Receiving an arrogant reply from the Iroquois, who thought their country
inaccessible to the French, he himself set out from Montreal on June
2nd, 1671, with fifty-six soldiers, in a specially constructed boat and
thirteen bark canoes. He reached the entrance to Lake Ontario, and so
daunted the Iroquois by his audacity that the Ottawas sued for peace.
Profiting by the alarm with which he had just inspired them, M. de
Courcelles gave orders to the principal chiefs to go and await him at
Cataraqui, there to treat with him on an important matter. They obeyed,
and the governor declared to them his plan of constructing at this very
place a fort where they might more easily arrange their exchanges. Not
suspecting that the French had any other purpose than that of protecting
themselves against inroads, they approved this plan; and so Fort
Cataraqui, to-day the city of Kingston, was erected by Count de
Frontenac, and called after this governor, who was to succeed M. de
Courcelles.

Their transitory apprehensions did not interrupt the construction of the
two churches of Quebec and Montreal, for they were built almost at the
same time; the first was dedicated on July 11th, 1666, the second, begun
in 1672, was finished only in 1678. The church of the old city of
Champlain was of stone, in the form of a Roman cross; its length was one
hundred feet, its width thirty-eight. It contained, besides the
principal altar, a chapel dedicated to St. Joseph, another to Ste. Anne,
and the chapel of the Holy Scapulary. Thrice enlarged, it gave place in
1755 to the present cathedral, for which the foundations of the older
church were used. When the prelate arrived in 1659, the holy offices
were already celebrated there, but the bishop hastened to end the work
which it still required. "There is here," he wrote to the Common Father
of the faithful, "a cathedral made of stone; it is large and splendid.
The divine service is celebrated in it according to the ceremony of