(1687)
Night came; the woods grew dark; the evening meal was finished, and
the evening pipes were smoked. The order of the guard was arranged;
and, doubtless by design, the first hour of the night was assigned to
Moranget, the second to Saget, and the third to Nika. Gun in hand,
each stood watch in turn over the silent but not sleeping forms around
him, till, his time expiring, he called the man who was to relieve
him, wrapt himself in his blanket, and was soon buried in a slumber
that was to be his last. Now the assassins rose. Duhaut and Hiens
stood with their guns cocked, ready to shoot down any one of the
destined victims who should resist or fly. The surgeon, with an ax,
stole toward the three sleepers, and struck a rapid blow at each in
turn. Saget and Nika died with little movement; but Moranget started
spasmodically into a sitting posture, gasping and unable to speak; and
the murderers compelled De Marle, who was not in their plot, to
compromise himself by dispatching him.
[Footnote 49: From Chapter XXVII of "La Salle and the Discovery of the
Great West." La Salle was assassinated by some of his own men, near a
branch of the Trinity river in Texas. He had sailed from France in
1684 for the purpose of founding a colony at the mouth of the
Mississippi, and had landed at Matagorda Bay, mistaking it for an
outlet of the Mississippi. He was about to sail for Canada in order to
get supplies for his colony, when he met the fate here described.
Copyright, 1860, 1879, 1897, by Francis Parkman, published by Little,
Brown & Company.]
The floodgates of murder were open, and the torrent must have its way.
Vengeance and safety alike demanded the death of La Salle. Hiens, or
"English Jem," alone seems to have hesitated; for he was one of those
to whom that stern commander had always been partial. Meanwhile, the
intended victim was still at his camp, about six miles distant. It is
easy to picture, with sufficient accuracy, the features of the
scene--the sheds of bark and branches, beneath which, among blankets
and buffalo-robes, camp utensils, pack-saddles, rude harness, guns,
powder-horns, and bullet-pouches, the men lounged away the hour,
sleeping or smoking, or talking among themselves; the blackened
kettles that hung from tripods of poles over the fires; the Indians
strolling about the place or lying, like dogs in the sun, with eyes
half-shut, yet all observant; and, in the neighboring meadow, the
horses grazing under the eye of a watchman.
It was the eighteenth of March. Moranget and his companions had been
expected to return the night before; but the whole day passed, and
they did not appear. La Salle became very anxious. He resolved to go
and look for them; but, not well knowing the way, he told the Indians
who were about the camp that he would give them a hatchet if they
would guide him. One of them accepted the offer; and La Salle prepared
to set out in the morning, at the same time directing Joutel to be
ready to go with him. Joutel says: "That evening, while we were
talking about what could have happened to the absent men, he seemed
to have a presentiment of what was to take place. He asked me if I had
heard of any machinations against them, or if I had noticed any bad
design on the part of Duhaut and the rest. I answered that I had heard
nothing, except that they sometimes complained of being found fault
with so often; and that this was all I knew, besides which, as they
were persuaded that I was in his interest, they would not have told me
of any bad design they might have. We were very uneasy all the rest of
the evening."
In the morning La Salle set out with his Indian guide. He had changed
his mind with regard to Joutel, whom he now directed to remain in
charge of the camp and to keep a careful watch. He told the friar
Anastase Douay to come with him instead of Joutel, whose gun, which
was the best in the party, he borrowed for the occasion, as well as
his pistol. The three proceeded on their way--La Salle, the friar, and
the Indian. "All the way," writes the friar, "he spoke to me of
nothing but matters of piety, grace, and predestination; enlarging on
the debt he owed to God, who had saved him from so many perils during
more than twenty years of travel in America. Suddenly, I saw him
overwhelmed with a profound sadness, for which he himself could not
account. He was so much moved that I scarcely knew him." He soon
recovered his usual calmness; and they walked on till they approached
the camp of Duhaut, which was on the farther side of a small river.
Looking about him with the eye of a woodsman, La Salle saw two eagles
circling in the air nearly over him, as if attracted by carcasses of
beasts or men. He fired his gun and his pistol, as a summons to any of
his followers who might be within hearing. The shots reached the ears
of the conspirators.
Rightly conjecturing by whom they were fired, several of them, led by
Duhaut, crossed the river at a little distance above, where trees or
other intervening objects hid them from sight. Duhaut and the surgeon
crouched like Indians in the long, dry, reed-like grass of the last
summer's growth, while L'Archeveque stood in sight near the bank. La
Salle, continuing to advance, soon saw him, and calling to him,
demanded where was Moranget. The man, without lifting his hat, or any
show of respect, replied in an agitated and broken voice, but with a
tone of studied insolence, that Moranget was strolling about
somewhere. La Salle rebuked and menaced him. He rejoined with
increased insolence, drawing back, as he spoke, toward the ambuscade,
while the incensed commander advanced to chastise him. At that moment,
a shot was fired from the grass, instantly followed by another; and,
pierced through the brain, La Salle dropt dead.
The friar at his side stood terror-stricken, unable to advance or to
fly; when Duhaut, rising from the ambuscade, called out to him to take
courage, for he had nothing to fear. The murderers now came forward,
and with wild looks gathered about their victim. "There thou liest,
great Bashaw! There thou liest!" exclaimed the surgeon Liotot, in base
exultation over the unconscious corpse. With mockery and insult, they
stript it naked, dragged it into the bushes, and left it there, a prey
to buzzards and wolves.
Thus, in the vigor of his manhood, at the age of forty-three, died
Robert Cavelier de La Salle, "one of the greatest men," writes Tonty,
"of this age"; without question one of the most remarkable explorers
whose names live in history. His faithful officer Joutel thus sketches
his portrait: "His firmness, his courage, his great knowledge of the
arts and sciences, which made him equal to every undertaking, and his
untiring energy, which enabled him to surmount every obstacle, would
have won at last a glorious success for his grand enterprise, had not
all his fine qualities been counterbalanced by a haughtiness of manner
which often made him unsupportable, and by a harshness toward those
under his command which drew upon him an implacable hatred, and was at
last the cause of his death."
The enthusiasm of the disinterested and chivalrous Champlain was not
the enthusiasm of La Salle, nor had he any part in the self-devoted
zeal of the early Jesuit explorers. He belonged not to the age of the
knight-errant and the saint, but to the modern world of practical
study and practical action. He was the hero, not of a principle nor of
a faith, but simply of a fixt idea and a determined purpose. As often
happens with concentered and energetic natures, his purpose was to him
a passion and an inspiration; and he clung to it with a certain
fanaticism of devotion. It was the offspring of an ambition vast and
comprehensive, yet acting in the interest both of France and of
civilization.
Serious in all things, incapable of the lighter pleasures, incapable
of repose, finding no joy but in the pursuit of great designs, too shy
for society and too reserved for popularity, often unsympathetic and
always seeming so, smothering emotions which he could not utter,
schooled to universal distrust, stern to his followers and pitiless to
himself, bearing the brunt of every hardship and every danger,
demanding of others an equal constancy joined to an implicit
deference, heeding no counsel but his own, attempting the impossible
and grasping at what was too vast to hold--he contained in his own
complex and painful nature the chief springs of his triumphs, his
failures, and his death.
It is easy to reckon up his defects, but it is not easy to hide from
sight the Roman virtues that redeemed them. Beset by a throng of
enemies, he stands, like the King of Israel, head and shoulders above
them all. He was a tower of adamant, against whose impregnable front
hardship and danger, the rage of man and of the elements, the southern
sun, the northern blast, fatigue, famine, and disease, delay,
disappointment, and deferred hope emptied their quivers in vain. That
very pride which, Coriolanus-like, declared itself most sternly in the
thickest press of foes, has in it something to challenge admiration.
Never, under the impenetrable mail of paladin or crusader, beat a
heart of more intrepid mettle than within the stoic panoply that armed
the breast of La Salle. To estimate aright the marvels of his patient
fortitude, one must follow on his track through the vast scene of his
interminable journeyings, those thousands of weary miles of forest,
marsh, and river, where, again and again, in the bitterness of baffled
striving, the untiring pilgrim pushed onward toward the goal which he
was never to attain. America owes him an enduring memory; for, in this
masculine figure, she sees the pioneer who guided her to the
possession of her richest heritage.