In 1690
Huron and other Indian allies of the French had come from the far
interior to trade and also to consider the eternal question of
checking the Iroquois. At the council, which began with grave
decorum, a Huron orator begged the French to make no terms with
the Iroquois. Frontenac answered in the high tone which he could
so well assume. He would fight them until they should humbly
crave peace; he would make with them no treaty except in concert
with his Indian allies, whom he would never fail in fatherly
care. To impress the council by the reality of his oneness with
the Indians, Frontenac now seized a tomahawk and brandished it in
the air shouting at the same time the Indian war-song. The whole
assembly, French and Indians, joined in a wild orgy of war
passion, and the old man of seventy, fresh from the court of
Louis XIV, led in the war-dance, yelled with the Indians their
savage war-whoops, danced round the circle of the council, and
showed himself in spirit a brother of the wildest of them. This
was good diplomacy. The savages swore to make war to the end
under his lead.
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