, and a number of other rebels of less importance
were equally unfortunate. Some of the refugees made a public
demonstration from Vermont, but precipitately fled before a small force
which met them. At St. Eustache, one Girod, a plausible, mendacious
Swiss or Alsatian, who had become a leader in the rebellious movement,
and Dr. Chenier, a rash but courageous man, collected a considerable
body of rebels, chiefly from St. Benoit, despite the remonstrances of
Mr. Paquin, the cure of the village, and defended the stone church and
adjacent buildings against a large force, led by Sir John Colborne
himself. Dr. Chenier and many others--at least seventy, it is said on
good authority--were killed, and the former has in the course of time
been elevated to the dignity of a national hero and a monument raised in
his honour on a public square of the French Canadian quarters of
Montreal. Mad recklessness rather than true heroism signalised his
action in this unhappy affair, when he led so many of his credulous
compatriots to certain death, but at least he gave up his life manfully
to a lost cause rather than fly like Papineau who had beguiled him to
this melancholy conclusion. Even Girod showed courage and ended his own
life when he found that he could not evade the law. The rebellious
element at St. Benoit was cowed by the results at St. Eustache; and the
Abbe Chartier, who had taken an active part in urging the people to
resistance, fled to the United States whence he never returned. The
greater part of the village was destroyed by fire, probably in
retaliation for the losses and injuries suffered by the volunteers at
the hands of the rebels in different parts of the district of Montreal.

One of the most unfortunate and discreditable incidents of the rising in
the Richelieu district was the murder of Lieutenant Weir, who had been
taken prisoner while carrying despatches to Sorel, and was literally
hacked to pieces, when he tried to escape from a _caleche_ in which he
was being conveyed to St. Charles. An equally unhappy incident was the
cold-blooded execution, after a mock trial, of one Chartrand, a harmless
non-combatant who was accused, without a tittle of evidence, of being a
spy. The temper of the country can be gauged by the fact that when it
was attempted, some time later, to convict the murderers on clear
evidence, it was impossible to obtain a verdict. Jolbert, the alleged
murderer of Weir, was never punished, but Francois