Pontoise

“ He summoned his most trusty captains, and those who had attended the late embassy to Pontoise, and declared to them his intentions: they replied, that in whatever he should be pleased to command them, [Pg 106] they would exert themselves to the utmost, without regarding their lives or fortunes, or the difficulties and hardships they might have to encounter. The king then nominated those who were to be of the expedition against Pontoise.
They arrived on the last day of July, between day-break and sun-rise, at one of the gates of Pontoise, and might be about three thousand combatants. ”

“ If he had to tell you two and two was four, he would pretend that his genius first discovered it. So I don't know what happened at Pontoise. Likely the old Colonel did mix him up in some plot which some other fellows smoked. ”

“ Others, to avoid being plundered, had sewed up their money within the waistbands of their breeches. When they had all passed the bridge of St George, they kept together until they came to Pontoise, where they separated, and went to different parts, excepting the nobles, who joined the king of France and the duke of Burgundy at Provins. ”

“ Grain and flour are the principal staples of the trade; a well-known fair is held in November. The town has a sub-prefecture, tribunals of first instance and of commerce and a communal college. At Mériel, near Pontoise, there are interesting remains of the Cistercian abbey of Le Val. Pontoise existed in the time of the Gauls as Briva Isarae (Bridge of the Oise) . ”

“ Artists and artisans were brought from Paris, Château Courance was converted for the time into a busy workshop, the neighborhood thrown into a fever of excitement, and the work of making ready for the wedding was urged forward with the vigor of a military campaign. The general spent his days between Courance, where he directed the rehabilitation of the château, and La Pontoise, where he became the most devoted of cavaliers. ”

“ Well, when Willibrand and Sir Roger Balcombe, Major Wharfling, the Guardsmen, and Cadminster were quite out of sight, Pontoise and I somehow found ourselves back at the golf-house. I was cold, and there was a fire there, and he looked so handsome and so miserable as he stood bare-headed by the door, waiting for me to enter, that——”
“The fly walked in. And then the spider——”
“He disappointed me, I will own,” said Clarice, with a little gulp. “After all his penitent protestations! I have never trusted men with agate-colored eyes since, and I never will. ”

“ Several years previously (1435) his name occurs as being a member of the Duke of Bedford's retinue in France (William Worcester) , and again (c. 1439) as defending Pontoise against the French king (Polydore Vergil) . He was slain in the battle of St. Albans (1455) , where his body was afterwards buried in the Virgin's chapel by the abbot (Register of J. Whethamstede, i. 176) . ”

“ There were within the towne of Pontoise at that time when it was thus taken by the Englishmen, a thousand lances, and two thousand arcubalisters, as Thomas Wilsingham affirmeth, and of Englishmen and Gascoignes that went first foorth of Mante with the captau de Buef, not past fiftéene hundred, as Hall reporteth: although Enguerant de Monstrellet saith, they were about thrée thousand. ”

“ Pontoise, the town of, taken by the Bretons, x. 279
Porée, Martin, bishop of Arras, causes the sentence against master Jean Petit to be revoked, iv. 212
Portugal, the king of, raises an army against the infidels, vi. 233
the queen of, dies, viii. 402
the king of, comes to solicit the aid of Louis XI. to recover the crown of Spain, xi. 239
honours paid him at Paris, xi. 240
Poton de Saintrailles, defeats the Burgundians near Guerbigny, vi. 390
is made prisoner by the English, vii. 4
Poulaine, the king of, his son killed in battle near Therouenne, xi. 314
Poulcres castle, siege of, ix. ”

“ Pale-face cannot deceive Pontiac. You see before you that great warrior. Pontiac likes the English pale-face not at all; for has he not found the pale-face tongue ever fair and false? Where are the lands of our fathers? Did they not reach from the ocean beyond the big river of the Mississippi? Pontiac’s tribe very great. His chiefs have ever been renowned in council and in war. Were not our braves as numerous as the leaves of the forest? Were not peace and plenty ours until the white man came among us? ”

“ The young man would spy upon the Indians and then go and tell the great English general of what he has seen. He is a snake in the grass, close to the trail of Pontiac and his followers."
"I am not a spy, Chief Pontiac. My father is a trader and I help him at his trading-post on the Ohio, that is all."
Pontiac waved his hand. "The wind can blow a lie away, but the truth is like a rock that the wind cannot stir. Pontiac's followers have watched the white youth, and he knows." ”

“ Most fellows, of course, would think themselves in luck, but Ponty has all the tin he knows what to do with, and a wife would suit his book about as well as a tame white elephant. He is dog-in-the-manger in spite of himself. No others need apply. ”

“ Poor Ponto is much to be pitied. Either having a cold in his nose, or having ante-breakfasted by stealth on a red herring, he can scent nothing short of a badger, and, every other field, he starts in horror, shame, and amazement, to hear himself, without having attended to his points, enclosed in a whirring covey. He is still duly taken between those inexorable knees; out comes the speck-and-span new dog-whip, heavy enough for a horse; and the yowl of the patient is heard over the whole parish. Mothers press their yet unchastised infants to their breasts ”

“ I, that have lived months in that province, and am the only traveller that ever did so, must corroborate every word Poncet has said upon this occasion. To dwell on landscapes and picturesque views, is a matter more proper for a poet than a historian. Those countries which are described by Poncet, merit a pen much more able to do them justice, than either his or mine. ”

“ But before Pontiac was many years old he knew that the wigwam was the place for women and children, and that it was a shame for a man not to follow the deer through the forest, and go upon the warpath. He saw that if a man stayed at home and loved ease and comfort his squaw would scold him with a shrill tongue. ”

“ All over the land should council fires be lighted. All over the land should the hatchet be raised. By wile and treachery the forts should fall. By fire and bloodshed the settlements should be laid waste and the Englishmen driven into the sea. Thus spoke Pontiac, and thus spoke his messengers, who with war belts of black and red wampum and hatchets smeared with blood sought out the villages of the Algonquins. ”

“ So it happened that when he grew up Pontiac could not remember a time when the dark forest did not seem like home to him.
As soon as he was old enough to understand words, he heard his mother laughing with her neighbors about [Pg 61] the men in the village who stayed about their wigwams like women. Now, he thought that a wigwam or bark lodge was a very pleasant place. The small, dark, oven-shaped room, smoky and foul with the smell of fish and dirt, was home to him—the mud floor, worn smooth and hard with use, was strewn with mats and skins which served for chairs and beds. ”

“ Pontiac grinned. "The belts are more than one man can carry."
"Where does the chief intend to go when he leaves this post?"
Pontiac lifted his hand and pointed east, west, north, south. He would have no settled abode. It was a sign that he relinquished the inheritance of his fathers to an invader he hated. His race could not live under the civilization of the Anglo-Saxon. He would have struck out [141] to the remotest wilderness, had he foreseen to what a burial place his continual clinging to the French would bring him. ”

“ Home, home, home,” murmured Pontycroft, “sweet home is the tune we'll all be whistling within a month. Lucilla will carol it from her bog because it isn't considered polite to whistle in Ireland; but I, from my Saxon heath and Ruth from God's country will imitate the blackbirds. Could any tune be more acceptable to the Nonconformist conscience? Ruth, you perceive, already begins to dominate! Columbia, Ruler of the sea and wave—see how she sends us about our neglected and obvious affairs. High-ho for Winter in the North,” said Ponty. ”

“ Turning from the Cure, she held out a hand to the young Seigneur with a little casual air, as if she had but seen him yesterday, and said: "Monsieur De la Riviere—what, still buried?—and the world waiting for the great touch! But we in Pontiac gain what the world loses." ”

“ When he appeared on the veranda of the inn with the hot pennies, not a half-dozen people in the village had known aught of his presence in Pontiac. The children came first, to scorch their fingers and fill their pockets, and after them the idle young men, and the habitants in general.
The stranger having warmly shaken Parpon by the hand and again whispered in his ear, stepped forward. The last light of the setting sun was reflected from the red roof of the Little Chemist’s shop upon the quaint figure and eloquent face, which had in it something of the gentleman, something of the comedian. ”

“ Then he turned away and said no more.
"What do you make of this, White Buffalo?" asked Dave, after they had left the Indian village a goodly distance behind them.
"Pontiac likes not the fact that Dave's father has settled down on the Ohio," was the slow answer. "Pontiac wishes the English to keep close to the shores of the Great Waters."
"I must say he looks like a great chief," said the youth thoughtfully.
"He is a great chief, and his power is as wide-spreading as a great summer storm," answered White Buffalo. "The red men everywhere listen to him with all ears." ”

“ This drinking-song, hummed just above his breath, touched some antique memory in Monsieur Garen the avocat, and he nodded kindly at the dwarf, though he refused the wine.
“Ah, M’sieu’ le Cure,” said Parpon, ducking his head to avoid the hand that Medallion would have laid on it, “we’re going to be somebody now in Pontiac, bless the Lord! We’re simple folk, but we’re not neglected. He wears a ribbon on his breast, M’sieu’ le Cure!” ”

“ Pontiac's wrong-doings had brought it more profit than penalty, more praise than punishment: for, after five years in France in the care of the Little Chemist's widow, Madelinette Lajeunesse had become the greatest singer of her day. But what had put the severest strain upon the modesty of Pontiac was the fact that, on the morrow of Madelinette's first triumph in Paris, she had married M. Louis Racine, the new Seigneur of Pontiac. ”

“ Madame Marie sat with the doctor beside the bed of her dear mistress, and in another room, George Fournel, with the Avocat, kept watch beside the body of the Seigneur of Pontiac. The face of the dead man was as peaceful as that of a little child.
At ninety years of age, the present Seigneur of Pontiac, one Baron Fournel, lives in the Manor House left him by Madelinette Lajeunesse the great singer, when she died a quarter of a century ago. ”

“ Or, if it be autumn or winter, he calls, perhaps, with a voice at once gruff and feeble, an old Ponto, and will take a pluff at the partridges. In former days, down they used to go, right and left, in potato or turnip-field, broomy brae or stubble—but now his sight is dim and wavering, and his touch trembles on the trigger. The covey whirrs off, unharmed in a single feather—and poor Ponto, remembering better days, cannot conceal his melancholy, falls in at his master's heel, and will range no more. Out, as usual, comes the brandy-bottle—he is still a good shot when his mouth is the mark ”

“ The Count de Ponthieu, the young Prince his son, and Thibault, were made prisoners, and thrown into dungeons; all the christians in the ship were served in the same manner, and so loaded with irons, that they immediately found they had been preserved from the rage of the sea, only to perish in a more cruel manner on land. Those heroes prepared themselves for death with a resolution worthy of their courage ”

“ For the first time, she perceived that General Adgate recalled Pontycroft in a measure. Tall, thin, spare, his aquiline features were like Pontycroft's, his bearing was that of a distinguished man. “He has Harry Pontycroft's air of knowing that he knows,” reflected Ruth softly; tenderly to her soul she quoted a line Pontycroft long ago had ironically applied to himself:
“He who Knows that he Knows, follow him.” ”

“ Pontiac had distinguished himself at Detroit and Michillimackinac. When the French gave up Canada (1760) , their Indian allies still preserved their hatred towards the English, and as Pontiac was the most considerable enemy of that nation, the adjacent tribes all came to him as a support against them. Pontiac had advanced farther in civilization than any of the neighbouring chiefs: he appointed a commissary during the war of 1763, called Pontiac’s war; and issued bills of credit, on each of which was pictured the thing desired, and the figure of an otter, the symbol of his tribe. ”

“ The Conspiracy of Pontiac is a story, filled with incident and abounding in illustrations of courage, craft, endurance, stubbornness, self-sacrifice, despair, triumph. The plain truth shames invention. Pontiac lives in these pages describing his towering ambition. So do the other actors,—Rogers, Gladwyn, Campbell, Catharine the Ojibwa girl. The supernumeraries are strikingly picturesque,—Canadian settlers, trappers, coureurs des bois, priests, half-breeds, and Indians, the motley denizens of frontier and wilderness. ”