eat Lakes to the spacious
regions of the West. The five tribes known as the Iroquois had shown
marked political talent by forming themselves into a confederacy. From
the time of Champlain, the founder of Quebec, there had been trouble
between the French and the Iroquois. In spite of this bad beginning,
the French had later done their best to make friends with the powerful
confederacy. They had sent to them devoted missionaries, many of whom
met the martyr's reward of torture and massacre. But the opposing
influence of the English, with whom the Iroquois chiefly traded, proved
too strong.

With the Iroquois hostile, it was too dangerous for the French to travel
inland by way of Lake Ontario. They had, it is true, a shorter and,
indeed, a better route farther north, by way of the Ottawa River and
Lake Nipissing to Lake Huron. In time, however, the Iroquois made even
this route unsafe. Their power was far-reaching and their ambition
limitless. They aimed to be masters of North America. Like all virile
but backward peoples, they believed themselves superior to every other
race. Their orators declared that the fate of the world was to turn on
their policy.

On Frontenac's return to Canada he had a stormy inheritance in
confronting the Iroquois. They had real grievances against France.
Devonvine, Frontenac's predecessor, had met their treachery by treachery
of his own. Louis XIV had found that these lusty savages made excellent
galley slaves and had ordered Denonville to secure a supply in Canada.
In consequence the Frenchman seized even friendly Iroquois and sent
them over seas to France. The savages in retaliation exacted a fearful
vengeance in the butchery of French colonists. The bloodiest story in
the annals of Canada is the massacre at Lachine, a village a few
miles above Montreal. On the night of August 4, 1689, fourteen hundred
Iroquois burst in on the village and a wild orgy of massacre followed.
All Canada was in a panic. Some weeks later Frontenac arrived at Quebec
and took command. To the old soldier, now in his seventieth year, his
hard task was not uncongenial. He had fought the savage Iroquois before
and the no less savage Turk. He belonged to that school of military
action which knows no scruple in its methods, and he was prepared to
make war with all the frightfulness practised by the savages themselves.
His resolute, blustering demeanor was well fitted to impress the red men
of the forest, for an imperious