Canadian Messenger Series 
 
 Number 4 
 
 E. J. DEVINE, S.J. 
 
 Charles Gamier 
 
 VICTIM OF THE IROQUOIS 
 
 1605-1649 
 
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 t Paulus, Arch. MarianopolUanus. 
 
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 UNIVER- 
 S I 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
CHARLES GARNIER 
 
 HARLES Gamier was the son of a rich and noble 
 
 Parisian family; he was born on the feast of the 
 Aimunciation, March 25th, 1605 (or 1606), and from 
 his earliest years he was singled out as one on whom 
 God had lofty designs. His innocence of life, coupled 
 with a frank and manly character, gave him a prestige 
 which imposed respect among the companions of his 
 own age. While he was a student in the Jesuit col- 
 
 reward for his application to study or to enable him 
 to gratify his personal fancies; but the boy rarely 
 applied this money to his own use, preferring to throw 
 it into the almsbox of one of the city prisons, the Petit 
 Chatelet. One day, while crossing the Pont Neuf in 
 Paris, Charles saw an impious book for sale. With 
 his small monthly allowance he purchased the vol- 
 ume and destroyed it, “lest some one by reading it 
 might offend God.” His horror of everything that 
 could woimd the Heart of God he attributed to the love 
 he had for orur Lady whom he called his Mother and 
 to whom he gave all his confidence. “It was she,” 
 
 VICTIM OF THE IROQUOIS 
 
 His early years 
 and education 
 
 lege in his native city, his father was 
 accustomed to give him a few pieces 
 of silver every month, either as a 
 
2 
 
 CHARLES GARNIER 
 
 he asserted in after-life, **who carried me in her arms 
 during my youthful years; it was she who called me 
 to the Society of her Son.”^ 
 
 This call to the religious profession was promptly 
 answered by the yoimg man; Charles decided to con- 
 secrate his life to God’s service in the Society of Jesus. 
 Monsieur Gamier, who evidently had other plans in 
 view for his son, opposed this pious design and en- 
 deavored to dissuade Charles from the irrevocable 
 step. He yielded, however, after he had been con- 
 vinced that his son was not the plaything of a pass- 
 ing illusion; and nobly did he make the sacrifice. 
 When the moment of separation came, he told the 
 superiors of the Order that he was giving them a 
 child, “who from his birth had never committed the 
 least disobedience, and never caused him the least 
 displeasure. 
 
 Charles Gamier entered the Jesuit novitiate in 
 He enters the September 5th, 1624, and 
 
 Jesuit Order became a model of exact observ- 
 
 ance of the rule. His angelic mod- 
 esty shone in a face beaming with happiness; he was 
 held up as a “mirror of holiness” to those around him. 
 So deep was the impression Gamier made on his fel- 
 low religious that all felt that his was a favored soul 
 and that God had other gifts in store for him. After 
 the young novice had completed his term of proba- 
 tion and pronounced his vows, in 1626, he was sent 
 to study in the college of Clermont, one of the chief 
 
 1 Jesuit Relations, Clev. edit., vol. xxxv, p. 119. 
 
 2 Ibid./p. 145. 
 
VICTIM OF THE IROQUOIS 
 
 3 
 
 institutions of the Jesuit Order in France. From 
 1629 to 1632 he taught in the college of Eu, return- 
 ing to Clermont only in the latter year to study theo- 
 logy and prepare himself for the priesthood, a dignity 
 he was raised to in 1635. 
 
 The missions of Canada had begun to attract the 
 yoimg religious. The perusal of the letters sent 
 back by his Jesuit brethren from those distant shores, 
 the accoimts of the spiritual conquests which were 
 being made among the savage tribes, the pathetic 
 call for more laborers in the vineyard, had set his 
 heart afire. His superiors, to whom he had confided 
 his secret longing, were willing to give full scope to 
 Charles Gamier’s zeal, .and would have allowed him 
 
 should give his consent on account of special obli- 
 gations to him which the Order was under,'’ they 
 delayed his departure. This delay only served to 
 augment the yoimg priest’s desire for the mission- 
 field beyond the Atlantic. His one thought day and 
 night was the conversion of the savages and the pros- 
 pect of life among them. The permission to sail, 
 however, was granted in 1636, and he quitted the 
 shores of France in the fleet which brought out Mon- 
 sieiu* de Montmagny, the successor of Champlain, as 
 governor of New France. During the voyage he 
 seized the opportunity of effecting a remarkable 
 conversion. Among the members of the crew was 
 a sailor ‘‘without conscience, without religion and 
 without God,” who had not gone to confession for 
 
 His vocation to 
 the missions 
 
 to leave France for Canada imme- 
 diately after his ordination in 1635, 
 but ‘‘having desired that his father 
 
4 
 
 CHARLES GARNIER 
 
 over ten years, a dereliction of Christian duty that 
 was looked on as tragic in that age of faith and prac- 
 tice. The imhappy man was avoided by every one 
 on board until Father Gamier, urged by his zeal for 
 sotds, took him in hand. After many kind services 
 and delicate attentions he succeeded in winning him 
 over, heard his confession, and restored him to the 
 friendship of God. This conversion brought such 
 peace and joy of conscience to the poor sailor that 
 the hearts of all on board were touched.^ 
 
 This edifying incident helped to shorten what was 
 already a remarkably rapid voyage across the ocean. 
 The vessel, with M. de Montmagny, entered the Gulf, 
 
 Xebec on the night of St. Barnabas,” wrote Lejeune 
 “he cast anchor without annotmcing himself; the next 
 morning we had word that he was in the vessel which 
 the darkness had hidden from us. We went down to 
 the shore of the river to receive him and found that 
 Father Peter Chastelain and Father Charles Gamier 
 were in his company.”* The two young missionaries 
 were present at his solemn installation and had the 
 privilege of witnessing the profound Catholic faith 
 of the second governor of New France, “Monsieur de 
 Champlain, continued Lejetme, “having left us dur- 
 ing the last year of his ministration to go to Heaven, 
 we were anxious as to what zeal his successor would 
 
 1 Jesuit ^Relations, Clev. edit., vol. xxxv, p. 121. 
 
 2 Ibid. vol. VIII, p. 217. 
 
 He arrives in 
 New France 
 
 sailed up the St. Lawrence and ar- 
 rived at Quebec on June 11th, 1636. 
 The governor, “having arrived before 
 
VICTIM OF THE IROQUOIS 
 
 5 
 
 have for this infant Church... If first actions are 
 prognostications of those to come, we have reason to 
 thank God in the person of Monsieur de Montmagny. 
 One . of his first acts, after the usual installation fes- 
 tivities were ended, was to stand sponsor for a savage 
 a^ut to be baptized.” When invited to fill this func- 
 tion, the pious governor very willingly accepted and 
 “rejoiced in his good fortune that in beginning his of- 
 ficial life he could help to open the door of the Church 
 to a p<wr soul who wished to enter the fold of Jesus 
 Christ. * The Father who had prepared the savage 
 asked Father Chastelain whether he would not be glad 
 to begin his labors in New France with a baptism. The 
 newly arrived missionary accepted the offer with the 
 greatet alacrity, and it is easy to surmise that Father 
 Gamier, his companion on the voyage, assisted at this 
 consoling ceremony. 
 
 Being destined for the mission on Georgian Bay, 
 the sojourn of the two Jesuits in Quebec was of short 
 Chosen for the and on July 1st, Chas- 
 
 Huron missions Gamier, with two other 
 
 Jesuits, Buteux and Quentin, em- 
 barked for Three Rivers, a mission which had been 
 founded by Paul Lejeune two years before, and which 
 had become the terminus of the Huron flotillas from 
 the West. Governor de Montmagny escorted the four 
 men to the river bank, “with matchless courtesy and 
 affection, and had three cannon shots fired as a fare- 
 well salute at their departure. They travelled up the 
 St. Lawrence, Buteux and Chastelain in one canoe and 
 
 1 Jesuit Relations, Clev. edit., vol. viii, p. 219. 
 
6 
 
 CHARLES GARNIER 
 
 Quentin and Gamier in the other, and received at 
 Three Rivers such a cordial welcome from Father Le- 
 Jeune that “the demonstration of affection impressed 
 the natives present.'* A feast next day completely 
 won the savage hearts and, as we shall see, made the 
 route to the Huron Country smoother for the mis- 
 sionaries. While at Three Rivers Father Gamier had 
 a consolation similar to the one Chastelain expe- 
 rienced at Quebec; he was initiated into his ministry 
 in Canada by baptizing a little Indian girl on July 7th, 
 1636. 
 
 On the twenty-first of the same month they em- 
 barked in their canoes and started for Huronia — “the 
 happiest men in the world," the Relation recorded.^ 
 
 ning,” Lejeime remarked — ^that it was almost sus- 
 pected something had gone wrong. The missionaries, 
 however, were treated well on the way. In the first 
 place they were allowed to wear their shoes. This 
 was a special privilege, for usually the Jesuits 
 were obliged to travel bare-footed lest they should 
 deposit sand or dirt in the small canoes. In cold or 
 hot weather they had to adapt themselves to this cus- 
 tom unless they met with savages kind enough to let 
 them|[follow their own. They enjoyed another priv- 
 ilege in not being obliged to paddle. This favor 
 they evidently appreciated, for the Relation of 1636 
 remarked, “it is hard work, especially at first, when 
 
 He starts for the 
 Huron country 
 
 Their passage was so easily secured 
 — and yet “the affairs of God are 
 generally so crossed at the begin- 
 
 1 Jesuit Relations, Clev, edit., vol. ix, I. 247. 
 
VICTIM OF THE IROQUOIS 
 
 7 
 
 one is not accustomed to it... We give to every canoe 
 in which any of our Fathers embark a large sheet 
 which serves as a sail to relieve them from this work, 
 but although these barbarians are told that the sail 
 is the Fathers’ paddle, and they do not wield any 
 other, they do not fail sometimes to make them take 
 a wooden one, which has to be well worked to satisfy 
 them.”‘ 
 
 A canoe full of savages on their way to Three Rivers 
 met them at Petite Nation on the Ottawa, and Gar- 
 nier seized the occasion to drop a note to Father Le- 
 Jeune. “The bearer of this,” he wrote, “will tell you 
 better than we can the name of the place where they 
 met us. We are in good health, thank God, and glid- 
 ing along swiftly in our bark gondolas. We are flying 
 Happenings sought Paradise with an 
 
 on tho roiitA increase of courage which God had 
 given us.” » He had a kind word for 
 Kionche and Aenons, the two savages who had charge 
 of their canoes. Chastelain, in his turn, wrote when 
 they reached Lake Nipissing, August 8th: “We have 
 been here since yesterday among the Nipissings, so 
 happy and in such good health that I am quite ashamed 
 of it; for if I had had heart and courage enough, I feel 
 that God would have given me a bit of His cross to 
 bear, as he has done to our Fathers who have been 
 over this route before us. If He had done me this 
 
 1 Jesuit Relations, Clev. edit., vol. ix i. p. 243. 
 
 2 This was an Algonquin reserve in the seventeenth century. The name, 
 ’Petite Nation,” is still preserved. 
 
 3 Jesuit Relations, Clev. edit., vol. ix., 251. 
 
8 
 
 CHARLES GARNIER 
 
 favor I wovdd be a little more cast down than I am. 
 May He be blessed by all the angels! He has treated 
 a child like a child; I did not paddle; I carried only 
 my own baggage, except three days at the portages, 
 when I carried a little package that some one offered 
 me because one of our savages was iU... We arrived 
 at the (Allumette) Island on the eve of St. Ignatius 
 (July 30th); our peas having given out, we bought 
 some Indian com. This com lasted us until we reached 
 here.”* Evidently God was waiting His own good 
 time; the young missionary would soon have other 
 opportunities of suffering and thus make up for 
 the easy journey to Georgian Bay. Gamier reached 
 Huronia on the 13th of August and went direct to 
 Ihonatiria; Chastelain had arrived there the day before. 
 Both men had gone to devote their lives and labors 
 for the salvation of the Hurons and naturally were 
 received with joy by Father de Brdbeuf and his brethren 
 already there. 
 
 Unhappily, this joy was shortlived and threatened 
 to turn to sorrow. Early in September, 1636, a mys- 
 His first mis- 'Serious illness, which the Relation 
 
 sionary trials called “purple fever,” attacked the 
 
 village of Ihonatiria and incapac- 
 itated both white men and savages. Father Isaac 
 Jogues, a recent arrival in the country, was the first 
 victun and nearly succumbed; the next was Chaste- 
 lain who received the last Sacraments. Father Gar- 
 mer was a witness of this domestic affliction, and al- 
 
 1 Jesuit Relations, Clev. edit., vol. ix, p. 127. 
 
VICTIM OF THE IROQUOIS 
 
 9 
 
 though occupied with the exercises of his yearly re- 
 treat, he asked to be allowed to interrupt them so that 
 he might aid the patients. His physical strength, 
 however, was not as great as his charity; he, too, 
 was seized with the fever, and the little residence at 
 Ihonatiria became for the nonce a hospital. The 
 sufferings of the sick, occasioned by a lack of skilled 
 medical attention and the accompaniments of poverty, 
 were severe. “If a bed of feathers, “ wrote Father 
 Le Mercier to Lejeune, “often seems hard to a sick 
 person, I leave it to Your Reverence to imagine if he 
 could rest easily upon a bed which was nothing but 
 a mat of rushes spread over some bark and at most 
 a blanket or a piece of skin thrown over it.“ Yet 
 “one and all were never more cheerful; the sick were 
 as content to die as to live, and by their pa- 
 tience, piety and devotion greatly lightened the little 
 trouble we took for them night and day.“ ^ Blood- 
 letting, the panacea (or so many ills in the seventeenth 
 century, was freely resorted to, the sick missionaries 
 recovered slowly and continued their work among the 
 savages. 
 
 Ihonatiria was the first really permanent mission 
 the Jesuits had in Huronia; it was situated in the im- 
 mediate neighborhood of what is now Todd's Point, 
 in Simcoe County,* and had been established two 
 years previously, in 1634. A large cabin serving as 
 
 1 Jesuit Relations, Clev. edit., vol. xiii, p. 99. 
 
 2 Lot 6, concession xx, xxi. Tiny township. (Cf. Jones’ Old Huronia, 
 pp. 28-31.) 
 
10 
 
 CHARLES GARNIER 
 
 chapel and dwelling had been built; the Fathers had 
 gained the sympathy of the Hurons, and were ac- 
 tively occupied in catechising there. The location, 
 
 portunity. Ossossane, the principal village of the 
 Bear clan, appeared to Br6beuf to be a more favorable 
 center for a mission. He had already marked the 
 spot, but the frequent changes of the sites of Huron 
 villages, prompted usually by scarcity of fuel, pov- 
 erty of the soil, or stress of war, prevented him for 
 the moment from making the transfer. Although 
 Ossossane never moved far from where it originally 
 stood, it had already changed its site three times, ^ and 
 Br6beuf did not care to risk the expense involved in 
 the construction of a church and house whch might 
 be after all only temporary. However, in the spring 
 of 1637 he suggested to the Hurons of that village 
 his project of migrating thither from Ihonatiria. Not 
 merely was the proposal accepted, but the savages 
 even offered to build a cabin for the Fathers. So 
 rapidly were operations carried out that, a month 
 later, Br^beuf could write: “Since my last letter (dated 
 May 20th), a new residence of the Immaculate Con- 
 ception has been established, and we began to occupy 
 it on the feast of SS. Primus and Felician, martyrs, 
 Jime 9th... Forty or fifty Indians, men and women, 
 
 1 The successive sites of Ossassane lay in the neighborhood of Varwood 
 Point, on Nottawasaga Bay. (Cf. Jones’ Old Huronia, p. 27.) 
 
 Ossossane is 
 founded 
 
 however, was not deemed central 
 enough, and it was decided to go 
 elsewhere at the first favorable op- 
 
VICTIM OF THE IROQUOIS 
 
 11 
 
 came to Ihonatiria to fetch our grain and our few pieces 
 of furniture/'^ Ossossane, also called La Rochelle by 
 the French fur-traders from some fancied resem- 
 blance to the seaport of that name in France, became 
 a center of intense missionary activity, and remained 
 such during its short existence, that is, imtil the com- 
 pletion of the central residence. Fort Ste. Marie, in 
 
 In a letter, a year later, to his brother Henry, a 
 Carmelite friar in Paris, Father Gamier wrote: 
 must tell you how the time was spent since I wrote 
 you last year. I was at that time at the little vil- 
 lage of Ihonatiria; I came hither a few days after 
 Corpus Christi... There are forty Indian lodges, and 
 ours bears the name of the Immaculate Conception 
 
 “You must know,“ he wrote, “that we are here living 
 in a fortress which has nothing like it in France. We 
 are encircled by a wall quite different from that of the 
 Bastille. Yesterday they completed one of the towers, 
 and we stand less in dread of Spanish cannon than you 
 do in Paris. But I fear that some cunning fellow will be 
 ready to tell you that it is because cannon can scarce- 
 ly be brought nearer here than some three hundred 
 leagues, that oiu: ramparts consist of an enclosure of 
 
 1 Carayon: Premier e mission des Jfsuites au Canada, p. 161. Paris, 1864. 
 
 2 Gamier’s Letters, p. 38. 
 
 1639. 
 
 Goes to live at 
 Ossossane 
 
 of Our Lady.“^ One of his letters to 
 his father, in the same city, gives us 
 a lively description of Ossossane. 
 
12 
 
 CHARLES GARNIER 
 
 posts ten or twelve feet high and half a foot thick, and 
 posts that our tower is made up of some thirty odd 
 planted at one angle of the ramparts so as to com- 
 mand two of the sides of the enclosure, and that an- 
 other will be built to defend the other two... It will 
 be enough to put you on yoiu* guard against such 
 eavesdroppers if I tell you that the Hurons admire 
 __ , our fortification, and imagine that 
 
 ^ those in France are modelled on 
 
 ^ about the same pattern. You see 
 
 how different their ideas are from ours. This is why 
 I have gained much by leaving France where you 
 used to twit me for not having any beard, for the 
 Indians on that account think me handsome.'*^ The 
 witty word or joyous comment, denoting Father Gar- 
 nier’s sprightly character as well as his desire to give 
 a moment of pleasure to dear ones beyond the sea, 
 was frequently displayed in his correspondence. And 
 yet the letters from his pen which have been pre- 
 served for us, breathe a sweet resignation amid suf- 
 ferings that were acute and dangers that were always 
 imminent. 
 
 The arrival of new laborers in the vineyard urged 
 the Jesuits to extend their activities and carry the 
 Word of Life as soon as possible to the neighboring 
 settlements. They established themselves at Teana- 
 ostaye the chief town of the Cord clan, they went 
 from village to village, instructing and baptizing chil- 
 dren and adults in danger of death, and would have 
 continued to do so indefinitely had not the incursions 
 
 1 Garnier’s Letters, p. 2G. 
 
VICTIM OF THE IROQUOIS 
 
 13 
 
 of the Iroquois become more frequent and threaten- 
 
 creasing in numbers. A strongly fortified residence, 
 where they could retire in the hours of danger, was 
 considered necessary, but the fimds to build it were 
 evidently lacking. The French government was indi- 
 rectly appealed to, nor was the appeal made in vain, 
 for we learn from a letter written by Paul Lejeune 
 to Mutius Vitelleschi, General of the Jesuits, in 1642, 
 that Cardinal Richelieu, at the request of his niece, 
 the Duchess d’Aiguillon, granted thirty thousand 
 Uvres from the Royal treasury for the construction 
 
 Ste. Marie, the foundations of which are still visible 
 after nearly three centuries, was built on the east 
 bank of a little stream' connecting Lake Isiargui with 
 Georgian Bay. When it was completed in 1639, it 
 became the headquarters of the Huron missionaries; 
 Ossossane was abandoned and the Fathers and their 
 effects were transferred to their new home. 
 
 Meanwhile the desire to extend the influence of the 
 Gospel was uppermost with the Jesuits, and a couple 
 of tentative expeditions were made to sound the dis- 
 positions of the neighboring tribes. Br6beuf and 
 Chaumonot spent the winter of 1640-41 with the 
 Neutral nation southward along Lake Erie, while 
 
 1 Now knowo as the Wye River. This venerable spot is at Old Fort on 
 the Grand Trunk Railway, three miles from Midland. Ont. 
 
 Missionary ac- 
 tivity in Huronia 
 
 ing, and obliged them to provide for 
 their own security and that of their 
 neophytes who were gradually in- 
 
 Building of 
 Fort Ste. Marie 
 
 of a fort in Huronia strong enough 
 to withstand the attacks of hostile 
 savages. This fort, known as Fort 
 
14 
 
 CHARLES GARNIER 
 
 Gamier was taken from Fort Ste. Marie and sent, with 
 Jogues and Pijart, in a westerly direction to the Petun, 
 or Tobacco nation, who dwelt on the peninsula lying 
 between Nottawasaga Bay and Lake Huron. But 
 the ill-success of both attempts showed that the time 
 was not yet ripe for extension. ‘'Last year,'' wrote 
 Jerome Lalemant in the Relation of 1641, “we under- 
 took a mission to the Petuns, but we have deemed it 
 more expedient to concentrate our energies and not 
 
 pecially when we take into account the small number 
 of our men." The only fruits reaped during Father 
 Gamier's visit to the Petuns were the baptisms of a 
 few children and adults in danger of death. The mass 
 of the population resisted the grace so freely offered 
 to them; they accused the missionary of sorcery and 
 cmelly drove him away. But God did not allow his 
 faithful servant to go unavenged. “The town of Ehwae, 
 the principal town of the mission," continued Jerome 
 Lalemant, “whence Father Gamier had been driven 
 last year, imderwent every conceivable misfortune 
 before the close of the twelvemonth. Most of the 
 lodges were burned by the enemy three months later; 
 many inhabitants died of hunger, cold and smallpox; 
 others perished in the waves, and numbers were taken 
 by the enemy. In fact, the matter appeared so extra- 
 ordinary that the captain of a neighboring village 
 could not help noticing it, and attributed the deso- 
 lation of the village to no other cause than the refusal 
 it made to hear the preachers of the Gospel last year." 
 
 His first visit 
 to the Petuns 
 
 continue our labors among those 
 more distant peoples until the nearer 
 tribes have been won over, more es- 
 
VICTIM OF THE IROQUOIS 
 
 15 
 
 Ill-success, however, could not daunt the courage 
 of the young missionary. He had now several years' 
 experience in Huronia, and he was ready to fill any 
 position in the field, chiefiy on account of his complete 
 
 himself an excellent judge in this matter, writing to 
 the General in 1637, asserted that the missionaries in 
 Huronia were in every way extraordinary workers, 
 who combined, in an unusual manner, eloquence and 
 union with God with a burning zeal for souls. “So 
 persistent and studious are they all," he wrote, “that 
 in only one or two years they have gained a truly 
 wonderful proficiency in a language still rude and 
 not reduced to grammatical rules. However, in this 
 regard,” he added, “Father Gamier ranks first.” 
 “He mastered the language of the savages so thor- 
 oughly,” wrote Ragueneau, in his turn, twelve years 
 later, “that they themselves were astonished at him.” 
 An indefatigable laborer and replete with every gift 
 of nature and grace, he became an accomplished mis- 
 sionary. 
 
 A more fmitful field than any yet offered him, 
 where he would find ample scope for his zeal, was now 
 allotted to him. This was Teanaostaye,^ the largest 
 village of the Cord clan, where a mission had 
 been established in 1638. Here for six years he 
 spent himself with all the devotedness and self- 
 
 1 Known also as St. Joseph II, situated on the Flanagan farm, west half of 
 lot 7, concession iv, Medonte township. (Cf. Jones’ Old Huronia, p. 19.) 
 
 Appreciated by 
 Brebeuf 
 
 mastery of the Huron tongue which 
 gave him a remarkable ascendency 
 over the tribes. Father de Brebeuf, 
 
16 
 
 CHARLES GARNIER 
 
 sacrifice of which he was capable. From 1640 to 1646 
 he labored in season and out of season, instructing 
 the dusky Hurons in the truths of religion, rooting 
 out their superstitions, teaching them to recognize the 
 one true God, urging them to pray to Him, confer- 
 ring baptism on them, following them on the chase, 
 strengthening their souls with the Sacraments, and 
 burying them when they were dead. So thorough 
 was his knowledge of the savage character, so deeply 
 did he penetrate their hearts, and so powerful was 
 the eloquence of his example that he drew the Hurons 
 to him. His face, his eyes, his gestures, even his 
 smiles, proclaimed his holiness; his very presence 
 raised Huron hearts to God. The Relation of 1650 
 
 contact with him took away with them the liveliest 
 impression of his virtue. “The love of God,“ wrote 
 Ragueneau, “which reigned in his heart animated all 
 his movements and made them holy.“ This inte- 
 rior perfection of soul was, after the manner of the 
 saints, sustained by a rigid penitential life. Father 
 Gamier’s self-imposed bodily mortifications were many 
 and severe. His bed, a combination of saplings and 
 bark, was hard and iminviting; every time he returned 
 from his mission journeys he sharpened the iron points 
 of the belt which he wore next to his naked flesh; his 
 only food was that of the savages themselves, that is 
 to say, “the least the most miserable tramp could 
 hope for in France.” And thus this holy man preached 
 
 His personal 
 influence 
 
 tells us that several were converted 
 to the faith at the mere aspect of his 
 angelic face, and all who came in 
 
VICTIM OF THE IROQUOIS 
 
 17 
 
 the Kingdom of God both by word and example to his 
 people at Teanaostaye for six years. 
 
 During the alarms caused by the visits of the cruel 
 
 His labor and 
 untiring zeal 
 
 Iroquois, and especially during the pestilence which 
 raged several times in Huronia, when the missionaries 
 were treated as sorcerers and when all doors were 
 closed against them, Father Gamier went fearlessly 
 from village to village and cabin to 
 cabin, wherever he knew there was 
 a soul to save; his zeal and charity 
 always found the means to break through the ob- 
 stacles placed in his way. He had little to do with 
 mere human pmdence, and had recourse to the Angels 
 whose powerful help he always invoked. Savages 
 whom he went to assist at the hour of death asserted 
 that they had seen him accompanied by a young 
 man of rare beauty and majestic brilliancy. 
 
 In October, 1646, Father Gamier handed over to 
 Father Daniel the flourishing mission of St. Joseph, 
 at Teanaostaye, and betook himself with Father Gar- 
 
 reau to the Petun nation whence he had been driven 
 out six years before as a sorcerer. It was the Petuns 
 themselves who now asked for missionaries to instmct 
 them in the Christian religion and to establish centers 
 among them. Two large villages, Etharita in the Wolf 
 clan, and Ekarenniondi in the Deer clan, were chosen 
 as the most favorable sites for missionary activity, 
 and the missions of St. John and St. Mathias were 
 founded.^ In this fresh field Gamier found an outlet 
 
 1 A third mission, St. Matthew, was fouadad among the Petuns. in Feb. 
 1649, and placed in charge of Father No6l Chabanel. who was to shad his blood 
 a few months later. 
 
I 
 
 18 CHARLES GARNIER f 
 
 for his devouring zeal. In a letter to the General of 
 
 the Jesuits, April 25th, 1647, he wrote, ‘'Good Father 
 
 Garreau and I are nearly always separated, for he 
 
 makes a stay of ten or twelve days in one village and 
 
 I in the other. Then he will come to join me and I 
 
 him, and after spending two or three days together '• 
 
 he will go to the village where I had been previously 
 
 and I to the village where he had been. Thus we live 
 
 without companionship save that of the Good Angels 
 
 and that of the souls we are instructing.’* ^ 
 
 Isolation among savages was one of the hardships 
 which had to be borne patiently, and Gamier evi- 
 dently carried this cross joyously. But other crosses 
 were appearing on the horizon. The Iroquois had 
 
 The darkening proved that they were bent 
 
 horizon effacement of the Huron na- 
 
 tion and would show no mercy to 
 those who fell into their hands. The destmction of 
 his old mission of Teanaostaye in July, 1648, and 
 the violent death of Father Daniel, his successor 
 there, gave Gamier food for serious reflection, but 
 it did not dampen the ardor of his zeal among the 
 Petuns at Etharita. Encouraged by his own success 
 and that of Garreau, his companion at St. Mathias, 
 he entertained the hope that the Iroquois would limit 
 their destmctive activities to the Hurons proper and 
 would leave the Petuns undisturbed. In this, how- 
 ever, Father Gamier was to meet with a cmel dis- 
 appointment. 
 
 After the invasion by the enemy in the spring of 
 1649, the mission centers among the Hurons were 
 destroyed; only Fort Ste. Marie still stood intact. 
 
 I 
 
VICTIM OF THE IROQUOIS 
 
 19 
 
 During the rest of that year bands of Iroquois sav- 
 ages remained prowling about the country, seizing 
 and slaying all who fell in their way. 
 The fcoquois Petun village nearest to their 
 
 invasion haimts, and necessarily the most 
 
 exposed, was Etharita, Father Gamier’s own mission, 
 containing five or six hundred families. Spies had 
 been sent out to watch the movements of the enemy, 
 and anticipating an attack, a body of Petun warriors 
 went out on December 5th, 1649, to meet them, leav- 
 ing the village quite unprotected. But the astute 
 Iroquois, always on the alert, avoided their advance, 
 took a roundabout way, and seizing two straggling 
 Petuns, learned from them of the absence of the war- 
 riors from Etharita and the desperate straits of the 
 women and children left behind. Losing no time the 
 dreaded enemy appeared before the gates of Etharita 
 at three o’clock in the afternoon of December 7th, 
 1649, and attacked the defenceless inhabitants. Some 
 sought safety in flight; others were slain on the spot, 
 others were taken prisoners; but the Iroquois fearing 
 the return of the absent warriors, hastened to com- 
 plete their sanguinary work, and then retreated pre- 
 cipitately, putting to death all who could not keep up 
 with them in their flight. 
 
 Father Gamier was one of the victims of this hid- 
 eous massacre. When the enemy appeared he was 
 instmcting the people in their cabins. At the first 
 alarm he went straight to the chapel where he found 
 some Christians.^ “We are dead men now, brothers, 
 
 1 The account of Father Garnier’s death is found in the Relation of 1650. 
 Clev. edit., vol. xxxv, p. Ill et seq. 
 
20 
 
 CHARLES GARNIER 
 
 he said to them; “pray to God and escape by what- 
 ever way you can; but keep your faith as long as life 
 remains, and may death find you thinking of God!” 
 He gave them his blessing and then left hurriedly to 
 help other souls. The whole village was in despair; 
 
 He falls mortaUy Several about 
 
 wounded implored Father Gamier to 
 
 go with them, but he refused; and 
 unmindful of self he thought only of the salvation of 
 the unfortunate victims around him. Urged on by 
 his zeal he hastened hither and thither, giving absolu- 
 tion to the Christians whom he met. In the burning 
 cabins he sought the children, the sick, or the cate- 
 chumens, and over them, even in the midst of the 
 flames, he poured the waters of baptism, his own 
 heart burning with no other fire than that kindled 
 by the love of God. 
 
 It was while engaged in this holy work that he met 
 his death. A musket ball struck him, penetrating 
 his body a little below the breast; another, from the 
 same volley, tearing open his stomach and lodging 
 
 His heroism brought him to the 
 
 even in death ground. His courage, however, was 
 unabated. The Iroquois savage who 
 had fired at him stripped him of his cassock, and 
 leaving him weltering in his blood, went in pursuit 
 of the other fugitives. Father Gamier, a short time 
 after, was seen to clasp his hands in prayer; then, 
 looking about him, he perceived, some feet away, a 
 poor man who, like himself, had received his death 
 wound, but who still gave signs of life. Miumuring 
 a few words of prayer, the dying missionary, in whom 
 
VICTIM OF THE IROQUOIS 
 
 21 
 
 zeal for souls was stronger than death, struggled to 
 his knees, and, rising with difficulty, dragged himself 
 as best he could toward the sufferer, in order to assist 
 him. He had made but three or four steps when he 
 fell again, somewhat heavily. Raising himself a sec- 
 ond time, he got once more upon his knees and strove 
 to approach the wounded Petun, but his body, drained 
 of its blood which was flowing in abimdance from his 
 woimds, was not equal to his heroism. After advanc- 
 ing five or six steps he fell a third time. “Further 
 than this,” the Relation adds, “we have not been able 
 to ascertain what he accomplished. The good Chris- 
 tian woman who faithfully related all this to us, 
 saw no more of him, being herself overtaken by an 
 Iroquois, who struck her on the head with a war- 
 hatchet, felling her upon the spot, though she after- 
 ward escaped. The Father, shortly after, received 
 from a hatchet two blows upon the temples, one on 
 either side, which penetrated to the brain. To him 
 it was the recompense for all past services, the richest 
 he had hoped for from God's goodness. His body 
 was stripped, and left entirely naked where it lay.” 
 A remnant of fugitive Christians, all covered with 
 blood, arrived hurriedly at Ekarenniondi, twelve miles 
 away, and gave the news of the massacre. Fearing 
 that a similar misforttme was in store for them, the 
 night of December 7th was one of continual alarm for 
 the people of St. Mathias. However, early on the 
 8th, it was ascertained that the enemy had retired, 
 and Fathers Garreau and Greslon set out at once for 
 Etharita. A sad spectacle awaited them. They saw 
 only dead bodies heaped together, some almost con- 
 
22 
 
 CHARLES GARNIER 
 
 sumed by fire, others deluged with their own blood. 
 The few who still showed signs of life were all covered 
 with wounds, but looking for death and blessing God 
 in their wretchedness. After investigation they found 
 the body of Father Garnier completely covered with 
 blood and ashes. They buried him in the spot where 
 the chiu*ch had stood, although there remained no 
 longer any trace of the building, the fire having con- 
 
 T7* ^ u- sumed all. “It was truly a rich trea- 
 
 Fmding of his Relation of 
 
 mang e o y 5^050^ ‘*to deposit in so desolate a spot 
 the body of so noble a servant of God; but that great 
 God will surely find a way to reunite us all in Heaven 
 since it is for His sake alone that we are thus scat- 
 tered both during life and after death.” 
 
 Two days later the Petun warriors who had gone 
 to intercept the Iroquois, returned to Etharita, only 
 to find their village in ashes and the dead and mangled 
 bodies of their wives and children. For half a day 
 they maintained a profound silence, seated after the 
 manner of savages on the ground, without lifting their 
 eyes or uttering even a sigh, like marble statues with- 
 out speech, without sight and without movement. 
 The loss of the pastor and his flock was another 
 heavy blow to the Huron mission, but “the mission- 
 aries adored the Divine hand and disposed themselves 
 to accept all that He willed even to the end.” 
 
 Thus ended the mission of St. John, at Etharita, 
 and the heroic Father Charles Gamier. No trace 
 has yet been discovered of this once flourishing Petun 
 village. While the site of St. Mathias has undoubt- 
 edly been located, owing to its proximity to Ekaren- 
 
VICTIM OF THE IROQUOIS 
 
 23 
 
 niondi, or Standing Rock, a montunental landmark, 
 forty feet high, still to be found in Simcoe county, 
 Etharita, where Father Gamier was interred under 
 the ruins of his chapel, has not yet been discovered.^ 
 Data given in the Relations place it four leagues in a 
 southwesterly direction from Standing Rock. Pos- 
 sibly the presence of ash beds or refuge heaps, the 
 only sure sign of ancient village sites, may be traced 
 some day in that neighborhood to renew public in- 
 terest in Father Gamier’s life and labors.^ 
 
 It must be said, however, that the memory of this 
 Jesuit is one of the most highly cherished in Canadian 
 
 Gamier’s missionary annals. His youth, his 
 
 „ - patrician birth, his abandonment of 
 memory recalled ... ^ i 
 
 worldly prospects, his untiring zeal, 
 
 his tragic end, have all provided topics for writers of 
 fiction. A couple of these writers have in recent years 
 woven details entirely unauthentic into his early life 
 and thrown a glamor of romance about his name and 
 his career. Suffice it to say, the imaginations of nov- 
 elists will find very little promising material to work 
 on in Gamier’s life. Father Paul Ragueneau, who 
 was his spiritual adviser for twelve years and who 
 knew all the secrets of his heart, pays an admirable 
 tribute in the Relation of 1650 to the holiness of Gar- 
 nier. “His great aspirations after sanctity,” he wrote, 
 “had grown with him from his infancy. I can truly 
 say that in those twelve years I do not think that, 
 
 1 A relic of Father Gamier, evidently authentic, is preserved in the Jesuit 
 college, Canterbury, England. 
 
 2 Cf. Jones' Old Huronia, pp. 260>261. 
 
24 
 
 CHARLES GARNIER 
 
 save in sleep, he spent a single hour without these 
 burning and vehement desires of progressing more 
 and more in the ways of God and of helping forward 
 in them his fellow-men. Outside of these considera- 
 tions, nothing in the world affected him, neither re- 
 latives, nor friends, nor rest, nor consolation, nor hard- 
 ships, nor fatigues. God was his all; and apart from 
 this, all else was to him as nothing.’* 
 
 The Council of Bishops convened in Quebec, in 
 1886, linked Father Gamier’s name with those of the 
 other Canadian missionary victims of the Iroquois, 
 in the petition presented to the Holy See for the in- 
 troduction of the cause of Beatification of Father 
 John de Br^beuf and his companions. May the day 
 be not far distant when we can exclaim: “Blessed 
 Charles Gamier, pray for us!” 
 
■S-37t)W 
 

 I 
 
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 MESSENGER PRESS, MONTREAL