Chapter 11: Bigot’s Ball

“You needn’t expect any trouble from the authorities,” said de Galisonnière, when they sat once more in the great room at the inn. “Dueling is of course frowned upon theoretically, but it’s a common practice, and since no life has been lost, not even any wound inflicted, you’ll hear nothing of it from the government. And de Mézy, I imagine, will say as little about it as possible. He rather fancies himself as a swordsman, and he will not want everybody in Quebec to know that he was defeated and disarmed by a boy. Still, it will spread.”

He and Glandelet took a courteous leave, and Robert thanked them for their services. He liked them both, especially de Galisonnière, and he was sorry that fate should put them on opposing sides in the war that all of them felt was surely coming.

“The French count gave you the hand of friendship, but not the spirit of it,” said Tayoga, who had not spoken at all while they were at the dueling ground. “He was grateful to you for sparing his life, but his gratitude will go like the wind, and then he will hate you. And he will have the powerful friends, of whom the captain spoke, to plot against you and us.”

“That’s so, Tayoga,” said the hunter, gravely, “I’m sorry the Governor General wasn’t here when we arrived. It was an unlucky chance, because it would have been better for us to have given him our letters and have departed at once.”

Robert, in his heart, knew that it was true, and that dangers would soon cluster about them, but he was willing to linger. The spell of Quebec had grown stronger, and he had made an entrance into its world in most gallant fashion, sword in hand, like a young knight, and that would appeal to the warlike French.

They deemed it wise to stay in the inn for a while, but two or three hours later Willet went out, returning soon, and showing some excitement.

“An old friend has come,” he said.

“A friend!” said Robert. “I know of no friend to expect.”

“I used the word ‘friend’ in exactly the opposite sense. It’s an enemy. I’m quite sure nobody in the world hates us more.”

“Tandakora!”

“None other. It’s the sanguinary Ojibway, his very self. I saw him stalking along the streets of Quebec in the most hideous paint that man ever mixed, a walking monument of savage pride, and I’ve no doubt in my mind either why he came here.”

“To get some sort of revenge upon us.”

“That’s it. He’ll go before the Governor General, and charge that we attacked him in the gorge and slew good, innocent men of his.”

“Tandakora is cunning,” said Tayoga. “The Great Bear is right. He will lie many times against us, and it is likely that the Frenchmen, de Courcelles and Jumonville, will come also and tell that they met us in the woods, although they said smooth words to us when we left them.”

“And we don’t know what kind of a net they’ll try to weave around us,” said Willet. “I say again I wish we’d delivered our letters and were out of Quebec.”

But Robert could not agree with the hunter and Tayoga. He was still glad of the lucky chance that had taken away the Governor General. There was also a certain keen delight in speculating what their enemies would do next. Conscious of right and strength he believed they could foil all attempts upon them, and while the question was still fresh in his mind Father Philibert Drouillard came in. Wrapped closely in his black robe he looked taller, leaner, and more ascetic than ever, and his gaze was even stronger and more penetrating. Now it rested upon Robert.

“I had a fair opinion of you,” he said. “Coming with you in the Frontenac down the river I judged you, despite your weapons and the fact that you belong to another race than mine, a gentle youth and full of the virtues. Now I find that you have been fighting and fighting with intent to kill.”

“Hold hard, Father,” said Willet in a good-humored tone. “Only half of that is true. Your information is not full. He has been fighting, but not with intent to kill. He held the life of Count Jean de Mézy on the point of his sword, but gave it back to him, such as it was.”

The deep eyes of the priest smoldered. Perhaps there was a distant and fiery youth of his own that the morning’s deed recalled, but his menacing gaze relaxed.

“If you gave him back his life when you could have taken it, you have done well,” he said. “As the hunter intimates, it is a life of little value, perhaps none at all, but you did not on that account have any right to take it. And I say more, that if the misadventure had to happen to any Frenchman here in Quebec I am glad it happened to one of the wicked tribe of Bigot.”

“Your man Bigot, powerful though he may be, seems to have plenty of enemies,” said the hunter.

“He has many, but not enough, I fear,” said the priest gloomily. “He and his horde are a terrible weight upon the shoulders of New France. But I should not talk of these things to you who are our enemies, and who may soon be fighting us.”

He quit the subject abruptly, and talked in a desultory manner on irrelevant matters. But Robert saw that Quebec itself and the struggle between the powerful Bigot ring and the honnêtes gens was a much greater weight on his mind than the approaching war with the English colonies.

After a stay of a half hour he departed, saying that he was going to visit a parish farther down the river, and might not see them again, but he wished them well. He also bade them once more to beware of Tandakora.

“A good man and a strong one,” said Willet, when, he left. “I seem to feel a kindred spirit in him, but I don’t think his prevision about not seeing us again is right, though his advice to look out for Tandakora is certainly worth following.”

They saw the Ojibway warrior twice that afternoon. Either he concealed the effects of the wound in his shoulder or it had healed rapidly, since he was apparently as vigorous as ever and gave them murderous glances. Tayoga shrugged his shoulders.

“Tandakora has followed us far,” he said, “but this is not the ground that suits him. The forest is better than a city for the laying of an ambush.”

“Still, we’ll watch him,” said Willet.

The evening witnessed the arrival at the Inn of the Eagle of two new guests to whom Monsieur Berryer paid much deference, Colonel de Courcelles and Captain de Jumonville, who had been on an expedition in behalf of His Majesty, King Louis, into the forests of the south and west, and who, to the great surprise of the innkeeper, seemed to be well acquainted with the three.

Robert, Tayoga and Willet were having their dinner, or supper as it would have been called in the Province of New York, when the two Frenchmen dressed in their neat, close-fitting uniforms and with all the marks of travel removed, came into the large room. They rose at once and exchanged greetings. Robert, although he did not trust them, felt that they had no cause of quarrel with the two, and it was no part of his character to be brusque or seek trouble.

De Courcelles gave them a swift, comprehensive glance, and then said, as if they were chance visitors to Quebec:

“You’ve arrived ahead of us, I see, and as I learn, you find the Marquis Duquesne away. Perhaps, if your letters are urgent, you would care to present them to the Intendant, Monsieur Bigot, a man of great perception and judgment.”

Robert turned his examining look with interest. Was he also one of Bigot’s men, or did he incline to the cause of the honnêtes gens? Or, even if he were not one of Bigot’s followers, did he prefer that Robert’s mission should fail through a delivery of his letters to the wrong man? Bigot certainly was not one with whom the English could deal easily, since so far as Robert could learn he was wrapped in the folds of a huge conceit.

“We might do that,” the youth replied, “but I don’t think it’s quite proper. I make no secret of the fact that I bear letters for the Governor General of Canada, and it would not be pleasing to the Governor of the Province of New York for me to deliver them to someone else.”

“It was merely a suggestion. Let us dismiss it.”

He did not speak again of the immediate affairs that concerned them so vitally, but talked of Paris, where he had spent a gay youth. He saw the response in the glowing eyes of Robert, and exerted himself to please. Moreover his heart was in his subject. Quebec was a brilliant city for the New World, but Paris was the center of the whole world, the flower of all the centuries, the city of light, of greatness and of genius. The throne of the Bourbons was the most powerful in modern times, and they were a consecrated family.

Robert followed him eagerly. Both he and de Courcelles saw the Bourbons as they appeared to be before the fall, and not as the world has seen them since, in the light of revelation. The picture of Paris and its splendors, painted by one who loved it, flung over him a powerful spell, and only the warning words Willet had spoken recalled to him that the Bourbon throne might not really be made for all time.

De Courcelles and Jumonville, who had no permanent quarters in Quebec, would remain two days at the inn, and, on the whole, Robert was glad. He felt that the three could protect themselves from possible wiles and stratagems of the two Frenchmen, and that they meant to attempt them he believed he had proof later, as de Courcelles suggested they might call in the course of the evening upon the Intendant, Bigot, who was then at his palace. They need not say anything about their mission, but good company could be found there, and they might be sure of a welcome from the Intendant. Again Robert declined, and de Courcelles did not press the matter. He and Jumonville withdrew presently, saying they had a report to make to the commandant of the garrison, and the three went to bed soon afterward.

Tayoga, who slept lightly, awoke after midnight and went to a window. The Onondaga, most of the three, distrusted Quebec. It was never Quebec to him. It was Stadacona of the Ganeagaono, the great warrior nation of the Hodenosaunee who stood beside the Onondagas, their lost Stadacona, but their Stadacona still. In his heart too burned the story of Frontenac and how he had ravaged the country of the Hodenosaunee with fire and sword. He was here in the very shrine and fortress of the ancient enemies of the great Iroquois. He had taken the education of the white man, he had read in his books and he knew much of the story of the human race, but nothing had ever disturbed his faith that a coming chief of the clan of the Bear, of the nation Onondaga, of the mighty League of the Hodenosaunee was, by right, and in fact, a prince among men.

But while Tayoga learned what civilization, as the European races called it, had to offer, it did not make him value any the less the arts and lore of his own forest. Rather, they increased in size and importance by comparison. He had seen how the talk of de Courcelles had lighted a fire in the soul of Lennox, he had seen how even Willett, the wary, had been stirred, but he, Tayoga, had been left cold. He had read the purpose behind it all, and never for an instant did he let himself put any faith in de Courcelles or Jumonville.

The air of the room was heavy and fetid to Tayoga. His free spirit detected poison in the atmosphere of Quebec, and, for the moment, he longed to be in the great, pure wilderness, pure at least to one of his race. He opened the window more widely and inhaled the breeze which was coming from the north, out of vast clean forests, that no white man save the trapper had ever entered.

He looked upward, at first toward the blue sky and its clustering stars, and then, turning his eyes to the open space near the inn, caught sight of two shadowy figures. The Onondaga was alert upon the instant, because he knew those figures, thin though they seemed in the dusk. One was Tandakora, the Ojibway, and the other was Auguste de Courcelles, Colonel in the French army, a pair most unlike, yet talking together earnestly now.

Tayoga was not at all surprised. He had pierced the mind of de Courcelles and he had expected him to seek Tandakora. He watched them a full five minutes, until the Ojibway slipped away in the darkness, and de Courcelles turned back toward the inn, walking slowly, and apparently very thoughtful.

Tayoga thought once of going outside to follow Tandakora, but he decided that no good object would be served by it and remained at the window, where the wind out of the cold north could continue to blow upon him. He knew that the Indian and de Courcelles had entered into some conspiracy, but he believed they could guard against it, and in good time it would disclose itself.

There might be many hidden trails in a city like Quebec, but he meant to discover the one that Tandakora followed. He remained an hour at the window, and then without awaking his comrades to tell what he had seen went back to his bed. Nor did he say anything about it when they awoke in the morning. He preferred to keep Tandakora as his especial charge. A coming chief of the clan of the Bear, of the nation Onondaga, of the great League of the Hodenosaunee, would know how to deal with a savage Ojibway out of the western forests.

At breakfast, Robert wondered what they would do during the coming day, as it was not advisable to go much about Quebec owing to the notoriety the duel had brought to them. Monsieur Berryer, suave, deferential and full of gossip, informed them that the fame of young Mr. Lennox as a master of the sword had spread through the city in a few hours. Brave and skillful young Frenchmen were anxious to meet him and prove that where Count Jean de Mézy had failed they might succeed.

“The young gentleman will not lack opportunities for honor and glory in Quebec,” said Monsieur Berryer, rubbing his fat, white hands.

“In view of our errand here you must let all these opportunities go, Robert,” said Willet. “If we show ourselves too much some of these hot young French knights will force a fight upon you, not because they hate you, but from sporting motives. But it would be just as bad for you to lose your life in a friendly duel as in one full of hate.”

Robert chafed, nevertheless. The Inn of the Eagle was a good inn, but he did not wish to spend an entire day within its walls. Young Captain Louis de Galisonnière solved the problem, arriving just after breakfast with a note addressed to Mr. Robert Lennox, which proved to be an invitation for all three of them from Monsieur François Bigot, Intendant of Canada, to attend a dinner given by him that evening at his palace. The letter was full of polite phrases. The Intendant had heard of young Mr. Lennox’s surpassing skill with the sword, and of his success with Count Jean de Mézy, who wielded a good blade himself. But neither the Intendant nor those associated with him bore any ill will. It was well known that Mr. Lennox was accredited with letters to the Marquis Duquesne, but in the absence of the Governor General it would be the pleasure of the Intendant to show courtesy to the messenger of the Governor of the Province of New York and his comrades.

It was a full and abounding letter, swarming with polite phrases, and it appealed to Robert. Bigot might be corrupt, but he belonged to the great world, and Robert felt that since he had come to Quebec he ought to see the Intendant, his palace and what was done within its walls. It was true that they had evaded suggestions to meet him, but a formal invitation was different. He passed the letter to Willet, who read it and handed it to Tayoga.

“We’ll have to go, Robert,” said the hunter. “It’s evident that Bigot wants us, and if we don’t accept he may make trouble for us. Yes, it’s wiser to go.”

Robert’s eyes shone and Willet noticed it.

“You’d have been disappointed if I had counseled a negative,” he said.

“I would,” said Robert frankly. “I’m looking forward to the dinner with the Intendant. Will you be there, Captain de Galisonnière?”

“Yes, and I’m glad you’ve accepted. Mr. Willet was right when he said it was wisdom to go. The Intendant is the most powerful man in Canada. ‘Tis said that the Governor General, the Marquis Duquesne, will return to France before long, and hence he lets a part of his authority slip into the hands of Monsieur Bigot. You understand the dual nature of our government in Canada. The Governor General is the immediate personal representative of the King, but the Intendant is supreme over the courts, finance, commerce and all the civil affairs of the country. So a mighty power is lodged in his hands and it’s also true here, as well as elsewhere, that he who holds the purse holds more than the sword.”

“Will Colonel de Courcelles and Captain de Jumonville be there?” continued Robert.

“Undoubtedly. They belong to the military arm, of course, but they are both favorites of Bigot, and they neglect no opportunity to strengthen their position with him. Be careful what you say before them.”

Robert thanked him for his caution, although it was not needed, as he had already resolved to be very wary in the presence of de Courcelles and Jumonville, and the Onondaga also made a mental note of it, knowing that de Courcelles was willing to plot in the dusk with a savage Ojibway.

De Galisonnière did not stay long, and after his departure Robert and his friends reconsidered their determination, deciding that it was best to brave Quebec and whatever it should have to offer in the full light of day. The hunter’s apprehensions that a quarrel might be forced upon them were not justified, as Canadian and French politeness held true, and they were received only with curiosity and interest.

They gazed again at the great stone buildings and also took a brief view of the Intendant’s palace, where they expected to dine in the evening. It was a palace in extent, but not in beauty, a great rambling building of both timber and masonry, with a green lawn and flower gardens near by. It was said that Bigot and his predecessors had spent huge sums on the interior decoration, but that Robert expected soon to see for himself.

Returning to the Inn of the Eagle late in the afternoon, they began to array themselves for Bigot’s dinner, not wishing the Bostonnais to appear at a disadvantage before the noblesse of Quebec. Monsieur Berryer sent them a barber, Gaston, who not only shaved the two white faces, but who powdered and arranged their queues, and also manicured their nails and gave their coats and waistcoats a rakish set, which he assured them was quite the latest mode in Paris. Robert took all his advice. He was very particular about his attire, knowing that however much the jealous might criticize fine dress it always had its effect.

The hunter watched Robert as he and Gaston arranged the new Paris styles with a look that was almost paternal. The fine youth had exceeded Willet’s best hopes. Tall, straight, frank and open, he had the sound mind in the sound body which is the sum of excellence, and the hunter was glad to see him particular. It was a part of his heritage, and became him.

They were not to leave the Inn of the Eagle until after dusk, and Willet suggested that they should not start until late, as they could walk to the palace in a few minutes. But Robert said boldly that they would not walk. It was fitting for the messengers of the Governor of New York to ride and he would have Monsieur Berryer to call a caleche. Willet assented with a laugh.

“You’re right, Robert,” he said, “but I ride so little in carriages that I didn’t think of it.”

The night was rather dark, but when the three in the caleche approached the palace they saw many men holding torches, and many people back of them watching. The entertainments of François Bigot were famous in Quebec for lavish splendor, and the uninvited usually came in numbers to see the guests go in.

“Be on your guard tonight, Robert,” whispered Willet. “This is a society to which you’re not used, although I’ll not deny that you could soon learn it. But the French think we English, whether English English or American English, are inferior in wit and quickness to themselves, and there may be some attempts at baiting the bear before we leave.”

Robert felt his breath coming a little more quickly, and in the dusk, Willet did not see the glow that appeared in his eyes. They might try to “bait the bear” but he would be ready. The new powers that he had found in himself not only accepted the challenge, but craved it. He was conscious that he was not deficient in wit and quickness himself, and if any follower of François Bigot, or if the great Bigot himself tried to make sport of him he might find instead that the ruffler was furnishing sport for the Bostonnais. So it was with a beating heart but no apprehension that he alighted from the caleche with his friends, and went into the palace to meet the Intendant.

The interior of the great building was a singular mixture of barbaric and civilized splendor, the American forests and the factories of France alike being drawn upon for its furnishings. The finest of silken tapestries and the rarest of furs often hung close together. Beyond the anterooms was a large hall in which the chosen guests danced while the people might look on from galleries that surrounded it. These people, who were not so good as the guests, could dance as much as they pleased in a second hall set aside exclusively for their use. In another and more secluded but large room all kinds of games of chance to which Bigot and his followers were devoted were in progress. In the huge dining-room the table was set for forty persons, the usual number, until the war came, when it was reduced to twenty, and Bigot gave a dinner there nearly every evening, unless he was absent from Quebec.

Robert felt as soon as he entered the palace that he had come into a strange, new, exotic atmosphere, likely to prove intoxicating to the young, and he remembered the hunter’s words of warning. Yet his spirit responded at once to the splendor and the call of a gayer and more gorgeous society than any he had ever known. Wealth and great houses existed even then in New York and upon occasion their owners made full use of both, but there was a restraint about the Americans, the English and the Dutch. Their display was often heavy and always decorous, and in Quebec he felt for the first time the heedless gayety of the French, when the Bourbon monarchy had passed its full bloom, and already was in its brilliant decay. Truly, they could have carved over the doorway, “Leave all fear and sorrow behind, ye who enter here.”

There were lights everywhere, flaming from tall silver candlesticks, and uniforms, mostly in white and silver, or white with black or violet facings, were thick in the rooms. Ladies, too, were present, in silk or satin billowing in many a fold, their powdered hair rolled high in the style made fashionable by Madame Jeanne Poisson de Pompadour. From an inner room came the music of a band softly playing French songs or airs from the Florentine opera. The air was charged with odors of perfume.

It was intoxicating, and yet it was pleasant. No, “pleasant” was not the word, it was alluring, it played upon the senses, it threw a glow over the rooms and the people, and the youth saw everything through a tawny mist that heightened and deepened the colors. He was glad that he had come. Nor was “glad” the word either. Seeing what he now saw and knowing what he now knew, he would have blamed himself bitterly had he stayed away.

“Welcome, Mr. Lennox, my brave and generous opponent of the morning,” said a voice, and, looking through the tawny mist, he saw the man whom he had fought and spared, Count Jean de Mézy, in a wonderful coat, waistcoat and knee breeches of white satin, heavily embroidered, white silk stockings, and low white shoes with great silver buckles, and a small gold-hilted sword hanging at his thigh. The cheeks, a trifle too fat, were mottled again, but his manner like his costume was silken. One would have thought that he and not Robert was the victor in that trial of skill by the St. Louis gate.

“Welcome, Mr. Lennox,” he said again in a tone that showed no malice. “The Intendant’s ball will be all the more brilliant for the presence of yourself and your friends. What a splendid figure the young Onondaga chief makes!”

Tayoga bowed to the compliment, which was rather broad but true, and de Mézy ran on:

“We are accustomed here to the presence of Indian chiefs. We French have known how to win the trust and friendship of the warriors and we ask them to our parlors and our tables as you English do not do, although I will confess that the Iroquois hitherto have come into Canada as enemies and not as friends.”

“Quebec was once the Stadacona of the Ganeagaono, known to you as the Mohawks,” said Tayoga in his deep musical voice, “and there is no record that they ever gave or sold it to Onontio.”

De Mézy was embarrassed for a moment, but he recovered himself quickly and laughed.

“You have us there!” he cried, “but it was long, long ago, when Cartier came to Quebec. Times change and ownerships change with them. We can’t roll back the past.”

Tayoga said no more, content to remind the French at intervals that a brother nation of the Hodenosaunee still asserted its title to Quebec.

“You are not the only member of the great red race present,” said de Mézy to Tayoga. “We have a chief from the far west, a splendid type of the forest man. What size! What strength! What a mien! By my faith, he would make a stir in Paris!”

“Tandakora, the Ojibway!” said Robert.

“Yes, but how did you know?”

“We have met him--more than once. We have had dealings with him, and we may have more. He seems to be interested in what we’re doing, and hence we’re never surprised when we see him.”

De Mézy looked puzzled, but at that moment de Courcelles and de Jumonville, wearing uniforms of white and silver, came forward to add their greeting to those of the count. They were all courtesy and the words dropped from their lips like honey, but Robert felt that their souls were not like the soul of de Galisonnière, and that they could not be counted among the honnêtes gens. But the three Frenchmen were ready now to present the three travelers to Monsieur François Bigot, Intendant of Canada, great and nearly all powerful, and Robert judged too that they had made no complaint against his friends and himself.

Bigot was standing near the entrance to the private dancing room, and about him was a numerous company, including ladies, among them the wife of Pean, to whom the gossip of the time gave great influence with him, and a certain Madame Marin and her sister, Madame de Rigaud, and others. As the three approached under the conduct of the three Frenchmen the group opened out, and they were presented in order, Robert first.

The youth was still under the influence of the lights, the gorgeous rooms and the brilliant company, but he gazed with clear eyes and the most eager interest at Bigot, whose reputation had spread far, even in the British colonies. He saw a man of middle years, portly, his red face sprinkled with many pimples, probably from high living, not handsome and perhaps at first repellent, but with an expression of vigor and ease, and an open, frank manner that, at length, attracted. His dress was much like de Mézy’s, but finer perhaps.

Such was the singular man who had so much to do with the wrecking of New France, a strange compound of energy and the love of luxury, lavish with hospitality, an untiring worker, a gambler, a profligate, a thief of public funds, he was also kindly, gracious and devoted to his friends. A strange bundle of contradictions and disjointed morals, he represented in the New World the glittering decadence that marked the French monarchy at home. Now he was smiling as de Mèzy introduced Robert with smooth words.

“Mr. Robert Lennox of Albany and New York,” he said, “the brilliant young swordsman of whom I spoke to you, the one who disarmed me this morning, but who was too generous to take my life.”

Bigot’s smiling gaze rested upon Robert, who was conscious, however, that there was much penetration behind the smile. The Intendant would seek to read his mind, and perhaps to learn the nature of the letters he brought, before they were delivered to their rightful owner, the Marquis Duquesne. Quebec was the home of intrigue, and the Intendant’s palace was the heart of it, but if Robert’s pulse beat fast it was with anticipation and not with fear.

“It was fortune more than skill,” he said. “The Count de Mézy credits me with too much knowledge of the sword.”

“No,” said Bigot, laughing, “Jean wouldn’t do that. He’d credit you with all you have, and no more. Jean, like the rest of us, doesn’t relish a defeat, do you, Jean?”

De Mézy reddened, but he forced a laugh.

“I suppose that nobody does!” he replied, “but when I suffer one I try to make the best of it.”

“That’s an honest confession, Jean,” said Bigot, “and you’ll feel better for making it.”

He seemed now to Robert bluff, genial, all good nature, and the youth stood on one side, while Willet and Tayoga were presented in their turn. Bigot looked very keenly at the Onondaga, and the answering gaze was fierce and challenging. Robert saw that Tayoga was not moved by the splendor, the music and the perfumed air, and that he did not forget for an instant that this gay Quebec of the French was the Stadacona of the Mohawks, a great brother nation of the Hodenosaunee.