The Battle for Canada
Volume 2: The Huguenots Arrive
By William Wresch
Copyright 2013 William Wresch
In 1685 Henry the XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes that protected Protestant rights in France. Within a decade the one million Huguenots in France were killed, converted, or forced into exile in Germany, Holland, England, and the New World. In this second volume of the series, the Huguenot settlements in Louisiana are begun, setting the stage for the civil war that will tear Canada apart centuries later.
Chapter One
Versailles Pass
The security outside the National Cathedral was unbelievable. Our car was stopped three full blocks from the church, and we sat in a long line while each car was searched and each occupant questioned. Being a complete idiot, I had two large suitcases in the back of my Citroen. It had seemed like a good idea yesterday – do all my packing early, so all we would have to do after church is go to Elise’s apartment, get her loaded up, and then take off for Philadelphia. Now I could see that anyone with baggage of any kind was being asked to open it. Nobody else had any bags as big as mine, so I could already imagine how suspicious my suitcases would look.
Slowly we moved up in line while I thought through the explanation I would give the police. Elise was silent as well. Normally she would have been talking nonstop, but this morning she sat in total silence. Of course she had lots to think about too – her new job, the developing conflict in her country, and the trip she was about to take to the United States to meet the family of a man who had asked her to marry him. I wondered what the priority order was for those three discussion topics. Was I anywhere near the top of the list?
“I should have left earlier,” I said, as much to break the silence as anything else. After all, it was pretty obvious I should have left earlier. “I hadn’t given any thought to this kind of security.”
“Nobody has,” she answered. “We are in Green Bay, in the middle of a country that has been at peace for nearly a century. None of us know what we are doing – not us, and not the police.” I think I would have felt better if there had been anger in her voice, or impatience, but all I heard was a deep sadness.
I edged the car forward, and finally we reached the inspection point. Four cops ran mirrors under the car and looked in all the windows. One of them came to my window and asked for an ID, but it was Elise who answered him.
“Officer, I am with the Interior Ministry.” She reached over me to hand him her identification. He looked at her identification and immediately straightened.
“Yes, Doctor DuPry. Good morning, madam.”
“Good morning, officer. Is there anything else you need to see, or may we proceed to the service?”
“Please proceed, madam.” He made some notes on a clipboard he carried and motioned for the other officers to move on to the next car. I didn’t waste any time getting out of there. I drove the last blocks and parked in the lot at the bottom of Cathedral Hill. I was sad to see there were even more concrete blast barriers around the church than there had been two days before. How bad have things gotten when churches have become targets?
Elise and I walked the winding pathway up the hill as we had done so many Sundays in the past, she taking my arm, and waving periodically to people she knew. Many others had made it past the police gauntlet and were approaching the cathedral from several pathways. They were all subdued in their demeanor, but, there was something else different. It took me a minute to place it. Then I noticed the women. They always wore traditional long dresses for this service, but now every dress was the same color – white. Elise’s gown was white cotton with long sleeves. It might have been a wedding dress from the past century, and I almost made a comment on it when she had put it on that morning, hoping that she was wearing the dress to tell me she had made up her mind – that her answer to my proposal was “yes.” But she had stayed busy during the last hour before we left for church, so there was no time that felt right to ask. Now I could see every woman had made the same decision. Had they called each other? Somehow the word had gotten out. Now a thousand women were going to church as if each were a bride – or a Huguenot.
Elise’s mother and sisters – also in long white dresses – waited for us in the family pew. I was relieved to see that her father wore the traditional dark suit and ruffled white shirt, the same outfit I had worn to church. Whatever was being communicated by the wardrobe decisions of the day, men had been permitted to dress as they always did. After brief prayers, we sat back in the pew and I had a chance to look around the church. It took me a minute, but then I saw the man on the tower with the large television camera. I should have guessed the service would be televised. With Claude Jolliet now as Information Minister, the service would probably be rebroadcast for days until every person in the country had seen the service and had understood the message of the dresses. It seemed to me the nobility of Canada was extending a hand – you Huguenots blew up a beautiful cathedral in Biloxi, they said, but you are French and we are French and we will find a way to work through this.
I took Elise’s hand and leaned over to whisper to her. “I think I understand the white dresses now. Do you think the Huguenots will recognize the gesture?”
“Some of them will understand, I am sure of it.” She squeezed my hand for emphasis. “I hate their philosophy, but we are all French. We will keep trying until we find a way for everyone to accept that.”
The rest of the service went on as usual. The homily was directed as you would guess – forgiveness and peace. I think the most striking part of the service was communion. As we all walked down the center aisle to receive the host we must have looked like an endless stream of wedding couples. And I wasn’t the only one who noticed. I could see several husbands and wives looking at each other, even smiling and joking quietly about their appearance. It was a nice moment and broke much of the tension.
After the service Elise’s family and many of her friends followed us out to our car to say goodbye. We had told everyone we would be gone between one week and three (depending upon how my parents reacted to Elise it might even be less, but I never said that to anyone), so they wanted to see us off. There were long hugs for Elise and warm handshakes for me. I looked carefully to see how Elise’s parents were taking this trip with me and the possibility of our engagement, but all I sensed was affection for her and trust that she would make the best decision. Elise’s mother even gave me a small gift to pass along to my mother, as a gesture of friendship. I thought that was pretty considerate, and told her so.
Finally we got into my car and drove back to Elise’s apartment to load up her things. I quickly learned that Elise did not travel light. She had three suitcases ready right away, and filled two more while I took her cases out to the car. I was glad I had a full-sized Citroen.
On my fourth trip out to the car I had one of those memory flashbacks you sometimes experience. I had filled a car like this before. I was seventeen and going off to the University of Virginia. I was really proud that my folks were not taking me to college, but were letting me go off on my own. Since I was the youngest of five kids I think they were probably tired of taking yet another child off to school, but that was not how I interpreted it at the time. I surmised that they were especially satisfied with my maturity and so trusted me to make this trip on my own. I had spent all day Saturday taking things out to my car, making decisions about what to take and what to leave – what would be part of my new adult life and what would be relegated to my childhood – and then Sunday after ma
ss I shook hands with my dad, kissed my mother good bye and headed south down I95. I was on my own, heading to a new life in Virginia.
A dozen years older now, I was set to make another trip after mass, but that was where most of the similarities ended. This time the trip was only partly about me. It was mostly about Elise. Would my parents accept a French woman? And then there was the political situation. Had I thought one bit about the larger world as I had headed off to college? No, I had only thought about me and about my personal adventure. If there were national issues of consequence in the early 90s, I didn’t know about them. Now I knew our trip would be experienced in the context of a possible war. Elise’s country was on the verge of breakup. Two years ago, when I had first moved to Green Bay, I would have relished the prospect. Now I had more sympathy for the disaster that seemed so imminent.
While loading the car made me more introspective, it seemed to lift Elise’s spirits. She was happier now that she was active. She carried the last bag out to the car, gave me a big kiss, and said, “Now let’s go meet that big, beautiful family in Philadelphia.”
And with that we started the trip. As usual, Elise acted as tour guide while I drove. All the way down to Chicago she had something to say about every community we passed, describing its history or its people, or friends she had there. I relaxed, listening to the joy in her voice. She was having fun, and so was I. So neither of us mentioned what we were looking for as we drove – Huguenot families moving south. Two days earlier, before Claude Jolliet had turned national television into an endless series of church services, the last news broadcast to air had shown streams of cars taking Protestants south and Catholics north as each group hurried to the safety of its own kind. So far, we hadn’t seen any special traffic on the road.
Even as we drove through Chicago, there didn’t seem to be any more traffic than usual for a Sunday afternoon. As always, people drove about twenty miles over the limit, taking shaky French engineering faster than I was willing to trust it, while construction crews dug up yet another section of the roadway in an endless effort to build and rebuild the highway system down there. In short, Chicago looked like Chicago. We were both relieved.
By the time we got to Indiana it was approaching dinner time and I was looking for a place to spend the night. Truth be told, I was in no hurry to get to Philadelphia. I had called home the night before to tell my folks we were coming, and I had the great fortune that both were home and Mom quickly put me on the speaker phone so Dad could hear and I wouldn’t have to repeat myself. At first they thought I was coming home because of the trouble in Canada, and they said how relieved they were that I was getting out of danger. Then I said I was just coming home for a visit and that I was bringing Elise home to meet them. They were so stunned they didn’t know what to say, so I took advantage of their silence to give them a quick summary of my itinerary and then tell them I had to go. I had the phone hung up before either could say another word. What they were thinking at this point I didn’t know, but I was willing to wait an extra day to find out.
Elise saw a sign for South Bend and suggested we look for some place near Notre Dame. It seemed like a great idea to me. I had seen their famous lacrosse team on TV many times, but had never seen the campus. We found a nice hotel just off campus and decided to take a walk around the place before dinner. It really is a beautiful campus. It’s no University of Virginia, but it's not bad for the French.
“Do you notice anything special about this campus?” I asked Elise. We were in the middle of the campus, walking between the two main rows of buildings.
“I like the way all the buildings hold the same style and even the same color brick.” She replied. “They obviously put a lot of planning into the place.”
“Actually I was thinking about something else special about the campus. Unlike your college, this one is above ground.” That got me a gentle punch on the shoulder. “But I don’t suppose I should complain. Those underground walkways will keep me a bit warmer this winter.”
“So you are taking the job?” I just had time to nod a “yes” when she wrapped both her arms around me and gave me a kiss. Obviously I had given the right answer. And it was really the only answer that made sense. I couldn’t keep working for my father forever, and the job at the National University was the right one for me. It gave me access to additional archives and also put me in contact with a good group of scholars. And, I should be honest about it, the job gave me another reason to be near Elise. I had called the department chair the day before to accept the job, and had been waiting for the right time to tell Elise. Based on the hug I was getting, I had picked a good time.
There’s not much more to say about South Bend. We had a great dinner and a great night, and the next morning we were on the road again. Here is where things got a bit tricky. By mid-afternoon, it was my goal to be at Fort Duquesne. This could be problematic from at least two perspectives. First, there really aren’t all that many people who like walking around old forts. I might bore Elise. Second, the fort had different meanings to each of us. To the French, this is where they had stood up to two invasions by George Washington and assorted British idiots wandering the woods in red uniforms. To Americans, this is where we had taken our chance on taking the Ohio Valley, and had lost badly – twice. Elise and I might love each other, but we were two different nationalities and nothing emphasized that more than Fort Duquesne. A smart man would have driven right past. But much of my PhD dissertation was based on the history of those battles. I could no more drive past than a drunk can walk past a bar.
I began to think through what I would say to Elise about stopping there, when things began to get out of hand. We were about ten miles west of Duquesne at this point, and more pertinently, about eighty miles west of the border. That’s when the first squad car came flying past us down the highway. It is not unusual to see police on the highway, of course, but this one was really moving. I never would have driven a French car that fast, no matter how much extra suspension they must have put into it before giving it to the police. We just had time to look at each other and comment on how fast the car had been moving, when another one went by at the same speed. I had pulled off onto the edge of the highway and gave the road a very long look before I pulled back into traffic. Obviously something was going on.
“Have you heard anything from the ministry about Duquesne?” I asked.
“There is a sizable Huguenot population there, but no terrorist groups that we are aware of.” Elise scanned the horizon on all directions looking to see where the problem might be. “The only problem I am aware of is unemployment as the steel industry shrinks. Some of the factories have moved south.” We were approaching the outskirts of town now, and both of us looked for smoke or other signs of trouble. I didn’t see anything.
At this point a column of trucks carrying troops got onto the highway headed east. “Shawn, do you mind following those trucks? I don’t know if anyone else from the Ministry is in the area. I should at least see where they are going.”
I fell into line behind the last truck. “Do you think there is any chance they are just on routine maneuvers?”
“Look at the soldiers, Shawn. Each one is holding a rifle, and the rifles have ammunition clips in them. We can hope the clips are empty, but I fear they are not. These men don’t have the look of men out for a Sunday drive.” She was right, of course. The men were packed into the truck past what I am sure its usual capacity is, and each was holding a rifle in both hands. A few of them appeared to be talking to each other, but most were silent, and none of them were looking back at us or at any place else outside the truck. These men were in a serious mood.
I expected to follow the convoy into Duquesne, but they continued past, headed for the border. Now I began to get nervous. Were we at war? I couldn’t imagine how the U.S. could have gotten into another war with Canada just since last Thursday, but why e
lse would hundreds of troops be headed for the mountain passes into Pennsylvania? I stayed behind the last truck in the convoy as we began to wind through the hills of the border region. Finally, just a mile or two from the border crossing, the convoy pulled onto a wayside and stopped.
Elise asked me to drive to the front of the convoy to where the command vehicle was. I was to stay with the car while she walked back to speak with the officers. She seemed a strange sight amongst all the khaki uniforms. As was her habit, she had worn a long skirt, but today her dress was pink with short sleeves. It was a spring dress for a woman on vacation. Here she was, pink dress and all, walking straight up to the officer in charge. She had her identification out, but somehow, the minute he saw her, the officer recognized her as one of the nobility, and he straightened to attention. They spoke for a few minutes, then she shook his hand and separated herself a few steps from the soldiers who were gathering around their officers.
Before she had taken three steps she had her cell phone out and began a long conversation with someone. I stared through the window of the car, trying to determine her mood. Angry? Fearful? No, it appeared more as if she were giving a report. I could see her looking up the road, and then back at the convoy. At one point it seemed like she was counting the trucks or the troops, but I couldn’t be sure. Then after about ten minutes she walked back toward the commanding soldier and handed him her cell phone. There were too many soldiers around for me to see him at this point, but I could catch glimpses of him talking into the phone, and once I thought I saw him talking to Elise again. Meanwhile the other officers got the men into lines by the side of the road, with one group backing a truck across the highway below the wayside. It appeared the pass was now closed.
I suppose I should have been nervous during all this. I was an American surrounded by hundreds of French troops. If we were at war, I was on the wrong side of the border. But I was really more curious than anything else. What was going on? I did reach into my sport coat to be sure my passport and visa were in the pocket. They, and Elise, were my best defense if things had gotten bad.
After about fifteen minutes I saw Elise separate herself from the soldiers again and carry on another conversation on her cell phone. Once again she appeared matter of fact. Whatever was happening had not made her angry or concerned. Finally she finished her conversation and walked back over to me.
“Are we at war?” I asked when she got back into the car.
“No, thank God. It appears there was a problem at the border post last night, and things got a bit carried away. The Interior Ministry and the Defense Ministry agreed it might be best to close this border crossing for a few days while things quieted down.”
“Should I drive us back to Duquesne?”
“No, we will be able to cross. The major will be sending a couple men along with us to clarify things with the soldiers on the border.”
“Is that what you were talking to him about?”
“No, we had other things to discuss, things I really can’t talk about, Shawn.” I could certainly understand that, and was about to say so when two soldiers approached the car. One was a lieutenant and the other a sergeant. Both got into the back seat. Elise did all the introductions. I was Messieur Professor from the National University. No mention was made of the fact that I was an American, and I kept my mouth shut about it. Both men were obviously deferential to Elise. While she was a civilian, I had the impression her ministry post gave her a higher ranking than them, or maybe it was her family name, which they obviously recognized.
The lieutenant told me I could drive up to the border, but that I should keep my speed slow – no more than forty kilometers an hour, so none of the troops we were passing got nervous. This of course made me very nervous, but that may not have been a bad thing. I moved slowly and watched carefully as we wound our way up to the border. Around the first bend I saw a squad car with its light still flashing. I guessed he had been the roadblock until the troops had arrived. Still farther I saw the first military vehicles. They were sitting empty along the highway. Where the troops were I didn’t know and didn’t ask.
We were nearly to the top of the pass when I saw the first smoke. I could see it above the trees first. Then when I came around the last bend I saw the source. Some number of cars were still burning and the building that must have been the border post was mostly gone. Cars that hadn’t burned were abandoned all over the road making it hard for me to find a path through them.
“If you drive over on the right shoulder, you can get to where a temporary station has been established,” the lieutenant told me.
“No, I need to speak with the senior immigration people here.” Elise replied. “We need to go to where they are. Can you get us through this mess?” she asked the soldiers.
“Yes, madam.” They both got out of the car, shouted to a few other soldiers, got some directions, and then walked in front of our car, winding a pathway through the cars and over a sidewalk to a hillside near where the border post had been. As I got closer I could see that a hundred or more people were sitting and lying on a hillside while dozens of policemen and several soldiers stood guard. Off to one side a group of men were gathered at the back of a truck, using the tailgate as a table. They were talking, but barely in whispers. It was obvious I was looking at exhausted men.
“Please wait for me here,” Elise asked. “I need to speak with these men.” If she had looked incongruous standing with the soldiers down in the valley, she looked like a vision from another world standing among these men, all of whom were disheveled and many of whom were dirty from the smoke of the fires. Somehow they understood her rank as she approached, and all the men stood straighter. She shook hands all around, but I could see one man hesitate to take her hand, motioning that his own hand was still black from the smoke. She took his hand anyway, and then stood talking with them. Once again she got out her cell phone and talked briefly with someone before handing the phone to the one man in the group who still wore a tie. While he spoke on the phone, she asked questions of another man and he pointed to a variety of places around them before turning to the crowd of people on the hillside and giving her a long description of them. All of this took maybe ten minutes, then the man with the tie finished his phone conversation and started to give her phone back to her. She motioned for him to keep it, shook hands all around again, and then came back to the car.
“It looks like they had a rough night,” I said as she got back in the car.
“Yes, some fool with rumors. A large group of Huguenots were going through customs, trying to get to the U.S. Someone said something stupid, someone else claimed no Huguenots were being allowed out of the country, and the next thing they knew fists were flying and the building was on fire. Luckily no one had a gun.”
“What do we do next?”
“We drive over to America.”
“What about passport checks? What about your cell phone?”
“They lost a lot of their communications gear last night. My cell phone is a lot more valuable to them than it is to me. As for passport checks, their stamps burned up in the fire. They said we could just drive over to the American station if we wished.”
“Do you still want to go?” I looked carefully at her as I asked. I had yet to see any emotion from her. She seemed to be handling this event as if she were scheduling overtime at the office, or making routine work assignments. Was she really that comfortable?
”What happened here was a moment’s insanity. There are good people working here. They can take care of this without me. I want to meet your family. Most of all, right now I want to get across the border and down from this pass so I don’t have to smell burning cars or see the faces on those people.” At the latter she closed her eyes, and I thought for a moment that she might cry, but she held on.
I drove farther down the sidewalk until I was around the ruins of the border post. Once on the
far side I dropped down onto the road again, and covered the last few yards until the gate. The lieutenant we had driven up to the post was already at the gate and raised it as we approached. He stood on Elise’s side of the car, saluting as we passed. Elise answered his salute with a smile and a wave from her soot-encrusted hand, and with that we were out of Canada and back in my America.
There is almost nothing to say about the immigration people on the American side. They were fully staffed and only had the two of us to process, so things went pretty fast. They wanted to chat a bit, and made a comment about seeing French troops. Were there others around? They asked. Neither of us answered directly. I just said that it looked like things were under control now. The immigration people didn’t ask anything else, and we were heading down the mountains within ten minutes.
We could have pushed on for Philadelphia and made it by nine or ten, but I think we had both had enough for the day, so I looked around for a mountain resort near the highway, and found one with a vacancy within half an hour. I called home while Elise washed up and changed. My folks were excited to hear from me and very surprised that we had made it through the pass. The local TV station was saying that dozens had been killed and fighting still raged. I explained that we had just been through the pass. No one had been killed and there was no fighting.
Elise could hear my end of the conversation and shook her head. “Four people were killed, and eight or ten injured. The ambulances had taken them all away before we arrived.” I was dumbfounded. She had said nothing before. I passed the clarification on to my folks, and then told them we would arrive around dinnertime tomorrow.
“I’m sorry” was the only thing I could think to say after I hung up. I gave Elise a hug and we stood in the middle of the hotel room for a long time. What else was there to say? Finally we went out to the hotel restaurant. It had an outdoor terrace with a beautiful view of the valleys to the east. Under normal circumstances we would have really loved the view. But while both of us were facing east to see the hilltops glowing under the setting sun, we were both thinking about what was behind us, back up the mountain.
Worse yet, the other tables gradually filled with other diners, all of whom were talking excitedly about “the battle at Versailles Pass.” Some had dozens dead, others hundreds. One man had American troops on the way to help the Huguenots before they were slaughtered by the French. A couple folks wondered aloud if they were safe being this close to the border. Elise and I had eaten most of meal by now, and while we had begun with little appetite, we had even less now. Finally we just looked at each other and knew it was time to leave. We put down our forks and wound our way back across the terrace. As we neared the exit I couldn’t help myself. I turned back to the diners.
“Folks, we were just in Versailles Pass an hour ago. There is no battle. There was a riot and four people were killed. The police have everything under control. What happened there is over.”
“But the television said…” one man started to object.
“Sir, you are free to believe anything you care to believe. But I am telling you we were just there an hour ago. We saw no battle.” It looked like a couple others wanted to object or raise questions, but I had no interest in arguing with anyone. I followed Elise out of the dining area, stopping just long enough to ask the maitre d to send a bottle of Riesling to our room.
Our room had a balcony and Elise and I spent the next several hours sitting there drinking the wine and watching the sun line move up the valley to our east until just the tree tops were lit across the way. I am not sure we said twenty words between us during those hours. When Elise finally did talk, I was disappointed, but not surprised in her topic.
“I am not sure how long I can stay in Philadelphia, Shawn. I had hoped that things would settle down, but it looks like they are getting worse."
“How does this sound. Today is Monday. We spend two or three days in Philadelphia, then drive up to New York for the weekend. I think you will like the city. We see some shows, do some shopping, attend an early mass at St. Patrick's, and then head back to Green Bay. I’ll have you home by next Monday night. Would that work for you?”
“And your family will not be upset that we would leave so quickly?"
“Of course they will be upset. The minute they see you they will want you to stay forever, but they will understand.” I hoped what I was saying about my family was at least partly true, but it worked for the moment. I got a very long kiss.
Chapter Two
Philadelphia and New York