Pioneers of France in the New World | Page 4

Parkman

INTRODUCTION.
The springs of American civilization, unlike those of the elder world,
lie revealed in the clear light of History. In appearance they are feeble;
in reality, copious and full of force. Acting at the sources of life,
instruments otherwise weak become mighty for good and evil, and men,
lost elsewhere in the crowd, stand forth as agents of Destiny. In their
toils, their sufferings, their conflicts, momentous questions were at
stake, and issues vital to the future world,--the prevalence of races, the
triumph of principles, health or disease, a blessing or a curse. On the
obscure strife where men died by tens or by scores hung questions of as
deep import for posterity as on those mighty contests of national
adolescence where carnage is reckoned by thousands.
The subject to which the proposed series will be devoted is that of
"France in the New World,"--the attempt of Feudalism, Monarchy, and
Rome to master a continent where, at this hour, half a million of
bayonets are vindicating the ascendency of a regulated freedom;--
Feudalism still strong in life, though enveloped and overborne by
new-born Centralization; Monarchy in the flush of triumphant power;
Rome, nerved by disaster, springing with renewed vitality from ashes
and corruption, and ranging the earth to reconquer abroad what she had
lost at home. These banded powers, pushing into the wilderness their
indomitable soldiers and devoted priests, unveiled the secrets of the
barbarous continent, pierced the forests, traced and mapped out the
streams, planted their emblems, built their forts, and claimed all as their
own. New France was all head. Under king, noble, and Jesuit, the lank,
lean body would not thrive. Even commerce wore the sword, decked
itself with badges of nobility, aspired to forest seigniories and hordes of
savage retainers.

Along the borders of the sea an adverse power was strengthening and
widening, with slow but steadfast growth, full of blood and muscle,--a
body without a head. Each had its strength, each its weakness, each its
own modes of vigorous life: but the one was fruitful, the other barren;
the one instinct with hope, the other darkening with shadows of
despair.
By name, local position, and character, one of these communities of
freemen stands forth as the most conspicuous representative of this
antagonism,--Liberty and Absolutism, New England and New France.
The one was the offspring of a triumphant government; the other, of an
oppressed and fugitive people: the one, an unflinching champion of the
Roman Catholic reaction; the other, a vanguard of the Reform. Each
followed its natural laws of growth, and each came to its natural result.
Vitalized by the principles of its foundation, the Puritan commonwealth
grew apace. New England was preeminently the land of material
progress. Here the prize was within every man's reach: patient industry
need never doubt its reward; nay, in defiance of the four Gospels,
assiduity in pursuit of gain was promoted to the rank of a duty, and
thrift and godliness were linked in equivocal wedlock. Politically she
was free; socially she suffered from that subtle and searching
oppression which the dominant opinion of a free community may
exercise over the members who compose it. As a whole, she grew upon
the gaze of the world, a signal example of expansive energy; but she
has not been fruitful in those salient and striking forms of character
which often give a dramatic life to the annals of nations far less
prosperous.
We turn to New France, and all is reversed. Here was a bold attempt to
crush under the exactions of a grasping hierarchy, to stifle under the
curbs and trappings of a feudal monarchy, a people compassed by
influences of the wildest freedom,--whose schools were the forest and
the sea, whose trade was an armed barter with savages, and whose daily
life a lesson of lawless independence. But this fierce spirit had its vent.
The story of New France is from the first a story of war: of war --for so
her founders believed--with the adversary of mankind himself; war
with savage tribes and potent forest commonwealths; war with the
encroaching powers of Heresy and of England. Her brave, unthinking
people were stamped with the soldier's virtues and the soldier's faults;

and in their leaders were displayed, on a grand and novel stage, the
energies, aspirations, and passions which belong to hopes vast and
vague, ill-restricted powers, and stations of command.
The growth of New England was a result of the aggregate efforts of a
busy multitude, each in his narrow circle toiling for himself, to gather
competence or wealth. The expansion of New France was the
achievement of a gigantic ambition striving to grasp a continent. It was
a vain attempt. Long and valiantly her chiefs upheld their cause,
leading to battle a vassal population, warlike as