On reading these details one cannot understand the inactivity of the French:  it would seem that the authorities had lost their heads.  We cannot otherwise explain the lack of foresight of the officers absent from their posts, the pusillanimous orders of the governor to M. de Vaudreuil, his imprudence in sending too weak a troop through the dangerous places, the lack of initiative on the part of M. de Saint-Jean, finally, the absolute lack of energy and audacity, the complete absence of that ardour which is inherent in the French character.

After this disaster the troops returned to the forts, and the surrounding district, abandoned thus to the fury of the barbarians, was ravaged in all directions.  The Iroquois, proud of the terror which they inspired, threatened the city itself; we note by the records of Montreal that on August 25th there were buried two soldiers killed by the savages, and that on September 7th following, Jean Beaudry suffered the same fate.  Finding nothing more to pillage or to burn, they passed to the opposite shore, and plundered the village of Lachesnaie.  They massacred a portion of the population, which was composed of seventy-two persons, and carried off the rest.  They did not withdraw until the autumn, dragging after them two hundred captives, including fifty prisoners taken at Lachine.

This terrible event, which had taken place at no great distance from them, and the news of which re-echoed in their midst, struck the inhabitants of Quebec with grief and terror.  Mgr. de Laval was cruelly affected by it, but, accustomed to adore in everything the designs of God, he seized the occasion to invoke Him with more fervour; he immediately ordered in his seminary public prayers to implore the mercy of the Most High.  M. de Frontenac, who was about to begin his second administration, learned the sinister news on his arrival at Quebec on October 15th.  He set out immediately for Montreal, which he reached on the twenty-seventh of the same month.  He visited the environments, and found only ruins and ashes where formerly rose luxurious dwellings.

War had just been rekindled between France and Great Britain.  The governor had not men enough for vast operations, accordingly he prepared to organize a guerilla warfare.  While the Abenaquis, those faithful allies, destroyed the settlements of the English in Acadia and killed nearly two hundred persons there, Count de Frontenac sent in the winter of 1689-90, three detachments against New England; all three were composed of only a handful of men, but these warriors were well seasoned.  In the rigorous cold of winter, traversing innumerable miles on their snowshoes, sinking sometimes into the icy water, sleeping in the snow, carrying their supplies on their backs, they surprised the forts which they went to attack, where one would never have believed that men could execute so rash an enterprise.  Thus the three detachments were alike successful, and the forts of Corlaer in the state of New York, of Salmon Falls in New Hampshire, and of Casco on the seaboard, were razed.