1649.] HIS DEATH. 407 



clothing ; the Indian converts dug a grave on the 

 spot where his church had stood; and here they 

 buried him. Thus, at the age of forty-four, died 

 Charles Garnier, the favorite child of wealthy and 

 noble parents, nursed in Parisian luxury and ease, 

 then living and dying, a more than willing exile, 

 amid the hardships and horrors of the Huron wil- 

 derness. His life and his death are his best eu- 

 logy. Brebeuf was the lion of the Huron mission, 

 and Gamier was the lamb ; but the lamb was as 

 fearless as the lion.^ 



When, on the following morning, the warriors 

 of St. Jean returned from their rash and bootless 



1 Garnier's devotion to the mission was absolute. He took little or 

 no interest in the news from France, which, at intervals of from one to 

 three years, found its way to the Huron towns. His companion Bressani 

 says, that he would walk thirty or forty miles in the hottest summer day, 

 to baptize some dying Indian, when the country was infested by the enemy. 

 On similar errands, he would sometimes pass the night alone in the forest 

 in the depth of winter. He was anxious to fall into the hands of the 

 Iroquois, that he might preach the Faith to them even out of the midst 

 of the fire. In one of his unpubhshed letters he writes, " Praised be our 

 Lord, who punishes me for my sins by depriving me of this crown" 

 (the crown of martyrdom). After the death of Brebeuf and Lalemant, 

 he writes to his brother : — 



" Helas ! Mon cher frere, si ma conscience ne me convainquait et ne 

 me confondait de mon infidelite au service de notre bon maitre, je pour- 

 rais esperer quelque faveur approchante de celles qu'il a faites aux bien- 

 heureux martyrs avec qui j'avais le bien de converger souveut, etant 

 dans les memes occasions et dangers qu'ils e'taient, mais sa justice me 

 fait craindre que je ne demeure toujours indigne d'une telle couronne." 



He contented himself with the most wretched fare during the last 

 years of famine, living in good measure on roots and acorns ; " although," 

 says Ragueneau, " he had been the cherished son of a rich and noble 

 house, on whom all the affection of his father had centred, and who had 

 been nourished on food very different from that of swine." — Relation des 

 Hurons, 1650, 12. 



For his character, see Ragueneau, Bressani, Tanner, and Alegambe, 

 who devotes many pages to the description of his religious traits; but the 

 complexion of his mind is best reflected in his private letters. 



