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This ship, too, was wrecked, near San Sebastian in the Bay of Biscay, and again Lalemant narrowly escaped death. Meanwhile the English Adventurers were full of enthusiasm over the achievement of the Kirkes. The work, however, was not yet finished. The French trading-posts in Acadia and on the St Lawrence must be utterly destroyed.
The country was still at this time under the stress of the emotion caused by the terrible earthquake of 1663. Father Lalemant has left us a striking description of this cataclysm, marked by the naïve exaggeration of the period: "It was February 5th, 1663, about half-past five in the evening, when a great roar was heard at the same time throughout the extent of Canada.
The Dutch and the English on the Atlantic seaboard could be kept within bounds; possibly driven from the continent; then the whole of North America would be French and Catholic. Thus, perhaps, dreamed Lalemant and his companions, the Jesuit Paul Ragueneau and the Recollets Daniel Boursier and Francois Girard, as they paced the deck of the vessel that bore them westward.
Through them Quebec became religious, and their influence permeated the whole colony as its population increased and the zone of occupation grew wider. Le Jeune, Lalemant, Brebeuf, and Jogues are among the outstanding names of the restored New France.
On the one hand, they trembled for Brebeuf and Lalemant; on the other, they looked hourly for an attack: and when at evening they saw the Iroquois scouts prowling along the edge of the bordering forest, their fears were confirmed.
An incalculable number died in the desert, alone, deprived of all aid, unknown to the whole world, and their bodies became the sustenance of birds of prey. Several obtained the glorious crown of martyrdom; such are the venerable Fathers Jogues, Corpo, Souël, Chabanel, Ribourde, Brébeuf, Lalemant, etc.
He received the death-blow in a posture like that in which he had seen the dead missionary. His body was found with the hands still clasped on the breast. Lettre de Chaumonot a Lalemant, 1 Juin, 1649. The next death among the Jesuits was that of Masse, who died at Sillery, on the twelfth of May of this year, 1646, at the age of seventy-two. He had come with Biard to Acadia as early as 1611.
Dieu vueille abolir vne si damnable et malheureuse ceremonie." Sagard, Voyage des Hurons, 158. This unique mode of cure, which was called Andacwandet, is also described by Lalemant, who saw it. For the medical practices of the Hurons, see also Champlain, Brebeuf, Lafitau, Charlevoix, and other early writers. Those of the Algonquins were in some points different.
The Jesuit mission of Sainte-Marie in their country was broken up, and Jean de Brébeuf and Gabriel Lalemant suffered torture and death. Such was the pitiable condition of things in 1663, when Louis XIV made of Canada a royal government. At this time the total population of the province did not exceed 2500 souls, grouped chiefly in and around Quebec, Three Rivers and Montreal.
Fathers Breboeuf and Lalemant, burnt by the Indians; Garreau, butchered; Chabanel, drowned by an apostate Huron, and others hideously tortured, testified with their blood to their devotion. From the Atlantic to the prairies, from the bleak shores of the Hudson Bay to the sunny beaches of Louisiana, they suffered, bled and died.
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