The work and character of Marguerite de Bourgeoys are thus admirably summed up by a recent biographer:
"The visible result of Marguerite de Bourgeoys' long life in Canada was the institution of a band of young women who were bound by vows to teach the young, the building of a church, and the establishment of schools for the instruction of Indian and French children. She died January 12, 1700. Her heart, which had beaten with pain at the cry of suffering childhood, with agony at the shriek of the tortured victim of Iroquois cruelty, with shame at the contentions of Christian brotherhoods, and with rapture when even one little child received the anointing drops of baptism, that heart, encased in its silver covering, now rests in the chapel of a convent where she so long labored and loved."
These were the triumphs of peace, won by heroines of endurance and patience rather than of fiery physical courage; but of the latter quality there were many brilliant examples among the women of the French settlers of Canada. Madeleine de Verchères is both famous and typical among these sterner heroines. She was but fourteen years old when she found herself in charge of her father's fort, that fort suddenly burst upon by the savage Iroquois, and she with a garrison consisting of two soldiers, two boys, and an old man of eighty. There were women and children also, but these were detriments, not aids. The gallant girl, though actually surprised in the fields by the marauders, managed to close the gates, took command of the panic-stricken company,--the soldiers were as frightened and helpless as the rest,--and soon organized a defence which lasted for a week, and was ended by the arrival of a succoring force. Her little brothers, but ten and twelve years of age respectively, nobly seconded her efforts; but the whole glory of the splendid defence was due to Madeleine, whose account of the occurrence is extant. She inherited heroic blood on the distaff side, for her mother, two years before, had held the same fort with but four armed men against an attack by the Iroquois, the siege lasting two days.
The conditions of the first half century of Canadian colonization were generally similar to those existing in New England, of course, with a difference of racial impulses and customs. That half century saw but slow development of the country; but between 1665 and 1667 the coming of the Carignan regiment, sent by Louis XIV. to establish firmly his hold upon the new dominion, brought about a change. In order to prevent desertion and make the soldiers truly at home in the land, it was soon found necessary that there should be established homes, and to this end women were necessary. But women were precisely the rarest treasure in the Canadas, and there was therefore adopted the plan, already executed in the English colonies of the South, of importing girls as wives. Accordingly, from time to time, there arrived consignments of maidens, called "the king's girls," and semi-annual wife-markets were held in Quebec and Montreal. The character of these imported ladies was not invariably of the best; but a trifle such as this did not affect the soldiers of the baser sort, who were willing to overlook past peccadillos in consideration of the dowry which their wives brought them and in hope of gaining the bounty offered for the rearing of large families. Moreover, there was passed a law which provided that every unmarried young man, who had not within two weeks of the arrival of a company, entered into the matrimonial state should be deprived of the privileges of hunting, fishing, and trading, while the persistent bachelors were to be excluded from all places of honor and responsibility, and it was even suggested that they should be branded as felons. Marriage was certainly esteemed honorable in those days. The account of La Hontan, a witty officer of the Canadian forces, of the first coming of "the king's girls" is worth quoting in part: