The fears of the villagers had been greatly excited for some days
past by exaggerated reports of the presence of Iroquois on the
upper waters of the Chaudiere. They not unnaturally conjectured,
moreover, that the general call for men on the King's corvee, to
fortify the city, portended an invasion by the English, who, it was
rumored, were to come up in ships from below, as in the days of Sir
William Phipps with his army of New Englanders, the story of whose
defeat under the walls of Quebec was still freshly remembered in the
traditions of the Colony.
"Never fear them!" said old Louis, the one-eyed pilot. "It was in
my father's days. Many a time have I heard him tell the story--how,
in the autumn of the good year 1690, thirty-four great ships of the
Bostonians came up from below, and landed an army of ventres bleus
of New England on the flats of Beauport. But our stout Governor,
Count de Frontenac, came upon them from the woods with his brave
soldiers, habitans, and Indians, and drove them pell-mell back to
their boats, and stripped the ship of Admiral Phipps of his red
flag, which, if you doubt my word,--which no one does,--still hangs
over the high altar of the Church of Notre Dame des Victoires.
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