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 UNIVERSITY OF 
 
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 -ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 
 
 This rather grotesque Ceremony cost the Colony several bottles of Rum.
 
 THE ADVENTURES 
 
 OF A 
 
 FRENCH CAPTAIN, 
 
 AT PRESENT A PLANTER IN TEXAS. FORMERLY 
 A REFUGEE OF CAMP ASYLUM. 
 
 BY 
 
 JUST GIRARD. 
 
 TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH 
 
 HEW YORK. OmOtSHATt, AHO CHICAGO. 
 
 BENZIGER BROTHERS, 
 
 PRINTERS TO THE HOLY APOSTOLIC SBK.
 
 1 8 ?8, by BENZIOEB BROTHKM.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 MOB 
 
 INTRODUCTION 7 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 A Sketch of my Life up to the Date of my Landing at 
 Baltimore, 17 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 The Tournel Family My Stay in Baltimore, . . .37 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Troubles of the French Refugees Grants of Land by Con- 
 gress Speculations of American Capitalists Proposed 
 Settlement in Texas General Lallemand's Address and 
 Petition to the Court of Madrid Silence of the Court 
 Execution of the Plan Meeting of the Refugees at 
 Philadelphia Monsieur Tournel's Views I decide upon 
 throwing in my Lot with the Texas Settlers, . . -43 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Departure from Philadelphia Arrival at Galveston Tem- 
 porary Stay on an Island The Pirate Lafitte The Rio 
 Trinidad The Settlement of Camp Asylum First 
 Troubles Military Organization of the Settlers Forts 
 and Trenches Manifesto of the Camp Asylum Refu- 
 gees Its Effect in Europe Subscriptions for the Refu- 
 gees Occupations of the Settlers Monsieur Collin 
 His Plans I give him a Letter to Monsieur Tournel 
 Camp Life Amusements Treaty with the Indians 
 General Lallemand chosen "Great Chief" Ball given 
 to the Inhabitants of San Antonio de Bejar, . . .58 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Sad Condition of the Colony Monsieur Tournel's Letter 
 Treaty between Spain and the United States The Policy 
 of the Two Governments Expulsion of the French from 
 Camp Asylum Retreat to Galveston Sufferings of the 
 Colonists Sickness Storm in the Gulf of Mexico and
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 rxc 
 
 inundation of the Island Dangers Run by the Settlers 
 Departure of the Sick for New Orleans I leave with 
 some of the Settlers, intending to reach Louisiana by 
 Land Fate of those who had gone by Sea Marengo 
 County and Eaglesville, on the Tombeckbee Final Dis- 
 persion of the Refugees of Camp Asylum, . . -77 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Journey from Galveston to the Headwaters of the Sabine 
 My Costume Our Life on the March A Buffalo Hunt 
 The New Mazeppa, .9! 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 A Sad Awakening I fall into the Hands of the Indians 
 My Journey to the Comanche Village I am presented 
 to the Great Chief A New Actor on the Scene Effect 
 produced by my Decoration and my Standing as a 
 French Officer I am constituted the Guest of the Tribe, 105 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Michael Gournay, the Canadian Manners and Customs 
 of some of the Indian Tribes, 125 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 My Stay with the Comanches War Rejoicings Departure 
 of the Warriors on the War-path I wish to leave the 
 Village The Indians oppose my Wish Attack on the 
 Village by a Body of Spanish Soldiers I go back to 
 Louisiana with Gournay, ....... 136 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 We reach the Frontiers of Louisiana An Unexpected 
 Meeting A Caravan of American Emigrants I meet 
 the Tournel Family and Monsieur Collin New Scheme 
 for Colonizing Texas, 154 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 I join the Emigrants and return with them to Texas Our 
 Settlement on the Rio Brazos The War of Indepen- 
 dence The Prosperity of Texas, .... l6(i
 
 THE ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN 
 
 Were related to us by the hero of the tale himself, on the 
 occasion of his last visit to Paris. The interest we felt 
 in them led us to hope that they would prove equally 
 interesting to our young readers, and therefore we have 
 worded them, as nearly as possible, in the Captain's own 
 language. 
 
 In order to render the tale more intelligible and more 
 useful, we have thought it well to preface it by a short 
 topographical and geological notice of Texas.
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 TEXAS* is bounded on the north by New 
 Mexico, Indian Territory, and Arkansas, on 
 the east by Arkansas and Louisiana, on the 
 west and south by Mexico, and on the south- 
 east by the Gulf of Mexico. The Red River 
 is its northern boundary, the Sabine its east- 
 ern, and the Rio Grande its western limits. 
 Its shape is very irregular, but its extreme 
 length from south-east to north-west is more 
 than 800 miles, and its greatest breadth from 
 east to west about 750 miles, including an 
 area of 237,504 square miles. 
 
 This country, inclining to the south-east, is 
 divided into three distinct zones or regions : 
 that of the mountains, that of the prairies, 
 and that of the plains. The mountainous zone 
 covers the north-western part of the State, and 
 
 * It was once known as Fredonia, but its Indian name of Texas 
 superseded the other.
 
 8 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 includes the Sierra San Saba, a spur of the 
 Sierra Madre, which is one of the great moun- 
 tain-chains of Mexico. 
 
 Except toward their summits, which are 
 barren and rocky, these mountains are covered 
 with splendid forests of pine and oak, besides 
 numerous shrubs, and broken by well-watered 
 valleys that want nothing but the hand of 
 man to make them yield their treasures 
 readily. 
 
 The prairie region is the intermediate part of 
 the country, and its undulating surface of table- 
 land reaches from the foot of the mountains to 
 the banks of the Red River, the northern 
 boundary of Texas. Here the vegetation is 
 rich and abundant. 
 
 The region of the plains follows the coast- 
 line, but encroaches more or less on the in- 
 terior; thus on the banks of the Sabine it is 
 only forty-eight miles wide, while on the San 
 Jacinto it is one hundred and twelve miles 
 wide, and as much as one hundred and sixty 
 on the Colorado. This zone is marvellously 
 fertile. 
 
 Texas is one of the best watered countries 
 in the world. The rivers are so deeply sunk
 
 INTRODUCTION. 9 
 
 between high, rocky banks, that there is never 
 any fear of those frequent floods which form 
 swamps and perpetuate miasmal diseases. Like 
 most North American rivers, they are full of 
 rapids, which, however, it would be easy to re- 
 move, should steam navigation be soon applied 
 to all the watercourses. The principal rivers 
 are the Rio Grande, which from its source to 
 its mouth runs a course of nearly eighteen 
 hundred miles ; the Rio Nueces (or Nut 
 River), about three hundred miles long; the 
 Rio San Antonio two hundred and fifty, and 
 the Guadalupe two hundred and seventy-five 
 miles long; the Colorado River (which takes 
 its name from the red deposit left by the rains 
 coming in contact with the oxide of iron of 
 the soil) is about eight hundred miles long. 
 To judge by the government surveys, this 
 river is navigable a distance of several hundred 
 miles. 
 
 The Rio Brazos, called Rio Flores in the old 
 maps, rises in the north-western part of the 
 State and empties itself into the Bay of San 
 Bernardo, after a course of five hundred miles. 
 The Trinity River is at least four hundred 
 miles long, though some explorers declare it is
 
 K iNTRODUCTION. 
 
 more ; it is certain, at any rate, that steam- 
 boats can go up stream two hundred and 
 forty miles. It was on the banks of this river 
 that the French endeavored to found a colony in 
 1818. They named it Camp Asylum. We 
 shall have occasion to speak of it later on. The 
 banks of the Trinity River are high and welt 
 wooded ; building timber especially abounds, 
 and the land on both banks is rich and fruitful. 
 Lastly, there is the Sabine, the boundary 
 between Texas and Louisiana, a river three 
 hundred and fifty miles long, and navigable at 
 all seasons for one hundred and fifty miles 
 from its mouth. The coasts are much cut up 
 by bays studded* with islands and divided into 
 lagoons. A little north of the mouth of the 
 Rio Grande is the Laguna Madre, ninety 
 miles long, and ending, at its northern ex- 
 tremity, in the bay of Corpus Christi, which is 
 forty miles from north to south by twenty 
 miles from east to west. At the entrance of 
 the bay is a long island called Isla del Padre. 
 Farther north is the bay of Aransas, from 
 thirty to forty miles long and sixteen wide 
 The muddy, shallow bay of Espiritu Santo 
 into which flow the San Antonio and the
 
 INTRODUCTION II 
 
 Guadalupe, is partly formed by the island of 
 Matagorda, which is ninety-six miles long and 
 only ten wide. The bay of Galveston, into 
 which flow the San Jacinto and the Trinity 
 River, extends about thirty-five miles inland 
 from the Gulf of Mexico in a direction nearly 
 north. Ships drawing twelve feet of water 
 can find easy anchorage in it. The coast-line 
 is rounded off by the bay of the Sabine, so 
 closed that it is almost like a huge lake, into 
 which flows the river of that name. 
 
 The island of Galveston, formerly San Luis, 
 which extends across the entrance of this bay, 
 is nothing but a sand-bank accumulated by the 
 strong tides. It is forty miles long and four 
 wide, and rises only twelve yards above thd, 
 level of the sea. Its surface is covered with tall, 
 rank grass, a few mimosas and cactuses, and 
 some marine plants. On this sand-bank the new 
 city of Galveston has lately been built ; it is 
 an Episcopal See, and the most important 
 seaport town in the State. 
 
 The climate of Texas is delightful. The 
 region of the plains is the hottest ; the temper- 
 ature is about the same as in Louisiana, but 
 infinitely healthier. The sea-breezes cool tho
 
 12 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 air a little in summer. As you proceed north- 
 ward, the climate grows better still. In winter, 
 from the i5th of November to the i5th of 
 January, heavy rains fall incessantly, and 
 moisten the earth to prepare it for the next 
 ten months. Sometimes a little sprinkling of 
 snow falls, but it never remains on the ground. 
 The spring begins in February ; the summer 
 in April, and lasts till the end of September. 
 
 The three zones of Texas and the varied 
 climates they afford are sufficient proofs of the 
 existence of an equally rich and varied vegeta- 
 tion. To the south and south-west are magnifi- 
 cent forests, containing timber invaluable for 
 ship-building. Among these trees, we may 
 notice the oak, the Carolinas poplar, the ash, 
 the cypress, the red cedar, the acacia, the chest- 
 nut, the linden, the pine, the sycamore, the 
 sumach, the maple, the cherry-tree, etc., etc. 
 In the heart of the virgin forests rises the 
 beautiful magnolia grandiflora, often reaching 
 a height of a hundred feet. The gum-tree and 
 india-rubber tree grow abundantly on the banks 
 of the Colorado, but their produce has been 
 hitherto neglected. 
 
 Different varieties of the tea-shrub have been
 
 INTRODUCTION. 13 
 
 cultivated on the banks of the San Antonio ; 
 they yield as good tea as that which comes from 
 China. The mulberry grows well in Western 
 Texas ; cochineal and indigo have been tried 
 with success ; tobacco is of a superior quality, 
 and the sugar-cane yields two harvests a year. 
 The cotton-plant succeeds splendidly in Texas, 
 and often grows to the height of five feet. This 
 plant will doubtless become a source of great 
 wealth to Texas, as it grows to a finer quality 
 and more abundantly than on the most favored 
 soils in the United States. An excess of its 
 produce is the only danger to be feared. 
 
 The sugar-cane of the Tahiti species yields 
 saccharine matter four or five months after 
 planting, and gives two harvests annually. Corn 
 grows here to perfection, and the great prairies 
 round San Antonio de Bejar are peculiarly 
 suited to the cultivation of wheat. Mulberry, 
 indigo, and tobacco have all been successfully 
 tried, and among the forest-trees, the live-oak 
 may be mentioned as one of the best for ship- 
 building. 
 
 The geological formation of Texas is very 
 suitable for the raising of stock. The wide
 
 14 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 prairies, covered with thick grass for six months 
 in the year, harbor numberless flocks, which 
 ramble at will through the unenclosed pastures, 
 with nothing but the mark of their various 
 owners to distinguish them. 
 
 If Texas has not mines of gold and silver, 
 like Mexico, it has what is yet more impor- 
 tant for civilization i.e., iron and coal. There 
 are rich iron mines to the north of the Sabine, 
 and all along the foot of the Ozark Mountains. 
 The bed of the Rio Brazos yields iron ore, 
 and the plains and canons between the Brazos 
 and the Colorado, granulated iron. Iron and 
 coal must contribute to the prosperity of Texas, 
 where, as in the States, railway communication 
 is becoming the only means of transport for 
 passengers and merchandise. 
 
 The great plantations and factories, and all 
 the towns, whether old or new, or recently 
 mapped out, are situated on the banks of the 
 various rivers. There are Goliad, formerly 
 Bahia, and Bejar, on the San Antonio, old 
 Spanish towns, the latter of which retained 
 its importance till very lately as an entrepot 
 between Louisiana and Upper Mexico. But
 
 INTRODUCTION. 15 
 
 the principal towns are on the brazos, the 
 Colorado, and the Buffalo Bayou. Here are 
 San Felipe de Austin, the cradle of Texan in- 
 dependence, a town of six thousand inhabitants ; 
 Houston, a city only twenty years old, but 
 which is a standing witness of the growing 
 prosperity, civilization, and luxury of Texas ; 
 Austin, the capital of the State, built on the 
 banks of the Colorado, and which is now ahead 
 of all the present settlements, and will soon be- 
 come one of those cities, on a large scale and 
 of beautiful proportions, which distinguish the 
 States of North America. 
 
 Among the other important towns, whether 
 old or new, we may mention Bonham, Castro- 
 ville, Corpus Christi, Crockett, Fredericksburg, 
 Hortontown, Indianola, Marshall, Nacogdo- 
 ches, Palestine, Richmond, Washington, Vic- 
 toria, Liberty, etc. 
 
 The Texans divided their republic into thirty- 
 two counties when they first proclaimed their 
 independence, but the present number of coun- 
 ties is one hundred and twenty-four. When 
 the French refugees came, forty years ago, to 
 found the colony of Camp Asylum, there were
 
 ifc INTRODUCTION. 
 
 not in all Texas ten thousand inhabitants, of 
 European descent. At present, there are 
 nearly four hundred thousand. 
 
 PARIS, 1858. 
 
 NOTE. The population of Texas, according to the census of 
 1870, was eight hundred and eighteen thousand eight hundied 
 and ninety-nine. TRANSLATOR.
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 A SKETCH OF MY LIFE UP TO THE DATE OF 
 MY LANDING AT BALTIMORE. 
 
 
 
 I WILL speak but briefly of the first years of 
 my life, and come to the point when circum- 
 stances occurred which made it advisable for 
 me to leave France and seek a new home in 
 America. 
 
 I was born at Paris in 1792, and was only 
 seven years old when I had the misfortune of 
 losing my mother. My father soon married 
 again, and his new wife made me feel my loss 
 more keenly still by her unkind conduct 
 towards me. She absolutely hated me, and to 
 please her my father sent me to school at St. 
 Germain ; for any school in Paris would have
 
 1 8 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 
 
 been, to my step-mother's mind, too much of a 
 substitute for home. I remained at school ten 
 years, during which time I saw my father only 
 two or three times, and was never allowed even 
 to come to Paris. You see that I learned 
 very early what it is to be an exile. 
 
 My education, such as it was, was finished in 
 1809. Napoleon I. was then in his greatest 
 glory, and, like most young men of my age, I 
 dreamed of nothing but military honors, so that 
 when my father asked me, on my leaving school, 
 what calling I should like to choose, I unhesi- 
 tatingly said, " I wish to be a soldier." He 
 was quite willing, and I enlisted the very same 
 day. Next morning he took me to Versailles 
 to join the depot for recruits for my regiment, 
 and, having recommended me to my immedi- 
 ate officer, he thrust into my hand a purse con- 
 taining twenty gold pieces. He embraced me 
 affectionately enough, and left me to myself. I 
 never saw him again. 
 
 His coldness cut me to the heart, and tears 
 started to my eyes as I saw him go ; then 1 
 vehemently anathematized my step-mother for 
 having deprived me of my father's love. But 
 at last my home sorrows were forgotten in the
 
 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 19 
 
 new life, the varied occupations and constant 
 drill of our camp. In a fortnight I was sent 
 off with a detachment of recruits to join the 
 main body of my regiment in Spain. 
 
 I remained in the Peninsula until our army 
 was forced to evacuate it, and when I returned 
 to France I had been promoted to a lieuten- 
 antcy, after going through every step leading 
 to that grade. 
 
 Though my father had evinced so little af- 
 fection for me, I nevertheless kept him au con- 
 ran t of my successive promotions. His answers 
 to my letters were short and cold, and only one 
 that which I received on my promotion to 
 the rank of commissioned officer was differ- 
 ent from the rest Then, for the first time, he 
 wrote affectionately and warmly, as became a 
 father, I was deeply touched, and wrote back 
 :o tell him how his unexpected kindness filled 
 my heart with love and gratitude ; but, alas ! 
 he died before my letter reached him, and the 
 sad news was communicated to me by the 
 family solicitor, who wrote to me on business, 
 asking my instructions as to the division of the 
 property and my step-mother's dowry. Thus
 
 2O ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 
 
 I only learned to know my poor father just as i 
 lost him forever. 
 
 Other troubles soon crowded upon me. The 
 Anglo-Spanish army followed closely at our 
 heels, and invaded the southern provinces of 
 the empire, while the rest of the allied Euro- 
 pean forces overran the northern and eastern 
 departments. After a last stand against the 
 English under the walls of Toulouse, we learned 
 the news of the emperor's abdication, the fall 
 of his dominion, and the re-establishment of 
 the Bourbon dynasty. I soon after heard 
 from official sources that I had been placed on 
 the half-pay list. 
 
 This was a blow that destroyed every hope 
 of my heart, for I was fit for no career but 
 the army. I .had no home ties, no interest, 
 even, to keep me in France, and my first idea 
 was to leave a country which, according to my 
 political opinions, I could no longer serve, and 
 from which I could not expect any consideration 
 Filled with these thoughts, I went to Paris to 
 take possession of whatever my parents might 
 have left me, and to make arrangements for a de 
 parture for the New World. 
 
 In my ignorance and impatience, I thought
 
 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. II 
 
 that all I should have to do would be to pre- 
 sent myself at the solicitor's office and take 
 immediate possession of my share of the inher- 
 itance ; but I had reckoned without my host, 
 or rather without my step-mother, who was 
 such an adept at intrigue that the winding up 
 of our family affairs was spun out over the space 
 of ten months. All was not yet definitively 
 settled, when we were startled by the news of 
 Napoleon's landing at Cannes, his entrance into 
 Grenoble, and his march on Lyons. 
 
 I gave up my projects at once, joined a few 
 comrades, on half-pay like myself, and rushed 
 to meet our emperor. We met him at 
 Chalons, in the midst of a goodly army and 
 an enthusiastic population, who hailed him as 
 a deliverer. We accompanied him to Paris, 
 and a few days later I formally took service 
 under him as a captain. I was so happy at 
 this new turn of affairs that I even sho\ved my- 
 self most accommodating towards my step- 
 mother, accepting proposals which a fortnight 
 before I had peremptorily declined, and con- 
 senting at last to take but a third of what in 
 reality was my own. My mother's fortune, of 
 which my father had retained the use after his
 
 22 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 
 
 second marriage, came to sixty thousand 
 francs, while my share of my father's personal 
 property was about twenty-eight or thirty 
 thousand francs. I consented, however, to be 
 put off with thirty thousand, all told, and gave 
 a receipt for that sum, twenty-five thousand of 
 which I left with my solicitor, taking five 
 thousand to equip myself and to celebrate with 
 my comrades the return of our beloved 
 emperor. 
 
 We believed in nothing less, for at least two 
 months, than in the most brilliant success. We 
 should, doubtless, again begin that series of 
 wonderful military expeditions which for twenty 
 years had made Europe tremble and proved 
 the superiority of our arms. I saw myself in 
 imagination performing a heroic part in this 
 drama of future conquests and unchecked suc- 
 cesses, decorated with the successive degrees of 
 the cross of the Legion of Honor, wearing the 
 bullion epaulets of a colonel, then the starred 
 ones of a general, and, who knows ? wielding 
 one day the baton of a marshal of the 
 Empire ! 
 
 Amid these golden dreams, the campaign 
 opened. My regiment was luckily engaged in
 
 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 23 
 
 the very first battles; at Fleurus we bravely 
 carried a position no less bravely defended by 
 a Scottish regiment. I had pushed on first 
 with my company, and for a moment we were 
 surrounded by the brave Highlanders; the 
 next, our regiment came to our rescue. But the 
 emperor himself had noticed the feat, and, 
 during the review that followed the battle, he 
 called me to him, and gave me a decoration 
 with his own hand. It is impossible to tell 
 you how delighted, how proud, I was that day ! 
 My dreams were beginning to come true, and 
 from that moment I never doubted the entire 
 realization of them. 
 
 The wakening was abrupt and terrible. The 
 iatal day of Mont Saint Jean came upon us, 
 scattering our bright hopes and plunging me 
 into a worse despair than had been mine 
 six months before. I followed the army 
 of the Loire in its retreat, and when it was dis- 
 banded, my thoughts turned again to my orig- 
 inal plan of emigrating to America. Passing 
 through Orleans, which was then in the hands 
 of the Prussians, I got into a quarrel with 
 some of the German officers in a res- 
 taurant ; a duel would have been the conre-
 
 ^4 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 
 
 querce, had not the French police interfered 
 and ;arried me off to prison. I must say that 
 n*j tdversaries, the Prussian officers, did their 
 bf t to obtain my release, but the royal officials 
 r jitefully brought me before the police court, 
 ipon a charge of illegally wearing the cross 
 of the Legion of Honor. I had already sworn 
 to the circumstances under which I had re- 
 ceived this decoration. After a month of pre- 
 cautionary imprisonment, I was released, as 
 having acted without malice, but I was recom- 
 mended Jienceforth not to wear the cross 
 illegally given me by the usurper, and no 
 " brevet " of which could be found on the records 
 of the chancery of the Legion of Honor. 
 
 This prohibition to wear a decoration so 
 well deserved, and received from the very 
 hands of the founder of the order, was more 
 galling to me than an imprisonment of months 
 or years could have been. But what could I 
 do ? The country was in a ferment, there was 
 violent ill-will on the part of the government 
 against all those who had in any way been 
 connected with Napoleon's return from Elba, 
 or who had helped to uphold his falling throne. 
 Labadoyere and Marshal Ney had just been
 
 ADVENTURES OF A 1'KKN' !! < 'APTALN. 25 
 
 shot. The lives of the Bonapar cists were in 
 danger, and those who had been lucky enough 
 to escape the decree of proscription had 
 gladly exiled themselves, in hopes of better 
 times. 
 
 My resolve was soon taken. I left Orleans, 
 spent just time enough in Paris to get my 
 money together, and, having procured a pass- 
 port, took my passage for England. In 
 London I met many of my comrades in war 
 and in misfortune, especially the colonel and 
 two other officers of my old regiment. The 
 former, as soon as he heard of my affair at Or- 
 leans, offered to write me a certificate, signed 
 by himself and his brother-officers, setting forth, 
 on the testimony of eye-witnesses, how my 
 gallant conduct at the battle of Fleurus had 
 been recognized and rewarded by the emperor 
 himself. " This will perhaps supply the place 
 of the missing ' brevet/" he said, " and may even 
 help you to obtain it some day. At any rate, 
 you can wear your decoration in safety here ; 
 no one will dare dispute your right to do so." 
 
 I thanked him and gratefully accepted his 
 offer. He was right ; for this affidavit has 
 helped me to obtain, since the Second Empire,
 
 26 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 
 
 the regular brevet granted to all members of 
 the order of the Legion of Honor. 
 
 Perhaps it may amuse you to see how much 
 importance I attach to a bow of red ribbon, 
 and you may think me foolish not to have given 
 up such baubles after forty years' sojourn and 
 citizenship in a republic where these distinc- 
 tions are unknown. Well, there you arc 
 mistaken, for I think all the more of my dec- 
 oration, not only because it is a glorious 
 souvenir of my early life, but because it has 
 been the means of securing me the friendly 
 offices of many a savage tribe, and of heighten- 
 ing very considerably the esteem and love in 
 which I am now held by my republican neigh- 
 bors. 
 
 We took our passage on the first ship that 
 sailed for the United States. The colonel, how- 
 ever, could not accompany us, as he wished to go 
 straight to New Orleans, where he had some 
 relatives living. Our ship was bound for Bal- 
 timore. For my part, I had no preference and 
 would have gone to New York, Boston, or 
 New Orleans as soon as to Baltimore, but we 
 should have had to wait another month for the 
 ship chat went to Louisiana, and I confess
 
 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 2/ 
 
 that I was in a hurry to leave the shores of 
 Europe. We had a smooth passage, and landed 
 safely at Baltimore, in the month of April, 
 1816. 
 
 I had begun to study English during 
 my stay in London, and continued to do so 
 during the passage, as I was sure that a knowl- 
 edge of English would be indispensable in the 
 United States ; but though my friends and I 
 had made some little progress, I fear we should 
 have felt very homeless on our arrival in Balti- 
 more, had we not found there a little French 
 colony which another revolution had stranded 
 in that city. They had formerly been colonists 
 of San Domingo, and had been driven from 
 that island by the negro insurrection in 1 794- 
 95, and had then sought shelter on the hos- 
 pitable shores of the Union. 
 
 Most of them were in needy circumstances 
 very few comfortably off, but one and all re- 
 ceived us most cordially and proffered us the 
 most hearty welcome. We were only ten in 
 all six officers, two officials compromised in 
 the Lavalette affair, and two employes of the 
 War Department, whose political creed had ren- 
 dered them objects of suspicion to the French
 
 28 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 
 
 Government. After a whispered consultation, 
 ten of the principal colonists came forward, and 
 each took one of us immigrants home. 
 
 A lucky chance, or, I should say, a special 
 providence, gave me as a host a certain Mon- 
 sieur Tournel, formerly a rich planter of San 
 Domingo, now a small hardware merchant in 
 Baltimore. To him and his prudent advice do 
 I owe it that I escaped the lamentable fate 
 which overtook the greater number of my 
 comrades in exile and adversity, and later on I 
 owed to his kindness in admitting me to his 
 family circle all the prosperity and happiness 
 which are now mine. 
 
 Before I go on with my story, I must give 
 you a sketch of this truly patriarchal family, 
 by which I was welcomed, on my arrival in 
 the New World, not merely as a guest, but 
 rather as an old friend, nay, even as a brother.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE TOURNEL FAMILY MY STAY IN 
 
 BALTIMORE. 
 
 MONSIEUR TOURNEL was a man about forty, 
 of medium height and good proportions ; his 
 complexion was of that creamy pallor peculiar 
 to the West Indian Creoles, for his family, of 
 French origin, had been one of the oldest set- 
 tlers in the island of San Domingo. They had 
 owned the richest and largest plantations until 
 1 794, when the revolt of t he blacks entirely 
 swept away their fortune ; the negroes burned 
 their crops and sacked their house, nay, even 
 massacred his mother and sister before his very 
 eyes. He himself was wounded in defending 
 his father, whom he succeeded, however, in 
 rescuing alive from their hands. They both 
 reached the coast, threw themselves into the 
 first boat that they found, and cruised about un- 
 til picked up by a Spanish ship, which carried 
 them to Havana. 
 
 Here they remained three years, hoping that
 
 30 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 
 
 France would re-conquer San Domingo, and 
 that they themselves would be restored to their 
 former position. The disastrous ending of 
 General Leclerc's expedition soon blasted their 
 hopes, and Monsieur Tournel, senior, unable to 
 bear the shock of repeated mishaps, fell ill and 
 died, leaving his son alone in the world. 
 
 While at Havana, they lived on a small sum 
 that the elder Tournel had managed to save from 
 the wreck of his former possessions. It was the 
 equivalent of his wife's diamonds which, stored 
 in a small casket, had been easily secreted and 
 carried off, and which the widower had subse- 
 quently sold. The money had been deposited 
 at a bank, and Tournel, accustomed to the lux- 
 ury and recklessness of a Creole's life, had un- 
 thinkingly drawn all he wanted without fore- 
 seeing the destitution that might come, and 
 reckoning, as he did too confidently, on the 
 chance of regaining his possessions. 
 
 After his death, his son received from the 
 ->anker an account of his father's expenditures, 
 with the intelligence also that not a dollar of 
 their former little capital remained to him. Was" 
 the account a correct one ? The poor youth had 
 no means of verifying it. Here he was, utterly
 
 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 3! 
 
 penniless and friendless, in a foreign land ! How 
 should he live ? He had never worked, nor 
 learned any profession ; his education had been 
 neglected, as was often the case with the chil- 
 dren of rich Creole colonists. But he would 
 not despair ; he was twenty, and at that age, 
 with perseverance and honesty, failure is im- 
 possible. 
 
 He first offered his services to some Havana 
 planters as an overseer, but he was found too 
 young for such a post ; besides, this place rather 
 belongs to a colored than to a white man. He 
 next tried to get into a merchant's office, but he 
 had not been brought up to trade> and knew 
 nothing of book-keeping ; here, too, he was 
 foiled. At last he heard that a ship had 
 touched at Havana and needed sailors ; he im- 
 mediately applied and was accepted. 
 
 It proved to be a whaling ship from Balti- 
 *more,'bound for the fisheries of the Pacific. It 
 is needless to tell you what hardships he under- 
 went in this rough calling, which he followed 
 for nearly four years ; besides, the narrative 
 of his adventures would carry me beyond 
 bounds. 
 
 After a last cruise, when the crew were paid
 
 32 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 
 
 off and the ship sold to another owner, Mon- 
 sieur Tournel sought a temporary holiday, and 
 thought of investing the twelve thousand francs 
 he had made in his different expeditions, in 
 some less dangerous venture than belonged to 
 a seafaring life. He had made the acquaintance, 
 during his frequent home-comings to Balti- 
 more, of a French family, formerly settled in 
 Acadia, and who, when that province was 
 made over to England, had been, with all the 
 French settlers of that neighborhood, sent into 
 the then English colonies of America. This 
 family, although for more than thirty years in- 
 habitants of Baltimore, had kept up the tra- 
 ditions of the mother-country and the accents 
 of the mother-tongue. The likeness of their 
 fate to his had drawn Monsieur Tournel into 
 intimacy with them. He had first made fast 
 friends with the eldest son, who was a sailor on 
 board the whaleship ; then he had married his 
 friend's sister, and again gone to sea, until he 
 had amassed a modest capital, just sufficient to 
 start a little shop. His wife was as steady, 
 saving, active, and shrewd as himself. She had 
 not brought him much as a marriage portion ; 
 but these qualities are in themselves better than
 
 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 33 
 
 a rich dowry and a love of luxury and idleness, 
 which are too often the characteristics of Creole 
 women. 
 
 With the small capital at their joint disposal 
 they had opened a little hardware shop ; Mon- 
 ieur Tournel took good care not to run into 
 my hare-brained speculations, but advanced 
 slowly and surely, until at my arrival in Bal- 
 timore I found him at the head of a comfort- 
 able competency. I have already said that I 
 was welcomed by him as a brother and a friend. 
 When he introduced me to his wife and his moth- 
 er-in-law, who since her husband's death had 
 lived with her married daughter, they received 
 me with such cordiality that I soon found my- 
 self quite at home. The children smiled on me ; 
 the youngest came up and kissed me, while the 
 eldest, a girl of fourteen, held out her hand 
 and blushed, and William, a boy of twelve, 
 took my hand in his and shook it heartily, ac- 
 cording to the American fashion. I had hardly 
 been in the house an hour before the little boys 
 of eight and ten years were mounted one on 
 each *nee, and William, who sat by me, was 
 looking with curiosity at my cross of the Legion
 
 34 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 
 
 of Honor (I now wore it fearlessly), and asking 
 me a thousand questions. 
 
 " Did you know the Emperor Napoleon ? 
 and was it he who gave you this cross ?" 
 
 " Yes, my boy." 
 
 " Were you often in a fight ?" 
 
 " Yes, very often." 
 
 " Oh ! you must tell us all about it." 
 
 " I will, with pleasure." 
 
 This innocent familiarity was very refreshing 
 to me. Madame Tournel would fain have sent 
 the children away, for fear of their prattle tir- 
 ing me, but I opposed her wish, not through 
 mere politeness, but with real meaning. In- 
 deed, I, who had never known the joys of 
 home, and who scarcely remembered my moth- 
 er's caresses, was touched and delighted beyond 
 measure at receiving these innocent marks of 
 brotherly affection, which made me find, as it 
 were, a family and a home three thousand 
 miles away from my own native land. 
 
 These happy beginnings continued the same 
 during all my stay, and you will learn in the 
 course of this tale that my union with this 
 family was only strengthened by the lapse of 
 time. Nevertheless, the next day but one after
 
 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 3$ 
 
 my arrival I nearly quarrelled with my host, 
 and this was the subject of the dispute : 
 
 The prettiest room in the house had been 
 assigned me, and a servant had been placed, at 
 my orders, to bring my tea, coffee and choco- 
 late every morning. I breakfasted comforta- 
 bly at eleven, and took luncheon at four ; then 
 only at night did I join the family at their even- 
 ing meal. It was my only opportunity for see- 
 ing my hosts, whom their business always kept 
 in or about the shop, which was distant some 
 hundred yards from the house. 
 
 I did not intend to take advantage of such 
 lavish hospitality beyond a few days at the 
 most ; my own sense of what was right wouldn't 
 have allowed me to do so. I still had about 
 twenty thousand francs left, and could provide 
 for myself until I should have found suitable 
 employment. One evening, after dinner, I 
 spoke of this to Monsieur Tournel, and begged 
 him to settle some definite price for my board 
 and lodging, if he still consented to let me live 
 in his family. I had scarcely begun than he 
 started in surprise ; then his looks met mine, as 
 though he had not quite seized my meaning ; 
 pnd when at last he could not help understand-
 
 36 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAFTAlS. 
 
 ing me, a flush rose to his cheeks, he was silent 
 for a minute or two, and then said, in his usual 
 serious and firm tone of voice : 
 
 " If you knew me better, I should be inclined 
 to think that you were insulting me. Know, 
 monsieur, that I learned what hospitality was 
 in my father's house, and that, had I possessed 
 the fortune that was once ours, my house 
 should have been open not only to you, but to 
 all your comrades ; indeed, I should not have 
 allowed any one else to interfere with my right 
 to harbor you all. Now that circumstances 
 make it impossible for me to exercise fully a 
 right which is as sacred as a duty to me, seeing 
 that it is misfortune that has driven you from 
 our common country, would you try to take 
 from me the pleasure of exercising it within the 
 narrow limits of my power ?" 
 
 The earnest tone of his voice showed that 
 no answer was possible that did not coincide 
 with his wish. I saw that I should only hurt 
 him by insisting further, so I managed to make 
 good my excuses by telling him that I had 
 never doubted his generosity, and, had I been 
 utterly penniless, would have accepted his 
 Vindness at once, and opened my heart to him.
 
 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 37 
 
 But, I added, since I still have something of 
 my own to depend upon, I thought it wrong 
 to take advantage of an asylum which might 
 with more propriety have been used in favor 
 of some of my less fortunate comrades. 
 
 " And your resources," he answered with a 
 smile, " amount, as I think you told me, to 
 twenty thousand francs, something like four 
 thousand dollars, as we reckon here ?" 
 
 " Yes, that is it." 
 
 " And do you know that four thousand dol- 
 lars in the United States do not count even as 
 four thousand francs do at home ? You would 
 easily get through that sum in a year, and that 
 without spending any thing out of the way. 
 Take my advice and keep your money till you 
 really want it, or rather put it in the State Bank 
 of Maryland, where you can draw it as you 
 want it, either in instalments or all at once." 
 
 " I thank you with all my heart," said I, " and 
 1 accept both your generous offer and your 
 kind advice with the deepest gratitude. Still 
 1 cannot be idle forever ; I should feel more in 
 my own way than in yours could I do so; and, 
 since you are kind enough to take an interest
 
 38 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 
 
 in me, I wish you would point out some occu- 
 pation which will enable me to earn my living 
 honorably." 
 
 " Who wants you to be idle ?" he answered. 
 " Idleness is more looked down upon in the 
 United States than anywhere else ; indeed, in 
 this country it is unknown. From the highest 
 to the lowest, every man works. The thing is 
 to find some occupation that will suit you ; but 
 the first step will be to learn English thor- 
 oughly, for without that I see nothing open to 
 you. You already know something of the 
 language, and will easily learn the rest ; you 
 might take lessons with my children, who have 
 a master that comes here regularly every day, 
 and as my wife and I will henceforth speak 
 English to you, you will have the opportunity 
 of learning the language practically. Once you 
 know enough to be able to speak fluently, I 
 will take you to a club where you will be 
 heartily welcomed, and where you will catch 
 the polishing you require in the English lan- 
 guage." 
 
 I reiterated my heartfelt thanks to my kind 
 host, and promised to abide by his advice.
 
 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 39 
 
 " Very well," he said, " that is settled. But 
 1 am going to ask a favor from you, and it is 
 this : that while we thus learn English together, 
 you will give an hour's instruction in French 
 to my children, who have never learned their 
 mother-tongue grammatically. You may have 
 noticed that they speak it with a bad accent 
 And use obsolete expressions ; this comes from 
 the fact of their mother, and especially their 
 grandmother, belonging to one of those old 
 Norman settler's families that colonized Canada 
 and Acadia, and who have kept not only a 
 strong Norman accent, but certain expressions 
 and turns of speech that date as far back as 
 Louis the Thirteenth's reign in France, or even 
 Henry the Fourth's/' 
 
 I eagerly caught at this proposal, which en- 
 abled me, though only in an infinitesimal de- 
 gree, to cancel my obligations towards my gen- 
 erous host ; I Was glad to think that this proof 
 of confidence showed that I was not considered 
 quite a useless and ornamental personage, and 
 henceforth felt rehabilitated in my own esteem. 
 I entered on my new duties the next morning 
 and got on admirably. I cannot say the same
 
 40' ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 
 
 for my pupils, although their father whether 
 from indulgence or from inability to be judge in 
 such a cause thought that his children made 
 remarkable progress. Thanks to these various 
 interests and occupations, time passed quickly. 
 We had no lessons on Sundays, as also no busi- 
 ness, and I always accompanied the family to 
 high mass at the Cathedral, for Baltimore has 
 ever been one of the most Catholic cities in 
 the Union, and was at that time the only Epis- 
 copal see in the country. 
 
 My. religious education had been very much 
 neglected, and I had never given religion a 
 thought during my military life. Often had I 
 heard my comrades laugh at it and denounce 
 it as an invention of priests and old women, 
 and I had found it more convenient to echo 
 their silly sarcasms than to inquire into the truth 
 of these statements. I had never set foot in a 
 church, except when sent there on military duty, 
 as sometimes happened; and when I first went 
 to the Cathedral at Baltimore, it was chiefly 
 through curiosity and a desire to please the 
 Tournels, who, I saw, evidently expected me 
 to accompany them.
 
 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 41 
 
 I followed the mass rather listlessly, but was 
 all attention when the sermon began ; not, I 
 must say, through respect for the truths uttered 
 by the preacher, but through a wish to under- 
 stand every word he pronounced, that I might 
 know by experience what practical progress I 
 had made in English. My experiment proved 
 successful, for, with the exception of a sentence 
 or two whose meaning escaped me, I could 
 understand every word he said, and repeat the 
 substance of his discourse when we reached 
 home. Every one congratulated me on my 
 rapid progress ; Madame Tournel especially was 
 quite delighted, as she piously attributed to 
 a feeling of religion the great attention I had 
 paid to the sermon, and was rejoiced to find 
 herself mistaken as to the indifference with 
 which she had secretly taxed me. This success 
 encouraged me, and I renewed the experiment 
 every following Sunday until I soon understood 
 the Christian orator thoroughly, and could re- 
 peat in English, or translate into French, what 
 I had heard in church. But this exercise of 
 memory had a far more important result than 
 I had anticipated, I not only learned English,
 
 42 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 
 
 but began to understand a great part of the 
 doctrine and discipline of the Church, and 
 if I was not converted on the spot, seed was 
 nevertheless implanted in my heart which was 
 destined to bear fruit in good time. I had still, 
 however, cruel trials to go through before that 
 time.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 TROUBLES OF THE FRENCH REFUGEES GRANTS 
 
 OF LAND BY CONGRESS SPECULATIONS OF 
 
 AMERICAN CAPITALISTS PROPOSED SETTLE- 
 MENT IN TEXAS GENERALS LALLEMAND AD- 
 DRESS A PETITION TO THE COURT OF MAD- 
 RID SILENCE OF THE COURT EXECUTION 
 
 OF THE PLAN MEETING OF THE REFUGEES 
 
 AT PHILADELPHIA- MONSIEUR TOURNEL's 
 
 VIEWS 1 DECIDE UPON THROWING IN MY 
 
 LOT WITH THE TEXAS SETTk'-ERS. 
 
 I HAD now been six months in Baltimore, 
 and they had certainly been the happiest of my 
 life. Those who had landed with me, though 
 less fortunate than myself, had yet little to 
 complain of, but the refugees who had gone to 
 New York, Boston, and Philadelphia, or to 
 other Northern cities of the Union, had not 
 been so lucky. Among them were some of 
 the most famous men of the old Imperial 
 Guard, such as Marshal Grouchy, Generals 
 Clausel, Vandemne, Lefebvre, Desnouettes,
 
 44 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 
 
 Rigaud and the two brothers Lallemand, Colo- 
 nel Gaubert, and many other superior officers 
 no less distinguished by their military prowess 
 than by the nobility of their character. 
 
 Unable to take to civil pursuits, they spent 
 their time in vain efforts to gain an honest 
 livelihood, or in unavailing regrets for a father- 
 land that had in some sort repudiated their 
 help. The subaltern officers were even worse 
 off, and at last all combined to present a peti- 
 tion to Congress, praying that land might be 
 granted them to clear, swamps to drain, or any 
 work of a kind which they were fitted to under- 
 take. Congress awarded them one hundred 
 thousand acres on the Mobile and Tombeckbee 
 rivers, with the right of founding a settlement, 
 each soldier to receive a piece of land propor- 
 tionate to his military rank. Money was 
 needed for the first necessities of the colony ; 
 but our countrymen, when they had reached 
 America, had found themselves utterly desti- 
 tute of the barest necessaries of life, so that 
 after a few months' stay in the principal cities 
 of the Union, they had not only not emerged 
 from their penniless condition, but had con- 
 tracted fresh pecuniary obligations towards the
 
 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 45 
 
 persons who had harbored them. Those rich 
 cities of the North had not been as hospitable 
 to them as Baltimore to us ; but worse was yet 
 to come. 
 
 Seeing them thus utterly destitute, a few 
 shrewd capitalists proposed to the immigrants 
 to pay their debts for them, and even lend 
 them a little money, on condition of their giv-- 
 ing up to them all claims on the land granted 
 them by Congress. The Frenchmen had no 
 choice ; necessity was their law, and the bar- 
 gain was concluded. What was the result ? 
 Seven eighths of the new owners of the colony, 
 instead of being Frenchmen, as had been in- 
 tended, now turned out to be Americans ; the 
 plan of the settlement was thus abruptly 
 changed, and the generals and superior officers 
 who had a little money to invest in agricultu- 
 ral undertakings found themselves alone as 
 strangers among strangers. They had ex- 
 pected to be surrounded by men of their own 
 nation, and thus to taste some of the joys of 
 home ; but even this illusion was taken from 
 them, as they now found neighbors whose lan- 
 guage and customs were quite foreign to their 
 own.
 
 46 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. ' 
 
 It was then that Generals Lallemand (the 
 two brothers) and a few other enterprising 
 officers proceeded to reconnoitre and explore 
 the neighboring provinces, with a view to 
 another settlement that might answer the pur- 
 pose which they had contemplated at first 
 Texas, on the Gulf of Mexico, seemed to offer 
 the requisite advantages for a new colony. 
 The soil was fruitful, the climate fine and 
 healthy ; a few tentative settlements were made, 
 and the plan was decided upon. 
 
 Texas was at that time a bone of contention 
 between the Court of Spain and the United 
 States Congress. The rights of the former 
 seeming more solidly established than those of 
 the latter, the brothers Lallemand drew up a 
 petition addressed to the Court of Madrid, and 
 forwarded it through the Spanish Legation at 
 Washington. It was to this effect : 
 
 " That it was their intention, as also that of 
 the other French refugees in America, to found 
 a colony in Texas ; 
 
 " That since royal proclamations had invited 
 colonists of all classes and nations to settle in 
 the provinces of Spanish America, His Catholic
 
 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 47 
 
 Majesty would doubtless see with pleasure a 
 new settlement made in a desert land which 
 only required industrious inhabitants to be- 
 come one of the most fruitful and prosperous 
 countries in the world ; 
 
 " That the members composing the proposed 
 colony were ready to recognize and do homage 
 to the Spanish Government, to pay the legal 
 taxes, and support their settlement by their 
 own labor ; but they craved permission to live 
 under their own laws, to be independent of any 
 Spanish governor, and to organize their own 
 military system ; 
 
 " That, providing the Court of Spain would 
 grant their petition, it might depend on their 
 loyalty and their services, if required ; 
 
 " That in case their petition was rejected, 
 they w r ould then hold themselves at liberty to 
 use the right which nature grants to every 
 man, and which none may dispute, of clearing 
 and working vast tracts of unpeopled wilder- 
 ness ; 
 
 " That their rights in this regard were far 
 better than those of the Spaniards themselves at 
 the time of the Conquest, for while these had 
 come to take by force a free and inhabited
 
 48 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 
 
 country, they, on the contrary, only came to 
 cultivate barren deserts ; 
 
 " That, in short, come what would, they had 
 determined to settle in Texas." 
 
 The Generals Lallemand received no answer 
 to this petition, and, judging from the arbitrary 
 and threatening tone which they had infused 
 into it, probably did not expect an answer. It 
 was hardly to be supposed that Spain would 
 have willingly welcomed a French military 
 colony made up of old Bonapartist veterans 
 on the extreme frontier of Mexico, whose 
 population had long been striving to shake off 
 the yoke of the mother-country, and whose ef- 
 forts would very naturally appeal to the na- 
 tional sympathy or antipathy of the French. 
 The two generals, nevertheless, were unremit- 
 ting in their efforts to carry out their plan. 
 They first secured the consent of Congress, 
 who ratified the alienation of the land origi- 
 nally granted to the French settlers on the 
 Mobile River, the emigration of the colony to 
 Texas, and its establishment on that disputed 
 territory. It even promised, if necessary, to 
 waive its rights on the territory chosen by the 
 French settlers.
 
 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 49 
 
 Armed with this declaration, the Generals 
 Lallemand appealed to all the French refugees 
 scattered over the Union, and called a mass 
 meeting at Philadelphia, to lay before them 
 their intentions, their hopes, and the proposed 
 means for a speedy realization of their dreams 
 of success. I hastened to answer this appeal, 
 and was accompanied by all of my comrades 
 who had remained in Baltimore, for a few had 
 gone to New Orleans. Monsieur Tournel and 
 a few other old refugees from San Domingo 
 wished to be of the party, for the generals had 
 called upon them as well as upon us. I was 
 rather astonished when my friend told me of 
 his intention to join us. 
 
 " What !" I exclaimed, " you who have a 
 snug little business ready in working order 
 in Baltimore, would you run the risk of leav- 
 ing it to go and clear land in Texas ?" 
 
 " Why not ?" he answered, with a laugh ; but, 
 resuming his usual grave demeanor, he added, 
 " I wish, at any rate, to acquaint myself with the 
 details of Messieurs Lallemand's plan and their 
 prospects of realizing it. If the plan seems a 
 sound one to me, and has a reasonable chance 
 of success, I shall be too glad to embark in this
 
 50 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 
 
 undertaking, but 1 need. not therefore leave 
 my business in Baltimore. I can trust it to 
 my partner, my brother-in-law, while I myself 
 go to Texas and take up once more a planter's 
 life, for which I was born and which I have 
 always preferred to any other. Circumstances 
 alone forced me to become a shopkeeper, just 
 as they forced me to be a sailor ; but I am no 
 more made for climbing the rigging than I am 
 for standing behind the counter. What I 
 like, what I want, is an open-air life : the direc- 
 tion of plenty of men working in fields covered 
 with cotton or sugar-cane ; rides of many miles 
 from one factory to the other ; harvesting, and 
 the sale of the harvest to some Liverpool or 
 Havana ship-owner. Such are my dreams, and 
 long ago I should have bought a plantation 
 in Louisiana had I had the wherewithal. I 
 wished to settle in some country where French 
 was spoken and understood, and that is the 
 reason why I never would buy land in Vir- 
 ginia, or the Carolinas, or any other State peo- 
 pled solely by Anglo-Americans. That is why 
 this Texas plan holds out a bait for me ; the 
 country is quite as fruitful as Louisiana and a 
 great deal healthier. I have been there twice
 
 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 51 
 
 during my seafaring life : we sailed up the 
 Colorado and the Rio Trinidad, and I had an 
 opportunity of noticing the beauty of the scen- 
 ery, the fruitfulness of the soil, and the varied 
 nature of the products. It is truly an earthly 
 paradise ; but as my eyes feasted on the beauty 
 of this land and I breathed its sweet, perfume- 
 laden atmosphere, I could not help thinking sor- 
 rowfully of all this fertile tract given over to 
 wild beasts, or to a race of men more wild and 
 untamable yet. If this wilderness is now abou/ 
 to be peopled by Frenchmen who are honestly 
 determined to make the most of its rich re- 
 sources, I shall be too happy to join them, to 
 work with them ; and while I hear my native 
 tongue spoken around me, and see nearly the 
 same crops cultivated as I cultivated myself in 
 San Domingo, I shall believe myself trans- 
 ported to my own home and the days of my 
 happy youth." 
 
 " I am delighted to hear of this," I said, 
 " and only hope that your dreams may be real- 
 ized ; for although I looked forward with great 
 pleasure to a reunion with my old brother- 
 officers, still I could not think of my separa- 
 tion from you without a thrill of pain, I can-
 
 $2 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 
 
 not tell you how happy I should be to see you 
 too take part in this great undertaking, this 
 foundation of a new France, which will em- 
 brace in one pale all exiles from the mother- 
 country." 
 
 " Nay," said Monsieur Tournel, with a smile, 
 " we must not judge of this too sanguinely. 
 This plan in theory is as welcome to me as it 
 is to you, but its realization requires a perse- 
 verance and a unity of views seldom found 
 among so large a body of men. So, as I told 
 you already, I do not mean to decide till after 
 much reflection, and when I shall be morally 
 certain of the success of the undertaking." 
 
 We started accordingly for Philadelphia. 
 General Dominic Lallemand, the younger of 
 the two brothers, received us with great hearti- 
 ness on our arrival. He had just married one 
 of the nieces and heiresses of Stephen Girard, 
 at that time the richest merchant in the Unit^ 
 ed States. Monsieur Girard had himself been 
 a San Domingo colonist, and had been driven 
 from his home by the negro insurrection. 
 Monsieur Tournel only knew Girard by name, 
 but he knew him to possess great business tal^ 
 ents as well as a thoroughly honest and high-
 
 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 53 
 
 minded nature. He was anxious to consult 
 him on the undertaking headed by his nephew, 
 and was sure that as a countryman of his he 
 would give him sound and reliable advice. 
 Monsieur Girard, however, was in New York 
 at the time, and was not expected home for a 
 month. 
 
 The French refugees flocked in from all 
 sides, and soon reached the number of four to 
 five hundred. In several consecutive meetings 
 the general explained his plan, and promised 
 to defray the expenses of those emigrants who 
 should consent to go. The Comte de Sur- 
 villiers (the King Joseph Bonaparte, eldest 
 brother of the emperor), who was at that time 
 in Philadelphia, fully approved of the plan of 
 colonizing Texas, and contributed a large sum 
 of money towards the incidental expenses of 
 the expedition. 
 
 The general's eager and enthusiastic manner 
 quickly won to his side all the subaltern offi- 
 cers, but among the generals, Rigaud alone 
 acquiesced in the idea, the others declaring the 
 whole thing immature, hazardous, and ill- 
 timed. For my part, I was enthusiastically in 
 its favor, and quite reprobated the generals'
 
 54 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 
 
 opinion. I immediately put my name on the 
 list of those who were ready to leave at once, 
 and only regretted that our departure could 
 not take place the very next day. Monsieur 
 Tournel ravely and coolly tried to make me 
 see things in a more reasonable light. 
 
 " Without quite agreeing with some of your 
 generals, who think the undertaking a folly, I 
 yet think that we should not act too precipi- 
 tately, else we might be disappointed. Gen- 
 eral Rigaud, who believes in the plan, would 
 almost induce me to accept his presence as a 
 guarantee of success, being as he is an old colo- 
 nist of San Domingo, and therefore more fitted 
 to judge of such a question and its chances of 
 success. But I should have been glad if he 
 had been the first to start with a few old fami- 
 lies, old colonists who would have chosen 
 proper spots for cultivation, and open the way 
 for those who, having less experience, might 
 easily make mistakes in the beginning of agri- 
 cultural pursuits, to which they are less used 
 than to a military career." 
 
 " I should be quite of your opinion," I an- 
 swered, " if we were in a position to proceed 
 with so much method, which in an undertak-
 
 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 55 
 
 ing of this kind is certainly the surest gauge 
 of success. But how can the greater number of 
 our men wait to take such precautions? I 
 do not speak of myself, who, thanks to you, 
 have not squandered my little all, but of my 
 comrades, who are nearly all of them absolute- 
 ly penniless or sunk in forced idleness, which, 
 except eating the bread of charity, is the most 
 tormenting thing that can gall the human 
 soul. Nothing is left them but a speedy de- 
 parture for a land where their fate will be 
 changed, or where, if their condition is not 
 bettered, at least their noble efforts to leave 
 their present irksome condition will be heard 
 of and appreciated." 
 
 " You are right," said Monsieur Tournel, after 
 a few moments' thought ; " if I were placed in 
 the same position as the generality of your 
 comrades, I should act as they are acting ; but 
 you, who, as you said a little while ago, have 
 got something left, and, I might add, friends 
 who will be sorry to see you go, why are you 
 in such a hurry ? are you very anxious to leave 
 us?" 
 
 " How can you think it !" I cried ; " I have 
 found under your hospitable roof more than
 
 56 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 
 
 mere shelter ; I have found a family, for I look 
 upon you as my father, your wife reminds me 
 of my mother, your children are my brothers, 
 and the memory of your kindness will never 
 leave me to my dying day. Still I could not 
 live forever with you, and if I put off my de- 
 parture any longer I shall but render the in- 
 evitable separation more painful still. Be- 
 sides, I have promised my old comrades in 
 arms to be of their party, and th6y are all 
 bound for the first ship that sails ; I cannot 
 break my word. But I hope we shall all meet 
 you there some day, for you do not mean to give 
 up your plan of joining us in Texas, do you ?" 
 
 " No, indeed I shall not give it up, and it- 
 was for that reason that I wished you to wait 
 till I went ; but if you are bound to your old 
 friends, of course you cannot break your word, 
 and you shall not find me the man to advise 
 you to do such a thing. After all, now I come 
 to think of it, perhaps it is best so : you sol- 
 diers will march in the van and be our pio- 
 neers, and when you shall have securely got 
 possession of the territory, agriculturists will 
 follow peaceably in your wake to cultivate it." 
 
 While the preparations for our departure
 
 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 57 
 
 were being made at Philadelphia, I returned to 
 Baltimore with Monsieur Tournel to take leave 
 of my friends and settle my own affairs. I 
 wanted to draw all my capital and take it with 
 me, but, according to Monsieur Tournel's ad- 
 vice, I only took five hundred dollars to pay my 
 part of the expenses of the journey and of the 
 equipment of the ship. I left the rest in the 
 bank. " You have enough for the present," 
 said my provident friend, " and will find the 
 rest all safe when you happen to need it, and 
 then you will see how wise is the old saw, 
 ' You should always leave one pear on the 
 tree in case you might be thirsty again.' " 
 
 It was not without heartfelt emotion, nor 
 without a promise to meet them again as soon 
 as possible, that I left the kind and excellent 
 family of my host.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 DEPARTURE FROM PHILADELPHIA ARRIVAL AT 
 
 GALVESTON TEMPORARY STAY ON AN ISL- 
 AND THE PIRATE LAFITTE THE RIO 
 
 TRINIDAD SETTLEMENT OF CAMP ASYLUM- 
 FIRST TROUBLES MILITARY ORGANIZATION 
 
 OF THE SETTLERS FORTS AND TRENCHES 
 
 MANIFESTO OF THE CAMP ASYLUM REFU- 
 GEES ITS EFFECT IN EUROPE SUBSCRIPTION 
 
 FOR THE REFUGEES OCCUPATIONS OF THE 
 
 SETTLERS MONSIEUR COLLIN HIS PLANS 
 
 I GIVE HIM A LETTER TO MONSIEUR TOURNEL 
 
 CAMP LIFE AMUSEMENTS TREATY WITH 
 
 THE INDIANS GENERAL LALLEMAND CHOSEN 
 
 " GREAT CHIEF" BALL GIVEN TO THE IN- 
 HABITANTS OF SAN ANTONIO DE BEJAR. 
 
 GENERAL LALLEMAND had chartered a schoo- 
 ner, which was provisioned for four or five hun- 
 dred men. The cargo consisted of six guns, six 
 hundred muskets, four hundred sabres, and 
 twelve thousand pounds of powder, bought 
 partly with the voluntary contributions of those
 
 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 59 
 
 among us who yet had funds of their own, and 
 partly with a donation of the king, Joseph 
 Bonaparte. The emperor's brother had dis- 
 tributed, over and above his public gift, several 
 sums of money intended to pay the debts of 
 the subaltern officers, and free them from all 
 annoyance. Thus was the ex-King of Spain 
 solicitous for the honor of the French name, 
 for he would not even have it said that the 
 exiles had left debts behind them. 
 
 Our craft was an American schooner called 
 the Huntress, and her cargo, as we have al- 
 ready hinted, seemed rather fitted for a military 
 raid than for the settlement of an agricultural 
 colony. 
 
 We left Philadelphia on the 1 7th of Decem- 
 ber, 1817, and on the i5th of January, 1818, 
 we anchored off Galveston, our chosen rendez- 
 vous. We landed our stores on the island, 
 and made a temporary camp, where we deter- 
 mined to await the arrival of General Lallemand 
 the elder, who was at New Orleans buying 
 agricultural implements, plants and seeds, pro- 
 visions of a miscellaneous kind, etc. The 
 island of Galveston, which now bears an im- 
 portant city, and is the Episcopal See of Texas,
 
 60 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 
 
 was at that time only a barren, sandy wilder- 
 ness, wholly without resources of its own. We 
 built cabins of reeds and of the spars we found 
 on the island, and dug a deep trench round the 
 camp to protect it against the aggressions of 
 the mainland Indians, or, in case of need, 
 against the pirates, of whose disposition toward 
 us we were yet ignorant, and who inhabited 
 that part of the island in which they stored 
 their booty. 
 
 The pirates were under the leadership of 
 Lafitte, a French sailor who had distinguished 
 himself during the war of the Empire by the 
 number of prizes he had captured from the 
 English. Since peace had been proclaimed in 
 Europe, he had offered his services to the 
 revolted Spanish colonies, and under their flag, 
 and in the name of freedom, pillaged every 
 Spanish craft that he fell in with. These fili- 
 busters, for such indeed they were, were gath- 
 ered from among all the nations of the earth, 
 and seemed determined to put in practice the 
 traditions of the buccaneers of old. They gave 
 themselves up to the most shameless debauch- 
 ery and disgusting immorality, and only their 
 chief, with his extraordinary strength of limb
 
 ^VENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 6l 
 
 and his indomitable resolution, had the slightest 
 control over their wild and savage natures. 
 Thanks to him, the pirates became harmless 
 neighbors to the exiles, with whom they often 
 interchanged marks of political sympathy, 
 crying amicably, " Long Live Liberty !" 
 
 On the 20th of March, 1818 (this date is 
 memorable), General Lallemand and a hundred 
 more emigrants from New Orleans at last 
 appeared before Galveston. He found his old 
 comrades, though wearied, by no means dis- 
 couraged, and eager to go on in their perilous 
 undertaking. 
 
 On the 24th we took to sea again in ten 
 large boats bought from the pirates. One of 
 them, carried out to sea by a strong under- 
 current, was swamped, and of her crew of six 
 men, only Monsieur Chenet, formerly an in- 
 fantry lieutenant in the Old Guard, was saved. 
 It was a gloomy omen of the many misfortunes 
 that awaited us ! 
 
 We ascended the Rio Trinidad undc/ the 
 guidance of some Indians with whom we had 
 already established friendly relations, thanks to 
 a few bottles of rum and some knives and 
 muskets. These Indians, who hated the Span-
 
 62 ADVENTURES Of A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 
 
 iards, had a kindly remembrance of the French, 
 whom they had known in the neighboring 
 State of Louisiana. They seemed glad to be 
 able to do us a service. After several days we 
 landed on an immense uninhabited plain, sev- 
 eral leagues in extent, and surrounded by a belt 
 of woods down to the very edge of the river. 
 A fruitful soil, an abundance of tropical plants 
 and flowers, a river as wide as the Seine, but 
 full of alligators, a sky as pure and a climate as 
 temperate as that of Naples such were the 
 advantages of the place we had chosen, and 
 which we now christened " Camp Asylum." 
 
 Our first days here were not devoid of hard- 
 ships. The colony was obliged to protect itself 
 against wild beasts and reptiles, especially the 
 rattlesnakes, which abound in those parts, while, 
 as if to make things worse, the boats bringing 
 the stores from Galveston to Camp Asylum 
 were delayed on the road, so that we suffered 
 all the torments of hunger for a whole week. 
 At last the boats came safely to land, and the 
 Choctaws and other tribes poured in to visit 
 
 
 
 the camps. We Frenchmen are light-hearted 
 beings, and soon merriment and hope regained 
 the upper hand amongst us. We began tc
 
 ADVENTURES OF A FRFNCH CYPTAIN. 63 
 
 oelieve in ourselves once more, and proceeded 
 to organize our settlement. Three divisions 
 \vere formed infantry, cavalry, and artillery, for 
 we thought nothing but a military government 
 could be trusted to endure. Fortifications 
 were built to protect the camp against the in- 
 roads of the Spaniards or Indians. They con- 
 sisted of two little forts, called respectively Fort 
 Napoleon and Fort Lallemand, each surrounded 
 by a trench two yards deep, and communicating 
 with one another by means of a covered way 
 that effectually protected all the ground over 
 which our settlement had spread. 
 
 While busy with these preliminaries, we often 
 met in council before Generals Lallemand and 
 Bigard to hear and discuss divers propositions 
 as to our organization. Nothing was allowed 
 to become law before we had all deliberated 
 upon it. One of the first measures proposed 
 was the publication of a manifesto setting forth 
 our peaceable intentions, and our wish to open 
 friendly intercourse with all our neighbors. 
 This manifesto, translated into English and 
 Spanish, was sent to the United States and to 
 Europe, where it was copied into all the papers 
 of the day. Here is an abstract of it :
 
 64 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 
 
 "CAMP ASYLUM, TEXAS, May u, 1818. 
 
 " Gathered together by a series of similar 
 misfortunes, which have first driven us from 
 our homes and then scattered us abroad in va- 
 rious lands, we have now resolved to seek an 
 asylum where we can remember our misfortunes 
 in order to profit by them. We see before us 
 a vast extent of territory, at present uninhab- 
 ited by civilized mankind, and the extreme 
 limits of which are in possession of Indian- 
 tribes who, caring for nothing but the chase, 
 leave these broad acres uncultivated. Strong 
 in adversity, we claim the first right given by 
 God to man that of settling in this country, 
 clearing it, and using the produce which nature 
 never refuses to the patient laborer. 
 
 "We attack no one, and harbor no warlike in- 
 tentions. We ask peace and friendship from all 
 those who surround us, and we shall be grate- 
 ful for the slightest token of their good-will. 
 We shall respect the laws, religion, and customs 
 of our civilized neighbors ; we shall equally re- 
 spect the independence and customs of the 
 Indian tribes, whom we engage not to molest 
 in their hunts or in any other exercise peculiar 
 to them. We shall establish neighborly rela-
 
 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 65 
 
 tions with all such as shall approach us, and 
 also, if possible, trading relations. Our be- 
 havior will be peaceable, active, and industri- 
 ous ; we shall do our utmost to make ourselves 
 useful, and to render good for good. But if it 
 should appear that our settlement be not re- 
 spected, and that persecution should seek us 
 out, even in the wilds in which we have taken 
 refuge, no reasonable man will find fault with 
 us for resisting it. We shall be ready to de- 
 vote ourselves'to the defence of our settlement. 
 Our resolve is taken beforehand. We are 
 armed, as the necessity of our position requires 
 that we should be, and as men in similar cir- 
 cumstances have always been. The land we 
 have come to reclaim will either witness our suc- 
 cess or our death. We wish to live here honor- 
 ably and in freedom, or to find a grave which 
 the justice of man will hereafter decree to be 
 that of heroes. We have the right, however, 
 to expect a more fortunate result, and our first 
 care shall be to deserve general approbation by 
 laying down the principles by which we mean 
 to steer our bark. 
 
 " We shall call the new settlement Camp 
 Asylum. This name, while it reminds us of
 
 00 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 
 
 our misfortunes, will likewise express the ne- 
 cessity of providing for our future, of establish- 
 ing new hearths and homes in a word, of creat- 
 ing a new Fatherland. The colony, which will 
 be purely agricultural and commercial in princi- 
 ple, will be military solely for its own protec- 
 tion ; it will be divided into three companies, 
 each under a chief, who will be bound to keep a 
 register of the names of those forming this com- 
 pany. A general register, compiled from the 
 three partial ones, will be kept, at the central 
 de*pot of the colony. The companies will each be 
 gathered together in one place in order the bet- 
 ter to avoid attacks from the outside, and to live 
 peaceably under the eye of authority. A code 
 of laws will be drawn up at once, which will 
 secure personal liberty and the immunity of 
 property, repress injustice, and maintain peace 
 among the good, while it will make void the 
 plans of the evil." 
 
 This proclamation made a great noise in 
 Europe, and, above all, in France, exciting the 
 admiration of the liberals and the sneers of the 
 opposite party. The Minerva, a fortnightly 
 review of the day, immediately opened a sub- 
 scription list for the settlers, A hundred
 
 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 67 
 
 thousand francs were subscribed, of which not 
 a penny ever reached us. In addition to this, 
 there was the wrong produced by the sale of a 
 pamphlet, by Monsieur Shiritiar, published by 
 Ladrocat, which went through two editions, 
 and was intended for the benefit of the refu- 
 gees. Before the close of the subscription, 
 Camp Asylum had been already broken up, 
 and its members scattered to the four winds of 
 heaven. What became of the money is a 
 question that still remains unsolved. While 
 party spirit in France now aided, now abused 
 us, the people's poet, Beranger, sang of us in 
 these words : 
 
 " Noble wrecks of honor's field 
 Cultivate the field of shelter." 
 
 What were we actually doing in distant 
 Texas? Far from cultivating our fields, we 
 were, alas ! only digging trenches, and this bar- 
 ren work occupied the whole four or five 
 months of our stay in Texas. We had no men 
 among us with a taste for, or skilled in, agricul- 
 ture ; above all, we had not men enough to under- 
 take any thing on a large scale, so that we were 
 unable to do any thing seriously tending toward
 
 68 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 
 
 a permanent settlement. It is true that a few 
 of the San Domingo colonists had joined our 
 number, but many of them, either through in^ 
 capacity or laziness, had long vegetated at 
 Charleston or Mobile, and having only joined 
 us in the forlorn hope of bettering themselves, 
 were in such absolute destitution that, far from 
 being any help to us, they were only a burden. 
 Others had been employed by rich Americans 
 on their sugar or cotton plantations in Louisi- 
 ana or the Carolinas. The few of this category 
 who had answered our appeal were indeed 
 competent to direct profitable undertakings, 
 but we lacked hands for the work, and most 
 of these men, having assured themselves of the 
 impracticability of our plan, left us at once and 
 returned to their former employers. 
 
 I had made friends with one of these, who 
 had known Monsieur Tournel at San Domingo. 
 His name was Collin ; he was manager of a 
 plantation forty miles from New Orleans, and 
 on the shores of the Mississippi, belonging to 
 a rich Louisianian, himself of French extrac- 
 tion. His employer, who took a great 
 interest in our undertaking, had not only con- 
 sented to let Collin join us, but had promised,
 
 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 69 
 
 in case of our possible success, to furnish 
 negroes, mules, and implements, on condition 
 of receiving a reasonable share of the profits of 
 the new plantations. 
 
 Collin said to me one day, after a deliberate 
 survey of the ground and a patient examination 
 into our resources : 
 
 " I do not believe that there is under the 
 sun a richer and more fruitful soil than this, 
 and it would be a pity if through the incapacity 
 of the settlers these advantages should be lost. 
 I am convinced that something can be done, 
 and I do not mean to give up the undertaking 
 altogether, as many of my colleagues have done, 
 believing in the impossibility of success. I 
 shall go home to my employer, and if I suc- 
 ceed in finding a capable and honest partner, I 
 shall return with means to make a proper 
 settlement. If you like to join us, there is 
 plenty of room for three to grow rich on such 
 an enterprise as I have in my mind's eye." 
 
 I told him that I should very much like to 
 do so, and at the same time recommended 
 Monsieur Tournel as a fit partner. He acqui- 
 esced in my views, saying that Monsieur Tour- 
 nel was a prudent man, perfectly well suited to
 
 /O ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 
 
 embark in such a partnership. He told me, 
 moreover, that he would go direct to Baltimore 
 and see Tournel in person, before he returned 
 to his employer in Louisiana. I did my best to 
 encourage him in this resolution, and gave him 
 a letter for Monsieur Tournel, in which I 
 begged my friend to give ear to Collin's pro- 
 posal, and perform his promise to meet me as 
 soon as possible. " Up to this," I wrote, " our 
 settlement is altogether military and not agri- 
 cultural, but it is quite capable of protecting 
 the agriculturists who may come out to us. 
 This assured safety is one of the most indis- 
 pensable conditions of the success of a rural 
 and industrial colony. Your example will de- 
 termine others, and your experience will direct 
 us in a road for which our former education 
 and habits have till now unfitted us." I 
 ended by asking him to draw all my money 
 from the Maryland Bank, that it might serve 
 as my contribution to the funds of our new 
 settlement. Monsieur Collin left us the first 
 week in June, promising to write as soon as 
 possible. 
 
 I felt very lonely after his departure. We 
 tvere all getting weary of inaction, and our
 
 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. /I 
 
 camp life was insufferably monotonous. We 
 hardly allowed ourselves even the pleasure or 
 excitement of a hunt, though game was abun- 
 dant, and if we did, it was with the greatest 
 circumspection or in large parties, as it was 
 feared that the Comanches or the Pawnees 
 would not have scrupled to scalp isolated in- 
 dividuals had any one ventured out alone with 
 his gun. The camp was as severely guarded as 
 it might have been in the days of the Empire. 
 The battalion officers were but common officers 
 according to their real grade, and the captains 
 were lieutenants or sub-lieutenants for the 
 nonce ; those in their turn had become non- 
 commissioned officers, while the quartermasters, 
 sergeants, and other inferior officers had become 
 privates. This was, to say the least, a disagree- 
 able state of things. 
 
 As we had very little special knowledge 
 outside our profession, we took to drill and 
 military manoeuvres as a pastime, after our work 
 in the trenches was done. We had one com- 
 mon mess, and bivouacked as it we were in an 
 enemy's country, except the generals, two or 
 three superior officers, and the -women, for 
 whom we had built large and not uncomfort-
 
 72 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 
 
 able cabins. A large fire was kept up all night 
 to frighten away wild beasts, and round this we 
 each spent part of the night, telling and listen- 
 ing to all kinds of tales. We called the fire 
 the Palais Royal, and the gossippers the hum- 
 ming-birds. (The arcades of this building in 
 Paris are the resort of all the loungers and 
 gossippers of the town.) The French mind is 
 always the same, under all circumstances, grave 
 or gay ! Sometimes General Lallemand would 
 join the circle and entertain the veterans 
 gathered under his sway with some scraps of 
 his last conversations with the great emperor. 
 
 Often, under the influence of the general's 
 eager talk, his hearers would indulge in the 
 wildest dreams and imagine the most impossi- 
 ble combinations. At such times the settle- 
 ment of Texas seemed far enough from their 
 thoughts. They were eager to serve under the 
 Mexican flag and help that countiy to throw 
 off the Spanish yoke, after which they could 
 easily persuade the Mexicans to give them a 
 fast sailer, with which they would storm the 
 island of St. Helena, carry off the emperor in 
 triumph, and crown him Emperor of Mexico. 
 . . . Thus, indeed, the burning imaginations
 
 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 73 
 
 of these brave men would run away with them 
 to that degree that it would be impossible to 
 keep pace with their vagaries. 
 
 But even these amusements were inter- 
 wrought to disguise from us the growing 
 precariousness of our position. General Lalle- 
 mand then thought of giving us an entertain- 
 ment of his own invention. He had just 
 concluded a treaty of alliance with the Indian 
 tribes the Choctaws, the Comanches, and 
 others whose names I have forgotten. These 
 tribes, some of which had been rather hostile 
 to us at first, had gradually understood our 
 peaceable intention, and often visited us now, 
 selling us fruit and game for an equivalent 
 in brandy or beads, etc. The treaty was 
 solemnly ratified We were armed cap-a-pie to 
 do honor to the chiefs, who had donned their 
 most ceremonial costume. They had added to 
 their majestic red blankets helmets with nod- 
 ding feathers, wampum belts, tin necklaces and 
 breastplates, rings hanging from their necks, 
 cars, and nose, and, disgusting to relate, their 
 favorite trophies of scalps hanging from their 
 girdle. Some idea may be formed of their
 
 74 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 
 
 strange appearance when I say that besides 
 this paraphernalia, their faces, arms, and chests 
 were painted in odd patterns and staring 
 colors. 
 
 A great deal of rum was distributed during 
 the ceremony, and the Indians gradually got 
 excited ; their native gravity of demeanor gave 
 place to eager protestations and warm declara- 
 tions of esteem and good-will, and at last, in 
 their spurious enthusiasm, they chose General 
 Lallemand as their "great chief." He made no 
 objection to accepting the dignity, and allowed 
 himself very seriously to be invested with the 
 appropriate insignia of his new honors. This 
 rather grotesque ceremony cost us many bottles 
 of rum, which the Indians daily came in to 
 drink in honor of their new allies and brethrea 
 
 A few days later we enjoyed another enter- 
 tainment, which we relished better than the 
 Indian farce. We gave a ball on the occasion 
 of Mademoiselle Bigard's birthday (the gen- 
 eral's daughter), and invited the principal 
 inhabitants of the neighboring town of San 
 Antonio de Bejar, formerly the capital of the 
 province. Every one, men and women, came
 
 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 75 
 
 at our call. The gathering presented the most 
 motley array of whites, half-breeds, and even 
 Indians; this crew seemed to me a burlesque 
 representation of the principle of equality. 
 Our guests spoke nothing but Spanish, but as 
 we had nearly all served in the Peninsula, we 
 knew Spanish pretty well, and found no trouble 
 in understanding them. 
 
 This ball was followed by two or three more, 
 only less crowded. These gatherings were 
 not mere pleasure parties ; they also served a 
 diplomatic end. The Texans of Bejar, Bohio, 
 and Goliad, as of some other neighboring set- 
 tlements, had long been dissatisfied with the 
 Spanish yoke, which they had twice unsuccess- 
 fully endeavored to shake off. Beaten and 
 conquered, they had seen this country given 
 up to the tender mercies of Spanish garrisons 
 quartered at Nacogdoches and other places. 
 When we came among them, the Texans 
 hoped that we should at least prove useful 
 auxiliaries, and they gladly took the opportu^ 
 nity of making acquaintance with us, to learn 
 our intentions and see if they could depend 
 upon us. These friendly relations soon raised
 
 76 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 
 
 suspicion in the minds of the Spanish authori- 
 ties, and the Texan colonists received peremp- 
 tory orders to cease their intercourse with our 
 camp, under heavy penalties in case of dis- 
 obedience.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 SAD CONDITION OF THE COLONY MONSIEUR 
 
 TOURNEL'S LETTER TREATY BETWEEN SPAIN 
 
 AND THE UNITED STATES THE POLICY OF 
 
 THE TWO GOVERNMENTS EXPULSION OF THE 
 
 FRENCH FROM CAMP ASYLUM RETREAT TO 
 
 GALVESTON SUFFERINGS OF THE COLONISTS 
 
 SICKNESS STORM IN THE GULF OF MEXICO 
 
 AND INUNDATION OF THE ISLAND DANGERS 
 
 RUN BY THE SETTLERS DEPARTURE OF THE 
 
 SICK FOR NEW ORLEANS 1 LEAVE WITH SOME 
 
 OF THE SETTLERS, INTENDING TO REACH LOUIS- 
 IANA BY LAND FATE OF THOSE WHO HAD 
 
 GONE BY SEA MARENGO COUNTY AND EAGLES- 
 
 VILLE ON THE TOMBIGBEE FINAL DISPER' 
 
 SIGN OF THE REFUGEES OF CAMP ASYLUM. 
 
 HERE we were once more left to ourselves, 
 without amusements or occupations, without 
 news either from Europe or from the States. 
 To cap all, many fell sick, either of home-sick- 
 ness 01 through their unaccustomed hardships 
 and labors in this tropical clime.
 
 ?8 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 
 
 We looked sadly and despondingly for the 
 return of our comrades, which would have 
 cheered us and given us new strength where- 
 with to fall to work and clear and cultivate 
 our fields, but, like Sister Anne in the tale of 
 " Blue Beard," we saw nothing coming. After a 
 weary month, there came at last a boat sent by 
 the pirate Lafitte, bringing us provisions of a 
 different sort from what we had, and a ^rge 
 collection of European and American news- 
 papers, besides letters. I got a letter from 
 Monsieur Tournel, in answer to that which 
 Monsieur Collin had taken to him from me. 
 I need not say how I devoured it ; I was in 
 hopes of finding in it an echo of my own pleas- 
 ant anticipations, but there was instead nothing 
 but disappointment in store for me. I have 
 never forgotten the following passages : 
 
 " Monsieur Collin has executed your com- 
 mission and dwelt at length upon the plan of 
 a threefold partnership of which I am to be a 
 member, and which is to undertake a settle- 
 ment in Texas. The idea has always been 
 pleasant to me, and I was glad to see it 
 adopted by a man of so practical a nature as 
 Monsieur Collin. I had begun to think seriously
 
 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 79 
 
 of his proposal and to calculate upon the 
 means of carrying it out, when we were startled 
 by most unexpected news. An article in 
 one of the American papers gave out that a 
 definitive treaty had been entered into by the 
 United States and Spain, regulating the exact 
 limits of their respective possessions. The 
 Sabine River was henceforth to become the 
 boundary between Louisiana and Texas, and 
 the American Government formally gave up 
 all claims to the latter province. 
 
 " It follows that Camp Asylum is now in the 
 midst of Spanish territory, and is at the mercy 
 of the Spanish Government, while no clause of 
 the treaty stipulates for the slightest immunity 
 of the French refugees. They are not even 
 mentioned, and the document would lead one 
 to suppose that they were non-existent. 
 Nevertheless, I am persuaded that it is they 
 alone who have been the cause of this new 
 treaty, and that although your name is pur- 
 posely omitted in the terms of the alliance, a 
 secret article has been prepared, which will 
 serve to give you over to a hard fate. 
 
 " It is known that your settlement, far from 
 increasing by the influx of new bodies of im-
 
 80 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 
 
 migrants, is daily dwindling into insignificance, 
 and becoming less and less capable of resist- 
 ance. Spain will send a sufficient force to dis- 
 lodge you, and the American Government will 
 officially notify you that, being out of their juris- 
 diction, they can do nothing to protect you ; 
 but that if you will return within the frontiers, 
 they will give you land to clear at a proper 
 distance from the Spanish settlements. 
 
 " In a word, my dear friend, your settlement 
 of Camp Asylum is doomed, and jthere is no 
 hope of even a reprieve. You will ask me how 
 can the United States Government so disgrace 
 itself as to give up to Ferdinand VII. unof- 
 fending exiles whom it has sworn to protect ? 
 
 " Know, then, that diplomacy ignores senti- 
 ment and is based upon interest, and that our 
 young American Republic follows in the wake 
 of the selfish old monarchical diplomacy of 
 Europe. 
 
 " Allow me to suggest that your chiefs are 
 also somewhat to blame in the matter. They 
 have found a suitable place for a colony ; why 
 could they not occupy it quietly without rous- 
 ing the ill-will and suspicion of the Spanish 
 authorities ? But, instead of that, they address
 
 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 8l 
 
 a blustering note to the Court of Madrid, and, 
 in spite of the ominous silence of the court, 
 boldly carry out their plan and hardly reach 
 their destination before they again publish a 
 manifesto through whose fair words runs a 
 thread of subdued hostility. Either they should 
 not have perpetrated a ridiculous boast of this 
 sort, or they should have been fully prepared to 
 make it good. 
 
 " Any man of common-sense would have fore- 
 seen what has happened in consequence. The 
 noise produced by the manifesto in Europe, 
 the formation of a military colony on the fron- 
 tiers of a country already disaffected toward 
 Spain, roused the suspicion of Ferdinand VII.'s 
 government. They saw in your presence 
 an additional thorn in their side, and have 
 taken speedy measures to get rid of you. 
 
 " The lands on which you had settled were 
 claimed both by Spain and the United States. 
 Negotiations had long been pending on the 
 subject; Spain now hastened to clinch them, 
 and has obtained, whether by commercial or 
 other concessions I know not (since this be- 
 longs to the secret part of the treaty), the with- 
 drawal of the equivocal claims of the United
 
 82 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 
 
 States on this part of Texas, and the 
 standing that the Sabine River shall henceforth 
 be the boundary between the two powers. 
 
 " Should you complain of this arrangement 
 as a violation of the right of sanctuary, the 
 American Government might easily reply thus : 
 ' In what have we violated your right ? We 
 offered, and still offer, to protect and harbor 
 you, but only within the limits of our own 
 States, not beyond our frontier. We did not 
 wish or urge you to go to Texas, and your 
 position as political exiles, sacred as it may be, 
 cannot be used as a pretext for involving us in 
 quarrels with our neighbors and allies.' 
 
 " Such is the position of affairs ; illusion is no 
 longer possible, and the end will be attained by 
 the time this letter reaches you. Let your 
 generals know of this, if they have not already 
 learned it, so that they may take the measures 
 requisite under these circumstances, and, above 
 all, may not offer a useless resistance, the re- 
 sponsibility of which would lay wholly at their 
 doors. 
 
 " As for yourself, my dear friend, pray make 
 haste to return to us ; we can easily find some 
 suitable place for you, the hardships you have
 
 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 83 
 
 undergone having disposed your friends more 
 than ever in your favor. Monsieur Collin is 
 still here, and cannot leave for Louisiana for a 
 few days to come ; he and I often speak of 
 you. When he talks to me about Texas arid 
 of the resources of that beautiful country, I 
 cannot help regretting the failure or, let me 
 say the adjournment of our hopes ; for, despite 
 what has taken place just now, I do not de- 
 spair of seeing our plans realized one of these 
 days. But, in order to succeed, we will go to 
 work differently from the unlucky founders of 
 Camp Asylum." 
 
 " P. S. Under these circumstances I did 
 not deem it advisable to draw your capital 
 from the bank, and, accordingly, I send you a 
 small loan of two hundred dollars, which we 
 can settle for on your return to Baltimore." 
 
 The newspapers accompanying this letter 
 confirmed the discouraging news which it held. 
 It was now known all through the camp ; many 
 of us had learned it through their correspond- 
 ents, and, indeed, our generals had known it 
 some days before, but had preferred to hold 
 their tongues about it until it should be more 
 definitely corroborated. As Monsieur Tournel
 
 84 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 
 
 truly said, the end was near at hand. Our In- 
 dian allies and some inhabitants of Bejar came 
 during the day to tell us that a Spanish detach- 
 ment was already on its way to attack us. It 
 consisted of twelve hundred infantry, three hun- 
 dred cavalry, and several pieces of ordnance. 
 It was rapidly nearing us. We had only two 
 hundred men capable of bearing arms ; the rest 
 were sick or disabled, but, notwithstanding this 
 disparity of numbers, we determined to repulse 
 the foe, to fight them gallantly or die like 
 Frenchmen, as General Lallemand pithily ex- 
 pressed it. The Spanish general, however, 
 whether prevented by secret orders from tak- 
 ing the initiative, or determined to draw a cor- 
 don round us, merely camped his troops within 
 three days' march of our camp, and waited till 
 disease and discouragement should undermine 
 our not very formidable body. This man- 
 oeuvre could not but be successful in the long- 
 run, and the Spanish general soon reaped its 
 consequences. 
 
 Meanwhile no help came either from Europe 
 or from the United States, and we could not 
 fight an enemy that seemed determined not to 
 attack us, and then we, on the other hand, were
 
 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 83 
 
 too weak to attack. We were obliged to beat 
 a retreat, which we accomplished in good or- 
 der, experiencing no molestation at the hands 
 of the Spaniards, and no remonstrances from 
 the Indians, who, with supreme indifference, 
 witnessed the departure of their " great chief," 
 General Lallemand. The boats that we had 
 were enough to take us down the river Trini- 
 dad as far as the island of Galveston, where we 
 established ourselves for the second time. 
 
 The island, or rather sand-bank, was not as 
 healthy as the shores of the river we had left 
 behind us. We had scarcely landed when all 
 the evils of those tropical climates scurvy, 
 dysentery, and fever broke out amongst us, 
 and gradually assumed a very serious character. 
 General Lallemand was solicited by the Great 
 Council, composed of twenty-four members, to 
 go to New Orleans to buy medicine and pro- 
 visions, as well as to beg for help. He left the 
 following day with two aides-de-camp. Many 
 of our number would have been too glad to ac- 
 company him, but there was only room for a 
 few passengers, and we were obliged to restrain 
 our impatience. The general kindly took our 
 correspondence with him, and I took advan-
 
 86 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 
 
 tage of this opportunity to write again to Mon- 
 sieur Tournel. 
 
 A few days after the general's departure an 
 awful calamity visited us. It was autumn, and 
 the equinoctial gales were blowing ; storms are 
 very frequent in the Gulf, of Mexico in that 
 season. A fearful hurricane swept over the' sea 
 on the s8th of September, lashing the waves 
 mountain-high and driving them over the 
 island, so that our camp was speedily under 
 water to the height of eight or nine feet. As 
 the flood increased on the shore, we retired in- 
 land to the more hilly portion of the island, 
 where two solid log cabins had been built. 
 For three days and three nights we sat in these 
 cabins entrenching ourselves against the fury 
 of the elements. Our danger was imminent, 
 and we owed our safety only to our unremit- 
 ting efforts in keeping aloof, with oars and 
 poles, the trunks of uprooted trees and spars 
 of wrecks which the water flung up against our 
 cabin. At last the storm subsided, the sea re- 
 tired, and we were no longer in danger of 
 drowning, but our slender resources were gone 
 forever ; our food and powder had all been 
 swept away.
 
 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 8/ 
 
 The pirate Lafitte again came to our aid, 
 but all he could do was of little permanent 
 good to us. Misfortune and idleness had done 
 their work, and sowed dissension in our midst 
 to such a degree, that I believe, had this state 
 of things lasted much longer, we should have 
 quarrelled among ourselves. After two months 
 of agonizing suspense, we received news from 
 General Lallemand to the effect that all hope 
 of founding a colony in Texas was at an end, 
 but that Congress had offered to give us 
 a grant of land in Alabama, on the Tombig- 
 bee, and that we had better make haste and 
 join him (the General) at New Orleans. 
 
 To leave our present shelter was sooner said 
 than done, though every one was delighted at 
 the idea of leaving the island. We required 
 some means of transport, and this was just 
 what General Lallemand had forgotten to send 
 us. The pirate Lafitte came to our help once 
 more. He sold us a small craft, unfortunately 
 so small that it would only hold the sick ; as 
 for those in good health, it was settled that 
 they should await the return of the little bark, 
 unless they preferred starting for Louisiana 
 overland, in which case Lafitte offered to take
 
 88 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 
 
 them across to the mainland, which was only 
 four miles distant. 
 
 Many of us, and myself among the number, 
 gladly caught at this plan. We should have 
 had to wait at least a month before we could 
 expect the ship back from New Orleans, and 
 even then all could not have been stowed on 
 board at once. We should have been com- 
 pelled to draw lots to see who would have the 
 chance of being first, and, for my part at least, 
 I infinitely preferred the risks and fatigues of 
 an overland journey to the dismal prospect of 
 two or three months' stay in this ill-fated 
 island. About sixty of our number adopted 
 the same determination, but as Lafitte could 
 not take us all across at once, and as, besides, 
 such a numerous caravan might have attract- 
 ed too much attention on the part of the 
 Spanish authorities, we settled to leave in two 
 distinct bands, at some days' interval between 
 the two. 
 
 I started with the first detachment, which 
 numbered twenty-five men. Thanks to La- 
 fitte's friendly relations with the Indians of the 
 coast, we were able to procure horses and 
 guides to take us to Nacogdoches, a military
 
 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 89 
 
 post not far from our old settlement of Camp 
 Asylum. But before I come to the history 
 of my journey, I must tell you briefly what 
 became of our comrades who had started by 
 sea, and of those whom we left on the island 
 of Galveston. The first, after a rough passage 
 of more than a fortnight, landed at New 
 Orleans, where the yellow fever was then 
 raging. They had scarcely left the ship when 
 nearly all fell victims to this terrible disease. 
 
 The rest arrived in the same city a month 
 afterward. Some of them were cut down by 
 the " black vomit ;" others found opportunities 
 of procuring a passage back to France, and a 
 very few started together for the Tombigbee, 
 where it was expected that a new attempt 
 would be made to found a colony. 
 
 The ill-success of the Texan undertaking 
 made General Lallemand shy of joining a new 
 one, and, accordingly, General Lefebvre- 
 Desnouettes took charge of the ne\vly- 
 organized expedition. The settlement was 
 called the State, or, rather, county of Maren- 
 go. The ground-plan of a country town was 
 laid out, and the place called Eaglesville, 
 its principal streets being called after the
 
 gO ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 
 
 battles which refugees had helped to win. The 
 town barely had any existence, save on paper. 
 Most of the Frenchmen who settled in Maren- 
 go County chose rather to live at Alabama 
 and other hamlets of the neighborhood, and as 
 soon as they could go home, they hastened to 
 get rid of their land at the lowest prices, to pay 
 their passage to France. The few who remain- 
 ed longest went home after the revolution 
 of July, 1830. It is long since the memory of 
 Camp Asylum has disappeared ; the present 
 generation scarcely knows its name. I now 
 return to my own rather eventful journey.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 JOURNEY FROM GALVESTON TO THE HEAD- 
 WATERS OF THE SABINE MY COSTUME 
 
 OUR LIFE ON THE MARCH A BUFFALO 
 
 HUNT THE NEW MAZEPPA. 
 
 OUR journey as far as Nacogdoches did not 
 present a single interesting incident. We had 
 chosen this route because two of our asso- 
 ciates, formerly of San Domingo, had travelled 
 this way when they had come from Louisiana 
 to join us at Camp Asylum. Besides, we 
 needed for such a long journey many things 
 which we could only get at Nacogdoches, and, 
 lastly, we wished to cross Texas as peaceable 
 travellers, and were anxious to procure a safe- 
 conduct from the Spanish authorities, that we 
 might not be molested until we reached the 
 frontier. 
 
 The Spanish commandant made no diffi- 
 culty what ever, but granted us a pass on condi- 
 tion that we would only stop two days at Na- 
 cogdoches. This short time scarcely sufficed
 
 9? ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 
 
 for our shopping, for our costumes were wo- 
 fully dilapidated, and we also needed horses or 
 mules to carry our baggage. Our Louisianian 
 friends suggested our putting on the cos- 
 tume of the country, as our French uniforms, 
 or rather the remains of what had been 
 uniforms, might draw unpleasant attention 
 upon us. This dress was also much more 
 suitable for travelling, and so we took this 
 sensible advice, each one equipping himself, on 
 his own account, in garments similar to those 
 worn by the Mexican hunters and voyagers. 
 I was able to procure a full and new Mexi- 
 can suit, as I still had the greater part of the 
 two hundred dollars sent me bv Monsieur 
 
 j 
 
 Tournel. 
 
 I remember my strange costume well. It 
 consisted of a dressed buckskin hunting shirt, 
 which was of a pale yellowish color, and 
 whose cut resembled the tunic of the ancients 
 far more than any modern article of dress. 
 It was carefully sewn and even embroidered. 
 There was a kind of hood attached to it, which 
 hood, as well as the front of the tunic, was 
 adorned with long fringes, while a pair of 
 scarlet gaiters, called " save-alls," protected my
 
 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. <j j 
 
 legs up to the very hips. Over these I wore 
 strong pantaloons tucked into large boots 
 with spurs. A colored under-shirt, a blue neck- 
 tie, and a large Guayaquil hat completed my 
 accoutrement. At the back of my saddle 
 was strapped a scarlet cloak, rolled into a 
 cylinder, and intended to do duty as a 
 bed, a tent, or a mantle, as necessity might 
 require. There was a small round hole in 
 the centre, through which I could pass my 
 head, and thus, in case of rain or cold, be 
 protected from head to foot. 
 
 My companions were dressed pretty nearly 
 the same as I was ; some of them might have 
 had a different colored cloak, or a little 
 coarser shirt, or their habiliments on the whole 
 might have been a little less new ; but, allow- 
 ing for these insignificant differences, we were 
 all dressed alike. As we could all, or nearly 
 all, talk Spanish fluently, it would have been 
 difficult to guess that we were in reality 
 French soldiers. 
 
 Our weapons, too, were nearly all alike. I was 
 armed to the teeth. I had two horse-pistols at 
 my saddle-bow, and two smaller ones at my 
 belt, a long rifle slung over my shoulder, and t
 
 94 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 
 
 large knife styled in Mexican machete, which 
 I used indifferently for hunting, cooking, and 
 eating purposes. My outfit consisted in a 
 shot-bag, a powder-horn, a calabash, and a 
 knapsack where were stored my rations. My 
 comrades were nearly all equipped in the same 
 way. 
 
 We were, however, very diversely mounted. 
 Some had saddle-mules, and some horses of 
 Spanish descent, called mustangs, most of them 
 worn out by old age or hard labor, and, conse- 
 quently, sold very cheap to our travelling 
 party. Mine, which was young and strong, had 
 cost thirty dollars, and was of the wild prairie 
 race, the descendants of the Spanish horses in- 
 troduced into Mexico at the time of the con- 
 quest. The Texan from whom I bought him 
 assured me that he was very gentle, having 
 been caught young, and well-trained, and that 
 at present a child might lead him by a silken 
 string. I needed these qualities in a horse, for, 
 having always served in the infantry, I was far 
 from being a good rider. True, I might have 
 become one, for I had the first and most neces- 
 sary quality of a good horseman coolness ; 
 but this was not all, and I had reason to regret
 
 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 9$ 
 
 later on that I had not added to this quality a 
 knowledge of the rudiments of horsemanship. 
 
 W-e had five sumpter-mules to cany our 
 baggage, besides the old horse that I had rid- 
 den as far as Nacogdoches, and which was only 
 fit for a beast of burden. These six animals 
 formed our baggage caravan, which was un- 
 der the care of muleteers, Texan half-breeds 
 whom we had hired at Nacogdoches for this 
 purpose, as well as to act as guides to our 
 party. We started early in the morning of the 
 day fixed upon by the Spanish commandant. 
 
 There were but thirty-five or forty leagues, 
 as the crow flies, between us and the first 
 Louisianian settlements, but we could not go in 
 a straight line, as we should have had to cross 
 several deep rivers with very steep banks. We 
 were obliged to steer north, as if we had been 
 en route for Arkansas, intending there to cross 
 the Sabine not far from its head-waters and 
 where it was still fordable, and to strike about 
 and reach Louisiana from the south-east. 
 
 This route would lengthen our journey by 
 some four or five days' march ; but this was in- 
 different to us, as the country we had to cross, 
 though a wilderness, was very beautift*?,
 
 96 ADVENTURES. OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 
 
 abounded in game, while at the same time we 
 knew that it would afford plenty of fodder for 
 our cattle. The weather was the very best that 
 could have been wished for, for a journey un- 
 der this clime. It was now January, and the 
 sun being less ardent than in summer, made it 
 quite possible for us to march all day in com- 
 parative comfort. The nights were cold, but we 
 scarcely perceived it, wrapped up as we were 
 in our huge cloaks and stretched near the ge- 
 nial camp-fire. Sometimes toward sunrise the 
 north or north-west wind would strew a slight 
 frost on the ground, but the sun's first rays 
 would speedily melt it under our eyes. 
 
 This journey across the Texan prairies was a 
 real pleasure trip for us, who had so long Un- 
 dergone such cruel privations on the island of 
 Galveston. We were in no hurry to reach our 
 destination, and our days' marches were but 
 short. We often spent our mornings in hunting, 
 till at our noonday halt we would light a fire and 
 cook a few venison steaks, reserving the rest of 
 the game for the evening. Sometimes our 
 meals were as luxurious as Belshazzar's feasts, 
 and we banqueted on antelope or kid steak, 
 roast partridge, quail, and wild duck, which we
 
 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 97 
 
 washed down with the purest of water and 
 sometimes a little rum. True, we had neither 
 bread, plates, nor spoons, but then we had tor- 
 tillas, which may be called the bread of the 
 Mexicans. Though kneaded of corn meal, they 
 differ from the cakes made in the south of 
 Europe and in the United States of the same 
 material. The corn is not ground into flour, 
 but simply bruised and boiled in a large earthen 
 jar. It is then placed on a large flat stone and 
 bruised with a roller, after which it becomes as 
 white as snow. The dough is then kneaded by 
 hand in the usual way, and made into cakes 
 the size of a small plate, which are fried 
 on a hot stone, or, better still, an iron sheet. 
 This is the universal food of the poorer classes 
 in Mexico. Tortillas are often used as bread, 
 plate, and spoons. The meat is placed upon 
 the tortilla in front of you, and you eat it with 
 other smaller tortillas kneaded in the shape of 
 spoons. Our dessert consisted of grapes, nuts, 
 and apples. These meals seemed truly delicious 
 to us, seasoned as they were with the sauce of 
 a healthy appetite. 
 
 The aspect of the country grew more wood- 
 ed as we advanced, and we sometimes went
 
 $8 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 
 
 through large woods of cottonwood trees, the 
 commonest tree to be found on the prairies. 
 This must not be mistaken for the cotton plant, 
 which is but a small shrub ; these cottonwood 
 trees are so called because they bear a substance 
 that closely resembles cotton, but is totally dif- 
 ferent in its nature. We avoided the virgin 
 forests which we perceived in the distance, be- 
 cause they were too dense to offer an easy route, 
 and we might have been lost in their depths ; 
 besides which, they were full of wild animals, 
 and were the strongholds of the Indios bravos, 
 who were yet more formidable. These were 
 the Indians who had maintained their indepen- 
 dence, and whom the Mexicans called by this 
 name to distinguish them from those who sub- 
 mitted to European rule, the Indios manjos, or 
 civilized Indians. One would have thought 
 from this nomenclature that they were two 
 different species of the same race of animals. 
 
 On the eighth day after our departure we 
 had reached the basin of the upper Sa- 
 bine, and sent our guides forward to search 
 for the ford. We halted in the meanwhile 
 on the borders of a swamp evidently well- 
 stocked with game. Swamps are tracts of
 
 iDVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 99 
 
 land by the river-side, densely covered 
 with evergreen trees and shrubs. The red 
 laurel, the dark-leaved myrtle, the cistus, the 
 honeysuckle, different kinds of aloe, the crim- 
 son-leaved sage, the dahlia, the gigantic heli- 
 anthus, the delicate mentzelia, and the lovely 
 magnolia all mingle their colors and their per- 
 fumes in tangled luxuriance. Some of our 
 party followed the guides to the river, others 
 stayed in camp to look after their horses' har- 
 ness or mend their own clothes. I thought I 
 would take a turn on horseback round the 
 swamp to see if I could find on its borders 
 some game not beyond the power of my rifle 
 to bring down. 
 
 I had been out about half an hour when I saw 
 an enormous animal making its way out of a 
 clump of willows fifteen hundred yards from 
 where I stood. Presently another followed, 
 and then another, until there were ten of 
 them before me. I knew them to be buf- 
 faloes, and I supposed that they had come to 
 drink at some spring that must be near the wil- 
 low clumps. 
 
 Hitherto we had shot nothing larger than 
 deer or antelopes, and, indeed, I am wrong in
 
 100 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 
 
 saying we, for it was always my companions 
 who had this luck, while I had never brought 
 clown any thing more important than a turkey. 
 or a duck. How proud I should be if I could 
 contribute such noble game as buffalo to our 
 mess ! I drew near with great caution, lay- 
 ing myself almost on a level with my horse's 
 neck ; the tall grass and underbrush concealed 
 my movements, and the wind being in my face, 
 I was easily enabled to get within range, 
 for buffaloes are very quick-scented, and snuff 
 danger from a long distance. 
 
 Thus I reached a little group of cottonwood 
 trees, where I placed myself in ambush. I could 
 see the herd browsing a little way beyond, un- 
 conscious of the danger that threatened them. I 
 . could get no nearer without venturing into the 
 open and alarming them, when they would of 
 course have taken to their heels and gained the 
 cover of the wood before I could hope to come 
 up with them. I determined to wait, thinking 
 that chance might befriend me, and I stood for 
 nearly an hour in expectation of their coming 
 my way. At last, one of the finest of the herd 
 came toward me, browsing as he went. I 
 raised my rifle and fired. The report scattered
 
 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. IOI 
 
 the whole herd, and even the bull I had aimed 
 at scampered off in the direction of the forest. 
 I feared that I had missed him after all, and 
 cursing my awkwardness, I reloaded my weapon, 
 vowing to myself not to say any thing of my 
 adventure at the camp. I was on the point of 
 turning back to regain the camp, when, casting 
 a parting glance at the herd, now in full retreat, 
 I noticed that the bull I had aimed at followed 
 the others at some distance and gave unmistak- 
 able signs of distress. 
 
 " He is wounded," thought I, and off I was 
 at once after him. Finding himself pursued, he 
 gathered up his strength and fled nearly as 
 swiftly as the rest. " Never mind," thought I, 
 " you will soon have to slacken your pace, and 
 I shall come up with you in the long-run." In 
 another quarter of an hour the animal stumbled 
 and bellowed as if in great pain. I made sure 
 of victory now, and checked my horse to breathe 
 him. The trail was easy to follow, as it was 
 marked with blood. I had almost reached the 
 dying bull, who was struggling in his last agony, 
 and was considering how best to bring in my 
 game to our camp, when I heard a neigh on my 
 left My horse pricked up his ears and an-
 
 102 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 
 
 svvered it at once ; then, before I had time to look 
 about me, he started off at full gallop in the di- 
 rection whence came the call. 
 
 In vain I tried to control him. The animal 
 which I had been assured a child might lead 
 by a silken string resisted all my efforts to stop 
 his course. I soon saw the cause of his excite- 
 ment. A herd of wild horses were feeding a 
 little way off in the prairies, and at the approach 
 of one of their former associates, had set up a 
 neigh of recognition. Had he been alone and 
 unsaddled, they would have received him at 
 once as one of themselves, but seeing him rid- 
 den by one of those hunters (my dress of course 
 heightened the deception) by whom they used 
 to be pursued and lassoed, they took flight and 
 made off at a gallop. My horse followed them 
 at an equally break-neck pace, and no en- 
 deavors of mine could either stop or direct his 
 mad course. With his neck outstretched, his 
 mouth foaming, his nostrils inflamed, he flew 
 rather than ran after the other horses, whose 
 gallop sounded to me like the thunder of a 
 cavalry charge. 
 
 Since I was unable to control him, I gave 
 up my efforts to do so and let him run on, hop-
 
 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. IO3 
 
 ing that he would exhaust himself, or, at least, 
 slacken his speed through fatigue, when I should 
 endeavor to regain my mastery of him. This, 
 however, seemed less and less likely, and for a 
 length of time which I could not define, but 
 which seemed an eternity to me, I saw myself 
 doomed, like Mazeppa, to be dragged along by 
 a wild horse into unknown and savage regions. 
 We had now entered one of those vast forests 
 that covered the greater part of Texas at that 
 time. The road chosen by the wild horses was 
 more open than most forest paths, and my horse 
 followed it without much trouble, but I was 
 forced to lie as flat to his neck as I could to 
 get out of the way of the hanging branches 
 that interlaced above our heads. 
 
 To make things worse, night was coming on, 
 and in these countries darkness falls almost as 
 soon as the sun sinks behind the horizon. How 
 should I get back to camp, when my horse 
 should drop from sheer fatigue, as he must do 
 sooner or later ? I was probably at an im- 
 mense distance from the bivouac at least, judg- 
 ing from the extent of ground which my run- 
 away beast must have covered in his mad gal- 
 lop of at least an hur's duration. How should
 
 104 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 
 
 I find the way back at night and on foot, for 
 I knew that my horse would be of no use, as 
 his flanks rose and fell with ominous quickness, 
 and the breath was almost out of his body ? 
 He might very likely fall dead from fatigue at 
 any moment. I had hardly finished this train 
 of thought when my horse suddenly fell under 
 me, and I was thrown violently from my saddle, 
 totally unconscious.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 A SAD AWAKENING I FALL INTO THE HANDS OF 
 
 THE INDIANS MY JOURNEY TO THE COMAN- 
 
 CHE VILLAGE 1 AM PRESENTED TO THE GREAT 
 
 CHIEF A NEW ACTOR ON THE SCENE EF- 
 FECT PRODUCED BY MY DECORATION AND MY 
 STANDING AS A FRENCH OFFICER 1 AM CON- 
 STITUTED THE GUEST OF THE TRIBE. 
 
 How long my swoon lasted I cannot tell. 
 It was pitch dark when I came to myself. I 
 tried to get up, but a sharp pain in my right 
 foot compelled me to lie down again. I then 
 found that my foot was still entangled in the 
 stirrup, and that my horse was stretched lifeless 
 by my side. I did not pause to wonder how 
 my foot had remained entangled in the stirrup, 
 while I had certainly felt as though pitched far 
 over the horse's head. Indeed, the pain I felt, 
 the fever that consumed me, and the burning 
 thirst that tormented me, did not allow me to 
 collect my thoughts just then. Mechanically 
 I reached out my hand toward a gourd full of
 
 106 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 
 
 rum that hung at my girdle. I drank a few 
 mouthfuls and felt temporarily relieved, but 
 giddiness soon seized me, and I sank into a 
 lethargic slumber which again drowned in me 
 the consciousness of my suffering and my danger. 
 
 It was broad daylight when I awoke; but what 
 was my surprise when I opened my eyes and 
 saw myself surrounded by half a dozen tall, 
 copper-colored men with long, jet-black, 
 straight hair, and wearing by way of cloaks 
 either buffalo hides or crimson blankets ! I 
 knew them to be Comanche Indians, deemed 
 the most bloodthirsty of all by the Spanish 
 colonists of Texas. We shall see, later on, how 
 this character was borne out. 
 
 As soon as I came to myself, I again experi- 
 enced great pain, not only in my foot, but in 
 every part of my body. I tried to rise, but 
 found my arms firmly pinioned, so that I could 
 barely turn my body round a little. The In- 
 dians, seeing my efforts and enjoying my help- 
 lessness, laughed long and derisively. I was 
 half dead with fright, and fully believed that my 
 last hour was at hand. I was going to be butch- 
 ered, and perhaps eaten, for these savages were 
 popularly believed to be cannibals.
 
 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. IO/ 
 
 This fear unmanned me worse than the an- 
 ticipation of even a violent death. Had I not 
 courted death in the midst of all kind of dan- 
 gers ? But to be tortured for I knew the 
 customs of the Indians and then to know- 
 that my limbs would be cut up, roasted, and 
 eaten that was too terrible to think of. If 
 only I could die defending myself! But I had 
 been stripped of my weapons ; besides, I should 
 not have had the strength to use them, and I 
 was bound hand and foot, like a sheep under 
 the butcher's knife. 
 
 While these thoughts crowded on my mind, 
 the Indians took no notice of me, but talked 
 noisily among themselves, and passed my mm 
 gourd from hand to hand. It was soon emp- 
 tied. This done, the head of the gang came 
 up to me and said, in tolerable Spanish : 
 
 " What did the Spanish pale-face mean to ,o 
 in the hunting-grounds of the red man ? A r as 
 it that he might reckon the number of our 
 warriors, and learn the way to our wig\\ ims, 
 and then carry the news to the pale-faces r" 
 
 I saw that the Indians mistook me for a 
 Spanish spy, and I began to hope once more. 
 I answered that I was not a Spaniard, but *
 
 108 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 
 
 Frenchman, and told them by what chain of 
 circumstances I had been carried beyond the 
 reach of my companions into the heart of the 
 Indian country, without even suspecting where 
 I was. 
 
 I do not know if my Indian friend under- 
 stood Spanish well enough to take in all I 
 said, but one thing seemed to strike him to the 
 exclusion of all others, namely, that I was one 
 of Napoleon's warriors lately settled in Texas. 
 He asked me repeatedly if this was true, and 
 how I came to be dressed like a Spaniard or a 
 Mexican. After a renewed assurance that such 
 was the fact, and a new explanation on the 
 subject of my dress, he said to me, in less angry 
 tones than he had used before : 
 
 "If my brother has spoken truth, no harm 
 will happen to him. The Comanches are not 
 the foes of Napoleon, or of his warriors, or of 
 the French. But my brother must come with 
 us to our great chief, who alone can know the 
 truth and administer justice." 
 
 I willingly agreed to this, but told them that 
 I could not go on foot, as my right foot hurt 
 me too much. The Indian immediately un- 
 tied my bonds, and I was able to sit up and
 
 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. ICK) 
 
 loosen the gaiter on my right leg. I found, to 
 my great delight, that there were no bones 
 broken, as I had feared there were, but that 
 my ankle was badly sprained, totally unfitting 
 me for walking. 
 
 The chief, meanwhile, made signs to one of 
 his companions to examine my injuries. This 
 man was smaller than the rest, and, to judge by 
 his dress, belonged to a different tribe. I after- 
 ward found out that he was a Tankard, or 
 Tankoway, of a tribe celebrated for its marvel- 
 lous healing powers and superior medical 
 knowledge. My copper-colored physician hav- 
 ing felt my foot and ascertained that, besides 
 the sprain, I had nothing worse to complain of 
 than a few bruises about the body, bade the 
 chief tell me that I should soon be well again. 
 He then left me, but returned in a quarter of 
 an hour with a handful of roots and herbs, 
 which he sedulously chewed, and then applied 
 as a plaster to every spot that gave me pain. 
 This ceremony he supplemented by reciting 
 charms intended to help and strengthen the 
 healing virtue of the herbs. 
 
 He gave me a decoction of the herbs to 
 drink, and told the chief to tell me that I must
 
 ilO ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 
 
 rest and sleep till we should be ready to leave. 
 Though I had not much faith in my savage 
 Esculapius, I still followed his prescription, and 
 whether it was the effect of the draught he had 
 administered or the natural consequence of 
 the unusual excitement and fatigue I had gone 
 through, certain h is that I fell into a deep and 
 refreshing slumbei 
 
 I was awakened about noon ; and, indeed, 
 had the order to start not been signified to me, 
 I might have slept quietly on for hours. I was 
 astonished, on awaking, to find myself almost 
 free from pain, but my foot was still so be- 
 numbed that it was impossible for me to walk. 
 This had evidently been foreseen and provided 
 for, for another horse had been brought and 
 decked out in the saddle, bridle, etc., of the 
 unlucky animal who had brought me to this 
 pass, and now lay stone dead a few feet from 
 my side. 
 
 The chief was kind enough to offer me, be- 
 fore we started, a few slices of grilled buffalo meat, 
 which I was glad enough to devour, as I had 
 not eaten any thing for more than twenty-four 
 hours, and the fever was making me ravenously 
 hungry. When I had done, I was hoisted upon
 
 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. Ill 
 
 my new horse, and we started on our journey, 
 keeping Indian file all the way. My horse 
 went a foot's pace, and two Indians, one in front 
 and one behind me, walked as slowly as he did, 
 while the rest of the troop went a little quicker 
 at some distance ahead of us. My escort, con- 
 sisting of my Tankoway doctor and an old, surly- 
 looking Comanche, seemed to watch my every 
 movement narrowly, as if fearing that I should 
 try to make my escape or even attack them. 
 Alas ! both things were utterly out of my power, 
 for I had trouble enough to balance myself on 
 my horse, and, besides, the Comanches had 
 taken good care to strip me of every weapon, 
 even of a little pocket-knife, which contained 
 besides the main blade two pen-knife blades 
 and a cork-screw. 
 
 We marched on till nightfall, when we 
 reached the camp prepared by the four Indians 
 who had pushed on before. The fire was 
 lighted, and the meat for the evening meal 
 roasting. My surgeon again examined my 
 injured foot, which was very much swollen ; he 
 then put on more poultices, gave me some 
 meat, and finally ordered complete rest during 
 the night.
 
 112 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 
 
 Iwas still better the next day. We broke 
 up camp early, and travelled all day long. I 
 noticed that our route lay to the north-west, 
 which was exactly the opposite direction from 
 that which my comrades were to take after 
 crossing the Sabine River. After three days' 
 march, we reached a little valley through which 
 flowed a pretty stream, and where were scat- 
 tered many huts and wigwams of different 
 shapes. It was the principal Comanche village. 
 As the evening was far spent when we arrived, 
 my presentation to the great chief was put off 
 till the morrow, when he would settle what was 
 to be my fate. My sprain was far less painful 
 than such a long and fatiguing journey would 
 have naturally rendered it. My Tankard doc- 
 tor's remedies, which I diligently applied twice 
 a day, seemed gifted with remarkable efficacy. 
 I only needed a few days' rest to be quite 
 myself again. 
 
 Early the next morning the chief of the 
 little troop by whom I had been taken prisoner 
 came with the doctor to take me to the great 
 chief. The distance was but short, yet I should 
 not have been able to get over it without help. 
 My companions gave me their arms, and, with
 
 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 113 
 
 this support, I limped along as best I could, 
 till we got to where the chief was. He was 
 seated in the public square of the village, his 
 usual audience-chamber. He was squatting at 
 the foot of a tree, smoking an immense pipe 
 or calumet of red clay, and talking to ten other 
 Indians, all squatted near him in a large half- 
 circle. He seemed totally to disregard our 
 arrival, and, puffing clouds of smoke, went on 
 addressing his peers in short, grave sentences, 
 while my companions made me sit down 
 between them, so as nearly to fill up the vacant 
 spaces between the horns of the half-circle. 
 We thus formed almost a complete ring. I 
 was right in front of the chief. I could scarcely 
 have guessed his age, for his face was tattooed 
 all over ; neither did his position allow me to 
 judge of his height, although the length of his 
 legs and the noble proportions of his body 
 seemed to indicate an unusual stature. He 
 was dressed much the same as the other chiefs, 
 but his red blanket was thrown over his 
 shoulders in a certain careless way that was not 
 devoid of picturesqueness, and his long, black 
 hair, reaching down to his waist, was plaited in 
 several queues, two of which, brought forward
 
 [14 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 
 
 over each shoulder, fell in front of his chest 
 and were adorned with several little silver 
 plates, placed at equal distances. 
 
 I had ample time to make these observa- 
 tions, for a full quarter of an hour went by 
 before any one took the slightest notice of me. 
 The chief, shortly after our arrival, handed the 
 calumet to his right-hand neighbor, who, having 
 taken a few puffs in silence, passed it on to the 
 next, and so on until it had reached my left- 
 hand neighbor, the chief who had captured me. 
 Having smoked silently for a few seconds, he 
 did not pass the pipe to me, but began a long 
 harangue of which I did not understand one 
 word, and which was probably an account of 
 how he had found and captured me. When he 
 ceased speaking, the great chief, who had list- 
 ened attentively, said a few words to one of his 
 assistants. The man arose at once and went 
 toward one of the huts of the village, coming 
 back in a few moments and bringing with him 
 another personage, who certainly was no Co- 
 manche, nor an Indian of any sort. He was a 
 stumpy little man, evidently old, not to say 
 decrepit His dress, if dress it could be called, 
 was as coarse as it was simple, consisting of a
 
 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 115 
 
 rag which might once have been a hunting- 
 shirt, and which had now become little more 
 than an old leathern sack all over holes, and 
 to which a pair of sleeves had been coarsely 
 stitched. Its prevailing color was a dirty 
 brown, but with patches of livelier color here 
 and there, and dark grease-stains scattered over 
 the front. There was no trace left of any fringe 
 or other ornament. There must have been a 
 hood to it long ago, but time and wear had 
 wholly obliterated any trace of it. The gaiters 
 and moccasins matched the tunic, and were 
 probably of the same material ; they, too, were 
 of a dirty brown, soiled, greased, and patched. 
 Not meeting as they should have done, they 
 left the knees and part of the legs uncovered, 
 and these, too, seemed as brown as the leather 
 itself. This singular figure wore a close-fitting 
 cap, probably once of cat or fox-skin, but no 
 fur remained upon it now, and it, too, was only 
 a dirty, greasy bit of leather, in perfect keeping 
 with the rest of the costume. The whole dress 
 seemed never 'to have been taken oft" since the 
 first day it was put on, and that must have 
 been many a long year ago ! 
 
 The man's face was that of a man of sixty,
 
 Il6 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 
 
 with attenuated features, gray-blue eyes spark- 
 ling with intelligence, and gray hair cut rather 
 close. His skin, tanned by sun and wind, had 
 evidently been white, and it was easy to see 
 that he was a European, but his face seemed 
 rather French than Spanish or Anglo-Ameri- 
 can. He had no sooner made his appearance 
 in the circle than the chief spoke a few words 
 to him in Comanche. The new-comer answer- 
 ed in the same tongue, and turning to me, 
 scanned me attentively for a few seconds, then 
 said, in very correct French and with a magis- 
 terial tone : 
 
 " Friend, the Comanche warriors have cap- 
 tured you as a Spaniard or a Mexican ; you 
 pretend to be a Frenchman, and I have been 
 deputed to inquire into the truth of your asser- 
 tion. What proof can you give of your 
 nationality ?" 
 
 As I listened to these words, delivered in an 
 emphatic tone of voice, I was both glad to 
 have found some one with whom I could speak 
 in my own language, and amused at the gro- 
 tesque importance assumed by my curious in- 
 terrogator, and which reminded me of some 
 old French game-keeper roughly demanding to
 
 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. '';' 
 
 see the license of some stray sportsman. J 
 hastened to set aside this laughable but hardly 
 seasonable impression, and to express my de 
 light at meeting a countryman of my owa 
 
 " I am glad to find you entrusted with th* 
 examination of my claims," I said. " True, I have 
 neither license nor passport [I was thinking of 
 my game-keeper again !] to convince you of my 
 identity, but you speak our mother-tongue too 
 well for any one but a Frenchman, and I hope 
 that the same token will be enough on my part 
 to convince you of my nationality." The poor 
 man, who, as he told us later, had not heard a 
 word of French for ten years, was deeply moved ; 
 his face shone with delight, his eyes rested on 
 me with unmistakable kindness and longing, 
 no doubt the result of the compliment I had 
 addressed to him, and he answered, in a very 
 different tone from the haughty speech of a 
 moment ago : 
 
 " O Monsieur, I don't doubt your word for an 
 instant, bat though of one stock we are not 
 quite countrymen, for you are a real French- 
 man, while I am only a French Canadian. 
 Though I do not speak our language as well 
 as you kindly intimated, I have been in many
 
 Il8 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 
 
 places and talked with men of many nations, 
 so that I can tell at once if a man is speaking 
 his own mother-tongue or a foreign language, 
 even though he might speak it with great 
 fluency. Tell me now how you happened to 
 wander into the hands of the Comanches, so 
 that I can tell the tatli, as they call their great 
 chief." 
 
 I told him briefly the principal events 
 of my history, my motives for leaving home 
 after the fall of Napoleon, our unlucky Texan 
 scheme of colonization, the opposition of the 
 Spaniards who had sent an army to expel us, 
 our hasty retreat from Camp Asylum, our 
 journey across the prairies, and, lastly, the in- 
 cident which had separated me from my party 
 and nearly cost me my life had I not been 
 found and brought here by the Comanche 
 warriors. As I spoke, the old Canadian trans* 
 lated my story to the Indians, who listened 
 with breathless interest. When I had done, 
 the chief inquired if the Spanish 'army that 
 had lately entered Texas had come with no 
 other object but the expulsion of our colony, 
 and had not some ulterior designs on the 
 Indians ?
 
 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. I 19 
 
 The appearance of such a large body of 
 troops had alarmed the Indians of this country, 
 who, conscious of having committed some 
 depredations on the Texan and Mexican fron- 
 tiers, had feared that this army was destined to 
 punish them. For the purpose of observing 
 its movements, they had sent out numerous 
 scouting parties, one of whom had captured 
 me, taking me for a Spanish spy, which sup- 
 position my language and my dress made natu- 
 ral enough. 
 
 I told the chief that, as far as I knew, the 
 Spanish troops had come solely to drive the 
 French out of Texas, and that I did not think 
 any other operations likely, since after our de- 
 parture most of the soldiers had been sent 
 back to the Mexican frontier, or quartered at 
 Nacogdoches, Bejar, or Goliad, where they 
 seemed peaceably settled. I added that doubt- 
 less my explanation had satisfactorily proved 
 that I was a Frenchman, and might hope, 
 therefore, for kind treatment on the part of the 
 Comanches, who had always been the friends 
 of the Frenchmen of Louisiana, their neigh- 
 bors, and who not 'long ago had made a special 
 treaty of alliance with our chiefs at Camp Asy-
 
 I2O ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 
 
 lum. This last communication, however, had 
 no effect whatever, for they were not of the 
 same tribe that had made a treaty with General 
 Lallemand, and they knew nothing at all of 
 that bond of friendship. The Comanches, who 
 came to our camp, as I learned later on, were 
 allies of the Pawnees, and were called Coman- 
 ches of the Plain, while my present friends 
 were Mountain Comanches, and allies of the 
 Apaches. 
 
 The old Canadian translated my appeal, 
 and added some warm eulogies of his own. I 
 heard the name of Napoleon mentioned several 
 times ; it was the only word of his address 
 which I understood. When he ceased speak- 
 ing, the Indians deliberated gravely among 
 themselves. The Comanches never decide 
 upon any thing save after serious thought ; in- 
 deed, they are even more remarkably gifted 
 than the neighboring tribes, with good sense 
 and mature judgment, but they are also very 
 slow in coming to a decision. 
 
 While they were debating, the old Canadian 
 sat down by me, and told me that they were 
 well disposed in my favor, especially on hearing 
 that I was one of Napoleon's soldiers, but that
 
 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 121 
 
 one of them, who sat by the chief, was yet 
 doubtful, because, said he, he had seen some 
 pale-face officers, and they always wore, either 
 on the heart or shoulder, some token of their 
 rank and position. 
 
 " Do you happen to have," said my friend, 
 " your epaulets or belt, or any thing that would 
 strike them and convince them of the truth? 
 What is there in your valise ?" 
 
 " No," I answered, "those things, and every 
 thing belonging to my uniform, were left be- 
 hind among my baggage. I have nothing but 
 my cross of the Legion of Honor, from which 
 I never part, and which was given me by the 
 emperor himself ; but I fear to show it, and 
 perhaps excite these men's cupidity. You will 
 easily understand that I value that cross more 
 than my very life." 
 
 " I see ; but there is nothing to fear. Put it 
 on while these chiefs are debating ; they will 
 be a good quarter of an hour yet. I will 
 answer for the consequences." 
 
 I did as he advised me, and drew from my 
 pocket a little box containing the cross, and a 
 few silver coins stamped with the emperor's 
 effigy
 
 122 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 
 
 " I have an idea," said the Canadian, as he 
 saw the coins. " Of course you do not care for 
 the money as you do for the cross ; give them 
 to the tatli, with those red ribbons of which I 
 see you have a quantity. He will think they 
 are some kind of decoration like the cross, for 
 he will see that the same effigy is stamped on 
 both, and I will provide rings by which to 
 hang them on. I assure you that this courtesy 
 will have a wonderful effect, and that you will 
 be treated henceforth as a chief of the tribe." 
 
 I agreed, and he fastened my cross on my 
 tunic without being perceived by the Indians, 
 who were now standing in a narrow circle, so 
 that those nearest to us had their backs turned 
 toward us. Then, taking the coins in his 
 hand, he got up, and loudly said that he had 
 something to communicate to the tatli on the 
 part of the prisoner. 
 
 The circle opened wide, and the Canadian, 
 going forward with all the dignity of an am- 
 bassador, began one of those long orations so 
 much prized by Indians. I could follow his 
 meaning by his gestures, and it was something 
 to this effect : 
 
 "The chief seemed to doubt that the stran-
 
 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 12$ 
 
 ger was really one of the great warrior-chiefs 
 of the great Napoleon, because he did not 
 openly wear the insignia of his high rank, but 
 even the sun does not always show his full 
 splendor, but when it -pleases him, hides himself 
 behind clouds ; so this French warrior did not 
 choose to show to all eyes the shining proofs 
 of his title and his bravery, but he has con- 
 sented to let you see them at last, and if you 
 will look you will perceive them shining on 
 his breast." 
 
 He pointed to me, and all eyes were fixed 
 on my cross. He then resumed his oration, 
 which I shall not reproduce this time, though 
 he himself translated it for me, and ended by 
 offering on my behalf to give the chief a great 
 decoration, with the name and effigy of Napo- 
 leon, like those on my own (it was a five-franc 
 piece), and several others (pieces of two francs, 
 one franc, and half a franc), to be distributed 
 among the lesser chiefs, according to his will 
 and pleasure. 
 
 Notwithstanding the proverbial impassibility 
 of Indians, the chief's face lighted up with 
 pride and joy at this proposition. The other 
 warriors were equally pleased, and the debate
 
 124 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN 
 
 was closed. The great chief sent me the pipe 
 of peace after he had first taken a few 
 puffs, and desired the interpreter to tell me that 
 I was henceforth to consider myself the guest 
 of the tribe. A wigwam would soon be got 
 ready for me, where I should be taken care of 
 until I was quite well again, and that after my 
 recovery I should stay with them as long as I 
 pleased. 
 
 I was then taken to a hut carpeted with 
 palm-matting, and fitted with a hammock, in 
 which I lay down at once. My Tankoway 
 doctor bandaged my ankle again, and left me 
 to the nursing of the old Canadian, who took 
 up his position by my side, declaring that if I 
 had no objection to it he would devote himself 
 wholly to my service. I gladly and gratefully 
 accepted his offer, and after a slight meal, fell 
 asleep in a natural way, which had not hap- 
 pened to me for several days.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 MICHAEL GOURNAY THE CANADIAN MANNERS 
 
 AND CUSTOMS OF SOME OF THE INDIAN 
 TRIBES. 
 
 WHEN I awoke, I found the Canadian by my 
 side, as watchful as a mother over her child. 
 I looked round my room if I may call it so 
 and noticed my saddle and bridle and my 
 weapons, of which I had formerly been 
 stripped, arranged on one side of the apart- 
 ment, while on the other were a blanket, a 
 kind of pack, or bale, bound with leather 
 ; hongs, and an old gun. I saw that these things 
 belonged to the Canadian, and I had hardly 
 ibrmed this conjecture before he himself coi 
 tinned it by saying : 
 
 " You see, Captain," for so he had called me 
 since he knew of my having borne that title 
 white in the army, " I took the liberty of bring- 
 ing my few belongings here, hoping it would
 
 126 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 
 
 not annoy you, since you are so kind as to 
 me into your service." 
 
 I assured him I was not at all annoyed, and 
 began to talk with him. He was all eagerness, 
 for he did not often get the chance of a long 
 talk. I was curious to hear his story, and to 
 know something of the habits of the Co- 
 manches, as well as of our whereabouts and 
 the chance I had of reaching Louisiana. This 
 was what I cared most about, and it was the 
 first question I put to my companion. He 
 could only 'give me vague answers, totally un- 
 satisfactory to my mind, for he had never been 
 further in this direction than the spot where 
 we now were, and had always entered Texas 
 from the north, and across the Rocky Moun- 
 tains, whenever he had joined this tribe of the 
 Comanches, whose ordinary encampment was 
 on the plateau beyond the Sierra San Saba, 
 between the Rio Colorado and the Brazos 
 River. The Canadian thought from what he 
 had heard that we must be nearly ten or 
 twelve days' march from the Louisiana fron- 
 tiers, and that it was impossible to go that dis- 
 tance without guides, as the route lay across 
 immense forests and wild mountain passes.
 
 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 127 
 
 I thought this estimate slightly exaggerated, 
 since we had only taken three days and a half 
 to come from the spot where the Indians had 
 found me to their present encampment, but of 
 course I had no means of calculating what dis- 
 tance my horse might have covered in his mad 
 flight. At any rate, I could not yet undertake 
 so long and dangerous a journey. I must first 
 get well and strong, and then see what means 
 I could employ to further my end. My nurse 
 whiled away the time pleasantly enough by 
 telling me long stories of his adventures and 
 the ups and downs of his checkered life. 
 There was enough in those tales to furnish 
 forth a volume, but I have no time to enter 
 upon the recital, and will only relate how the 
 little fellow had happened to be thrown among 
 the Comanches. 
 
 He had been born in Upper Canada, and his 
 name was Michael Gournay. His father was 
 what is styled in Canada a voyageur that is, a 
 boatman employed on the lakes and rivers of 
 that countiy to convey travellers or mer- 
 chandise by water. He had followed his fa- 
 ther's calling in his youth, but one day, coming 
 down the Mississippi, their frail bark was
 
 128 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 
 
 wrecked, and Michael alone reached the shore 
 in safety. Among the remains cast up by the 
 waters was a box containing the articles most 
 necessary to a man in his position, namely, 
 rifles, knives, hatchets, powder, and shot. 
 Thanks to these, he was able to provide for his 
 wants by shooting the abundant prairie game, 
 a kind of life which so pleased him that he 
 gave up being a boatman and became a prairie 
 hunter. I may as well stop to tell you that a 
 prairie means a vast tract of treeless land, and 
 is always used in contradistinction to forest. 
 Sometimes, however, the term is applied to 
 tracts of land well covered with timber. Such, 
 for instance, was the scenery that we had passed 
 through on our way from Nacogdoches, and 
 until I met my buffalo herd. But if the name 
 of prairie is applied to such land, it is because, 
 in spite of the woods scattered here and there, 
 grass plains are the predominating element, 
 and the trees only appear like clusters or islets 
 in a sea of green pastures. They are often 
 called islands or mounds. The territory be- 
 tween the Mississippi and the Rocky Moun- 
 tains is called par excellence the great prairie ; 
 it is the home of the bison and the mustang,
 
 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 129 
 
 and the chief hunting-ground of the remaining 
 vestiges of the great Indian tribes the Sioux, 
 the Crows, Cheyennes, Pawnees, Arapahos, 
 Blackfeet, Apaches, Wacos, Comanches, etc. 
 Michael Gournay had found himself thrown 
 on the prairie after his shipwreck, and for ten 
 years had never left it, coming constantly in 
 contact with one or other of these Indian 
 tribes, and generally kindly welcomed by all. 
 His uncertain flittings once brought him near 
 the frontiers of his native land again, and he' 
 took service under a kind of corporation of 
 trappers employed by a great English fur com- 
 pany. These hunters are known as trappers 
 because; for the sake of the fur, they catch 
 their game alive by means of traps. 
 
 He grew dissatisfied with the company he 
 served, and his old instincts made any restraint 
 irksome to him. He longed for the solitude 
 of the plains, as do all those who have ever 
 tasted this wild and adventurous life. The 
 prairie-fever was upon him, and he left the com- 
 pany to go on trapping expeditions on his 
 own account. It was at this period of his life 
 that he experienced the strangest ups and 
 downs of fortune. He had many a time been
 
 130 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 
 
 possessed of a small fortune in furs, and as 
 many times had he been robbed, sometimes by 
 bona-fide thieves, sometimes by the dishonesty 
 of those to whom he had sold the furs. They 
 were always white men, so-called children of 
 civilization. True he did not always find 
 even the red men themselves too scrupulously 
 honest, and once he had been in the hands 
 of a cannibal tribe, from whose clutches he 
 was just saved in the nick of time by the 
 Comanches, who wer.e at war with them. 
 From that time he had linked his fate with 
 that of his deliverers, who exercised toward 
 him such hospitality and generosity as he had 
 seldom found among Anglo-Americans or 
 Spanish Mexicans. 
 
 He grew tired of the trapping business, 
 which age and infirmity now made difficult to 
 him, and became a coureur des bois. This is 
 the name given to small peddlers who cross the 
 prairie with an assortment of knives, pocket- 
 mirrors, glass beads, vermilion dyes, tobacco, 
 and other little trifles, which they exchange 
 with the Indians for furs and peculiar Indian 
 products. It is generally a dangerous trade, 
 and not unfrequently leads to the murder of
 
 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 13! 
 
 the peddler for the sake of his little store of 
 valuables. Gournay, however, had plied it in 
 safety for ten years, no doubt powerfully pro- 
 tected by his friendly relations with the Co- 
 manches and Apaches, and other influential 
 tribes scattered on the frontiers of Texas, 
 New Mexico, and Sonora. " How is it," I 
 asked, " that you met with nothing but kind- 
 ness from these nations, which I always heard 
 held up as monsters of cruelty, and utterly in- 
 accessible to any generous feeling ?" 
 
 " You heard the Spaniards say so, doubt- 
 less," said Gournay, " or perhaps the Anglo- 
 Americans ; and, indeed, the Comanches, 
 Apaches, Navajos, and Pawnees, as well as many 
 other nations I might name, hate the Span- 
 iards with a relentless hatred, and practise the 
 most abominable cruelties upon them. Some- 
 times they fall upon the atajos, or caravans, 
 carry off the mules and horses, and massacre 
 the arrieros without pity ; or they burn farms 
 and even whole villages of Spaniards, capture 
 the women and children, and scalp the men, 
 whose scalps become trophies of greaf price. 
 But these cruelties are in their eyes legiti- 
 mate reprisals for the cruelties of every kind
 
 132 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 
 
 which the Spaniards have inflicted upon them 
 ever since the conquest of Mexico. Their 
 forefathers formerly lived in the beautiful 
 valleys of the Rio del Norte and the other 
 fruitful spots whence the Spanish invaders 
 drove them out. And now that the power 
 of the foreign foe is dwindling day by day, the 
 independent Indians, which the Spanish Mexi- 
 cans . themselves significantly call ' Indios 
 bravosl do not despair of finally reconquering 
 their former country and driving out the in- 
 truders altogether. This is the reason of that 
 implacable habit of theirs toward any man 
 with Spanish blood in his veins a hatred which 
 would have been visited on you had you not 
 made yourself known to them as a Frenchman. 
 It is noticeable that of all white men, or pale- 
 faces, as the Indians call them, the French have 
 always been the favorites of- the natives. From 
 the great lakes of Canada to the mouth of the 
 Mississippi, they have met with nothing but 
 friendliness from the Indian races. The tribes 
 of my native country still speak with infinite 
 respect of the black robes (so they called 
 the French missionaries) who had come to 
 teach them how to worship the Great Spirit
 
 ADVENTURES OF A Fl'tfN^li CAPTAIN. 133 
 
 They regret their departure, and I am sure 
 that if French missionaries could come back in 
 our days, they would be welcomed with joy, 
 and would do more for the civilization and 
 conversion of these red-skinned races than any 
 ministers of Protestant sects, who have always 
 given up the task in despair.* Then these men 
 are all Anglo-Americans, and scarcely less ob- 
 noxious to the Indians than the Spaniards 
 themselves. They fear the Americans more, 
 however, as being of a more hardy, energetic, 
 enterprising race, which every day makes good 
 fresh conquests, and presses more closely on 
 the huts of the aborigines." 
 
 I asked him to tell me something of the 
 Apaches, whom I had heard spoken of as one 
 of the most formidable of Indian tribes. 
 
 " The Apaches," said Gournay, " are of a 
 more roving nature than the Comanches. They 
 live in no particular district, but are strewn 
 over the Spanish frontiers from the Black 
 Mountains to the confines of Chohahuila. 
 Sworn enemies of the Spaniards, they hold 
 
 * This wish of old Gournay's has since been realized. Catholic 
 missionaries, almost all French, have thoroughly evangelized 
 what remains of these tribes in North America.
 
 134 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 
 
 many districts in perpetual terror. The Mexi- 
 can Government was never able to do more 
 than conclude a short truce with them now and 
 then, and though their numbers have been 
 sadly lessened by war, famine, and disease, the 
 Spaniards are still obliged to keep on hand a 
 force of not less than two thousand mounted 
 dragoons to escort the caravans, protect the 
 villages, and ward off even renewed attacks. 
 At first the Spaniards tried to enslave all those 
 whom the fortune of war threw into their 
 hands, but finding that they always escaped 
 sooner or later, and fled back to their own 
 fastnesses, they sent their prisoners to Cuba, 
 where the sudden change of climate soon killed 
 them all. The Apaches no sooner heard of 
 this new plan than they obstinately refused to 
 give or accept quarters. Hence their name 
 for being the most ferocious of all red men. 
 
 "They are taller and better built than the 
 Comanches. Their features are more intelli- 
 gent ; they have narrow foreheads, bright, 
 black eyes, teeth of dazzling whiteness, thick, 
 shining black hair, an olive-colored skin, and 
 thin beards. No Indian nation is so little 
 subject to bodily defects. A lame or hump-
 
 A I.) V EMU RES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 135 
 
 backed man would be a curious rarity among 
 them. Their senses are very acute, especially 
 their sight, which age never impairs in the 
 slightest degree. They are not subject to the 
 common European ailments, but small-pox 
 and yellow fever sometimes make fearful havoc 
 among them. In all my trading relations with 
 them, I have found them invariably honest, 
 not to say engaging. They are generous and 
 even disinterested when at peace, and with any 
 friends or allies ; but once on the war-path, they 
 employ against their foes the utmost refine- 
 ments of cruelty. I will say nothing of their 
 weapons and manner of fighting ; they are 
 similar to those of the Comanches."
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 MY STAY WITH THE OOMANCHES WAR REJOIC- 
 INGS DEPARTURE OF THE WARRIORS ON 
 
 THE WAR-PATH 1 WISH TO LEAVE THE 
 
 VILLAGE THE INDIANA OPPOSE MY WISH 
 
 ATTACK ON THE VILLAGE BY A BODY OF 
 SPANISH SOLDIERS 1 GO .^ACK TO LOUIS- 
 IANA WITH GOURNAY. 
 
 MY sprained ankle kept me a prisoner for 
 three weeks. Besides Gournay, I hr\d other visit- 
 prs the great chief and the principal warriors, 
 who came to have a chat with me now and then 
 They all knew a little Spanish, and we could 
 easily converse in that language, or, when that 
 failed, we had recourse to Gournay, who inter 
 preted our meanings for us. The conversa- 
 tions, however, were not very lively ; the Co- 
 manches are not naturally talkative. Theti 
 expression, on the contrary, is very thoughtful. 
 They listen well to what is said,, dwell long 
 upon it after they have taken in its meaning,
 
 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 137 
 
 and only answer with the greatest deliberation. 
 In this they certainly have a great advantage 
 over us Europeans, and, I will add it bravely, 
 over Frenchmen in particular. They are also 
 glad to learn, and show a great desire of in- 
 creasing their knowledge on all occasions. 
 
 They often asked me questions on European 
 r.ations, which I was at a loss how to answer. 
 They were fond of having me speak of Na- 
 poleon, his warlike exploits, and especially 
 his wars against the Spaniards. This was by 
 no means surprising; for let, me tell you, 
 there is not a corner of the globe where that 
 great man has not found an echo. 
 
 I was slowly recovering, and trying my 
 strength every day, with the aid of a stick and of 
 my good Gournay ; then, later on, I trusted to 
 my own legs, and found that I could use them as 
 well as ever. As soon as I felt able to under- 
 take another journey, I began to think of get- 
 ting back to the United States and reaching 
 Baltimore, or, at least, sending word of my 
 whereabouts ; but I had reckoned without my 
 host, for the Comanche chief had determined 
 to keep me with him longer than I had any 
 wish to remain. As soon as I was perfectly
 
 138 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 
 
 well, and made inquiries about returning to 
 Louisiana, I was told that as yet I could have 
 neither guide nor escort for so perilous a jour- 
 ney, because the Spanish troops were guarding 
 the passes of the Sierra San Saba, which I 
 should have to cross, but that as a strong de- 
 tachment of Apache warriors was daily ex- 
 pected, and a joint expedition being planned, I 
 was at liberty to join the expedition, and to 
 take advantage of the opportunity thus af- 
 forded for reaching Louisiana in safety. I was 
 obliged to be content with this answer and 
 wait a few days. It was three months before 
 the Apache warriors came, numbering about 
 two hundred men. They were a remarkable 
 body of men, and I was not sorry, though I had 
 had so long to wait for their arrival, to have 
 the chance of seeing so fine a specimen of the 
 Indian race of North America. 
 
 On the third day after their arrival, a war- 
 feast or review took place, at which the Co- 
 manche chief begged me to be present, as he 
 was very proud to be able to show off his war- 
 riors' skill and his allies' prowess before an old 
 veteran of Napoleon's wars. I accepted, and 
 went with Gournay to see the tournament. I
 
 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 139 
 
 had, of course, not expected to see any thing 
 that could compare with European manoeuvres, 
 but I was struck not only with the strangeness, 
 but with the grandeur and beauty of the evo- 
 lutions going on before me. 
 
 Two hundred Comanche warriors had joined 
 their Apache allies. Half of each troop fought 
 on horseback, half on foot. These were armed 
 with bows, arrows, and the dread tomahawk. 
 Many also carried muskets taken in battle from 
 the Spaniards, who certainly never sold them 
 any weapons. Powder they buy in small quan- 
 tities from the coureurs des bois, and the traffic 
 in that article had long been Gournay's most 
 lucrative business. Though they handle a mus- 
 ket or rifle with incredible skill, they still pre- 
 fer the bow and arrows, because their aim is 
 just as infallible with this weapon, while it is 
 also much more expeditious than a gun that 
 takes as much time to reload as would suffice 
 for shooting off half a dozen arrows. 
 
 Their arrows are about a yard long, made of 
 a long reed, in which is thrust a rod of hard 
 wood tipped with iron, bone, or a sharp stone 
 named obsidian. At three hundred yards' dis- 
 tance these warriors can transfix a man, so un-
 
 140 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 
 
 erring is the Indian's aim. In drawing the 
 arrow from the wound, the wood parts from 
 the point, which remains in the body, and as it 
 is generally poisoned, the wound most often 
 proves mortal. 
 
 The horsemen had no muskets, and many 
 were even destitute of bows. Their weapon 
 was a long lance, or javelin, five yards long, 
 which the Spaniards have long ago learned to 
 respect. In charging the enemy, they hold 
 this lance in both hands over their heads, di- 
 recting their horses with the voice, and press- 
 ing his flanks with their knees. They wear a 
 shield on the left arm. Nothing can equal the 
 impetuous charge and the dashing of their 
 steeds, while the deadly lance of the rider 
 strikes like lightning before its attack can be 
 parried. 
 
 The review began by various manoeuvres. 
 There was archery and rifle practice first, both 
 kind of marksmen hitting their mark unerring- 
 ly ; but this was nothing to what was coming. 
 A Comanche warrior had just picked up a little 
 white shell, about the size of a watch. He 
 passed by me holding it in his hands and show- 
 ing it to Gournay as he bade him tell me to
 
 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 14! 
 
 look out TK'i- .^at was going to take place. I 
 the Indian, who was walking slowly 
 
 " Ke is counting his steps," said Gournay. 
 
 " So I see ; out what is he going to do with 
 the shell ?" I asked. 
 
 " You will see presently ; it will be worth 
 your while to watch him." 
 
 When the Indian had counted about sixty 
 paces, he turned round facing us, and drawing 
 himself up, brought his heels together with mili- 
 tary precision ; then he stretched out his arm 
 horizontally till it was level with his shoulder. 
 He held the shell between his fingers. I saw 
 what was about to take place, and shuddered 
 involuntarily at the thought. 
 
 Three Comanche warriors then came up to 
 me and asked me to choose one of their number 
 to fire upon this almost human mark. Gour- 
 nay added in a whisper that this was an honor 
 which I could not refuse to accept. I would 
 willingly have done so, but chose the warrior 
 at my right hand. He took three steps to one 
 side, and called out to the man who held the 
 shell to stand perfectly still. As his forefinger 
 ar.d thumb hid nearly half the shell, the actual
 
 142 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 
 
 mark was scarcely as broad as a five-franc 
 piece. 
 
 It was a terrible game, and I could not help 
 shuddering as I looked on it. Luckily it did 
 not last long. The marksman again called out 
 in Indian a word that meant " Attention," and 
 immediately levelled his rifle. There was a 
 moment of breathless suspense, all eyes were 
 fixed on the weapon the shot was heard, 
 and the shell flew in splinters. A thunder of 
 applause followed this feat. The Indian who 
 had held the mark stooped to pick up one of 
 the fragments, and having examined it, brought 
 it up to me, saying, " You see, he hit it right 
 in the centre." And so it was, for the blue 
 mark which the ball had made was visible on 
 every fragment. 
 
 After this, came a tournament no less curi- 
 ous and interesting. There vvere all kinds of 
 manoeuvres and feats of horsemanship. Now 
 the riders would stand with one foot only on 
 their horses' backs, and while galloping at the 
 utmost speed, throw lances and javelins that 
 seldom failed to reach their aim. Others 
 jumped from horse to horse, all the while 
 riding at the top of their speed, or threw
 
 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 14J 
 
 themselves out of the saddle, and dexterously 
 remounted in the twinkling of an eye. Others 
 again made the most marvellous throws with 
 the terrible lasso. Then came a sham fight, 
 real jousts where the riders tried to unhorse 
 one another like the knights of the Middle 
 Ages. It was a magnificent sight, this desert 
 amphitheatre and unequalled feats of agility. I 
 could not choose but admire it ; and as I gazed 
 on these savages grown dexterous in the art 
 of managing these fiery steeds, I thought of the 
 days of Cortez, three hundred years ago, when 
 the conqueror undertook to subdue the vast 
 empire of Mexico with a few hundred men, 
 only half of whom bore firearms, and a cavalry 
 force of sixteen horse. But these horses and 
 firearms were powerful adjuncts in the con- 
 quest, and struck a superstitious terror into the 
 hearts of the Indians, and yet in our days the 
 children of the conquered race are more at 
 home than those of the conquerors in the use 
 of these instruments of war. This gave me a 
 fertile subject for meditation. Might not a 
 wise and enlightened government one alive to 
 its true interests have cultivated the remark- 
 able qualities of this race, in order to civilize
 
 144 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 
 
 and enlighten them, with the help of a religion 
 of love and forgiveness, instead of grinding them 
 down, enslaving them, and tyrannizing over 
 them, and thus thrust them forever hopelessly 
 beyond the pale of all possible civilization ? 
 
 While these thoughts occupied my mind, 
 the games came to an end, and the principal 
 chiefs of both nations gathered together to de- 
 bate the proposed expedition. Instead, how- 
 ever, of directing it toward Louisiana, as the 
 Comanche chief had led me to suppose would 
 be the case, it was decided to make a raid on 
 the western frontier, toward New Mexico. 
 The chief, when he communicated this de- 
 cision, also told me that as soon as the expedi- 
 tion should return he would provide me with 
 an escort as far as the Red River, whence I 
 could easily reach Arkansas and then Louisi- 
 ana. I made believe to acquiesce in his pro- 
 posal, but inwardly determined to leave at 
 once with Gournay, if he would go with me, as 
 soon as the expedition had started. 
 
 The Indians left the following night, and 
 when I awoke the next morning there were 
 only the women and children and a few old 
 men left in the village. I spoke of my plan
 
 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 145 
 
 to Gournay, who coincided in it, and promised 
 to go with me and do all in his power to help 
 me. The first difficulty was to procure horses, 
 for the Comanche warriors had taken all their 
 animals with them for war purposes. 
 
 " I know where I can find some," said Gour- 
 nay. " I shall start to-day, and be back in four 
 days with all we require." 
 
 " But suppose the Comanches come back ?" 
 
 " There is no fear of that. Their raid will 
 last at least three weeks, if not a month. They 
 are gone in the direction of the Paso del Norte, 
 and have to cross a wilderness of sand, and, 
 besides that, they will be obliged to use all 
 kinds of precautions to conceal their trail from 
 the frontiersmen, who are brave and intelligent 
 men, ever ready to repulse their turbulent 
 neighbors." 
 
 Gournay was on the point of starting, when 
 two of the old men who had been left behind 
 intimated to him that he must not leave the 
 village until the return of the expedition. He 
 came to tell me of this. " What !" I cried, " do 
 they want to keep us prisoners ?" 
 
 " No," he answered, " but they are afraid that 
 we might fall in with some Spaniards and be-
 
 146 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 
 
 tray to them the departure of the warriors, their 
 numbers and destination, and thus ruin the 
 success of the expedition. I think we can not 
 do better than wait patiently a little longer, for 
 it would be useless to try to start against their 
 will. The whole population of the village 
 would be at our heels old men, women, and 
 children, and it will be more prudent to avoid 
 such annoyances." 
 
 I was obliged to submit to this further delay, 
 and began again impatiently to count the 
 hours that seemed to pass so slowly, when an 
 unexpected incident changed the aspect of 
 affairs. 
 
 About a week after the departure of the ex- 
 pedition, I was awakened in the middle of the 
 night by the most awful shrieks and yells and 
 repeated rifle-shots. I jumped out of my ham- 
 mock, and found Gournay listening attentively 
 at the door of our hut. 
 
 " Monsieur," he said, " some Spanish soldiers 
 have attacked the village. Let us try not to 
 get mixed up in the row, for, under these cir- 
 cumstances, quarter is seldom given, and friends 
 and foes, white-skins and red-skins, run an 
 equal chance of slaughter."
 
 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 147 
 
 Our hut was beyond the group of other wig- 
 wams whence came the din that had awaken- 
 ed us. I drew aside the palm-leaf mat that, 
 did duty both for door and window, and the red 
 light of the burning village revealed one o/ 
 those scenes of carnage so lamentably frequenv 
 in the annals of the American frontiers. Old! 
 men, women, and children fled from their hern- 
 ing homes, but were pursued and ruthlessly 
 massacred in their helplessness. 
 
 On looking closer, I saw that the Spaniards 
 did not kill indiscriminately every one who fell 
 into their hands ; those whom they could cap- 
 ture alive were taken as prisoners to a group 
 of men standing in the principal square of the 
 village, where they were then guarded by some 
 of the soldiers. Not far from this group was 
 a Spanish officer, wearing the insignia of a colo- 
 nel of dragoons atid mounted on a fine horse. 
 He appeared as if directing the whole thing, 
 and other officers constantly came up to him 
 to take and convey his orders. I made up my 
 mind at once. I left the hut with Gournay, 
 holding a white handkerchief on high as a flag 
 of truce. As he saw us drawing near, the colo- 
 nel sent forward an officer to see what we wanted.
 
 148 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 
 
 We told him that we wished to speak to the 
 colonel. 
 
 The officer took us for Spaniards, and re- 
 ported us accordingly to his chief, who beck- 
 oned to us to come near. In a few words I 
 told him how I happened to be among the 
 Comanches. 
 
 " Very good, sefior," he answered ; " you can 
 give me a longer explanation another time. 
 Stay by me now until we have done our work." 
 
 The horrid scene lasted all night, and by 
 sunrise the village was nothing but a heap of 
 ashes, in which bloody corpses were half-buried 
 at short intervals. The colonel ordered his 
 men to rest after their butchery, and I asked 
 him to make my hut his headquarters. It was 
 the only one in the village that had been spared, 
 as the subaltern officer who had first spoken to 
 us had prevented his men from sacking and 
 burning it like the others. The colonel accepted 
 my proposal, and while he was taking some re- 
 freshment I told him the whole of my story 
 As soon as I had mentioned that I was a French- 
 man, he said : 
 
 " Well, then, speak to me in your own Ian, 
 guage ; I understand it as well as my own."
 
 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 149 
 
 This was true. So thenceforth we conversed 
 in French, which language he spoke very cor- 
 rectly, with a slight Southern accent, less mark- 
 ed, however, than that of many a Provengal 
 or Languedoc man. 
 
 " You are lucky," said he, when I had done, 
 " to have been released by us, for the Coman- 
 ches would never have allowed you to go back 
 in peace to the States or to Mexico. They would 
 first have tried to keep you away themselves 
 by offering you all kinds of bribes and advan- 
 tages to determine you to adopt their own mode 
 of life ; then, if that wouldn't succeed, and they 
 discovered the impossibility of making you 
 give up your country and your faith, they would 
 have got rid of you under some pretext or 
 other, or without any pretext at all." 
 
 The colonel's asseverations only half con- 
 vinced me, notwithstanding the incidents that 
 had seemed lately to corroborate such a state- 
 ment; but I made believe to be of his opinion, 
 and expressed my gratitude to him for releas- 
 ing me. I then asked him if he would add to 
 his former kindness by helping me to continue 
 my journey, already so unluckily interrupted. 
 
 " I think that will be easy," he answered. " I
 
 150 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 
 
 am going to send the prisoners to Texas under 
 escort of my infantry. The cavalry and I will 
 march to meet the Comanches and Apaches 
 who left the village a fortnight ago, and who 
 probably found some unexpected opponents on 
 the road. They are probably flying before a 
 detachment of troops who had previous infor- 
 mation of their intended raid. We hope to 
 place them between two fires, and have done, 
 for a while at least, with these inveterate 
 foes." 
 
 It was only then that I learnt that the Span- 
 ish corps sent to Texas to drive us out of 
 Camp Asylum had been employed after our 
 voluntary retreat in tracking the Indios bravos 
 who infested the Spanish frontiers. The ex- 
 pedition of the Comanches and Apaches 
 toward the Rio del Norte and the valley of 
 New Mexico had been reported to the gen- 
 eral, who had sent part of his troops to protect 
 the points that expected to be attacked, and 
 the other part to destroy the chief settlement 
 of the Comanches, now known to be defence- 
 less.* 
 
 * Marvellous bravery ! conduct truly worthy of a Christian ana 
 civilized nation ! TRANSI,. NOTE,
 
 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 151 
 
 This manoeuvre of the Spanish general was 
 perfectly successful for the nonce, as I aftei 
 \vard learnt. The Comanches and Apaches 
 were thoroughly defeated that time ; but the 
 expedition consisted of a very small part of the 
 two nations, and, far from taking their defeat 
 as a warning, they only burned the more for 
 a signal vengeance. They bravely took the 
 field again soon after, and their reprisals were 
 as bloody as the provocation. Who can blame 
 them for it ? 
 
 For my part, I accepted the Spanish colo- 
 nel's offer, and secured two good horses from 
 among the spoils captured by the dragoons, to 
 whom I paid a reasonable equivalent for the 
 animals. Gournay and I started with the pris- 
 oners and their escort. The two commanding 
 officers, a lieutenant, and one prisoner, were the 
 only ones of the party that were mounted. I 
 kept close to them, and their conversation, which 
 was not devoid of interest, whiled away the time 
 on this tedious, slow march. Our days were 
 very short, and we halted often. I was happy 
 to be enabled sometimes to soothe the suffer- 
 ings of the prisoners and restrain the excesses 
 of the soldiery, and one day I was deputed to
 
 152 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 
 
 announce to them through Gournay that they 
 would soon be set free. 
 
 The Comanches, notwithstanding their ill- 
 success, had managed to capture many prison- 
 ers. Finding themselves hotly pursued by the 
 Spaniards, they decided to massacre the captives, 
 but the Spanish commandant sent them word 
 that he had in his power many prisoners of 
 their nation, and that if they agreed to an 
 exchange, hostilities would be suspended. 
 After some hesitation, the Comanches yielded, 
 and the treaty was concluded. The captain 
 commanding our escort received the news by 
 special messenger, and Gournay and I were 
 chosen to take the good tidings to the prison- 
 ers. The poor Indians fell at our feet, and 
 could not do enough to show us their grati- 
 tude. The lieutenant turned back the next 
 day to escort the prisoners to the spot where 
 the exchange was to take place, while the cap- 
 tain and the rest of the soldiers continued their 
 road to the South. When we had reached the 
 spot where to the best of my recollection I had 
 parted from my comrades, the captain told me 
 that we were not far from Louisiana, and 
 that if I liked to pay a guide to lead us as far
 
 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN 153 
 
 as Natchitoches, one of his men would under- 
 take to guide us. I was glad to accept his 
 offer, so we shook hands and said God-speed 
 to the Spaniards.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 WE REACH THE FRONTIERS OF LOUISIANA 
 AN UNEXPECTED MEETING A CARAVAN OF 
 AMERICAN EMIGRANTS I MEET THE TOURNEL 
 
 FAMILY AND MONSIEUR COLLIN NEW SCHEME 
 
 FOR COLONIZING TEXAS. 
 
 I WAS in high spirits, happy in having re- 
 covered my freedom, and in the thought of 
 soon reaching a country where, instead of the 
 life of the wilderness, I should see that of the 
 farm and of civilization. I should be able soon 
 to correspond with my friends. Gournay, 
 however, took no share in my enthusiasm, and 
 looked back sadly and fondly on the vast un- 
 peopled prairie which he had crossed and re- 
 crossed for so many years, where he had ex- 
 perienced so many different emotions, and 
 which now he might never see again ; for the 
 dear fellow had clung to me as if I had been a 
 long-lost and recently-recovered son, whom he
 
 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 15$ 
 
 had sworn never to leave as long as I should 
 allow him to stay with me. 
 
 In all his long, adventurous life, Gournay 
 had never attached himself to a human being, 
 and this sudden affection for a stranger was 
 quite extraordinary. It only proves that the 
 isolation in which he had lived so long had 
 not stifled natural affection in his heart, and 
 that it wanted but an opportunity to blossom 
 forth freely and fully. I was strangely touched 
 by his uncommon devotion, and easily prom- 
 ised him that, as long as he still liked me, we 
 should never live apart. 
 
 " Oh ! at that rate," he said, " I shall stay with 
 you till I die ; but never fear that I shall be a 
 burden to you," he added, after a few moments' 
 thought. " 1 he old trapper," he said in a 
 whisper, that the guide might not hear him, 
 " knows plenty of ways by which to provide 
 for himself without costing another man any 
 thing. Besides, it will not be for long ; his 
 joints are stiffer than of old, his sight is weaker, 
 and the day is nigh when he will have to give 
 up his accounts to the Great Spirit, as the 
 Indians say." 
 
 " Come, now, Father Gournay," I said, " put
 
 156 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 
 
 away those melancholy thoughts. You are 
 hearty enough yet, and I hope we shall have 
 many a hunt together in the future." 
 
 " Oh ! yes, I may be able to hunt, as they do 
 in civilized countries, with dogs, who pull down 
 your game for you, or bring it right under 
 your nose ! I may be able to shoot a few 
 hares and partridges ; but that is not what I 
 call hunting. For my part, to chase the buf- 
 falo, the elk, or the grizzly bear over the wide 
 prairie, to set traps for the beavers on the 
 .shores of the great lakes, to cross mountains 
 and forests, and spend whole months on the 
 trail of the big game right into their further- 
 most retreats that is what / call hunting real 
 hunting ; and I fear," he added, with a pathetic 
 sigh, " that I shall never be lit for it again." 
 
 The time seemed less tedious as we spoke 
 of the past and the future, and we had already 
 crossed the frontier of Texas and entered 
 Louisiana before I had noticed any change in 
 the scenery. Everlasting plains before and 
 behind, with nothing to break the monotony 
 but herds of deer and antelope fleeing swiftly 
 from our approach. 
 
 After one day's march on Louisiana tern-
 
 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 157 
 
 tory, we began to meet a few settlers, then to 
 pass plantations of various kinds, then farms 
 and villages. The road was better and more 
 distinguishable, and we were able to dismiss 
 our guide. Toward evening we knocked at 
 the door of a rather nice-looking house on the 
 right of the road, and begged for hospitality. 
 The owners welcomed us with great courtesy, 
 for no people on earth are so thoroughly hos- 
 pitable as the Louisianians. The husband was 
 an American, a Mr. Brown ; his wife was a 
 French Creole of New Orleans, and we felt at 
 home with her directly. Gournay's queer cos- 
 tume excited the children's laughter at first ; 
 but I had no sooner explained my own story 
 and my meeting with him, than they welcomed 
 him as cordially as myself. 
 
 I slept that night in an excellent bed, a 
 thing that had not happened to me ever 
 since I left Baltimore, and slept soundly till 
 Gournay came on the morrow to wake me up. 
 We were to start early, so as to reach Natchi- 
 toches the same day. I had dismissed the 
 guide, as he was on foot, and would only have 
 delayed us, wishing as we did to press forward 
 with our horses. Mr. Brown accompanied us
 
 158 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 
 
 part of the way on horseback, and told us, 
 when he turned back ; that about twenty miles 
 further we should iind a delightful valley, 
 where he advised us to make our mid-day halt. 
 We pressed forward, and, after four hours' 
 ride reached a little hill, whence we had a view 
 of the valley which Mr. Brown had mentioned. 
 But what was my astonishment to find in this 
 place, which I expected would be a complete 
 solitude, a town, or rather a camp, covering 
 both shores of a pretty stream that flowed 
 through the valley. Numerous tents were 
 pitched along the shore, large covered wagons 
 drawn up behind the tents, and herds of oxen 
 and horses feeding near by, while slender 
 smoke columns rose here and there, giving 
 (indications of as many impromptu kitchens in 
 (.his city of tents. A crowd of negroes were 
 gathered a little way off under a grove of 
 poplars, where they were dancing with all their 
 might. Their merry voices and the sound 
 of their instruments the wind wafted across 
 to us when we stood on the hill, while 
 a few white men, coolly dressed in linen or 
 nankeen, and with large straw hats, were stand- 
 ing by, cigar in mouth, watching the grotesque
 
 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 1 5y 
 
 dance. I hastened forward to enjoy this un- 
 accustomed sight Gournay said to me : 
 
 " It is a caravan of American emigrants ; I 
 have often met such in the western prairies." 
 
 " I am not sorry to have met one, too," I 
 answered. " It must be very interesting," and 
 so saying I spurred forward and approached a 
 group of men, who, having seen our horses, 
 had stopped in apparent expectation of ouf 
 greeting them. I drew near, took off my hat, 
 and began to speak, when I was suddenly 
 interrupted by the exclamation : 
 
 " Good heavens ! It's Captain , unless 
 
 it's his ghost." 
 
 I glanced at the man who had just spoken, 
 and who came forward with outstretched hands 
 toward me. It was now my turn to exclaim. 
 
 " What ! is this you, my dear Collin ?" 
 
 I jumped off my horse and rushed into his 
 arms. After our first transport, Collin said : 
 
 " So you are not dead after all ! We all 
 thought you must have been devoured by can- 
 nibals or wild beasts ! How did you manage 
 to escape ?" 
 
 " I will tell you presently, but it is a long 
 story."
 
 ]00 ADVENTURES OK A FRENCH C \PTAIN. 
 
 The other men stood round us in silence 
 watching this scene with the liveliest interest 
 One of them made a sign to Collin, who 
 then took my hand, and, turning to his friends 
 said : 
 
 " Allow me, gentlemen, to introduce my 
 friend, Monsieur - , formerly a captain in 
 Napoleon's army, then a settler in Texas, 
 whom we all believed dead, and of whom you 
 have often heard Monsieur Tournel and my- 
 self speak." 
 
 He then named the gentlemen to me ; among 
 them was Stephen Austin, of Missouri, whom 
 I shall soon have to mention again. Having 
 gone through this ceremony of introduction, 
 as indispensable to the Anglo-American mind 
 in the wilderness as in the drawing-room, I 
 found Collin's companions as full of courtesy as 
 if they had been old friends welcoming me 
 after a long absence. We all took the direc- 
 tion of the camp, while Gournay saw to the 
 horses. As soon as the eagerness of my new 
 friends allowed me to whisper a word to Col- 
 lin, I said to him : 
 
 " You mentioned Monsieur Tournel just 
 now. Is it long since you have seen him ?"
 
 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. l6l 
 
 " Not more than an hour," he replied, with a 
 smile. 
 
 " An hour ! Then he must be here ! Take 
 me to him at once." 
 
 " We are on the road to him, but I wanted 
 to surprise you, and now, by my inconsiderate 
 speech, I let the cat out of the bag.' 
 
 " Let us make haste ; I am so eager to see 
 him again." 
 
 " I believe we shall not have far to go, for I 
 see him coming toward us as if to meet us." 
 
 We were by him in an instant, and Collin 
 said, addressing him : 
 
 " Let us see if you will know this truant 
 again." 
 
 Monsieur Tournel gazed at me for several 
 minutes, then cried, in a heartfelt voice : 
 
 " Yes, I know him well, though he is sadly 
 changed." 
 
 And he opened his arms and took me to his 
 heart like a father. I was so overcome that I 
 could do nothing but take his hands and press 
 them convulsively. As soon as I grew quieter 
 I asked him after his family. 
 
 " They are all well," he said, " but you shall 
 judge for yourself presently."
 
 162 ADVENTURES OB A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 
 
 "What! is it possible Madame Tourhel is 
 here ?" 
 
 " Certainly, and so are all the children except 
 William, who stayed in Baltimore with his 
 uncle to keep up our business." 
 
 " And how is it that we thus meet in the 
 midst of the wilderness, a thousand miles at 
 least from your home ?" 
 
 " I see that you do not yet understand the 
 American character. We think nothing of 
 any distance, but this would involve too long 
 an explanation just now. Let us go to my 
 wife, who was so sure of your death that she 
 actually had masses said for the repose of your 
 soul. We will have a talk later on." 
 
 He took me to a commodious tent, which 
 was his temporary home. Madame Tournel 
 and the children greeted me with as much de- 
 light as astonishment. After the first few cha- 
 otic moments of mutual rejoicing, I had to tell 
 my story from beginning to end. When I had 
 done, I repeated my former question to Mon- 
 sieur Tournel. 
 
 " Well, this is the beginning," he said, " of 
 the plan I often spoke of before, and which 1 
 should have undertaken in your company had
 
 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 163 
 
 the scheme of General Lallemand seemed to 
 me one likely to succeed. We are on our way 
 to found a colony in Texas, only we have taken 
 all the precautions and the means which your 
 former chiefs neglected to take. It may be it 
 often is so in these cases that their mistakes 
 have made us wise, and shown us the true way 
 of setting about our plan. When I say our plan, 
 I must explain. I did not take the initiative in 
 this undertaking, and even when I wrote to 
 you that I had not given up all hope of settling 
 in Texas, some day, I still looked upon that 
 hope as a golden dream not likely to be realized. 
 But it was realized just when I least expected 
 it was to come to any thing. Mr. Moses Aus- 
 tin, of Missouri, the father of the young man 
 who was with Collin when he met you, had 
 the same hopes as I had, but, unlike me, he did 
 not only make plans but he executed them. 
 They are now in a fair way of becoming a 
 prosperous reality. As soon as he heard of 
 the treaty between the United States and 
 Spain concerning the vexed question of the 
 possession of Texas, he addressed a petition to 
 the Court of Madrid for leave to collect from 
 various States of the Union three hundred
 
 164 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 
 
 Catholic families, to whom the Spanish Gov- 
 ernment was to grant suitable lands for the 
 formation of an agricultural colony. Spain 
 was quite willing to do so, and the only con- 
 dition was that the new settlers were to be 
 in all cases Catholics. Mr. Moses Austin 
 went off at once to choose the place for the 
 future settlement, while his son took a jour- 
 ney through Louisiana, Florida, the Carolinas, 
 Virginia, and Maryland, collecting recruits, or 
 rather partners, to assist in his father's scheme. 
 Falling in with our friend Collin, he easily 
 persuaded him to j.oin, and Collin mentioned 
 me, so that when Mr. Stephen Austin came 
 to Baltimore he at once entered into nego- 
 tiations with me. I knew his father by repu- 
 tation, and knew that he had successfully 
 worked both mines and plantations in his 
 native State of Missouri, and also in Louisiana, 
 and that he had proved his talent for organi- 
 zation in all these undertakings. Having care- 
 fully examined his plans and means of execut- 
 ing them, I saw that his scheme, so silently 
 and unostentatiously begun, and so thoroughly 
 lawful in all its details, had every chance of 
 success. I did not hesitate to join my for-
 
 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 165 
 
 tunes to his, and many heads of families, as 
 you see, have done the same, and have started 
 with us for the Promised Land." 
 
 "And can not I join you also?" I asked. 
 
 "How can you ask ?" cried Monsieur Tournel. 
 'Of course that is settled. Indeed, it was 
 settled in my mind from the beginning, for, in 
 spite of all rumors, I never believed that you 
 were dead, and kept hoping against hope that 
 some day I should see you again. When the 
 report of your death reached Baltimore, the 
 French consul proposed to draw your money 
 from the bank for the use of your heirs, as 
 he said, but I opposed him, as your locum tenens, 
 declaring that you was not dead, and that until 
 valid proof of your death should be adduced I 
 should insist upon your money remaining in the 
 bank. We had to go to law about it, but 
 the verdict was in my favor, and your money 
 quietly remained in the bank safes, whence you 
 can draw it whenever you please, plus the 
 interest accumulated since your departure." 
 
 " Many thanks, my dear friend," I answered ; 
 " but I think no time is as good as the present 
 for drawing it, since I do not wish to enter into 
 partnership with you empty-handed."
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 I JOIN THE EMIGRANTS, AND RETURN WITH 
 
 THEM TO TEXAS OUR SETTLEMENT ON 
 
 THE RIO BRAZOS THE WAR OF INDEPEND- 
 ENCE THE PROSPERITY OF TEXAS. 
 
 OUR dispositions were soon taken. Mon- 
 sieur Tournel introduced me to the rest of the 
 emigrants, who welcomed me most heartily. 
 We had a banquet that evening in honor of 
 my admission to the society of the emigrants ; 
 then followed a " tea," and a kind of impro- 
 vised ball, for many of our companions, like 
 Monsieur Tournel, had brought their wives and 
 families with them. We broke up camp the 
 following day, and once more I took the road 
 toward Texas. 
 
 Old Gournay was delighted to return to his 
 beloved solitudes. It was with many a sore 
 misgiving that he had consented to follow me 
 to a civilized country, where he feared that I 
 meant to settle for good and all ; but now that
 
 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 167 
 
 he was again going to see the country of his 
 choice, where he could still sometimes hunt 
 the buffalo or the elk, he seemed to feel at least 
 ten years younger. Of course it may be sup- 
 posed that in my history of my sojourn among 
 the Indians the old Canadian had figured 
 somewhat prominently, and from this day for- 
 ward he became the special object of Madame 
 Tournel and her children's solicitude. She 
 called him her countryman, which flattered him 
 immensely ; and, not to be behindhand, he as- 
 sured her that his grandfather had lived long in 
 Acadia before he had settled in Upper Canada. 
 And, in truth, certain ways of speaking, and 
 their unmistakable Norman accent, betrayed 
 the common origin of old Gournay am: 
 Madame Tournel. 
 
 Our progress was necessarily but slow, as we 
 had such an immense train of possessions ; we 
 scarcely got over more than twenty or twenty- 
 five miles a day, and every Sunday, and some- 
 times once a week besides, we made a whole 
 day's halt. It was quite a month since I had 
 met the caravan, when at last we reached the 
 shores of the Rio Brazos, where Mr. Moses 
 Austin was awaiting us, and where he had al-
 
 l6S ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 
 
 ready mapped out our new settlement. Here 
 we were, therefore, once more permanently 
 domiciled, and though we had some rough days 
 to get through, our perseverence was at length 
 
 Downed with full success. 
 Not long after our arrival I married Elea- 
 
 lor, Monsieur Tournel's eldest daughter, whom 
 I had first known at Baltimore as a girl 
 of fourteen. This union strengthened the 
 filial affection with which I had from the 
 beginning regarded Monsieur and Madame 
 Tournel. Collin's plantation was next to 
 ours, and we worked both in common under 
 the superintendence of my father-in-law and 
 Collin, and the help of the latter's eldest son, 
 who, as well as myself, soon learnt all that we 
 needed to perfect us in our new calling. 
 Many of our neighbor's plantations suffered 
 from the inroads of the Indians during the 
 first years of our colony. Our own always 
 escaped, thanks to Gournay's inexhaustible 
 vigilance. We called him our keeper-in-chief, 
 and his services were really valuable ; he often 
 protected us from the Comanches' stratagems, 
 or plainly intimated to them that it was in 
 ir interests to keep the peace with us. As
 
 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. ify 
 
 years went on, two of Monsieur Collin's daugh- 
 ters married Monsieur Tournel's two youngest 
 sons, so that our families were, as it were, 
 merged into one, whose amicable relations 
 have since contributed powerfully to our con- 
 tinued prosperity. 
 
 We had the misfortune, some time after the 
 settlement of the colony, to lose our head and 
 founder, Mr. Moses Austin, but his sons, John 
 and Stephen, bravely continued his work with 
 that energy and perseverence which are always 
 infallibly rewarded with success. We had 
 hardly settled in Texas before Mexico defini- 
 tively shook off the Spanish yoke and pro- 
 claimed their independence. The new gov- 
 ernment confirmed the grants made by the 
 Spaniards to Mr. Austin, and new colonists 
 from the United States soon came to swell our 
 numbers or to people other parts of Texas. 
 When Mexico constituted itself a republic, ac- 
 cording to the pattern of the United States, 
 Texas was not thought strong enough yet to 
 become a separate State, so it was joined to 
 the province of Chohahuila, and re-baptized 
 the State of Chohakuila-y- Texas. 
 
 Before six years had gone by, our settlements
 
 I7O ADVEN'irkKS OK A KKKNCII ''ATTAIN. 
 
 had prospered so well and our population had 
 so rapidly increased that Texas was thrice as 
 densely peopled as the province of Chohahuila, 
 to which we had been annexed. We then 
 claimed to be erected an independent State, 
 but Mexico, instead of admitting us to her con- 
 federation, resorted to violence to force us to 
 remain subservient to Chohahuila, or rather 
 the government, as if ashamed of its fears, 
 tried by stratagem to destroy our young colony. 
 Under different pretexts, several small detach- 
 ments of troops were sent into Texas, until, un- 
 known to the Texans themselves, the strongest 
 positions of the State were all in the hands of 
 Mexican garrisons. The exactions of the 
 Mexican authorities grew worse and worse, 
 and excited such universal discontent that an 
 open revolt soon broke out. 
 
 In the early part of the year 1832 a hun- 
 dred and seventeen colonists took up arms, and, 
 under the direction of John Austin, carried 
 the fort of Velasco. Not long after, the colonists 
 of Nacogdoches attacked the fort of that name, 
 took it, and drove out the Mexican garrison. By 
 the end of the year not a single Mexican sol- 
 dier remained on Texan territory. Then we
 
 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH i AMAIN. 1 ; I 
 
 held a convention in the rising city of San 
 Felipe -de- Austin, and drew up a petition to 
 the Mexican Government, demanding separa- 
 tion from the State of Chohahuila. General 
 Stephen Austin went to Mexico to present the 
 petition and open negotiations. The negotia- 
 tions lingered, and the General left Mexico for 
 Texas. He was arrested when not a hundred 
 miles from Mexico, taken back to the city and 
 thrown into prison, where he remained till 
 1835. He was then restored to freedom be- 
 cause he was not supposed to be either suffi- 
 ciently energetic to direct an insurrection, or 
 influential enough to stop it. 
 
 His return to our midst, h^ calm and firm 
 resolve, filled us all with strength and confi- 
 dence. A general assembly met at San Felipe, 
 and in eleven days determined upon all the 
 measures necessary for the defence of the 
 country. A solemn declaration was adopted, 
 in which were set forth, in grave and well- 
 weighed words, the grounds upon which the 
 Texan people took up arms. Stephen Austin 
 was sent to the United States to claim the 
 help of the American Government, and the 
 command of the troops was entrusted to
 
 I ;2 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 
 
 Samuel Houston, who chose me for his aide- 
 de-camp. 
 
 The campaign was opened by one of those 
 acts of heroic bravery which drive a nation 
 wild with enthusiasm, and thus make it capable 
 of the greatest victories. 
 
 The town of Bejar was in the hands of the 
 Mexican general Cos, who had under him a 
 garrison of fifteen hundred veterans. The 
 Texans besieged him, but finding, after several 
 ineffectual attempts, that they lacked the neces- 
 sary war material with which to reduce a town 
 defended by so numerous and well-disciplined 
 a garrison, they determined to raise the siege. 
 Just then one of those men whose heroism 
 rises superior to all obstacles came forward 
 and promised that if three hundred of his coun- 
 trymen would stand by him to the death, he 
 would engage to storm the town. This man 
 was the intrepid Milans, whose bravery had 
 already made him famous and popular. Three 
 hundred men at once joined the forlorn hope, 
 and with their help, Milans made good his 
 promise. The town was taken by storm, even 
 the citadel capitulated, and General Cos, with 
 his fifteen hundred Mexicans, marched out past
 
 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 1/3 
 
 Milans' victorious handful of men, half of whom 
 had paid for their daring with their lives. 
 Milans himself had found death in the midst 
 of his glorious triumph. The Texans call him 
 their Leonidas, and, in honor of his bravery, 
 one of the thirty-two counties forming their 
 Republic was called after him. 
 
 The Mexican president, Santa Anna, was 
 greatly mortified at this insult offered the 
 Mexican arms, and anxious to take signal ven- 
 geance for it, he entered the Texan territory on 
 the 2ist of February, at the head of an army 
 of six thousand men, divided into three corps. 
 Upon this the Texans again called a conven- 
 tion at Washington, on the Rio Brazos, and 
 unanimously proclaimed Texan independence. 
 
 Santa Anna, in the meanwhile, attacked 
 Bejar and retook the city from a garrison of a 
 hundred and eighty men, who were all mas- 
 sacred in the Alamo fort, after having, during 
 the siege, killed no less than fifteen hundred 
 Mexicans. 
 
 " Another such victory, and we are undone !" 
 Santa Anna was known to have said on this 
 occasion. But these words were still more ap- 
 plicable in the case of the siege of Goliad,
 
 174 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 
 
 for this town having capitulated after a pro- 
 longed and honorable resistance, Santa Anna, 
 who was then at Bejar, treacherously broke 
 the treaty, and ordered a wholesale massacre 
 of the prisoners to the number of four hun- 
 dred. 
 
 This horrible treachery aroused anew the 
 courage of the colonists, and while Santa 
 Anna thought us demoralized and unable to 
 offer any resistance should he overrun our 
 country, Houston's army suddenly confronted 
 him on the plains of San Jacinto, on the 2Oth 
 of April, 1836. - Santa Anna, who had effected 
 a junction with Cos, purposed to give us battle 
 the next day ; but we advanced to meet him, 
 marching in the midst of a dead silence. 
 When we got within a few hundred yards of 
 the enemy, General Houston shouted : " Friends, 
 remember Alamo T 
 
 With this cry of vengeance a murderous 
 fire was poured upon the Mexican troops, 
 who gave way at once, and before they could 
 rally we were upon them on all sides, charg- 
 ing them with our bayonets. The carnage was- 
 awful. In eighteen minutes we were masters 
 of all the enemy's baggage, standards, and artil- ,
 
 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. i;J 
 
 lery. . Half the Mexican army remained on 
 the field of battle. The other half laid down 
 their arms. 
 
 Though I have seen many a fight during 
 the seven years of my service under the Em- 
 pire, I had never witnessed such wild ex- 
 citement. I felt twenty years younger. Our 
 Texans were real heroes, and what is most 
 wonderful in this feat of a handful of volun- 
 teers, and proves that the enemy did not try 
 to resist us, is the fact that we had only two 
 soldiers killed and twenty-three wounded. 
 
 Santa Anna had fled at the beginning of the 
 fight. He was found, the next day, hiding in the 
 tall prairie grass. He humbly kissed the hand of 
 the poor soldier who -found him, and tried to 
 bribe the others with unlimited gifts of gold 
 and jewels. He wept when they resisted his 
 offers, and when he was carried before Hous- 
 ton, he said to him, significantly : 
 
 " You were born for great things ; you have 
 conquered the Napoleon of the West? 
 
 His conscience smote him about the massa- 
 cre of Goliad, and he feared to be called to ac- 
 count for it, but still, from policy or from pity, 
 General Houston promised to protect him.
 
 1/6 ADVEXlTKEs OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 
 
 Such was the war that assured Texan inde- 
 pendence. 
 
 The victory of San Jacinto endowed Houston 
 with a popularity that eclipsed that of Stephen 
 Austin, the founder of Texan self-govern- 
 ment, and he was elected president of the Re- 
 public in September, 1836, and his name was 
 given to a city which was intended to become 
 the capital of the Republic. The United States 
 at once recognized Texas as an independent 
 Republic. France followed their example in 
 1839: so did England, Holland, and Belgium. 
 
 In 1846, however, Texas voluntarily became 
 a State of the Union, and this change in its 
 destiny has materially contributed to increase 
 its prosperity. The same applies to our settle- 
 ment, founded by my friends Tournel and 
 Collin, although we had our share of the losses 
 and annoyances inseparable from such settle- 
 ments in the first years of their existence One 
 of these losses was the death of Monsieur 
 Tournel, my father-in-law, which took place a 
 few days after the declaration of independence. 
 And since misfortunes never come single, we 
 soon had to mourn the death of Monsieur 
 Collin, so that I was left alone in charge of the
 
 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 177 
 
 plantations. Notwithstanding the experience 
 I had gained in the management of the estate, 
 the task would have been beyond my own per- 
 sonal powers had I not been assisted by my 
 brother-in-law, Monsieur Collin's son-in-law. 
 My eldest son was soon able to help, too, and for 
 the last ten years has entirely taken my place. 
 I am now living like a country gentleman 
 in a pretty house which I built on the banks 
 of the Rio Brazos. My wife watches over the 
 education of our grandchildren and our own 
 younger children, for my eldest son is already 
 married and the father of a family. My 
 mother-in-law, Madame Tournel, though very 
 aged, is still strong and healthy, and helps my 
 wife to take care of the young people. We 
 often talk of her countryman, dear old Gour- 
 nay, whom she was very fond of, and who died 
 about twenty years ago, leaving all his posses- 
 sions to Madame Tournel, on condition that she 
 would have masses said for the repose of his soul. 
 The good old man's worldly possessions were 
 more than any one had an idea of. They con- 
 sisted of a little leather bag, from which he 
 never parted, and which was found after his 
 death to be full of gold dust, gathered during
 
 1/8 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 
 
 his forty years' roving commerce, and valued 
 at nearly five hundred dollars. 
 
 Madame Tournel, who by her kind advice 
 had succeeded in winning the old trapper back 
 to his religious duties and belief, and had caused 
 him to receive the last sacraments before his 
 death, accepted the legacy and minutely fu' 
 filled the old man's wishes. 
 
 One of my mother-in-law's chief grievances 
 during the first years of our settlement in Texas 
 was the absence of any priest in our neighbor- 
 hood. To hear mass it was necessary to under- 
 take a long, and often dangerous, journey to San 
 Antonio de Bejar, or Nacogdoches, the only 
 two places where there were resident priests. Of 
 coarse the injunction to bring our best Cath- 
 olic families into Texas only held good for the 
 first batch of colonists. Those who joined us 
 since, from the States, belong to all the various 
 sects of the Union. At last, after the declara- 
 tion of independence, a body of French Laza- 
 rist missionaries settled near us. It was a great 
 comfort to us all, especially to my wife and 
 mother-in-law. I say to us all, because I had 
 long wished seriously to speak to a priest. I 
 had never forgotten the sermons I had heard
 
 ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 1 79 
 
 long ago in Baltimore, and since my marriage 
 my wife and her mother had strongly urged me 
 to practice the religion in which I had been 
 born, but to which I had been heretofore as a 
 stranger. 
 
 I happened to be in Houston in July, 1839, 
 for the meeting of Congress, of which I was a 
 member, when the two first French mission- 
 aries arrived. They were joyfully welcome, 
 and one of them preached in the Capitol, in 
 the Hall of Representatives, before both Houses 
 of Congress. His discourse, which lasted an 
 hour and a half, was generally liked, even by 
 those of opposite beliefs. I went to see him 
 after the sermon, and when he heard that I was 
 a Catholic and a Frenchman, the good mission- 
 ary embraced me with tears, and said: 
 " You are doubly my brother, then." 
 It was he who heard my confession, a\^ I 
 should have been glad to keep him with us 
 but his affairs made his presence necessary in 
 New Orleans. I took him home, however, and 
 he spent two days with us, where he was wel- 
 comed as a father returning to the bosom of his 
 family. Other missionaries have come to Texas 
 since then.
 
 ISO ADVENTURES OF A FRENCH CAPTAIN. 
 
 Galveston has been made a suffragan See of 
 the Archbishopric of New Orleans, but the 
 number of apostolic laborers is still very far 
 from proportionate to the extent of the diocese, 
 which is nearly as large as the whole of France, 
 and has a large Catholic population, scattered 
 in every direction. 
 
 We have built a chapel on our plantation, 
 and every Sunday and holiday a French priest 
 comes to say mass for our French and Catholic 
 colony, for three or four other planters, our 
 neighbors, are Lousiianians of French extrac- 
 tion, and our united families, though entirely 
 Texan in sympathy, still retain a tender rever- 
 ence for our mother country. 
 
 For my part, I could not bear to die before 
 seeing France again, especially when I learnt 
 that the Empire had been re-established, and 
 the eagle, under whose auspices I had fought, 
 again reinstated on our military standard. 
 Now, that this wish of my heart has been ful- 
 filled, I am on the point of returning to my 
 new home, where I hope to end my days in 
 peace in the bosom of my family. 
 
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