City’s founders were joyful in face of adversity
De Maisonneuve may have been pious, but he was no stick-in-the-mud
Paul de Maisonneuve, Montreal’s founder in May 1642, was a man of diversity. He was a devout Christian, an experienced and resolute soldier, and a skilful organizer. Also, as biographer Marie-Claire Daveluy notes, he was a man of “unusual prudence, … self-possession diplomatic subtlety,” combining inflexibility with considerable dignity.
Yet pious and self-controlled though he might have been, he was no dour stick-in-the-mud. He was also convivial, he had a notable sense of humour, and he enjoyed his food and wine. He even played the lute.
His joie de vivre was shown in January 1642, four months before Montreal’s actual founding. De Maisonneuve and his fellow colonists had arrived in New France the previous autumn, and were biding their time just outside Quebec City. There, it was decided that his name day, Jan. 25, should be celebrated.
At dawn on the 25th, muskets and small cannon were fired. Later that day, there was to be a banquet at which, de Maisonneuve decreed, “the good old wine of France” would be served: so far, so cheerful.
But the colonists had not counted on the displeasure of New France’s governor, Charles Huault de Montmagny, in Quebec City. Hearing the salvos, he condemned them as an affront to his position and ordered the arrest of the cannoneer, one Jean Gory. The man was put in chains and thrown into jail.
Wisely, de Maisonneuve didn’t overreact. De Montmagny soon cooled down and Gory was released, whereupon plans for the banquet were resumed. The good old wine was duly served, and not only was Gory given a raise of 10 écus but he also received a new title:
“My friends,” de Maisonneuve declared, “although Jean Gory has been mistreated, do not for that reason lose courage. Let us all drink to the health of …” — you can almost see him pause dramatically — “… the Master of the Manacles.”
The incident, historian Patricia Simpson notes, demonstrates not only de Maisonneuve’s concern for his companions but also that the piety of Montreal’s founders was not incompatible with good cheer.
De Maisonneuve sailed between New France and the mother country several times over the next 24 years. On one of these voyages, in 1653, the redoubtable Marguerite Bourgeoys was aboard. (She was canonized as Canada’s first female saint in 1982.)
Marie Morin, who became the first Canadianborn superior of Montreal’s Hôtel-Dieu in 1693, recorded an amusing incident that occurred during the voyage. It seems that Sister Bourgeoys had charge of a bundle of fine linen and lace that de Maisonneuve’s sister had given him. But a few days after leaving France, Sister Bourgeoys accidentally let the bundle fall overboard, and her frantic efforts to retrieve it came to naught.
When she nervously approached de Maisonneuve to report what had happened, he disarmed her with hearty laughter. Now both of us will be better off, he said, without these “ornements de vanité.”
During the early years of Montreal, or Ville Marie as it was then known, the little settlement was hard pressed by Iroquois raiders. According to Sister Morin, de Maisonneuve often sought relief from the strains of leadership by sitting down with Sister Bourgeoys, Father Gabriel Souart and other friends to laugh away their troubles as best they could. “They would laugh for hours at a time,” she records.
The Religious Hospitallers of Saint Joseph, Sister Morin’s order, were very poor. One day, de Maisonneuve asked to examine one of their habits and, perceiving its shabbiness, made all the nuns laugh by saying it had been mended so often it was no longer possible to see any of the original material.
“It is refreshing to see these first Montrealers joyful in the face of adversity,” Patricia Simpson writes, “and to know that if they often sowed in tears, they sowed in mirth, too.”