USA > Louisiana > Romance of the history of Louisiana. A series of lectures > Part 3
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The rapid sketch which I have given shows that so much of La Salle's life as belongs to history, occupies a space of fifteen years, and is so full of incidents that it affords materials enough for the production of a volu- minous and interesting book. But I think that I may safely close my observations with the remark, that he who will write the life of that extraordinary man, how- ever austere his turn of mind may be, will hardly be able to prevent the golden hues of poetry from over-
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LA SALLE.
spreading the pages which he may pen, where history is so much like romance that, in many respects, it is likely to be classed as such by posterity.
Here I must close this historical sketch ; here I must stop, on the threshold of the edifice through which I should like to wander with you, in order to call your attention not only to the general splendor, but to the minute perfection of its architecture. Perhaps, at a future period, if your desire should keep pace with my inclination, I may resume the subject ; and I believe it will then be easy for me to complete the demonstration that our annals constitute a rich mine, where lies in profusion the purest ore of poetry, not to be found in broken and scattered fragments, but forming an unin- terrupted vein through the whole history of Louisiana, in all its varied phases, from the primitive settlement made at Biloxi to the present time, when she wears the diadem of sovereignty, and when, with her blood and treasure, and with a spirit of chivalry worthy of her Spanish and French descent, and of her Anglo-Saxon adoption, she was the first to engage in the support of that war which, so glorious in its beginning at Palo Alto, Resaca de la Palma, Monterey, and Buena Vista, will undoubtedly have an equally glorious, and I think I may add, a poetical termination in the walls of Mex- ico !
SECOND LECTURE.
SECOND LECTURE.
ARRIVAL OF IBERVILLE AND BIENVILLE-SETTLEMENT OF A FRENCH COLONY IN LOUISIANA-SAUVOLLE, FIRST GOVERNOR-EVENTS AND CHARACTERS IN LOUISIANA, OR CONNECTED WITH THAT COLONY, FROM LA SALLE'S DEATH, IN 1687, TO 1701.
I CLOSED my last Lecture with La Salle's death, in 1687. A few years after, in the latter part of the same century, a French ship of 42 guns, on one of those beautiful days which are the peculiar offspring of the autumnal climate of America, happened to be coasting the hostile shore of New England. At that time England and France were at war, and the bays and harbors of the British possessions were swarming with the floating battlements of the mistress of the sea. Nevertheless, from the careless manner in which that ship, which bore the white flag of France, hugged the coast, one would have thought that no danger was to be apprehended from such close proximity to captivity or death. Suddenly, three vessels hove in sight; it was not long before their broad canvas wings seemed
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IBERVILLE'S SEA-FIGHT.
to spread wider, and their velocity to increase. To the most unpractised eye it would have been evident that they were in pursuit of an object which they longed to reach. Yet, they of the white flag appeared to be unconscious of the intention of their fellow-travellers on the boundless desert of the ocean. Although the French ship, with her long masts, towering like steeples, could have borne much more canvas; although the breeze blew fresh, and the circumstance might have invited to rapidity of motion, yet not one additional inch of sail did she show, but she continued to move with a speed, neither relaxed nor increased, and as if enjoying a holi- day excursion on Old Neptune's domains.
High on the quarter-deck stood the captain, with the spy-glass in his hands, and surrounded by his offi- cers. After a minute survey of the unknown vessels, as they appeared, with outlines faint and hardly visible from the distance, and with the tip of their masts gra- dually emerging, as it were, from the waves, he had dropped his glass, and said to the bystanders : "Gen- tlemen, they are vessels of war, and British." Then he instinctively cast a rapid glance upward at the rig- ging of his ship, as if to satisfy himself that nothing had happened there, to mar that symmetrical neatness and scientific arrangement which have ever been held to be a criterion of nautical knowledge, and therefore a proper source of professional pride. But the look which he
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IBERVILLE'S SEA-FIGHT.
flung at the deck was long and steady. That thought- ful, lingering look embraced every object, animate or inanimate, which there stood. Ay! that abstracted look and compressed lips must have conveyed meaning as distinct as if words had been spoken ; for they pro- duced instantaneous action, such action as when man prepares to meet man in deadly encounter. It was plain that between that chief and his crew there was that sympathetic congeniality which imparts thought and feeling without the use of language. It was plain that on all occasions when the soul was summoned into moral volition and stirred into the assumption of high and uncommon resolves, the same electric fluid, gushing from the heart, pervaded at once the whole of that human mass. But, if a change had come over the outward appearance of that ship's deck, none had taken place in her upper trimming. The wind continued to fill the same number of sails, and the ship, naiad-like, to sport herself leisurely in her favorite element.
In the meantime, the vessels which had been des- cried at the farthest point of the horizon, had been rapidly gaining ground upon the intervening distance, and were dilating in size as they approached. It could be seen that they had separated from each other, and they appeared to be sweeping round the Pelican, (for such was the name of the French ship,) as if to cut her off from retreat. Already could be plainly disco-
,
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IBERVILLE'S SEA-FIGIIT.
vered St. George's cross, flaunting in the wind. The white cloud of canvas that hung over them seemed to swell with every flying minute, and the wooden struc- tures themselves, as they plunged madly over the fur- rowed plains of the Atlantic, looked not unlike Titanic race-horses pressing for the goal. Their very masts, with their long flags streaming, like Gorgon's dishevel- led locks, seemed, as they bent under the wind, to be quivering with the anxiety of the chase. But, ye sons of Britain, why this hot haste ? Why urge ye into such desperate exertions the watery steeds which ye
spur on so fiercely ? They of the white flag never thought of flight. See! they shorten sail as if to invite you to the approach. Beware ye do not repent of your efforts to cull the Lily of France, so temptingly float- ing in your sight ! If ye be falcons of pure breed, yonder bird, that is resting his folded pinions and sharp- ening his beak, is no carrion crow. Who, but an eagle, would have looked with such imperturbable composure at your rapid gyrations, betokening the thunderbolt-like swoop which is to descend upon his devoted head ?
Now, forsooth, the excitement of the looker-on must be tenfold increased : now the four vessels are within gunshot, and the fearful struggle is to begin. One is a British ship of the line, showing a row of 52 guns, and her companions are frigates armed with 42 guns each. To court such unequal contest, must not that French
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IBERVILLE'S SEA-FIGHT.
commander be the very impersonation of madness ? There he stands on the quarter-deck, a man apparently of thirty years of age, attired as if for a courtly ball, in the gorgeous dress of the time of Louis the Fourteenth. The profuse curls of his perfumed hair seem to be burst- ing from the large, slouched gray hat, which he wears on one side inclined, and decorated with a red plume, horizontally stuck to the broad brim, according to the fashion of the day. What a noble face ! If I were to sculpture a hero, verily, I would put such a head on his shoulders-nay, I would take the whole man for my model ! I feel that I could shout with enthusiasm, when I see the peculiar expression which has settled in that man's eye, in front of such dangers thickening upon him ! Ha! what is it ? What signify that con- vulsive start which shook his frame, and that deathlike paleness which has flitted across his face ? What woman-like softness has suddenly crept into those eyes? By heaven ! a tear ! I saw it, although it passed as rapidly as if a whirlwind had swept it off, and although every feature has now resumed its former expression of more than human firmness.
. I understand it all! That boy, so young, so effemi- nate, so delicate, but who, in an under-officer's dress, stands with such manly courage by one of the guns,- he is your brother, is he not ? Perhaps he is doomed to death ! and you think of his aged mother! Well
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IBERVILLE'S SEA-FIGHT.
may the loss of two such sons crush her at once! When I see such exquisite feelings tumultuously at work in a heart as soft as ever throbbed in a woman's breast ; when I see you, Iberville, resolved to sacrifice so much, rather than to fly from your country's enemies, even when it could be done without dishonor, stranger as you are to me, I wish I could stand by you on that deck and hug you to my bosom !
What awful silence on board of those ships! Were it not for the roar of the waves, as they are cleft by the gigantic bulks under which they groan, the chirp- ing of a cricket might be distinctly heard. How near they are to each other! A musket shot would tell. Now, the crash is coming! The tempest of fire, havoc, and destruction is to be let loose ! What a spectacle ! I would not look twice at such a scene-it is too pain- ful for an unconcerned spectator ! My breast heaves with emotion-I am struggling in vain to breathe! Ha! there it goes-one simultaneous blaze! The eruption of Mount Vesuvius-a strange whizzing sound-the hissing of ten thousand serpents, bursting from hell and drunk with its venom-the fall of timber, as if a host of sturdy axes had been at work in a forest-a thick overspreading smoke, concealing the demon's work within its dusky folds ! With the occasional clearing of the smoke, the French ship may be seen, as if ani- mated with a charmed life, gliding swiftly by her foes,
8
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IBERVILLE'S VICTORY.
and pouring in her broadsides with unabated rapidity. It looks like the condensation of all the lightnings of heaven. Her commander, as if gifted with supernatural powers and with the privilege of ubiquity, seems to be present at the same time in every part of the ship, ani- mating and directing all with untiring ardor.
That storm of human warfare has lasted about two hours ; but the French ship, salamander-like, seems to live safely in that atmosphere of fire two hours! I do not think I can stand this excitement longer ; and yet every minute is adding fresh fuel to its intensity. But now comes the crisis. The Pelican has almost silenced the guns of the English 32, and is bearing down upon her, evidently with the intention to board. But, strange! she veers round. Oh! I see. God of mercy ! I feel faint at heart ! The 52 is sinking-slowly she settles in the surging sea - there -there - there -down ! What a yell of defiance ! But it is the last. What a rushing of the waters over the ingulfed mass! Now all is over, and the yawning abyss has closed its lips- horrid ! What remains to be seen on that bloody the- atre ? One of the English 42s, in a dismantled state, is dropping slowly at a distance under the wind, and the other has already struck its flag, and is lying mo- tionless on the ocean, a floating ruin !
The French ship is hardly in a better plight, and the last rays of the setting sun show her deck strewed
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BIENVILLE WOUNDED.
with the dead and the dying. But the glorious image of victory flits before the dimmed vision of the dying, and they expire with the smile of triumph on their lips, and with the exulting shout of " France for ever !"
But where is the conquerer? Where is the gallant commander, whose success sounds like a fable ? My heart longs to see him safe, and in the enjoyment of his well-earned glory. Ah! there he is, kneeling and crouching over the prostrate body of that stripling whom I have depicted : he addresses the most tender and passionate appeals to that senseless form; he covers with kisses that bloody head ; he weeps and sobs aloud, unmindful of those that look on. In faith ! I weep my- self, to see the agony of that noble heart : and why should that hero blush to moan like a mother-he who showed more than human courage, when the occasion required fortitude ? Weep on, Iberville, weep on ! Well may such tears be gathered by an angel's wings, like dew-drops worthy of heaven, and, if carried by supplicating mercy to the foot of the Almighty's throne, they may yet redeem thy brother's life !
Happily, that brother did not die. He was destined to .be known in history under the name of Bienville, and to be the founder of one of America's proudest cities. To him, New Orleans owes its existence, and his name, in the course of centuries, will grow in the esteem of posterity, proportionately with the aggran-
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IBERVILLE AND BIENVILLE.
dizement of the future emporium of so many countless millions of human beings.
The wonderful achievement which I have related, is a matter of historical record, and throws a halo of glory and romance around those two men, who have since figured so conspicuously in the annals of Louisi- ana, and who, in the beginning of March, 1699, enter- ed the Mississippi, accompanied by Father Anastase, the former companion of La Salle, in his expedition down the river in 1682. .
Since the occurrence of that battle, of which I have given but an imperfect description, Iberville and Bien- ville had been through several campaigns at sea, and had encountered the dangers of many a fight. What a remarkable family ! The father, a Canadian by birth, had died on the field of battle, in serving his country, and out of eleven sons, the worthy scions of such a stock, five had perished in the same cause. Out of the six that remained, five were to consecrate themselves to the establishment of a colony in Louisiana.
Before visiting the Mississippi, Iberville had left his fleet anchored at the Chandeleur Islands. This name proceeds from the circumstance of their having been discovered on the day when the Catholic Church cele- Urates the feast of the presentation of Christ in the tem- ple, and of the purification of the Virgin. They are flat, sandy islands, which look as if they wish to sink back
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THEIR ARRIVAL AT CAT ISLAND.
into the sea, from shame of having come into the world prematurely, and before having been shaped and licked by nature into proper objects of existence. No doubt, they did not prepossess the first colonists in favor of what they were to expect. The French visited also Ship Island, so called from its appearing to be a safe roadstead for ships, but it offered to the visitors no greater attraction than the precedent. The next island they made had not a more inviting physiognomy. When they landed on that forbidding and ill-looking piece of land, they found it to be a small, squatting island, covered with indifferent wood, and intersected with lagoons. It literally swarmed with a curious kind of animal, which seemed to occupy the medium be- tween the fox and the cat. It was difficult to say whether it belonged to one species in preference to the other. But one of the French having exclaimed, "This is the kingdom of cats !" decided the question, and the name of Cat Island was given to the new discovery. Here that peculiar animal, which was subsequently to be known in the United States, under the popular name of racoon, formed a numerous and a contented tribe ; here they lived like philosophers, separated from the rest of the world, and enjoying their nuts-their loaves and fishes. I invite fabulists, or those who have a turn for fairy tales, to inquire into the origin of that grimalkin colony, and to endear Cat Island to the
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MOUTH OF THE MISSISSIPPI.
juvenility of our State, by reciting the marvellous doings of which it was the theatre.
It was fraught, however, with so little interest in the estimation of the French, that they hastened to leave it for the land they had in sight. It formed a bay, the shores of which they found inhabited by a tribe of Indians, called Biloxi, who proved as hospitable as their name was euphonic.
On the 27th of February, 1699, Iberville and Bien- ville departed from Biloxi in search of the Mississippi. When they approached its mouth, they were struck with the gloomy magnificence of the sight. As far as the eye could reach, nothing was to be seen but reeds which rose five or six feet above the waters in which they bathed their roots. They waved mournfully under the blast of the sharp wind of the north, shivering in its icy grasp, as it tumbled, rolled, and gambolled on the pliant surface. Multitudes of birds of strange ap- pwarance, with their elongated shapes, so lean that they looked like metamorphosed ghosts, clothed in plumage, screamed in the air, as if they were scared at each other. There was something agonizing in their shrieks, that was in harmony with the desolation of the place. On every side of the vessel, monsters of the deep and huge alligators heaved themselves up heavily from their native or favorite element, and, floating lazily on the turbid waters, seemed to gaze at the intruders. Down
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IT'S DESCRIPTION.
the river, and rumbling over its bed, there came a sort of low, distant thunder. Was it the voice of the hoary sire of rivers, raised in anger at the prospect of his gigantic volume of waters being suddenly absorbed by one mightier than he ?- In their progress, it was with great difficulty that the travellers could keep their bark free from those enormous rafts of trees which the Mis- sissippi seemed to toss about in mad frolic. A poet would have thought that the great river, when depart- ing from the altitude of his birth-place, and as he rushed down to the sea through three thousand miles, had, in anticipation of a contest which threatened the contin- uation of his existence, flung his broad arms right and left across the continent, and uprooting all its forests, had hoarded them in his bed as missiles to hurl at the head of his mighty rival, when they should meet and struggle for supremacy.
When night began to cast a darker hue on a land- scape on which the imagination of Dante would have gloated, there issued from that chaos of reeds such un- couth and unnatural sounds, as would have saddened the gayest and appalled the most intrepid. Could this be the far-famed Mississippi ? or was it not rather old Avernus ? It was hideous indeed-but hideousness refined into sublimity, filling the soul with a sentiment of grandeur. Nothing daunted, the adventurers kept steadily on their course : they knew that, through those
TONTI. 65
dismal portals, they were to arrive at the most magni- ficent country in the world ; they knew that awful screen concealed loveliness itself. It was a coquettish freak of nature, when dealing with European curiosity, . as it came eagerly bounding on the Atlantic wave, to herald it through an avenue so sombre, as to cause the wonders of the great valley of the Mississippi to burst with tenfold more force upon the bewildered gaze of those who, by the endurance of so many perils and fatigues, were to merit admittance into its Eden.
It was a relief for the adventurers when, after hay- ing toiled up the river for ten days, they at last arrived at the village of the Bayagoulas. There they found a letter of Tonti to La Salle, dated in 1685. That letter, or rather that speaking bark, as the Indians called it, had been preserved with great reverence. Tonti hay- ing been informed that La Salle was coming with a feet from France, to settle a colony on the banks of the Mississippi, had not hesitated to set off from the Northern Lakes, with twenty Canadians and thirty Indians, and to come down to the Balize to meet his friend, who, as we know, had failed to make out the mouth of the Mississippi, and had been landed by Beau- yu on the shores of Texas. After having waited for same time, and ignorant of what had happened, Tonti, with the same indifference to fatigues and dangers of an appalling nature, retraced his way back, leaving a
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EXPLORATIONS.
letter to La Salle to inform him of his disappointment. Is there not something extremely romantic in the cha- racters of the men of that epoch ? Here is Tonti undertaking, with the most heroic unconcern, a jour- ney of nearly three thousand miles, through such diffi- culties as it is easy for us to imagine, and leaving a letter to La Salle, as a proof of his visit, in the same way that one would, in these degenerate days of effem- inacy, leave a card at a neighbor's house.
The French extended their explorations up to the mouth of the Red River. As they proceeded through that virgin country, with what interest they must have examined every object that met their eyes, and listened to the traditions concerning Soto, and the more recent stories of the Indians on La Salle and the iron-handed Tonti !* A coat of mail which was presented as hav- ing belonged to the Spaniards, and vestiges of their encampment on the Red River, confirmed the French in the belief that there was much of truth in the reci- tals of the Indians.
On their return from the mouth of the Red River, the two brothers separated when they arrived at Bayou Manchac. Bienville was ordered to go down the river to the French fleet, to give information of what they
* Ile had lost one of his hands, which he had supplied by an artificial one mede of iron.
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PONTCHARTRAIN.
had seen and heard. Iberville went through Bayou Manchac to those lakes which are now known under the names of Pontchartrain and Maurepas. Louisiana had been named from a king : was it not in keeping that those lakes should be called after ministers ?
It has been said that there is something in a name. If it be true, why should not I tell you who were those from whom the names of those lakes were borrowed ? Is it not something even for inanimate objects to have historical names ? Te throws round them the spell of romance, and sets the imagination to work.
Louis Phelyppeaux, Count Pontchartrain, a minis- ter and chancellor of France, was the grandson of a minister. He was a man remarkable for his talents and erudition. His integrity was proverbial, and his enlightened and inflexible administration of justice is found recorded in all the annals of the time. When he was appointed to the exalted office of Chancellor of France, Louis the XIVth, on administering to him the required oath. said, "Sir, I regret that it is not in my power to bestow upon you a higher office, as a proof of my esteem for your talents, and of my gratitude for your services."
Pontchartrain patronized letters with great zeal, and during his long career, was the avowed friend of Boileau and of J. B. Rousseau, the poet. He was of a very diminutive size, but very well shaped, and had
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PONTCHARTRAIN.
that lean and hungry look which Cæsar did not like in Cassius. His face was one of the most expressive, and his eyes were lighted up with incessant scintillations, denoting the ebullitions of wit within. If his features promised a great deal, his mind did more than redeem the physical pledge. There is no question, however abstruse, which he did not understand as if by intui- tion, and his capacity for labor appeared to stretch as far as the limits allotted to human nature. He was constitutionally indefatigable in JI his pursuits ; and his knowledge of men, which was perhos superior to all his other qualifications, remarkable as they were, greatly helped his iron will in the successful extrution of its conceptions. But, although he knew mankied thoroughly, he did not assume the garb of misanthropy. On the contrary, his manners spoke of a heart over- flowing with the milk of human benevolence; and his conversation, which was alternately replete with deep learning, or sparkling with vivacity and repartee, was eagerly sought after. If, on matters of mere business, he astonished, by the clearness of his judgment and his rapidity of conception, those he had to deal with, he no less delighted those with whom he associated in his lighter hours, by his mild cheerfulness and by his collo- quial powers, even on the veriest trifles. No man knew better than he, how to temper the high dignity of his station by the utmost suavity and simplicity of
-
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PONTCHARTRAIN-MAUREPAS.
address. Yet in that man who, conscious of the misery he might inflict, was so guarded in his expressions that he never was betrayed into an unkind one-in that man, in whom so much blandness was allied to so much majesty of deportment-there was something more dreaded far than the keenest powers of sarcasm in others. It was a smile, peculiar to himself, which made people inquire with anxiety, not what Pontchartrain had said, but how Pontchartrain had smiled. That smile of his blasted like lightning what it was aimed at ; it operated as a sentence of death, and did such execu- tion that the Pontchartrain smile became, at the court of Louis the Fourteenth, as famous as the Mortemart wit .* In 1714, resisting the entreaties of the king. he resigned his chancellorship, and retiring into the house of a religious congregation (Les pretres de l' Oratoire) he devoted the remainder of his life to prayer, reading, and meditation.
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