The Canadian Civil War: Volume 1 - Birth of a Nation

Picard called me two days later to tell me he could fit me into the President’s schedule in three weeks. This time the appointment was for two hours. Between his tone and the several minutes of chitchat we exchanged, I could tell things had gone well. If he was giving me two hours, I knew I could take four or more if the interview went well. As for waiting three weeks, I assumed that was to avoid looking overly eager and to show me he was a busy man.

  What an unusual three weeks it turned out to be. While I had told no one about my meetings with President Jolliet, it seemed like all of Green Bay knew of it before I had driven the hour back to town. While there had been three parties after my first meeting with the President, now there were dozens – more than I could possibly attend. I had made, if not the A list, at least the B+ list for the local social circuit. The houses were bigger, the wine better, and I went three weeks without having to pay for a meal. Life was good.

  When I arrived at these parties, the reasons for the invitations were never a secret. Within five minutes of my arrival I was always greeted with some variation of “So you are the Jolliet family biographer.” Those aligned with his family and party then tried to fill me with a series of amusing and laudatory anecdotes, while those many in opposition waited until after the third cognac and then dropped their voices to ask, “I don’t suppose he has told you about…” and then they would swiftly disparage the family.

  I learned a great deal about the politics of Canada. We Americans are far more united than they are. I know you will say, “but we spent two centuries as just a collection of colonies that had independent interests and seldom if ever supported each other. Remember what happened when George Washington first attacked Fort Duquesne and tried to secure the Ohio Valley for Virginia? Pennsylvania wouldn’t supply a man or a dollar. Neither would any other colony. We each fought separately and were defeated separately.” Yes that is true, but we learned. We are slow learners and paid dearly for each lesson, but eventually we did learn. While we Americans may have our differences, we are totally united in our hatred for and fear of the French. This unifying principle underscores all our politics.

  But New France is larger and more powerful than the US, so it has the luxury of a broader political spectrum. I had learned little of this while studying in the US, and even during my first year in Green Bay I had just gotten an inkling of the political mood. Besides, sitting in a Lacrosse match surrounded by thousands of frogs drunk of cheap chardonnay, how much political insight was I to garner from shouts of “Hit those damn Huguenots.”

  Now suddenly, everyone wanted to be my political tutor. The fact that I was an American mattered not. I was now a Jolliet biographer, and it was “essential” that I hear their views. I was educated on the various power blocks. There were the Huguenots who had settled Louisiana. Of course there were all the Indian tribes, those in political favor like the Illinois, and those out of favor for what their ancestors had done centuries before. There were western French who seemed to think the buffalo would be coming back any day now, and the Northern French who appeared to believe that the kayak was still man’s greatest achievement. And there were the racial groups – the Haitians who spent about two years being grateful when first they arrived from that cursed rock, and then spent the rest of their lives bitter about their lives in New France, the northern Athabascans who had not assimilated at all, and the strangest group – the “Old French” group who lived around the old capital of Quebec and apparently had to prove that their families went back at least three centuries to Paris.

  Some groups were aligned with the Jolliets, some opposed. All wanted to shape my views and direct my research. I received so many books in the mail the postman, a dour individual like all French civil servants (there’s an oxymoron for you), was even more unpleasant each morning as he deposited the day’s pile of letters and books.

  Also during these three weeks I had the strangest encounter of my time in New France. I had been leasing a Renault through my family’s business. It was a piece of trash like all French products, but it was inexpensive. My family’s business is successful, but we do control costs, and I didn’t want to create the impression that the sons of owners tend to create. So I drove a boxy, noisy Renault that would be laughed off any American highway.

  Then the leasing agency called me. My year was about up, could I come down to look at some special cars they had? I refused, and told them just to renew the current contract. What was the point of looking at something in a different color with more cup holders -- it was still going to be the usual disaster of French engineering. Not that I actually said that to the dealer; I make a real effort to be civil at all times. I told him I was happy with my current car, but he kept insisting that he could find me a much better car at a similar price. Finally the only way I could get him off the phone was to agree to meet him at an appointed time the next afternoon.

  When I arrived, there waiting for me was the president of the leasing company and a representative of Citroen. Now we all laugh at Citroens in the States since they look like beetles with sergeant’s stripes on the back, but they are taken very seriously in New France. They like to think of them as the equivalent of a Cadillac or a Lincoln, which is to say the French dream a lot. Immediately the head of the company introduced himself and explained that since I was visiting with the President these days, I should drive a car more appropriate to the occasion. The Citroen representative was here to show me a well-appointed model that they would lease me at the same cost as my Renault! They walked me over to the car and held the door open so I could climb into this gaudy contraption of leather and wood paneling, which no doubt hid the fact that the usual noisy engine and weak suspension were under the hood.

  I didn’t know what to say. I would be embarrassed to park it in our company lot, and would live in constant fear that someone would take a picture of me in the car and show my friends back in Virginia that I had “gone native.” Yet it would be rude to turn the car down, and they were right that the car would look much better in the President’s drive than my sad little Renault. So I took the car. It was a weird little machine and the roof lines were such that I always had trouble seeing to back into a parking spot, but it did look good sitting in the President’s driveway.

  What else did I do during those three weeks besides go to parties, listen to political slurs, and collect a brand new car? I did my homework. I visited the national library in Green Bay and the National Archives. I hit the Internet and searched hundreds of web sites. I wanted to know more about the crisis of Louis Jolliet. Who know what might be hidden there? A tour of brothels in Paris? A time in a sanitarium? Secret church business? Even a sappy love affair with a kitchen maid?

  I was also intrigued by Claude’s references to 1674 and 1676. What disaster had befallen the colony in 1674? Father Marquette had gotten seriously ill that year and died in 1675. Was that the tragedy? Surely that was a loss to the colony, but he was just one of many players. What else had gone wrong? I had read absolutely nothing in the most popular historical accounts that would hint at a major crisis in that year. As for 1676, I was at a total loss. It was just an ordinary year as far as I knew. To mark that as the real beginning of the empire was completely bizarre. Was Jolliet throwing me curves? Was he playing with me in some way? His heavy emphasis on these years was totally out of step with conventional history.

  What did I learn during my three weeks of research? I learned Canada is filled with crazy people. It turns out there are a hundred web sites with all kinds of conspiracy theories about the Jolliet family, and many begin with Louis and his trip to France. Any vile thing you could do or become was ascribed to young Louis by these people. And this left me with a problem. How could I embarrass the French by undermining their founder, when half the nitwits of Canada had already accused him of things I would never mention in public. It almost made me wish we had never invented the Internet. The scum of the earth had beat
en me into print!

  As I saw it now, I was going to have to pass by personal innuendos, at least as far as 1668 was concerned. Maybe what I wanted was in 1674 and the “disaster” Claude had mentioned. But I would need more direction from Jolliet. General histories of that year showed me nothing I could use.

  So on a late September day with the oak and maple trees beginning to turn yellow and red, I drove my new Citroen, rattles, grinding gears and all, up the Fox River Valley to the chateau on Lake Winnebago. The security search went much more quickly this time, and Picard and I took several minutes to talk about both the upcoming Opera season and recent La Crosse matches, proving to each other that we were both very cultured, but also real men.

  The President was waiting for me near his grape arbor, but this time he was standing and supervising the grape harvest. He was involved in an animated discussion with a man who appeared to be his foreman as Picard and I walked back to him. We paused a few steps away while he completed his conversation, and then approached.

  “Mr. President,” Picard announced, “You will recall Mssr Murphy.” Of course he recalled me, but protocol demanded that each visitor be formally introduced each time he approached the president.

  “Mr. President, “I began. “I am pleased you were able to see me again. But I wonder if I have come at a poor time. It appears you are beginning the harvest.” After waiting three weeks for this meeting, I wasn’t about to leave, but it seemed sensible to at least appear courteous.

  “Not at all.” He motioned me back to the grape arbor where we had sat and talked last time. “As often happens, some of the older vines on the lower slopes have ripened a bit ahead of schedule, and the vintner needed my permission to harvest those rows. Now that he has my approval, he can do all that needs to be done. We can watch them work as we sit and talk about the old days.” As we reached the table he motioned for me to sit. Picard meanwhile, had returned to the house, and I was alone with the President.

  It was actually a very pleasant afternoon. Wisconsin falls can be very short, with hard frosts hitting in early October, and first snows coming in mid-November. So the real beauty of the fall tends to be concentrated into the month of September. As we sat on the top of our ridge we could see forests of trees turning yellow, orange, and red, and flocks of geese were visible following the Fox south. Claude paused a moment after we sat down, seemingly to let me appreciate the beauty of this setting. I did enjoy the setting, but having spent a winter in Green Bay, I also knew what this view would be like for the six months of winter – snow, wind, cold, and 4:30 sunsets. If we had further interviews, I doubted that they would be outdoors.

  “Mr. President, you will recall we ended our last conversation with Louis Jolliet and the events of 1668. Louis had returned to Quebec after his brief sojourn in Paris.”

  “Yes, yes.” Claude raised his hand to stop my introduction. “But first let me ask you about the more recent past. I hear you have become a popular man.” I was uncertain how to interpret the expression on his face, so I took the comment as a joke.

  “Yes, I have found a visit with you to do wonders for my social life. I have gone from being an ordinary American businessman, to a person of interest.” I nodded in his direction with a modest smile. “I now bask in your reflected glory.”

  “And I suspect you have now become a magnet for a wide range of personality types.” Now I knew where this conversation was going. He knew his political enemies were talking to me. He wanted to know what I was hearing and how I was responding. Having been in politics for over half a century I doubted he was at all vulnerable to slander, but he appeared curious as to how I was reacting to my new knowledge. I decided it I would quickly put him at his ease.

  “I have not only met a wide range of personality types, I think I have encountered some personality types not yet registered in psychology tests.” I smiled broadly as I said this. “But I suspect they find me poor company. I am an historian, and my focus is on a few decades that passed three centuries ago. Other stories evaporate from my memory as quickly as the latest lacrosse scores.”

  This was apparently the response he wanted. He was too proud to ask me exactly what slanders I was hearing, and too proud to want to respond to them, but like all politicians he was concerned about his place in the public eye. He had to know my respect for him had not changed.

  “That is good. So why don’t we return to our discussion of those decades. Although I must warn you, there is less drama in the years before 1673 than your history might like.”

  “Shall I begin with Marquette?” he asked. “The creation of a priest is a singular thing. You might be interested.” I nodded and Jolliet continued. “Jacques Marquette was the eldest son of one of the first families in Laon. His family had been there for centuries. These were no peasants. His line included the local sheriff – a huge post at the time. And the city treasurer. They always had one foot in the local power structure. The other foot was in business. They had interests in the town and an estate down the hill on the plains below Laon. They married carefully. Each generation did well in a city that was itself doing very well. As eldest son Jacque’s place among the leaders of the city was already waiting.

  “What I am telling you is that this was not some poor boy who found solace and sustenance in the church. Jacques had a good life prepared for him over many generations. But he walked away from that life. His first step was common for a boy of his position – he was sent to boarding school at the Jesuit School in Rheims. I suspect this conjures up images of Dickens compounded by the fire and brimstone of the Jesuits of your imagination. But this was hardly the case. Yes, boys were to spend an hour each day praying, but they also spent hours each day playing. Actual classroom time was less than six hours a day and the boys were given plenty to eat. Besides, he had relatives in the city. Was it hard for a boy of nine to be away from his family? Certainly. But this was no workhouse. It was a school for the best families of the region. He was well cared for.

  “What did boys do there? They studied at least three languages, mathematics, geography, and of course theology. And they played and went into town for treats. The historical record indicates young Jacques did just fine. But what do school reports tell you – nothing. The grades cannot tell us about his passions. Ultimately each person finds a passion and pursues it, is that not so?”

  “Yes, it is.” Did he know what passion I was pursuing at that very moment?

  “For Jacques the passion was ignited by the reports – the famous “Relations”. I know you think the whole history of France is the history of Jesuits manipulating the various civil authorities. But in fact the order had many trials and tribulations. In the 1650s, however, it was enjoying a series of triumphs. Jesuit missionaries had finally made it to Japan and China. The annual reports they sent back were more exciting than anything these young boys had ever heard. Frenchmen were actually talking with the emperor of China! They were teaching the heathen Chinese the blessings of Jesus Christ. It might be possible to baptize Chinese by the millions and save them from eternal damnation. What a thought! What a time!

  “And it wasn’t just China. There were missionaries in the Indies and in Canada and in Viet Nam. The Jesuit teachers could teach a geography of the possible. Here is the world, boys. Here are all the countries and all their customs. And in so many of them Frenchmen just like you have taken the vows and traveled as missionaries to meet with kings and queens and potentates. Each geography lesson could be followed up with the reading of the annual report – the “Relations” -- the missionary sent back to France, where it could be printed and distributed to each of the Jesuit schools, there to be heard in the evening by young boys imagining the deeds and destinations described in the words of their Jesuit brethren.”

  “And the boys listened. In a day without television, or movies, or distractions of any sort, they listened and let their young i
maginations take them around the world. For a Jesuit, all the world was available. For Jacques, there was only one goal in life – to be a Jesuit and walk the paths of the brothers whose words stirred him every day.

  “How could he explain this to his family? There had been no priests in the family before and there have been none since. This is a practical, successful clan. His family was not driven by poverty to send the children into religious orders, nor was it driven by piety to send one child per generation into the clergy for the greater glory of God. They send Jacques off for an education, and he came back with a calling. But he stayed on good terms with his family.

  “Let me tell you a story about the young Marquette. It is his third year at Rheims. He is fourteen and he has determined that he will become a missionary. He has prayed about this for over a year. He is sure it is his calling. It is time to tell his family. So on one of his vacations back at Laon he goes riding with his father.

  His father takes him out of town down to the family estate. He explains how each of the crops was doing, and the price of grain and the ideas he has for expanding the acres under cultivation. He is teaching Jacques how to be a gentleman farmer. But the minute he pauses to take a breath, Jacques starts telling him stories about China and the Emperor and the works of the Jesuits. He describes country after country and where God’s Word is being shared.

  “And the two spend the day that way. Father describes crops, son describes missionary work. They ride all day and then return home to the family. Midway through the family dinner, his father says, “I have good news. Jacques has committed himself to God.” And with that, Jacques has his father’s permission to be a priest.”

  “There was a father who loved his son.” I replied. I was also thinking about the second son who must have enjoyed that meal immensely – he would now inherit the estate. I bet he remembered that meal for many years.

  “If you can imagine that boy,” Jolliet told me, “you can imagine what a canoe trip would be like with him. You are paddling down rivers unseen by Europeans, and the man at your side is healthy, happy, and having the time of his life. While some might be afraid of what they would find around each bend in the river, Marquette strained to look around each corner in the hope of meeting new people - Indians he could learn from, Indians he could save from eternal damnation. You can bet he paddled the fastest of any of the seven.”

  “Do you know why it took him so long to be accepted as a missionary?” I asked, feeling just a bit wicked about the direction I was taking the conversation. “As I understand it, he was thirty by the time he sailed to Quebec, and had been asking for a mission assignment for nearly a decade before finally being accepted.”

  “Yes, he waited ten years. Can you imagine a child of our day waiting ten years for anything? But nothing happened quickly in those days. And for Jesuits, time moved to carefully measured beats. There was a process to be followed, and no matter what else was happening in the world, a priest became a priest only after each step in the dance was completed. There was no fast track or short cuts. Did you know one of his requirements was to live as a beggar for one month?”

  “No, I wasn’t aware of that practice.”

  “Yes, the order has a series of exercises designed to breed humility and to broaden perspectives. Loyola himself began the practice. In one exercise, pairs of seminarians had to walk two hundred miles to a shrine and back in one month, and to do it without a sou in their pocket. What makes the exercise particularly interesting is that many Frenchmen of the time didn’t like priests in general and Jesuits in particular. They were taxed by the church to support schools and churches, and peasants had a very hard life anyway. Then to be asked to give food to wandering priests, they had to ask, I work hard for my food, why should I give it away to these lazy priests? Many peasants refused. So young Marquette spent his month often sleeping outdoors, and often hungry. Worse yet, he learned that many of his countrymen had no respect for his vocation. Quite a challenge for a young man, isn’t it? To be hungry and humiliated? Any arrogance among the seminarians disappeared during that month.”

  “But that was just one exercise. They also spent a month cleaning the sick in hospitals, and many months tending the garden and cleaning the pots in the college kitchen. There were so many exercises designed to teach humility. Humility is not a natural state for twenty year olds, don’t you agree?”

  I had to laugh. “No, humility and twenty year olds are not natural partners.” He paused in his story, and we each sipped a bit of wine and smiled at our own thoughts and behaviors at that age.

  “But he spent much of this decade as a teacher. When he left Rheims at seventeen, he had the equivalent of a Bachelor of Arts degree. This was the manner of the times. During the next decade he spent most years teaching at Jesuit “colleges” usually getting the boys of ten, eleven, or twelve. Like all new teachers, no doubt he remembered himself as always obedient, always attentive, and always eager to learn (and maybe he actually was), but now he had to teach real boys who rarely possess any of the traits teachers expect. What great experience. If you can get the attention of a twelve-year old boy, you can get the attention of any person in the world, including Indians along the Mississippi.”

  “I can believe that,” I replied. “so he spent the decade teaching and waiting.”

  “Well, there was a bit more to it than that. While he was teaching, he was also studying theology, earning a masters degree, and being ordained as a Jesuit father. And, he kept writing letters. When France sent a group of Jesuits to Viet Nam, he asked to go. He was told he wasn’t ready yet. When he learned about the missions in New France, he asked to be included. He told every Jesuit he met that he wished to be a missionary, and followed up with letters of request. He was always pleasant in his requests, but he was also insistent. His had a dream that had been born in his childhood listening to the stories of the missionaries. Each year he was more attracted to the dream. He had one goal in his life and his attention on that goal was total.”

  “After ten years, his dream was realized. French troops had finally beaten the Iroquois and the greatest danger to New France was at least temporarily subdued. It was time to expand the colony and the missions. Without Iroquois war parties to fear, who knew where the missionaries could now go? A call went out for Jesuits willing to serve in Canada, and Marquette was asked for by name. They knew his talents and his interests. He sailed from New Rochelle in June of 1667, just days after turning thirty. Twenty years after first hearing the stories of Jesuit missionaries, he was one.”

  This seemed a natural place to end the interview. We exchanged small talk for a few minutes while I gathered up my notes and tape recorder. Outside I was surprised to see two other cars in the drive. So the President really did have other appointments. I found it pleasant, somehow, that he hadn’t been totally abandoned.

  Chapter 5

  I meet Elise