Jacques Marquette

“ Brother Jacques was conscious of the sound.
"My mother," he repeated.
"You lie, Jesuit!"
"Not at this hour, my father."
"Son of Margot Bourdaloue, you! ... Ah!" The marquis rose again, leaning on both arms. "Have you come to mock my death-bed?"
"Truth is not mockery."
"Away, lying Jesuit!"
The priest stooped. "Look well into my face, Monsieur; look well. Is there not something there to awaken your memory?" Brother Jacques brought his face within a span of the marquis's. "Look!"
"The eyes, the eyes! ... Margot, a son? ... What do you want?" The marquis moistened his lips. ”

“ In truth they had need of her aid; for several large wooden canoes, filled with savages, were putting out from the shore, above and below them, to cut off their retreat, while a swarm of headlong young warriors waded into the water to attack them. The current proved too strong; and, failing to reach the canoes of the Frenchmen, one of them threw his war-club, which flew over the heads of the startled travellers. Meanwhile, Marquette had not ceased to hold up his calumet, to which the excited crowd gave no heed, but strung their bows and notched their arrows for immediate action ”

“ A thousand livres were a great many.
But the marquis acted quite contrary to his expectations. He astonished the good man by laughing and pounding the floor with his cane.
"Good!" he cried. "I like a man of your kidney. You have an opinion and the courage to support it. You are still less a Jesuit than a man. Brother Jacques here might have acquiesced to all my theories rather than lose a thousand livres." ”

“ Marquette established them in a new mission, at Point St. Ignace, opposite Mackinaw; and it was from here that, in 1673, he joined the party of Louis Joliet, en route to the Mississippi River. The St. Ignace mission became the largest and most successful in the Northwest, there being encamped there, during Marquette's time, about 500 Hurons and 1,300 Ottawas. The interesting story of Marquette, a familiar chapter in American history, will be fully developed in the documents of this series ”

“ He did not propose to confide any of his thoughts to the priest. "He is old, and is wasteful of his energies."
"Yes, he has wasted his energies; in your cause, Monsieur, remember that. Your father had nothing in common with D'Hérouville. Their paths had never crossed ... and never will cross again."
The Chevalier kicked the stones impatiently. So Brother Jacques understood why the marquis had fought the Comte d'Hérouville?
"May I be so bold as to ask what took place between you and Monsieur le Marquis on the night of his arrival in Quebec?" ”

“ As the explorations of Marquette opened the way for the still more wonderful excursions of La Salle, I must here introduce a brief account of his adventures. There is something in blood. The Marquette family had been illustrious in France from time immemorial. Generation after generation, many of its members had obtained renown, not only for chivalric courage, but for every virtue which can adorn humanity. Their ancestral home was a massive feudal castle on an eminence near the stately city of Leon. ”

“ Soon after entering the Mississippi, Marquette noticed some rocks which by their height and length inspired awe. "We saw upon one of them two painted monsters which at first made us afraid, and upon which the boldest savages dare not long rest their eyes. They are as large as a calf; they have horns on their heads like those of deer, a horrible look, red eyes, a beard like a tiger's, a face somewhat like a man's, a body covered with scales, and so long a tail that it winds all round the body and ends like that of a fish. ”

“ Men and women together, Kootanie George and Ernestine, Garcia and Drennen, Père Marquette and Mère Marquette, felt the difference between her and themselves.
"We seem to interrupt," she said coolly, her voice deeply musical, as she turned to Père Marquette. He, looking a little dazed and stupid from all that had taken place, but never forgetful of his duties as host, had come toward her hesitantly, his lips seeking to form a new phrase of greeting. "We are tired and need food. ”

“ Marquette sought by his journey the honour of a higher master than an earthly sovereign; “I shall gladly lay down my life for the salvation of souls,” said he, in answer to a messenger of the Pottawatomies who warned him, “that these distant nations never spared strangers; that their mutual wars filled the shores with warriors; and that the great river abounded with monsters which devoured both men and canoes; and that the excessive heat was mortal.” And on hearing his reply, the children of the Wilderness united with him in prayer for his preservation. ”

“ Marc obeyed her as Captain Sefton had done, turning to Marquette with an inquiry. Drennen's eyes were only for a fleeting moment upon Sefton whose quick fingers were busy at the wound. Then they returned to the table at which he had diced. Frank Marquette, seeing the look, poured the gold all into the canvas bag and brought it to him.
The eyes of one man alone did not waver once while the girl was in the room, black eyes as tender as a woman's, eloquent now with admiration, their glance like a caress. Ramon Garcia spoke softly, under his breath. Ernestine Dumont looked down at him curiously. ”

“ Marquette was a happy-go-lucky fellow who loved hunting and fishing better than he did eating and sleeping. He was on good terms with everybody, and all of the pioneers thought a good deal of him.
Marquette came to the log cabin one day bringing in some sweet herbs that Mrs. Parsons desired very much, and in return was given his supper and a place to sleep. From this meeting the boys were much interested in the hunter and he in the boys.
“I will show you how to make snowshoes and how to wear them,” he said one day. “Then [167] you can go anywhere, no matter how deep the snow is.” ”

“ He took charge of, and put on a firm basis the famous Kaskaskian mission, which death had compelled Marquette to relinquish. None of the missionaries of his time dared more or travelled over a wider territory than Allouez. He even reached the western end of Lake Superior. His life was one alternation of triumphs and defeats. At times he had to prevent the Indians from adoring him as a god; at others they were about to sacrifice him to their deities. ”

“ The Marquis, therefore, from the moment they sat down to supper, had expected some stroke of learning from Matta, to bring his own into play; but he was much out in his reckoning; no one had read less, no one thought less, and no one had ever spoken so little at an entertainment as he had done as he did not wish to enter into conversation, he opened his mouth only to eat, or ask for wine. ”

“ The women were clothed in shabby skins, and wore their hair clumped in a mass behind each ear. By good luck, there was a young Indian in the village, who had an excellent knowledge of Illinois; and through him Marquette endeavored to explain the mysteries of Christianity, and to gain information concerning the river below. To this end he gave his auditors the presents indispensable on such occasions, but received very little in return. They told him that the Mississippi was infested by hostile Indians, armed with guns procured from white men ”

“ Don Marquis was born in 1878; reckoning by tens, '88, '98, '08—well, call it forty. He is burly, ruddy, gray-haired, and fond of corncob pipes, dark beer, and sausages. He looks a careful blend of Falstaff and Napoleon III. He has conducted the Sun Dial in the New York Evening Sun since 1912. He stands out as one of the most penetrating satirists and resonant scoffers at folderol that this continent nourishes. He is far more than a colyumist: he is a poet—a kind of Meredithian Prometheus chained to the roar and clank of a Hoe press. ”

“ In 1672, letters from Quebec informed Marquette that the government had taken up the project of exploring the Mississippi, and that he was the missionary selected to accompany the expedition. His heart exulted at the prospect. The hope of a glorious martyrdom while opening the way to future heralds of the Cross buoyed him up, though in his humility he never spoke of martyrdom. ”

“ The council readily consented; and on the tenth of June the Frenchmen embarked again, with two Indians to conduct them. All the town came down to the shore to see their departure. Here were the Miamis, with long locks of hair dangling over each ear, after a fashion which Marquette thought very becoming; and here, too, the Mascoutins and the Kickapoos, whom he describes as mere boors in comparison with their Miami townsmen. All stared alike at the seven adventurers, marvelling that men could be found to risk an enterprise so hazardous. ”

“ If it were not for me, your brother would be drinking his wine in paradise, instead of cursing at the American climate. And you, Mademoiselle—would you have preferred to remain with the police?"
He looked thoughtfully into his snuff box.
"Dead men press no bills—surely you recall the Marquis said that also. No, Mademoiselle, we must be practical to live. The Marquis would understand. The Marquis was always practical."
She caught her breath sharply, but my father seemed not to have perceived the effect of his words.
"Ah," he said, "here is Brutus with the meal." ”

“ It was the love of a man, a very good man, the sort of love which all the most expert psychologizing in the world can neither account for nor explain out of existence, and he watched over the Marquis de Chabot-Perhoet as the police kiosque near the Pont Neuf watches over the dusty shop windows of the Quai des Grands-Augustins.
Day after day it was the same tale.
A ring at the bell, angry, short, jerky, hectic—a square-shoed foot thrust in to keep the door from being slammed—and the butcher’s purple face, the butcher’s raucous voice:
“I want my money! I want to speak to the Marquis!” ”

“ The marquis is one of the handsomest men in Europe, but with the most vacant expression possible. He wins every heart at first sight, but he loses his conquests as fast as he makes them. Women may be caught by glare; and a man of high rank, an Adonis in face and person, must tell: but I'll be hanged if the dear creatures are such fools as we think them; and the marquis's wife first, and every other flame of his after, have dismissed him, on finding that his good looks and brains were not measured by the same scale. ”

“ Then the Countess, forgetting she was no longer Jeanne Vaubernier and equally heedless of the Marquis's age, sprang singing down the steps of a back staircase leading to a small courtyard in which were situated her stables.
"Look," she asked the Marquis, panting and out of breath, "is it handsome enough for a laundry-maid to ride in,think you?"
The Marquis stood amazed. Nothing at once more splendid and more elegant had ever met his eyes. The four main panels bore the arms of the Du Barrys and their motto, the famous war-cry, Boute en avant. ”

“ But Marquis is more than the arbiter of dainty elegances in rhyme: he sings and celebrates a robust world where men struggle upward from the slime and discontent leaps from star to star. The evolutionary theme is a favourite with him: the grand pageant of humanity groping from Piltdown to Beacon Hill, winning in a million years two precarious inches of forehead. Much more often than F.P.A., who used to be his brother colyumist in Manhattan, he dares to disclose the real earnestness that underlies his chaff. ”

“ Always the same demand for money; the same soft reply: “Monsieur le Marquis is not at home”; and always, after the unwelcome visitor had been pushed out on the landing, where he voiced his noisy and detailed opinion of the Marquis de Chabot-Perchoet to the cackling, whispering cooks of the neighboring apartments, Marc Lapauze would sigh a flat, cracked sigh. ”

“ Presently the marquis drank the wine and struck the bell. Jehan, the marquis's aged valet, entered soon after with a large candelabrum of wax candles. This he placed on the mantel. Even with this additional light, the other end of the salon remained in semi-darkness. Only the dim outline of the grand staircase could be seen.
Over the mantel the portrait of a woman stood out clearly and definitely. It represented Madame la Marquise at twenty-two, when Marie de Médicis had commanded the young Rubens to paint the portrait of one of the few women who had volunteered to share her exile. ”

“ Father Marquette in vain presented his calumet of peace. They were ready to attack, when the elders, perceiving at last the calumet, commanded the young warriors to stop, and, throwing their arms at the feet of the strangers, as a sign of peace, entered their canoes, and constrained them to land, though not without some uneasiness.
As the savages were not acquainted with any of the six languages spoken by Father Marquette, he [135] addressed them by signs, until an old man was found, who understood a little Illinois. ”

“ French nobleman is ultimately, to the relief of every one and the regret of few, killed in a duel with his own brother, the great actor Miraudin. To make this melodramatic incident as striking as possible the author kills both the brothers. The Marquis is a character who says and does what would seem to be impossible things. Notwithstanding his immoral propensities he has a certain pleasing fascination that almost inclines one to regard his faults with tolerance. ”

“ Never was there man more obstinate or more selfwilled than the Marquis. Despite all my friendly persuasion, he was determined to go. And when once settled at the other end of France, he launched out into all sorts of agricultural schemes and enterprises, without even knowing why he did so. He constructed roads, built windmills, bridged over a large torrent, completed the pavilions of his castle, replanted coppices and vineyards, and, besides all this, hunted the chamois, bears, and boars of the Nebouzan and the Pyrenees. ”