Dollier de Casson gives us this insight into the fear caused at Ville Marie by these visits and their recitals of disaster. The evident reflection then was, "If we who are only a handful of Europeans, do not offer a firmer and more vigorous resistance than 30,000 Hurons have done, then we must reconcile ourselves to be burnt alive at a slow fire with all the refinements of unheard of cruelty."
But this year Montreal was able to breathe in comparative peace. A picture of Montreal of this year is presented by Père P. Ragueneau, the Jesuit superior of the missions, writing from Quebec on October 8th to Father Picolomini, the general of the order at Rouen: "At Montreal there are barely sixty Frenchmen, twenty Hurons, a few Algonquins and two of our fathers. They cannot leave this fort, which is always very much exposed."
In the spring of 1651, a perilous period began. Speaking of this year the Jesuit "Relations" say in general: "It is a marvel that the French of Ville Marie were not exterminated by the frequent surprises of Iroquois bands." Other contemporaneous chroniclers repeat the same. Sister Morin, in the "Annals of the Hôtel-Dieu of Montreal," writes: "Often ten men of Ville Marie, or less, have been seen holding their own against fifty or eighty Iroquois, who have acquired for themselves a great reputation in all Canada and in France, and the Iroquois have several times avowed that three men of Montreal have inspired them with more fear than six from elsewhere."
The attacks now were very frequent and sudden. Although the garrison fought well and bravely, its losses were severe compared with those of the Iroquois, who though losing more men, yet were able to replace them.
Some of these encounters have been preserved to us. The following occurred on May 6, 1651: On this day, Jean Boudard had left his house with a man named Jean Chicot when suddenly they found themselves surprised by eight or ten Iroquois. Chicot ran for safety to a tree recently cut down and hid himself there, but Boudard, making headlong for his home, met his wife, Catherine Mercier, not far from it. Asking her whether the dwelling was open she replied: "No, I have locked it!" "Ah!" cried he, "then it is death for both of us! Let us fly at once." In their flight, the wife could not keep pace with him and, being left behind, was seized by the Indians. Hearing her cries the husband returned and attacked them with fisticuffs, so violently that, not being able to master him otherwise, they massacred him on the spot. The cries and confusion aroused three of the settlers, Charles Le Moyne, Archambault and another, who, running to render assistance, were seen falling into an ambuscade of forty Indians behind the hospital. Discovering their mistake they made a retreat to the front door of the hospital which luckily was open, having escaped a brisk fusillade, as Le Moyne well knew by the hole in his hat. With the captive woman, the Indians who had surprised Boudard then sought the hiding place of Chicot. He defended himself with his feet and hands so vigorously that fearing, lest he should be assisted by the Frenchmen they now saw approaching, they took his scalp, taking a piece of his skull with it. This they carried with them as a trophy, as well as the head of Boudard, who was commonly known as "Grand Jean." Jean Chicot did not die, however, till nearly fourteen years later, but Catherine Mercier was brutally burned after having been inhumanly disfigured,[66] during the summer of the same year in the Iroquois camp.