During the years 1663 and 1664 bands of Mohawks and Oneidas
raided the regions of the Richelieu and penetrated to the settlement
at Three Rivers. These _petites guerres_ were making things
intolerable for the colonists, and the King was urged to send out a
force of troops large enough to crush the bothersome savages once for
all. This plea met with a ready response, and in June, 1665, Prouville
de Tracy with two hundred officers and men of the Regiment de
Carignan-Salieres disembarked at Quebec. The remaining companies of
the regiment, making a force almost a thousand strong, arrived a
little later. The people were now sure that deliverance was at hand,
and the whole colony was in a frenzy of joy.
Following the arrival of the troops came Courcelle, the new governor,
and Jean Talon, who was to take the post of intendant. These were gala
days in New France; the whole colony had caught the spirit of the new
imperialism. The banners and the trumpets, the scarlet cloaks and
the perukes, the glittering profusion of gold lace and feathers, the
clanking of swords and muskets, transformed Quebec in a season from a
wilderness village to a Versailles in miniature. But there was little
time for dress parades and affairs of ceremony. Tracy had come to give
the Iroquois their _coup de grace_, and the work must be done quickly.
The King could not afford to have a thousand soldiers of the grand
army eating their heads off through the long months of a Canadian
winter.
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