1685-1687.
ST. LOUIS OF TEXAS.
THE FORT.--MISERY AND DEJECTION.--ENERGY OF LA SALLE.--HIS JOURNEY
OF EXPLORATION.--DUHAUT.--INDIAN MASSACRE.--RETURN OF LA SALLE.
--A NEW CALAMITY.--A DESPERATE RESOLUTION.--DEPARTURE FOR CANADA.
--WRECK OF THE "BELLE."--MARRIAGE.--SEDITION.--ADVENTURES OF LA
SALLE'S PARTY.--THE CENIS.--THE CAMANCHES.--THE ONLY HOPE.--THE LAST
FAREWELL.
Of what avail to plant a colony by the mouth of a petty Texan river? The
Mississippi was the life of the enterprise, the condition of its growth
and of its existence. Without it, all was futile and meaningless; a folly
and a ruin. Cost what it might, the Mississippi must be found. But the
demands of the hour were imperative. The hapless colony, cast ashore like
a wreck on the sands of Matagorda Bay, must gather up its shattered
resources, and recruit its exhausted strength, before it essayed anew its
desperate pilgrimage to the "fatal river." La Salle during his
explorations had found a spot which he thought well fitted for a temporary
establishment. It was on the river which he named the La Vache, [Footnote:
Called by Joutel Rivière aux Boeufs.] now the Lavaca, which, enters the
head of Matagorda Bay; and thither he ordered all the women and children,
and most of the men, to remove; while the remnant, thirty in number,
remained with Joutel at the fort near the mouth of the bay. Here they
spent their time in hunting, fishing, and squaring the logs of drift-wood,
which the sea washed up in abundance, and which La Salle proposed to use
in building his new station on the Lavaca. Thus the time passed till
midsummer, when Joutel received orders to abandon his post, and rejoin the
main body of the colonists. To this end, the little frigate "Belle" was
sent down the bay to receive him and his men. She was a gift from the king
to La Salle, who had brought her safely over the bar, and regarded her as
a main-stay of his hopes. She now took Joutel and his men on board,
together with the stores which had remained in their charge, and conveyed
them to the site of the new fort on the Lavaca. Here Joutel found a state
of things that was far from cheering. Crops had been sown, but the drought
and the cattle had nearly destroyed them. The colonists were lodged under
tents and hovels; and the only solid structure was a small square
enclosure of pickets, in which the gunpowder and the brandy were stored.
The site was good, a rising ground by the river; but there was no wood
within the distance of a league, and no horses or oxen to drag it. Their
work must be done by men. Some felled and squared the timber; and others
dragged it by main force over the matted grass of the prairie, under the
scorching Texan sun. The gun-carriages served to make the task somewhat
easier; yet the strongest men soon gave out under it. Joutel went down in
the "Belle" to the first fort, and brought up the timber collected there,
which proved a most seasonable and useful supply. Palisades and buildings
began to rise. The men labored without spirit, yet strenuously; for they
labored under the eye of La Salle. The carpenters brought from Rochelle
proved worthless, and he himself made the plans of the work, marked out
the tenons and mortises, and directed the whole. [Footnote: Joutel, 108.
_Procès Verbal fait au poste de St. Louis le 18 Avril, 1686,_ MS.]
Death, meanwhile, made a withering havoc among his followers; and under
the sheds and hovels that shielded them from the sun lay a score of
wretches slowly wasting away with the diseases contracted at St. Domingo.
Of the soldiers enlisted for the expedition by La Salle's agents, many are
affirmed to have spent their lives in begging at the church doors of
Rochefort, and were consequently incapable of discipline. It was
impossible to prevent either them or the sailors from devouring persimmons
and other wild fruits to a destructive excess. [Footnote: Ibid.] Nearly
all fell ill; and, before the summer had passed, the graveyard had more
than thirty tenants. [Footnote: Joutel, 109. Le Clercq, who was not
present, says a hundred.] The bearing of La Salle did not aid to raise the
drooping spirits of his followers. The results of the enterprise had been
far different from his hopes; and, after a season of flattering promise,
he had entered again on those dark and obstructed paths which seemed his
destined way of life. The present was beset with trouble; the future,
thick with storms. The consciousness quickened his energies; but it made
him stern, harsh, and often unjust to those beneath him.
Joutel was returning to camp one afternoon with the master-carpenter, when
they saw game, and the carpenter went after it. He was never seen again.
Perhaps he was lost on the prairie, perhaps killed by Indians. He knew
little of his trade, but they nevertheless, had need of him. Le Gros, a
man of character and intelligence, suffered more and more from the bite of
the snake received in the marsh oil Easter Day. The injured limb was
amputated, and he died, La Salle's brother, the priest, lay ill; and
several others among the chief persons of the colony were in the same
condition.
Meanwhile, the work was urged on. A large building was finished,
constructed of timber, roofed with boards and raw hides, and divided into
apartments, for lodging and other uses. La Salle gave to the new
establishment his favorite name of Fort St. Louis, and the neighboring bay
was also christened after the royal saint. [Footnote: The Bay of St.
Louis, St. Bernard's Bay, or Matagorda Bay,--for it has borne all these
names,--was also called Espiritu Santo Bay, by the Spaniards, in common
with several other bays in the Gulf of Mexico. An adjoining bay still
retains the name.] The scene was not without its charms. Towards the
south-east stretched the bay with its bordering meadows; and on the north-
east the Lavaca ran along the base of green declivities. Around, far and
near, rolled a sea of prairie, with distant forests, dim in the summer
haze. At times, it was dotted with the browsing buffalo, not yet scared
from their wonted pastures; and the grassy swells were spangled with the
bright flowers for which Texas is renowned, and which now form the gay
ornaments of our gardens.
And now, the needful work accomplished, and the colony in some measure
housed and fortified, its indefatigable chief prepared to renew his quest
of the "fatal river," as Joutel repeatedly calls it. Before his departure,
he made some preliminary explorations, in the course of which, according
to the report of his brother the priest, he found evidence that the
Spaniards had long before had a transient establishment at a spot about
fifteen leagues from Fort St. Louis. [Footnote: Cavelier, in his report to
the minister, says: "We reached a large village enclosed with a kind of
wall made of clay and sand, and fortified with little towers at intervals,
where we found the arms of Spain engraved on a plate of copper, with the
date of 1588, attached to a stake. The inhabitants gave us a kind welcome,
and showed us some hammers and an anvil, two small pieces of iron cannon,
a small brass culverin, some pike-heads, some old sword-blades, and some
books of Spanish comedy; and thence they guided us to a little hamlet of
fishermen about two leagues distant, where they showed us a second stake,
also with the arms of Spain, and a few old chimneys. All this convinced us
that the Spaniards had formerly been here."--Cavelier, _Relation du Voyage
que mon frère entreprit pour découvrir l'embouchure du fleuve de
Missisipy_, MS. The above is translated from the original draft of
Cavelier, which is in my possession. It was addressed to the colonial
minister, after the death of La Salle. The statement concerning the
Spaniards needs confirmation.]
It was the first of November, when La Salle set out on his great journey
of exploration. His brother Cavelier, who had now recovered, accompanied
him with thirty men, and five cannon-shot from the fort saluted them as
they departed. They were lightly equipped, but La Salle had a wooden
corselet as a protection against arrows. Descending the Lavaca, they
pursued their course eastward on foot along the margin of the bay, while
Joutel remained in command of the fort. It stood on a rising ground, two
leagues above the mouth of the river. Between the palisades and the stream
lay a narrow strip of marsh, the haunt of countless birds, and at a little
distance it deepened into ponds full of fish. The buffalo and the deer
were without number; and, in truth, all the surrounding region swarmed
with game,--hares, turkeys, ducks, geese, swans, plover, snipe, and
partridges. They shot them in abundance, after necessity and practice had
taught them the art. The river supplied them with fish, and the bay with
oysters. There were land-turtles and sea-turtles; and Joutel sometimes
amused himself with shooting alligators, of which he says that he once
killed one twenty feet long. He describes, too, with perfect accuracy,
that curious native of the south-western prairies, the "horned frog,"
which, deceived by its uninviting aspect, he erroneously supposed to be
venomous. [Footnote: Joutel devotes many pages to an account of the
animals and plants of the country, most of which may readily be recognized
from his description.]
He suffered no man to be idle. Some hunted; some fished; some labored at
the houses and defences. To the large building made by La Salle he added
four lodging-houses for the men, and a fifth for the women, besides a
small chapel. All were built with squared timber, and roofed like the
first with boards and buffalo-hides; while a palisade and ditch, defended
by eight pieces of cannon, enclosed the whole. [Footnote: Compare Joutel
with the Spanish account in _Carta en que se da noticia de tin viaje hecho
à la bahia de Espiritu Santo y de la poblacion que tenian ahi los
Franceses: Coleccion de Varios Documentos_, 25.] Late one evening in
January, when all were gathered in the principal building, conversing
perhaps, or smoking, or playing at games of hazard, or dozing by the fire
in homesick dreams of France, one of the men on guard came in to report
that he had heard a voice in the distance without. All hastened into the
open air; and Joutel, advancing towards the river whence the voice came,
presently descried a man in a canoe, and saw that he was Duhaut, one of La
Salle's chief followers, and perhaps the greatest villain of the company.
La Salle had directed that none of his men should be admitted into the
fort, unless he brought a pass from him; and it would have been well, had
the order been obeyed to the letter. Duhaut, however, told a plausible and
possibly a true story. He had stopped on the march to mend a shoe which
needed repair, and on attempting to overtake the party had become
bewildered on a prairie intersected with the paths of the buffalo. He
fired his gun in vain, as a signal to his companions; saw no hope of
rejoining them, and turned back, travelling only in the night, from fear
of Indians, and lying hid by day. After a month of excessive hardship, he
reached his destination; and, as the inmates of Fort St. Louis
[Transcriber's note: missing page in original]
worn and ragged. [Footnote: Joutel, 136, 137. The date of the return is
from Cavelier.] Their story was a brief one. After losing Duhaut, they
had wandered on through various savage tribes, with whom they had more
than one encounter, scattering them like chaff by the terror of their
fire-arms. At length, they found a more friendly band, and learned much
touching the Spaniards, who were, they were told, universally hated by the
tribes of that country. It would be easy, said their informants, to gather
a host of warriors and lead them over the Rio Grande; but La Salle was in
no condition for attempting conquests, and the tribes in whose alliance he
had trusted had, a few days before, been at blows with him. The invasion
of New Biscay must be postponed to a more propitious day. Still advancing,
he came to a large river, which he at first mistook for the Mississippi;
and, building a fort of palisades, he left here several of his men.
[Footnote: Cavelier says that he actually reached the Mississippi; but, on
the one hand, he did not know whether the river in question was the
Mississippi or not; and, on the other, he is somewhat inclined to
mendacity. Le Clercq says that La Salle thought he had found the river.
Joutel says that he did not reach it.] The fate of these unfortunates does
not appear. He now retraced his steps towards Fort St. Louis; and, as he
approached it, detached some of his men to look for his vessel, the
"Belle," for whose safety, since the loss of her pilot, he had become very
anxious.
On the next day, these men appeared at the fort, with downcast looks. They
had not found the "Belle" at the place where she had been ordered to
remain, nor were any tidings to be heard of her. From that hour, the
conviction that she was lost possessed the mind of La Salle.
Surrounded as he was, and had always been, with traitors, the belief now
possessed him that her crew had abandoned the colony, and made sail for
the West Indies or for France. The loss was incalculable. He had relied on
this vessel to transport the colonists to the Mississippi, as soon as its
exact position could be ascertained; and, thinking her a safer place of
deposit than the fort, he had put on board of her all his papers and
personal baggage, besides a great quantity of stores, ammunition, and
tools. [Footnote: _Procès Verbal fait au poste de la Baie St. Louis, le_
18 _Avril_, 1686, MS.] In truth, she was of the last necessity to the
unhappy exiles, and their only resource for escape from a position which
was fast becoming desperate.
La Salle, as his brother tells us, fell dangerously ill; the fatigues of
his journey, joined to the effects upon his mind of this last disaster,
having overcome his strength though not his fortitude. "In truth," writes
the priest, "after the loss of the vessel, which deprived us of our only
means of returning to France, we had no resource but in the firmness and
conduct of my brother, whose death each of us would have regarded as his
own." [Footnote: Cavelier, _Relation du Voyage pour découvrir l'embouchure
du Fleuve de Missisipy_, MS.]
La Salle no sooner recovered than he embraced a resolution which could be
the offspring only of a desperate necessity. He determined to make his way
by the Mississippi and the Illinois to Canada, whence he might bring
succor to the colonists, and send a report of their condition to France.
The attempt was beset with uncertainties and dangers. The Mississippi was
first to be found; then followed through all the perilous monotony of its
interminable windings to a goal which was to be but the starting-point of
a new and not less arduous journey. Cavelier, his brother, Moranget, his
nephew, the friar, Anastase Douay, and others, to the number of twenty,
offered to accompany him. Every corner of the magazine was ransacked for
an outfit. Joutel generously gave up the better part of his wardrobe to La
Salle and his two relatives. Duhaut, who had saved his baggage from the
wreck of the "Aimable," was required to contribute to the necessities of
the party; and the scantily furnished chests of those who had died were
used to supply the wants of the living. Each man labored with needle and
awl to patch his failing garments, or supply their place with buffalo or
deer skins. On the twenty-second of April, after mass and prayers in the
chapel, they issued from the gate, each bearing his pack and his weapons;
some with kettles slung at their backs, some with axes, some with gifts
for Indians. In this guise, they held their way in silence across the
prairie while anxious eyes followed them from the palisades of St. Louis,
whose inmates, not excepting Joutel himself, seem to have been ignorant of
the extent and difficulty of the undertaking. [Footnote: Joutel, 140;
Anastase Douay, in Le Clercq, ii. 303; Cavelier, _Relation_, MS. The date
is from Douay. It does not appear from his narrative that they meant to go
further than the Illinois. Cavelier says that after resting here they were
to go to Canada. Joutel supposed that they would go only to the Illinois.
La Salle seems to have been even more reticent than usual.]
It was but a few days after, when a cry of _Qui vive_, twice repeated, was
heard from the river. Joutel went down to the bank, and saw a canoe full
of men, among whom he recognized Chedeville, a priest attached to the
expedition, the Marquis de la Sablonnière, and others of those who had
embarked in the "Belle." His first greeting was an eager demand what had
become of her, and the answer confirmed his worst fears. Chedeville and
his companions were conducted within the fort, where they told their
dismal story. The murder of the pilot and his boat's crew had been
followed by another accident, no less disastrous. A boat which had gone
ashore for water had been swamped in returning, and all on board were
lost. Those who remained in the vessel, after great suffering from thirst,
had left their moorings, contrary to the orders of La Salle, and
endeavored to approach the fort. But they were few, weak, and unskilful. A
wind rose, and the "Belle" was wrecked on a sand-bar at the farther side
of the bay. All perished but eight men, who escaped on a raft, and, after
long delay, found a stranded canoe, in which they made their way to St.
Louis, bringing with them some of La Salle's papers and baggage, saved
from the wreck.
Thus clouds and darkness thickened around the hapless colonists, whose
gloom was nevertheless lighted by a transient ray of hilarity. Among their
leaders was the Sieur Barbier, a young man, who usually conducted the
hunting-parties. Some of the women and girls often went out with them to
aid in cutting up the meat. Barbier became enamoured of one of the girls;
and, as his devotion to her was the subject of comment, he asked Joutel
for leave to marry her. The commandant, after due counsel with the priests
and friars, vouchsafed his consent, and the rite was duly solemnized;
whereupon, fired by the example, the Marquis de la Sablonnière begged
leave to marry another of the girls. Joutel, the gardener's son, concerned
that a marquis should so abase himself, and anxious, at the same time, for
the morals of the fort, not only flatly refused, but, in the plenitude of
his authority, forbade the lovers all farther intercourse. [Footnote:
Joutel, 146, 147.]
The Indians hovered about the fort with no good intent, sent a flight of
arrows among Barbier's hunting-party, and prowled at night around the
palisades. One of the friars was knocked down by a wounded buffalo, and
narrowly escaped; another was detected in writing charges against La
Salle. Joutel seized the paper, and burned it; but the clerical character
of the reverend offender saved him from punishment. The colonists were
beginning to murmur; and their discontent was fomented by Duhaut, who,
with a view to some ulterior design, tried to ingratiate himself with the
malcontents, and become their leader. Joutel detected the mischief, and,
with a lenity which he afterwards deeply regretted, contented himself with
a severe rebuke to the ring-leader, and words of reproof and exhortation
to his dejected band. And, lest idleness should beget farther evil, he
busied them in such superfluous tasks as mowing grass, that a better crop
might spring up, and cutting down trees which obstructed the view. In the
evening, he gathered them in the great hall, and encouraged them to forget
their cares in songs and dances.
On the seventeenth of October, [Footnote: This is Douay's date. Joutel
places it in August, but this is evidently an error. He himself says that,
having lost all his papers, he cannot be certain as to dates.] Joutel saw
a band of men and horses, descending the opposite bank of the Lavaca, and
heard the familiar voice of La Salle shouting across the water. He and his
party were soon brought over in canoes, while the horses swam the river.
Twenty men had gone out with him, and eight had returned. Of the rest,
four had deserted, one had been lost, one had been devoured by an
alligator; and the rest, giving out on the march, had probably perished in
attempting to regain the fort. The travellers told of a rich country, a
wild and beautiful landscape, woods, rivers, groves, and prairies; but all
availed nothing, and the acquisition of five horses was but an indifferent
return for the loss of twelve men. The story of their adventures was soon
told.
After leaving the fort, they had journeyed towards the north-east, over
plains green as an emerald with the young verdure of April, till at length
they saw, far as the eye could reach, the boundless prairie alive with
herds of buffalo. The animals were in one of their tame, or stupid moods;
and they killed nine or ten of them without the least difficulty, drying
the best parts of the meat. They crossed the Colorado on a raft, and
reached the banks of another river, where one of the party named Hiens, a
German of Würtemberg, and an old buccaneer, was mired and nearly
suffocated in a mud-hole. Unfortunately, as will soon appear, he managed
to crawl out; and, to console him, the river was christened with his name.
The party made a bridge of felled trees, on which they crossed in safety.
La Salle now changed their course, and journeyed eastward, when the
travellers soon found themselves in the midst of a numerous Indian
population, where they were feasted and caressed without measure. At
another village, they were less fortunate. The inhabitants were friendly
by day, and hostile by night. They came to attack the French in their
camp, but withdrew, daunted by the menacing voice of La Salle, who had
heard them approaching through the cane-brake.
La Salle's favorite Shawanoe hunter, Nika, who had followed him from
Canada to France, and from France to Texas, was bitten by a rattlesnake;
and, though he recovered, the accident detained the party for several
days. At length they resumed their journey, but were arrested by a large
river, apparently the Brazos. La Salle and Cavelier, with a few others,
tried to cross on a raft, which, as it reached the channel, was caught by
a current of marvellous swiftness. Douay and Moranget, watching the
transit from the edge of the canebrake, beheld their commander swept down
the stream, and vanishing, as it were, in an instant. All that day they
remained with their companions on the bank, lamenting in an abyss of
despair for the loss of their guardian angel, for so Douay calls La Salle.
[Footnote: "Ce fût une desolation extrême pour nous tous qui desesperions
de revoir jamais nostre Ange tutélaire, le Sieur de la Salle... Tout le
jour se passa en pleurs et en larmes."--Douay, in Le Clercq, ii. 315.] It
was fast growing dark, when, to their unspeakable relief, they saw him
advancing with his party along the opposite bank, having succeeded, after
great exertion, in guiding the raft to land. How to rejoin him was now the
question. Douay and his companions, who had tasted no food that day, broke
their fast on two young eagles which they knocked out of their nest, and
then spent the night in rueful consultation as to the means of crossing
the river. In the morning, they waded into the marsh, the friar with his
breviary in his hood, to keep it dry, and hacked among the caries till
they had gathered enough to make another raft, on which, profiting by La
Salle's experience, they safely crossed, and rejoined him.
Next, they became entangled in a cane-brake, where La Salle, as usual with
him in such cases, took the lead, a hatchet in each hand, and hewed out a
path for his followers. They soon reached the villages of the Cenis
Indians, on and near the River Trinity, a tribe then powerful, but long
since extinct. Nothing could surpass the friendliness of their welcome.
The chiefs came to meet them, bearing the calumet, and followed by
warriors in shirts of embroidered deer-skin. Then the whole village
swarmed out like bees, gathering around the visitors with offerings of
food, and all that was precious in their eyes. La Salle was lodged with
the great chief; but he compelled his men to encamp at a distance, lest
the ardor of their gallantry might give occasion of offence. The lodges of
the Cenis, forty or fifty feet high, and covered with a thatch of meadow-
grass, looked like huge beehives. Each held several families, whose fire
was in the middle, and their beds around the circumference. The spoil of
the Spaniards was to be seen on all sides; silver lamps and spoons,
swords, old muskets, money, clothing, and a Bull of the Pope dispensing
the Spanish colonists of New Mexico from fasting during summer. [Footnote:
Douay, in Le Clercq, ii. 321; Cavelier, _Relation_, MS.] These treasures,
as well as their numerous horses, were obtained by the Cenis from their
neighbors and allies, the Camanches, that fierce prairie banditti, who
then, as now, scourged the Mexican border with their bloody forays. A
party of these wild horsemen was in the village. Douay was edified at
seeing them make the sign of the cross, in imitation of the neophytes of
one of the Spanish missions. They enacted, too, the ceremony of the mass;
and one of them, in his rude way, drew a sketch of a picture he had seen
in some church which he had pillaged, wherein the friar plainly recognized
the Virgin weeping at the foot of the cross. They invited the French to
join them on a raid into New Mexico; and they spoke with contempt, as
their tribesmen will speak to this day, of the Spanish creoles, saying
that it would be easy to conquer a nation of cowards who make people walk
before them with fans to cool them in hot weather. [Footnote: Douay, in Le
Clercq, ii. 324, 325.]
Soon after leaving the Cenis villages, both La Salle and his nephew,
Moranget, were attacked by a fever. This caused a delay of more than two
months, during which the party seem to have remained encamped on the
Neches, or, possibly, the Sabine. When at length the invalids had
recovered sufficient strength to travel, the stock of ammunition was
nearly spent, some of the men had deserted, and the condition of the
travellers was such, that there seemed no alternative but to return to
Fort St. Louis. This they accordingly did, greatly aided in their march by
the horses bought from the Cenis, and suffering no very serious accident
by the way, excepting the loss of La Salle's servant, Dumesnil, who was
seized by an alligator while attempting to cross the Colorado.
The temporary excitement caused among the colonists by their return soon
gave place to a dejection bordering on despair. "This pleasant land,"
writes Cavelier, "seemed to us an abode of weariness and a perpetual
prison." Flattering themselves with the delusion, common to exiles of
every kind, that they were objects of solicitude at home, they watched
daily, with straining eyes, for an approaching sail. Ships, indeed, had
ranged the coast to seek them, but with no friendly intent. Their thoughts
dwelt, with unspeakable yearning, on the France they had left behind; and
which, to their longing fancy, was pictured as an unattainable Eden. Well
might they despond; for of a hundred and eighty colonists, besides the
crew of the "Belle," less than forty-five remained. The weary precincts of
Fort St. Louis, with its fence of rigid palisades, its area of trampled
earth, its buildings of weather-stained timber, and its well-peopled
graveyard without, were hateful to their sight. La Salle had a heavy task
to save them from despair. His composure, his unfailing cheerfulness, his
words of sympathy and of hope, were the breath of life to this forlorn
company; for, self-contained and stern as was his nature, he could soften,
in times of extremity, to a gentleness that strongly appealed to the
hearts of those around him; and though he could not impart, to minds of
less adamantine temper, the audacity of hope with which he still clung to
the final accomplishment of his purposes, the contagion of his courage
touched, nevertheless, the drooping spirits of his followers. [Footnote:
"L'égalité d'humeur du Chef rassuroit tout le monde; et il trouvoit des
resources à tout par son esprit qui relevoit les espérances les plus
abatues."--Joutel, 152.
"Il seroit difficile de trouver dans l'Histoire un courage plus intrepide
et plus invincible que celuy du Sieur de la Salle dans les évenemens
contraires; il ne fût jamais abatu, et il espéroit toujours avec le
secours du Ciel de venir à bout de son entreprise malgré tous les
obstacles qui se présentoient."--Douay, in Le Clercq, ii. 327.]
The journey to Canada was clearly their only hope; and, after a brief
rest, La Salle prepared to renew the attempt. He proposed that Joutel
should, this time, be of the party; and should proceed from Quebec to
France, with his brother Cavelier, to solicit succors for the colony. A
new obstacle was presently interposed. La Salle, whose constitution seems
to have suffered from his long course of hardships, was attacked in
November with hernia. Joutel offered to conduct the party in his stead;
but La Salle replied that his own presence was indispensable at the
Illinois. He had the good fortune to recover, within four or five weeks,
sufficiently to undertake the journey; and all in the fort busied
themselves in preparing an outfit. In such straits were they for clothing,
that the sails of the "Belle" were cut up to make coats for the
adventurers. Christmas came, and was solemnly observed. There was a
midnight mass in the chapel, where Membré, Cavelier, Douay, and their
priestly brethren, stood before the altar, in vestments strangely
contrasting with the rude temple and the ruder garb of the worshippers.
And as Membré elevated the consecrated wafer, and the lamps burned dim
through the clouds of incense, the kneeling group drew from the daily
miracle such consolation as true Catholics alone can know. When Twelfth
Night came, all gathered in the hall, and cried, after the jovial old
custom, "_The King drinks_," with hearts, perhaps, as cheerless as their
cups, which were filled with cold water.
On the morrow, the band of adventurers mustered for the fatal journey.
[Footnote: I follow Douay's date, who makes the day of departure the
seventh of January, or the day after Twelfth Night. Joutel thinks it was
the twelfth of January, but professes uncertainty as to all his dates at
this time, as he lost his notes.] The five horses, bought by La Salle of
the Indians, stood in the area of the fort, packed for the march; and here
was gathered the wretched remnant of the colony, those who were to go, and
those who were to stay behind. These latter were about twenty in all:
Barbier, who was to command in the place of Joutel; Sablonnière, who,
despite his title of Marquis, was held in great contempt; [Footnote: He
had to be kept on short allowance, because he was in the habit of
bargaining away every thing given to him. He had squandered the little
that belonged to him at St. Domingo in amusements "indignes de sa
naissance," and, in consequence, was suffering from diseases which
disabled him from walking.--_Procès Verbal_, 18 _Avril_, 1686, MS.] the
friars, Membré and Le Clercq, [Footnote: Maxime le Clercq, a relative of
the author of _l'Etablissement de la Foi_.] and the priest, Chedeville,
besides a surgeon, soldiers, laborers, seven women and girls, and several
children, doomed, in this deadly exile, to wait the issues of the journey,
and the possible arrival of a tardy succor. La Salle had made them a last
address, delivered, we are told, with that winning air, which, though
alien from his usual bearing, seems to have been at times, a natural
expression of this unhappy man. [Footnote: "Il fit une Harangue pleine
d'éloquence et de cet air engageant qui luy estoit si naturel: toute la
petite Colonie y estoit presente et en fût touchée jusques aux larmes,
persuadée de la nécessité de son voyage et de la droiture de ses
intentions."--Douay, in Le Clercq, ii. 330.] It was a bitter parting; one
of sighs, tears, and embracings; the farewell of those on whose souls had
sunk a heavy boding that they would never meet again. [Footnote: "Nous
nous separâmes les uns des autres, d'une manière si tendre et si triste
qu'il sembloit que nous avions tons le secret pressentiment que nous ne
nous reverrions jamais."--Joutel, 158.] Equipped and weaponed for the
journey, the adventurers filed from the gate, crossed the river, and held
their slow march over the prairies beyond, till intervening woods and
hills had shut Fort St. Louis for ever from their sight.