His licentious conduct amongst his Indian friends seems to have roused them to such a pitch of anger that in 1632 they murdered him, then boiled and ate his body. But immediately afterwards misfortune seemed to fall on the place. The Hurons were terrified at what they had done, and thought they heard or saw in the sky the spirits of the white relations of Brulé--some said the sister, some the uncle--threatening their town (Toanche), which they soon afterwards burnt and deserted.
In 1615 Champlain, returning from France, had brought out with him friars of the Récollet order.[4] These were the pioneer missionaries of Canada, prominent amongst whom was FATHER LE CARON, and these Récollets traversed the countries in the basin of the St. Lawrence between Lake Huron and Cape Breton Island, preaching Christianity to the Amerindians as well as ministering to the French colonists and fur traders. One of these Récollet missionaries died of cold and hunger in attempting to cross New Brunswick from the St. Lawrence to the Bay of Fundy, and another--Nicholas Viel--was the first martyr in Canada in the spread of Christianity, for when travelling down the Ottawa River to Montreal he was thrown by the pagan Hurons (together with one of his converts) into the waters of a rapid since christened Sault le Récollet. Another Récollet, Father d'Aillon, prompted by Brulé, explored the richly fertile, beautiful country known then as the territory of the Neutral nation, that group of Huron-Iroquois Amerindians who strove to keep aloof from the fierce struggles between the Algonkins and Hurons on the one hand and the eastern Iroquois clans on the other. This region, which lies between the Lakes Ontario, Erie, and Huron, is the most attractive portion of western Canada. Lying in the southernmost parts of the Dominion, and nearly surrounded by sheets of open water, it has a far milder climate than the rest of eastern Canada.
[Footnote 4: The Récollet (properly Recollect) friars were a strict branch of the Franciscan order that were sometimes called the Observantines. They were also known as "Recollects" (pronounced in French _récollet_) because they were required to be constantly keeping guard over their thoughts. This development of the Franciscan order of preaching missionary friars was originally a Spanish one, founded early in the sixteenth century, and becoming well established in the Spanish Netherlands. Many of them were Flemings or Walloons.]