Jolliet and Marquette had begun the work; it now remained for another strong, ardent, adventurous spirit to continue it. Such a one was close at hand in the person of Réné Robert Cavelier, Sieur de la Salle. As a young man he had come to Canada from his native city of Rouen, filled with the most romantic ideas of winning fame and wealth in the wilderness. To learn the Indian language and ways he had left the towns and led the roving life of a bushranger, making long, lonely canoe journeys and dwelling in the Indian wigwams. He, too, had heard of the Father of Waters, the vast Mississippi, and tried to reach it, but, as we have seen, Jolliet was there before him. But La Salle did not accept Jolliet's conclusions. He refused to believe that the Mississippi emptied into the Gulf of Mexico—he thought it led to the Pacific. He was full of faith in the existence of a short route to China. When any one met him on his return from an expedition, however short, they would jokingly ask him, "Venez vous de la Chine?" ("Do you come from China?") La Salle had bought an estate not far from Montreal, and this estate came at last to be called in derision La Chine, and Lachine it is called to this hour. But La Salle was not the kind of man to be discouraged. He was determined to settle the matter one way or another, and into his plans Frontenac entered heartily. But for some years other work claimed La Salle's attention—work of a pioneering sort. He believed that before the French could lay strong hands on the west, where the English had already begun to penetrate, forts and stations ought to be built and a firm alliance made with the Indians. With Frontenac's approval, he assumed control of Fort Cataracoui, on Lake Ontario. Once in his hands, La Salle tore it down, built a stronger one of stone, and rechristened it in honour of his patron, Fort Frontenac. Moving westward, he began to clear land and to build small ships to carry the cargoes of furs he had bargained for. The first he built on Lake Erie in the year 1679 he called the Griffin, in which he sailed to the Green Bay Mission on Lake Michigan. There the Griffin was packed with costly furs and bade God-speed on her return voyage eastward. Weeks passed, then months and years, but the Griffin never came back. Her timbers and the bodies of her crew have long rotted somewhere at the bottom of one of the Great Lakes. The loss was a sad blow to La Salle; it was one of the first of that series of great misfortunes which followed him through his career until he was cruelly done to death by foul traitors in the remote forest.
But by this time La Salle was not alone in his wanderings. In Henry de Tonti he had a fiery and trusty lieutenant, and a devoted follower in a Recollet friar, Father Hennepin. Before coming to Canada, Tonti had lost a hand in battle, its place being supplied by one of steel, covered by a glove. The Indians stood amazed at the blows Tonti could deal with his mysterious gloved hand, blows which would have shattered their own members to fragments. Tonti often had reason to bless his hand of steel. Three years after the ill-fated Griffin went down, La Salle saw his way clear to carry out his great purpose. He embarked on the waters of the Mississippi on a voyage to its source. The explorer, with Tonti and his party, met with a friendly reception from most of the Indians on their journey. Some were disposed to be hostile, and when this happened to be the case, strong, quick paddling soon put the French out of their reach. Finally, on the 19th of March, as the sun shone hot and trees and flowers were in bloom, their canoes entered the mouth of the Father of Waters, which is divided into three channels. La Salle, in his canoe, entered one, Tonti the second, and Captain d'Autray the third. All disembarked, and on some high, dry ground La Salle caused a column to be raised, and upon it this inscription was placed:
LOUIS THE GREAT,
King of France
and of Navarre,
reigns.
The ninth of April 1682.
La Salle took possession of the country for the King, and bestowed upon it the name, in his honour, of Louisiana. It took the explorers a full year to get back to Quebec, for the current was strong and the difficulties many. There he received a warm reception. But nothing could console him. Much to his sorrow and dismay, he found a new Governor installed. The enemies of Frontenac, headed by Laval, had triumphed, and the greatest and strongest man in Canada had been recalled by the King. Never could this measure have happened at a worse time. For, while La Salle had been absent, after years of peace, the restless Iroquois had dug up the war-hatchet. Upon a pretext of having received offence from the Illinois tribe, which was under French protection, they threatened to deluge the land in blood. To this policy they had been urged by the English Governor of New York, Colonel Dongan, who saw with alarm the growing enterprise, both in fur trade and exploration of the French. While he continued in Canada the doughty Frontenac was more than a match for the Iroquois chiefs. He sent for them instantly to Fort Frontenac, saying that if they had been wronged by the Illinois he would see that they had proper satisfaction. The Iroquois, having the English Governor at their back, at first returned a defiant answer. "If you want to see us, friend Onontio," they said, "you must come to our lodges." With flashing eyes and with knitted brows, Frontenac sent back the messenger to the Iroquois commanding them to keep their hands off his Indians or take all consequences. He had, he said, asked them to come and meet him at Fort Frontenac. Now he added, if the Iroquois wished to see him, they would have to come to Montreal. His sternness and the fear of his displeasure overcame the braves of the Five Nations. Changing their tone, they sent an embassy to Montreal, promising the peace which they hated. Scarcely had they done so than Frontenac the Lion was replaced by La Barre, the Lamb.
Like every one else, La Salle, on learning the evil news, saw the folly and danger of the change. To France straightway he sailed, where the King heaped him with honours, and, seizing the opportunity, he unfolded a project for establishing a French colony in Louisiana. Ships were freely given him and many soldiers and supplies to reach the Gulf of Mexico by sea. But La Salle, though he never would admit the fact, was no sailor. His navigation was fatally at fault; he wholly missed his intended destination, the mouth of the Mississippi, sailing hundreds of miles beyond. He landed, and through the forests and swamps, and stricken with fever, he led his colonists. After much miserable wandering, in which most of the little army perished, his followers mutinied. La Salle was murdered and his corpse flung to the jackals and vultures.
Far more successful were the adventures of the Chevalier de Troyes. The Chevalier de Troyes was a Canadian nobleman who had long fought for his king, and had seen service on many of the bloody battlefields in Europe. Now, when age began to creep upon him, and scars lined his cheek and brow, he had retired to his estate on the banks of the silvery St. Lawrence, to spend the rest of his days in peace and the companionship of his books. In his retirement the news of the increasing power and wealth of the Hudson's Bay Company reached him; it told him that unless this power was checked the prosperity of the French fur-hunters and fur-traders would be utterly crushed. An idea flashed across the brain of the Chevalier de Troyes, who believed he now saw an opportunity of winning enduring distinction, to rival, and may be surpass, the exploits of Champlain, La Salle, and the other hero-pioneers of New France.
In the depths of winter he summoned all his dependants and all whom his eloquence could attract, locked up his library, and set out for Quebec on snow-shoes. From the Governor he procured, on Christmas Eve 1685, official permission to steal upon the English and drive them, at the point of the sword, from the shores of Hudson's Bay. He was empowered to "search for, seize, and occupy the most advantageous posts, to seize the robbers, bushrangers, and others whom we know to have taken and arrested several of our French engaged in the Indian trade, whom we order him to arrest, especially Radisson and his adherents, wherever they may be found, and bring them to be punished as deserters, according to the rigour of the ordinances." The rigour of the ordinances was but another word for death.
Fourscore Canadians were selected to make up the expedition against the Hudson's Bay Company's posts by the Chevalier de Troyes. For his lieutenants the leader chose the three sons of a nobleman of New France named Charles le Moine. One, the eldest, a young man of only twenty-five, was to bear an enduring distinction in the annals of France as one of her most able and intrepid naval commanders. This was the Sieur d'Iberville. His brothers, taking their names, as he had done, from places in their native land, were called the Sieurs de Sainte-Hélène and de Marincourt. Thirty soldiers were directly attached to the Chevalier's command, veterans who had, almost to a man, seen service in one or other of the great European wars. That they might not be without the ministrations of religion, Father Sylvie, a Jesuit priest, accompanied the expedition.
"The rivers," writes a chronicler of the Troyes expedition, "were frozen and the earth covered with snow when that small party of vigorous men left Montreal in order to ascend the Ottawa River as far as the height of land, and thence to go down to James's Bay." At the beginning of April they arrived at the Long Sault, where they prepared some canoes in order to ascend the Ottawa River. From Lake Temiscamingue they passed many portages until they reached Lake Abbitibi, at the entrance or most southern extremity of which they built a small fort of stockades. After a short halt they continued their course onward to James's Bay.
First doomed to conquest by Troyes and his companions was Moose Factory, a stockade fort with four bastions. In the centre stood a house 40 feet square and as many high, terminating in a platform. This fort was escaladed by the French late at night, and of the palisades short work was made by the hatchets of the bushrangers.