The miscarriage of the first attempt made the rebels ironical. Ermatinger’s followers, called the Queen’s Braves, were portrayed as “decamping across the fields, leaving Messieurs Davignon and Demarais to their farmer rescuers, ... one of the gallant soldiers first discharging his pistol, ... but his hand trembling with fear did no other execution than graze the shoulder of M. Demarais.... The disciplined mercenaries of tyrants were far from invulnerable when opposed by men resolved to be free.”
St. Denis and St. Charles were seats of discontent and determined resistance. A combined movement was therefore resolved on, one command under Lieut.-Colonel Wetherall, one under Lieut.-Colonel Hughes, and the whole under Colonel the Honourable Charles Gore. A magistrate’s general address preceded this action, accompanying the order of the Lieut.-General commanding. “Should our language be misunderstood, should reason be slow to make itself heard, it is still our duty to warn you that neither the military force nor the civil authorities will be outraged with impunity, and that the vengeance of the laws will be equally prompt and terrible. The aggressors will become the victims of their rashness, and will owe the evils that will fall upon their heads to their own obstinacy. It is not those who push you to excess who are your true friends. These men have already abandoned you, and would abandon you again at the moment of danger, while we, who call you back to peace, think ourselves to be the most devoted servants of our country.” D. B. Viger’s name heads the list of magistrates, a signature which made some eyes open wide.
But, in an evil moment, the Nation Canadienne persevered in its trial of strength; Papineau, at its head, proclaimed himself “a brilliant leader and a constellation of moral excellence,” and his proclamation declared that “all ties were severed with an unfeeling mother country, that the glorious fate of disenthralling their native soil from all authority, except that of the brave, democratic spirit residing in it, awaited the young men of all the colonies.”
Meanwhile the Church issued its pastoral letter, never having countenanced either Papineau or his followers. The premier Bishop had ended his personal exhortation by proposing the health of the Sovereign, and his brother Bishops and all the clergy had risen and drunk the toast respectfully. His mandement was accepted with few exceptions. At the parish church of St. Charles the greater portion of its masculine hearers left the church cursing, and the Abbé Blanchet, curé of the parish, was a patriot who took no trouble to hide his sentiments.