Page:American Medical Biographies - Kelly, Burrage.djvu/534

HEBERT 512 HEBERT summer of 1606 he suddenly amiounced to his friends and relations that he was sailing with Poutrincourt and fifty other colonists for the New World, of which there had lately been so much talk. Among others who sailed in the ship was the Parisian lawyer, historian and poet named Lescarbot, the friend and lawyer of Poutrincourt. It is to Lescarbot that we are indebted for the vivid portrayal of how the first winted in the new settlement at Port Royal was passed. "For my part," writes Lescarbot, "I can say that I never worked so hard in my life. I took pleasure in laying out and cultivating my gardens, in making alleys, in building summer-houses, growing wheat, rye, barley, oats, beans, peas, and garden plants, and in watering them, for I was most anxious to find out, by personal experience, the quality of the soil." With Lescarbot worked Hebert and the days were not long enough for these two enthusi- astic agriculturists ; they must needs work by moonlight, digging and planting. Lescarbot and Hebert returned to Paris in the Autumn of 1607, but Hebert, after a short stay, came back to Port Royal accompanied by Biencourt, Poutrincourt's son. He assisted Biencourt in managing and taking care of those colonists who had remained, and when Biencourt was absent acted as his lieutenant, until the place was destroyed in 1613, by the English. Hebert then returned to Paris, as he thought, for good, and once more opened his shop on the banks of the Seine. When Champlain arrived in France in 1617 he visited Hebert, and so beguiled him with his marvellous accounts of the country about Quebec that Hebert again sold his possessions and with his family started for Honfleur, where he arrived on March 15. Champlain had induced a new fur trading company to promise to support Hebert and his family for two years, and afterwards to make him an allowance of two hundred crowns for three years. On arriving at Honfleur, Hebert found, to his chagrin and dismay, that all the promises which the company had held out to him were false. In vain did Hebert appeal for fair treatment. The company refused to keep their promises ; they oflfered him one hundred crowns, instead of two hundred, and, more- over, required his bond for free medical at- tendance at all times to the settlers and to the clerks belonging to their company. Hebert was at their mercy, but rather than return to Paris, for he had disposed of all his effects. he embarked with his family for the New World. Their passage was a stormy one, and when they reached Newfoundland, the ship encoun- tered a great field of icebergs. At one time it seemed as if all on board must perish. Father Joseph, one of the passengers, knelt upon the deck and prayed for Divine assist- ance, and we are told in the "Relations of the Jesuits" that Madame Hebert took Marie Rollet, her youngest child, and held her up through the hatchway, that she might receive the father's blessing. It was on this long and stormy voyage of thirteen weeks and a day that the courtship of Anne, the eldest daughter of Hebert, commenced. Among the passen- gers was one Etienne Jonquest, a sturdy son of Normandy. He wooed Anne so success- fully that the two were married in the Autumn by Father le Caron. This was the first mar- riage in Canada, according to Church rites, but Anne had a short wedded life, for she died in 1619 and was followed by her hus- band within a few weeks. Louis Hebert chose for the site of his fu- ture home in Quebec, land on the height above — later called Mountain Hill, part of which was between the present streets of Famille and Couillard. He lost no time in building his home, a substantial stone house, thirty-eight feet in length by nineteen in width, the best house for many years to come in Quebec, and the first dwelling in what was afterwards the upper town, for as yet Champlain had not built his fort on the cliff. Not far from the house ran a stream of pure water, and this had decided Hebert in his choice of a site. For ten years Hebert toiled like any hardy peasant upon his farm. He sowed Indian corn and vegetable seeds, planted apple trees and his beloved grape vines. All his spare time, when not attending to the sick, was devoted to his agricultural pursuits. Every year he cleared more ground and tried fresh experiments in farming; every year his farm became more and more productive. He was able, almost from the first, to support his family on what he raised, and this in spite of the fact that the company forced him to sell them his grain at a price fixed by themselves, one of the many acts of injustice rendered him by the company. This farm was the show farm of Quebec — the model farm, so to speak, of the day. From this time agriculture began to find its place in New France, and in these golden days of Canada's greatness, she may well be proud of her first farmer. The life of this clever, original Frenchman