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Father Ragueneau, the superior of the Jesuits, after consultation with the Fathers and Frenchmen at Ste. Marie, some fifty persons altogether, felt they could no longer safely remain in their isolated position when the Hurons had left the country. They removed all their goods to the Isle of St.
Grant me, O Lord, so to live, that You may deem me worthy to die a martyr's death Thus my Lord, I take Your chalice, and call upon Your name. Jesu! Jesu! Jesu! How nobly this vow was kept. Meanwhile at Ste Marie Ragueneau and his companions learned from Huron fugitives of the fate of their comrades; and waited, hourly expecting to be attacked.
This they repeated several times, and then made their escape, after killing a number of the best French soldiers. Their leader in this affair was a famous half-breed, known as the Flemish Bastard, who is styled by Ragueneau "an abomination of sin, and a monster produced between a heretic Dutch father and a pagan mother."
In 1637, when the whole country was enraged against the Jesuits, and above all against Brebeuf, as sorcerers who had caused the pest, Ragueneau tells us that "a troop of demons appeared before him divers times, sometimes like men in a fury, sometimes like frightful monsters, bears, lions, or wild horses, trying to rush upon him. These spectres excited in him neither horror nor fear.
The mission was prospering under the guidance of Paul Ragueneau, who in 1645 succeeded Lalemant as superior, when the latter journeyed to Quebec to take over the office of superior-general of the Canada mission. Ste Marie, a wilderness Mecca of the faith, entertained yearly thousands of Indians, many of whom professed Christianity.
Sick at heart, Ragueneau looked about him for a new situation, a spot that might serve as a centre for his band of devoted missionaries as they toiled among the wanderers by lake and river and in the depths of the northern forest. There, on the bay that indents the south-east corner of the island, he directed that land should be cleared for the building.
He destroyed our lives; and you will restore them, if you will but speak and tell us what you will have us do." Ragueneau, who remarks that this harangue is a proof that eloquence is the gift of Nature rather than of Art, made a reply, which he has not recorded, and then gave the speaker a bundle of small sticks, indicating the number of presents which he required in satisfaction for the murder.
"I find nothing," he adds, "more frequent in this memoir than the expression of his desire to die for Jesus Christ: 'Sentio me vehementer impelli ad moriendum pro Christo. . . . In fine, wishing to make himself a holocaust and a victim consecrated to death, and holily to anticipate the happiness of martyrdom which awaited him, he bound himself by a vow to Christ, which he conceived in these terms"; and Ragueneau gives the vow in the original Latin.
He contented himself with the most wretched fare during the last years of famine, living in good measure on roots and acorns; "although," says Ragueneau, "he had been the cherished son of a rich and noble house, on whom all the affection of his father had centred, and who had been nourished on food very different from that of swine." Relation des Hurons, 1650, 12.
Some would disperse in the most remote and inaccessible forests; others would take refuge in a distant spot, apparently the Grand Manitoulin Island; others would try to reach the Andastes; and others would seek safety in adoption and incorporation with the Iroquois themselves. "Take courage, brother," continued one of the chiefs, addressing Ragueneau.
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