124 PERSECUTION. [1637-40. 



dark and threatening. Voices were heard in their 

 defence, and looks were less constantly averted. 

 They ascribed the change to the intercession of 

 St. Joseph, to whom they had vowed a nine days' 

 devotion. By whatever cause produced, the lapse 

 of a week wrought a hopeful improvement in their 

 prospects ; and when they went out of doors in the 

 morning, it was no longer with the expectation of 

 having a hatchet struck into thek brains as they 

 crossed the threshold.^ 



The persecution of the Jesuits as sorcerers con- 

 tinued, in an intermittent form, for years ; and 

 several of them escaped very narrowly. In a 

 house at Ossossane, a young Indian rushed sud- 

 denly upon Fran9ois Du Peron, and lifted his toma- 

 hawk to brain him, when a squaw caught his hand. 

 Paul Hagueneau wore a crucifix, from which hung 

 the image of a skull. An Indian, thinking it a 

 charm, snatched it from him. The priest tried to 

 recover it, when the savage, his eyes glittering with 

 murder, brandished his hatchet to strike. Rague- 

 neau stood motionless, waiting the blow. His 

 assailant forbore, and withdrew, muttering. Pierre 

 Chaumonot was emerging from a house at the 

 Huron town called by the Jesuits St. Michel, 

 where he had just baptized a dying girl, when her 

 brother, standing hidden in the doorway, struck 

 him on the head with a stone. Chaumonot. se 



1 " Tant y a que depuis le 6. de Nouembre que nous acheuasnies nos 

 Messes votiues a son honneur, nous auons iouy d'vn repos incroyable, 

 nous nous en emerueillons nous-mesmes de iour en iour, quand nous con- 

 Biderous en quel estat estoient nos affaires il n'y a que huict iouie." — Le 

 Mercier, Relation des Hurons, 1638, 44. 



