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Updated: July 13, 2025
Beneath these epistolary compliments there lies the broad fact that Dongan stood firm by his principle that the extension of French rule to the south of Lake Ontario should not be tolerated. He ridicules the basis of French pretensions, saying that Denonville might as well claim China because there are Jesuits at the Chinese court.
M. de Denonville, who was there, gives to the Chevalier de Vaudreuil the order to occupy Fort Roland with his troops and a hundred volunteers. De Vaudreuil hastens thither, accompanied by de Subercase and other officers; they are all eager to measure their strength with the enemy, but the order of Denonville is strict, they must remain on the defensive and run no risk.
The bow scraped, and a dozen hands were outstretched in aid, but Governor Denonville stepped briskly out into the ankle-deep water and carried his own pack ashore. A cheer went up from the little line at the sally-port. Du Luth's voyageurs and coureur de bois caught it up, and then it swept far out over the water and was echoed back from the forest.
Even to the moment of marching, Denonville pretended that he meant only to hold a peace council at Fort Frontenac. An account of the preceding events will be found in La Potherie and Oldmixon; in Jeremie, Relation de la Baie de Hudson; and in N. Y. Col. Docs., IX. 796-802.
Soon after Denonville and his companion had returned to the enemy, an English lord came, demanding a parley with the commandant.
The Marquis de Denonville in a letter to the French minister of November 10, 1686, announced the safe return of the bishop to Quebec after a most fatiguing journey and adds: "He will give you an account of the numerous disorders committed in the woods by the miserable outlaws who for a long while have lived like the savages without doing anything at all towards the tilling of the soil."
The task was difficult; and, filled with anxiety, the father came down to Montreal to see the governor, "and communicate to me," writes Denonville, "the deplorable state of affairs with our allies, whom we can no longer trust, owing to the discredit into which we have fallen among them, and from which we cannot recover, except by gaining some considerable advantage over the Iroquois; who, as I have had the honor to inform you, have labored incessantly since last autumn to rob us of all our allies, by using every means to make treaties with them independently of us.
Denonville, on his side, with like feelings, could not give up the claim to suzerainty over the land of the Iroquois. The domain of the Five Nations was not the only part of America where French and English clashed. The presence of the English in Hudson Bay excited deep resentment at Quebec and Montreal. Here Denonville ventured to break the peace as Dongan had not dared to do.
Blansac, who saw the wavering this caused among the troops, sharply told Denonville to hold his tongue, and began himself to harangue the troops in a contrary spirit. But it was to late. The mischief was done. Only one regiment, that of Navarre, applauded him, all the rest maintained a dull silence. I remind my readers that it is Blansac's version of the story I am giving.
The bishop, on the other hand, mentions the success of the stratagem as a reward accorded by Heaven to the piety of Denonville. Denonville's account, which is sufficiently explicit, is contained in the long journal of the expedition which he sent to the court, and in several letters to the minister.
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