La Salle

“ His cousin, François Plet, was in Canada in 1680, where, with La Salle's approval, he carried on the trade of Fort Frontenac, in order to indemnify himself for money advanced. La Salle always speaks of him with esteem and gratitude.
[261] The following is the character of La Salle, as drawn by his friend, Abbé Bernou, in a memorial to the minister Seignelay: "Il est irréprochable dans ses mœurs, réglé dans sa conduite, et qui veut de l'ordre parmy ses gens. Il est savant, judicieux, politique, vigilant, infatigable, sobre, et intrépide. ”

“ La Salle rose and harangued the concourse. Few men were so skilled in the arts of forest rhetoric and diplomacy. After the Indian mode, he was, to follow his chroniclers, "the greatest orator in North America." [226] He began with a gift of tobacco, to clear the brains of his auditory; next, for he had brought a canoe-load of presents to support his eloquence, he gave them cloth to cover their dead, coats to dress them, hatchets to build a grand scaffold in their honor, and beads, bells, and trinkets of all sorts, to decorate their relatives at a grand funeral feast. ”

“ The friar bade farewell to La Salle, and embraced all the rest in turn. Father Ribourde gave him his benediction. "Be of good courage and let your heart be comforted," said the excellent old missionary, as he spread his hands in benediction over the shaven crown of the reverend traveller. Du Gay and Accau plied their paddles; the canoe receded, and vanished at length behind the forest. We will follow Hennepin hereafter on his adventures, imaginary and real. ”

“ The hazy sunlight, the warm and drowsy air, the tender foliage, the opening flowers, betokened the reviving life of Nature. For several days more they followed the writhings of the great river on its tortuous course through wastes of swamp and cane-brake, till on the thirteenth of March [235] they found themselves wrapped in a thick fog. Neither shore was visible; but they heard on the right the booming of an Indian drum and the shrill outcries of the war-dance. La Salle at once crossed to the opposite side, where, in less than an hour, his men threw up a rude fort of felled trees. ”

“ Even La Salle called on his followers to commend themselves to Heaven. All fell to their prayers but the godless pilot, who was loud in complaint against his commander for having brought him, after the honor he had won on the ocean, to drown at last ignominiously in fresh water. The rest clamored to the saints. St. Anthony of Padua was promised a chapel to be built in his honor, if he would but save them from their jeopardy; while in the same breath La Salle and the friars declared him patron of their great enterprise. ”

“ It was all that La Salle could have wished. "The Illinois is our brother, because he is the son of our Father, the Great King." "We make you the master of our beaver and our lands, of our minds and our bodies." "We cannot wonder that our brothers from the East wish to live with you. We should have wished so too, if we had known what a blessing it is to be the children of the Great King." ”

“ LA SALLE BEGINS ANEW. HIS CONSTANCY.—HIS PLANS.—HIS SAVAGE ALLIES.—HE BECOMES SNOW-BLIND. —NEGOTIATIONS.—GRAND COUNCIL.—LA SALLE'S ORATORY.—MEETING WITH TONTY.—PREPARATION.—DEPARTURE. In tracing the adventures of Tonty and the rovings of Hennepin, we have lost sight of La Salle, the pivot of the enterprise. Returning from the desolation and horror in the valley of the Illinois, he had spent the winter at Fort Miami, on the St. Joseph, by the borders of Lake Michigan. Here he might have brooded on the redoubled ruin that had befallen him: the desponding friends, the exulting foes ”

“ Ton′ty, Henri de, an Italian explorer of great resolution and courage and a companion of La Salle, was born about the middle of the 17th century and died at Fort Louis (Mobile) in 1704. He served both in the French army and the navy, was with La Salle in Canada, effected the first settlement in what now is Illinois, and accompanied La Salle on his famous voyage down the Mississippi to its mouth. ”

“ In every point of view it is one of the most remarkable edifices of the thirteenth century. The salle des chevaliers, where the chapters of the knights were held, is a fine hall, with three rows of columns, and above it are the beautiful Gothic cloisters. The "préau" or court is surrounded by a double row of pointed arches, interlacing each other, and filled in with flowered spandrils and cornices, carved with the greatest delicacy and endless variety. ”

“ La Salle, with the rest of the party, was to follow as soon as he could finish his preparations. It was a boisterous and gusty day, the eighteenth of November. The sails were spread; the shore receded,—the stone walls of the fort, the huge cross that the friar had reared, the wigwams, the settlers' cabins, the group of staring Indians on the strand. The lake was rough; and the men, crowded in so small a craft, grew nervous and uneasy. They hugged the northern shore, to escape the fury of the wind, which blew savagely from the northeast ”

“ C’était moi qui les surveillais.
Ce qu’on appelait la salle était l’ancien gymnase du collège de la Marine. Imaginez quatre grands murs nus avec de petites fenêtres grillées; çà et là des crampons à moitié arrachés, la trace encore visible des échelles, et, se balançant à la maîtresse poutre du plafond, un énorme anneau en fer au bout d’une corde. [72]
Les enfants avaient l’air de s’amuser beaucoup là dedans. Ils couraient tout autour de la salle bruyamment, en faisant de la poussière. Quelques-uns essayaient d’atteindre l’anneau; d’autres, suspendus par les mains, criaient ”

“ The story of La Salle's journey from Fort Crèvecoeur to Fort Frontenac, with his subsequent encounter with the mutineers, is given in great detail in the unpublished Relation des Découvertes. This and other portions of it are compiled, with little abridgment, from the letters of La Salle himself, some of which are still in existence. They give the particulars of each day with a cool and business-like simplicity, recounting facts without comment or the slightest attempt at rhetorical embellishment. ”

“ LA SALLE'S INDISCRETION.
"You ask how I get on with M. de la Salle. Don't you know that this man is impenetrable, and that there is no knowing what he thinks of one? He told a person of note whom I will not name that he had suspicions about our correspondence, as well as about Madame de Beaujeu's devotion to the Jesuits. His distrust is incredible. If he sees one of his people speak to the rest, he suspects something, and is gruff with them. He told me himself that he wanted to get rid of M. de Tonty, who is in America." ”

“ Hereupon the waiter led us back along the endless corridor, and down the old stone staircases, and out into the quadrangle, and journeyed with us along an exterior arcade, and finally threw open the door of the salle a manger, which proved to be a room of lofty height, with a vaulted roof, a stone floor, and interior spaciousness sufficient for a baronial hall, the whole bearing the same aspect of times gone by, that characterized the rest of the house. ”

“ The hapless colony, cast ashore like a wreck on the sands of Matagorda Bay, must gather up its shattered resources and recruit its exhausted strength, before it essayed anew its pilgrimage to the "fatal river." La Salle during his explorations had found a spot which he thought well fitted for a temporary establishment. ”

“ The following is the writer's account of La Salle: "All those among my friends who have seen him find him a man of great intelligence and sense. He rarely speaks of any subject except when questioned about it, and his words are very few and very precise. He distinguishes perfectly between that which he knows with certainly and that which he knows with some mingling of doubt. When he does not know, he does [Pg 108] not hesitate to avow it ”

“ Passing under one of the three arches of the façade, we traversed the courtyard to the extremity, and while waiting for the guide to come to us at the small side door, examined the curious sculptures surrounding the window on the left. On the door being opened we passed into the Salle des Gardes, and from that into the Salle à Manger, where stands a statue of Henry IV., supposed to be more like him than any other. ”

“ HARDIHOOD OF LA SALLE.
The Winter Journey.—The Deserted Town.—Starved Rock.—Lake Michigan.—The Wilderness.—War Parties.—La Salle's Men give out.—Ill Tidings.—Mutiny.—Chastisement of the Mutineers.
La Salle well knew what was before him, and nothing but necessity spurred him to this desperate journey. He says that he could trust nobody else to go in his stead, and that unless the articles lost in the "Griffin" were replaced without delay, the expedition would be retarded a full year, and he and his associates consumed by its expenses. ”

“ Margry, in the “Journal de l’Instruction publique,” 1862, under the caption, “Les Normands dans les Vallées de l’Ohio et du Mississipi,” describes Nicolet’s travels and Gravier’s “Découvertes et établissements de la Salle;” Harrisse’s “Notes pour servir à l’Histoire [etc.] de la Nouvelle France,” and Parkman’s “La Salle,” also give some account of the expedition.
In 1642 Jogues and Raymbault, two missionaries, penetrated as far west as Sault Ste. Marie, at the outlet of Lake Superior. See account of this mission in the Jesuit Relation of 1642. Margry’s Collection, vol. ”

“ The Deserters.—The Iroquois War.—The Great Town of the Illinois.—The Alarm.—Onset of the Iroquois.—Peril of Tonty.—A Treacherous Truce.—Intrepidity of Tonty.—Murder of Ribourde.—War upon the Dead.
When La Salle set out on his rugged journey to Fort Frontenac, he left, as we have seen, fifteen men at Fort Crèvecœur,—smiths, ship-carpenters, house-wrights, and soldiers, besides his servant L'Espérance and the two friars Membré and Ribourde. Most of the men were ripe for mutiny. They had no interest in the enterprise, and no love for its chief. ”

“ They wished to extend a thin line of settlements along the front of their island, to form a sort of outpost, from which an alarm could be given on any descent of the Iroquois. La Salle was the man for such a purpose. Had the priests understood him,—which they evidently did not, for some of them suspected him of levity, the last foible with which he could be charged,—had they understood him, they would have seen in him a young man in whom the fire of youth glowed not the less ardently for the veil of reserve that covered it; who would shrink from no danger, but would not court it in bravado ”

“ In his despatch to the minister Colbert, of the fourteenth of November, 1674, Frontenac speaks of La Salle as follows: "I cannot help, Monseigneur, recommending to you the Sieur de la Salle, who is about to go to France, and who is a man of intelligence and ability,— more capable than anybody else I know here, to accomplish every kind of enterprise and discovery which may be entrusted to him,—as he has the most perfect knowledge of the state of the country, as you will see if you are disposed to give him a few moments of audience." ”

“ So, in the autumn of 1677, leaving his fort and seigniory in charge of a trusted lieutenant, La Forest, who was also one of his partners in the proposed fur-trade, La Salle sailed again for France. There, lodged modestly in a rather obscure quarter of Paris, he renewed the friendships and associations which he had formed during his previous visit; and added to them by making new and valuable friends. Among these were the Marquis de Seignelay, the Prince de Conti, La Motte de Sussière, and last but not least, Henri de Tonti, thenceforth his foremost companion in his Western labors. ”

“ The narrative of Douay, who was with him at the time. 2. That of Joutel, who learned the facts, immediately after they took place, from Douay and others, and who parted from La Salle an hour or more before his death. 3. A document preserved in the Archives de la Marine, entitled Relation de la Mort du Sr. de la Salle, suivant le rapport d'un nommé Couture à qui M. Cavelier l'apprit en passant au pays des Akansa, avec toutes les circonstances que le dit Couture a apprises d'un François que M. Cavelier avoit laissé aux dits pays des Akansa, crainte qu'il ne gardât pas le secret. 4. ”

“ La Salle had already provided the necessary material, and a few days sufficed to complete his preparations. On the tenth of August, he embarked again for the Illinois. With him went his lieutenant, La Forest, who held of him in fief an island, then called Belle Isle, opposite Fort Frontenac. [Footnote: Robert Cavelier, Sr. de la Salle, à François Daupin, Sr. de la Forest, 10 Juin, 1679, MS.] A surgeon, ship-carpenters, joiners, masons, soldiers, voyageurs, and laborers completed his company, twenty-five men in all, with every thing needful for the outfit of the vessel. ”

“ On one of the planks were written the words: "Nous sommes tous sauvages: ce 15, 1680,"—the work, no doubt, of the knaves who had pillaged and destroyed the fort.
La Salle and his companions hastened on, and during the following day passed four opposing camps of the savage armies. The silence of death now reigned along the deserted river, whose lonely borders, wrapped deep in forests, seemed lifeless as the grave. As they drew near the mouth of the stream they saw a meadow on their right, and on its farthest verge several human figures, erect, yet motionless. ”

“ He suffered no man to be idle. Some hunted; some fished; some labored at the houses and defences. To the large building made by La Salle he added four lodging-houses for the men, and a fifth for the women, besides a small chapel. All were built with squared timber, and roofed like the first with boards and buffalo-hides ”