United States or Saint Lucia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
A few days after the expedition had left, the Chevalier de Villebon, the newly appointed French Governor, arrived, and if accompanied by the means, had a favorable opportunity of putting it once more in a state of defence and retaining it as a French stronghold. But Phips was not far off, and he therefore deemed it prudent, considering the small force at his disposal, to retire to the river St.
Everything being now in order for the defence of his fort Villebon ordered the garrison to pass the night under arms, as from the barking of the dogs it was believed the enemy was drawing near. The next morning between eight and nine o'clock, whilst Father Simon was celebrating mass in the chapel, a shallop filled with armed men rounded the point below, followed by two others.
The other morning we went to the forest of Mendon; my uncle, as a lover of the picturesque, considers that the Bois de Boulogne, with its lake, looks as if it had been taken out of a box of German toys. We arrived at Villebon, a sort of farm situated in the middle of the forest, with a few fields attached to it. There is a restaurant there, which is much frequented on Sundays during the summer.
It was duly paid to me, and I bought with it part of the outlying lands of Villebon those, I mean, which extend towards Chartres. The rest of the money, notwithstanding all my efforts, was wasted here and there, Pimentel winning thirty crowns of the King that year.
Shortly after this, pirates from the West Indies plundered the place; and in 1691 it again fell into the hands of the French under De Villebon. It was still to undergo two sieges in 1707, when, under Subercase, the besiegers were repulsed; and in 1710 seven ships with English marines bombarded the fort for several days.
Villebon with Father Simon's assistance contrived to collect 150 Indians Maliseets and Micmacs to join the expedition under his brother, which was further reinforced by a small vessel owned and commanded by the Sieur de Chauffours, an inhabitant of the St. John river. The start of the expedition was not a very auspicious one, for on leaving the harbor of St. At Penobscot Baron St.
On the 5th February, 1692, they raided the frontier settlement of York, which they left in ashes after killing about seventy-five persons and taking 100 prisoners among those killed was the venerable Mr. Dummer, the minister of the place. With the opening of the spring time Villebon received a delegation of 100 warriors of the Kennebec and Penobscot tribes at his fort.
His garrison, numbering about 100 soldiers, was busily employed in throwing up new intrenchments and mounting additional guns, word was sent to the French inhabitants of the vicinity to repair to the fort and assist in its defence, and Villebon, on the 11th October, sent an urgent message to Father Simon, the missionary at Medoctec, to get the Indians to come down as soon as possible if they wished to fight the English.
It was my custom, before I entered upon those negotiations with the Prince of Condé which terminated in the recovery of the estate of Villebon, where I now principally reside, to spend a part of the autumn and winter at Rosny.
Historians unite in observing that the duke performed all the duties of an active and upright minister, under a master, who exercised all the offices of a great and good king; after whose unhappy fate, this excellent man retired from the busy scenes of the world, and covered with time and honours expired in the eighty-second year of his age in the year 1641, at his castle of Villebon.
Word Of The Day