As viewed
from official France, he had allied himself with Protestants in
an attack on his flag and his countrymen. La Tour's nemesis in
Acadia, the Sieur d'Aulnay, sailed to France to complain that La
Tour had gone too far, taking with him the deposition of the
Capuchins charging La Tour with consorting with enemies of the
faith and of the flag.
D'Aulnay was given a 16-gun warship,
reinforcements for his fort and his own little fleet, and
another order for La Tour's arrest.
La Tour sent
his wife, the formidable Francoise Marie Jacqueline, to plead
his case in France, but this time she could do little good.
Charles Mahaffie reports, "The cause of La Tour was in such
disfavor that to make her way home, she first had to sneak
across the English Channel to London, where a captain named John
Bayley agreed to take her to Fort La Tour. Bayley, however, had
other matters and other ports of call....Nearly six months
passed before he finally delivered her...to Boston, not to Fort
La Tour. Arriving on September 27, 1644, she learned that her
husband, who had been (in Boston) since July trying to pull off
another Puritan intervention, had sailed only eight days
earlier. She was stuck. Low on funds, with no way home, she had
not much left but grit and wile.
"They would do,"
Mahaffie writes. "She sued Bayley and the ship's owner for
breach of contract...(and) won her case (which) allowed (her) to
seize and sell Bayley's cargo. With the proceeds, she bought
supplies for Fort La Tour and hired the ships that finally, at
the end of a year, took her home."
D'Aulnay,
meanwhile, had sent his own emissaries to Boston, where Governor
John Winthrop had second thoughts about entangling himself in
affairs in Acadia.
D'Aulnay's negotiators were able to get Winthrop to sign a
document recognizing Acadia
as a province of France, recognizing d'Aulnay as its governor,
and accepting the French declaration that La Tour was an outlaw.
D'Aulnay's prime
emissary was a priest known as "Mousieur Marie." He signed the
document with Winthrop. The agreement said, in part, "The
governor and magistrates do promise to Monsieur Marie aforesaid,
that they and all the English within the jurisdiction
of...Massachusetts in New England, shall observe and keep firm
peace with Monsieur De Aulnay (sic)...and all the French under
his government in Accady (sic); and also Monsieur Marie promises
for Monsieur de Aulney that he and all his people shall keep
firm peace also with the Governor and Magistrates aforesaid, and
all the inhabitants of the said jurisdiction of...Massachusetts;
that it shall be lawful for all their people (French and
English) to trade with each other, so as if any occasion of
offense should happen neither of them shall attempt anything
against the other in a hostile way, except complaint and
manifestation of the injury be first made, and satisfaction
according to equity be not given. Provided always that the
Governor and Magistrates aforesaid be not bound to restrain
their merchants from trading with their ships and with what
people soever, whether French or others, in what place soever
inhabiting."
It was an alliance
of trade as well as of politics but La Tour was not through. He
still thought that he could get Puritan help if he proclaimed
himself Protestant and his fort to be a Protestant island amid
the papists of Acadia.
La Tour left his
wife in charge of the fort at Jemseg and went to Massachusetts
to plead once again with his friends there. D'Aulnay attacked
the fort with 200 men while La Tour was away, capturing it after
a three-day fight.
He forced Madame de
La Tour, with a cord around her own neck, to watch while the men
who defended her fort were hanged. She died in prison three
weeks later. According to d'Aulnay's report, the cause of her
death was "spite and rage."
La Tour, with no
wife, no fort, and no men to return to, roved for a time as a
privateer in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, then took refuge in
Quebec.