208 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



among the living, animating their hearts to endure unto the bitter end. 

 And not for one moment did they quail. " We cannot hope," writes 

 Eagueneau, his companion in toil and tribulation, "but to follow m 

 the burning path whidi he has trod, but we will gladly suffer for the 

 glory of the masiter whom we serve." 



The next act of this tragedy opens eight months later, in the early 

 spring of 1649. A thousand Iroquois warriors had, during the winter, 

 made their way from near the Hudson Eiver, around the head of Lake 

 Ontario, and across the western peninsula to the Huron country. The 

 object of attack was the village of St. Ignace, situated about ton miles 

 northwest of the present town of Orillia, Ont. It was completely sur- 

 prised in the early dawn of March 16th, and taken almost without a 

 blow.i All the inhabitants were massacred, or reserved for cruelties 

 more terrible than death, save three fugitives, who fled, half-naked, 

 through the snow to the neighbouring town of St. Louis, about three 

 miles distant. 



Most of the inhabitants of St. Louis had time to escape before the 

 attack of the Iroquois, but about eighty Huron warriors made a stand 

 for the defence of their homes. With them remained the two Jesuit 

 missionaries, Jean dc Brébeuf and Gabriel Lalemant, who, scorning to 

 fly, chose the point of danger among their flock, standing in the breach, 

 the one baptizing the catechumens, the other absolving the neophytes. - 

 The town was speedily taken and burned. The Jesuits, however, were 

 not immediately killed, " being reserved for a more glorious crown,'' ■'' 

 but were, with the other captives, driven before their exulting con- 

 querors back to St. Ignace. 



Now began a scene of fieiidish torture. The missionaries, stripped 

 naked, were compelled to run the gauntlet through a savage mob, 

 frenz-ied with cruelty, drunk with blood. They received a perfect storm 

 of blows on every part of the body. " Children," said Brébeuf to his 

 fellow captives, "let us look to God. Let us remember that He is the 

 witness of our sufferings, that He will be our exceeding great reward. 

 I feel for you more than for myself. But endure with courage the little 

 that remains of these torments. They wiR end with our lives, but the 

 glory that follows shall continue forever." 



The Iroquois, maddened to fury, tore off the nails of their victims, 

 pierced their hands, lacerated their flesh. Brébeuf, of brawny frame, 

 and iron thews, and dauntless bearing — the Ajax of the Huron Mission 

 — was the especial object of their rage. On him they wreaked their 

 most exquisite tortures. They cut off his lips, they seared his throat 



^ " Quasi sans coup férir." — Kagueneau, Relation des Murons, 1649, p. 10. 

 ' " L'un éstoit a la brèclie baptisant les catéchumènes, l'autre donnant 

 l'absolution aux néophytes."— /b. p. 11. 



' "Dieu les rèseruoit il des couronnes bien plus grandes." — Ib. 



