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A whole corps of them were billeted in the two parishes of Verchères and Contrecoeur the officers chiefly at Contrecoeur. They lived, of course, in the cottages with the habitants.
The object was twofold to protect and to colonize the country. By his concessions to Sorel, Chambly, Varennes, Saint-Ours, Contrecoeur all officers of the Carignan regiment he created so many little military colonies whose population would be composed chiefly of disbanded soldiers. These, being warriors as well as farmers, would be a strong barrier against possible Iroquois incursions.
"There are two hundred men here," writes he, "and two hundred expected; the rest have gone off in detachments to the amount of one thousand, besides Indians. None lodge in the fort but Contrecoeur and the guard, consisting of forty men and five officers; the rest lodge in bark cabins around the fort. The Indians have access day and night, and come and go when they please.
For your return I pray and wait. "Your humble and dutiful and obedient and adoring wife to be, "Lois de Contrecoeur. "Post scriptum: The memory of our kiss fades not from my lips. I will be content when circumstances permit us the liberty to repeat it." When I had read the letter again and again, I folded it and laid it in the bosom of my rifle-shirt.
As the report of Contrecoeur has never been printed, I give an extract from it (Contrecceur
And here, that night, Lois lay with her mother; and no living thing nearer the dim house than we who mounted guard except for the little birds asleep that Madame de Contrecoeur had tamed, and the small forest creatures which had learned to come fearlessly at this lonely woman's low-voiced call. And these things I learned not then, but afterwards.
And the morning gun jarred me awake. I had bathed and dressed, but had not yet breakfasted when one of our regimental wagons came to take the box to Lois a fine and noble box indeed, in its parti-coloured cowhide cover, and a pretty pattern of brass nails all over it, making here a star and there a sunburst, around the brass plate engraven with her name: "Lois de Contrecoeur."
"Also," she wrote, "my mother has told me that there are in the house some books and pictures and pretty joyeaux which were beloved by my father, and which he gave to her when she came to Contrecoeur, a bride. Also that her dot was still untouched, which, with her legal interest in my father's property, would suffice to properly endow me, and still leave sufficient to maintain her.
I had not been prepared for that, never expecting that Mrs. Bleecker had already started to prepare the way; but I kept my countenance and answered coolly enough that I had the honour of knowing Miss de Contrecoeur. "She came by batteau from Albany?" "Her box," said I, "has just arrived from Albany by batteau." "Is the lady young and handsome?" he asked, smiling. "Both, Mr. Boyd."
In 1754 the English commenced the construction of a fort at the forks of the Ohio, but it was easily captured by Contrecoeur, who completed and renamed it in honour of the Governor of Canada, Duquesne.
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