, depuis l'annee_
1682.
Belmont, who accompanied the expedition, speaks of the affair with
indignation, which was shared by many French officers. The bishop, on
the other hand, mentions the success of the stratagem as a reward
accorded by Heaven to the piety of Denonville. _Etat Present de
l'Eglise_, 91, 92 (reprint, 1856).
Denonville's account, which is sufficiently explicit, is contained in
the long journal of the expedition which he sent to the court, and in
several letters to the minister. Both Belmont and the author of the
_Recueil_ speak of the prisoners as having been "pris par l'appat d'un
festin."
Mr. Shea, usually so exact, has been led into some error by
confounding the different acts of this affair. By Denonville's
official journal, it appears that, on the 19th June, Perre, by his
order, captured several Indians on the St. Lawrence; that, on the 25th
June, the governor, then at Rapide Plat on his way up the river,
received a letter from Champigny, informing him that he had seized all
the Iroquois near Fort Frontenac; and that, on the 3d July, Perre,
whom Denonville had sent several days before to attack Ganneious,
arrived with his prisoners.
[2] I have ventured to give this story on the sole authority of
Charlevoix, for the contemporary writers are silent concerning it.
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