Chapter 9: At the Inn

When Quebec came into view Robert stood up and looked long at the great rock and the town that crowned it, hung on its slopes and nestled at the foot of the cliffs below. Brilliant sunshine gilded its buildings of stone and gray wood, and played like burnished gold on the steeples of its many churches. In the distance the streets leading up the steep cliffs looked like mere threads, but in the upper town the great public buildings, the Intendant’s Palace, the Cathedral, Notre Dame de la Victoire, the convents of the Ursuline Nuns and the Recollet Friars, the Bishop’s Palace, and others raised for the glory and might of France, were plainly visible.

In more than one place he saw the Bourbon lilies floating and from the little boat on which he stood in the stream it looked like a grim and impregnable fortress of the Old World. The wonderful glow of the air, and the vast river flowing at its feet, magnified and colored everything. It was a city ten times its real size and the distance turned gray wood to gray stone. Everything was solid, immovable, and it seemed fit to defy the world.

Robert felt a catch in his breath. He had often seen Quebec, great and beautiful, in his dreams, but the reality was equal to it and more. To the American of that day Quebec was one of the vital facts of life. From that fortress issued the daring young French soldiers of fortune who led the forays against New York and New England. It was the seat of the power that threatened them continually. Many of the Bostonnais, seized in their fields, had been brought here as prisoners to be returned home only after years, or never. From this citadel, too, poured the stream of arms and presents for the Indians who were to lie in ambush along the English border, or to make murderous incursions upon the villages. From it flowed the countless dangers that had threatened the northern provinces almost continually for a century and a half. The Bostonnais themselves, mark of the initiative and energy that were to distinguish them so greatly later on, made a mighty effort against it, and doubtless would have succeeded, had they been allowed to carry the fight to a finish.

No man from New York or New England could look upon it without a mingling of powerful emotions. It was the Carthage to their Rome. He admired and yet he wished to conquer. He felt that permanent safety could never come to the northern border until the Bourbon lilies ceased to float over the great fortress that looked down on the St. Lawrence. Robert was not the only one who felt strong emotion. Tayoga stood beside him, his nostrils expanding and his gaze fierce:

“Stadacona!” he said under his breath, “Stadacona of the Ganeagaono, our great brother nation!”

But the emotion of de Galisonnière was of pleasure only. His eyes sparkled with joy and admiration. He was delighted to come back to Quebec, the gay city that he beheld through the eyes of youth and glowing recollections. He knew the corruption and wickedness of Bigot and of Cadet and of Pean and of the whole reckless circle about the Intendant, but Quebec, with its gallant men and its beautiful women; its manners of an Old World aristocracy and its air of a royal court, had many pleasures, and why should youth look too far into the future?

And yet another stood up and looked at Quebec, with emotions all his own, and unlike those of the three who were so young. Father Drouillard, tall in his black robe, gazed fixedly at the rock, and raised his hand in a gesture much like that with which he had cursed the chateau of Count Jean de Mézy. His eyes were set and stern, but, as the sun fell in floods of burnished gold on the cathedral and the convents, his accusing look softened, became sad, then pitying, then hopeful.

“A wonderful sight, Father Drouillard,” said Willet, who stood at his elbow and who also gazed at Quebec with feelings quite his own. “I’ve seen it before, but I can never see it too often.”

“Mr. Willet,” said the priest, “you and I are greater in years than these youths, and perhaps for that reason we can look farther into the future. Youth fears nothing, but age fears everything. You come to Quebec now in peace, and I trust that you may never come in war. I can feel, nay I can see the clouds gathering over our two lands. Why should we fight? On a continent so vast is there not room enough for all?”

“Room and to spare,” replied the hunter, “but as you say, Father Drouillard, you and I have lived longer than these youths, and age has to think. If left to themselves I’ve no doubt that New France and the English colonies could make a lasting peace, but the intrigues, the jealousies and the hates of the courts at London and Paris keep our forests, four thousand miles away, astir. When the Huron buries his arrow in the heart of a foe the motive that sent him to the deed may have had its start in Europe, but the poor savage never knows it.”

The priest sighed, and looked at Willet with an awakened curiosity.

“I see that you’re a man of education,” he said, “and that you think. What you say is true, but the time will come when other minds than those of vain and jealous courtiers will sway the fortunes of all these vast regions. I have asked you nothing of your mission in Quebec, Mr. Willet, but I hope that I will see you again before you return.”

“I hope so too,” said the hunter sincerely.

The Frontenac now drew in to a wharf between the Royal Battery and the Dauphin’s Battery, and Robert was still all eyes for the picturesque sights that awaited him in the greatest French town of the New World. De Galisonnière was hailed joyously by young officers and he made joyous replies. Robert, as they landed, saw anew and in greater detail the immense strength of Quebec.

He beheld the line of huge earthworks that Frontenac had built from the river St. Charles to Cape Diamond, and he saw the massive redoubts lined with heavy cannon. Now, he wondered at the boldness of the New Englanders who had assailed the town with so much vigor, and who might have taken it.

“I recommend to you,” said de Galisonnière, “that you go to the Inn of the Eagle in the Upper Town. It is kept by Monsieur Berryer, who as a host is fully equal to Monsieur Jolivet of Montreal, and the merits of Monsieur Jolivet are not unknown to you.”

“They are not,” said Robert heartily, “and we may thank you, Captain de Galisonnière, for your great courtesy in bringing us from Montreal. We can only hope for a time in which we shall be able to repay your kindness.”

After they had slipped some silver pieces to the boatmen and had said farewell to Captain de Galisonnière, they took their way up a steep street, a swarthy French-Canadian porter carrying their baggage. Here, as at Montreal, the most attention was attracted by Tayoga, and, if possible, the young Onondaga grew more haughty in appearance and manner. His moccasined feet spurned the ground, and he gazed about with a fierce and defiant eye.

Robert knew well what was stirring the spirit of the Onondaga. This was not the Quebec of the French, it was the Stadacona of the Mohawks, the great brother nation of the Onondagas, and the French here were but interlopers and robbers.

But Robert soon lost thought of Tayoga as he looked at the crowded city, and its mingling of the splendid and the squalid, its French and French-Canadians, its soldiers and priests and civilians and Indians, its great stone houses, and its wooden huts, its young officers in fine white uniforms and its swarthy habitants in brown homespun. Albany had its Dutch, and New York had its Dutch, too, and people from many parts of Europe, but Quebec was different, something altogether new, without a trace of English or Dutch about it, and, for that reason, it made a great appeal to his curiosity.

A light open carriage drawn by two stout ponies passed them at an amazing pace considering the steepness of the street, and they saw in it a florid young man in a splendid costume, his powdered hair tied in a queue.

“De Mézy,” said the priest, who was just behind them.

Then they knew that it was the young man, the companion of Bigot in his revels, against whose chateau Father Drouillard had raised his threatening hands. Now the priest spoke the name with the most intense scorn and contempt, and Robert, feeling that he might encounter de Mézy again in this pent-up Quebec, gazed at his vanishing figure with curiosity. They had their gay blades in New York and Albany and even a few in Boston of the Puritans, but he had not seen anybody like de Mézy.

“It is such as he who are pulling down New France,” murmured Father Drouillard.

A moment or two later the priest said farewell and departed in the direction of the cathedral.

“There goes a man,” said Willet, as he looked after the tall figure in the black robe. “I don’t share in the feeling of church against church. I don’t see any reason why Protestant should hate Catholic and Catholic should hate Protestant. I’ve lived long enough and seen enough to know that each church holds good men, and unless I make a big mistake, and I don’t think I make any mistake at all, Father Drouillard is not only a good man, but he has a head full of sense and he’s as brave as a lion, too.”

“Lots of priests are,” said Robert. “Nobody ever endured the Indian tortures better than they. And what’s the figure over the doorway, Dave?”

“That, Robert, is Le Chien d’Or, The Golden Dog. It’s the sign put up by Nicholas Jaquin, whom they often called Philibert. This is his warehouse and he was one of the honnêtes gens that we’ve been talking about. He fought the corrupt officials, he tried to make lower prices for the people, and beneath his Golden Dog he wrote:”

“Je suis un chien qui ronge l’os,

En le rongeant je prends mon repos;

Un jour viendra qui n’est pas venu,

Que je mordrai qui m’aura mordu.”

“That is, some day the dog will bite those who have bitten him?”

“That’s about it, Robert, and I suppose it generally comes true. If you keep on striking people some of them in time will strike you and strike you pretty hard.”

“And does Philibert still run his warehouse beneath his sign of the Golden Dog?”

“No, Robert. He was too brave, or not cautious enough, and they assassinated him, but there are plenty of others like him. The French are a brave and honest people, none braver or more honest. I tell you so, because I know them, but their government is corrupt through and through. The House of Bourbon is dying of its own poison. It may seem strange to you, hearing me say it here in the Western world, so far from Versailles, but I’m not the only one who says so.”

“But I like Quebec,” said Robert. “I haven’t seen another city that speaks to the eye so much.”

They were now well into the Upper Town, and the porter guided them to the Inn of the Eagle, where Monsieur Paul Berryer, the host, gave them a welcome, and from whom they learned that the Governor General, the Marquis Duquesne, was absent in the east, but would return in two or three days. Robert was not sorry for the delay, as it would give them a chance to see the city, and perhaps, through de Galisonnière, make acquaintances among the French officers.

They were able to secure a large room with three beds, and both Robert and Willet drew from their small store of baggage suits quite in the fashion, three-cornered hats, fine coats and waistcoats, knee breeches, stockings and buckled shoes, and as a last and crowning triumph they produced handsome small swords or rapiers that they buckled to their belts.

“That canoe of ours wasn’t large, but it brought a lot in it,” said the hunter.

Robert surveyed himself in a small glass, and his clothes brought great pride. A chord in his nature responded to splendor of raiment, and the surroundings of the great world. Quebec might be corrupt but he could not hide from himself his immense interest in it. He noticed, too, that Willet wore his fine costume naturally.

“It’s not the first time that you’ve been in such clothes, Dave,” he said, “and it’s not the first time that you’ve been in a society like that which makes its home in Quebec.”

“No, it is not,” replied Willet, “and some time, Robert, I’ll tell you about those days, but not now.”

Tayoga remained in his dress of a young Indian chief. Even if he had had any other he would not have put it on, and the fine deerskin and the lofty headdress became him and stamped him for what he was, a prince of the forest. He held in his heart, too, a deeper feeling against the French than any that animated either Robert or Willet. He could not forget that this was not Quebec, but Stadacona of the Ganeagaono, whose rights were also the rights of the other nations of the Hodenosaunee, and it was here that Frontenac, who had slaughtered the Iroquois, had made his home and fortress. The heart of Tayoga of the clan of the Bear of the nation Onondaga, of the great League of the Hodenosaunee, burned within him and the blood in his veins would not grow cool.

“I suppose, Dave,” said Robert, “since we have to wait two days for the Marquis Duquesne, that we might go forth at once and begin seeing the town.”

“Food first,” said the hunter. “We’ve come a long journey on the river and we’ll test the quality of the, inn.”

It was too cool for the little terrace that adjoined the Inn of the Eagle, and Monsieur Berryer had a table set for them in the great dining-room, which had an oaken floor, oaken beams and much china and glass on shelves about the walls, the whole forming an apartment in which the host took a just pride. It was gayer and brighter than the inns of Albany and New York, and again Robert found his spirit responding to it.

A fire of light wood that blazed and sparkled merrily burned in a huge stone fireplace at the end of the room, and its grateful warmth entered into Robert’s blood. He suddenly felt a great exaltation. He was glad to be there. He was glad that Tayoga and Willet were with him. He was glad that they had encountered dangers on their journey because they had won a triumph in overcoming them, and by the very act of victory they had increased their own strength and confidence. His sensitive, imaginative nature, easily kindled to supreme efforts, thrilled with the thoughts of the great deeds they might do.

His pleasure in the company and the atmosphere increased. Everything about him made a strong appeal to good taste. At the end of the room, opposite the fireplace, stood a vast sideboard, upon which china and glass, arranged in harmonious groups, shone and glittered. The broad shelves or niches in the walls held much cut glass, which now and then threw back from many facets the ruddy light of the fire. Before sitting down, they had dipped their hands in a basin of white china filled with water, and standing beside the door, and that too had pleased Robert’s fastidious taste.

At their table each of the three found an immaculate white napkin, a large white china plate and goblet, knife, fork and spoon, all of silver, polished to the last degree. Again Robert’s nature responded and he looked at himself in his fine dress in the glittering silver of the goblet. Then his right hand stole down and caressed the hilt of his rapier. He felt himself very much of a gentleman, very much of a chevalier, fit to talk on equal terms with St. Luc, de Galisonnière or the best French officer of them all. And Willet, wearing his costly costume with ease, was very much of a gentleman too, and Tayoga, dressed as the forest prince, was in his own way, and quite as good a way, as much of a gentleman as either.

At least a dozen others were in the great room, and many curious eyes were upon the three visitors from the south. It was likely that the presence of such marked figures as theirs would become known quickly in Quebec. They had shown the papers bearing their names at the gate by which they had entered, and doubtless the news of their arrival had been spread at once by the officer in command there. Well, they would prove to the proud chevaliers of Quebec how the Bostonnais could bear themselves, and Robert’s pulses leaped.