1632.] ' PIERRE. 17 



increasing his knowledge of Algonquin, maintained 

 an active discourse of broken words and panto- 

 mime.^ 



The lesson, however, was too laborious, and of 

 too little profit, to be often repeated, and the mis- 

 sionary sought anxiously for more stable instruc- 

 tion. To find such was not easy. The interpreters 

 — Frenchmen, who, in the interest of the fur com- 

 pany, had spent years among the Indians — were 

 averse to Jesuits, and refused their aid. There 

 was one resource, however, of which Le Jeune 

 would fain avail himself. An Indian, called Pierre 

 by the French, had been carried to France by the 

 Eecollet friars, instructed, converted, and baptized. 

 He had lately returned to Canada, where, to the 

 scandal of the Jesuits, he had relapsed into his 

 old ways, retaining of his French education little 

 besides a few new vices. He still haunted the fort 

 at Quebec, lured by the hope of an occasional gift 

 of wine or tobacco, but shunned the Jesuits, of 

 whose rigid way of life he stood in horror. As he 

 spoke good French and good Indian, he would 

 have been invaluable to the embarrassed priests at 

 the mission. Le Jeune invoked the aid of the 

 Saints. The efi'ect of his prayers soon appeared, 

 he tells us, in a direct interposition of Providence, 

 which so disposed the heart of Pierre that he quar- 

 relled with the French commandant, who thereupon 

 closed the fort against him. He then repaired to 

 his friends and relatives in the woods, but only 

 to encounter a rebufi" from a young squaw to whom 



1 Le Jeune, Relation, 1633, 2. 

 2* 



