Some of the refugees made a public demonstration from Vermont, but precipitately fled before a small force which met them.  At St. Eustache, one Girod, a plausible, mendacious Swiss or Alsatian, who had become a leader in the rebellious movement, and Dr. Chenier, a rash but courageous man, collected a considerable body of rebels, chiefly from St. Benoit, despite the remonstrances of Mr. Paquin, the cure of the village, and defended the stone church and adjacent buildings against a large force, led by Sir John Colborne himself.  Dr. Chenier and many others—­at least seventy, it is said on good authority—­were killed, and the former has in the course of time been elevated to the dignity of a national hero and a monument raised in his honour on a public square of the French Canadian quarters of Montreal.  Mad recklessness rather than true heroism signalised his action in this unhappy affair, when he led so many of his credulous compatriots to certain death, but at least he gave up his life manfully to a lost cause rather than fly like Papineau who had beguiled him to this melancholy conclusion.  Even Girod showed courage and ended his own life when he found that he could not evade the law.  The rebellious element at St. Benoit was cowed by the results at St. Eustache; and the Abbe Chartier, who had taken an active part in urging the people to resistance, fled to the United States whence he never returned.  The greater part of the village was destroyed by fire, probably in retaliation for the losses and injuries suffered by the volunteers at the hands of the rebels in different parts of the district of Montreal.

One of the most unfortunate and discreditable incidents of the rising in the Richelieu district was the murder of Lieutenant Weir, who had been taken prisoner while carrying despatches to Sorel, and was literally hacked to pieces, when he tried to escape from a caleche in which he was being conveyed to St. Charles.  An equally unhappy incident was the cold-blooded execution, after a mock trial, of one Chartrand, a harmless non-combatant who was accused, without a tittle of evidence, of being a spy.  The temper of the country can be gauged by the fact that when it was attempted, some time later, to convict the murderers on clear evidence, it was impossible to obtain a verdict.  Jolbert, the alleged murderer of Weir, was never punished, but Francois Nicholas and Amable Daumais, who had aided in the trial and execution of Chartrand, were subsequently hanged for having taken an active part in the second insurrection of 1838.

The rebellion of 1837 never reached any large proportions, and very few French Canadians of social or political standing openly participated in the movement.  Monseigneur Lartigue, Roman Catholic bishop of Montreal, issued a mandement severely censuring the misguided men who had joined in the rebellious movement and caused so much misery throughout the province.  In England, strange to say, there were men found, even