must remain on the defensive and run no risk.
By dint of insistence, Subercase obtained permission to make a sortie
with a hundred volunteers; at the moment when he was about to set out he
had to yield the command to M. de Saint-Jean, who was higher in rank.
The little troop went and entrenched itself among the debris of a burned
house and exchanged an ineffectual fire with the savages ambushed in a
clump of trees. They soon perceived a party of French and friendly
Indians who, coming from Fort Remy, were proceeding towards them in
great danger of being surrounded by the Iroquois, who were already
sobered. The volunteers wished to rush out to meet this reinforcement,
but their commander, adhering to his instructions, which forbade him to
push on farther, restrained them. What might have been foreseen
happened: the detachment from Fort Remy was exterminated. Five of its
officers were taken and carried off towards the Iroquois villages, but
succeeded in escaping on the way, except M. de la Rabeyre, who was bound
to the stake and perished in torture.

On reading these details one cannot understand the inactivity of the
French: it would seem that the authorities had lost their heads. We
cannot otherwise explain the lack of foresight of the officers absent
from their posts, the pusillanimous orders of the governor to M. de
Vaudreuil, his imprudence in sending too weak a troop through the
dangerous places, the lack of initiative on the part of M. de
Saint-Jean, finally, the absolute lack of energy and audacity, the
complete absence of that ardour which is inherent in the French
character.

After this disaster the troops returned to the forts, and the
surrounding district, abandoned thus to the fury of the barbarians, was
ravaged in all directions. The Iroquois, proud of the terror which they
inspired, threatened the city itself; we note by the records of Montreal
that on August 25th there were buried two soldiers killed by the
savages, and that on September 7th following, Jean Beaudry suffered the
same fate. Finding nothing more to pillage or to burn, they passed to
the opposite shore, and plundered the village of Lachesnaie. They
massacred a portion of the population, which was composed of seventy-two
persons, and carried off the rest. They did not withdraw until the
autumn, dragging after them two hundred captives, including fifty
prisoners taken at Lachine.

This terrible event, which had taken place at no great distanc