"Saint Louis formerly planted the _fleur-de-lys_ in the soil of the crescent. Today it would be a no less glorious conquest to make a country of infidels into a holy land than to wrest the Holy Land from the hands of the infidel. Once more, let France's will destroy the Iroquois and it is done. Two regiments of brave soldiers would overthrow them."
Hope entered into the hearts of the colonists now, since France was at peace, having concluded a treaty with Spain, and it was thought that now was the acceptable hour, the time of salvation, and for this purpose Father Le Jeune, then the procurator of the Jesuit missions in Paris, before the end of the year 1660 was asked to present a petition to Louis XIV and to plead for New France across the sea.
The king heard the "sighs and sobs of the poor afflicted colony," and promised troops; but again New France was forgotten, except by the Company of One Hundred Associates, inasmuch as they claimed the annual rental of a thousand beaver skins.
The call was not to be heard for some years yet.
[84] To explain the "c" in Daulac it must be remembered that in French manuscripts of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the final "t" and final "c" were interchangeable, or rather written in the same character which stood for a "t" or a "c." (Canadian Antiquarian and Numismatic Journal, Third Series, No. 2, Vol. IX, April, 1912.)
[85] Parkman, speaking of this event in "The Old Régime in Canada," says: "The spirit of the enterprise was purely mediæval. The enthusiasm of honour, the enthusiasm of adventure and the enthusiasm of faith were its motive forces. Daulac (sic) was a knight of the early Crusades among the forests and savages of the New World."
[86] It appears that thirty years after the famous defence of the Long Sault, a band of a hundred Iroquois were fired upon as they passed Bout de l'Isle to help Phipps in his attack on Quebec. Four of the Indians were shot, and the remainder turned upon the attacking band of twenty-five habitants recruited from the district about Pointe-aux-Trembles and led by a certain Sieur Colombain. Sixteen of the Frenchmen were killed, but the Indians abandoned their intended voyage to Quebec. (Cf. The recent discovery by Mr. E. Z. Massicotte, recorded in the Antiquarian and Numismatic Journal of August, 1914.)