USA > Louisiana > Romance of the history of Louisiana. A series of lectures > Part 14
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253
JALLOT AND THE GOVERNOR OF CAQUIS.
intended to pay his wedding expenses. He also sent him, for his journey, a superb Andalusian steed, order- ing at the same time that he should be escorted by an officer and two dragoons from the city of Mexico to Caouis.
On the forced departure of St. Denis for the city of Mexico, Jallot had been set at liberty, and had ever since remained at Caouis waiting for the decision of the fate of St. Denis. He was known to be a physi- cian, and as he was the only one within a radius of one hundred miles, he was soon in full practice. In the course of a few months, he had performed so many cures and rendered so many services, that he was looked upon as something almost supernatural. One day, he was summoned to the house of the governor, Don Gaspardo Anaya, whither he went with such a grim smile as clearly indicated that his feelings were in a violent state of excitement. He examined, with the most minute care, the body of that dignitary, and on his being asked his opinion on the situation of his patient, he went into the most luminous exposition of his disease, and declared that if a certain operation, which he described with much apparent gusto, was not performed, the sick man would certainly die within one month. " Well then," said the governor, "go on with the operation, as soon as you please." "It shall never please me," cried Jallot, in a voice of thunder ;
254
RETURN OF ST. DENIS
and shaking his fist at the enemy of St. Denis, whom, in his turn, he had now in his power, he doggedly withdrew from the house of the infuriated governor. Remonstrances, entreaties, large offerings of money, threats, could not bring him back. At last, the gov- ernor swore that he would hang Jallot, and he sent some soldiers to arrest him. But the people, who loved Jallot, and feared being deprived of his invaluable ser- vices, rose upon the soldiery, beat them off, and pro- claimed that they would hang the governor himself, if he persisted in his intention of hanging Jallot. Mat- ters were in this ticklish situation, when St. Denis re- turned to Caouis.
In company with his friend Jallot, who was almost distracted with joy at his safe return, St. Denis imme- diately waited upon the governor, to whom he commu- nicated a letter patent, by which the Viceroy gave authority to St. Denis to inflict upon Anaya, for his abuse of power, any punishment which he might think proper, provided it stopped short of death. The terror of the governor may easily be conceived, but after en- joying his enemy's confusion for a short time, St. Denis tore to pieces the Viceroy's letter, and retired, leaving the culprit, whom he despised, to the castigation of heaven and to the stings of his own conscience. He did more: he had the generosity to request Jallot to perform the operation which this worthy had hitherto so obstinately
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255
TO THE PRESIDIO DEL NORTE.
refused to do. The surgeon, who was mollified by his friend's return, consented, not however without terrific grumblings, to use his surgical skill to relieve the bed- ridden governor, and he admirably succeeded in the difficult operation upon which the fate of his patient depended. But he peremptorily and contemptuously refused the fee that was tendered him, and informed the governor, face to face, and with his roughest tone, that he deserved no remuneration for the cure, because he had saved his life merely out of spite, and under the firm conviction that he would ere long die on the gal- lows.
Let us now rapidly proceed with St. Denis from Caouis to the Presidio del Norte. There he found a great change ;- not that the lady of his love was not as true and as beautiful as ever, but the place looked lonesome and desolate. The five Indian villages which formed a sort of belt round the Presidio, at a short distance from its walls, were deserted. A gloomy cloud had settled over the spot which he had known so brisk and thriving ;- and Villescas told him, with the greatest consternation, that the Indians had withdrawn on account of their having been molested by the Spaniards, who used to go to their villages, and there commit every sort of outrage ; that he confessed he was much to be blamed for not having checked sooner the disorderly practices of his subordinates ; and that
12*
256
EMIGRATION OF THE INDIANS
if the Indians persisted in their intention of removing away to distant lands, the government at Mexico, whose settled policy it was to conciliate the frontier Indians, would be informed of what had happened, and would certainly visit him with punishment for official miscon- duct, negligence or dereliction of duty. " I will run after the fugitives," exclaimed St. Denis, " and use my best efforts to bring them back." " Do so," replied the old man, " and if you succeed, there is nothing in my power, which I can refuse you." On hearing these words, which made his heart thrill, as it were, with an electric shock, St. Denis vaulted on His good Andalu- sian steed, and started full speed in the direction the Indians had taken. He was followed, far behind, by Jallot, who came trotting along, as fast as he could, on a restive, capricious, ill-looking little animal, for whom he had perversely conceived the greatest affection, perhaps, on account of his bad qualities.
The Indians, encumbered with women and chil- dren, had been progressing very slowly, with the heavy baggage they were carrying with them, and St. Denis had not travelled long before he discovered from the top of a hill, the moving train ; he waved a white flag and redoubled his speed ; the Indians stopped and tar- ried for his approach. When he came up to them, they formed a dense circle around him, and silently waited for his communication. "My friends !" said St. Denis,
257
FROM THE PRESIDIO.
"I am sent by the governor of the Presidio del Norte, to tell you that he pleads guilty to his red children ; he confesses that you have been long laboring under grievances which he neglected to redress, and that you have been frequently oppressed by those whom it was his duty to keep in the straight path of rectitude. This is a frank avowal, as you see. With regard t the governor himself, you know that he has always been kind and upright, and that, personally and inten- tionally, he has never wronged any one of you : the old chief has been too weak with his own people-that is all you can say against him. But now, he pledges his faith that no Spaniard shall be allowed to set his foot in your villages without your express consent, and that every sort of protection which you may claim shall be extended over your tribe. Do not, therefore, be obstinate, my friends, and do not keep shut the gates of your hearts, when the pale-faced chief, with his gray hairs, knocks for admittance, but let his words of repentance fall upon your souls, like a refreshing dew, and revive your drooping attachment for him. Do not give up your hereditary hunting grounds, the cemete- ries of your forefathers, and your ancestral villages, with rash precipitancy. Whither are you going ? Your native soil does not stick to your feet, and it is the only soil which is always pleasant ; and the wheat which grows upon it, is the only grain that will give
258
ST. DENIS SPEECH TO THE INDIANS.
you tasteful bread ; and the sun which shines upon it, is the only sun whose rays do not scorch; and the re- freshing showers which fall upon its bosom, would elsewhere be impure and brackish water. You do not know what bitter weeds grow in the path of the stranger! You do not know how heavily the air he breathes weighs on his lungs, in distant lands! And what distant lands will you be permitted to occupy, without fighting desperate battles with the nations upon whose territory you will have trespassed ? When you will be no longer protected by the Spaniards, how will you resist the incessant attacks of the ferocious Comanches, who carry so far and wide their predatory expeditions ? Thus, my friends, the evils you are run- ning to, are certain, and behind them, lie concealed in ambush, still greater ones, which the keenest eye among you cannot detect. But what have you to fear, if you return to your deserted villages ? There, it is true, you will meet some old evils, but you are accus- tomed to them. That is one advantage ; and, besides, you are given the assurance that to many of them a remedy will be applied. Why not make the experi- ment, and see how it will work ? But if you persist in going away, and if you fare for the worse, your situation will be irretrievable. On the other hand, if you return, as I advise you, should the governor of the Presidio not keep his word, and should you not be sat-
259
HE PREVAILS ON THEM TO RETURN.
isfied, it will always be time enough to resume your desperate enterprise of emigration."
This is the substance of what St. Denis told his red auditory, and the Indians, who, perhaps, were be- ginning to regret the step they had taken, spontane- ously marched back, with St. Denis riding triumph- antly at their head. They soon met Jallot, jogging along with impatience, cursing and spurring his favor- ite with desperate energy. When he saw that St. Denis, about whom he was extremely uneasy, was safe, and had succeeded so well in his embassy, he gave a shout which made the welkin ring; but he was so as- tonished at his own doing, and at the unusual sound which had so strangely issued from his throat, that he looked round like a man who was not very sure of his own identity. Those who knew him well, re- mained convinced that this shout had settled in his mind, as the most extraordinary event of his life.
Now, all is joy again at the Presidio, and the smile of contentment has lighted up the face of the country for miles around. From the Spanish battlements. ban- ners wave gayly, the cannons crack their sides with innocent roaring, muskets are discharged in every di- rection, but from their tubes, there do not sally any murderous balls ; the whole population, white and red, is dressed in its best apparel ; whole sheep, oxen, and · buffaloes are roasted in the Homeric style ; immense
260
MARRIAGE OF ST. DENIS.
tables are spread in halls, bowers, and under shady trees ; whole casks of Spanish wines and of the Mexi- can pulque are broached ; the milk and honey of the land flow with unrestrained abundance ; the Indians shout, dance, and cut every sort of antics. Well may all rejoice, for it is the wedding-day of St. Denis and Doña Maria! Here the long and beautiful procession which is slowly moving to the rustic parochial church, might be described with some effect, but I leave the task to future novel writers. I now dismiss this epi- sode, and only regret that I have not done it the jus- tice which it deserves. Let me add, however, that, after an absence of two years, St. Denis, having re- turned to Mobile, with Don Juan de Villescas, the uncle of his wife, was appointed, in reward for the dis- charge of his perilous mission, a captain in the French army.
On the recommendation of Crozat, another under- taking was made to open commercial relations with the Spanish provinces of Mexico. Three Canadians, Deléry, Lufrénière and Beaujeu, were intrusted with a considerable amount of merchandise, went up Red River, and endeavored to reach the province of Nuevo Leon, through Texas ;- but this attempt was as unsuc- cessful as the one made by St. Denis.
On the 9th of March, 1717, three ships belonging to Crozat, arrived with three companies of infantry and
261
ARRIVAL OF DE L'EPINAY.
fifty colonists, with De l'Epinay, the new governor, and Hubert, the king's commissary. L'Epinay brought to Bienville the decoration of the cross of St. Louis, and a royal patent, conceding to him, by mean tenure in soccage, Horn Island, on the coast of the present state of Alabama. Bienville had demanded in vain that it be erected in his favor, into a noble fief.
Hardly had L'Epinay landed, when he disagreed with Bienville, and the colony was again distracted by two factions, with L'Epinay on one side and Bienville on the other. There were not at that time in Louisi- ana more than seven hundred souls, including the military ; and thus far, the efforts of Crozat to increase the population had proved miserably abortive. In vain had his agents resorted to every means in their power, to trade with the Spanish provinces, either by land or by sea, either legally or illegally ;- several millions worth of merchandise which he had sent to Louisiana, with the hope of their finding their way to Mexico, had been lost, for want of a market. In vain also had expensive researches been made for mines, and pearl fisheries. As to the trading in furs with the Indians, it hardly repaid the cost of keeping factories among them. Thus, all the schemes of Crozat had failed. The mis- erable European population, scattered over Louisiana, was opposed to his monopoly, and contributed, as much as they could, to defeat his plans. As to the officers,
262
CROZAT SURRENDERS HIS CHARTER.
- they were too much engrossed by their own interest and too intent upon their daily quarrels, to mind any thing else. There was but one thing which, to the despairing Crozat, seemed destined to thrive in Louis- iana-that was, the spirit of discord.
In the beginning of the month of August, 1717, Crozat, finding that under the new governor, L'Epinay, things were likely to move as lamely as before, ad- dressed to the king a petition, in which he informed his Majesty, that his strength was not equal to the enter- prise he had undertaken, and that he felt himself rapidly sinking under the weight which rested on his shoulders, and from which he begged his Majesty to relieve him. On the 13th of the same month, the Prince of Bourbon and Marshal D'Estrées accepted, in the name of the king, Crozat's proposition to give up the charter which he had obtained under the preceding reign.
Against his adverse fate, Crozat had struggled for five years, but his efforts had been gradually slackening, in proportion with the declining health of his daughter. The cause of his gigantic enterprise had not escaped her penetration, and she had even extorted from him a full confession on the subject. In the first two years of her father's quasi sovereignty over Louisiana, she had participated in the excitement of the paternal breast, and had been buoyed up by hope. But although
263
DEATH OF HIS DAUGHTER.
her father tried, with the utmost care, to conceal from her the ill success of his operations, she soon discovered enough to sink her down to a degree of despair, suffi- cient to undermine in her, slowly but surely, the frail foundations of life ; and when Crozat, losing all cou- rage, abandoned to the tossing waves of adversity, the ship in which he had embarked the fortune of his house, his daughter could hardly be called a being of this world. On the very day that he had resigned the charter, on which reposed such ambitious hopes, and had come back, broken-hearted, to his desolate home, he was imprinting a kiss on his daughter's pale fore- head, and pressing her attenuated hands within his convulsive ones, when her soul suddenly disengaged itself from her body, carrying away the last paternal embrace to the foot of the Almighty's throne. .
Crozat laid her gently back on the pillow, from which she had half risen, smoothed her clothes, joined her fingers as it were in prayer, and sleeked her hair with the palm of his hands, behaving apparently with the greatest composure. Not a sound of complaint, not a shriek of anguish was heard from him : his breast did not become convulsed with sobs ; not a muscle moved in his face. He looked as if he had been changed into a statue of stone : his rigid limbs seemed to move au- tomaton-like; his eyeballs became fixed in their sockets, and his eyelids lost their powers of contraction. Calmly,
?
264
CROZAT'S DEATH.
but with an unearthly voice, he gave all the necessary orders for the funeral of his daughter, and even went into the examination of the most minute details of these melancholy preparations. Those who saw him, said that he looked like a dead man, performing with uncon- scious regularity all the functions of life. It was so appalling, that his servants and the few attending friends, who had remained attached to his falling for- tune, receded with involuntary shudder from his ap- proach, and from the touch of his hand, it was so icy cold! At last, the gloomy procession reached the solemn place of repose. The poor father had followed it on foot, with his hand resting on his daughter's coffin, as if afraid that what remained of the being he had loved so ardently, might flee away from him. When the tomb was sealed, he waved away the crowd. They dared not disobey, when such grief spoke, and Crozat remained alone. For a while, he stood staring, as in a trance, at his daughter's tomb : then, a slight twitch of the muscles of the face, and a convulsive quiver of the lips might have been seen. Sensibility had returned ! He sunk on his knees, and from those eyes, so long dry, there descended, as from a thunder-cloud, a big heavy drop, on the cold sepulchral marble. It was but one solitary tear, the condensed essence of such grief as the human body cannot bear ; and as this pearly fragment of the dew of mortal agony fell down on the daughter's
265
CONCLUSION.
sepulchre, the soul of the father took its flight to heaven. Crozat was no more !
" My task is done-my song hath ceased-my theme Has died into an echo : it is fit The spell should break of this protracted dream- The torch shall be extinguished which hath lit My midnight lamp-and what is writ, is writ,- Would it were worthier ! But I am not now That which I have been-and my visions flit Less palpably before me-and the glow,
Which in my spirit dwelt, is fluttering, faint and low."
" Farewell ! a word that must be, and hath been- A sound which makes us linger-yet-farewell !"
NOTE .- Crozat died in 1738, at the age of eighty-three. He had several sons and one daughter, Marie Anne Crozat, who married Le Comte D'Evreux. I hope I shall be forgiven for having slightly deviated from historical truth in the pre- ceding pages, with regard to particulars which I deemed of no importance. For instance, I changed the name of Crozat's daughter. Why ? Perhaps it was owing to some capricious whim-perhaps there is to me some spell in the name of Andrea.
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