Letter 80

To her son. From Quebec. 26 August 1644
Fr. Isaac Jogues escapes from the Iroquois and returns to Quebec. The clothing and housing of Indians and French. The faith and piety of new converts.
Jesus, Mary, Joseph.

My dear and well-beloved son,

Your letters brought me inexpressible consolation; I mean the two I got in July. The ships came earlier than usual and brought Frs. Quintin and Jogues, who by a very special act of Providence was taken by the Dutch who have settled near the Iroquois borders, and shipped to France, according to the strict orders of the Queen. So God has given him back as a living martyr, bearing in his body the livery of Jesus Christ. You can imagine our joy at his return. The poor Father was to have been burned alive on his return to the Iroquois village, if the Dutch, who had been informed, had not acted quickly. He told me in detail of God’s dealing with him while be was in captivity. Thousands of martyrs have died at less cost to themselves. Imagine all the ignominies that could be inflicted on a modest person, he has suffered them all. I do not know if the account has been or will be in the “Relation”. I am going to tell you just one circumstance of his labours.

After a frightful beating that made him looking like a monster left for dead, and having cut off two of his fingers and burned and chewed the others; they walked him naked from village to village, from one platform to another. In the midst of a huge assembly they hung him in the air, his two upper arms fastened to two stakes by osier cords, tied so tightly that he could not bear more. He was so long in this torment that it was the worst and most painful of all from the weight of his body and the tightness of the ropes. They tightened them further when they saw that they increased his torment. A pagan from a distant village who was present could not stand it, and moved by natural compassion, untied him and let him down when he was nearly dead. See how God rewarded the man. After all his torments, the Father was given to a family that took care of him, were fond of him (that is, did him no harm), allowed him to pray to God. (They called this magic, and a French man who was with the Father was martyred for it.) These people brought the Father with them wherever they were going, and in this way, he baptised all the sick, infants and adults too, and sent many souls to Heaven. On his way he passed through the village of the man who had untied him, not connecting the place with him. As was his custom he went into the lodge to see if there was anything for him to do.

He was leaving again when a man he had not seen lying in a dark corner, called him saying “What brother will you not have pity on me? Don’t you know that I saved your life, untying you from your torture? I am dying, help me.” Overjoyed and astonished. Father instructed and baptised the poor man and saw him die immediately assured of the Salvation God had prepared for him. I believe, to reward his good deed, Heaven gave him eternal life for the corporal life he had given the Father. What a wonderful example of God’s providence! He got many unexpected opportunities to send souls to Heaven. His admirable humility shows his great sanctity. Even in captivity, his modesty won the admiration of the barbarians, who thought him more than human.

In response to your questions about this country: There are my dear son houses of stone, of wood and of bark. Ours is entirely of stone, 92 feet long by 25 feet wide. As a building it is the finest and biggest in Canada. The church is the width of the house, 28 feet long by 17 wide. You think that small, but the intense cold makes it impossible to heat large places. At times, the priests are in danger of having their hands or ears frost-bitten. Our choir, the seminary and our living quarters are, as I said, 92 feet by 28. The fort is of stone as are houses belonging to it. Those of the fathers, of our Foundress, of the Hospital Sisters and the settled Indians are of stone. Houses of the migrants have stone uprights, two or three are of stone. Some of the Indians have portable houses of birch bark, skillfully supported on poles. At the beginning we had one like that for a classroom. Speaking of stone houses, I do not mean cut-stone, except for corners. These are of a kind of black marble, beautiful but expensive to cut, the marble is so hard. A French labourer is paid 30 sols a day and his keep, Sundays, holidays, and bad weather included. Our workmen came from France, hired for three or more years. We have ten and they do everything for us except that the settlers provide lime, sand and brick. Our house is three stories, our cells on the middle floor made like those in France. The fireplace is at the end of the dormitory to heat the corridor and cells; the partitions between the cells are of pinewood. You could not heat them otherwise, and believe me you can’t stay long in your cell in winter without going to warm yourself. An hour would be too long, but you must be well covered and have your hands hidden. Outside the observances the normal place for reading, writing and study is around the fire. This is a great inconvenience and constraint, especially for me, who never warmed myself in France. Our beds are wooden and closed, like a press, but even with doubled blankets and serge coverlets it is difficult to get warm. In winter, our Indians leave their stone houses and make huts for themselves in the woods where it is less cold. We put five or six logs on the fire at a time, and with that, one side of a person is warmed, the other side is perished. At four fireplaces in a year, six months of it winter, we burn 175 bundles of wood (600 c. meters). In spite of the intense cold we go to the choir for the observances all winter and suffer a little for it. Our enclosure is not a stone wall but a wooden fence supported on big wooden posts ten feet high. Neither this country nor our poverty could afford a stone wall. Other houses here, except the fort, have more flimsy protection. For the past six years they are building a high wall around the fort, it is not yet finished, it is so big. The roofs of the houses are of double planks or single planks covered with shingle.

The Indians are dressed. In summer they wear an elk skin, as big as an ox’s hide, cut square like a blanket. They put it on their shoulders and fasten it with thongs, leaving the arms free and bare, only that and a loin cloth, head and feet bare. At home, in the country and when fighting their enemies, they are naked except for the loincloth, which covers them modestly enough. Their skin is the colour of a Minin’s habit, thanks to the sun and the grease they rub all over their bodies, their faces tattooed with blue and red stripes. In winter they wear blankets, arranged in the same way but covering their arms with bits of leather or old blanket, reaching the waist. They have cloaks of beaver fur. These cover their heads and barter in the store for red nightcaps, sometimes they have bonnets or hoods that cover the ears. They have robes too, when the Fathers forget we give them some. That is for the well dressed, some others are nearly naked in all weather through poverty. The women are modestly clad and always wear a belt. (The men do not and their robes fly in the wind). Their dresses reach to mid-calf and usually to the neck, their arms are covered and on their head a man’s red night-cap or a kind of hood that covers the ears. Their hair is brushed back from the face and tied behind. They are very modest and circumspect. We make long dresses for our Seminarians and arrange their hair in French fashion. You know men from women by their clothes; the faces are the same. They wear shoes of elk skin, which is like buffalo, a square piece at the heel and gathered at the toe by a thong, like the running string of a purse and so the shoe is made. The French wear these moccasins in winter, you cannot walk in the snow without snowshoes and these cannot be attached to French shoes. As for us we have no need of them. [The Hospital sisters have only five choir and one converse sister.] Is our community big? Enough for the present. We are eight choir sisters and one converse sister, four from Tours, four from the congregation of Paris; Sr. Anne is from Dieppe.

Are our Indians as perfect as I say? As for manners, there is none of the French politeness; I mean exchanges of civilities and rules of etiquette. We don’t try to teach French culture. We teach the commandments of God and of the Church, the Truths of Faith, the prayers, we teach them to examine their conscience and perform the other acts of religion. An Indian makes as good a confession as any Religious, man or woman, as naive as could be confessing even the smallest faults, and when they have fallen, doing public penance with great humility. Here is an example.

The Indians have no drink except the stock from the pot in which they boiled either meat or Indian corn or bones. The French introduced them to whiskey and wine. They liked it, but one drink was enough to set them mad. The reason is that they eat only sweet things never salted food. Alcohol kills them. That is why the Governor, forbade the French, under pain of heavy fines, to give or sell it to them. But when the ships come in, it is impossible to prevent the sailors from doing a deal on the quiet. The older Indians or the very young and the good Christians do not indulge, but young people do. This year a few got drunk. The elders, with the Fathers of the Mission, imposed penalties. They were fined a certain number of beaver skins to be sold to buy decorations for the chapel, they were forbidden to enter the chapel for three days, and twice daily they had to go to say their prayers outside the chapel door, the innocent with the guilty to help them to obtain mercy and appease Him-Who-Made-All. Some made public confessions in the French Church, declaring their faults aloud; others fasted three days on bread and water. Excessive drinking is rare, so are excessive penances. As with the French so with the Indians, some are more devout than others, but on the whole the Indians are more devout than the French. Indians are not settled in French towns, but in settlements of their own, for fear of their imitating bad example. Though they are well behaved and wise enough, they are not ready for the unrestricted freedom of the French.

Our Foundress who is really zealous, went this year to visit the Mission in Tadoussac, thirty-five leagues from here, where the Christians live exemplary lives. Several have already been baptised. There she saw numbers of Indians whom the new converts found far away in the woods. They instructed them, prepared them for baptism and brought them to the Mission. The good lady was overjoyed to see such fervour among people who through generations had been reared in barbarity. The French who were there, (it is where the French fleet, bringing all the necessities for this country land and anchors) wept with joy to see wolves turned into lambs and beasts into children of God. It was a contest in fervour between fathers and children, a very special “touch” of God. We often hear them at our grille speaking of what is nearest their hearts. For example, the Captains of the Indians at Sillery, before setting out to fight the Iroquois, came to see me and said: “Mother, this is what I think: I have to tell you that we are going to seek out our enemies. If they kill us, what does it matter? They have been doing so for a long time. They even capture and kill our friends, the French and those who are instructing us. We are going to war not because they are killing us, but because they are killing our friends. Pray for us. We have offended God and He is chastising us”. The young are not good. I say to them: “You are making God angry, and He is punishing us. Correct your faults and He will be appeased”. N. (Who had failed in good behaviour), [the convert sorcerer who had relapsed] has lapsed again. I begged the Governor and the Father Superior to have him banished, because he is drawing the devil among us. That is the source of our misfortune. They said to me: “wait till Spring, he will correct himself. They are so good to have waited so long, but he has not corrected himself. Pray for us all. We don’t know what will become of us on account of our offences”. He is a real saint. He was the second Indian to be baptised. He is irreproachable. In a public address to his people in the church where Fr. Quen had been reproving the young people, this good man spoke out and made a public confession of all the faults he committed in the seven or eight years since his baptism adding: “brothers it is I who have drawn all the misfortune on us. You see how badly I have corresponded with God’s grace, seeing all the faults I have committed. But God is good. Do not despair. if we serve Him He will have mercy on us” — and he continued in the same strain, most touchingly. The priest had not known what he intended to say.

A good woman came to our grille and asked Sr. St. Joseph to instruct her about the Blessed Sacrament, because she said, it was a long time since she had been at the public prayers. To everything she was told she answered; “That is just what they taught me but I had forgotten, you are reminding me”. Then she said: “God has given me great grace. Formerly, the death of my children caused me such great grief that nothing could console me; but now I am so convinced of God’s Wisdom and Goodness, that even if He takes them all, I won’t be sad. I think to myself: If my child needed a longer life to ensure salvation He-Who-Made- All would not refuse it, because He is so good, and nothing is impossible to Him, but since He called him to Himself, and He knows all, we must say that He sees perhaps that he would cease to believe, commit sin and go to hell. Decide for me, You-who-Made-All, and for all my children. Even if you try me in every possible way, I’ll never cease to believe in You, to love You, to obey You. What You will is what I desire. Then I say to my dying child: Go child, see in Heaven Him-Who-made-All. When you are there pray for me that I may get there soon. When you are dead, I’ll pray for your soul that you may soon get out of Purgatory”. This good woman came to me once to recite a long prayer she had composed for our warriors, I was moved by tile earnest words she addressed to God: Her name is Louise. It seems since her Baptism, God has been pleased to take her children one after another. This shows you the sentiments of our good Christians. They have tender consciences. This winter a young man and his wife brought their child to the hunting expedition. The child died. Rather than bury him in unconsecrated ground and so displease God, the mother carried the body, in a skin on her back for three or four months, over rocks and precipices, through woods, in snow and ice with unheard-of difficulty. They arrived just in time to make their Easter Duty and bury their child.

I told you in my last letter that the Faith is taking deep root among the nations in the North and the Hurons. I have just got news of them from Fr. Chaumonot, whom you met in Paris with Fr. Poncet. This is what he said: “In five of the principal Huron settlements there are Chapels with resident priests. If during the next two Winters conversions continue at the same rate as during the last two, in a short time the Christians will be in the majority in those five villages”.

They will draw all the villagers with them, and not only that, but all the Huron country. I told you in my last letter that the Iroquois captured one of our priests and several Christians, French and Indians. Five were killed, two burned alive. The brutality of these executions is worse than death. As the spirit sometimes weakens under torture, these poor Christians are in danger of despair, as there is nobody to encourage or console them. In God’s name recommend them to all the priests in your holy house. This winter three hundred Indians have taken refuge near our little house. They were instructed in our Chapel, except those not yet disposed to hear the word of God. Apart from that first instruction, the women and girls came to our school and the men to our parlour. After the spiritual reflection we try to give them food. The Governor is very charitable and gave generously all that time. They expected to die of hunger. The meals we provide is the bait that draws them and makes them docile, but in our poverty and necessity, we cannot give as much as we would. That is what constrains me to beg alms from our friends in France, not for ourselves but for our poor Indians, or rather for Jesus Christ. They have discovered settled nations who have heard of God. These have seen Christians in their country performing acts of Religion and would like to do the same. They are asking for Missionaries, but the way to them is closed by the enemy Iroquois. Nevertheless three have ventured as far as the Hurons in order to go farther North from there, as the northern nation is three hundred leagues farther. The Hurons are five hundred leagues from here. If the way were clear it would be only half that length.

Never tire of remaining at the feet of the King of all Nations. He died for all, and all are not yet alive, with His life. Alas, my dear son, if I were worthy to run all over the earth to win some soul for Him, my heart would be satisfied. Is not that the natural reaction to seeing the demons holding absolute sway over all the peoples? Let us go together in spirit and try to bring some one to our good Master. You’ll do as much in your solicitude as if you were actively employed. The Eternal Father has shown a person that if she asks through the Heart of His Son, He will give her all she asks. Ask for souls to enlarge His Kingdom: I conjure you. Let us envy the enemy all his possessions: it is he who spurs on the Iroquois. At present these are the greatest obstacles to His Glory in this country, apart from my sins and for these you find me friends to intercede for me with God, especially your Reverend Fathers, whom I humbly greet. I ask their blessing and a share in their Holy Sacrifices and prayers. I am not worthy to belong to them so closely or to have part of me among them. As for you, you are always with me before God. Let us remain in that vast ocean, and make it our home, while awaiting eternity where we shall see each other in reality, Adieu.

From the Ursulines of Quebec, 26 August 1644
Marginal Note: There are plenty of cedars here, we use them for besoms; scotch pine and fir trees and spinet that remain green during the winter, despite the cold. The other trees lose their leaves as in France.
Kelly, Sr M. St. Dominic, O.S.U. Marie of the Incarnation 1599 - 1672 Correspondence, (translated from the French edition by Dom Guy Oury Monk of Solesmes), Irish Ursuline Union, 2000, p. 78 - 83.