"A brave race, these
black cassocks; for they carry the Word into the jaws of death. _Ad
majorem Dei gloriam_. There was Father Jogues. What privations, what
tortures he endured! And an Iroquois sank a hatchet into his brain. I
have seen the Spaniard at his worst, the Italian, the Turk, but for
matchless cruelty the Iroquois has no rival. And this cunning Mazarin
promises and promises us money and men, while those who reckon on his
word struggle and die. Ah well, monseigneur has the gout; he will die
of it."
"And this Marquis de Perigny; will not Father Chaumonot waste his
time?" asked the mariner.
"Who can say? The marquis is a strange man. He is neither Catholic
nor Huguenot; he fears neither God nor the devil. He laughs at death,
since to him there is no hereafter. Yet withal, he is a man of justice
and of many generous impulses. But woe to the man who crosses his
path. His peasants are well fed and clothed warmly; his servants
refuse to leave him. He was one of the gayest and wildest courtiers in
Paris, a man who has killed twenty men in duels. There are two things
that may be said in his favor; he is without hypocrisy, and is an
honest and fearless enemy.
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