University of Virginia Library

26. XXV.
DOMINIQUE DE GOURGUES.

1.—EARLY HISTORY OF GOURGUES.

The tidings of the fearful massacre of the Huguenots in
Florida, as well in Spanish, as in French accounts, at length
reached France. Deep was the feeling of horror and indignation
which they everywhere excited among the people. Catholics, not
less than Protestants, felt how terrible was the cruelty thus inflicted
upon humanity, how insolent the scorn thus put upon the
flag of the country. Wild and bitter was the cry of anguish sent
up by the thousand bereaved widows and orphans of the murdered
men. But this cry, this feeling, this sense of suffering and shame,
awakened no sympathies in the court of France. The king,
Charles IX., heard the “supplication” of the wives and children
of the sufferers, without according any answer to their prayer.
The blood of nearly nine hundred victims cried equally to earth
and heaven for vengeance, and cried in vain to the earthly sovereign.
He had no ear for the sorrows and the wrongs of heresy;
and the plaint of humanity was stifled in the supposed interests of
religion. Charles was most regally indifferent to a crime which
relieved him of so many troublesome subjects; and was at that

very time, meditating the most summary processes for still farther
diminishing their numbers. He was yet to provide an appropriate
finish to such a history of massacre in the bloody tragedy of
St. Bartholomew. The wrong done to the honor of his flag and
nation, by a rival power, was not felt. We have already hinted
the strong conjecture, urged by historians, that the Spanish expedition,
under Melendez, was planned with the full privity and concurrence
of the king of France. His conduct, at this period,
would seem fully to justify the suspicion. His existing relations
with his brother of Spain were not of a sort to be periled now
by the exhibition of his sympathies with a cause, and on behalf of
a sect, which both monarchs had reason to hate and fear, and were
preparing to extirpate.

But, if the Court of France demanded no redress for the
massacre of its people, and that of Spain offered none, either redress
or apology, there was yet a deep and intense passion dwelling
in the heart of the one nation, and yearning for revenge upon
that of the other. There was still a chivalrous feeling in France
which showed itself superior to the exactions of sect or party, and
which brooded with terrible intensity over the bloody fortunes of
the French in Florida. This moody meditation at length found
its fitting exponent. The sentiment that stirs earnestly in the
popular heart will always, sooner or later, obtain a fitting voice;
and where it burns justifiably for vengeance, it will not long be
wanting in a weapon. The avenger arose in due season to satisfy
the demands of justice!

The Chevalier, Dominique de Gourgues, was a Gascon gentleman,
born at Mont de Marsan, in the County of Cominges. His

family was one of considerable distinction. It had always been
devotedly attached to the Catholic religion, nor had he ever for a
moment faltered in the same faith. His career had been a remarkable
one, signalized by great valor, and the most extreme
vicissitudes of fortune. He had served in the armies of France
during the long and capricious struggles in Italy, which had been
the chief arena for conflict in the reigns of Charles the Eighth, of
Louis XII., of Francis the First, and down to the present period.
Here he had associated, under the command of Brissac and others,
with that valiant brother Gascon, Blaize de Montlue, who, in his
commentaries, would probably have told us much about the
prowess of Gourgues, if he had not been so greatly occupied with
the narrative of his own.[1] But the forbearance of Montlue has
not deprived us of all the testimony which belongs to the fame
of the chevalier. Of all the subaltern officers of his time, no one
achieved a more brilliant reputation. Among the Gascons, confessedly
distinguished above all others by their reckless daring,
and headlong eagerness after glory in battle, the courage of
Gourgues was such as raised him to the rank of a hero of romance.
His youthful eyes had opened upon the latest fields of that race of
heroes of whom Bayard was the superior and perhaps the last. He
was one of the Sampsons of that wondrous band, whose wars, according
to Trivulcio—one not the least remarkable among them,
—were those of the giants;—the Swiss, in the fullest vigor of their
martial fame, and at the height of their insolence;—the Spaniards,
with Hernan de Cordova, the great captain, at their head, and
crowning the career of Charles V. with a power and a lustre
which his own merits did not deserve;—the Italians, under the
sway of, and deriving their spirit from, the fierce martial pontiff,
Julius II., and the French, boasting of a cavalry, headed by
Bayard, La Palisse and others, worthy of such associates, and such
as the armies of Europe had never beheld before. Montlue, who
had been trained in part in the same house with Bayard, and
Boiteres, who, as a page of the knight sans peur et sans reproche,
makes a famous figure in the chronicles of le loyal serviteur, being
among the leaders whom the Chevalier de Gourgues followed into
battle. He partook of their spirit, and proved himself worthy to
sustain the declining honors of chivalry. But his fortunes were
as adverse as his merits were distinguished. With thirty men,
near Sienna, in Tuscany, he sustained, for a long time, the shock
of a large division of the Spanish army. He saw, at length, every
man of his command fall around him, and was made a prisoner.
The captive of the Spaniard, in that day, when the emperor of
the country and his favorite generals showed themselves utterly
and equally insensible to good faith and generosity, was to be a
slave. They conducted war with little regard to the rules that
prevailed among civilized nations. The valor that Gorgues displayed,
instead of commending him to their admiration and favor,
only provoked their fury; and they punished, with shameful bonds,
those brave actions which the noble heart prefers to applause and
honor. Gourgues was transferred in chains to the gallies. In this
degrading condition, chained to the oar, he was captured by the
Turks off the coast of Sicily; the Turks then being in alliance, to
the shame of Christendom, with the French monarch, and against
the Spaniards. He was conducted by his new captors to Rhodes
and thence to Constantinople. Sent once more to sea, under his
new master, he was retaken by a Maltese galley, and thus recovered
his liberty. But his latter adventures had given him a
taste for the sea. His progresses brought him to the coast of
Africa, to Brazil, and, according to Lescarbot, though the point is
doubted, to the Pacific Ocean. The details of this career are not
given to us, but the results seem to have been equally creditable
to the fame, and of benefit to the fortunes of our chevalier. He
returned to Mont de Marsan, with the reputation of being one of
the most able and hardy of all the navigators of his time. He
had scarcely established himself fairly in his ancient home, where
he had invested all the fruits of his toils and enterprise, when the
tidings came of the capture of La Caroline, and the massacre of
the French in Florida by Melendez. He felt for the honor of
France, for the grief of the widows and orphans thus cruelly
bereaved, and was keenly reminded of that brutal nature of the
Spaniard, under which he had himself suffered so long, and in a
condition so humiliating to a noble spirit. He had his own wrongs
and those of his country to avenge. He brooded over the necessity
before him, with a passion that acquired new strength
from contemplation, and finally resolved never to give himself rest
till he had exacted full atonement, in the blood of the usurpers in
Florida, for the crime of which they had been guilty to his people
and himself.

2. II.
BLAIZE DE MONTLUC.

This sublime purpose—sublime by reason of the intense individuality
which it betrayed—the proud, strong and defiant will,
which took no counsel from the natural fears of the subject, and
was totally unrebuked by the placid indifference of the sovereign to
his own duties—was not, however, to be indulged openly; but was
compelled, by force of circumstances; the better to effect its
object—to subdue itself to the eye, to cloak its real purposes, to
suffer not the nearest or best friend to conceive the intense design
which was working in the soul of the hero. We have seen that
the Marechal, Blaize de Montluc, a very celebrated warrior, a
very brave fellow, an accomplished leader and a good man,
though a monstrous braggart—the very embodiment of Gascon
self-esteem, had long been a personal friend of the Chevalier de
Gourgues. Montluc was the king's lieutenant in Guyenne, and
to him De Gourgues proceeded to obtain his commission for sailing
upon the high seas. Montluc, like himself, was a Catholic; but,
unlike de Gourgues, was a bitter hater of the Huguenots. Our
chevalier had been too long a prisoner with Spaniard and Turk—
too long a cruiser upon lonely oceans, confined to a little world
which knew and cared nothing for sects and parties, to feel very
acutely as a politician in matters of religion. Such a life as that

which he had so long led, was well calculated to conduce to toleration.
“Vengeance is mine:” saith the Lord; and he was very
willing to believe that in his own good time, the Lord will do himself
justice upon the offender. He was no hater of Calvin or the
Protestants—was quite willing that they should pray and preach
after the desires of their own hearts; and did by no means sympathise
with his friend, Montlue, in regard to the heretics whom
he denounced. But he said nothing of this to the Marechal. He
knew that nothing could be said safely, in relation to this vexing
struggle, which tore the bowels of the nation with perpetual
strifes. He had been taught policy by painful experience; and,
though boiling with intense excitement, could conceal the secret
flame with an exterior of snow, such as shrouds the top of the
burning Orizaba. He found the old knight in the enjoyment of a
degree of repose, which was no ways desirable to one of his character.
The man of whom the epitaph records—written by himself:—

was not the person to feel grateful in the possession of an office
which gave no exercise to his restless and martial propensities.

“We are shelved, mon ami,” he said with a grim smile to
De Gourgues, as they sat together in the warm chamber of the
speaker:—“We are shelved. We are under petticoat government.
Lords and rulers are now made by the pretty women of
the Court, and an old soldier like myself, who has saved the
monarchy, as you know, a dozen times, has nothing now to do but
to hang up his armor, and watch it while it falls to pieces with
the rust. But I have made myself a name which is famous
throughout Europe, and for the opportunity to do this, I must

needs be grateful to my king. I have the lieutenancy of Guyenne,
but how long I am to have it is the question. There are
others who hunger after the shoes I wear; but whether they will
fit so well upon the feet of Monsieur, the Marquis de Villars,
must be for other eyes to determine. All I know, is, that I am
laid up forever. Strength fails, and favor fails, and I chafe at
my own lack of strength. I shall never be happy so long as my
knees refuse to bend as I would mount horse, yet bend even too
freely when I would speed on foot. But what is this expedition
for which you desire the royal seal? Certainly, we Gascons are
the most restless of all God's creatures. Here now are you but
just arrived at home, and beginning to make merry with your
friends, and here you are, all at once, impatient to be upon the
seas again. Well, you have won a great fame upon the ocean,
and naturally desire to win still more. I' faith, I feel a great
desire to keep you company. I would be at work to the last,
still doing, still conquering, and dying in the greatest of my victories.
What says the Italian—`Un bel mourir, tutta la vita
onora!' Did this adventure of yours, Monsieur, but promise a
great battle, verily, I should like to share it with you.”

“Ah! Monsieur, my friend, your passion is no longer mine,
though I am too much of the Gascon still, to fail, at the sound of
the trumpet, to prick mine ears. But this adventure tells for
fortune rather than fame. I find no fame a specific against
famine. I would seek now after those wordly goods which neither
of us looked to find in the wars with the Spaniard. And for
which reason, failing to find, we are in danger now of being put
aside by ladies' minions, and the feathered creatures of the Court.
There is great gain now to be won by a visit to the Coast of

Benin, in Africa, whence we carry the negro cannibal, that he
may be made a Christian by proper labor under Christian rule.”

And De Gourgues proceeded to unfold the history of the traffic
in slaves, as it was carried on by all nations at that period; its
marvellous profit and no less marvellous benefits to the untutored
and miserable heathen. The Marechal listened with great edification.

“Ah! Monsieur, were I now what you knew me when we
fought in Tuscany, now nearly thirty years ago! But it is too
late. I must ever remain what I am, a poor Gascon, as my sovereign
hath ever known me; too heedful of his fortune ever to give
proper tendance to my own!”

3. III.
GOURGUES AT SEA.

The Chevalier de Gourgues received his commission, and his
preparations for the expedition were at once begun. He converted
his goods and chattels into money—his lands and moveables.
He sold everything that he possessed. Nor did he rest
here. He borrowed of friends and neighbors. His credit was
good—his reputation great—himself beloved. It was easy to
inspire confidence in the ostensible objects of his expedition.
The world then conceived very differently of the morals of such
an enterprise, than it does at present. The moneys thus realized
were employed in arming two roberges, or brigantines,—ships of
light burthen, resembling the Spanish caravels; and one patache,
or tender, a vessel modelled after the frigate of the Levant, and
designed for penetrating shallow harbors. One hundred and fifty

soldiers, and eighty sailors, formed his complement of men, of
whom one hundred were armed with the cross-bow. There were
many gentlemen, volunteers, in the expedition; and De Gourgues
had taken the precaution to secure the services of one who had
been a trumpeter under Laudonniere, and had made his escape
with that commander. Provisions for a year were laid in; and
every preparation having been made, and every precaution taken,
as well with the view to secrecy, as to the prosecution of the
object, the squadron sailed for Bordeaux, on the second day of
August, 1567, just two years after the flight of Laudonniere from
Florida. But the fates, at first, did not seem to smile upon the
enterprise. Baffled by contrary winds, our chevalier was at
length driven for shelter into the Charente, where he lay till the
twenty-second, when he put to sea, only to encounter new disappointments.
His ships were separated by a severe tempest, and
some time elapsed before they were re-united. He had provided
against this event by ordering his rendezvous at the mouth of the
Rio del Oro, upon the coast of Africa. From this point he
ranged the coast down to Cape Blanco, where, instigated by the
Portuguese, he was assailed by three African chiefs, with their
naked savages, whom he beat off in two actions. He then proceeded
and continued in safety upon his route, until he reached
Cape Verd, when he turned his prows suddenly in the direction
of America. The first land which he made in this progress was
Dominica, one of the smaller Antilles; thence he drew on to
Porto Rico, and next to Mona; the cacique of which place supplied
him liberally with fresh provisions. Stretching away for
the continent, he encountered a tempest, which constrained him
to seek shelter in the port of San Nicholas, on the west side of
Hispaniola, where he repaired his vessels, greatly shattered by
the storm, but where he vainly endeavored to lay in new supplies
of bread; his biscuit having been mostly damaged by the same
cause;—the Spaniards, with great inhospitality, refusing him all
supplies of food. Scarcely had he left San Nicholas, when he
was encountered by a hurricane, which drove him upon the
coast, exposing him to the most imminent peril, and from the
danger of which he escaped with great difficulty; he gained, after
many hardships, the west side of the Island of Cuba, and found
temporary respite at Cape San Antonio, where he went on shore
for a season.

4. IV.
GOURGUES DECLARES HIS PURPOSE TO HIS FOLLOWERS, IN A
SPEECH.

His worst dangers of the sea were over. He was now within
two hundred leagues of Florida, his prows looking, with unobstructed
vision, directly towards the enemies he sought. And
now, for the first time, he deemed it proper to unfold to his people
the true object of the expedition. He assembled together all
his followers:

“Friends and comrades,” he said, “I have hitherto deceived
you as to my objects. They were of a sort to require, in the distracted
condition of our country, the utmost secrecy. It so happens
that France, torn by rival religious factions, is not properly
sensible of what is due to her honor and her people. I have
chosen you, as persons whom I mostly know, as persons who know
me, and have confidence in my courage, my honor, and my judgment.
I have chosen you to achieve a great work for the honor
of the French name, and for the safety of the French people.

Though we quarrel and fight among ourselves at home, yet should
it be a common cause, without distinction of party, to protect our
people against the foreign enemy, and to avenge the cruelties they
have been made to suffer. It is for a purpose of this nature, that
I have brought you hither. I have heard many of you speak
with tears and rage of the great crime of which the Spaniards,
under Melendez, have been guilty, in butchering our unhappy
countrymen in Florida; nine hundred widows and orphans have
cried in vain for vengeance upon the cruel murderers. You know
all this terrible history—you are Frenchmen and brethren of these
unfortunate victims. You know the crime of our enemies, the
Spaniards; always our enemies, and never more so than when they
profess peace to us, and speak with smiles. What should be our
crime, if we suffer them to escape just punishment for their
butchery; if, with the means of vengeance in our hands, and our
enemies before us, we longer delay the hour of retribution? We
must avenge the murder of our countrymen; we must make the
Spaniards of Florida atone, in blood, for the shame and affront
which they have put upon the lilies of France! If you feel as I
do, the day of vengeance and just judgment is at hand. That I
am resolute in this object—that it fills my whole soul with but
one feeling—my whole mind with but one thought—you may
know, when you see that I have sold all my wordly goods, all the
possessions that I have on earth, in order to obtain the means for
the destruction of these Spaniards of Florida. I take for granted
that you feel with me, that you are as jealous of the honor of
your country as myself, and that you are prepared for any sacrifice—life
itself—in this cause, at once so glorious, and so necessary
to the fame and safety of our people. If our Frenchmen
are to be butchered without a cause, and find no avenger, there is
an end of the French name, and honor, and well-being; they will
find no refuge on the face of the earth. Speak, then, my comrades.
Let me hear that you feel and think and will resolve with
me. I ask you to do nothing, and to peril nothing, beyond myself.
I have already staked all my worldly fortunes on this one
object. I now offer to march at your head, to give you the first
example of self-sacrifice. Is there one of you who will refuse to
follow?”

A speech so utterly unexpected, at first took his followers by
surprise; but the appeal was too grateful to their real sympathies,
their commander too much beloved, and the infusion of genuine
Gascons too large among the adventurers, to make them hesitate
in their decision. They felt the justice of the appeal; were
warmed to indignation by the sense of injury and discredit cast
upon the honor and the arms of France; and, soon recovering
from their astonishment, they eagerly pledged themselves to follow
wherever he should lead. With cries of enthusiasm they declared
themselves ready for the work of vengeance; and, taking
them in the humor which he had inspired, De Gourgues suffered
not a moment's unnecessary delay to interfere with his progress.
Crowding all sail upon his vessels, he rapidly crossed the straits of
Bahama, and stretched, with easy course, along the low shores of
the Floridian.

5. V.
GOURGUES WELCOMED BY THE FLORIDIANS.

It was not very long before his vessels drew in sight of one of
the Forts of the Spaniards, situated at the entrance of May River.
So little did they apprehend the approach of any French armament,

that they saluted that of De Gourgues, as if they had been ships of
their own nation, mistaking them as such. Our chevalier encouraged
their mistake. He answered their salute, gun for gun;
but he passed onward without any intercourse, and the night following
entered the river, called by the Indians Tacatacourou, but
to which the French had given the name of the Seine, some fifteen
leagues distant.

Here, confounding the strangers with the Spaniards, a formidable
host of Indians were prepared to give them battle. The
red-men had by this time fully experienced the tender mercies of
their brutal and bigoted neighbors; and had learned to contrast
them unfavorably with what they remembered of the Frenchmen
under Ribault and Laudonniere. With all the faults of the latter,
they knew him really as a gentle and moderate commander; by
no means blood-thirsty, and doing nothing in mere lust of power,
wantonly, and with a spirit of malicious provocation only. There
were also other influences at work among them, by which to impress
them favorably towards the French, and make them bitterly
hostile to the usurpers by whom they had been destroyed. It
needed, therefore, only that Gourgues should make himself
known to the natives, to discover their hostility. He employed for
this purpose his trumpeter, who had served under Laudonniere,
and was well known to the king, Satouriova, whose province lay
along the waters of the Tacatacourou, and with whose tribe it was
the good fortune of our Frenchmen to encounter. Satouriova,
knew the trumpeter at once, and received him graciously. He
soon revealed the existing relations between the red-men and the
Spaniards, and was delighted when assured that the Frenchmen
had come to renew and brighten the ancient chain of friendship
which had bound the red-men in amity with the people of La

Caroline. The interview was full of compliment and good feeling
on both sides. The next day was designated for a grand conference
between Satouriova and Gourgues. The interview opened
with a wild and picturesque display, which, on the part of the Indians,
loses nothing of its dignity because of its rudeness. The
stern and simple manners of the red-men, their deliberation, their
forbearance, the calm which overspreads their assemblies, the
stately solemnity with which the orator rises to address them, their
patient attention; these are ordinary characteristics, which make
the spectator forgetful of their poverty, their rude condition, the
inferiority of their weapons, and the ridiculous simplicity of their
ornaments. Satouriova anticipated the objects of Gourgues. Before
the latter could detail his designs, the savage declared his
deadly hatred of the Spaniards. He was already assembling his
people for their destruction. They should have no foothold on his
territories!

All this was spoken with great vivacity; and he proceeded to
give a long history of the wrongs done to his people by the
usurpers. He recurred, then, to the terrible destruction of the
Frenchmen at La Caroline, and at the Bay of Matanzas; and voluntarily
pledged himself, with all his powers, to aid Gourgues in
the contemplated work of vengeance.

The response of our chevalier was easy. He accepted the
pledges of Satouriova with delight. He had not come, he said,
with any present design to assail the Spaniards, but rather
with the view to renew the ancient alliance of the Frenchmen with
the Floridians; and, should he find them in the proper temper to
rise against the usurpers, then, to bring with him an armament
sufficiently powerful to rid the country of the intruders. But, as
he found Satouriova in such excellent spirit, and filled with so

brave a resolution, he was determined, even with the small force
at his command, to second the chief in his desires to rid himself
of his bad neighbors.

“Do you but join your forces to mine,—bring all your strength
—put forth all your resolution—show your best valor, and be
faithful to your pledges, and I promise you that we will destroy
the Spaniards, and root them out of your country!”

The Cassique was charmed with this discourse, and a league,
offensive and defensive, was readily agreed upon between the
parties. Satouriova, at the close of the conference, brought forward
and presented to Gourgues a French boy, named Pierre de
Bré, who had sought refuge with him when La Caroline was
taken, and whom he had preserved with care, as his own son, in
spite of all the efforts of the Spaniards to get him into their power.
The boy was a grateful gift to Gourgues; useful as an interpreter,
but particularly grateful as one of the first fruits of his mission.
That night Satouriova despatched a score or more of emissaries,
in as many different directions, to the tribes of the interior.
These, each, bore in his hands the war-macana, le Baton
Rouge, the painted red-club, which announces to the young warriors
the will of their superior. The runner speeds with this sign
of blood to the distant village, strikes the war-post in its centre,
waves his potent sign to the people, declares the place of gathering,
and darts away to spread still more the tidings. When he
faints, the emblem is seized by another, who continues on the route.
In this way, the whole nation is aroused, as by the sudden flaming
of a thousand mountain beacons. A single night will suffice to
alarm and assemble the people of an immense territory. The Indian
runner, day by day, will out-travel any horse. The result of
this expedition was visible next day, to Gourgues and his people.

The chiefs of a score of scattered tribes, with all their best warriors,
were assembled with Satouriova, to welcome the Frenchmen
to the land.

6. VI.
OLOTOCARA.

Satouriova, surrounded by his kinsmen, his allies, and subordinate
chiefs, appeared in all his state on the banks of the river,
almost with the rising of the sun. There were, in immediate attendance,
the Paracoussies or Cassiques. Tacatacourou—whose
tribe, living along its banks for the time, gave the name to the
river—Helmacana, Athoree, Harpaha, Helmacapé, Helicopilé,
Mollova, and a great many others. We preserve these names
with the hope that they may help to conduct the future antiquary
to the places of their habitation. Being all assembled, all in their
dignities, each with his little band of warriors, numbering from
ten to two hundred men, they despatched a special message to the
vessels of Gourgues, inviting him to appear among them. By a
precautionary arrangement the escort of our chevalier appeared
without their weapons, those of the red-men being likewise removed
from their persons, and concealed in the neighboring woods.
Gourgues yielded himself without scruple to the arrangements of his
tawny host. He was conducted by a deferential escort to the mossy
wood where the chiefs had assembled, and placed at the right hand
of Satouriova. The weeds and brambles had been carefully pulled
away from the spot—the place had been made very clean, and the
seat provided for Gourgues was raised, like that of Satouriova, and
nicely strewn, in the same manner, with a mossy covering. With
his trumpeter and Pierre de Bré, the captain of the French

found no embarrassment in pursuing the conference. It was
protracted for some time, as is usually the case with Indian treaties,
and involved many considerations highly important to the enterprise;
the number of the Spaniards, the condition of their
fortresses, their vigilance, and all points essential to be known,
before venturing to assail them. Much time was consumed in
mutual courtesies. Gifts were exchanged between the parties; De
Gourgues receiving from Satouriova, among other things, a chain of
silver, which the red chief graciously and with regal air cast about
the neck of the chevalier.

It was while the conference thus proceeded, that a cry without
was heard from among the great body of the tribes assembled.
Shouts full of enthusiasm announced the approach of a favorite;
and soon the Frenchmen distinguished the words, “Holata Cara!”
“Holata Cara!”[2] which we may translate, “Beloved Chief or

Captain,” and which preceded the sudden entrance of a warrior,
the appearance of whom caused an instantaneous emotion of surprise
in the minds of the Frenchmen.

The stranger was fair enough to be a Frenchman himself. His
complexion was wonderfully in contrast with that of the other
chiefs, and there was a something in his bearing and carriage, and
the expression of his countenance, which irresistibly impressed
De Gourgues with the conviction that he was gazing upon one of
his own countrymen. The features of the stranger were smooth
as well as fair, and in this, indeed, he rather resembled the
race of red than of white men. But he was evidently very young,
yet of a grave, saturnine cast of face, such as would denote equally
middle age and much experience, and yet was evidently the result
of temperament. His hair, the portion that was seen, was short,
as if kept carefully clipped; but he wore around his brows several
thick folds of crimson cotton, in fashion not greatly unlike that of
the Turk. There were many of the chiefs who wore a similar
head-dress, though whence the manufacture came, our Frenchmen
had no way to determine. A cotton shirt, with a falling cape and
fringe reaching below to his knees, belted about the waist with a
strip of crimson, like that which bound his head, formed the
chief items of his costume. Like the warriors generally, he wore
well-tanned buckskin leggings, terminating in moccasins of the
same material. He carried a lance in his grasp, while a light
macana was suspended from his shoulders.

“Holata Cara!” said Satouriova, as if introducing the stranger
to the Frenchmen, the moment that he appeared, and the young
chief was motioned to a seat. In a whisper to the trumpeter,
Gourgues asked if he knew anything about this warrior; but the
trumpeter looked bewildered.

“Such a chief was not known to us,” said he, “in the time of
Laudonniere.”

“He looks for all the world like a Frenchman,” murmured
Gourgues.

“He reminds me,” continued the trumpeter, “of a face that I
have seen and know, Monsieur; but, I cannot say. If that turban
were off now, and the paint. This is the first time I have
ever heard the name. But the boy, Pierre, may know him.”

Gourgues whispered the boy:

“Who is this chief? Have you ever seen him before? Do
you know him?”

“No, Monsieur; I have never seen him. I have heard of him.
He is the adopted son of the Great Chief, adopted from another
tribe, I hear. But he is as white as I am, almost, and looks a
little like a Frenchman. I can't say, Monsieur, but I could swear
I knew the face. I have seen one very much like it, I think,
among our own people.”

“Who?”

“I can't say, Monsieur, I can't; and the more I look, the more
I am uncertain.”

Something more was said in an equally unsatisfactory manner,
and, in the meantime, the stranger took his seat in the assembly
without seeming concern. He betrayed no curiosity when his eye
rested upon the Frenchmen. When it was agreed that two persons
should be sent, one of the French and one of the red chiefs

to make a reconnaissance of the Spanish fortress, he rose quietly
looked towards Satouriova, and, striking his breast slightly, with
his right hand, simply repeated his own name,—

“Holata Cara!”

“It is well,” said the chief, with an approving smile; and Holata
Cara, on the part of the Indians, and Monsieur d'Estampes,
a gentleman of Comminges, on the part of the Frenchmen, were
sent to explore the country under the control of the Spanish
usurpers. Holata Cara immediately disappeared from the assembly.
A few moments after he was buried in the deepest of the neighboring
thickets, while a beautiful young savage—a female—who
might have been a princess, and wore, like one, a fillet about her
brow, and carried herself loftily as became a queen, stood beside
him, with her hand resting upon his shoulder, and her eye looking
tenderly up into his; while she said, in her own language:

“I will follow you, but not to be seen; and our people shall
be nigh to watch, lest there be danger from the Spaniard.”

The chief smiled, as if, in the solicitous speech to which he listened,
he detected some sweet deceit; but he said nothing but
words of parting, and these were kind and affectionate. It was
not long before Holata Cara joined Monsieur d'Estampes, the boy
Pierre de Bré being sent along with them, on the reconnaissance
which the allies had agreed was to be made. In the meantime,
the better to assure Gourgues of the safety of D`Estampes, Satouriova
gave his son and the best beloved of all his wives, into the
custody of the French as hostages, and they were immediately
conveyed to the safe-keeping of the ships.

7. VII.
FIRST FRUITS OF THE ADVENTURE.

The reconnaissance was completed. The report of Holata
Cara and D'Etampes showed that the Spanish fortress of San
Matheo, formerly La Caroline, was in good order, and with a
strong garrison. Two other forts which the Spaniards had raised
in the neighborhood, commanding both sides of the river, and
nearer to its mouth, were also surveyed, and were found to be
well manned and in proper condition for defence. In these three
forts, the garrison was found to consist of four hundred soldiers,
unequally distributed, but with a force in each sufficient
for the post. Thus advised, the allies proceeded severally to
array their troops for the business of assault. But, before marching,
a solemn festival was appointed on the banks of the Salina
Cani—by the French called the Somme—which was the place
appointed for the rendezvous. Here the red-men drank copious
draughts of their cassine, or apalachine, a bitter but favorite
beverage, the reported nature of which is that it takes away all
hunger and thirst for the space of twenty-four hours, from those
that employ it. Though long used to all sorts of trial and endurance,
Gourgues found it not so easy to undergo this draught. Still,
he made such a show of drinking, as to satisfy his confederates;
and this done, the allied chiefs, lifting hands and eyes, made
solemn oath of their fidelity in the sight of heaven. The march
was then begun, the red-men leading the way, and moving, in
desultory manner, through the woods, Holata Cara at their head;
while, pursuing another route, but under good guidance, and keeping
his force compactly together, our chevalier conducted his
Frenchmen to the same point of destination. This was the

river Caraba, or Salinacani, named by Ribault the Somme,
which was at length reached, but not without great difficulty, the
streams being overflowed by frequent and severe rains, and the
marshy and low tracts all under water. Food was wanting also
to our Frenchmen, the bark appointed to follow them with provisions,
under Monsieur Bourdelois not having arrived.

They were now but two leagues distant from the two smaller
forts which the Spaniards had established and fortified, in addition
to that of La Caroline, on the banks of the May, or, as they
had newly christened it, the San Matheo. While bewildered
with doubts as to the manner of reaching these forts—the waters
everywhere between being swollen almost beyond the possibility
of passage—the red-men were consulted, and the chief, Helicopilé,
was chosen to guide our Frenchmen by a more easy and less
obvious route. Making a circuit through the woods, the whole
party at length reached a point where they could behold one of
the forts; but a deep creek lay between, the water of which rose
above their waists. Gourgues, however, now that his object was
in sight, was not to be discouraged by inferior obstacles; and,
giving instructions to his people to fasten their powder flasks to
their morions and to carry their swords and their calivers in their
hands above their heads, he effected the passage at a point which
enabled them to cover themselves from sight of the Spaniards
by a thick tract of forest which lay between the fort and the river.
It was sore fording for our Frenchmen; for the bed of the creek
was paved with great oysters, the shells of which inflicted sharp
wounds upon their legs and feet; and many of them lost their
shoes in the passage. As soon as they had crossed, they prepared
themselves for the assault. Up to this moment, so well
had the red-men guarded all the passages, and so rapid had been

their march, with that of Gourgues and his party, that the
Spaniards had no notion that there were any Frenchmen in the
country. Still, they were on the alert; and so active did they
show themselves, in and about the fort, that our chevalier feared
that his approach had been discovered.

But no time was to be lost. Giving twenty arquebusiers to
his Lieutenant Casenove, and half that number of mariners,
armed with pots and balls of wild fire, designed to burn the gate
of the fort, he took a like force under his own command, with the
view to making simultaneous assaults in opposite quarters. The
two parties were scarcely in motion, before Gourgues found the
chief Holata Cara at his side, followed by a small party of the
red-men; the rest had been carefully concealed in the woods, in
order to pursue the combat after their primitive fashion. Holata
Cara was armed only with a long spear, which he bore with great
dexterity, and a macana which now hung by his side, a flattened
club, the two edges of which were fitted with the teeth of the
shark, or with great flints, ground down to the sharpness of a
knife. This was his substitute for a sword, and was a weapon
capable of inflicting the most terrible wounds. The spear which
he carried was headed also with a massive dart of flint, curiously
and finely set in the wood, and exhibiting a rare instance of Indian
ingenuity, in its excellence as a weapon of offence, and its
rare and elaborate ornament. Gourgues examined it with much interest.
The instrument was antique. It might have been in
use an hundred years or more. The heavy but elastic wood, almost
blackened by age and oil, was polished like a mirror by repeated
friction. The grasp was carved with curious ability, and
exhibited the wings of birds with eyes wrought among the feathers,
in the sockets of which great pearls were set, the carving of the

feathers forming a bushy brow above, and a shield all about them,
so that, grasp the weapon as you would, the pearls were secure
from injury. Gourgues examined the owner of the spear with as
much curiosity as he did the weapon. But without satisfaction.
The features of the other were immoveable. But the signals being
all made, Holata Cara waved his hand with some impatience
to the fort, and Gourgues had no leisure to ask the questions
which that moment arose in his mind.

“It was,” says the venerable chronicle, “the Sunday eve next
after Easter-day, April, 1568,” when the signal for the assault
was given. Gourgues made a brief speech to his followers before
they began the attack, recounting the cruel treachery and the
bloody deeds of the Spaniards done upon their brethren at La
Caroline and Matanzas Bay. Holata Cara, resting with his spear
head thrust in the earth, listened in silence to this speech. The
moment it was ended, he led the way for the rest, from the
thicket which concealed them. As soon as the two parties
had emerged from cover, they were descried by the watchful
Spaniards.

“To arms! to arms!” was the cry of their sentinels. “To
arms! these be Frenchmen!”

To the war-cry of “Castile” and “Santiago!” that of
“France!” and “Saint-Denis for France,” was cheerily sent up
by the assailants; and it was observed that no shout was louder or
clearer than that of Holata Cara, as he hurried forward.

When the assailants were within two hundred paces of the fort,
the artillery of the garrison opened upon them from a culverin
taken at La Caroline, which the Spaniards succeeded in discharging
twice, with some effect, while the Frenchmen were approaching.
A third time was this piece about to be turned upon the

assailants, when Holata Cara, rushing forwards planted his spear
in the ground, and swinging from it, with a mighty spring, succeeded,
at a bound, in reaching the platform. The gunner was
blowing his match, and about to apply it to the piece, when the
spear of the Indian chief was driven clean through his body, and
the next moment the slain man was thrust headlong down into the
fort. Stung by this noble example, Gourgues hurried forward, and
the assault being made successfully on the opposite side at the
same instant, the Spaniards fled from the defences. A considerable
slaughter ensued within, when they rushed desperately from
the enclosure.

But they were encountered on every side. Escape was vain.
Of the whole garrison, consisting of threescore men, all were
slain, with the exception of fifteen, who were reserved for a more
deliberate punishment.

Meanwhile the fortress on the opposite side of the river opened
upon the assailants, and was answered by the four pieces which
had been found within the captured place. The Frenchmen
were more annoyed than injured by this distant cannonade, and
immediately prepared to cross the river for the conquest of this
new enemy. Fortunately, the patache, bringing their supplies,
had ascended the stream, and, under cover from the guns of the
Spaniard, lay in waiting just below. Gourgues, with fourscore
soldiers, crossed the stream in her; the Indians not waiting for
this slow conveyance, but swimming the river, carrying their bows
and arrows with one hand above their heads.

The Frenchmen at once threw themselves into the woods which
covered the space between this second fort and La Caroline, the
latter being only a league distant. The Spaniards, apprised of
the movement of the patache, beholding shore and forest lined

with the multitudes of red-men, and hearing their frightful cries
on every hand, were seized with an irresistible panic, and, in an
evil moment abandoned their stronghold, in the hope of making
their way through the woods, to the greater fortress of La Caroline.
But they were too late in the attempt. The woods were
occupied by enemies. Charged by the advancing Frenchmen,
they rushed into the arms of the savages, and, with the exception
of another fifteen, were all butchered as they fought or fled.
Holata Cara was again found the foremost, and the most terrible
agent in this work of vengeance.

8. VIII.
THE CONQUEST OF LA CAROLINE.

The Chevalier de Gourgues now proposed temporarily to rest
from his labors, and give himself a reasonable time before attempting
the superior fortress of La Caroline, in ascertaining its
strength, and the difficulties in the way of its capture. The
captives taken at the second fort were transferred to the first, and
set apart with their comrades for future judgment. From one of
these he learned that the garrison of La Caroline consisted of
near three hundred men, under command of a brave and efficient
governor. His prisoners he closely examined for information.
Having ascertained the height of the platform, the
extent of the fortifications, and the nature of the approaches, he
prepared scaling ladders, and made all the necessary provisions
for a regular assault. The Indians, meanwhile, had been
ordered to environ the fortress, and so to cover the whole face
of the country, as to make it impossible that the garrison should

obtain help, convey intelligence of their situation to their
friends in St. Augustine, or escape from the beleagured station.

While these preparations were in progress, the Spanish governor
at La Caroline, now fully apprised of his danger, and of
the capture of the two smaller forts, sent out one of his most
trusty scouts, disguised as an Indian, to spy out the condition of
the French, their strength and objects. But Holata Cara, who
had taken charge of the forces of the red-men, had too well
occupied all the passages to suffer this excellent design to prove
successful. He made the scout a prisoner, and readily saw
through all his disguises. Thus detected, the Spaniard revealed
all that he knew of the strength and resources of the garrison.
He described them as in very great panie, having been assured
that the French numbered no less than two thousand men.
Gourgues determined to assail them in the moment of their
greatest alarm, and before they should recover from it, or be
undeceived with regard to his strength. The red-men were
counselled to maintain their ambush in the thickets skirting the
river on both sides, and leaving his standard-bearer and a captain
with fifteen chosen men in charge of the captured forts and
prisoners, Gourgues set forth on his third adventure. He took
with him the Spanish scout and another captive Spaniard, a
sergeant, as guides, fast fettered, and duly warned that any
attempt at deception, or escape, would only bring down instant
and condign punishment upon their heads. His ensign, Monsieur
de Mesmes, with twenty arquebusiers, was left to guard the
mouth of the river, and, with the red-men covering the face of
the country, and provided with all the implements necessary to
storm the defences, Gourgues began his march against La
Caroline.

It was late in the day when the little band set forth, and evening
began to approach as they drew within sight of the fortress.
The Don in command at La Caroline was vigilant enough, and
soon espied the advancing columns. His cannon and his culverins,
commanding the river thoroughly, began to play with great
spirit upon our Frenchmen, who were compelled to cover themselves
in the woods, taking shelter behind a slight eminence
within sight of the fortress. This wood afforded them sufficient
cover for their approaches almost to the foot of the fortress—the
precautions of the Spaniard not having extended to the removal
of the forest growth by which the place was surrounded, and by
help of which the designs of an enemy could be so much facilitated.
It was under the shelter of this very wood, and by this
very route—so Gourgues learned from his prisoners—that the
Spaniards had successfully surprised and assaulted the fortress
two years before.

Here, then, our chevalier determined to lie perdu until the
next morning, the hour being too late and the enemy too watchful,
at that moment, to attempt anything. Besides, Gourgues
desired a little time to see how the land lay, and how his approaches
should be made. On that side of the fortress which
fronted the hill, behind which our Frenchmen harbored, he discovered
that the trench seemed to be insufficiently flanked for
the defence of the curtains.

While meditating in what way to take advantage of this weakness,
he was agreeably surprised by the commission of an error,
on the part of the garrison, which materially abridged his difficulties.
The Spanish governor, either with a nervous anxiety to
anticipate events, or with a fool-hardiness which fancied that they
might be controlled by a wholesome audacity, ordered a sortié;

and Gourgues with delight beheld a detachment of threescore
soldiers, deliberately passing the trenches and marching steadily
into the very jaws of ruin.

Holata Cara, as if aware by instinct, was at once at the side
of our chevalier, with his spear pointing to the fated detachment.
In a moment, the warrior sped with the commands of Gourgues,
to his lieutenant, Cazenove, who, with twenty arquebusiers, covered
by the wood, contrived to throw himself between the fortress
and the advancing party, cutting off all their chances of escape.
Then it was that, with wild cries of “France! France!” the
chevalier rose from his place of hiding, with all his band, and
rushed out upon his prey, reserving his fire until sufficiently near
to render every shot certain. The Spaniards recoiled from the
assault; but, as they fled, were encountered in the rear by the
squad under Cazenove. The battle cry of the French, resounding
at once in front and rear, completed their panic, and they
offered but a feeble resistance to enemies who neither asked nor
offered quarter. It was a massacre rather than a fight; and
still, as the French paused in the work of death, a shrill deathcry
in their midst aroused them anew, and they could behold the
lithe form of the red chief, Holata Cara, speeding from foe to
foe, with his macana only, smiting with fearful edge—a single
stroke at each several victim, followed ever by the agonizing yell
of death! Not a Spaniard escaped of all that passed through
the trenches on that miserable sortié!

Terrified by this disaster, so sudden and so complete, the garrison
were no longer capable of defence. They no longer
hearkened to the commands or the encouragements of their governor.
They left, or leaped, the walls; they threw wide the
gates, and rushed wildly into the neighboring thickets, in the

vain hope to find security in their dark recesses, and under cover
of the night. But they knew not well how the woods were occupied.
At once a torrent of yells, of torture and of triumph,
startled the echoes on every side. The swift arrow, the sharp
javelin, the long spear, the stone hatchet, each found an unresisting
vectim; and the miserable fugitives, maddened with terror,
darted back upon the fortress, which was already in the possession
of the French. They had seized the opportunity, and in
the moment when the insubordinate garrison threw wide the gates,
and leaped blindly from the parapets, they had swiftly occupied
their places. The fugitive Spaniards, recoiling from the savages,
only changed one form of death for another. They suffered on
all hands—were mercilessly shot down as they fled, or stabbed as
they surrendered; those only excepted who were chosen to expiate,
more solemnly and terribly, the great crime of which they
had been guilty!

9. IX.
THE SACRIFICE OF THE VICTIMS.

The captured fortress was won with a singular facility, and
with so little loss to the assailants, as to confirm them in the
conviction that the service was acceptable to God. He had
strengthened their hearts and arms—HE had hung his shield of
protection over them—HE had made, through the sting of conscience,
the souls of the murderous Spaniards to quake in fear at
the very sight of the avengers! The fortress of La Caroline
was found to have been as well supplied with all necessaries for
defence, as it had been amply garrisoned. It was defended by
five double culverins, by four minions, and divers other cannon

of smaller calibre suitable for such a forest fortress. “Eighteen
great cakes of gunpowder,” (it would seem that this combustible
was put up in those days moistened, and in a different form from
the present, and hence the frequent necessity for drying it, of
which we read,) and every variety of weapon proper to the
keeping of the fortress, had been supplied to the Spaniards; so
that, but for the unaccountable error of the sortié, and but for
the panic which possessed them, and which may reasonably be
ascribed to the natural terrors of a guilty conscience, it was
scarcely possible that the Chevalier de Gourgues, with all his
prowess, could have succeeded in the assault. He transferred all
the arms to his vessels, but the gunpowder took fire from the
carelessness of one of the savages, who, ignorant of its qualities,
proceeded to seethe his fish in the neighborhood of a train, which
took fire, and blew up the store-house with all its moveables, destroying
all the houses within its sweep! The poor savage himself
seems to have been the only human victim. The fortress
was then razed to the ground, Gourgues having no purpose to reestablish
a colony which he had not the power to maintain.

But his vengeance was not complete. The final act of expiation
was yet to take place; and, bringing all his prisoners together, he
had them conducted to the fatal tree upon which the Spaniards
had done to death their Huguenot captives! This was at a short
distance from the fortress.

Mournful was the spectacle that met the eyes of the Frenchmen
as they reached the spot. There still hung the withered and
wasted skeletons of their brethren, naked, bare of flesh, bleached,
and rattling against the branches of the thrice-accursed tree!
The tempest had beaten wildly against their wasted forms—the
obscene birds had preyed upon their carcasses—some had fallen,

and lay in undistinguished heaps upon the earth; but the entire
skeletons of many, unbroken, still waved in the unconscious
breezes of heaven! For two weary years had they been thus
tossed and shaken in the tempest. For two years had they thus
waved, ghastly, white, and terrible, in mockery of the blessed
sunshine! And now, in the genial breezes of April, they still
shook aloft in horrible contrast with the green leaves, and the
purple blossoms of the spring around them! But they were now
decreed to take their shame from the suffering eyes of day! A
solemn service was said over the wretched remains, which were
taken down with cautious hands, as considerately as if they were
still accessible to hurt, and buried in one common grave! The
red-men looked on wondering, and in grave silence; and Holata
Cara, leaning upon his spear, might almost be thought to weep
at the cruel spectacle.

But his aspect changed when the Spanish captives were brought
forth. They were ranged, manacled in pairs, beneath the same
tree of sacrifice. Briefly, and in stern accents, did Gourgues recite
the crime of which they had been guilty, and which they were
now to expiate by a sufferance of the same fate which they had
decreed to their victims! Prayers and pleadings were alike in
vain. The priest who had performed the solemn rites for the
dead, now performed the last duties for the living judged! He
heard their confessions. One of the wretched victims confessed
that the judgment under which he was about to suffer was a just
one; that he himself, with his own hands, had hung no less than
five of the wretched Huguenots. With such a confession ringing
in their ears, it was not possible for the French to be merciful!
At a given signal, the victims were run up to the deadly branches,
which they themselves had accursed by such employment; and

even while their suspended forms writhed and quivered with the
last fruitless efforts of expiring consciousness, the chieftain Holata
Cara looked upon them with a cold, hard eye, stern and tearless,
as if he felt the dreadful propriety of this wild and unrelenting
justice! The deed done—the expiation made—Gourgues then
procured a huge plank of pine, upon which he caused to be
branded, with a searing iron, in rude, but large, intelligible characters,
these words, corresponding to that inscription put by the
Spaniards over the Huguenots, and as a fitting commentary upon
it:—
How long they hung thus, bleaching in storm and sunshine; how
long this terrible inscription remained as a record of their crime
and of this history, the chronicle does not show, nor is it needful.
The record is inscribed in pages that survive storm, and wreck,
and fire;—more indelibly written than on pillars of brass and
marble! It hangs on high forever, where the eyes of the criminal
may read how certainly will the vengeance of heaven alight, or
soon or late, upon the offender, who wantonly exults in the moment
of security in the commission of great crimes done upon
suffering humanity.

10. XI.
THE CHIEFS OF THE LILY AND THE TOTEM EMBRACE AND
PART.

“San Augustine!”

Such were the words spoken to Gourgues by Holata Cara at the
close of this terrible scene of vengeance, and his spear was at once
turned in the direction of the remaining Spanish fortress. Gourgues
readily understood the suggestion, but he shook his head regretfully—

“I am too feeble! We have not the force necessary to such
an effort!”

The red chief made no reply in words, but he turned away and
waved his spear over the circuit which was covered by the thousand
savages who had collected to the conflict, even as the birds
of prey gather to the field of battle.

But Gourgues again shook his head. He had no faith in the alliance
with the red-men. He knew their caprice of character,
their instability of purpose, and the sudden fluctuations of their
moods, which readily discovered the enemy of the morrow in the
friend of to-day. Besides, his contemplated task was ended. He
had achieved the terrible work of vengeance which he had proposed
to himself and followers, and his preparations did not extend to
any longer delay in the country. He had neither means nor provisions.

He collected the tribes around him. All the kings and princes
of the Floridian gathered at his summons, on the banks of the Tacatacorou,
or Seine, where he had left his vessels, some fifteen
leagues from La Caroline. Thither he marched by land in battle

array, having sent all his captured munitions and arms with his
artillerists by sea, in the patache.

The red-men hailed him with songs and dances, as the Israelites
hailed Saul and David returning with the spoils of the Philistines.

“Now let me die,” cried one old woman, “now that I behold
the Spaniards driven out, and the Frenchmen once more in the
country.”

Gourgues quieted them with promises. It may be that he really
hoped that his sovereign would sanction his enterprise, and avail
himself of what had been done to establish a French colony again
in Florida; and he promised the Floridians that in twelve months
they should again behold his vessels.

The moment arrived for the embarkation, but where was Holata
Cara? The Frenchman inquired after him in vain. Satouriova
only replied to his earnest inquiries,—

“Holata Cara is a great chief of the Apalachian! He hath
gone among his people.”

A curious smile lurked upon the lips of the Paracoussi as he
made this answer; but the inquiries of Gourgues could extract
nothing from him further.

They embraced—our chevalier and his Indian allies—and the
Frenchmen embarked, weighed anchor, and, with favoring winds,
were shortly out of sight. Even as they stretched away for the
east, the eyes of Holata Cara watched their departure from a distant
headland where he stood embowered among the trees. The
graceful figure of an Indian princess stood beside his own, one
hand shading her eyes, and the other resting on his shoulder. At
length he turned from gazing on the dusky sea.

“They are gone!” she exclaimed.

“Gone!” he answered, in her own dialect. “Gone! Let us
depart also!” And thus speaking, they joined their tawny followers
who awaited them in the neighboring thicket, within the
shadows of which they soon disappeared from sight.

11. XI.
MORALS OF REVENGE.

Historians have been divided in opinion with regard to the
propriety of that wild justice which Dominique de Gourgues inflicted
upon the murderers of his countrymen at La Caroline. One
class of writers hath preached from the text, “Vengeance is mine
saith the Lord;” another from that which, permissive rather than
mandatory, declares that “Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man
shall his blood be shed.”

Charlevoix regrets that so remarkable an achievement as that
of Gourgues, so honorable to the nation, and so glorious for himself,
should not have been terminated by an act of clemency, which,
sparing the survivors of the Spanish forts, should have contrasted
beautifully with the brutal behavior of the Spaniards under the
like circumstances; as if the enterprise itself had anything but
revenge for its object; as if the butcheries which accompanied the
several attacks upon the Spanish forts, and the butcheries which
followed them—where the victims were trembling and flying men
—were any whit more justifiable than the single, terrible act of
massacre which appropriately furnished the catastrophe to the
whole drama!

If the Spaniards were to be spared at all, why the enterprise at
all? No wrong was then in progress, to be defeated by interposition;
no design of recovering French territory or re-establishing

the French colony was in contemplation, making the enterprise
necessary to success hereafter. The entire purpose of the expedition
was massacre only, and a bloody vengeance!

It is objected to this expedition of Gourgues, that reprisals are
rarely possible without working some injustice. This would be an
argument against all law and every social government. But it is
said that revenge does not always find out the right victim, particularly
in such a case as the present, and that the innocent is
frequently made to suffer for the guilty.

Gourgues could not, it would seem, have greatly mistaken his
victims, when we find one of them confessing to the murder of five
of the Huguenots by his own hand, and none of them disclaiming
a participation in the crime. But there is a better answer even
than this instance affords, and it conveys one of those warning lessons
to society, the neglect of which too frequently results in its
discomfiture or ruin.

That society or nation which is unable or unwilling to prevent
or punish the offender within its own sphere and province, must
incur his penalties; and this principle once recognized, it becomes
imperative with every citizen to take heed of the public conduct
of his fellow, and the proper exercise of right and justice on the
part of his ruler. There are, no doubt, difficulties in the way of
doing this always; but what if it were commonly understood and
felt that each citizen had thus at heart the wholesome administration
of exact justice on the part of the society in which he lived,
and the Government which can exist only by the sympathies of
the people? How prompt would be the remedy furnished by the
ruler to the suffering party! how slow the impulse to wrong on
the part of the criminal!

The suggestion that magnanimity and mercy shown to the

Spaniards by Gourgues, after his victory, would have had such a
beautiful effect upon the consciences of those guilty wretches, is
altogether ridiculous. The idea exhibits a gross ignorance of the
nature of the Spaniards at the time. Gourgues knew them thoroughly.
A more base, faithless, treacherous and murderous character
never prevailed among civilized nations, and never could
prevail among any nation of warlike barbarians. We do not
mean to justify Gorgues; but may say that it is well, perhaps, for
humanity, that heroism sometimes puts on the terrors of the
avenger, and visits the enormous crime, which men would otherwise
fail to reach, with penalties somewhat corresponding with the
degree and character of the offence! There are sometimes criminals
whom it is a mere tempting of Providence to leave only to
the judgments of eternity and their own seared, cold, and wicked
hearts. The murderer whose hands you cannot bind, you must
cut off; not because you thirst for his blood, but because he
thirsts for yours! But ours is not the field for discussion, and
we may well leave the question for decision to the instincts of humanity.
The vengeance which moves the nations to clap hands
with rejoicing has, perhaps, a much higher guaranty and sanction
than the common law of morals can afford.

12. XII.
THE CHEVALIER AT HOME—MONTLUC COUNSELS GOURGUES
FROM HIS COMMENTARIES.

Having taken his farewell of the Floridians, and embarked with
all his people, it was on board of his vessels, with their wings
spread to the breeze, that the Chevalier De Gourgues offered up

solemn acknowledgments to Heaven, for the special sanction which
he had found in its favor for the enterprise achieved. It was
with a heart full of gratitude, that he bowed down on the deck of
his little bark, and offered up his prayer to the God of Battles
for the succor afforded him in his extremity. It was with a light
heart that he meditated upon the sanguinary justice done upon
the cruel enemies of his people; the honor of his country's flag
redeemed by a poor soldier of fortune, when disgraced and deserted
by the monarch and the court, who derived all their distinction
from its venerable and protecting folds. It was with a just
and honorable pride that he felt how certainly he had made the
record of his name in the pages of history, by an action grateful
to the fame of the soldier, and still more grateful to the fears and
sympathies of outraged humanity. The acclamations of the wild
Floridian—their praises and songs of victory, however wild and
rude—were but a foretaste of those which he had a right to expect
from the lips of his countrymen in la Belle France! Alas!
the hand of power covered the lips of rejoicing! The despotism
of the land shook a heavy rod over the people, silencing the
voice of praise, and chilling the heart of sympathy. But let us
not anticipate.

The Chevalier De Gourgues sailed from the mouth of the Tacatacorou,
on the third of May, 1568. For seventeen days the
voyage was prosperous, and his vessels ran eleven hundred leagues;
and on the sixth of June, thirty-four days after leaving the coast
of Florida, he arrived at Rochelle. The latter half of his voyage
had been far different from the first. As at his departure
from France, he suffered severely from head winds and angry
tempests. His provisions were nearly exhausted, and his people
began to suffer from famine. His consorts separated from him in

the storm, one of them, the patache, being lost with its whole
complement of eight men; the other not reaching port for a
month after himself. His escape was equally narrow from other
and less merciful enemies than hunger and shipwreck. The bruit
of his adventure, to his great surprise, had reached the country
before him. The Spanish court, well served, in that day, by its
emissaries, had been advised of his progress, and that he had appeared
at Rochelle. A fleet of eighteen sail, led by one large
vessel, was instantly despatched in pursuit of him.

Received with good cheer and great applause by the people of
Rochelle, it was fortunate that he did not linger there. He set
forth with his vessel for Bordeaux; there he went to render an account
to his friend, the Marechal Blaize de Montlue, of his adventures.
This timely movement saved him. The pursuing
Spaniards reached Che-de-Bois the very day that he had left it,
and continued the chase as far as Blaze. He reached Bordeaux
in safety, and made his report to the king's lieutenant.

Montlue was one of those glorious Gascons who would always
much prefer to fight than eat. He was proud of the chevalier as
a Gascon, and he loved him as a friend. But the approbation
that he expressed in private, he did not venture openly to speak.

“You have done a famous thing, Monsieur De Gourgues, you
have saved the honor of France, and won immortal glory for
yourself; but the king's lieutenant must not say this to the king's
people. I praise God that you are a Gascon like myself, and no
race, I think, Monsieur De Gourgues, was ever quite so valiant as
our own; but my friend, I fear they do not love us any the better
that they have not the soul to rival us. I fear that the glory
thou hast won will bring thee to the halter only. Hearken, my
friend, Dominique, dost thou know that, at this very moment, thy

vessel is pursued by a host of Spanish caravels? the winds rend
and the seas sink them to perdition! Thou knowest, how I hate,
and scorn, and spit upon the cut-throat scoundrels! Well!
That is not all. I tell thee, Dominique, my friend, there is a
courier already on his way to the ambassador of Spain, who will
demand thy head from our sovereign, that it may give pleasure
to his sovereign, the black-hearted and venomous Philip. What
would he with thy head, my friend? I tell thee, it is his wretched
selfishness that would take thy head—not that it may be useful to
him, but that it shall no longer be of use to thee! Was there
ever such a fool and monster! Thou shouldst keep thy head,
my friend, so long as thou hast a use for it thyself, even though
it ache thee many times after an unnecessary bottle!”

“Think'st thou, Montlue, that there is any danger that the
court of France will give ear to the king of Spain?”

“Give ear! Ay, give both ears, my friend! Our head is in
the lap of Spain already. She hath the shears with which she
shall clip the hair by which our strength is shorn; and, if she will,
me thinks, she may clip head as well as hair, when the humor
suits. It is not now, my friend, as when we fought against the
bloody dogs at Sienna, remembering only to outdo the famous
deeds of the stout men-at-arms that followed Bayard and La
Palisse in the generation gone before. Ah! Monsieur, thou wast
with me in those days. Thou rememberest, I trow, the famous
skirmish which we had before the little town of Sêve. But I will
read thee from my commentaries, which I have been writing in
imitation of Roman Cæsar, of the wonderful wars and sieges in
which I have fought, and in which I have evermore found most
delight.”

And he drew forth from his cabinet, as he spoke, the great

volume of manuscripts, afterwards destined to become the famous
depository of his deeds.

“I have written like a Gascon, Monsieur De Gourgues, but let
none complain who is not able to do battle like a Gascon! He
who fights well, my friend, may surely be allowed the privilege of
showing how goodly were his deeds. I will read thee but a passage
from that famous skirmish at Sêve; not merely that thou
shouldst see the spirit of what I have written, and bear witness
to the truth, but that thou mayst find for thyself a fitting lesson
for thy own conduct in the straight which is before thee.”

Having found the passage, Montlue read as follows:

“As the Signior Francisco Bernardin and myself, who, for that
time were the Marshals of the camp, drew nigh to the place, and
were beginning to lodge the army, there sallied forth from fort,
and church, and trench, a matter of two or three hundred men,
who charged upon us with the greatest fury. I had with me at
that time, but the Captain Charry—a most brave captain, whom
thou must well remember—”

Gourgues nodded assent—

“—with fifty arquebusiers and a small body of horse.
Knowing this my weakness, the Baron de Chissy, our campmaster,
sent me a reinforcement of one hundred arquebusiers.
But my peril was such, that I sent to him straightway for other
help, telling him that we were already at it, and close upon the
encounter. At this very moment, Monsieur de Bonnivet, returning
post from court, and hearing of the fighting, said to the Baron
de Chissy, without alighting from his horse—

“`Do thou halt here till the Marechal shall arrive, and, meanwhile,
I will go and succor Monsieur de Montlue.'

“He was followed by certain captains and arquebusiers on

horseback. We had but an instant for embrace when he arrived,
for the enemy were already charging our men.

“`You are welcome, Monsieur de Bonnivet,' I said to him
quickly; `but alight, and let us set upon these people, and beat
them back again into their fortress.'

“Whereupon, he and his followers instantly alighted, and he
said to me, `do you charge directly upon those, who would recover
the fort.'

“Which said, he clapped his buckler upon his arm, while I
caught up an halbert, for I ever (as thou knowest) loved to play
with that sort of cudgel. Then I said to Signior Francisco Bernardin—

“`Comrade, whilst we charge, do you continue to provide the
quarters.'

“But to this he answered—

“`And is that all the reckoning you make of the employment
the Marechal hath entrusted to our charge? If it must be
that you will fight thus—I will be a fool for company, and, once
in my life, play Gascon also.'

“So he alighted and went with me to the charge. He was armed
with very heavy weapons, and had, moreover, become unwieldy
from weight of years. This kept him from making such speed as
I. At such banquets, my body methought did not weigh an
ounce. I felt not that I touched the ground; and, for the pain of
my hip (greatly hurt as thou knowest by a fall at the taking of
Quiers) that was forgotten! I thus charged straightway upon
those by the trench upon one side, and Monsieur de Bonnivet did
as much upon his quarter; so that we thundered the rogues back
with such a vengeance, that I passed over the trench, pell-mell,
amidst the route, pursuing, smiting and slaying, all the way, till

we reached the church! I never so laid about me before, or did
so much execution at any one time. Those within the church,
seeing their people in such disorder, and so miserably cut to
pieces, in a great terror, fled from the place, taking, in flight, a
little pathway that led along the rocky ledges of the mountain,
down into the town. In this route, one of my men caught hold
upon him who carried their ensign; but the fellow nimbly and
very bravely disengaged himself from him, and leapt into the path;
making for the town as fast as he could speed. I ran after him
also, but he was too quick even for me, as well he might be,—
for he had fear in both his heels!”

Here Montlue paused, and closed the volume.

“It is enough that I have read; for thou wilt see the counsel
that I design for thee. It is not easy for thee to take it, being a
Gascon; but such it is, borrowed from the wisdom of that same
ensign. Thou sawest him scamper, for thou wert on that very
chase;—now, if thou wouldst save thy head from the affections
of the king of Spain, take fear in both thy heels, and run as nimbly
as that ensign.”

“Verily, it is not easy, Monsieur de Montlue, seeing that I
am conscious of no wrong, but rather of a great service done to
my country; and if my own king deliver me not up, wherefore
should I fear him of Spain.”

“That is it, my friend! Our king will, not from his own nature,
but from that of others, who love not this service to thy
country. The Queen-mother will deliver thee up, the Princes of
Lorraine will deliver thee up, and the devil will deliver thee up—
all having a great affection for the king of Spain—if thou trust not
the counsel of thy friends, and wilfully put thy head in one direction
where the wisdom of thy heels would show thee quite

another. Hast thou forgotten that good proverb of the Italians,
which we heard so much read from their lips and honored in their
actions,—`No te fidar, et no serai inganato?' Above all, mon
ami, trust nothing to thy hope, when it builds upon thy service
done to kings. It is a hope that has hung a thousand good fellows
who might be living to this day. Now, in counselling thee
to flight and secrecy, I counsel thee against my own pride and
pleasure. It would be a great delight to me to have thee near
me, while I read thee all mine history;—the beginning, even to
the end thereof;—the thousand sieges, battles and achievements,
in which I have shown good example to the young valor of
France, and made the Gascon name famous throughout the
world.”

The heart of the Chevalier Gourgues was not persuaded. He
could not believe that his good deeds for his country's good and
honor, would meet with ill-return and disgrace.

“The king will do me justice.”

“Verily, should he even give thee to him of Spain, or hang
thee himself, they will call it by no other name,” answered
the other drily.

“But the baseness and the cowardice of flight! This confiding
one's courage and counsel to one's heels, Montlue!”

“Is wisdom, as thou shouldst know from the story of Achilles.
Verily, it requires that the secret meaning of this vulnerableness
of the heel on the part of the son of Thetis, is neither more nor
less than that he was a monstrous coward—that he would have
been the bravest man of the world, but for the weakness that
always made him fly from danger. It was in the form of allegory
that the satirical poet stigmatised a man in authority. You see
nothing in the treatment of Hector by Achilles, but what will

confirm this opinion. He will not fight with him himself, but
makes his myrmidons do so. What is this, but the case of one
of our own plumed and scented nobles, who procures his foe,
whom he fears, to be murdered by the Biscayan bully whom he
buys?—But, let me read thee a passage from my commentaries
bearing very much upon this history.”

13. XIII.
FALL OF THE CURTAIN.

We need not listen to this passage. The reader will find it,
with other good things, in the huge tome of the braggart, and
garrulous, but very shrewd and valiant old Gascon. Enough to say,
that this counsel did not prevail with his friend. Gourgues determined
to persevere in his original intention of presenting himself
at court. His reasons for this resolution were probably not altogether
shown to Montlue. Gourgues was a bankrupt, and
needed employment. His expedition had absorbed his little
fortune, and left him a debtor, without the means of repayment.
With the highest reputation as a captain, by land and sea,—and
with his name honored by the sentiment of the nation, which was
not permitted to applaud,—he still fondly hoped that his friend
had mistaken his position, and that he should be honored and
welcomed to the favor and service of his sovereign. He was one
of those to hope against hope.

“As thou wilt! Unbolt the door for the man who is wilful.
If thy resolution be taken, I say no more. But thou shalt have
letters to the Court, and if the words of an old friend and brother
in arms may do thee good, thou shalt have the sign-manual of
Montlue, to as many missives as it shall please thee to despatch.”

The letters were written; and, with a full narrative of his expedition
prepared, the Chevalier de Gourgues made his appearance
at court. He had anticipated the ambassador of Spain; but he
was received coldly. The Queen Mother, and the Princes of
Lorraine, with all who worshipped at their altars, turned their
backs upon the heroic enthusiast. The king forebore to smile.
In his secret heart, he really rejoiced in the vengeance taken by
his subject upon the Spaniards, but he was not in a situation to
declare his true sentiments. Meanwhile, the Spanish ambassador
demanded the offender, and set a price upon his head. The
Queen Mother and her associates denounced him. A process
was initiated to hold him responsible, in his life, for an enterprise
undertaken without authority against the subjects of a monarch
in alliance with France; and our chevalier was compelled to hide
from the storm which he dared not openly encounter. For a
long time he lay concealed in Rouen, at the house of the
President de Marigny, and with other ancient friends. In this
situation, the Queen of England, Elizabeth, made him overtures,
and offered him employment in her service; but the tardy grace
of his own monarch, at length, enabled him to decline the appointments
of another and a hostile sovereign. But, nevertheless,
though admitted to mercy by the king of France, he was left
without employment. Fortune, in the end, appeared to smile.
Don Antonio, of Portugal, offered him the command of a fleet
which he had armed with the view to sustaining his right to the
crown of that country, which Philip of Spain was preparing to
usurp. Gourgues embraced the offer with delight. It promised
him employment in a familiar field, and against the enemy whom
he regarded with an immortal hate; but the Fates forbade that
he should longer listen to the plea of revenge. While preparing

to render himself to the Portuguese prince, he fell ill at Tours,
where he died, universally regretted, and with the reputation of
being one of the most valiant and able captains of the day—
equally capable as a commander of an army and a fleet. We
cannot qualify our praise of this remarkable man by giving heed
to the moral doubts which would seek to impair the glory, not
only of the most remarkable event of his life, but of the century
in which he lived. We owe it to his memory to write upon his
monument, that his crimes, if his warfare upon the Spaniards
shall be so considered, were committed in the cause of humanity!

Our chronicle is ended. The expedition of Dominique de
Gourgues concludes the history of the colonies of France in the
forests of the Floridian.