In the same month a secret gathering was held, at Agnié of a few of the most influential heads of all the Iroquois nations, and there was sworn a war of extermination of the whites if their captives were not returned, and they would commence with the settlement of the black robes at Onondaga, which had been settled with them at their own invitation in 1656. A Christian Iroquois revealed this plot to the missionaries at Onondaga and these communicated it to Quebec. But how to escape from their own impending slaughter, the like of which had been witnessed on August 3, 1657, when seven Christians had been slain, by these same Onondagas before the horrified eyes of Father Ragueneau, then on his way, to be similarly repeated when, on reaching Onondaga, some of the Christian captives were burned, including several women and their infant children.
As Father Ragueneau was among the fugitives that came to Montreal with Zacharie Dupuis, we may take his story as substantially that which the terrified party told to the horror-stricken Montrealers but with more harrowing details. But first a note on the relater. Paul Ragueneau, born in Paris in 1605, came to Canada when he was thirty-one years of age. In 1646 he was superior of the Huron missions. He was an ideal superior and was very much valued by de Lauson and d'Avaugour on the supreme council. He left Canada in 1662 and acted as the procurator for the Canadian missions in Paris. He died in 1680, on September 3. A year after Father Dablon had sailed with his fifty Frenchmen over Lake Onondaga he was followed by Paul Ragueneau in August, 1657, with a band of thirteen or sixteen Senecas, thirty Onondagas and about fifty Christian Hurons. On the way there was a general butchery of the Hurons by the rest of the party which Ragueneau was forced to witness. When he reached Onondaga his practiced eye took in the unsettled situation. The lives of the French colonists were treacherously foresworn to Indian butchery. This plot became clearer as the autumn passed. In the early months of 1658, Ragueneau, who was superior, called in gradually the missionaries from the outstations and it was arranged with Dupuis, the French commandant, to make a secret flight on the night of March 21, 1658.