It was October when they arrived; and, meanwhile, Tonty had returned from the Iroquois war, where he had borne a conspicuous part in the famous attack on the Senecas, by the Marquis de Denonville. [Footnote: Tonty, Du Laut, and Durantaye came to the aid of Denonville with hundred and seventy Frenchmen, chiefly coureurs de bois, and three hundred Indians from the upper country. Their services were highly appreciated, and Tonty especially is mentioned in the despatches of Denonville with great praise.] He listened with deep interest to the mournful story of his guests. Cavelier knew him well. He knew, so far as he was capable of knowing, his generous and disinterested character, his long and faithful attachment to La Salle, and the invaluable services he had rendered him. Tonty had every claim on his confidence and affection. Yet he did not hesitate to practise on him the same deceit which he had practised on Bellefontaine. He told him that he had left his brother in good health on the Gulf of Mexico; and, adding fraud to meanness, drew upon him in La Salle's name for an amount stated by Joutel at about four thousand livres, in furs, besides a canoe and a quantity of other goods, all of which were delivered to him by the unsuspecting victim. [Footnote: "Monsieur Tonty, croyant M. de la Salle vivant, ne fit pas de diffiulté de Luy donner pour environ quatre mille liv. de pelleterie, de castors, loutres, un canot, et autres effets."—Joutel, 349.
Tonty himself does not make the amount so great: "Sur ce qu'ils m'assuroient qu'il étoit resté au golfe de Mexique en bonne santé, je les recus comme si ç'avoit esté lui mesmo et luy prestay (à Cavelier) plus de 700 francs."—Tonty, Mémoire.
Cavelier must have known that La Salle was insolvent. Tonty had long served without pay. Douay says that he made the stay of the party at the fort very agreeable, and speaks of him, with some apparent compunction, as "ce brave Gentilhomme, toujours inséparablement attaché aux intérêts du sieur de la Salle, doet nous luy avons caché la déplorable destinée."
Couture, from the Arkansas, brought word to Tonty, several months after, of La Salle's death, adding that Cavelier had concealed it, with no other purpose than that of gaining money or supplies from him (Tonty), in his brother's name.]
This was at the end of the winter, when the old priest and his companions had been living for months on Tonty's hospitality. They set out for Canada on the twenty-first of March, reached Chicago on the twenty-ninth, and thence proceeded to Michillimackinac. Here Cavelier sold some of Tonty's furs to a merchant, who gave him in payment a draft on Montreal, thus putting him in funds for his voyage home. The party continued their journey in canoes by way of French River and the Ottawa, and safely reached Montreal on the seventeenth of July. Here they procured the clothing of which they were wofully in need, and then descended the river to Quebec, where they took lodging, some with the Récollet friars, and some with the priests of the Seminary, in order to escape the questions of the curious. At the end of August, they embarked for France, and early in October arrived safely at Rochelle. None of the party were men of especial energy or force of character; and yet, under the spur of a dire necessity, they had achieved one of the most adventurous journeys on record.
Now, at length, they disburdened themselves of their gloomy secret; but the sole result seems to have been an order from the king for the arrest of the murderers, should they appear in Canada. [Footnote: Lettre du Roy à Dénonville, 1 Mai, 1689, MS. Joutel must have been a young man at the time of the Mississippi expedition, for Charlevoix saw him at Rouen, thirty-five years after. He speaks of him with emphatic praise, but it must be admitted that his connivance in the deception practised by Cavelier on Tonty leaves a shade on his character as well as on that of Douay. In other respects, every thing that appears concerning him is highly favorable, which is not the case with Douay, who, on one or two occasions, makes wilful misstatements.
Douay says that the elder Cavelier made a report of the expedition to the minister Seignelay. This report remained unknown in an English collection of autographs and old manuscripts, whence I obtained it by purchase, in 1854, both the buyer and seller being at the time ignorant of its exact character. It proved, on examination, to be a portion of the first draft of Cavelier's report to Seignelay. It consists of twenty-six small folio pages, closely written in a clear hand, though in a few places obscured by the fading of the ink, as well as by occasional erasures and interlineations of the writer. It is, as already stated, confused and unsatisfactory in its statements; and all the latter part has been lost.
Soon after reaching France, Cavelier addressed to the king a memorial on the importance of keeping possession of the Illinois. It closes with an earnest petition for money, in compensation for his losses, as, according to his own statement, he was completely épuisé. It is affirmed in a memorial of the heirs of his cousin, Francois Plet, that he concealed the death of La Salle some time after his return to France, in order to get possession of property which would otherwise have been seized by the creditors of the deceased. The prudent Abbé died rich and very old, at the house of a relative, having inherited a large estate after his return from America. Apparently, this did not satisfy him; for there is before me the copy of a petition, written about 1717, in which he asks, jointly with one of his nephews, to be given possession of the seignorial property held by La Salle in America. The petition was refused.
Young Cavelier, La Salle's nephew, died some years after, an officer in a regiment. He has been erroneously supposed to be the same with one De la Salle, whose name is appended to a letter giving an account of Louisiana, and dated at Toulon, 3 Sept. 1698. This person was the son of a naval official at Toulon, and was not related to the Caveliers.] The wretched exiles of Texas were thought, it may be, already beyond the reach of succor.