian country once more, where even the dogs have been frightened at their haggled faces and twisted limbs.”

“And you have suffered this?” cried Louis hotly.  “You allow these infamous assassins to live?”

“I have asked for troops, sire.”

“And I have sent some.”

“One regiment.”

“The Carignan-Saliere.  I have no better in my service.

“But more is needed, sire.”

“There are the Canadians themselves.  Have you not a militia?  Could you not raise force enough to punish these rascally murderers of God’s priests?  I had always understood that you were a soldier.”

De Frontenac’s eyes flashed, and a quick answer seemed for an instant to tremble upon his lips, but with an effort the fiery old man restrained himself.  “Your Majesty will learn best whether I am a soldier or not,” said he, “by asking those who have seen me at Seneffe, Mulhausen, Salzbach, and half a score of other places where I had the honour of upholding your Majesty’s cause.”

“Your services have not been forgotten.”

“It is just because I am a soldier and have seen something of war that I know how hard it is to penetrate into a country much larger than the Lowlands, all thick with forest and bog, with a savage lurking behind every tree, who, if he has not learned to step in time or to form line, can at least bring down the running caribou at two hundred paces, and travel three leagues to your one.  And then when you have at last reached their villages, and burned their empty wigwams and a few acres of maize fields, what the better are you then?  You can but travel back again to your own land with a cloud of unseen men lurking behind you, and a scalp-yell for every straggler.  You are a soldier yourself, sire.  I ask you if such a war is an easy task for a handful of soldiers, with a few censitaires straight from the plough, and a troop of coureurs-de-bois whose hearts are all the time are with their traps and their beaver-skins.”