On 14 December 1837 nearly 1,500 British troops under General Sir John Colborne surrounded the Patriote rebels holding the village of Saint-Eustache, near Montreal. The Patriotes, a few hundred poorly armed habitants led by Dr. Jean-Olivier Chénier, barricaded themselves in the church and the buildings around it. The British shelled the village, set the church on fire and shot down the men who jumped from its windows. Chénier was among the dead, and the first rebellion in Lower Canada was over.
The last Patriote camp
The rebellion of the Patriotes, who demanded responsible government for Lower Canada, had won a battle at Saint-Denis and lost one at Saint-Charles on 25 November 1837. Several hundred rebels then fell back to their camp at Saint-Eustache under Chénier, the village doctor, and Amury Girod, a farmer and ardent Patriote. Their men were mostly habitants from Saint-Eustache and the neighboring parishes, short of weapons and training.1
Colborne gathered nearly 1,500 men in two brigades: the 32nd and 86th Regiments with a troop of Montreal volunteer cavalry under Colonel John Maitland, and artillery, Montreal riflemen and 83 loyalist volunteers from Saint-Eustache itself under Colonel George Augustus Wetherall, the victor of Saint-Charles. The loyalist volunteers were led by Maximilien Globensky, and the troops came up from Montreal by way of Île Jésus.2
The church in flames
At 11:15 on the morning of 14 December the village bell rang to announce the enemy across the frozen Rivière des Mille Îles. Believing he faced the whole British army, Chénier sent between 150 and 300 men across the ice, and they were driven back by heavy fire. By the time they reached the village, according to the Canadian Encyclopedia, half of the rebels had deserted. The rest held the church, the presbytery, the convent, the seigneurial manor and nearby houses. Girod, saying he was going out to rally the troops, left instead to Saint-Benoît; he killed himself three days later.3
Colborne's guns bombarded the buildings, and the British cleared the convent, the presbytery and the manor by setting them on fire. In the church, the historian Samuel Venière writes, Chénier told his unarmed men not to worry, since some of the soldiers would be killed and they could take their muskets. Soldiers got in through the vestry and set the church alight. The defenders jumped from the windows and most were shot as they landed; Chénier, who had just turned 31, was killed trying to get out of the burning church.4
The cost
By 4:30 p.m. Saint-Eustache was in flames; some 65 houses were burned and the village was looted. The Canadian Encyclopedia counts about 70 Patriotes killed, 15 wounded and about 120 taken prisoner, against only a few British dead. The Dictionary of Canadian Biography is more cautious: some 40 men whose names are known were killed, and there were probably as many more whose names are not. Whether the British treated Chénier's body with respect was still argued over generations later.5
The defeat ended the first rebellion in Lower Canada, and Louis-Joseph Papineau fled to the United States. The walls of the church of Saint-Eustache still bear the marks of the British artillery.6
