UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT LOS ANGELES r LOUISIANA; COLONIAL HISTORY ROMANCE. CHAKLES GAYARRE. NEW YORK: HARPER & BROTHERS. 1851. 5241 3 Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1850, BY HARPER & BROTHERS, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Southern District of New York. &Z5* CONTENTS FIRST SERIES. FIRST LECTURE. Page Primitive State of the Country Expedition of De Soto in 1539 His Death Discovery of the Mississippi in 1673, by Father Marquette and Joliet They are followed in 1682 by La Salle and the Chevalier de Tonti Assassination of La Salle, . . . . . .15 SECOND LECTURE. Arrival of Iberville and Bienville Settlement of a French Colony in Louisiana Sauvolle, first Governor Events and Characters in Louisiana, or connected with that Colony, from La Salle's Death, in 1687, to 1701, ..... \^l . . THIRD LECTURE. Situation of the Colony from 1701 to 1712 The Petticoat Insurrection History and Death of Iberville Bienville, the second Governor of Louisiana History of Anthony Crozat, the great Banker Conces- sion of Louisiana to him, ........ 85 FOURTH LECTURE. Lamothe Cadillac, Governor of Louisiana Situation of the Colony in 1713 Feud between Cadillac and Bienville Character of Riche- bourg First Expedition against the Natchez De 1'Epinay suc- ceeds Cadillac The Curate de la Vente Expedition of St. Denis to Mexico His Adventures Jallot, the Surgeon In 1717 Crozat gives up his Charter His Death, 123 IV CONTENTS. SECOND SERIES. FIRST LECTURE. Page Creation of a Royal Bank and of the Mississippi Company Effects pro- duced in France by those Institutions Wild Hopes entertained from the Colonization of Louisiana Its twofold and opposite Description History of Law from his Birth to his Death, . . . .197 SECOND LECTURE. Bienville appointed Governor of Louisiana for the second time, in the place of L'Epinay Foundation of New Orleans Expedition of St. Denis, Beaulieu, and others to Mexico Adventures of St. Denis Land Concessions Slave-trade Taking of Pensacola by the French The Spaniards retake it, and besiege Dauphine Island Pensacola again taken by the French Situation of the Country as described by Bienville The Chevalier des Grieux and Manon Lescaut Chan- ges in the Organization of the Judiciary Edict in Relation to Com- merce Adventures of the Princess Charlotte of Brunswick, of Belle- isle, and others Seat of Government transferred to New Orleans Other Facts and Events from 1718 to 1722, . . . .239 THIRD LECTURE. Origin, Customs, Manners, Traditions, and Laws of the Natchez De- cline of that Tribe Number and Power of the Choctaws and Chick- asaws, 292 FOURTH LECTURE. Transfer of the Seat of Government to New Orleans Its Population and Appearance in 1724 Boisbriant, Governor ad interim Black Code Expulsion of the Jews Catholic Religion to be the sole Re- ligion of the Land Perier appointed Governor League of all the Officers of Government against De la Chaise, the King's Commis- CONTENTS. V Page sary He triumphs over them all Republicanism of the Colonies The Ursuline Nuns and the Jesuits Public Improvements made or contemplated by Governor Perier Census in 1727 Expenses of the Colonial Administration Edict of Henry the Second against Unmarried Women Other Facts and Events from 1723 to 1727 Traditions on the Music heard at the mouth of Pascagoula River, and on the Date-tree at the corner of Dauphine and Orleans Streets, 359 FIFTH LECTURE. Arrival of the Casket Girls Royal Ordinance relative to the Conces- sions of Lands Manner of settling the Succession of Frenchmen married to Indian Women French Husbands Indian Wives His- tory of Madame Dubois, an Indian Squaw Conspiracy of the Nat- chez against the French Massacre of the French at Natchez in 1729 Massacre of the French at the Yazoo Settlement in 1730 Attack of the Natchez against the French Settlement at Natchitoches They are beaten by St. Denis The French and Choctaws attack the Nat- chez Daring and Death of Navarre and of some of his companions Siege of the Natchez Forts Flight of the Natchez Cruel Treat- ment of Natchez Prisoners by Governor Perier Desperation of the Natchez The Chickasaws grant an Asylum to the Natchez Con- spiracy of the Banbara Negroes List of the Principal Officers in the Colony in 1730, *. . .396 . SIXTH LECTURE. Expedition of Perier against the Natchez He goes up Red River and Black River in pursuit of them Siege of their Fort Most of them are taken Prisoners and sold as Slaves Continuation of the Natchez War The India Company surrenders its Charter Ordinances on the Currency of the Country Bienville reappointed Governor Sit- uation of the Colony at that time The Natchez take Refuge among the Chickasaws Great Rise of the Mississippi arid General Inunda- tion Extraordinary Number of Mad Dogs Expedition of Bienville against the Chickasaws He attacks their Villages Battle of Ackia Daring Exploit of the black man, Simon Bienville is beaten and forced to retreat Expedition of D'Artaguette against the Chick- asaws His Defeat and Death History of John Philip Grondel Other Events and Facts from 1729 to 1736, . . . . . .448 Vi CONTENTS. SEVENTH LECTURE. Page State of Agriculture in 1736 Exemption from Duties on certain Arti- cles of Importation and Exportation War between the Choctaws and Chickasaws Singular Judicial Proceeding in 1738 Bienville's Dispatch on the Sand-bars at the Mouth of the Mississippi De Noailles is sent to Louisiana to command an Expedition against the Chickasaws Bienville's Jealousy Intrigues of the Indian, Red Shoe General Rendezvous of the French at the Mouth of River Margot Failure of that Expedition Its probable Causes Bien- ville's Apology Effects of a Hurricane Situation of the Colony in 1741 Heroism of a French Girl in a Battle against the Indians Bienville incurs the Displeasure of his Government He demands the Establishment of a College That Demand is refused Bienville is recalled to France He departs never to return He is succeeded by the Marquis of Vaudreuil Other Facts and Events from 1736 to 1743, . . . .... 603 PREFACE IF every man's life were closely analyzed, accident, or what seems to be so to human apprehension, and what usually goes by that name, whatever it may really be, would be discovered to act a more conspicuous part and to possess a more control- ling influence than preconception, and that volition which pro- ceeds from long-meditated design. My writing the history of Louisiana, from the expedition of De Soto in 1539, to the final and complete establishment of the Spanish government in 1769, after a spirited resistance from the French colonists, was owing to an accidental circumstance, which, in the shape of disease, drove me from a seat I had lately obtained in the Senate of the United States, but which, to my intense regret, I had not the good fortune to occupy. Traveling for health, not from free agency, but a slave to compulsion, I dwelt sev- eral years in France. In the peculiar state in which my mind then was, if its attention had not been forcibly diverted from what it brooded over, the anguish under which it sickened, from many causes, would soon have not been endurable. I sought for a remedy : I looked into musty archives I gather- ed materials and subsequently became a historian, or rather a mere pretender to that name. Last year, as circumstance or accident would have it, I was invited by the managers of the People's Lyceum to deliver a Lecture before their Society. The invitation was flattering, but came in a most inopportune moment. The Legislature was then in session, and, as Secretary of State, my duties and my daily relations with the members of that honorable bodj were such as to allow me very little leisure. I could not de- cline, however, the honor conferred upon me ; and with a Vlll PREFACE. mind engrossed by other subjects, and with a hurried pen, I wrote the first Lecture, which is now introduced to the reader as the leading one in this volume. It happened to give satis- faction : friends desired its publication : their desire was com- plied with ; and in the June and July numbers of De Bow's Commercial Review, the discourse which I had delivered be- fore the People's Lyceum made its appearance. I attached so little importance to this trifling production, the offspring of an hour's thought, that I was greatly amazed at the encomium it elicited from newspapers, in which it was copied at length, in several parts of the United States. What ! said I to myself, am I an unnatural father, and has my child more merit than I imagined ? As I was pondering upon this grave question, the last epidemic took possession of New Orleans by storm. If I ventured into the streets for ex- ercise or occupation, I immediately suffered intolerable annoy- ance from the stinging darts of Apollo, through the ineffectual texture of my straw hat, and my eyes were greeted with nothing but the sight of dogs, physicians, and hearses. If I remained at home, seeking tranquillity under the protection of the household gods of celibacy, indiscreet visitors would come in, and talk of nothing else but of the dying and the dead. One day I got into a very sinful fit of passion, and summoning up my servant G-eorge to my august presence, I said to him, " George, you are a great rascal, are you not ?" " Master, I do not know exactly," replied he, scratching his woolly head. " Well, I do know it, George, and I am pleased to give you that wholesome information. But no matter, I forgive you." " Thank you, master." " I deserve no thanks for what I can't help : but stop, don't go yet ; I have something more to say." " Master," quoth he, " I wish you would make haste, for the milk is on the fire, and I am afraid it will boil over." " Out upon the milk, man, and listen to me with all the might of your African ears." George took an attitude of mixed im- patience and resignation, and I continued, with more marked emphasis in my tone, and with increased dignity in my gestic- ulation, " Did you not lately run away for two months, for what reasonable cause, God only knows ; and did you not come back with the face of a whipped dog, telling me that PREFACE. ix you were satisfied with your experiment of that great blessing, freedom, and that you would not try it any more ? Do not hang down your thick head, as if you meant to push it through that big chest of yours ; but keep this in mind : if, for a whole week, you allow any human body to cross my threshold, I swear (and you know I always keep my word) that I'll kick you away to the abolitionists. Now vanish from my sight." What impression this order produced on this .miserable slave, I do not know, but it was strictly executed. After I had dismissed my sable attendant, I found myself in the same situation that many people frequently find them- selves in. I did not know what to do with myself. I had neither a wife nor children to quarrel with ; and as to ser- vants, I hate scolding them I reserve that for their betters. As to my books, I thought I had the right to indulge toward them in any of the capricious whims of a lover, and- 1 bent upon their tempting and friendly faces a scowling look of de- fiance. One thing was settled in my mind ; I was deter- mined to enjoy the luxury of laziness, and to be, for a while, an indolent, unthinking sort of animal, the good-for-nothing child of a southern latitude. So, I thrust my hands into the pockets of my morning-gown, and lounged through every room in my house, staring curiously at every object, as if it had been new to my eyes. For some time, I amused myself with my small gallery of paintings, and with a variety of trifles, which are the pickings of my traveling days. Bat alas ! with some of them are con- nected painful recollections of the past ; and, much to my re- gret, I discovered that my soul, which I thought I had buried ten fathoms deep in the abyss of matter, was beginning to predominate again in my mixed nature. I hastily turned my eyes from a contemplation, which had interfered with the much coveted ease of the brute ; but, as fate would have it, they settled upon some ancestral portraits. As I gazed at them, I became abstracted, until it really seemed to me that I saw a sorrowful expression steal over their features, as they looked at the last descendant of their race. I became moody, and felt that one of my dark fits was coming on. What was to be done? I was placed in this awkward X PREFACE. dilemma, either to eject my brains from my skull, or to stupefy them. But my pistols were not loaded, and the exer- tion to do so would have been too great with Fahrenheit at 100. I felt tempted to get drunk, but unfortunately I can bear no other beverage than water. Smoking would, per- haps, have answered the purpose, if my attempts at acquiring that attainment and all the other qualifications connected with the use of tobacco, had not resulted in a sick stomach. I was in this unpleasant state of cogitation, when that num- ber of De Bow's Review which contains my Lecture on the Romance of the History of Louisiana, caught my sight, as it was lying on my writing desk. I picked it up, and began to fondle my bantling : of course, I became interested, and all my morbid feelings vanished, as it were, by magic. Oh ! how charming It is to have a family ! Ladies, which of you will have me ? But I must not wander from my subject. I say, then, that I had in my left hand De Bow's Review, and, I do not know how, the right one imperceptibly exercised some sort of mag- netic influence over my pen, which was reposing close by, and which flew to its fingers, where it stuck. A few minutes After, it was dipped in ink, and running over paper at the rate of fifty miles an hour, and raising as much smoke as any loco- motive in the country. The three other Lectures, which I submit now to the con- sideration of the reader, are the result of the concatenation of accidents or circumstances which I have related. When I had finished my composition, like most people who act first and then set themselves to thinking, I began to guess, as some of my Yankee friends would say, whether I could not ripply the fruits of my labor to some practical purpose. I had achieved one thing, it is true I had rendered seclusion pleas- ant to myself; but could I not do more ? Would there not ,be sweet satisfaction in extracting something useful to my fel- low-citizens from the careless and unpretending effusions, the object of which had originally been to accelerate the flight of a few heavy hours, which I descried at a short distance, coming upon rne with their leaden wings and their gouty feet ! To write history, is to narrate events, and to show their PREFACE. Xi philosophy, when they are susceptible of any such demonstra- tion. When the subject is worthy of it, this is a kind of com- position of the highest order, and which affords to genius an ample scope for the display of all its powers. But the infor- mation so conveyed, is limited to the few, because not suited to the intelligence of the many. The number of those who have read Tacitus, Hume, Gibbon, or Clarendon, is com- paratively small, when opposed to those who have pored with delight over the fascinating pages of "Walter Scott. To relate events, and, instead of elucidating and analyzing their phi- losophy, like the historian, to point out the hidden sources of romance which spring from them to show what materials they contain for the dramatist, the novelist, the poet, the painter, and for all the varied conceptions of the fine arts is perhaps an humbler task, but not without its utility. When history is not disfigured by inappropriate invention, but merely embellished and made attractive by being set in a glit- tering frame, this artful preparation honies the cup of useful knowledge, and makes it acceptable to the lips of the multi- tude. Through the immortal writings of Walter Scott, many have become familiar with historical events, and have been induced to study more serious works, who, without that tempting bait, would have turned away from what appeared to them to be but a dry and barren field, too unpromising to invite examination, much less cultivation. To the bewitching pen of the wonderful magician of her romantic hills, Scotland owes more for the popular extension of her fame, than to the doings of the united host of all her other writers, warriors, and statesmen. It was in pursuing such a train of reasoning, that I came to the conclusion that the publication of these Lectures might show what romantic interest there is in the history of Louisi- ana ; that it might invite some to an investigation which, so far, they perhaps thought would not repay them for the trouble ; and to study with fondness what hitherto had been to them an object of disdainful neglect. I have attempted to accumulate and to heap up together materials for the use of more skillful architects than I am, and have contented myself with drawing the faint outlines of literary compositions, Xii PREFACE. which, if filled up by the hand of genius, would do for Louisiana, on a smaller scale, what has been done for Scot- land ; would encircle her waist with the magic zone of Ro- mance, and give her those letters-patent of nobility, which are recorded forever in the temple of Fame. An humble janitor, I have opened the door to those realms where flit the dim shadows of the dead, which are said to be anxious to resume life, and which, to the delight of the world, and to the glorifi- cation of my native land, might, at the command of some in- spired bard, be made to reanimate their deserted bodies. Ad fluvium (Mississippi) Deus evocat agmine magno, Scilicet immemores supera ut convexa revisant Rursus et incipiant in corpora velle reverti. VIRGIL. I give to the world these nug(B sericB for what they are worth. As a pastime, I began with shooting arrows at ran- dom, and then, gathering inspiration from the growing anima- tion of the sport, I aimed at a particular object. If the by- standers should think that I have not shot too far wide of the mark if the public, pleased with one or two good hits, should put on his white kid gloves, and coming up to me with the high-bred courtesy of a gentleman, should exchange a polite bow, and by way of encouragement, should utter those deli- cate compliments which, whether true or not, do honor to the donor and to the donee, (for I hate vulgar praise and coarse incense,) I shall deem it my duty to cultivate an acquaint- ance, which may ripen into friendship, and I may, in my en- deavors to deserve it, publish another series of Lectures. Well-meant criticism, I shall delight in, as a means of im- provement ; vituperation, I do not anticipate from one of so gentle blood; but absolute silence, I shall consider as a broad hint not to importune him any more, and I promise to act ac- cordingly. The more so, that from the lessons of experience, and from knowledge of the world, I feel every day more dis- posed to ensconce myself within a nut-shell, and that my am- bition has dwindled so much in its proportions, that it would be satisfied to rest forever, " sub teg-mine fagi," with the commission of overseer of a parish road. NEW OELKANS, March 1, 1848. :T PREFACE TO THE SECOND SERIES. THE success of my " Romance of the History of Louisiana," from the discovery of that country by Soto, to the surrender by Crozat of the charter which he had obtained from Louis the XlVth, in relation to that French Colony, has been such, that I deem it my duty toward my patrons to resume my pen, and to present the following work to their kind and friendly regard. When I wrote the precedent one, I said, while I mentally addressed the public : "Right, I note, most mighty souveraine, That all this famous antique history Of some th' aboundance of an idle braine Will judged be, and painted forgery, Rather than matter of just memory." SPENSER. Faerie Queene. Nor was I mistaken : for I was informed that many had taken for the invention of the brain what was but historical truth set in a gilded frame, when, to use the expressions of Sir Joshua Reynolds, I had taken but insignificant liberties with facts, to interest my readers, and make my narration more delightful, in imitation of the painter who, though his work is called history painting, gives in reality a poetical representation of facts. The reader will easily perceive, that in the present production, I have been more sparing of embel- lishments, although "I well noted, with that worthy gentle- XIV PREFACE. man, Sir Philip Sidney," as Raleigh says in his history of the world, " that historians do borrow of poets not only much of their ornament, but somewhat of their substance" Such is not the case, on this occasion, and Lean safely de- clare that the substance of this work, embracing the period from 1717 to 1743, when Bienville, who, with Iberville, had been the founder of the colony, left it forever, rests on such evidence as would be received in a court of justice, and that what I have borrowed of the poet for the benefit of the histo- rian, is hardly equivalent to the delicately wrought drapery which even the Sculptor would deem necessary, as a graceful appendage to the nakedness of the statue of truth. NOTE. The sea-fight which opens the Second Lecture in the Ro- mance of the History of Louisiana, was supposed to be fictitious, it being deemed impossible that a French vessel should have beaten three En- glish ships of superior force. This fact, however, is related by Father Charlevoix : and manuscripts copied from the archives of the department of marine in France, and now deposited in the office of the Secretary of State at Baton Rouge, will convince the incredulous that the author has not drawn upon his imagination. THE POETRY, ROMANCE OF THE HISTORY OF LOUISIANA, FIRST LECTURE. PRIMITIVE STATE OF THE COUNTRY EXPEDITION OF DE Soro m 1539 His DEATH DISCOVERT OF THE MISSISSIPPI IN 16*78, BY FATHER MARQDETTE AND JOLIKT THEY ARE FOLLOWED IN 1682 BY LA SALLE AND THE CHEVALIER DE TONTI ASSASSINATION OF LA SALLE. HAVING been invited by a Committee, on behalf of the People's Lyceum, to deliver one of their twelvdi annual Lectures, I was not long in selecting the subject of my labors. My mind had been lately engaged in the composition of the History of Louisiana, and it was natural that it should again revert to its favorite object of thought, on the same principle which impels the mightiest river to obey the laws of declivity, or which recalls and confines to its channel its gigantic volume of waters, when occasionally deviating from its course. But in reverting now to the History of Louisiana, my intention is not to review its diversified 'features with the scrutinizing, unimpassioned, and austere judg- ment of the historian. Imposing upon myself a more grateful task, because more congenial to my taste, I shall take for the object of this Lecture, THE POETRY, on THE ROMANCE OF THE HISTOEY OF LOUISIANA. 16 POETRY IMAGINATION. Poetry is the daughter of Imagination, and imagina- tion is, perhaps, one of the highest gifts of Heaven, the most refined ethereal part of the mind, because, when carried to perfection, it is the combined essence of all the finest faculties of the human intellect. There may be sound judgment, acute perceptions, depth of thought, great powers of conception, of discrimination, of re- search, of assimilation, of combination of ideas, without imagination, or at least without that part of it which elaborates and exalts itself into poetry ; but how can we conceive the existence of a poetical imagination in its highest excellence, without all the other faculties? Without them, what imagination would not be imper- fect or diseased ? It is true that without imagination there may be a world within the mind, but it is a world without light. Cold it remains, and suffering from the effects of partial organization, unless by some mighty fiat imagination is breathed into the dormant mass, and the sun of poetry, emerging in the heaven of the mind, illumines and warms the several elements of which it is composed, and completes the creation of the intellect. Hence the idea of all that is beautiful and great is concentrated in the word poetry. There is no grand conception of the mind in which that intellectual faculty which constitutes poetry is not to be detected. What is great and noble, is and must be poetical, and what is poetical must partake, in some degree or other, of what is great and noble. It is hardly possible to conceive an Alexander, a Caesar, a Napoleon, a New- ton, a Lycurgus, a Mahomet, a Michael Angelo, a Canova, or any other of those wonderful men who have carried as far as they could go, the powers of the hu- man mind in the several departments in which they were used, without supposing them gifted with some of those faculties of the imagination which enter into HISTORY OP LOUISIANA POETICAL. 17 the composition of a poetical organization. Thus every art and almost every science has its poetry, and it is from the unanimous consent of mankind on this subject that it has become so common to say " the poetry" of music, of sculpture, of architecture, of dancing, of paint- ing, of history, and even the poetry of religion, meaning that which is most pleasing to the eye or to the mind, and ennobling to the soul. We may therefore infer from the general feeling to which I have alluded, that where the spirit of poetry does not exist, there can not be true greatness ; and it can, I believe, be safely aver- red, that to try the gold of all human actions and events, of all things and matters, the touchstone of poetry is one of the surest. I am willing to apply that criterion to Louisiana, considered both physically and historically ; I am will- ing that my native State, which is but a fragment of what Louisiana formerly was, should stand or fall by that test, and I do not fear, to approach with her the seat of judgment. I am prepared to show that her his- tory is full of poetry of tjie highest order and of the most varied nature. I have studied the subject con amore, and with such reverential enthusiasm, and I may say with such filial piety, that it has grown upon my heart as well as upon my mind. May I be able to do justice to its merits, and to raise within you a cor- responding interest to that which I feel ! To support the assertion that the history of Louisiana is eminently poetical, it will be sufficient to give you short graphical descriptions of those interesting events which constitute her annals. Bright gems they are, encircling her brows, diadem-like, and worthy of that star which has sprung from her forehead to enrich the American con- stellation in the firmament of liberty. Three centuries have hardly elapsed, since that im- B 18 PRIMITIVE STATE OF THE COUNTRY. mense territory which extends from the Gulf of Mexico to the Lakes of Canada, and which was subsequently known under the name of Louisiana, was slumbering in its cradle of wilderness, unknown to any of the white race to which we belong. Man was there, however, but man in his primitive state, claiming as it were, in ap- pearance at least, a different origin from ours, or being at best a variety of our species. There, was the hered- itary domain of the red man, living in scattered tribes over that magnificent country. Those tribes earned their precarious subsistence chiefly by pursuing the in- habitants of the earth and of the water ; they sheltered themselves in miserable huts, spoke different languages, observed contradictory customs, and waged fierce war upon each other. Whence they came none knew; none knows, with absolute certainty, to the present day; and the faint glimmerings of vague traditions have afforded little or no light to penetrate into the darkness of their mysterious origin. Thus a wide field is left open to those dreamy speculations of which the imagination is so fond. Whence came the Natchez, those worshipers of the eun with eastern rites ? How is it that Grecian figures and letters are represented on the earthen wares of Borne of those Indian nations ? Is there any truth in the supposition that some of those savages whose com- plexion approximates most to ours, draw their blood from that Welsh colony which is said to have found a home in America, many centuries since ? Is it possible that Phoenician adventurers were the pilgrim fathers of some of the aborigines of Louisiana ? What copper- colored swarm first issued from Asia, the revered womb of mankind, to wend its untraced way to the untenanted continent of America ? What fanciful tales could be weaved on the powerful Choctaws, or the undaunted PRIMITIVE STATE OF THE COUNTRY. 19 Chickasaws, or the unconquerable Mobilians? There the imagination may riot in the poetry of mysterious migrations, of human transformations ; in the poetry of the forests, of the valleys, of the mountains, of the lakes and rivers, as they came fresh and glorious from the hand of the Creator, in the poetry of barbaric manners, laws, and wars. What heroic poems might not a fu- ture Ossian devise on the red monarchs of old Louis- iana ! Would not their strange history, in the hands of a Tacitus, be as interesting as that of the ancient barbarian tribes of Germany, described by his immor- tal pen ? Is there in that period of their existence which precedes their acquaintance with the sons of Europe, nothing which, when placed in contrast with their future fate, appeals to the imagination of the mor- alist, of the philosopher, and of the divine? Who, without feeling his whole soul glowing with poetical emotions, could sit under yonder gigantic oak, the growth of a thousand years, on the top of that hill of shells, the sepulcher of man, piled up by his hands, and overlooking that placid lake where all would be repose, if it were not for that solitary canoe, a moving speck, hardly visible in the distance, did it not happen to be set in bold relief, by being on that very line where the lake meets the horizon, blazing with the last glories of the departing sun? Is not this the very poetry of landscape, of Louisianian landscape ? When diving into the mysteries of the creation of that part of the south-western world which was once comprehended in the limits of Louisiana, will not the geologist himself pause, absorbed in astonishment at the number of centuries which must have been neces- sary to form the delta of the Mississippi ? When he discovers successive strata of forests lying many fathoms deep on the top of each other ; when he witnesses the 20 EXPEDITION OF DE SOTO. exhumation of the fossil bones of mammoths, elephants, or huge animals of the antediluvian race; when he reads the hieroglyphic records of Nature's wonderful doings, left by herself on the very rocks, or other gran- ite and calcareous tablets of this country, will he not clasp his hands in ecstasy, and exclaim, " Oh ! the dry- ness of my study has fled ; there is poetry in the very foundation of this extraordinary land !" Thus I think that I have shown that the spirit of poetry was moving over the face of Louisiana, even in her primitive state, and still pervades her natural his- tory. But I have dwelt enough on Louisiana in the dark ages of her existence, of which we can know noth- ing, save by vague traditions of the Indians. Let us approach those times where her historical records be- gin to assume some distinct shape. On the 31st of May, 1539, the bay of Santo Spiritu, in Florida, presented a curious spectacle. Eleven vas- sels of quaint shape, bearing the broad banner of Spain, were moored close to the shore ; one thousand men of infantry, and three hundred and fifty men of cavalry, fully equipped, were landing in proud array under the command of Hemando De Soto, one of the most illus- trious companions of Pizarro in the conquest of Peru, and reputed one of the best lances of Spain ! " When lie led in the van of battle, so powerful was his charge," says the old chronicler of his exploits, " so broad was the bloody passage which he carved out in the ranks of the enemy, that ten of his men-at-arms could with ease follow him abreast." He had acquired enormous wealth in Peru, and might have rested satisfied, a knight of renown, in the government of St. Jago de Cuba, in the 8weet enjoyment of youth and of power, basking in the smiles of his beautiful wife, Isabella de Bobadilla. But his adventurous mind scorns such inglorious repose, EXPEDITION OF DE SOTO. 21 and now lie stands erect and full of visions bright, on the sandy shore of Florida, whither he comes, with feudal pride, by leave of the king, to establish nothing less than a marquisate, ninety miles long by forty-five miles wide, and there to rule supreme, a governor for life, of all the territory that he can subjugate. Not unmindful he, the Christian knight, the hater and con- queror of Moorish infidelity, of the souls of his future vassals; for, twenty-two ecclesiastics accompany him to preach the word of God. Among his followers are gentlemen of the best blood of Spain and of Portugal : Don Juan de Guzman ; Pedro Calderon, who, by his combined skill and bravery, had won the praises of Gonzalvo de Cordova, yclept " the great captain ;" Vasconcellos de Silva, of Portugal, who for birth and courage knew no superior ; Nuno Tobar, a knight above fear and reproach ; and Muscoso de Alvarado, whom that small host of heroes ranked in their es- timation next to De Soto himself. But I stop an enu- meration which, if I did justice to all, would be too long. What materials for romance ! Here is chivalry, with all its glittering pomp, its soul-stirring aspirations, in full march, with its iron heels and gilded spurs, toward the unknown and hitherto unexplored soil of Louisiana. In sooth, it must have been a splendid sight ! Let us look at the glorious pageantry as it sweeps by, through the long vistas of those pine woods ! How nobly they bear themselves, those bronzed sons of Spain, clad in refulgent armor! How brave that music sounds ! How fleet they move, those Andalusian chargers, with arched necks and dilated nostrils ! But the whole train suddenly halts in that verdant valley, by that bubbling stream, shaded by those venerable oaks with gray moss hanging from 'their branches in 22 EXPEDITION OF DE SOTO. imitation of the whitening beard of age. Does not the whole encampment rise distinct upon your minds ? The tents with gay pennons, with armorial bear- ings ; the proud steed whose impatient foot spurns the ground ; those men stretched on the velvet grass and recruiting their wearied strength by sleep ; some sing- ing old Castilian or Moorish roundelays ; others musing on the sweet rulers of their souls, left in their distant home ; a few kneeling before the officiating priest, at the altar which a moment sufficed for their pious ardor to erect, under yonder secluded bower ; some burnish- ing their arms, others engaged in mimic warfare and trials of skill or strength ; De Soto sitting apart with his peers in rank if not in command, and intent upon developing to them his plans of conquest, while the dusky faces of some Indian boys and women in the background express wild astonishment. None of the warriors of that race are to be seen ; they are reported to be absent on a distant hunting excursion. But, methinks that at times I spy through the neighboring thickets the fierce glance of more than one eye, spark- ling with the suppressed fury of anticipated revenge. What a scene ! and would it not afford delight to the poet's imagination or to the painter's eye ? In two ponderous volumes, the historian Garcillasso relates the thousand incidents of that romantic expedi- tion. What more interesting than the reception of Soto at the court of the Princess Cofachiqui, the Dido of the wilderness ! What battles, what victories over men, over the elements themselves, and over the end- less obstacles thrown out by rebellious nature ! What incredible physical difficulties overcome by the ad- vancing host! How heroic is the resistance of the Mobilians and of the Alabamas ! With what headlong fury those denizens of the forest rush upon the iron-clad Ji EXPEDITION OF DE SOTO. 23 warriors, and dare the thunders of those whom they take to be the children of the sun ! How splendidly described is the siege of Mobile, where women fougjit like men, and wrapped themselves up in the flames of their destroyed city rather than surrender to their in- vaders ! But let the conquering hero beware! Now he is encamped on the territory of the Chickasaws, the most ferocious of the Indian tribes. And lucky was it that Soto was as prudent as he was brave, and slept equally prepared for the defence and for the attack. Hark ! in the dead of a winter's night, when the cold wind of the north, in the month of January, 1541, was howling through the leafless trees, a simultaneous howl was heard, more hideous far than the voice of the tempest. The Indians rush impetuous, with firebrands, and the thatched roofs which sheltered the Spaniards are soon on fire, threatening them with immediate destruction. The horses rearing and plunging in wild affright, and breaking loose from their ligaments ; the undaunted Spaniards, half naked, struggling against the devouring element and the unsparing foe ; the desperate deeds of valor executed by Soto and his companions ; the deep- toned shouts of St. Jago and Spain to the rescue ; the demon-like shrieks of the red warriors ; the final over- throw of the Indians ; the hot pursuit by the light of the flaming village ; form a picture highly exciting to the imagination, and cold indeed must he be who does not take delight in the strange contrast of the heroic warfare of chivalry on one side, and of the untutored courage of man in his savage state, on the other. It would be too long to follow Soto in his peregri- nations during two years, through part of Alabama, Mississippi, and Tennessee. At last he stands on the banks of the Mississippi, near the spot where now 24 EXPEDITION OF DE SOTO. flourishes the Egyptian-named city of Memphis. He crosses the mighty river, and onward he goes, up to the White River, while roaming over the territory of the Arkansas. Meeting with alternate hospitality and hostility on the part of the Indians, he arrives at the mouth of the Red River, within the present limits of the State of Louisiana. There he was fated to close i his adventurous career. Three years of intense bodily fatigue and mental excitement had undermined the hero's constitution. Alas ! well might the spirit droop within him ! He had landed on the shore of the North American continent with high hopes, dreaming of conquest over wealthy nations and magnificent cities. What had he met? Interminable forests, endless lagoons, inextricable marshes, sharp and continual conflicts with men little superior, in his estimation, to the brutish creation. He who in Spain was cheered by beauty's glance, by the songs of the minstrel, when he sped to the contest with adversaries worthy of his prowess, with the noble and chivalric Moors; he who had reveled in the halls of the imperial Incas of Peru, and who there had amassed princely wealth; he, the 'flower of knightly courts, had been roaming like a vagrant over an immense territory, where he had discovered none but half-naked savages, dwelling in miserable huts, ignobly repulsive when compared with Castilla's stately domes, with Granada's fantastic palaces, and with Peru's imperial dwellings, massive with gold ! His wealth was gone, two thirds of his brave companions were dead. What account of them would he render to their noble families ! He, the bankrupt in fame and in fortune, how would he withstand the gibes of envy ! Thought, that scourge of life, that inward consumer of man, racks his brain, his heart is seared with deep anguish; a slow fever DEATH OF DE SOTO. 25 wastes his powerful frame, and he sinks at last on the couch of sickness, never to rise again. The Spaniards cluster round him, and alternately look with despair at their dying chieftain, and at the ominous hue of the bloody river, known at this day under the name of the Red River. But not he the man to allow the wild havoc within the soul to betray itself in the outward mien ; not he, in common with the vulgar herd, the man to utter one word of wail ! With smiling lips and serene brow he cheers his companions and summons them, one by one, to swear allegiance in his hands to Muscoso de Alvarado, whom he designates as his suc- cessor. " Union and perseverance, my friends," he says ; " so long as the breath of life animates your bodies, do not falter in the enterprise you have undertaken. Spain expects a richer harvest of glory and more ample domains from her children." These are his last words, and then he dies. Blest be the soul of the noble knight and of the true Christian ! Rest his mortal re- mains in peace within that oaken trunk scooped by his companions, and by them sunk many fathoms deep in the bed of the Mississippi ! The Spaniards, at first, had tried to conceal the death of Soto from the Indians, because they felt that there was protection in the belief of his existence. What mockery it was to their grief, to simulate joy on the very tomb of their beloved chief, whom they had buried in their camp before seeking for him a safer place of repose ! But when, the slaves of hard neces- sity, they were, with heavy hearts but smiling faces, coursing in tournament over the burial-ground, and profaning the consecrated spot, the more effectually to mislead the conjectures of the Indians, they saw that their subterfuge was vain, and that the red men, with significant glances, were pointing to each other the 26 PERILS OF HIS FOLLOWERS. precise spot where the great white warrior slept. How dolorously does Garcillasso describe the exhumation and the plunging of the body into the turbid stream of the Great Father of Eivers ! Then comes an Odyssey of woes. The attempt of the Spaniards to go by land to Mexico ; their wander- ing as far as the Rio Grande and the mountainous region which lies between Mexico and Texas, and which was destined, in after years, to be so famous in American history ; their return to the mouth of Red River ; their building of vessels capable of navigating at sea ; the tender compassion and affectionate assist- ance of the good Cazique Anilco ; the league of the other Indian princes, far and wide, under the auspices of the great king, Quigualtanqui, the Agamemnon of the confederacy ; the discovery of the plot ; the retreat of all the Indian chiefs save the indomitable Quigual- tanqui ; the fleet of one thousand canoes, mounted by twenty thousand men, with which he pursued the weary and despairing Spaniards for seventeen long days, assailing them with incessant fury; the giving up of the chase only when the sea was nearly in sight ; the fierce parting words of the Indians to the Spaniards : " Tell your countrymen that you have been pursued by Quigualtanqui alone ; if he had been better assisted by his peers, none of you would have survived to tell the tale ;" the solemn rites with which, in their thousand canoes riveted on the water, they, on the day they ceased their pursuit, adored the rising sun and saluted him with their thanksgivings for the expulsion of the in- vaders ; the hair-breadth escapes of the three hundred Spaniards who alone out of the bright host of their former companions, had succeeded in fleeing from the hostile shore of Louisiana ; their toils during a naviga- tion of ninety days to the port of Panuco, where they DISCOVERY OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 27 at last arrived in a state of utter destitution, are all thrilling incidents connected with the history of Lou- isiana, and replete with the very essence of poetry. When Alvarado, the Ulysses of that expedition, re- lated his adventures in the halls of Montezuma, Don Francisco de Mendoza, the son of the viceroy, broke out with passionate admiration of the conduct of Qui- gualtanqui : "A noble barbarian," exclaimed he, " an honest man and a true patriot." This remark, worthy of the high lineage and of the ancestral fame of him. who spoke it, is a just tribute to the Louisianian chief, and is an apt epilogue to the recital of those romantic achievements, the nature of which is such, that the poet's pen would be more at ease with it than that of the historian. One hundred and thirty years had passed away since the apparition of Soto on the soil of Louisiana, without any further attempt of the white race to pene- trate into that fair region, when on the 7th of July, 16*73, a small band of Europeans and Canadians reach- ed the Mississippi, which they had come to seek from the distant city of Quebec. That band had two lead- ers, Father Marquette, a monk, and Joliet, a merchant, the prototypes of two great sources of power, reli- gion and commerce, which, in the course of time, were destined to exercise such influence on the civilization of the western territory, traversed by the mighty river which they had discovered. They could not be ordi- nary men, those adventurers, who in those days under- took to expose themselves to the fatigues and perils of a journey through unknown solitudes, from the St. Lawrence to the Mississippi ! That humble monkish gown of Father Marquette concealed a hero's heart; and in the merchant's breast there dwelt a soul that would have disgraced no belted knight. 28 MARQUETTE AND JOLIET. Wlietlier it was owing to the peaceful garb in which they had presented themselves, or to some other cause, the Indians hardly showed any of that hostility which they had exhibited -toward the armed invasion of Spain. Joliet and Father Marquette floated down the river without much impediment, as far as the Arkansas. There, having received sufficient evidence that the Mississippi discharged itself into the Gulf of Mexico, they retraced their way back and returned to Canada. But in that frail bark drifting down the current of the Mississippi, and in which sat the hard plodding mer- chant, with the deep wrinkles of thought and forecast on his brow, planning schemes of trade with unknown nations, and surveying with curious eye that boundless territory which seemed, as he went along, to stretch in commensurate proportion with the infiniteness of space ; in that frail bark, I say, where mused over his breviary that gray-headed monk, leaning on that long staff, sur- mounted with the silver cross of Christ, and computing the souls that he had saved and still hoped to save from idolatry, is there not as much poetry as in the famed vessel of Argos, sailing in quest of the golden fleece ? Were not their hearts as brave as those of the Greek adventurers ? were not their dangers as great ? and was not the object which they had in view much superior ? The grandeur of their enterprise was, even at that time, fully appreciated. On their return to Quebec, and on their giving information that they had dis- covered that mighty river of which the Europeans had but a vague knowledge conveyed to them by the In- dians, and which, from the accounts given of its width and length, was considered to be one of the greatest wonders of the world, universal admiration was ex- pressed ; the bells of the Cathedral tqlled merrily for a MARQUETTE AND JOLIET. 29 whole day, and the bishop, followed by his clergy and the whole population, sang a solemn Te Deum at the foot of the altar. Thus, on the first acquaintance of our European fathers with the great valley of the Missis- sippi, of which our present State of Louisiana is the heart, there was an instinct that told them it was ths&re that the seeds of empire and greatness were SOWIL Were they not right in those divinations which pushed them onward to that favored spot through so many obstacles ? Greatness and empire were there, and there- fore all the future elements of poetry. Joliet and Marquette were dead, and nothing yet had been done to take possession of the newly discovered regions of the West ; but the impetus was given ; the march of civilization once begun could not retrograde ; that mighty traveler, with religion for his guide, was pushed onward by the hand of God ; and the same spirit which had driven the crusaders to Asia, now turned the attention of Europe to the continent of America. The spell which had concealed the Mis- sissippi amid hitherto impenetrable forests, and, as it were, an ocean of trees, was broken ; and the Indians, who claimed its banks as their hereditary domain, were now fated to witness the rapid succession of irresistible intruders. Seven years, since the expedition of Marquette and Joliet, had rolled by, when Robert Cavalier de La Salle, in the month of January, 1682, feasted his eyes with the sight of the far-famed Mississippi. For his com- panions he had forty soldiers, three monks, and the Chevalier de Tonti. He had received the education of a Jesuit, and had been destined to the cloister, and to become a tutor of children in a seminary of that cele- brated order of which he was to become a member. But he had that will, and those passions, and that in- at 30 LA SALLE. tellect which can not be forced into a contracted chan- nel of action. Born poor and a plebeian, he wished to be both noble and rich ; obscure, he longed to be fa- mous. Why not ? Man shapes his own destinies when the fortitude of the soul corresponds with the vigorous organization of the mind. When the heart dares prompt the execution of what genius conceives, nothing remains but to choose the field of success. That choice was soon made by La Salle. America was then exer- cising magnetic attraction upon all bold spirits, and did not fail to have the same influence on his own. Obey- ing the impulse of his ambition, he crossed the Atlantic without hesitation, and landed in Canada in 1673. When on the continent of America, that fond object of his dreams, La Salle felt that he was in a congenial atmosphere with his temperament. His mind seemed to expand, his conceptions to become more vivid, his natural eloquence to be gifted with more persuasion, and he was acknowledged at once by all who saw and heard him, to be a superior being. Brought into con- tact with Count Frontenac, who was the governor of Canada, he communicated to him his views and pro- jects for the aggrandizement of France, and suggested to him the gigantic plan of connecting the St. Law- rence with the Mississippi by an uninterrupted chain of forts. " From the information which I have been able to collect," said he to the Count, " I think I may affirm that the Mississippi draws its source somewhere in the vicinity of the Celestial Empire, and that France will be not only the mistress of all the territory between the St. Lawrence and the Mississippi, but will command the trade of China, flowing down the new and mighty channel which I shall open to the Gulf of Mexico." Count Frontenac was seduced by the magnificence of the prospect sketched by the enthusiast, but not daring LA SALLE. 31 to incur the expenses which such an undertaking would have required, referred him to the court of France. To France, then, the adventurer returns with in- creased confidence ; for he had secured one thing, he had gained one point ; introduction to the noble and to the wealthy under the auspices of Count Frontenac. The spirit of Columbus was in him, and nothing abash- ed he would have forced his way to the foot of the throne and appealed to Majesty itself, with that assu- rance which genius imparts. But sufficient was it for him to gain the good graces of one of the royal blood of France, the Prince de Conti. He fired the prince's mind with his own contagious enthusiasm, and through him obtained from the king not only an immense con- cession of land, but was clothed with all the powers and privileges which he required for trading with the Indians, and for carrying on his meditated plans of dis- covery. Nay, more, he was ennobled by letters-patent, and thus one of the most ardent wishes of his heart was gratified. At last, he was no longer a plebeian, and with Macbeth he could exclaim, " Now, thane of Cawdor, the greatest is behind." La Salle re-crossed the Atlantic with one worthy of being his fidus Acluttes, and capable of understanding the workings of his mind and of his heart. That man was the Chevalier De Tonti, who, as an officer, had served with distinction in many a war, and who after- ward became famous among the Indians for the iron hand with which he had artificially supplied the one which he had lost. On the 15th of September, 1678, proud and erect with the consciousness of success, La Salle stood again in the walls of Quebec, and stimulated by the cheers of the whole population, he immediately entered into the execution of his projects. Four years after, in 32 LA SALLE. 1682, he was at the mouth of the Mississippi, and in the name (as appears by a notarial act still extant) of the most puissant, most high, most invincible and victo- rious Prince, Louis the Great, King of France, took possession of all the country which he had discovered. How his heart must have swelled with exultation, when he stood at the mouth of the great river on which all his hopes had centered ; when he unfurled the white banner and erected the stately column to which he ap- pended the royal escutcheon of France, amid the shouts of his companions and the discharge of fire-arms ! With what devotion he must have joined in the solemn Te Deum sung on that memorable occasion ! To relate all the heart-thrilling adventures which oc- curred to La Salle during the four years which elapsed between the opening and the conclusion of that expe- dition, would be to go. beyond the limits which are allotted to me. Suffice it to say, that at this day to overcome the one-hundredth part of the difficulties which he had to encounter, would immortalize a man. If it be true that man is never greater than when en- gaged in a generous and unyielding struggle against dangers and adversity, then must it be admitted that during those four years of trials La Salle was pre-emi- nently great. Was he not worthy of admiration, when to 'the camp of the Iroquois, who at first had received him like friends, but had been converted into foes, he dared to go alone, to meet the charges brought against him by the subtle Mansolia, whose words were so per- suasive, and whose wisdom appeared so wonderful, that it was attributed to his holding intercourse with spirits of another world? How interesting the spectacle! How vividly it pictures itself to my mind ! How it would grace the pages of a Fennimore Cooper, or of one having the magic pen of a Walter Scott! Me- LA SALLE. 33 thinks I see that areopagus of stern old Indian warriors listening with knit brows and compressed lips to the passionate accusation so skillfully urged against La Salle, and to the prediction that amity to the white race was the sure forerunner of destruction to all the Indian tribes. La Salle rose in his turn ; how eloquent, how pathetic he was when appealing to the better feel- ings of the Indians, and how deserving of the verdict rendered in his favor ! The enmity, the ambushes of Indians were not to him the only sources of danger. These he could have stood unmoved ! But what must have been his feel- ings when he became conscious of the poison which had been administered to him by some of his companions, who thought that by destroying him they would spare to themselves the anticipated horrors of an expedition which they no longer had the courage to prosecute ! What his despair was, is attested by the name of " Or eve Ccev/r" which he gave to a fort he built a short time after the fort of the " Broken Heart !" But let us turn from his miseries to the more grateful spectacle of his ovation. In 1684 he returned to France, and found himself famous. He, the poor boy, the ignoble by birth, for whom paternal tenderness had dreamed nothing higher than the honor of being a teacher in a seminary of Je- suits, was presented to Louis XIV.- amid all the splen- dors of his court ! That Jupiter among the kings of the earth had a smile to bestow upon the humble sub- ject who came to deposit at the foot of the throne the title-deeds of such broad domains. But that smile of royalty was destined to be the last smile of fortune. The favors which he then obtained bred nothing but reverses. Every thing, however, wore a bright aspect, o 34 LA SALLE. and the star of his destiny appeared to be culminating in the heavens. Thus a fleet, composed of four vessels, was put at his disposal, with all the materials necessary to establish a colony, and once more he left the shores of his native country, but this time invested with high command, and hoping perhaps to be the founder of an empire. This, indeed, was something worth having struggled for! But alas ! he had struggled in vain ; the meshes of ad- verse fate were drawing close around him. Here is not the place to relate his misunderstandings, degenerating into bitter quarrels with the proud Beaujeu, who had the subordinate command of the fleet, and who thought himself dishonored he, the old captain of thirty years' standing, he, the nobleman by being placed under the control of the unprofessional, of the plebeian, of him whom he called a pedagogue, fit only to rule over chil- dren. The result of that conflict was, that La Salle found himself abandoned on the shores of the Bay of St. Bernard, in 1685, and was reduced to shift for him- self, with very limited resources. Here follows a pe- riod of three other years of great sufferings and of bold and incessant wanderings through the territory of the present State of Texas, where, after a long series of ad- ventures, he was basely murdered by his French com- panions, and revenged by his body-servant, an English- man by birth. He died somewhere about the spot where now stands the town of Washington, which owes its foundation to some of that race to which be- longed his avenger, and the star-spangled banner now proudly waves where the first pioneer of civilization consecrated with his blood the future land of liberty. The rapid sketch which I have given shows that so much of La Salle's life as belongs to history, occupies a space of fifteen years, and is so full of incidents as LA SALLE. 35 to afford materials enough for the production of a voluminous and interesting book. But I think I may safely close my observations with the remark, that he who will write the life of that extraordinary man, how- ever austere his turn of mind may be, will hardly be able to prevent the golden hues of poetry from over- spreading the pages which he may pen, where history is so much like romance that, in many respects, it is likely to be classed as such by posterity. Here I must close this historical sketch ; here I must stop, on the threshold of the edifice through which I should like to wander with you, in order to call your attention not only to the general splendor, but to the minute perfection of its architecture. Perhaps, at a future period, if your desire should keep pace with my inclination, I may resume the subject ; and I believe it will then be easy for me to complete the demonstration that our annals constitute a rich mine, where lies in profusion the purest ore of poetry, not to be found in broken and scattered fragments, but forming an unin- terrupted vein through the whole history of Louisiana, in all its varied phases, from the primitive settlement made at Biloxi to the present time, when she wears the diadem of sovereignty, and when, with her blood and treasure, and with a spirit of chivalry worthy of her Spanish and French descent, and of her Anglo-Saxon adoption, she was the first to engage in the support of that war which, so glorious in its beginning at Palo Alto, Kesaca de la Palma, Monterey, and Buena Vista, will undoubtedly have an equally glorious, and I think I may add, a poetical termination in the walls of Mexico ! SECOND LECTURE. st Ji ,*' ...--Q- * . / ;.. . v ~i ARRIVAL OF IBERVILLE AND BIENVILLE SETTLEMENT OF A FRENCH COLONY IN LOUISIANA SACVOLLE, FIRST GOVERNOR EVENTS AND CHARACTERS IN Louis IANA, OR CONNECTED WITH THAT COLONY, FROM LA SALLE'S DEATH, IN 1687, TO 1701. I CLOSED my last Lecture with La Salle's death, in 1687. A few years after, in the latter part of the same century, a French ship of 42 guns, on one of those beautiful days which are the peculiar offspring of the autumnal climate of America, happened to be coasting the hostile shore of New England. At that time Eng- land and France were at war, and the bays and harbors of the British possessions were swarming with the float- ing battlements of the mistress of the sea. Never- theless, from the careless manner in which that ship, which bore the white flag of France, hugged the coast, one would have thought that no danger was to be ap- prehended from such close proximity to captivity or death. Suddenly, three vessels hove in sight ; it was not long before their broad canvas wings seemed to spread wider, and their velocity to increase. To the most unpracticed eye it would have been evident that they were in pursuit of an object which they longed to reach. Yet, they of the white flag appeared to be un- conscious of the intention of their fellow-travelers on the boundless desert of the ocean. Although the French ship, with her long masts, towering like steeples, could have borne much more canvas ; although the IBERVILLE'S SEA-FIGHT. 37 breeze blew fresh, and the circumstance might have invited to rapidity of motion, yet not one additional inch of sail did she show, but she continued to move with a speed, neither relaxed nor increased, and as if enjoying a holy day excursion on Old Neptune's do- mains. High on the quarter-deck stood the captain, with the spy-glass in his hands, and surrounded by his offi- cers. After a minute survey of the unknown vessels, as they appeared, with outlines faint and hardly visible from the distance, and with the tip of their masts grad- ually emerging, as it were, from the waves, he had dropped his glass, and said to the bystanders : " Gen- tlemen, they are vessels of war, and British." Then he instinctively cast a rapid glance upward at the rigging of his ship, as if to satisfy himself that nothing had happened there, to mar that symmetrical neatness and scientific arrangement which have ever been held to be a criterion of nautical knowledge, and therefore a proper source of professional pride. But the look which he flung at the deck was long and steady. That thoughtful, lingering look embraced every object, ani- mate or inanimate, which there stood. Ay ! that ab- stracted look and those compressed lips must have con- veyed meaning, as distinct as if words had been spoken ; for they produced instantaneous action, such action as when man prepares to meet man in deadly encounter. It was plain that between that chief and his crew there was that sympathetic congeniality which imparts thought and feeling without the use of language. It was plain that on all occasions when the soul was sum- moned into moral volition and stirred into the as- sumption of high and uncommon resolves, the same electric fluid, gushing from the heart, pervaded at once the whole of that human mass. But, if a change had 54604 38 IBERVILLE'S SEA-FIGHT. come over the outward appearance of that ship's deck, none had taken place in her upper trimming. The wind continued to fill the same number of sails, and the ship, naiad-like, to sport herself leisurely in her favorite element. In the mean time, the vessels which had been descried at the farthest point of the horizon, had been rapidly gaining ground upon the intervening distance, and were dilating in size as they approached. It could be seen that they had separated from each other, and they appeared to be sweeping round the Pelican (for such was the name of the French ship), as if to cut her off from retreat. Already could be plainly discovered St. George's cross, flaunting in the wind. The white cloud of canvas that hung over them seemed to swell with every flying minute, and the wooden structures them- selves, as they plunged madly over the furrowed plains of the Atlantic, looked not unlike Titanic race-horses pressing for the goal. Their very masts with their long flags streaming, like Gorgon's disheveled locks, seemed, as they bent under the wind, to be quivering with the anxiety of the chase. But, ye sons of Britain, why this hot haste ? Why urge ye into such desperate exertions the watery steeds which ye spur on so fiercely ? They of the white flag never thought of flight. See ! they shorten sail as if to invite you to the approach. Be- ware ye do not repent of your efforts to cull the Lily of France, so temptingly floating in your sight ! If ye be falcons of pure breed, yonder bird, that is resting his folded pinions and sharpening his beak, is no car- rion crow. Who, but an eagle, would have looked with such imperturbable composure at your rapid gyra- tions, betokening the thunderbolt-like swoop which is to descend upon his devoted head ? Now, forsooth, the excitement of the looker-on must IBERVILLE'S SEA-FIGHT. 39 be tenfold increased : now the four vessels are within gun-shot, and the fearful struggle is to begin. One is a British ship of the line, showing a row of 52 guns, and her companions are frigates armed with 42 guns each. To court such unequal contest, must not that French commander be the very impersonation of madness ? There he stands on the quarter-deck, a man apparently of thirty years of age, attired as if for a courtly ball, in the gorgeous dress of the time of Louis the Fourteenth. The profuse curls of his perfumed hair seem to be bursting from the large, slouched gray hat, which he wears on one side inclined, and decorated with a red plume, horizontally stuck to the broad brinl, according to the fashion of the day. What a noble face ! If I were to sculpture a hero, verily, I would put such a head on his shoulders nay, I would take the whole man for my model ! I feel that I could shout with en- thusiasm, when I see the peculiar expression which haa settled in that man's eye, in front of such dangers thick- ening upon him ! Ha ! what is it ? What signify that convulsive start which shook his frame, and that death- like paleness which has flitted across his face ? What woman-like softness has suddenly crept into those eyes ? By heaven! a tear! I saw it, although it passed as rapidly as if a whirlwind had swept it of^ and although every feature has now resumed its former expression of more than human firmness. I understand it all! That boy, so young, so effemi- nate, so delicate, but who, in an under-officer's dress, stands with such manly courage by one of the guns, he is your brother, is he not ? Perhaps he is doomed to death ! and you think of his aged mother ! Well may the loss of two such sons crush her at once ! When I see such exquisite feelings tumultuously at work in a heart as soft as ever throbbed in a woman's breast ; 40 IBERVILLE'S SEA-FIGHT. when I see you, Iberville, resolved to sacrifice so much, rather than to fly from your country's enemies, even when it could be done without dishonor, stranger as you are to me, I wish I could stand by you on that deck and hug you to my bosom ! What awful silence on board of those ships ! Were it not for the roar of the waves, as they are cleft by the gigantic bulks under which they groan, the chirping of a cricket might be distinctly heard. How near they are to each other ! A musket shot would tell. Now, the crash is coming ! The tempest of fire, havoc, and destruction is to be let loose ! What a spectacle ! I would not look twice at such a scene it is too painful for an unconcerned spectator ! My breast heaves with emotion I am struggling in vain to breathe ! Ha ! there it goes one simultaneous blaze ! The eruption of Mount Vesuvius a strange whizzing sound the hissing of ten thousand serpents, bursting from hell and drunk with its venom the fair of timber, as if a host of sturdy axes had been at work in the forest a thick overspreading smoke concealing the demon's work within its dusky folds ! With the occasional clearing of the smoke, the French ship may be seen, as if ani- mated with a charmed life, gliding swiftly by her foes, and pouring in her broadsides with unabated rapidity. It looks like the condensation of all the lightnings of heaven. Her commander, as if gifted with supernatural powers and with the privilege of ubiquity, seems to be present at the same time in every part of the ship, ani- mating and directing all with untiring ardor. That storm of human warfare has lasted about two hours ; but the French ship, salamander-like, seems to live safely in that atmosphere of fire. Two hours ! I do not think I can stand this excitement longer ; and yet every minute is adding fresh fuel to its intensity. But IBERVILLE'S VICTORY. 41 now comes the crisis. The Pelican has almost silenced the guns of the English 52, and is bearing down upon her evidently with the intention to board. But, strange ! she veers round. Oh ! I see. God of mercy ! I feel faint at heart ! The 52 is sinking slowly she settles in the surging sea there there there down ! What a yell of defiance ! But it is the. last. What a rushing of the waters over the ingulfed mass ! Now all is over, and the yawning abyss has closed its lips. What remains to be seen on that bloody thea- ter ? One of the English 42s, in a dismantled state, is dropping slowly at a distance under the wind, and the other has already struck its flag, and is lying motionless on the ocean, a floating ruin I* . The French ship is hardly in a better plight, and the last rays of the setting sun show her deck strewed with the dead and the dying. But the glorious image of vic- tory flits before the dimmed vision of the dying, and they expire with the smile of triumph on their lips, and with the exulting shout of " France fwever /" But where is the conqueror ? Where is the gallant commander, whose success sounds like a fable? My heart longs to see him safe, and in the enjoyment of his well-earned glory. Ah ! there he is, kneeling and crouching over the prostrate body of that stripling whom I have depicted : he addresses the most tender and passionate appeals to that senseless form ; he covers with kisses that bloody head ; he weeps and sobs aloud, unmindful of those that look on. In faith ! I weep my- self, to see the agony of that noble heart : and why should that hero blush to moan like a mother -he who showed more than human courage, when the occasion required fortitude? Weep on, Iberville, weep on! Well may such tears be gathered by an angel's wings, like dew-drops worthy of heaven, and^ if carried by -if 42 IBERVILLE AND BIENVILLE. supplicating mercy to the foot of the Almighty's throne, they may yet redeem thy brother's life ! Happily, that brother did not die. He was destined to be known in history under the name of Bienville, and to be the founder of one of America's proudest cities. To him, New Orleans owes its existence, and his name, in the course of centuries, will grow in the esteem of posterity, proportionately with the aggran- dizement of the future emporium of so many countless millions of human beings. The wonderful achievement which I have related, is a matter of historical record, and throws a halo of glory and romance around those two men, who have since figured so conspicuously in the annals of Louisiana, and who, in the beginning of March, 1699, entered the Mis- sissippi, accompanied by Father Anastase, the former companion of La Salle, in his expedition down the river in 1682. Since the occurrence of that battle, of which I have given but an imperfect description. Iberville and Bien- ville had been through several campaigns at sea, and had encountered the dangers of many a fight. What a remarkable family ! The father, a Canadian by birth, had died on the field of battle, in serving his country, and out of eleven sons, the worthy scions of such a stock, five had perished in the same cause. Out of the six that remained, five were to consecrate themselves to the establishment of a colony in Louisiana. Before visiting the Mississippi, Iberville had left his fleet anchored at the Chandeleur Islands. This name proceeds from the circumstance of their having been discovered on the day when the Catholic Church cele- brates the feast of the presentation of Christ in the tem- ple, and of the purification of the Virgin. They are flat, sandy islands, which look as if they wish to sink THEIR ARRIVAL AT CAT ISLAND. 43 back into the sea, from shame of having come into the world prematurely, and before having been shaped and licked by nature into proper objects of existence. No doubt, they did not prepossess the first colonists in favor of what they were to expect. The French visited also Ship Island, so called from its appearing to be a safe roadstead for ships, but it offered to the visitors no greater attraction than the precedent. The next island they made had not a more inviting physiognomy. When they landed on that forbidding and ill-looking piece of land, they found it to be a small, squatting island, covered with indifferent wood, and intersected with lagoons. It literally swarmed with a curious kind of animal, which seemed to occupy the medium between the fox and the cat. It was difficult to say whether it belonged to one species in preference to the other. But one of the French having exclaimed, " This is the kingdom of cats /" decided the question, and the name of Cat Island was given to the new discovery. Here that peculiar animal, which was subsequently to be known in the United States, under the popular name of racoon, formed a numerous and a contented tribe ; here they lived like philosophers, separated from the rest of the world, and enjoying their nuts their loaves and fishes. I invite fabulists, or those who have a turn for fairy tales, to inquire into the origin of that grimal- kin colony, and to endear Cat Island to the juvenility of our State, by reciting the marvelous doings of which it was the theater. It was fraught, however, with so little interest in the estimation of the French, that they hastened to leave it for the land they had in sight. It formed a bay, the shores of which they found inhabited by a tribe of In- dians, called Biloxi, who proved as hospitable as their name was euphonic. j . .. ; 44 MOUTH OF THE MISSISSIPPI On the 27th of February, 1699, Iberville and Bien- ville departed from Biloxi in search of the Mississippi. When they approached its mouth, they were struck with the gloomy magnificence of the sight. As far as the eye could reach, nothing was to be seen but reeds which rose five or six feet above the waters in which they bathed their roots. They waved mournfully under the blast of the sharp wind of the north, shiver- ing in its icy grasp, as it tumbled, rolled, and gam- boled on the pliant surface. Multitudes of birds of strange appearance, with their elongated shapes, so lean that they looked like metamorphosed ghosts, clothed in plumage, screamed in the air, as if they were scared at each other. There was something agonizing in their shrieks, that was in harmony with the desola- tion of the place. On every side of the vessel, mon- sters of the deep and huge alligators heaved themselves up heavily from their native or favorite element, and, floating lazily on the turbid waters, seemed to gaze at the intruders. Down the river, and rumbling over its bed, there came a sort of low, distant .thunder. Was it the voice of the hoary sire of rivers, raised in anger at the prospect of his gigantic volume of waters being suddenly absorbed by one mightier than he ? In their progress, it was with great difficulty that the travelers could keep their bark free from those enormous rafts of trees which the Mississippi seemed to toss about in mad frolic. A poet would have thought that the great river, when departing from the altitude of his birth- place, and as he rushed down to the sea through three thousand miles, had, in anticipation of a contest which threatened the continuation of his existence, flung his broad arms right and left across the continent, and up- rooting all its forests, had hoarded them in his bed as ITS DESCRIPTION TONTt 45 >V missiles to hurl at the head of his mighty rival, when they should meet and struggle for supremacy. When night began to cast a darker hue on a land- scape on which the imagination of Dante would have gloated, there issued from that chaos of reeds such un- couth and unnatural sounds, as would have saddened the gayest and appalled the most intrepid. Could this be the far-famed Mississippi ? or was it not rather old Avernus ? It was hideous indeed but hideousness re- fined into sublimity, filling tlje soul with a sentiment of grandeur. Nothing daunted, the adventurers kept steadily on their course : they knew that, through those dismal portals, they were to arrive at the most mag- nificent country in the world ; they knew that awful screen concealed loveliness itself. It was a coquettish freak of nature, when dealing with European curiosity, as it came eagerly bounding on the Atlantic wave, to herald it through an avenue so somber, as to cause the wonders of the great valley of the Mississippi to burst with tenfold more force upon the bewildered gaze of those who, by the endurance of so many perils and fatigues, were to merit admittance into its Eden. It was a relief for the adventurers when, after having toiled up the river for ten days, they at last arrived at the village of the Bayagoulas. There they found a let- ter of Tonti to La Salle, dated in 1685. That letter, or rather that speaking bark, as the Indians called it, had been preserved with great reverence. Tonti having been informed that La Salle was coming with a fleet from France, to settle a colony on the banks of the Mis- sissippi, had not hesitated to set off from the Northern Lakes, with twenty Canadians and thirty Indians, and to come down to the Balize to meet his friend, who, as we know, had failed to make out the mouth of the Mis- sissippi, and had been landed by Beaujeu on- the 46 EXPLORATIONS. shores of Texas. After having waited for some time, and ignorant of what had happened, Tonti, with the same indifference to fatigues and dangers of an appall- ing nature, retraced his way back, leaving a letter to La Salle to inform him of his disappointment. Is there not something extremely romantic in the characters of the men of that epoch ? Here is Tonti undertaking, with the most heroic unconcern, a journey of nearly three thousand miles, through such difficulties as it is easy for us to imagine, and leaving a letter to La Salle, as a proof of his visit, in the same way that one would, in these degenerate days of effeminacy, leave a card at a neighbor's house. The French extended their explorations up to the mouth of the Red River. As they proceeded through that virgin country, with what interest they must have examined every object that met their eyes, and listened to the traditions concerning Soto, and the more recent stories of the Indians on La Salle and the iron-handed Tonti !* A coat of mail which was presented as having belonged to the Spaniards, and vestiges of their en- campment on the Red River, confirmed the French in the belief that there was much of truth in the recitals of the Indians. On their return from the mouth of the Red River, the two brothers separated when they arrived at Bayou Manchac. Bienville was ordered to go down the river to the French fleet, to give information of what they had seen and heard. Iberville went through Bayou Manchac to those lakes which are now known under the names of Pontchartrain and Maurepas. Louisiana had been named from a king : was it not in keeping that those lakes should be called after ministers ? * He had lost one of his bands, which he had supplied by an artificial one made of iron. . ,r PONTCHARTRAIN. 47 It has been said that there is something in a name. If it be true, why should not I tell you who were those from whom the names of those lakes were borrowed? Is it not something even for inanimate objects to have historical names ? It throws round them the spell of romance, and sets the imagination to work. Louis Phelyppeaux, Count Pontchartrain, a minister and chancellor of France, was the grandson of a minis- ter. He was a man remarkable for his talents and erudition. His integrity was proverbial, and his en- lightened and inflexible administration of justice is found recorded in all the annals of the time. When he was appointed to the exalted office of Chancellor of France, Louis the XlVth, on administering to him the required oath, said, " Sir, I regret that it is not in my power to bestow upon you a higher office, as a proof of my esteem for your talents, and of my gratitude for your services." Pontchartrain patronized letters with great zeal, and during his long career, was the avowed friend of Boileau and of J. B. Rousseau, the poet. He was of a very diminutive size, but very well shaped, and had that lean and hungry look which Caesar did not like in Cassius. His face was one of the most expressive, and his eyes were lighted up with incessant scintillations, denoting the ebullitions of wit within. If his features promised a great deal, his mind did more than redeem the physical pledge. There is no question, however abstruse, which he did not understand as if by intuition, and his capacity for labor appeared to stretch as far as the limits allotted to human nature. He was constitu- tionally indefatigable in all his pursuits ; and his knowl- edge of men, which was perhaps superior to all his other qualifications, remarkable as they were, greatly helped his iron will in the successful execution of its 48 PONTCHARTRAIK ' *l conceptions. But, although he knew mankind thorough- ly, he did not assume the garb of misanthropy. On the contrary, his manners spoke of a heart overflowing with, the milk of human benevolence ; and his conver- sation, which was alternately replete with deep learn- ing, or sparkling with vivacity and repartee, was eagerly sought after. If, on matters of mere business, he astonished, by the clearness of his judgment and his rapidity of conception, those he had to deal with, he no less delighted those with whom he associated in his lighter hours, by his mild cheerfulness and by his collo- quial powers, even on the veriest trifles. No man knew better than he, how to temper the high dignity of his station by the utmost suavity and simplicity of address. Yet in that man who, conscious of the misery he might inflict, was so guarded in his expressions that he never was betrayed into an unkind one in that man, in whom so much blandness was allied to so much majesty of deportment there was something more dreaded far than the keenest powers of sarcasm in others. It was a smile, peculiar to himself, which made people inquire with anxiety, not what Pontchartrain had said, but how Pontchartrain had smiled. That smile of his blasted like lightning what it was aimed at ; it operated as a sentence of death, and did such execu- tion that the Pontchartrain smile became, at the court of Louis the Fourteenth, as famous as the Mwtemart wit* In 1T14, resisting the entreaties of the king, he resigned his chancellorship, and retiring into the house of a religious congregation (Les pretres de 1'Oratoire) he devoted the remainder of his life to prayer, reading, and meditation. * The hereditary wit of all the members of that family, male or female, was marked with such peculiar pungency, that it became proverbial, and was called 'theMortemartwit. MAUREPAS. 49 Jean Frederic Phelyppeaux, Count Maurepas, was the son of Jerome Phelyppeaux, a minister and secre- tary of state, and the grandson of Pontchartrain, the chancellor. At the age of fourteen, he was appointed secretary of state, and in IT 2 5, in his twenty-fourth year, became minister. This remarkable family thus presented an uninterrupted succession of ministers for one hundred and seventy-one years. The obstinacy with which prosperity clung to her favorites appeared so strange that it worked upon the imagination of the superstitious, or of the ignorant, and was attributed at the time to some unholy compact and to the protection of supernatural beings. Cradled in the lap of power, Maurepas exhibited in his long career all the defects which are usually observed to grow with the growth of every spoiled child of fortune. He was as capricious as the wind, and as light as the feather with which it de- lights to gambol. The frivolity of his character was such that it could not be modified even by extreme old age. Superficial in every thing, he was incapable of giving any serious attention to such matters as would, from their very nature, command the deep considera- tion of most men. Perhaps he relied too much on his prodigious facility of perception, and on a mind so gifted, that it could, in an instant, unravel the knots of the most complicated affair. In the king's council, his profound knowledge of men and of the court, a sort of hereditary ministerial training to business, imperfect as it was, enabled him to conceal to a certain degree his lamentable deficiency of study and of meditation. As it were by instinct, if not by the diviner's rod, he could stamp on the ground and point out where the fruits of the earth lay concealed ; but instead of using the spade and mattock in search of the treasure, he would run after the first butterfly that caught his eye. To 50 MAUREPAS. reconcile men to his imperfections, nature had given him a bewitching sweetness of temper, which was never found wanting. Urbane, supple, and insinuating in his manners, he was as pliant as a reed : fertile in courtly stratagems, expert in laying out traps, pitfalls, and ambuscades for his enemies, he was equally skillful in the art of attack and defense, and no Proteus could assume more varied shapes to elude the grasp of his adversaries. There was no wall to which he could be driven, where he could not find an aperture through which to make his escape. No hunted deer ever sur- passed him in throwing out the intricate windings of his flight, to mislead his sagacious pursuers. Where he unexpectedly found himself stared in the face by some affair, the serious complexion of which he did not like, he would exorcise the apparition away by a profuse sprinkling of witty jests, calculated to lessen the im- portance of the hated object, or to divert from it the attention of persons interested in its examination. No Ulysses could be more replete than he with expedients to extricate himself out of all difficulties ; but the mo- ment he was out of danger, he would throw himself down, panting with his recent efforts, and think of nothing else than to luxuriate on the couch of re- pose, or to amuse himself with trifles. Maurepas, in more than one respect, was made up of contrarieties, a living antithesis in flesh and blood, a strange compound of activity and indolence that puzzled the world. Upon the whole, he was generally thought to be, by superficial observers, a harmless, good-natured, easy sort of man. But withal, in spite of his habitual supineness, he could rival the lynx, when he applied the keenness of his eye to detect the weak, ridiculous, or contemptible parts in the formation of his fellow- beings : and no spider could weave such an impercept- MAUREPAS. SI ible but certain web around those court flies he wanted to destroy, or to use to his own purposes. He was born a trifler, but one of a redoubtable nature, and from his temperament as Well as from his vicious educa- tion, there was nothing so respected, so august, or even so awful, as not to be laughed or scoffed at by him. There was no merit, no virtue, no generous, no moral or religious belief or faith in any thing, that he would not deride, and he would sneer even at himself, or at his own family, with the same relish, when the mood came upon him. Yet, worthless as that man was in his private and public character, he had such a peculiar turn for throwing the rich glow of health around what was most rotten in the state ; he could present to his master and to his colleagues, the dryest matter under such an enlivening aspect, when they met in the coun- cil-chamber ; he could render apparently so simple what seemed so complicated as to require the most arduous labor; and he could solve the most difficult political problem with such ease, that it looked like magic, and made him the most fascinating of ministers. For such a king as Louis the XVth,- who felt with great sensitiveness any thing that disturbed the volup- tuous tranquillity which was the sole object of his life, Maurepas, as a minister, had a most precious quality. Born in the atmosphere of the court, he was intimately acquainted with his native element, and excelled in hushing that low buzzing of discontent, so disagreeable to a monarch, which arises from the unsatisfied ambi- tion, the jealousy, and the quarrels of his immediate attendants. None knew better than Maurepas the usages and secrets of the court, and how to reconcile the conflicting interests of those great families that gravitate round the throne. He knew exactly what was due to every one, either for personal merit or for 52 MAUREPAS. ancestral distinction. His was the art to nip in the bud all factions or cabals, to stifle the grumblings of discontent, or to lull the murmurs of offended pride. He knew how to make the grant of a favor doubly precious by the manner in which it was offered ; and the bitterness of refusal was either sweetened by assu- rances of regret and of personal devotion, or by a happy mixture of reasoning and pleasantry, which, if it did not convince the mind, forced disappointment itself to smile at its own bad luck. With all his faults, such a minister had too much in- nate talent not to do some good, in spite of his frivolity. Thus, he made great improvements and embellish- ments in the city of Paris ; he infused new life into the marine department, corrected many abuses, visited all the harbors and arsenals, sent officers to survey all the coasts of France, had new maps made, established nautical schools, and ordered the expeditions of learned men to several parts of the world. Geometers and astronomers, according to his instructions, went to the equator and near the boreal pole, to measure, at the same time and by a concurrent operation, two degrees of the meridian. Thus, La Condamine, Bouguer, Godin, Maupertuis, Clairaut, and Lemonnier, were indebted to him for their celebrity. Also, in obedience to his com- mands, Sevin and Fourmont visited Greece and several provinces of the East; others surveyed Mesopotamia and Persia, and Jussieu departed to study the botany of Peru. That frivolous minister did, through his strong natu- ral sagacity, partially discover that commerce ought to be unshackled, and withdrew from the India Company the monopoly of the coffee trade and of the slave trade. By such a wise measure, he largely contributed to the prosperity of the French colonies. But, in such an ele- MAUREPAS. 53 vated region of thought, conception, and action, Maure- pas was too boyish to remain long. He would confide the labors of his office to those whom it was his duty to guide, and would steal away to the balls of the opera, or to every sort of dissipation. If he remained in the cabinet destined to his official occupations, it was not to think and to act in a manner worthy of the minister, but to write lampoons, scurrilous drolleries, and facetious obscenities. He took a share in the composition of sev- eral licentious pieces, well suited to the taste and morals of the time, and contributed to one which at- tracted some attention, under the title of The Ballet of the Turkeys. These things were not, for him, the result of a momentary debauch of the mind, but matters of serious occupation and pursuit. Such a relish did he find in this pastime, which would be called childish if it had not been tainted with immorality, that it took the mastery over his prudence, and he had the indis- cretion to write a lampoon on the physical charms of the Marquise de Pompadour, the acknowledged favorite of Louis the XVth. The pruriency of his wit cost him his place, and in 1*749, after having been a minister twenty-four years, he was exiled to the city of Bourges, and afterward permitted to reside at his Chateau de Pontchartrain, near Paris. There, his princely fortune allowed him to live in splendor, and to attach a sort of mimic court to his person. He appeared to bear his fall with philosophical indifference, observing that, on the fo*st day of Ms dismissal, lie felt sore ; but that on the next, he was entirely consoled. On the death of Louis the XVth, his successor sent for Maurepas, to put him at the helm of that royal ship, destined soon to be dashed to pieces in that tremendous storm which might be seen gathering from the four quarters of the horizon. The unfortunate Louis could 54 MAUREPAS. not have made a poorer choice. Maurepas had sagacity enough to discover the coming events, but he was not the man, even if the power had been in his hands, to prepare for the struggle with those gigantic evils, whose shadow he could see already darkening the face of his country. Such an attempt would have interfered with his delightful suppers and disturbed his sleep; and to the Cassandras of that epoch, the egotistical old man used to reply with a sneer and a shrug of his shoulders, " The present organization of things will last as long as I shall, and why should I look beyond !" This observation was in keeping with the whole tenor of his life ; and, true to the system which he had adopt- ed, if he lived and died in peace, what did he care for the rest? He had no children, and when he married in all the vigor of youth, those who knew him inti- mately, predicted that the bridal bed would remain barren. The prediction proved true, and had not re- quired any extraordinary powers of divination. Is it astonishing that the lineal descendant of a succession of ministers should be without virility of mind, soul, or body ? What herculean strength, what angel purity would have resisted the deleterious influence of such an atmosphere, working, for nearly two centuries, slow but sure mischief, from generation to generation ? After having been a minister for six years under Louis the XVIth, Maurepas died in 1*781. So infatu- ated was the king with his octogenarian minister, that he had insisted upon his occupying, at the Palace of Versailles, an apartment above his own royal chamber ; and every morning, the first thing that the king did, was to pay a visit to the minister. Pleasant those visits were, because the wily old minister presented every thing to his young master under the most glowing col- ors, and made him believe that his almost centenarian LAKE BORGNE. 55 experience would smooth the rugged path that extended before him. If parliaments rebelled, if fleets were de- feated, if provinces were famished, Maurepas had no unpalatable truths to say. Only once, the eaves-drop- pers heard his voice raised above its usual soft tone. What frightful convulsion of nature could have pro- duced such a change ? None but the death of a cat ! Distracted with the shrieks of his wife, whose trouble- some four-footed favorite, interfering with the king when engaged in his darling occupation of a black- smith, had been killed by an angry blow of the royal hammer, he loudly expostulated with the murderer for the atrociousness of the deed. What must have been his dread of his wife, when under the cabalistic influ- ence of her frowns, such a courtier could so completely drop the prudential policy of his whole life, as to ven- ture to show displeasure to the king ! When Maurepas died, the king shed tears, and said with a faltering voice, " Alas ! in the morning, for the future, when I shall wake up, no longer shall I hear the grateful sound to which I was used the slow pacing of my friend in the room above mine." Very little de- serving of this testimonial of friendship was he, who never loved any thing in this world but himself. So much for Pontchartrain and Maurepas, who have given their names to those beautiful lakes which are in the vicinity of New Orleans. From Lake Pontchar- train, Iberville arrived at a sheet of water which is known in our days under the name of Lake Borgne. The French, thinking that it did not answer precisely the definition of a lake, because it was not altogether land-locked, or did not at least discharge its waters only through a small aperture, and because it looked rather like a part of the sea, separated from its main body by numerous islands, called it Lake Borgne, meaning 56 ST. LOUIS. something incomplete or defective, like a man with one eye. On that lake, there is a beautiful bay, to which Iber- ville gave the patronymic name of St. Louis. Of a more lofty one, no place can boast under the broad canopy of heaven. Louis the IXth, son of Louis the Vlllth of France, and of Blanche of Castile, was the incarnation of vir- tue, and, what is more extraordinary, of virtue born on the throne, and preserving its divine purity in spite of all the temptations of royal power. In vain would history be taxed to produce a character worthy of being compared with one so pure. Among heroes, he must certainly be acknowledged as one of the greatest ; among monarchs, he must be ranked as the most just ; and among men, as the most modest. For such per- fection, he was indebted to his mother, who, from his earliest days, used to repeat to him this solemn admo- nition : " My son, remember that I had rather see you dead than offending your God by the commission of a deadly sin." When he assumed the government of his kingdom, he showed that his talents for administration were equal to his virtues as a man. Every measure which he adopted during peace, had a happy tendency toward the moral and physical improvement of his sub- jects, and in war he proved that he was not deficient in those qualifications which constitute military genius. He defeated Henry the Hid of England at the battle of Taillebourg in Poitou, where he achieved prodigies of valor. He gained another decisive victory at Saintes over the English monarch, to whom he granted a truce of five years, on his paying to France five thousand pounds sterling. Unfortunately, the piety of the king making him forgetful of what was due to the temporal welfare of ST. LOUIS. 57 his subjects, drove him into one of those crusades, which the cold judgment of the statesman may blame, but at which the imagination of the lover of romance will certainly not repine. In 1249, Louis landed in Egypt, took the city of Damietta, and advanced as far as Massourah. But after several victories, whereby he lost the greater part of his army, he was reduced to shut himself up in his camp, where famine and pesti- lence so decimated the feeble remnant of his forces, that he was constrained to surrender to the host of enemies by whom he was enveloped. He might have escaped, however ; but to those who advised him to consult his own personal safety, he gave this noble an- swer : " I must share in life or in death the fate of my companions." The Sultan had offered to his prisoner to set him free, on condition that he would give up Damietta and pay one hundred thousand silver marks. Louis re- plied, that a king of France never ransomed himself for money; but that he would yield Damietta in ex- change for his own person, and pay one hundred thou- sand silver marks in exchange for such of his subjects as were prisoners. Such was the course of negotiation between the two sovereigns, when it was suddenly ar- rested by the murder of the Sultan, who fell a victim to the unruly passions of his janizaries. They had rebelled against their master, for having attempted to subject them to a state of discipline, irksome to their habits and humiliating to their lawless pride. Some of those ruffians penetrated into the prison of Louis, and one of them, presenting him with the gory head of the Sultan, asked the French monarch what reward he would grant him for the destruction of his enemy. A haughty look of contempt was the only answer vouch- safed by Louis. Enraged at this manifestation of dis- 58 ST. LOUIS. pleasure, the assassin lifted up his dagger, and aiming it at the king's breast, exclaimed, " Dub me a knight, or die !" Louis replied with indignation, " Kepent, and turn Christian, or fly hence, base infidel !" When utter- ing these words, Louis had risen from his seat, and with an arm loaded with chains, had pointed to the door, waving the barbarian away with as much majesty of command as if he had been seated on his throne in his royal palace of the Louvre. Abashed at the rebuke, and overawed by the Olympian expression of the mon- arch's face, the Saracen skulked away, and said to his companions, when he returned to them, " I have just seen the proudest Christian that has yet come to the East!" After many obstacles, a treaty of peace was at last concluded : Louis and his companions were liberated ; the Saracens received from the French eight hundred thousand marks of silver, and recovered the city of Damietta. But they authorized Louis to take posses- sion of all the places in Palestine which had been wrested from the Christians, and to fortify them as he pleased. When the king landed in France, the joy of his sub- jects was such, that they appeared to be seized with the wildest delirium. On his way from the sea-coast to Paris, he was met by throngs of men, women, and children, who rushed at him with the most frantic shrieks, and kissed . his feet and the hem of his gar- ments, as if he had been an angel dropped from heaven to give them the assurance of eternal felicity. Those testimonials of gratitude, extreme as they may appear, were not more than he deserved. He, who used to say to his proud nobles, " Our serfs belong to Christ, our common master, and in a Christian kingdom it must not be forgotten that we are all brothers," must indeed ST. LOUIS. 59 have been beloved by the people ! How could it be otherwise, when they saw him repeatedly visiting every part of his dominions, to listen to the complaints of his meanest subjects ! They knew that he used to sit, at Yincennes, under a favorite oak, which has become celebrated from that circumstance, and there loved, with august simplicity, to administer justice to high and low. It was there that he rendered judgment against his own brother, Le Comte d'Anjou ; it was there that he forced one of his most powerful barons, Enguerrand de Coucy, to bow to the majesty of the law. It was he whose enlightened piety knew how to check the unjust pretensions of his clergy, and to keep them within those bounds which they were so prone to overleap. It was he who contented himself with re- torting to those who railed at his pious and laborious life, " If I gave to hunting, to gambling, to tournaments, and to every sort of dissipation, the moments which I devote to prayer and meditation, I should not be found fault with." Louis undertook a second Crusade ; and having en- camped on the site of old Carthage, prepared to com- mence the siege of Tunis, to which it is almost contigu- ous. There, privations of every sort, incessant fatigue, and the malignant influence of the climate, produced an epidemical disease, which rapidly destroyed the strength of his army. His most powerful barons and most skillful captains died in a few days ; his favorite son, the Count de Nevers, expired in his arms ; his eld- est born, the presumptive heir to the crown, had been attacked by the pestilence, and was struggling against death, in a state of doubtful convalescence; when, to increase the dismay of the French, Louis himself caught the infection. Aware of approaching death, he ordered himself to be stretched on ashes ; wishing, he, the great OO ST. LOUIS. king, to die with all the humility of a Christian. At the foot of his bed of ashes, stood a large cross, bearing the image of the crucified Savior, upon which he loved to rest his eyes, as on the pledge of his future salvation. Around him, the magnates of France and his own im- mediate attendants knelt on the ground, which they bathed with tears, and addressed to Heaven the most fervent prayers for the recovery of the precious life, which was threatened with sudden extinguishment. Out of the royal tent, grief was not less expressive. The silence of despair, made more solemn by occasional groans, reigned absolute over the suffering multitude, that had agglomerated on the accursed Numidian shore ; and the whole army, distracted, as it were, at the danger which menaced its august head, seemed to have been struck with palsy by the horror of its situa- tion. The dying were hardly attended to, so much en- grossed were their attendants by heavier cares; and even they, the dying, were satisfied to perish, since they thus escaped the bitterness of their present fate ; and their loss elicited no expression of regret from their survivors, so much absorbed were they by the fear of a greater misfortune to them and to France. There ap- peared to be a sort of frightful harmony between the surrounding objects and the human sufferings to which they formed an appropriate frame. The winds seemed to have departed forever from the earth; the atmo- sphere had no breath ; and the air almost condensed itself into something palpable ; it fell like molten lead upon the lungs which it consumed. The motionless sea was smoothed and glassed into a mirror reflecting the heat of the lurid sun : it looked dead. Beasts of prey, hyenas, jackals, and wolves, attracted by the nox- ious effluvia which issued from the camp, filled the ears with their dismal howlings. From the deep blue sky, t ST. LOUIS. 61 there came no refreshing shower, but shrieks of hungry vultures, glancing down at the feast prepared for them, and screaming with impatience at the delay. The en- emy himself had retreated to a distance, from fear of the contagion, and had ceased those hostilities which used momentarily to relieve the minds of the French from the contemplation of theiiv situation. They were reduced to such a pitch of misery as to regret that no human foes disturbed the solitude where they were slowly perishing ; and their eyes were fixed in unutter^ able woe on those broken pyramids, those mutilated columns, those remnants of former ages, of faded glo- ries, on those eloquent ruins, which, long before the time when they sheltered Marius, spoke of nothing but past, present, and future miseries. . Such was the scene which awaited Louis on his death-bed. It was enough to strike despair into the boldest heart, but he stood it unmoved. A perpetual smile, such as grace only the lips of the blessed, en- livened his face; he looked round not only without dismay, but with an evangelical serenity of soul. He knew well that the apparent evils which he saw, were a mere passing trial, inflicted for the benefit of the suf- ferers, and for some goodly purpose ; he knew that this transitory severity was the wise device of infinite and eternal benignity, and therefore, instead of repining, he thanked God for the chastisement which served only to hasten the coming reward. The vision of the Christian extends beyond the contracted sphere of the sufferings of humanity, and sees the crowning mercies that attend the disembodied spirits in a better world. By the manner in which Louis died, this, was strik- ingly illustrated. Calm and collected, after having dis- tributed words of encouragement to all that could ap- proach him, he summoned his son and successor to his 62 ST. LOUIS. bedside, and laying his hands on his head to bless him, he bid him a short and an impressive farewell. " My son !" said he, " I die in peace with the world and with myself, warring only against the enemies of our holy faith. As a Christian, I have lived in the fear, and I depart in the hope of God. As a man, I have never wasted a thought on my own perishable body ; and in obedience to the command of our Lord Jesus Christus^ I have always forgotten my own worldly interest to promote that of others. As a king, I have considered myself as my subjects' servant, and not my subjects as mine. If, as a Christian, as a man, and as a king, I have erred and sinned, it is unwillingly and in good faith, and therefore, I trust for mercy in my heavenly Father, and in the protection of the Holy Virgin. So I have lived do thou likewise. Follow an example which secures to me such a sweet death amid such scenes of horror. Thou shalt find in my written will, such precepts as my experience and my affection for thee and for my subjects have devised for thy guidance and for their benefit. And now, my son, farewell! This life, as thou knowest, is a mere state of probation ; hence, do not repine at our short separation. Blessed be thou here, and in heaven, where I hope to meet thee in everlasting bliss. So help me God ! In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, Amen P Thus saying, he devoutly crossed himself, looked upward, and exclaimed: "Introibo in domum tuam, adorabo ad templum sanctum tuum." These were his last words. During his life, he was emphat- ically the Christian king : shortly after his death, he was canonized by the church, and became a saint. In spite of these circumstances, which must have been hateful to Voltaire's turn of mind, the recollection of such exalted virtue extorted from that celebrated BAY OF BILOXL 63 writer a eulogy which is doubly flattering to the mem- ory of him to whom the tribute is paid, if the source from which it came be considered. That arch scoffer, that systematic disbeliever in so much of what is held sacred by mankind, said of St. Louis, " That prince would have reformed Europe, if reformation had been possible at that time. He increased the power, pros- perity, and civilization of France, and showed himself a type of human perfection. To the piety of an anchor- ite, he joined all the virtues of a king ; and he practiced a wise system of economy, without ceasing to be liberal. Although a profound politician, he never deviated from what he thought strictly due to right and justice, and he is perhaps the sole sovereign to whom such com- mendation can be applied. Prudent and firm in the deliberations of the cabinet, distinguished for cool intre- pidity in battle, as humane as if he had been familiar with nothing else but misery, he carried human virtue as far as it can be expected to extend." Thus, it is seen that the Bay of St. Louis could not borrow a nobler name than that under which it is des- ignated. The magnificent oaks which decorate its shore, did perhaps remind Iberville of the oak of Vin- cennes, and to that circumstance may the bay be in- debted for its appellation. From the Bay of St. Louis, Iberville returned to his fleet, where, after consultation, he determined to make a settlement at the Bay of Biloxi. On the east side, at the mouth of the bay, as it were, there is a slight swelling of the shore, about four acres square, sloping gently to the woods in the background, and on the right and left of which, two deep ravines run into the bay. Thus, this position was fortified by nature, and the French skillfully availed themselves of these ad- vantages. The weakest point, which was on the side *'. 64 IBERVILLE'S DEPARTURE FOR FRANCE. of the forest, they strengthened with more care than the rest, by connecting with a strong intrenchment the two ravines, which ran to the bay in a parallel line to each other. The fort was constructed with four bas- tions, and was armed with twelve pieces of artillery. When standing on one of the bastions which faced the bay, the spectator enjoyed a beautiful prospect. On the right, the bay could be seen running into the land for miles, and on the left stood Deer Island, concealing almost entirely the broad expanse of water which lay beyond. It was visible only at the two extreme points of the island, which both, at that distance, appeared to be within a close proximity of the main land. No bet- ter description can be given, than to say that the bay looked like a funnel, to which the island was the lid, not fitting closely, however, but leaving apertures for egress and ingress. The snugness of the locality had tempted the French, and had induced them to choose it as the most favorable spot, at the time, for coloniza- tion. Sauvolle, a brother of Iberville, was put in com- mand of the fort, and Bienville, the youngest of the three brothers, was appointed his lieutenant. A few huts having been erected round the fort, the settlers began to clear the land, in order to bring it into cultivation. Iberville, having furnished them with all the necessary provisions, utensils, and other supplies, prepared to sail for France. How deeply affecting must have been the parting scene ! How many casual- ties might prevent those who remained in this unknown region from ever seeing again those who, through the perils of such a long voyage, had to return to their home ! What crowding emotions must have filled up the breast of Sauvolle, Bienville, and their handful of companions, when they beheld the sails of Iberville's fleet fading in the distance, like transient clouds ! Well THE COLAPISSAS. 65 may it be supposed that it seemed to them as if their very souls had been carried away, and that they felt a momentary sinking of the heart, when they found them- selves abandoned, and necessarily left to their own re- sources, scanty as they were, on a patch of land, be- tween the ocean on one side, and on the other, a wilder- ness, which fancy peopled with every sort of terrors. The sense of their loneliness fell upon them like the gloom of night, darkening their hopp, and filling their hearts with dismal apprehensions. But as the country had been ordered to be explored, Sauvolle availed himself of that circumstance to refresh the minds of his men by the excitement of an expedi- tion into the interior of the continent. He therefore hastened to dispatch most of them with Bienville, who, with a chief of the Bayago.ulas for his guide, went to visit the Colapissas. They inhabited the northern shore of Lake Pontchartrain, and their domains em- braced the sites now occupied by Lewisburg, Man- deville, and Fontainebleau. That tribe numbered three hundred warriors, who, in their distant hunting excur- sions, had been engaged in frequent skirmishes with some of the British colonists in South Carolina. When the French landed, they were informed that, two days previous, the village of the Colapissas had been attack- ed by a party of two hundred Chickasaws, headed by two Englishmen. These were the first tidings which the French had of their old rivals, and which proved to be the harbinger of the incessant struggle, which was to continue for more than a century between the two races, and to terminate by the permanent occupation of Louisiana by the Anglo-Saxon. Bienville returned to the fort to convey this impor- tant information to Sauvolle. After Having rested there for several days, he went to the Bay of Pasca- 66 THE COLAPISSAS. goulas, and ascended the river which bears that name, and the banks of which were tenanted by a branch of the Biloxis, and by the Moelobites. Encouraged by the friendly reception which he met everywhere, he ventured farther, and paid a visit to the Mobilians. who entertained him with great hospitality. Bienville found them much reduced from what they had been, and listened with eagerness to the many tales of their former power, which had been rapidly declining since the crushing blow they had received from Soto. When Iberville ascended the Mississippi the first time, he had remarked Bayou Plaquemines and Bayou Chetimachas. The one he called after the fruit of certain trees, which appeared to have exclusive pos- session of its banks, and the other after the name of the Indians who dwelt in the vicinity. He had ordered them to be explored, and the indefatigable Bienville, on his return from Mobile, obeyed the instructions left to his brother, and made an accurate survey of these two Bayous. When he was coming down the river, at the distance of about eighteen miles below the site where New Orleans now stands, he met an English ves- sel of 16 guns, under the command of Captain Bar. The English captain informed the French that he was examining the banks of the river, with the intention of selecting a spot for the foundation of a colony. Bien- ville told him that Louisiana was a dependency of Canada; that the French had already made several establishments on the Mississippi ; and he appealed, in confirmation of his assertions, to their own presence in the river, in such small boats, which evidently proved the existence of some settlement close at hand. The Englishman believed Bienville, and sailed back. Where this occurrence took place the river makes a consider- able bend, and it was from the circumstance which I THE ENGLISH TURNMISSIONARIES. 67 have related that the spot received the appellation of the English Turn a name which it has retained to the present day. It was not far from that place, the atmos- phere of which appears to be fraught with some malig- nant spell hostile to the sons of Albion, that the Eng- lish, who were outwitted by Bienville in 1699, met with a signal defeat in battle from the Americans in 1815. The diplomacy of Bienville and the military genius of Jackson proved to them equally fatal, when they aimed at the possession of Louisiana. Since the exploring expedition of La Salle down the Mississippi, Canadian hunters, whose habits and intre- pidity Fenimore Cooper has so graphically described in the character of Leather-Stocking, used to extend their roving excursions to the banks of that river ; and those holy missionaries of the church, who, as the pio- neers of religion, have filled the New World with their sufferings, and whose incredible deeds in the service of God afford so many materials for the most interesting of books, had come in advance of the pickaxe of the settler, and had domiciliated themselves among the tribes who lived near the waters of the Mississippi. One of them, Father Montigny, was residing with the Tensas, within the territory of the present parish of Tensas, in the State of Louisiana, and another, Father Davion, was the pastor of the Yazoos, in the present State of Mississippi. Father Montigny was a descendant from Galon de Montigny, who had the honor of bearing the banner of France at the battle of Bouvines. It is well known that in 1214 a league of most of the European princes, the most powerful of whom were the King of England and the Emperor of Germany, was formed against Philip Augustus. The allied army, composed of one hundred thousand men, and the French army muster- FATHER MONTIGNY. ing half that number, met at Bouvines, between Lille and Tournay. Before the battle, Philip reviewed his troops, and in their presence, removing his crown from his temples, said to the assembled host, " Peers, barons, knights, soldiers, and all ye that listen to me, if you know one more .worthy of the crown of France than I am, you may award it to him." Shouts of enthusiasm declared that he was the worthiest. " Well, then," said he, " help me to keep it." The battle soon began, and raged for some time with alternate success for the belligerents. To the long gilded pole which supported the banner of France, and towered in proud majesty over the plain, the eyes of the French knights, scattered over the wide field of battle, were frequently turned with feverish anxiety. So long as it stood erect, and as firmly fixed in Montigny's iron grasp as if it had taken root in the soil, they knew that the king was safe, it being the duty of the bearer of that standard to keep close to the royal person, and never to lose sight of him. It was an arduous and a perilous duty, which devolved on none but one well tried among the bravest ; and it was not long before Montigny had to plunge into the thickest of the fight, to retain his post near Philip Augustus, who felt on that trying occasion, when his crown was at stake, that the king was bound to prove himself the best knight of his army. On a sudden, a cold chill ran through the boldest heart in the French ranks. The long stately pole which bore the royal banner, was observed to wave distressfully, and to rock like the mast of a vessel tossed on a tempestuous sea. That fatal signal was well known it meant that the king was in peril. Sim- ultaneously, from every partof the field, every French knight, turning from the foe he had in front, dashed headlong away, and with resistless fury forced a pas- FATHER MONTIGffY. 69 sage to the spot, where the fate of France was held in dubious suspense. .One minute more of delay, and all would have been lost. The king had been unhorsed by the lance of a German knight, trampled under the feet of the chargers of the combatants, and had, with difficulty, been replaced on horseback. Those that came at last to the rescue, .found him surrounded by the corpses of one hundred and twenty gentlemen of the best blood of France, who had died in his defence. His armor was shattered to pieces, his battle-axe, from the blows which it had given, was blunted into a mere club, and his arm waxing faint, could hardly parry the blows which rained upon his head. Montigny stood alone by him, and was defending, with a valor worthy of the occasion, the flag and the king of France. That occasion, indeed, was one, if any, to nerve the arm of a man, and to madden such a one as Montigny into the execution of prodigies. To be the royal standard-bearer, to fight side by side with his king, to have saved him perhaps from captivity or death ; such were the proud destinies of the noble knight, Galon de Montigny. His descendant's lot in life was an humbler one in the estimation of the world, but perhaps a higher one in that of heaven. A hood, not a crested helmet, covered his head, and he was sat- isfied with being a soldier in the militia of Christ. But if, in the accomplishment of the duties of his holy faith, he courted dangers and even coveted tortures with he- roic fortitude if, in the cause of God, he used his spir- itual weapons against vice, error and superstition, with as much zeal and bravery as others use carnal weapons iri earthly causes if, instead of a king's life, he saved thousands of souls from perdition is he to be deemed recreant to his gentle blood, and is he not to be 7ft FATHER DAVIOK esteemed as good a knight as Ms great ancestor of his torical renown ? Father Davion had resided for some time with the Tunicas, where he had made himself so popular, that, on the death of their chief, they had elected him to fill his place. .The priest humbly declined the honor, giv- ing for his reasons, that his new duties as their chief would be incompatible with those of his sacred minis- try. Yet the Tunicas, who loved and venerated him as a man, were loth to abandon their old creed to adopt the Christian faith, and they turned a deaf ear to his admonitions. One day the missionary, incensed at their obstinate perseverance in idolatry, and wishing to demonstrate that their idols were too powerless to punish any offence aimed at them, burned their temple, and broke to pieces the rudely carved figures which were the objects of the peculiar adoration of that tribe. The Indians were so much attached to Father Davion, that they contented themselves with expelling him, and he retired on the territory of the Yazoos, who proved themselves readier proselytes, and became converts in a short time. This means, that they adopted some of the outward signs of Christianity, without understand- ing or appreciating its dogmas. Proud of his achievements, Father Davion had, with such aid as he could command, constructed and hung up a pulpit to the trunk of an immense oak, in the same manner that it is stuck to a pillar in the Catholic churches. Back of that tree, growing on the slight hill which commanded the river, he - had raised a little Gothic chapel, the front part of which was divided by the robust trunk to which it was made to adhere, with two diminutive doors opening into the edifice, on either side of that vegetal tower. It was done in imi- tation of those stone towers, which stand like sentinels FATHER DAVIOff. 71 wedged to the frontispiece of the temples of God, on the continent of Europe. In that chapel, Father Da- vion kept all the sacred vases, the holy water, and the sacerdotal habiliments. There he used to retire to spend hours in meditation and in prayer. In that tab- ernacle was a small portable altar, which, whenever he said mass for the natives, was transported outside, un- der the oak, where they often met to the number of three to four hundred. What a beautiful subject for painting ! The majesty of the river the glowing rich- ness of the land in its virgin loveliness the Gothic chapel the pulpit which looked as if it had grown out of the holy oak the hoary-headed priest, speaking with a sincerity of conviction, an impressiveness of manner and a radiancy of countenance worthy of an apostle the motley crowd of the Indians, listening attentively, some with awe, others with meek submission, a few with a sneering incredulity, which, as the evangelical man went on, seemed gradually to vanish from their strongly marked features in the background, a group of their juggling prophets, or conjurers, scowling with fierceness at the minister of truth, who was destroying their power ; would not all these elements, where the grandeur of the scenery would be combined with the acting of man and the development of his feelings, on an occasion of the most solemn nature, produce in the hands of a Salvator Rosa, or of a Poussin, the most striking effects ? Father Davion had acquired a perfect knowledge of the dialect of his neophytes, and spoke it with as much fluency as his own maternal tongue. He had both the physical and mental qualifications of an orator : he was tall and commanding in stature ; his high receding fore- head was well set off by his long, flowing, gray hairs, curling down to his shoulders ; his face was " sicklied 72 FATHER DAVION. over with the pale cast of thought ;" vigils and fasting had so emaciated his form that he seemed almost to be dissolved into spirituality. There was in his eyes a soft, blue, limpid transparency of look, which seemed to be a reflection from the celestial vault ; yet that eye, so calm, so benignant, could be lighted up with all the coruscations of pious wrath and indignation, when, in the pulpit, he vituperated his congregation for some act of cruelty or deceit, and threatened them with eternal punishment.., First, he would remind them, with apos- tolic unction, with a voice as bland as the evening breeze, of the many benefits which the Great Spirit had showered upon them, and of the many more which he had in store for the red men, if they adhered strictly to his law. When he thus spoke, the sunshine of his serene, intellectual countenance would steal over his hearers, and their faces would express the wild delight which they felt. But, anon, when the holy father recol- lected the many and daily transgressions of his unruly children, a dark hue would, by degrees, creep over the radiancy of his face, as if a storm was gathering, and clouds after clouds were chasing each other over the mirror of his soul. Out of the inmost recesses of his heart, there arose a whirlwind which shook the holy man, in its struggle to rush out : then would flash the lightning of the eye ; then the voice, so soft, so insinu- ating, and even so caressing, would assume tones that sounded like repeated peals of thunder; and a perfect tempest of eloquence would he pour forth upon his dis- mayed auditory, who crossed themselves, crouched to the earth and howled piteously, demanding pardon for their sins. Then, the ghpstly orator, relenting at the sight of so much contrition, would descend like Moses from his. Mount Sinai, laying aside the angry elements in which he had robed himself, as if he had come to FATHER DAVION. 73 preside over the last judgment ; and with the gentle- ness of a lamb, he would walk among his prostrate auditors, raising them from the ground, pressing them to his bosom, and comforting them with such sweet accents as a mother uses to lull her first-born to sleep. It was a spectacle touching in the extreme, and angeli- cally pure ! Father Davion lived to a very old age, still com- manding the awe and affection of his flock, by whom he was looked upon as a supernatural being. Had they not, they said, frequently seen him at night, with liis dark, solemn gown, not walking, but gliding through the woods, like something spiritual ? How could one, so weak in frame, and using so little food, stand so many fatigues ? How was it, that whenever one of them fell sick, however distant it might be, Father Davion knew it instantly, and was sure to be there, be- fore sought for ? Who had given him the information ? Who told him whenever they committed any secret sin ? None ; and yet, he knew it. Did any of his prophecies ever prove false ? By what means did he arrive at so much knowledge about every thing ? Did they not, one day, when he kneeled, as usual, in solitary prayer, under the holy oak, see from the respectful dis- tance at which they stood, a ray of the sun piercing the thick foliage of the tree, cast its lambent flame around his temples, and wreath itself into a crown of glory, encircling his snow-white hair ? What was it he was in the habit of muttering so long, when counting the beads of that mysterious chain that hung round his neck ? Was he not then telling the Great Spirit every wrong they had done ? So, they both loved and feared Father Davion. One day, they found him dead at the foot of the altar: he was leaning against it, with his head cast back, with his hands clasped, and still retain- 74 IBERVILLE'S RETURN". ing his kneeling position. There was an expression of rapture in his face, as if, to his sight, the gates of para- dise had suddenly unfolded themselves to give him ad- mittance : it was evident that his soul had exhaled into a prayer, the last on this earth, but terminating, no doubt, in a hymn of rejoicing above. Long after Davion's death, mothers of the Yazoo tribe used to carry their children to -the place where he loved to administer the sacrament of baptism. There, these simple creatures, with many ceremonies of a wild nature, partaking of their new Christian faith and of their old lingering Indian superstitions, invoked and called down the benedictions of Father Davion upon themselves and their families. For many years, that spot was designated under the name of Davion's Bluff. In recent times, Fort Adams was constructed where Davion's chapel formerly stood, and \vas the cause of the place being more currently known under a different appellation. Such were the two visitors who, in 1699, appeared before Sau voile, at the fort of Biloxi, to relieve the monotony of his cheerless existence, and to encourage him in his colonizing enterprise. Their visit, however, was not of long duration, and they soon returned to dis- charge the duties of their sacred mission. Iberville had been gone for several months, and the year was drawing to a close without any tidings of him. A deeper gloom had settled over the little colony at Biloxi, when, on the 7th of December, some signal guns were heard at sea, and the grateful sound came boom- ing over the waters, spreading joy in every breast. There was not one who was not almost oppressed with the intensity of his feelings. At last, friends were coming, bringing relief to the body and to the soul ! Every colonist hastily abandoned his occupation of the TONTL 75 moment, and ran to the shore. The soldier himself, in the eagerness of expectation, left his post of duty, and rushed to the parapet which overlooked the bay. Pres- ently, several vessels hove in sight, bearing the white flag of France, and, approaching as near as the shallow- ness of the beach permitted, folded their pinions, like water-fowls seeking repose on the crest of the billows. It was Iberville, returning with the news that, on his representations, Sauvolle had been appointed by the king, Governor of Louisiana ; Bienville Lieutenant- Go vernor, and Boisbriant commander of the fort at Biloxi, with the grade of Major. Iberville, having been informed by Bienville of the attempt of the English to make a settlement on the banks of the Mississippi, and of the manner in which it had been foiled, resolved to take precautionary measures against the repetition of any similar attempt. Without loss of time, he depart- ed with Bienville, on the 17th of January, 1700, and running up the river, he constructed a small fort, on the first solid ground which he met, and which is said to have been at a distance of fifty-four miles from its mouth. When so engaged, the two brothers one day saw a canoe rapidly sweeping down the river, and approach- ing the spot where they stood. It was occupied by eight men, six of whom were rowers, the seventh was the steersman, and the eighth, from his appearance, was evidently of a superior order to that of his companions, and the commander of the party. Well may it be im- agined what greeting the stranger received, when, leap- ing on shore, he made himself known as the Chevalier de Tonti, who had again heard of the establishment of a colony in Louisiana, and who, for the second time, had come to see if there was any truth in the report. With what emotion did Iberville and Bienville fold in 76 NATCHEZ. their arras the faithful companion and friend of La Salle, of whom they had heard so many wonderful tales from the Indians, to wh,om he was so well known under the name of " Iron Hand !" With what admira- tion they looked at his person, and with what increas- ing interest they listened to his long recitals of what he had done and had seen on that broad continent, the threshold of which they had hardly passed ! After having rested three days at the fort, the inde- fatigable Tonti reascended the Mississippi, with Iber- ville and Bienville, and finally parted with them at Natchez. Iberville was so much pleased with that part of the bank of the river, where now exists the city of Natchez, that he marked it down as a most eligible spot for a town, of which he drew the plan, and which he called Rosalie, after the maiden name of the Count- ess Pontchartrain, the wife of the Chancellor. He then returned to the new fort he was erecting on the Mis- sissippi, and Bienville went to explore the country of the Yatasses, of the Natchitoches, and of the Ouachitas. What romance can be more agreeable to the imagina- tion than to accompany Iberville and Bienville in their wild explorations, and to compare the state of the coun- try in their time with what it is in our days ? When the French were at Natchez, they were struck with horror at an occurrence, too clearly demonstrating the fierceness of disposition of that tribe, which was destined, in after years, to become so celebrated in the history of Louisiana. One of their temples having been set -on fire by lightning, a hideous spectacle presented itself to the Europeans. The tumultuous rush of the Indians the infernal howlings and lamentations of the men, women, and children the unearthly vociferations of the priests, their fantastic dances and ceremonies around the burning edifice the demoniac fury with NATCHEZ. 77 . which mothers rushed to the fatal spot, and, with the piercing cries and gesticulations of maniacs, flung their new-born babes into the flames to pacify their irritated deity the increasing anger of the heavens blackening with the impending storm, the lurid flashes of the light- nings, darting as it were in mutual enmity from the clashing clouds the Idw, distant growling of the com- ing tempest the long column of smoke and fire shoot- ing upward from the funeral pyre, and looking like one of the gigantic torches' of Pandemonium the war of the elements combined with the worst effects of the fren- zied superstition of man the suddenness and strange- ness of the awful scene all these circumstances pro- duced such an impression upon the French, as to de- prive them, for the moment, of the powers of volition and action. Rooted to the ground, they stood aghast with astonishment and indignation at the appalling scene. Was it a dream ? a wild delirium of the mind ? But no the monstrous reality of the vision Was but too apparent ; and they threw themselves among the Indi- ans, supplicating them to cease their horrible sacrifice to their gods, and joining threats to their supplications. Owing to this intervention, and perhaps because a suf- ficient number of victims had been offered, the priests gave the signal of retreat, and the Indians slowly with- drew from the accursed spot. Such was the aspect under which the Natchez showed themselves, for the first time, to their visitors : it was an ominous presage for the future. After these explorations, Iberville departed again for France, to solicit additional assistance from the govern- ment, and left Bienville in command of the new fort on the Mississippi. It was very hard for the two brothers Sauvolle and Bienville, to be thus separated, when they stood so much in need of each other's countenance, to 78 DISTRESS OF THE COLONISTS. breast the difficulties that sprung up around them with a luxuriance which they seemed to borrow from the vegetation of the country. The distance between the Mississippi and Biloxi was not so easily overcome in those days as in ours, and the means which the two brothers had of communing together were very scanty and uncertain. Sau voile and his companions had suf- fered much from the severity of the winter, which had been so great that in one of his dispatches he informed his government that " water, wJien poured into tumblers to rinse them, froze instantaneously, and before it could be used? At last, the spring made its appearance, or rather the season which bears that denomination, but which did not introduce itself with the genial and mild atmos- phere that is its characteristic in other climes. The month of April was so hot that the colonists could work only two hours in the morning and two in the evening. When there was no breeze, the reflection of the sun from the sea and from the sandy beach was intolerable ; and if they sought relief under the pine trees of the forest, instead of meeting cool shades, it seemed to them that there came from the very lungs of the trees a hot breath, which sent them back hastily to the burning shore, in quest of air. Many of the colonists, accus- tomed to the climate of Canada and France, languished, pined, fell sick, and died. Some, as they lay panting under the few oaks that grew near the fort, dreamed of the verdant valleys, the refreshing streams, the pic- turesque hills, and the snow-capped mountains of their native land. The fond scenes upon which their imagi- nation dwelt with rapture, would occasionally assume, to their enfeebled vision, the distinctness of real exist- ence, and feverish recollection would produce on the horizon of the mind, such an apparition as tantalizes SAUVOLLE, FIRST GOVERNOR. 79 the dying traveler in the parched deserts of Arabia. When despair had paved the way, it was easy for dis- ease to follow, and to crush those that were already prostrate in mind and in body. To increase the misery of those poor wretches, famine herself raised her spec- tral form among them, and grasped pestilence by the hand to assist her in the work of desolation. Thus, that fiendish sisterhood reigned supreme, where, in our days, health, abundance, and wealth, secured by the improvements of civilization, bless the land with per- petual smiles. Sauvolle, from the feebleness of his constitution, was more exposed than any of his companions to be affected by the perils of the situation ; and yet it was he upon whom devolved the duty of watching over the safety of others. But he was sadly incapacitated for the discharge of that duty by physical and moral causes. When an infant, he had inherited a large fortune from an aunt, whose godson he was. With such means at his future command, the boy, who gave early evidence of a superior intellect, became the darling hope of his family, and was sent to France to be qualified for the splendid career which parental fondness anticipated for him. The seeds of education were not, in that instance, thrown on a rebellious soil ; and when Sauvolle left the seat of learning where he had been trained, he carried away with him the admiration of his professors and of his schoolmates. In the high circles of society where his birth and fortune entitled him to appear, he pro- duced no less sensation ; and well he might, for he ap- peared, to an eminent degree, capable of adorning any station which he might wish to occupy. Nature had been pleased to produce another Crichton, and Sauvolle soon became known as the American prodigy. Racine called him a poet; Bossuet had declared that there 80 SAUVOLLE'S BRILLIANT PROSPECTS were in him all the materials of a great orator; and the haughty Vjllars, after a conversation of several hours with him, was heard to say, " Here is a Marshal of France in embryo." The frivolous admired his wonderful expertness in fencing, in horsemanship, and his other acquirements of a similar nature ; artists might have been proud of his talent for painting and for music ; and those friends that were admitted into his intimacy, were struck with his modesty and with the high-toned morality which pervaded the life, of one so young. The softer sex, yielding to the fascination of his manly graces, was held captive by them, and hailed his first steps on the world's stage with all the passionate enthusiasm of the female heart. But he loved and was loved by the fair- est daughter of, one of the noblest houses of France, and his nuptials were soon to be celebrated with fitting pomp. Was not this the acme of human felicity? If so, whence that paleness which sat on his brow, and spoke of inward pain, moral or physical? Whence those sudden starts ? Why was he observed occasion- ally to grasp his heart with a convulsive hand ? What appalling disclosure could make him desert her to whom his faith was plighted, and could so abruptly hurry him away from France and from that seat where so much happiness was treasured up for him ? That it was no voluntary act on his part, and that he was merely com- plying with the stern decree of fate, could be plainly inferred from that look of despair which, from the ship that bore him away, he cast at the shores of France when receding from his sight. So must Adam have looked, when he saw the naming sword of the angel of punishment interposed between him and Paradise. Sauvolle arrived in Canada at the very moment when Iberville and Bienville were preparing their ex- SAUVOLLE'S MISFORTUNES. 81 pedition to Louisiana, and he eagerly begged to join them, saying that he knew his days were numbered, that he had come back to die in America, and that since his higher aspirations were all blasted, he could yet find some sort of melancholy pleasure in closing his career in that new colony, of which his brothers were to be the founders, and to which they were to attach their names forever. ; ^ Poor Sauvolle ! the star of his destiny which rose up at the court of Louis the XlVth with such gorgeousneas, was now setting in gloom and desolation on the bleak shore of Biloxi. How acute must his mental agony have been, when, by day and by night, the comparison of what he might have, been with what he was, must have incessantly forced itself upon," his mind: Why had Nature qualified him to be the best of husbands and fathers, when forbidding him, at. the same time, to assume the sacred character which he coveted, and to form those ties, without which, existence could only be a curse to one so exquisitely framed to nourish the choicest affections of our race ? Why give him all the elements of greatness, and preclude their development ? Why inspire him with the consciousness of worth, and deny him time and life for its manifestation ? Why had such a mind and such a soul been lodged in a de- fective body, soon to be dissolved ? Why a blade of such workmanship in such an unworthy scabbard ? Why create a being with feelings as intense as ever ani- mated one of his species, merely to bruise them in the bud ? Why shower upon him gifts of such value, when they were to be instantly resumed ? Why light up the luminary which was to be extinguished before its rays could be diffused ? Was it. not a solemn mock- ery ? What object could it answer, except to inflict extreme misery ? Surely, it could only be a concep- 82 SAUVOLLE'S DEATH. tion or device of the arch-enemy of mankind! But how could he be allowed thus to trifle with God's crea- tures ? Were they his puppets and playthings ? or, was it one of God's inscrutable designs ? Was it an enigma only to be solved hereafter? These were the reflec- tions which were coursing each other in Sauvolle's mind, as he, with folded arms, one day, stood on the parapet of the fort at Biloxi, looking sorrowfully at the scene of desolation around him, at his diseased and famished companions. Overwhelmed with grief, he withdrew his gaze from the harrowing sight, heaved a deep sigh and uplifted his eyes toward heaven, with a look which plainly asked, if his placid resignation and acquiescent fortitude had not entitled him at last to re- pose. That look of anguish was answered : a slight con- vulsion flitted over his face, his hand grasped the left side of his breast, his body tottered, and Sauvolle was dead before he reached the ground. Such was the fate of the first governor of Louisiana. A hard fate indeed is that of defective organization ! An anticipated damnation it is, for the unbeliever, when spiritual perfection is palsied and rendered inert by being clogged with physical imperfection, or wedded to diseased matter! When genius was flashing in the head, when the spirit of God lived in the soul, why did creation defeat its own apparent purposes, in this case, by planting in the heart the seeds of aneurism ? It is a question which staggers philosophy, confounds human reason, and is solved only by the revelations of Chris- tianity. What a pity that Sauvolle had not the faith of a Davion, or of a St. Louis, whose deaths I have re- corded in the preceding pages ! He would have known that the heavier the cross we bear with Christian resig- nation in this world, the greater the reward is in the REFLECTIONS. 83 better one which awaits us : and that our trials in this, our initiatory state of terrestrial existence, are merely intended by the infinite goodness of the Creator, as golden opportunities for us to show our fidelity, and to deserve a higher or lesser degree of happiness, when we shall enter into the celestial kingdom of spiritual and eternal life, secured to us at the price of sufferings alone : and what suiferings ! Those of the Godhead himself ! He would not then have repined at pursuing the thorny path, trod before, for his sake, by the divine Victim, and with Job, he would have said : " Who is he that hideth counsel without knowledge ? Therefore have I uttered that I understood not ; things too won- derful for me, which I knew not. The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away ; blessed be the name of the Lord !" I lately stood where the first establishment of the French was made, and I saw no vestiges of their pas- sage, save in the middle of the space formerly occupied by the fort, where I discovered a laying of bricks on a level with the ground, and covering the common area of a tomb. Is it the repository of Sauvolle's remains ? I had with me no pickaxe to solve the question, and in- deed, it was more agreeable to the mood in which I was then, to indulge in speculations, than to ascertain the truth. Since the fort had been abandoned, it was evident that there never had been any attempt to turn the ground to some useful purpose, although, being cleared of trees, it must have been more eligible for a settlement than the adjoining ground which remained covered with wood. Yet, on the right and left, beyond the two ravines already mentioned, habitations are to be seen ; but a sort of traditionary awe seems to have repelled intrusion from the spot marked by such mel- ancholy recollections. On the right, as you approach m REFLECTIONS. the place, a beautiful villa, occupied by an Anglo- American family, is replete with all the comforts and resources of modern civilization ; while on the left, there may be seen a rude hut, where still reside descendants from the first settlers, living in primitive ignorance and irreclaimable poverty, which lose, however, their offen- sive features, by being mixed up with so much of patri- archal virtues, of pristine innocence, and of arcadian felicity. These two families, separated only by the site of the old fort, but between whose social position, there existed such an immense distance, struck me as being fit representatives of the past and of the present. One was the type of the French colony, and the other, the emblem of its modern transformation. I gazed with indescribable feelings on the spot where Sau voile and his companions had suffered so much. Humble and abandoned as it is, it was clothed in my eye with a sacred character, when I remembered that it was the cradle of so many sovereign states, which are but disjecta membra of the old colony of Louisiana. What a contrast between the French colony of 1VOO, and its imperial substitute of 1848 ! Is there in the mythological records of antiquity, or in the fairy tales of the Arabian Nights, any thing that will not sink into insignificance, when compared with the romance of such a history 1 THIRD LECTURE. SITUATION OF THE COLONY FROM 1701 TO 1712 THE PETTICOAT INSURRECTION HISTORY AND DEATH OF IBERVILLE BIENVILLE, THE SECOND GOVERNOR OF LOUISIANA HISTORY OF AJITHONY CROZAT, THE GREAT MERCHANT CONCESSION OF LOUISIANA TO HIM. 1 ; ' ' . ; -..r: .' . ' - _ ;-. . , -.;;'. .j .-;.' - r .-.^> SAUVOLLE liad died on tlie 22d of July, 1*701, and Louisiana had remained under the sole charge of Bien- ville, who, though very young, was fully equal to meet that emergency, by the maturity of his mind and by his other qualifications. He had hardly consigned his brother to the tomb, when Iberville returned with two ships of the line and a brig, laden with troops and pro- visions. The first object that greeted his sight, on his landing, was Bienville, whose person was in deep mourning, and whose face wore such an expression as plainly told that a blow, fatal to both, had been struck in the absence of the head of the family. In their mute embraces, the two brothers felt that they understood each other better than if their grief had vented itself in words, and Iberville's first impulse was to seek Sau- volle's tomb. There he knelt for hours, bathed in tears, and absorbed in fervent prayer for him whom he was to see no more in the garb of mortality. This re- cent blow reminded him of a father's death, whom he had seen carried back, bleeding, from the battle-field; and then his four brothers, who had met the same stern and honorable fate, rose to his sight with their ghastly wounds; and he bethought himself of the sweet and melancholy face of his mother, who had sunk gradually 86 IBERVILLE'S GRIEF. into the grave, drooping like a gentle flower under the rough visitations of the wind of adversity. On these heavy recollections of the past, his heart swelled with tears, and he iihplored heaven to spare his devoted family, or, if any one of its members was again destined to an early death, to take him, Iberville, as a free offer- ing, in preference to the objects of his love. But there are men, upon whom grief operates as fire upon steel : it purifies the metal, and gives more elasticity to its spring ; it works upon the soul with that same mysteri- ous process by which nature transforms the dark car- buncle into the shining diamond. These men know how to turn from the desolation of their heart, and sur- vey the world with a clearer, serener eye, to choose the sphere where they can best accomplish their mission on this earth that mission the fulfilment of duties whence good is to result to mankind, or to their coun- try. One of these highly gifted beings Iberville was, and he soon withdrew his attention from the grave, to give it entirely to the consolidation of the great national enterprise *he had undertaken the establishment of a colony in Louisiana. According to Iberville's orders, and in conformity with the king's instructions, Bienville left Boisbriant, his cousin, with twenty men, at the old fort of Biloxi, and transported the principal seat of the colony to the western side of the river Mobile, not far from the spot where now stands the city of Mobile. Near the mouth of that river, there is an island, which the French had called Massacre Island, from the great quantity of hu- man bones which they found bleaching on its shores. It was evident that there some awful tragedy had been acted ; but tradition, when interrogated, laid her choppy finger upon her skinny lips, and answered not. This uncertainty, giving a free scope to the imagination, DAUPHINE ISLAND. 87 shrouded the place with a higher degree of horror, and with a deeper hue of fantastical gloom. It looked like the favorite ball-room of the witches of hell. The wind sighed so mournfully through the shriveled up pines, whose vampire heads seemed incessantly to bow to some invisible and grisly visitors : the footsteps of the stranger emitted such an awful and supernatural sound, when trampling on the skulls which strewed his path, that it was impossible for the coldest imagination not to labor under some crude and ill-defined apprehen- sions. Verily, the weird sisters could not have chosen a fitter abode. Nevertheless, the French, supported by their mercurial temperament, were not deterred from forming an establishment on that sepulchral island, which, they thought, afforded some facilities for their transatlantic communications. They changed its name, however, and called it Dauphine Island. As, to many, this name may be without signification, it may not be improper to state, that the wife of the eldest born of the King of France, and consequently, of the presump- tive heir to the crown, was, at that time, called the Dauphine, and her husband the Dauphin. This was in compliment to the province of Dauphine, which was annexed to the kingdom of France, on the abdication of a Count of Dauphin^, who ceded tha.t principality to the French monarch in 1349. Hence the origin of the appellation given to the island. It was a high- sounding and courtly name for such a bleak repository of the dead ! Iberville did not tarry long in Louisiana. His home was the broad ocean, where he had been nursed, as it were ; and he might have exclaimed with truth, in the words of Byron : "I have loved thee, Ocean ! and my joy Of youthful sports was on thy breast to be 88 IBERVILLE LEAVES THE COLONY. i ' Borne, like bubbles, onward : from a boy I wantoned with thy breakers they to me Were a delight ; and if the freshening sea Made them a terror 'twas a pleasing fear, For I was as it were a child of thee, And trusted to thy billows far and near, '.'. '.' And laid my hand upon thy mane." But, before his departure, he gave some wholesome ad- vice to his government : : " It is necessary," said he, in one of his dispatches, " to' send here honest tillers of the earth, and not rogues and paupers, who come to Louisiana solely with the intention x)f making a fortune, by all sorts of means, in order to speed back to Europe. Such men can not be elements of prosperity to a col- ony." He left those, of .whom he'w&s the chief pro- tector, abundantly supplied with .every thing, and see~ ing that their affectionate hearts were troubled with manifold misgivings as to their fate, which appeared to them to be closely linked with his own, he promised soon to return, and to bring additional strength to what he justly looked upon as his creation. But it had been decreed otherwise. In 1703, war had broken out between Great Britain, France and Spain ; and Iberville, a distinguished officer of the French navy, was engaged in expeditions that kept him away from the colony. It did not cease, how- ever, to occupy his thoughts, and, had become clothed, in his eye, with -a sort of family interest. Louisiana was thus left, for some time, to her scanty resources; but, weak as she was, she gave early proofs of that gen- erous spirit which has ever since animated her ; and, on the towns of Pensacola and San Augustine, then in possession of the Spaniards, being threatened with an invasion by the English of South Carolina, she sent to her neighbors what help she could, in men, ammunition, THE COLONY RELIEVED BY PENSACOLA. 89 and supplies of all sorts. It was the more meritorious, as it was the obolus of the poor ! The year 1703 slowly rolled by, and gave way to 1*704. Still, nothing was heard from the parent coun- try. There seemed to be an impassable barrier be- tween the old and the new continent. The milk which flowed from the motherly breast of France could no longer reach the parched lips of her new-born infant ; and famine began to pinch the colonists, who scattered themselves all along the coast, to live by fishing. They were reduced to the veriest extremity of misery, and despair had settled in every bosom, in spite of the en- couragements of Bienville, who displayed the most manly fortitude amid all the trials to which he was subjected, when suddenly a vessel made its appearance. The colonists rushed to the shore with wild anxiety, but their exultation was greatly diminished when, on the nearer approach of the moving speck, they recog- nized the Spanish, instead of the French flag. It was relief, however, coming to them, and proffered by a friendly hand. It was a return made by the governor of Pensacola, for the kindness he had' experienced the year previous. Thus, the debt of gratitude was paid : it was a practical lesson. Where the seeds of charity are cast, there springs the harvest in time of need. Good things, like evils, do not come single, and this succor was but the herald of another one, still more effectual, in the shape of a ship from France. Iberville had not been able to redeem his pledge to the poor colonists, but he had sent his brother Chateaugue in his place, at the imminent risk of being captured by the English, who occupied, at that time, most of the ave- nues of the Gulf of Mexico. He was not the \ man to spare either himself, or his family, in cases of emergency, and his heroic soul was inured to such sacrifices. Grate- 90 ARRIVAL OF CHATEAI7GUE. ' -ft ful the colonists were for this act of devotedness, and they resumed the occupation of those tenements which they had abandoned in search of food. The aspect of things was suddenly changed ; abundance and hope re- appeared in the land, whose population was increased by the arrival of seventeen persons, who came, under the guidance of Chateaugue, with the intention of making a permanent settlement, and who, in evidence of their determination, had provided themselves with all the implements of husbandry. We, who daily see hundreds nocking to our shores, and who look at the occurrence with as much unconcern as at the passing cloud, can hardly coriceive the excitement produced by the arrival of these seventeen emigrants among men who, for nearly two years, had been cut off from com- munication with the rest of the civilized world. A denizen of the moon, dropping on this planet, would not be stared at and interrogated with more eager curi- osity. This excitement had hardly subsided, when it was revived by the appearance of another ship, and it be- came intense, when the inhabitants saw a procession of twenty females, with veiled faces, proceeding aim in arm, and two by two, to the house of the governor, who received them in state, and provided them with suitable lodgings. What did it mean ? Innumerable were the gossipings of the day, and part of the coming night itself was spent in endless commentaries and con- jectures. But the next morning, which was Sunday, the mystery was cleared by the officiating priest read- ing from the pulpit, after mass, and for the general in- formation, the following communication from the minis- ter to Bienville : " His majesty sends twenty girls to be married to the Canadians and to the other inhabitants of Mobile, in order to consolidate the colony. All these ARRIVAL OF WIVES FOR THE COLONISTS. 91 girls are industrious, and have received a pious and vir- tuous education. Beneficial results . to the colony are expected from their teaching their useful attainments to the Indian females. In order that none should be sent except those of known virtue and of unspotted reputation, his majesty did intrust the bishop of Que- bec with the mission of taking these girls from such es- tablishments, as, from their very nature and character, would put them at once above all suspicions of cor- ruption. You will take care to settle them in life as well as may be in your power, and to marry them to such men as are capable of providing them with a com- modious home." This was a very considerate recommendation, and very kind it was, indeed, from the great Louis the XIV th, one of the proudest monarchs that ever lived, to descend from his Olympian seat of majesty, to the level of such details, and to such minute instructions for ministering to the personal comforts of his remote Louisianian subjects. Many were the gibes and high was the glee on that occasion ; pointed were the jokes aimed at young Bienville, on his being thus transformed into a matrimonial agent and pater familise. The in- tentions of the king, however, were faithfully executed, and more than one rough but honest Canadian boat- man of the St. Lawrence and of the Mississippi, closed his adventurous and erratic, career, and became a do- mestic and useful member of that little commonwealth, under the watchful influence of the dark-eyed maid of the Loire or of the Seine. Infinite are the chords of the lyre which delights the romantic muse ; and these incidents, small and humble as they are, appear to me to be imbued with an indescribable charm, which ap- peals to her imagination. Iberville had gone back to France since 1T01, and 92 ARRIVAL OF DUCOUDRAY WITH SUPPLIES. the year 1*705 had now begun its onward course, with- out his having returned to the colony, according to his promise, so that the inhabitants had become impatient of further delay. They were in that state of suspense, when a ship of the line, commanded by Ducoudray, ar- rived soon after the opening of the year, but still to disappoint the anxious expectations of the colonists. No Iberville had come : yet there was' some consolation in the relief which was sent goods, provisions, ammu- nition ; flesh-pots of France, rivaling, to a certainty, those of Egypt; sparkling wines to cheer the cup; twenty-three girls to gladden the heart ; five priests to minister to the wants of the soul and to bless holy al- liances ; two sisters of charity to attend on the sick and preside over the hospital of the colony, and seventy-five soldiers for protection against the inroads of the In- dians. This was something to be thankful for, and to occupy the minds of the colonists for a length of time. But life is chequered with many a hue, and the antag- onistical agents of good and evil closely tread, in alter- nate succession, on the heels of each other. Thus, the short-lived rejoicings of the colonists soon gave way to grief and lamentations. A hungry epidemic did not disdain to prey upon the population, small as it was, and thirty-five persons became its victims. Thirty- five ! This number was enormous in those days, and the epidemic of 1*705 became as celebrated in the med- ical annals of the country, as. will be the late one of 184*7. The history of Louisiana, in her early days, presents a Shaksperian mixture of the terrible and of the ludi- crous. What can be more harrowing than the mas- Bacre of the French settlement on the Wabash in 1*705 ; and in 1706, what more comical than the threatened insurrection of the French girls, who had come to set- THE PETTICOAT INSURRECTION. 93 tie in the country, under allurements which proved de- ceptive, and who were particularly indignant at being fed on corn ? This fact is mentioned in these terms in one of Bienville's dispatches : " The males in the colony begin, through habit, to be reconciled to corn, as an article of nourishment ; but the females, who are most- ly Parisians, have for this kind of food a dogged aver- sion, which has not yet been subdued. Hence, they inveigh bitterly against his grace, the Bishop of Que- bec, who, they say, has enticed them away from home, under the pretext of sending them to enjoy the milk and honey of the land of promise." Enraged at having thus been deceived, they swore that they would force their way out of the colony, on the first opportunity. This was called the petticoat insurrection. There were, at that particular time, three important personages, who were the hinges upon which every thing turned in the commonwealth of Louisiana. These magnates were, Bienville, the governor, who wielded the sword, and who was the great executive mover of all ; La Salle, the intendant commissary of the crown, who had the command of the purse, and who therefore might be called the controlling power ; and the Curate de la Vente, who was not satisfied with mere spiritual influence. Unfortunately, in this Lilliputian adminis- tration, the powers of the state and church were sadly at variance, in imitation of their betters in larger com- munities. The commissary, La Salle, in a letter of the Yth of Decejnber, 1706, accused Iberville, Bienville, and Chateaugue, the three brothers, of being guilty of every sort of malfeasances and dilapidations" "They are rogues," said he, " who pilfer away his Majesty's goods and effects." The Curate de la Vente, whose pre- tensions to temporal power Bienville had checked, backed La Salle, and undertook to discredit the gov- 94 DISSENSIONS IN THE COLONY. ernor's authority with the colonists, by boasting of his having sufficient influence at court to cause him to be soon dismissed from office. On Bienville's side stood, of course, Chateaugue, his brother, and Major Boisbriant, his cousin. But Cha- teaugue was a new man (novus homo) in the colony, and consequently had, as yet, acquired very little weight. Boisbriant, although a zealous friend, had found means to increase the governor's vexations, by falling deeply in love. He had been smitten, perhaps, for the want of something better, with the charms of a lady, to whose charge had been committed the twenty girls selected by the Bishop of Quebec, and who had been appointed, as a sort of lay abbess, to superintend their conduct on the way and in Louisiana, until they got provided with those suitable monitors, who are called husbands. That lady had reciprocated the affec- tions of Boisbriant, and so far, the course of love ran smooth. But, as usual, it was doomed to meet with one of those obstacles which have given rise to so many beautiful literary compositions. Bienville stoutly ob- jected to the match, as being an unfit one for his rela- tion and subordinate, and peremptorily refused his ap- probation. Well may the indignation of the lady be conceived! Boisbriant seems to have meekly sub- mitted to the superior wisdom of his chief, but she, scorning such forbearance, addressed herself to the minister, and complained, in no measured terms, of what she called an act of oppression. After having painted her case with as strong colors as she could, she very naturally concluded her observations with this sweeping declaration concerning Bienville : " It is there- fore evident that he has not the necessary qualifications to be governor of this colony." Such is the logic of DISSENSIONS IN THE COLONY. 95 ' Love, and although it may provoke a smile, thereby hangs a tale not destitute of romance. These intestine dissensions were not the only difficul- ties that Bienville had to cope with. The very exist- ence of the colony was daily threatened by the Indians,; a furious war, in which the French were frequently im- plicated, raged between the Chickasaws and the Choc- taws ; and the smaller nations, principally the Aliba- mons, that prowled about the settlements of the colo- nists, committed numerous thefts and murders. It seemed that all the elements of disorder were at work to destroy the social organization which civilization had begun, and that the wild chaos of barbarian sway claimed his own again. Uneasy lay the head of Bien- ville in his midnight sleep, for fearfully alive was he to the responsibility which rested on his shoulders. In that disturbed state of his mind, with what anxiety did he not interrogate the horizon, and strain to peep into the vacancy of space, in the fond hope that some signs of his brother's return would greet his eyes ! But, alas ! the year 1707 had run one half of its career, and yet Iberville came not. To what remote parts of heaven had the eagle flown, not to hear and not to mind the shrieks of the inmates of his royal nest ? Not oblivious the eagle had been, but engaged in carrying Jove's thunderbolts, he had steadily pursued the accomplish- ment of his task. Dropping the metaphorical style, it will be sufficient to state, that during the five years he had been absent from Louisiana, Iberville had been, with his usual suc- cess, nobly occupied in supporting the honor of his country's flag, and in increasing the reputation which he had already gained, as one of the brightest gems of the French navy. If the duration of a man's existence is to be measured by the merit of his deeds, then Iber- 96 EARLY LIFE OF IBERVILLE. ville had lived long, before reaching the meridian of life, and he was old in fame, if not in years, when he undertook to establish a colony in Louisiana. From his early youth, all his days had been well spent, be- cause dedicated to some useful or generous purpose. The soft down of adolescence had hardly shaded his face, when he had become the idol of his countrymen. The foaming brine of the ocean, the dashing waters of the rivers, the hills -and valleys of his native country and of the neighboring British possessions, had wit- nessed his numerous exploits. Such were the confi- dence and love with which he had inspired the Cana- dians and Acadians for his person, by the irresistible seduction of his manners, by the nobleness of his de- portment, by the dauntless energy of his soul, and by the many qualifications of his head and heart, that they would, said Father Charlevoix, have followed him to the confines of the universe. It would be too long to recite his wonderful achievements, and the injuries which he inflicted upon the fleets of England, particu- larly in the Bay of Hudson, either by open force, or by stealth and surprise. When vessels were icebound, they were .more than once stormed by Iberville and his intrepid associates. Two of his brothers, Ste. He- l&ne and Mericourt, both destined to an early death, used to be his willing companions in these adventurous expeditions. At other times, when the war of the ele- ments seemed to preclude any other contest, Iberville, in a. light buoyant craft, which sported merrily on the angry waves, would scour far and wide the Bay of Hudson, and. the adjacent sea, to prey upon the com- merce of the great rival of France, and many were the prizes which he brought into port. These were the sports of his youth. The exploits of Iberville on land and at sea, acquired EXPLOITS OF IBERVILLE. for Mm a sort of amphibious celebrity. Among othe doings of great daring, may be mentioned the taking of Corlar, near Orange, in the province of New York. In November, 1694, he also took, in the Bay of Hud- son, the fort of Port Nelson, defended by forty-two pieces of artillery, and he gave it the name of Fort Bourbon. In 1696. he added to his other conquests, the Fort of Pemkuit, in Acadia. When Chubb, the English commander, was summoned to surrender, he returned this proud answer : "If the sea were white with French sails, and the land dark with Indians, I would not give up the fort, unless when reduced to the very last extremities." In spite of this vaunt, he was soon obliged to capitulate. The same year, Iberville possessed himself of the Fort of St. John, in Newfound- land, and in a short time forced the rest of that prov- ince to yield to his arms. The French, however, did not retain it long. But his having revived La Salle's project of establishing a colony in Louisiana, constitutes, on account of the magnitude of its results, his best claim to the notice of posterity. We have seen how he exe- cuted that important undertaking. After a long absence from that province, the colo- nization of which was .his favorite achievement, he was now preparing to return to its shores, and arrived at San Domingo, having under his command a consider- able fleet, with which he meditated to attack Charles- ton, in South Carolina ; from whence he cherished the hope of sailing for Louisiana, with all the pomp, pride, and circumstance of glorious victory. He had stopped at San Domingo, because he had been authorized to reinforce himself with a thousand men, whom he was to take out of the garrison of that island. The ships had been revictualed, the troops were embarked, and Iberville was ready to put to sea, when a great feast 98 IBERVILLE IN SAN DOMINGO. was tendered to Mm and to his officers, by the friends from whom he was soon to part. Loud the sound of revelry was still heard in hall and bower, when Iber- ville, whose thoughts dwelt on the responsibilities of the expedition which had been intrusted to his care, withdrew from the assembly, where he had been the observed of all, leaving and even encouraging his sub- ordinates to enjoy the rest of that fairy night, which he knew was soon to be succeeded for them by the perils and hardships of war. He was approaching that part of the shore where his boat lay, waiting to carry him to his ship, when, as he trod along, in musing loneliness, his attention was attracted by the beauties of the trop- ical sky, which gleamed over his head. From that spangled canopy, so lovely that it seemed worthy of Eden, there appeared to descend an ambrosial atmos- phere, which glided through the inmost recesses of the body, gladdening the whole frame with voluptuous sensations. " All was so still, so soft, in earth and air, You scarce would start to meet a spirit there ; Secure that naught of evil could delight To walk in such a scene, on such a night 1" Iberville's pace slackened as he admired, and at last he stopped, rooted to the ground, as it were, by a sort of magnetic influence, exercised upon him by the fascina- tions of the scene. Folding his arms, and wrapt up in ecstasy, he gazed long and steadily at the stars which Studded the celestial vault. O stars! who has not experienced your mystical and mysterious power ! Who has ever gazed at ye, without feeling undefinable sensations, something of awe, and a vague consciousness that ye are connected with the fate of mortals ! Ye silent orbs, that move with noiseless IBERVILLE IN SAN DOMINGO. 99 splendor through the infiniteness of space, how is it that your voice is so distinctly heard in the soul of man, if his essence and yours were not bound together by some electric link, as are all things, no doubt, in the universe? How the eyes grow dim with rapturous tears, and the head dizzy with wild fancies, when holding communion with you, on the midnight watch ! Ye stars, that, scat- tered over the broad expanse of heaven, look to me as if ye were grains of golden dust, which God shook off his feet, as he walked in his might, on the days of crea- tion, I love and worship you ! When there was none in the world to sympathize with an aching heart, with a heart that would have disdained, in its lonely pride, to show its pangs to mortal eyeSj how often have I felt relief in your presence from the bitter recollection of past woes, and consolation under the infliction of pres- ent sufferings ! How often have I drawn from you such inspirations as prepared me to meet, with fitting forti- tude, harsher trials still to come ! How often have I gazed upon you, until, flying upon the wings of imagi- nation, I soared among your bright host, and spiritual- ized myself away, far away, from the miseries of my contemptible existence ! Howsoever that ephemeral worm, cynical man, may sneer, he is no idle dreamer, the lover of you, the star-gazer. The broad sheet of heaven to which ye are affixed, like letters of fire, is a book prepared by God for the learned and the igno- rant, where man can read lessons to guide him through the active duties and the struggles of this life, and to conduct him safely to the portals of the eternal one which awaits mortality ! Thus, perhaps, Iberville felt, as he was spying the face of heaven. Suddenly, his reverie was interrupted by a slight tap on the shoulder. He started, and look- ing round, saw a venerable monk, whose person was 100 WARNING TO IBERVILLEL shrouded up in a brownish gown and hood, which hardly left any thing visible save his sharp, aquiline nose, his long gray beard, and his dark lustrous eyes. "My son !" said he, in a deep tone, " what dost thou see above that thus rivets thy attention?" " Nothing, father," replied Iberville, bowing reverentially, "nothing! From the contemplation of these luminaries, to which my eyes had been attracted by their unusual radiancy, I had fallen insensibly, I do not know how, into dreamy speculations, from which you have awakened me, father." " Poor stranger !" continued the monk, with a voice shaking with emotion, " thou hast seen nothing \ But Ilia/ve, and will tell thee. Fly hence ! death is around thee it is in the very air which thou dost breathe. Seest thou that deep, blue transparency of heaven, so transparently brilliant, that the vault which it forms, seems to be melting to let thy sight, as thou gazest, penetrate still farther and without limits, it portends of death ! This soft, balmy breeze which encompasseth thee with its velvet touch, it is pleasing, but fatal as the meretricious embraces of a courtesan, which allure the young to sin, to remorse, and to death ! Above all, look at that sign, stamped on the stars : it is a never- failing one. Dost thou see how they blink and twinkle, like the eyes of warning angels ? They no longer ap- pear like fixed incrustations in the vault of heaven, but they seem to oscillate with irregular and tremulous vibrations. Hasten away with all speed. The pesti- lence is abroad ; it stalks onward, the dire queen of the land. It is now amid yonder revelers, whose music and mundane mirth reach our ears. Incumbent on its hell- black pinions, the shapeless monster hovel's over you all, selecting its victims, and crossing their foreheads with its deadly finger. Mark me ! That awful scourge* the yellow fever, has been hatched to-night. Keep out IBERVILLE'S SICKNESS AND DEATH. 101 of its path, if yet there be time : if not, mayst thou, my son, be prepared to meet thy God !" So saying, the monk made the holy sign of the cross, blessed with his extended index the astonished Iberville, who devoutly uncovered himself, and then slowly departed, vanishing like a bird of ill omen in the gloom of the night. It was morn. With his brother officers, Iberville sat at a table, covered with maps, charts, and scientific in- struments. The object of their meeting was to come to a definite understanding as to the plan of the intended campaign, and to regulate their future movements. Suddenly, Iberville^ who, calm and self-collected, had been explaining his views, sprung up from his seat with the most intense expression of pain in his haggard fea- tures. It seemed to him as if all the fires and whirl- winds of a volcano had concentrated in his agonized head. His bloodshot eyes revolved in their orbits with restless vivacity, and had that peculiar daguerreotype glare, so annoying to the looker-on. Yellowish streaks spread instantaneously over his face, as if there de- posited by a coarse painter's brush. Sharp shooting throes racked his spine : cold shudderings shook his stiffened limbs, and his blood pulsated, as if it were bursting from his veins to escape from the turmoil into which it had been heated by .some malignant spell. At such a sight, the officers cried out, with one simul- taneous voice, " Poison ! poison, !" " No ! no !" ex- claimed Iberville, gasping for breath, and falling on a couch, " not poison ! but the predicted pestilence ! fly, fly, my friends ah ! the monk ! the prophetic monk ! he spoke the truth ! O God ! my prayer at Sauvolle's tomb has been heard ! Well ! content ! Thy will be done ! To mother earth I yield my body, ashes to ashes, and to Thee my immortal soul !" These words were followed by the wildest delirium, and ere five 102 BIENVILLE'S INTERVIEW WITH INDIAN CHIEFS. hours had elapsed, Iberville had been gathered to his forefathers' bosom. Thus died this truly great and good man, in compliment to whose memory the name of Iberville has been given to one of our most import- ant parishes. Ill was the wind that carried to Louisiana the mel- ancholy information of Iberville's death. It blasted the hearts of the poor colonists, and destroyed the hope they had of being speedily relieved. Their situation had become truly deplorable : their numbers were rap- idly diminishing : and the Indians were daily becoming more hostile, and more bold in their demands for goods and merchandise, as a tribute which they exacted for not breaking out into actual warfare. Bienville con- vened the chiefs of the Chickasaws and of the Choc- taws, in order to conciliate them By some trifling pres- ents of which he could yet dispose, and to gain time by some fair promises as to what he yould do for them under more favorable circumstances. With a view of making an imposing show, Bienville collected all the colonists that were within reach : but notwithstanding that display, a question, propounded by one of the In- dian chiefs, gave him a humiliating proof of the slight estimation in which the savages held the French nation. Much to his annoyance, he was asked if that part of his people which remained at home were as numerous as that which had come to settle in Louisiana. Bienville, who spoke their language perfectly well, attempted, by words and comparisons; suited to their understanding, to impart to them a correct notion of the extent of the population of France. But the Indians looked incredu- lous, and one of them even said to Bienville, "If your countrymen are, as you affirm, as thick on their native soil as the leaves of our forests, how is it that they do not send more of their warriors here, i& avenge the death of HIS CRITICAL POSITION INTRIGUES OF LA SALLE. 103 such of them as have fallen by our hands ? Not to do so, ! when having the power, would argue them to be of a very base spirit. And how is it that most of the tall and powerful men that came with you, being dead, are replaced only by boys, or cripples, or women, that do you no credit ?. Surely the French would not so be- have, if they could do otherwise, and my white brother tells a story that disparages his own tribe." Thus Bienville found himself in a very critical situa- tion. He was conscious that his power was despised by the Indians, who knew that he had only forty-five soldiers at his disposal, and he felt that the red men could easily rise upon him and crush the colony at one blow. He was aware that they were restrained from doing the deed by their cupidity only, bridled as they were by their expectation of the arrival of some ship with merchandise, which, they knew from experience, would soon have to come to their huts to purchase peace, and in exchange for furs. Bienville felt so weak, so much at the mercy of the surrounding nations, and en- tertained such an apprehension of some treacherous and sudden attack on their part, that he thought it pru- dent to concentrate his forces, and to abandon the fort where he kept a small garrison on the Mississippi. On the other hand, the death of Iberville had en- couraged the hostility of Bienville's enemies. They knew that he was no longer supported by the powerful influence of his brother at court, and they renewed their attacks with a better hope of success. The commissary La Salle pushed on his intrigues with more activity, and reduced them to a sort of systematic warfare. He divided the colony into those that were against and those that were for Bienville. All such persons as sup- ported the governor's administration were branded as felons: and those that pursued another course, who- 104 CHARACTER OF LA SALLE. ever they might be, were angels of purity. At that time, there was in the colony a physician, sent thither and salaried by the government, who was called the king's physician. His name was Barrot : from the cir- cumstance of his being the only member of his profes- sion in the country, and from the nature of his duties, he was in a position to exercise a good deal of influence. La Salle attempted to win him over to his side, and having failed in his efforts, he immediately wrote to the minister, " that Barrot, although he had the honor of being the king's physician in the colony, was no bet- ter than a fool,, a drunkard and a rogue, who sold the king's drugs and appropriated the money to his own purposes." Authors, who have written on the structure were, to Crozat. He flattered himself with the hope that, if successful in his gigantic enter- prise, a few years might ripen the privileges he had obtained into the concession of a principality, which he would form in the New World, a principality which, as a great feudatory vassal, he would hold in subjection to the crown of France. Then he would say to the proud duchess, " I am a Medici. My name outweighs many a haughty one in the scales of history : my nobility rests not only on title, "but on noble deeds. These were your words I hold you to them redeem your pledge one of your blood can not be false I claim your son I give him a princess for his bride, and do- mains ten times broader than France, or any kingdom in Europe, for her dowry !" So hoped the heart of the father so schemed the head of the great merchant ! What man ever had stronger motives to fire his genius? What anibition more sacred and more deserving of reward than his ? And yet none, save one, guessed at the motives which actuated him ! He was taxed with being insatiable of wealth: people wondered at his gigantic avidity. Some there were, who shrugged their . shoulders, and 122 THE HOPES OF CROZAT. said that he was tempting fate, that it was time for him to be satisfied with what he had, without exposing his present wonderful acquisitions for the uncertainty of a greater fortune. Such are the blind judgments of the world ! Crozat was blamed for being too ambitious, and envy railed at the inordinate avidity of the rash adventurer, when pity ought to have wept over the miseries of the broken-hearted father. On the dizzy eminence whither he had ascended, Crozat, when he looked round for sympathy, was met by the basilisk stare of a jealous, cold-blooded world, who stood by, calculating his chances of success, and grinning in an- ticipation at the wished-for failure of his defeated schemes. At such a sight, his heart sank within his breast, and elevating his hands, clasped in prayer, " Angels and ministers of grace," he said, " ye know that it is no ambitious cravings, but the racked feelings of a father, that urge me to the undertaking, upon which I call down your blessings. Be ye my friends and protectors in heaven, for Crozat has none on this earth." FOURTH LECTURE, LAMOTHE CADILLAC, GOVEENOE OF LOUISIANA SITUATION OF THE COLONY IN 1713 ^FKUD BETWEEN CADILLAC AND BIENVILLE CHAKACTEE OF RICHEBOUEG FIRST EXPEDITION AGAINST THE NATCHEZ DE L'EPINAT SUCCEEDS CADILLAC THE CUEATE DE LA VENTE EXPEDITION OF ST. DENIS TO MEXICO HlS AD- VENTURES J ALLOT, THE SURGEON IN 1717 CfiOZAT GIVES UP HIS CHARTER His DEATH, WHEN Crozat obtained the royal charter, granting him so many commercial privileges in Louisiana, the military forces which were in the colony, and which constituted its only protection, did not exceed two companies of infantry of fifty men each. There were also seventy-five Canadians in the pay of the king, and they were used for every species of service. The bal- ance of the population hardly came up to three hundred souls, and that population, small as it was, and almost imperceptible, happened to be scattered over a bound- less territory, where they could not communicate to? gether without innumerable difficulties, frightful dan- gers, and without delays which, in -these our days of rapid locomotion,- can scarcely be sufficiently appreci- ated. As to the blacks, who now have risen to such importance in our social polity, they did not number more than twenty heads. It is probable, that of this scanty population, there were not fifty persons in the present limits of the State of Louisiana, and the con- trast, which now presents itself to the mind, affords a rich treat to the imagination, and particularly to our E 124 FORTS CONSTRUCTED. national pride, since we were the ^wonder- working power. 'Pie possession of the province of Louisiana, if pos- session it can be called, France had secured by the con- struction of five forts. They were located at Mobile, at Biloxi, Ship Island, Dauphine Island, and on the bank 'of the Mississippi. These fortifications were of a very humble nature, and their materials were chiefly com- posed of stakes, logs, and clay. They sufficed, however, to intimidate the Indians. Such were the paltry results, after fifteen years, of the attempt made by a powerful government to colonize Louisiana ; and now, one single man, a private individual, was daring enough to grapple and struggle with an undertaking, which, so far, had proved abortive in the hands of the great Louis the XlVth! It must be remembered that De Muys, who had been appointed to supersede Bienville, had died in Havana in 170*7, and that the youthful founder of the colony had, by that event, remained Governor ad interim of Lou- isiana. But on the 17th of May, 1713, a great change had come over the face of things, and the colonists stood on the tiptoe of expectation, when they were in- formed that a ship had arrived with Lamothe Cadillac, as Governor, Duclos as Commissary in the place of D'Artaguette, who had returned to France, Lebas as Comptroller, Dirigoin and La Loire des Ursins, as the agents of Crozat in the colony. Bienville was retained as Lieutenant Governor, and it was expected that, in that subordinate office, he would, from his knowledge of the state of affairs in the province, be of signal use to his successor, and be a willing instrument, which the supposed superior abilities of Lamothe Cadillac would turn to some goodly purpose. This certainly was a compliment paid to the patriotism o^ Bienville, but ARRIVAL OF LAMOTHE CADILLAC. 125 was it not disregarding too much the frailties of human nature ? Cheerfully to obey, where one formerly had nothing to do but to issue the word of command, is not an every-day occurrence, and it is a trial to which politic heads ought not to expose the virtue of man. The principal instructions given by Crozat to La- inothe Cadillac were, that he should diligently look after mines, and endeavor to find out an opening for the introduction of his goods and merchandise into the Spanish colonies in Mexico, either with the consent of the authorities, or without it, by smuggling. If he succeeded in these two enterprises, Crozat calculated that he would speedily obtain inexhaustible wealth, such wealth as would enable him to throw a large popula- tion into Louisiana, as it were by magic, and to realize the fond dreams of his paternal heart. Impatient of delay, he had, in order to stimulate the exertions of Lamothe Cadillac, secured to him a considerable share in the profits which he hoped to realize. Lamothe Ca- dillac had fought with valor in Canada, and as a reward for his services (so, at least, his commission declared), had been appointed by the king, governor of Louisiana. Had Crozat known the deficiencies of that officer's in- tellect, he, no doubt, would have strongly remonstrated against such a choice. Lamothe Cadillac was born on the -banks of the Garonne, in the province of Gascony, in France. He was of an ancient family, which for several centuries, had, by some fatality or other, been rapidly sliding down from the elevated position which it had occupied. When Lamothe Cadillac was ushered into life, the do- mains of his ancestors had, for many past generations, been reduced to a few acres of land. That small estate was dignified, however, with an old dilapidated edifice, which bore the name of castle, although, at a 126 HISTORY OF CADILLAC. distance, to an unprejudiced eye, it presented some un- lucky resemblance to a barn. A solitary tower dressed, as it were, in a gown of moss and ivy, raised its gray head to a height which might have been called respect- able, and which appeared to offer special attraction to crows, swallows, and bats. Much to the mortification of the present owner, it had been called by the young wags of the neighborhood, " Cadillacs Rookery" and was currently known under this ungenteel appellation. Cadillac had received & provincial and domestic educa- tion, and had, to his twenty-fifth yar, moved in a very contracted sphere. Nay, it may be said that he had almost lived in solitude, for he had lost both his parents, when hardly eighteen summers had passed over his head, and he had since kept company with none but the old tutor to whom he was indebted for such classi- cal attainments as he had acquired. His mind being as much curtailed in its proportions, as his patrimonial acres, his intellectual vision could not extend very far, and if Cadillac was not literally a dunce, it was well known that Cadillac's wits would never run away with him. Whether it was owing to this accidental organiza- tion of his brain, or not, certain it is that one thing afforded the most intense delight to Cadillac : it was, that no blood so refined as his own ran in the veins of any other human being, and that his person was the very incarnation of nobility. With such a conviction rooted in his heart, it is not astonishing that his tall, thin, and emaciated body should have stiffened itself into the most accurate observation of the perpendicular. Indeed, it was exceedingly pleasant and exhilarating to the lungs, to see Cadillac, on a Sunday morning, strut- ting along in full dress, on his way to church, through the meager village attached to his hereditary domain. HISTORY OF CADILLAC. 127 His bow to the mayor and to the curate was something rare, an exquisite burlesque of infinite majesty, thawing into infinite affability. His ponderous wig, the curls of which spread like a peacock's tail, seemed to be alive with conscious pride at the good luck it had of cover- ing a head of such importance to the human race. His eyes, in whose favor nature had been pleased to deviate from the oval into the round shape, were pos- sessed with a stare of astonishment, as if they meant to convey the expression that the spirit within was in a trance of stupefaction at the astounding fact that the being it animated did not produce a more startling effect upon the world. The physiognomy which I am endeavoring to depict, was rendered more remarkable by a stout, cocked up, snub nose, which looked as if it had hurried back, in a fright, from the lips, to squat in rather too close proximity to the eyes, and which, with its dilated nostrils, seemed always on the point of sneezing at something thrusting itself between the wind and its nobility. His lips wore a mocking smile, as if sneering at the strange circumstance that a Cadillac should be reduced to be an obscure, penniless individ- ual. But, if Cadillac had his weak points, it must also be told that he was not without his strong ones. Thus, he had a great deal of energy, bordering, it is true, upon obstinacy ; he was a rigidly moral and pious man ; and he was too proud not to be valiant. With a mind so framed, was it to be wondered at that Cadillac deemed it a paramount duty to himself and to his Maker, not to allow his race to become ex- tinct ? Acting under a keen sense of this duty, and im- pressed with a belief that he might, by a rich alliance, restore his house to that ancient splendor which he con- sidered as its birthright, but of which evil tongues said, that it was indeed so truly ancient, that it had long 128 CADILLAC'S MARRIAGE APPOINTED CAPTAIN. ceased to be recorded in the memory of man, he, one day, issued in state and in his gayest apparel, from his fei^dal tower, and for miles around, paid formal visits to all the wealthy patricians of his neighborhood. He was everywhere received with that high-bred courtesy, which those of that class extend to all, and particularly to such as belong to their own order, but he was secretly voted a quiz. After a few months of ineffectual efforts, Cadillac returned to his pigeon-hole, in the most discon- solate mood ; and, after a year's repining, he was forced to content himself with the hand of a poor spinster, who dwelt in a neighboring town, where, like Cadillac, she lingered in all the pride of unsullied descent and he- reditary poverty. Shortly after her marriage, the lady, who was a distant relation to the celebrated Duke of Lauzun, recommended herself and her husband to the patronage of that nobleman, who was then one of the brightest of that galaxy of stars that adorned the court of Louis the XlVth. Her letter was written in a quaint, fantastic style, and Lauzun, who received it on his way to the king's morning levee, showed it to the monarch, and was happy enough, by the drollery of his comments, to force a smile from those august lips.. Availing him- self of that smile, Lauzun, who was in one of his good fits, for the kindness of his nature was rather problematical, and the result of accident rather than of disposition, ob- tained for his poor connection the appointment of cap- tain to one of the companies of infantry, which had been ordered to Canada. The reception of this, favor, with a congratulatory letter from Lauzun, added stilts to Cadillac's pomposity, and his few dependents and vassals became really astounded at the sublimity of his attitudes. On that occasion, the .increased grandeur of his habitual car- riage was but the translation of the magnificence of CADILLAC IN CANADA. 129 Ms cogitations. He had heard of the exploits of Cortez and Pizarro, and he came to the logical conclusion, in his own mind, that Canada would be as glorious a field as Peru or Mexico, and that he would at least rival the achievements of the Spanish heroes. Fame and wealth were at last within his grasp, and the long- eclipsed star of the Cadillacs would again blaze out with renewed luster ! The dreams of Cadillac were soon put to flight by sad realities, when he landed in Canada, where hardships of every kind assailed him. The snows and blasts of Si- berian winters, the heat of summers equal to those of Africa, endless marches and counter-marches after a 1 wary and perfidious enemy, visible only when he could attack with tenfold chances in his favor, the sufferings of hunger and thirst which were among the ordinary privations of his every-day life, the wants of civilization so keenly felt amid all the destitution of savage exist- ence, days of bodily and mental labor, and nights of anxious vigil, hair-breadth escapes on water and on land, the ever-recurring danger of being tomahawked and scalped, the war-whoops and incessant attacks of the In- dians, the honorable distinctions of wounds and of a broken constitution in the service of his country these were the concomitants and the results of Cadillac's ca- reer in Canada during twenty years ! All' this Cadillac had supported with remarkable fortitude, although not without impatience, wondering all the time that some- thing or other did not happen to make him what he thought nature and his birth intended and entitled him to be a great man ! But twenty years had elapsed, and at their expira- tion, he found himself no better than a lieutenant-colo- nel. To increase his vexation, he had no other issue by his marriage than a daughter, now eighteen years of age, 130 CADILLAC IN CANADA. and thus he remained without the prospect of having an heir to continue his line, and to bear his noble name. The disappointment of his hopes in this respect was the keenest of all his afflictions ; he was approaching the trying climacteric of fifty-four, and he was as poor as when he departed from the banks of the Garonne. A lieutenant-colonel he was, and would remain, in all prob- ability. His superior officer seemed to be marvelously tenacious of his post and of life, and would neither die nor advance one step beyond his grade: bullets spared him, and ministers never thought of his promotion. Thus it was clear, from all appearances, that Cadillac was not in a position soon to become a marshal of France, and that Canada was. not the land where he could acquire that wealth he was so ambitious of, to en- shrine his old gray-headed tower, as a curious relic of the feudal power of his ancestry, within the splendid architecture of a new palace, and to revive the glories of his race. Hence he had imbibed the most intense contempt for the barren country where so much of his life had been spent in vain, and he would sneer at the appellation of New France given to Canada; he thought it was a disparagement to the beautiful and noble king- dom of which he boasted to be a native, and he fre- quently amused his brother officers with his indignation