e memory has ennobled the history of the land for which they
laboured, and adds to the fame and honour of their race.

At Ste. Marie, Bressani, Ragueneau, and their French companions
awaited the Iroquois onslaught. But the fugitive Hurons, gathering for
a last resistance, had checked the Iroquois' further advance, and
after a fierce battle the latter withdrew southward with an army of
wretched captives.

That day the Hurons as a nation ceased to exist. Abandoning their
remaining villages, they dispersed in small bands to roam northward
and eastward, while a few established themselves at Isle St. Joseph,
thinking to protect themselves here from their inveterate foes. As for
the Jesuits, Garnier and Chabanel still laboured among the Tobacco
nation farther to the south; but they too became the victims of the
Iroquois before this fatal year was over.

Famine and the rigours of winter presently worked sad havoc upon the
little band to whom Ragueneau now ministered at Isle St. Joseph, and
in the spring renewed attacks of the Iroquois led the Hurons to decide
upon a remarkable enterprise. This was to migrate to Quebec and take
refuge under the guns of Fort St. Louis.

On the 10th of June all was ready for the departure, the sorrowing
Hurons bidding good-bye to the home of their fathers, and the Jesuits
to the country consecrated by the blood of their martyrs. Proceeding
by the Georgian Bay, Lake Nipissing, the Ottawa and the St. Lawrence,
the fleet of canoes reached Quebec before the end of July, 1650. And
while Quebec was ready to open her gates to the sorrowful remnant of a
once great nation, her own position was sorely beset. Food was scarce
and lodgings scarcer in the palisaded city. However, the Ursulines and
the nuns of the Hospital made every effort to provide shelter for the
exiled race, and the Jesuits themselves bore the chief burden of their
converts. In the following year, 1651, four hundred more Hurons found
their way to Quebec, and together they established a settlement on the
Island of Orleans. Here, in sight of the protecting ramparts of the
city, this decimated people lived for a time secure. But the Iroquois
were set upon nothing less than their annihilation, and in 1656 they
made a descent upon the quiet island and carried off many captives.
The terrified Hurons were then removed to the city itself and lodged
in a square enclosure almost adjoining Fort St. Louis. A map of 1660
places the "Fort des Sauvag