CHAPTEH X. 



1637-1640. 

 PERSECUTION. 



OssossANE. — The New Chapel. — A Triumph of the Faith. — 

 The Nether Powers, — Signs op a Tempest. — Slanders. — 

 Rage against the Jesuits. — Their Boldness and Persist- 

 ency. — Nocturnal Council. — Danger op the Priests. — 

 Brebeuf's Letter. — Narrow Escapes. — Woes and Consola- 

 tions. 



The town of Ossossane, or Eochelle, stood, as we 

 have seen, on the borders of Lake Huron, at the 

 skirts of a gloomy wilderness of pine. Thither, in 

 May, 1637, repahed Father Pijart, to found, in 

 this, one of the largest of the Huron towns, the 

 new mission of the Immaculate Conception.^ The 

 Indians had promised Brebeuf to build a house for 

 the black-robes, and Pijart found the work in prog 

 ress. There were at this time about fifty dwellings 

 in the town, each containing eight or ten families. 

 The quadrangular fort already alluded to had now 

 been completed by the Indians, under the instruc- 

 tion of the priests.^ 



1 The doctrine of the immacuhite conception of the Virgin, recently 

 sanctioned by the Pope, has long been a favorite tenet of the Jesuits. 



'^ Lettres de Gamier, MSB. It was of upright pickets, ten feet hisfh, 

 witli flanking towers at two angles. 

 [110] 



