The Star Woman

THE STAR WOMAN
BY H. BEDFORD-JONES
TORONTO THE RYERSON PRESS 1 9 2 4
Copyright, 1924, By Dodd, Mead and Company, Inc. Printed in the U. S. A.
The historical portions of this novel will be found to differ considerably from generally accepted versions of the events related. The prime sources utilized are both contemporary, both French, and both untranslated; namely, the diary of Sieur Baudouin, once a soldier and later chaplain under Iberville, and the amazing “Histoire de l’Amérique Septentrionale” of Bacqueville de la Potherie.
The former work, furnished me in MS. by kindness of the Newfoundland Historical Society, yielded full details regarding the Newfoundland raid. In abridged form, it was utilized by Sieur Bacqueville, whose work is astounding because of its remarkably distinct, yet wildly confused, combination of sources. A letter from the missionary Bobé, himself a student and memorialist of Canadian affairs, has informed us of Sieur Bacqueville’s great exactitude. He had a share in much that he described; for the remainder, he drew by document or word of mouth on Baudouin, Perrot, the Le Moynes, Joliet and the Jesuits. The manner in which these sources can be traced through the internal evidence of his work is most interesting; the work itself cannot be translated satisfactorily, owing to its disregard of historical sequence and its jumble of unrelated documents and dictation.
In places, however, it is remarkably clear, and has been followed for the Hudson Bay events. I do not attempt to account for the extraordinary discrepancies which exist between these events as herein set forth and as related by A. C. Laut in “The Conquest of the Great Northwest.” This discrepancy exists in nearly every detail and is almost incredible, since the latter work quotes Bacqueville as an authority. The same discrepancy exists between its account of Iberville’s earlier exploits on the bay and that which Iberville himself presumably furnished Sieur Bacqueville. The two versions are totally different. I have followed the 1753 edition of the Histoire, which was a careful reprint of the second edition of 1722. I believe that no copies are known to exist of the first edition, of 1716. Miss Laut quotes a much later edition. Perhaps that is why her account is so astonishing—as, for example, making one of Iberville’s ships, the Violent , founder in the straits, when this ship was not even with his squadron; and when we are expressly told that it was a small brigantine named the Esquimeau which went down. Nor is this the most amazing error in the volume named.