d hinder it
from shading both your country and ours with its leaves. I assure you,
in the name of the five nations, that our warriors will dance the
calumet dance under its branches and will never dig up the axe to cut
it down--till such time as the Onontio and the Corlaer do separately or
together invade the country which the Great Spirit gave to our
ancestors.'[2]

When Le Moyne and the Jesuits had interpreted this speech La Barre
'retired to his tent and stormed and blustered.' But Grangula favoured
the spectators with an Iroquois dance, after which he entertained
several of the Frenchmen at a banquet. 'Two days later,' writes La
Hontan, 'he and his warriors returned to their own country, and our
army set out for Montreal. As soon as the General was on board,
together with the few healthy men that remained, the canoes were
dispersed, for the militia straggled here and there, and every one made
the best of his way home.'

With this ignominious adventure the career of La Barre ends. The
reports which Meulles sent to France produced a speedy effect in {103}
securing his dismissal from office. 'I have been informed,' politely
writes the king, 'that your years do not permit you to support the
fatigues inseparable from your office of governor and
lieutenant-general in Canada.'

La Barre's successor, the Marquis de Denonville, arrived at Quebec in
August 1685. Like La Barre, he was a soldier; like Frontenac, he was
an aristocrat as well. From both these predecessors, however, he
differed in being free from the reproach of using his office to secure
personal profits through the fur trade. No governor in all the annals
of New France was on better terms with the bishop and the Jesuits. He
possessed great bravery. There is much to show that he was energetic.
None the less he failed, and his failure was more glaring than that of
La Barre. He could not hold his ground against the Iroquois and the
English.

It has been pointed out already that when La Barre assumed office the
problems arising from these two sources were more difficult than at any
previous date; but the situation which was serious in 1682 and had
become critical by 1685 grew desperate in the four years of
Denonville's sway. The one {104} over-shadowing question of this
period was the Iroquois peril, rendered more and more acute by the
policy of the English.

The greatest mistake which Denonville made in his dealings with the
Iroquois was to a