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It was an exploit which resembles Denonville's attack upon the Senecas, with the added interest that Frontenac was in his seventy-seventh year when he thus carried the war into the heart of the enemy's country.
This shameful concession had been made shortly before Frontenac reached Canada. It was Denonville's last important act in the colony. On the chance that something might have occurred to delay execution of the order, Frontenac at once countermanded it and sent forward an expedition of three hundred men. But they were too late. His beloved fortress was gone.
He was growing tired of the colony which he had nursed with paternal fondness, and he was more than half angry with it because it did not prosper. Denonville's letters had grown worse and worse; and, though he had not heard as yet of the last great calamity, he was sated with ill tidings already. Count Frontenac stood before him.
To undo, as far as possible, Denonville's treachery at Fort Frontenac and elsewhere, he had brought back with him to Quebec the Iroquois who had been sent to France or such of them as were still alive. First among these was a Cayuga chief of great influence named Ourehaoué, whose friendship Frontenac assiduously cultivated and completely won.
Lake Assiniboel is larger than lake Superior, and an infinity of others, lesser and greater have to be discovered, for which I approve of M. the Marquis of Denonville's saying, often repeated: that the King of France, our monarch was not high lord enough to open up such a vast country, as we are only beginning to enter on the confines of the immensity of such a great country.
"You are to be carried home in her and handed over to the Governor of Rochelle to be sent back to Paris. Those are Monsieur de Denonville's orders, and if they be not carried out to the letter, then we shall have the whole hornet's nest about our ears." De Catinat groaned as he listened.
Then he released them all save one, in order that they might carry home this tale of Denonville's second treachery. The one Iroquois Kondiaronk retained on the plea that he wished to adopt him. Arrived at Michilimackinac, he handed over the captive to the French there, who, having heard nothing of the peace, promptly shot him.
With Denonville's consent and approval, a band of Canadians left Montreal in the spring of 1686, fell upon three of the English posts Fort Hayes, Fort Rupert, Fort Albany and with some bloodshed dispossessed their garrisons. Well satisfied with this exploit, Denonville in 1687 turned his attention to the chastisement of the Iroquois.
The king had stigmatized La Barre's treaty with the Iroquois as disgraceful, and expressed indignation at his abandonment of the Illinois allies. All this was now to be changed; but it was easier to give the order at Versailles than to execute it in Canada. Denonville's difficulties were great; and his means of overcoming them were small. What he most needed was more troops and more money.
In 1684 he was in command of the fortified trading-post at Michilimackinac, and he had a share in Denonville's expedition against the Onondagas three years later. On that occasion he mustered a band of traders who, with a contingent of friendly Indians, followed him down to the lakes to join the punitive force.
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