CHAPTER XIII.
1680.
FORT CRÈVEC[OE]UR.
Building of the Fort.--Loss of the "Griffin."--A Bold
Resolution.--Another Vessel.--Hennepin sent to the
Mississippi.--Departure of La Salle.
[Sidenote: BUILDING OF THE FORT.]
La Salle now resolved to leave the Indian camp, and fortify himself for
the winter in a strong position, where his men would be less exposed to
dangerous influence, and where he could hold his ground against an
outbreak of the Illinois or an Iroquois invasion. At the middle of
January, a thaw broke up the ice which had closed the river; and he set
out in a canoe, with Hennepin, to visit the site he had chosen for his
projected fort. It was half a league below the camp, on a low hill or
knoll, two hundred yards from the southern bank. On either side was a
deep ravine, and in front a marshy tract, overflowed at high water.
Thither, then, the party was removed. They dug a ditch behind the hill,
connecting the two ravines, and thus completely isolating it. The hill
was nearly square in form. An embankment of earth was thrown up on every
side: its declivities were sloped steeply down to the bottom of the
ravines and the ditch, and further guarded by _chevaux-de-frise_; while
a palisade, twenty-five feet high, was planted around the whole. The
lodgings of the men, built of musket-proof timber, were at two of the
angles; the house of the friars at the third; the forge and magazine at
the fourth; and the tents of La Salle and Tonty in the area within.
Hennepin laments the failure of wine, which prevented him from saying
mass; but every morning and evening he summoned the men to his cabin to
listen to prayers and preaching, and on Sundays and fête-days they
chanted vespers. Father Zenobe usually spent the day in the Indian camp,
striving, with very indifferent success, to win them to the Faith, and
to overcome the disgust with which their manners and habits inspired
him.
Such was the first civilized occupation of the region which now forms
the State of Illinois. La Salle christened his new fort Fort
Crèvecoeur. The name tells of disaster and suffering, but does no
justice to the iron-hearted constancy of the sufferer. Up to this time
he had clung to the hope that his vessel, the "Griffin," might still be
safe. Her safety was vital to his enterprise. She had on board articles
of the last necessity to him, including the rigging and anchors of
another vessel which he was to build at Fort Crèvecoeur, in order to
descend the Mississippi and sail thence to the West Indies. But now his
last hope had well-nigh vanished. Past all reasonable doubt, the
"Griffin" was lost; and in her loss he and all his plans seemed ruined
alike.
Nothing, indeed, was ever heard of her. Indians, fur-traders, and even
Jesuits, have been charged with contriving her destruction. Some say
that the Ottawas boarded and burned her, after murdering those on board;
others accuse the Pottawattamies; others affirm that her own crew
scuttled and sunk her; others, again, that she foundered in a
storm.[155] As for La Salle, the belief grew in him to a settled
conviction that she had been treacherously sunk by the pilot and the
sailors to whom he had intrusted her; and he thought he had found
evidence that the authors of the crime, laden with the merchandise they
had taken from her, had reached the Mississippi and ascended it, hoping
to join Du Lhut, a famous chief of _coureurs de bois_, and enrich
themselves by traffic with the northern tribes.[156]
[Sidenote: LA SALLE'S ANXIETIES.]
But whether her lading was swallowed in the depths of the lake, or lost
in the clutches of traitors, the evil was alike past remedy. She was
gone, it mattered little how. The main-stay of the enterprise was
broken; yet its inflexible chief lost neither heart nor hope. One path,
beset with hardships and terrors, still lay open to him. He might return
on foot to Fort Frontenac, and bring thence the needful succors.
La Salle felt deeply the dangers of such a step. His men were uneasy,
discontented, and terrified by the stories with which the jealous
Illinois still constantly filled their ears, of the whirlpools and the
monsters of the Mississippi. He dreaded lest, in his absence, they
should follow the example of their comrades, and desert. In the midst of
his anxieties, a lucky accident gave him the means of disabusing them.
He was hunting, one day, near the fort, when he met a young Illinois on
his way home, half-starved, from a distant war excursion. He had been
absent so long that he knew nothing of what had passed between his
countrymen and the French. La Salle gave him a turkey he had shot,
invited him to the fort, fed him, and made him presents. Having thus
warmed his heart, he questioned him, with apparent carelessness, as to
the countries he had visited, and especially as to the Mississippi,--on
which the young warrior, seeing no reason to disguise the truth, gave
him all the information he required. La Salle now made him the present
of a hatchet, to engage him to say nothing of what had passed, and,
leaving him in excellent humor, repaired, with some of his followers, to
the Illinois camp. Here he found the chiefs seated at a feast of bear's
meat, and he took his place among them on a mat of rushes. After a
pause, he charged them with having deceived him in regard to the
Mississippi; adding that he knew the river perfectly, having been
instructed concerning it by the Master of Life. He then described it to
them with so much accuracy that his astonished hearers, conceiving that
he owed his knowledge to "medicine," or sorcery, clapped their hands to
their mouths in sign of wonder, and confessed that all they had said was
but an artifice, inspired by their earnest desire that he should remain
among them.[157] On this, La Salle's men took heart again; and their
courage rose still more when, soon after, a band of Chickasa, Arkansas,
and Osage warriors, from the Mississippi, came to the camp on a friendly
visit, and assured the French not only that the river was navigable to
the sea, but that the tribes along its banks would give them a warm
welcome.
[Sidenote: ANOTHER VESSEL.]
La Salle had now good reason to hope that his followers would neither
mutiny nor desert in his absence. One chief purpose of his intended
journey was to procure the anchors, cables, and rigging of the vessel
which he meant to build at Fort Crèvecoeur, and he resolved to see her
on the stocks before he set out. This was no easy matter, for the
pit-sawyers had deserted. "Seeing," he writes, "that I should lose a
year if I waited to get others from Montreal, I said one day, before my
people, that I was so vexed to find that the absence of two sawyers
would defeat my plans and make all my trouble useless, that I was
resolved to try to saw the planks myself, if I could find a single man
who would help me with a will." Hereupon, two men stepped forward and
promised to do their best. They were tolerably successful, and, the rest
being roused to emulation, the work went on with such vigor that within
six weeks the hull of the vessel was half finished. She was of forty
tons' burden, and was built with high bulwarks, to protect those on
board from Indian arrows.
La Salle now bethought him that, in his absence, he might get from
Hennepin service of more value than his sermons; and he requested him to
descend the Illinois, and explore it to its mouth. The friar, though
hardy and daring, would fain have excused himself, alleging a
troublesome bodily infirmity; but his venerable colleague Ribourde,
himself too old for the journey, urged him to go, telling him that if he
died by the way, his apostolic labors would redound to the glory of God.
Membré had been living for some time in the Indian camp, and was
thoroughly out of humor with the objects of his missionary efforts, of
whose obduracy and filth he bitterly complained. Hennepin proposed to
take his place, while he should assume the Mississippi adventure; but
this Membré declined, preferring to remain where he was. Hennepin now
reluctantly accepted the proposed task. "Anybody but me," he says, with
his usual modesty, "would have been very much frightened at the dangers
of such a journey; and, in fact, if I had not placed all my trust in
God, I should not have been the dupe of the Sieur de la Salle, who
exposed my life rashly."[158]
On the last day of February, Hennepin's canoe lay at the water's edge;
and the party gathered on the bank to bid him farewell. He had two
companions,--Michel Accau, and a man known as the Picard du Gay,[159]
though his real name was Antoine Auguel. The canoe was well laden with
gifts for the Indians,--tobacco, knives, beads, awls, and other goods,
to a very considerable value, supplied at La Salle's cost; "and, in
fact," observes Hennepin, "he is liberal enough towards his
friends."[160]
[Sidenote: DEPARTURE OF HENNEPIN.]
The friar bade farewell to La Salle, and embraced all the rest in turn.
Father Ribourde gave him his benediction. "Be of good courage and let
your heart be comforted," said the excellent old missionary, as he
spread his hands in benediction over the shaven crown of the reverend
traveller. Du Gay and Accau plied their paddles; the canoe receded, and
vanished at length behind the forest. We will follow Hennepin hereafter
on his adventures, imaginary and real. Meanwhile, we will trace the
footsteps of his chief, urging his way, in the storms of winter, through
those vast and gloomy wilds,--those realms of famine, treachery, and
death,--that lay betwixt him and his far-distant goal of Fort Frontenac.
On the first of March,[161] before the frost was yet out of the ground,
when the forest was still leafless, and the oozy prairies still patched
with snow, a band of discontented men were again gathered on the shore
for another leave-taking. Hard by, the unfinished ship lay on the
stocks, white and fresh from the saw and axe, ceaselessly reminding them
of the hardship and peril that was in store. Here you would have seen
the calm, impenetrable face of La Salle, and with him the Mohegan
hunter, who seems to have felt towards him that admiring attachment
which he could always inspire in his Indian retainers. Besides the
Mohegan, four Frenchmen were to accompany him,--Hunaut, La Violette,
Collin, and Dautray.[162] His parting with Tonty was an anxious one,
for each well knew the risks that environed both. Embarking with his
followers in two canoes, he made his way upward amid the drifting ice;
while the faithful Italian, with two or three honest men and twelve or
thirteen knaves, remained to hold Fort Crèvecoeur in his absence.
FOOTNOTES:
[155] Charlevoix, i. 459; La Potherie, ii. 140; La Hontan, _Memoir on
the Fur-Trade of Canada_. I am indebted for a copy of this paper to
Winthrop Sargent, Esq., who purchased the original at the sale of the
library of the poet Southey. Like Hennepin, La Hontan went over to the
English; and this memoir is written in their interest.
[156] _Lettre de La Salle à La Barre, Chicagou, 4 Juin, 1683._ This is a
long letter, addressed to the successor of Frontenac in the government
of Canada. La Salle says that a young Indian belonging to him told him
that three years before he saw a white man, answering the description of
the pilot, a prisoner among a tribe beyond the Mississippi. He had been
captured with four others on that river, while making his way with
canoes, laden with goods, towards the Sioux. His companions had been
killed. Other circumstances, which La Salle details at great length,
convinced him that the white prisoner was no other than the pilot of the
"Griffin." The evidence, however, is not conclusive.
[157] _Relation des Découvertes et des Voyages du Sr. de la Salle,
Seigneur et Gouverneur du Fort de Frontenac, au delà des grands Lacs de
la Nouvelle France, faits par ordre de Monseigneur Colbert_, 1679, 80 et
81. Hennepin gives a story which is not essentially different, except
that he makes himself a conspicuous actor in it.
[158] All the above is from Hennepin; and it seems to be marked by his
characteristic egotism. It appears, from La Salle's letters, that Accau
was the real chief of the party; that their orders were to explore not
only the Illinois, but also a part of the Mississippi; and that Hennepin
volunteered to go with the others. Accau was chosen because he spoke
several Indian languages.
[159] An eminent writer has mistaken "Picard" for a personal name. Du
Gay was called "Le Picard," because he came from the province of
Picardy.
[160] (1683), 188. This commendation is suppressed in the later
editions.
[161] Tonty erroneously places their departure on the twenty-second.
[162] _Déclaration faite par Moyse Hillaret, charpentier de barque._