I bowed, and he went on. Something had evidently occurred to vex and irritate him.
"You know the people who surround me here, the weak, the vicious, the licentious of all the earth. A band of unprincipled adventurers, vile Canadians and half-breeds, all too lazy to work, or even to feed themselves out of the bountiful earth which would give everything we need almost for the asking. The air is full now of rumors of a Spanish war, and a Natchez-Chickasaw alliance. If these things are true we would find ourselves entirely cut off from French supplies, and this colony would literally starve to death. Yes, starve to death with untold millions of fruitful acres all about us. Had we strength to fight I would not care so much. With but two companies of undisciplined troops, a mere straggling handful, officered by drunkards, we could not defend this post a day against any organized attack."
All this I knew to be true, so I made no comment. He pursued the conversation and evidently relieved his mind of much that had troubled him for months.
"Then this beggarly commissary of mine, and the trafficking priest, de la Vente, they are constantly stirring up strife against me here, and putting lies in the hands of my enemies at court. The king, too, is wearied out with this endless drain upon his treasury for money and supplies, and is now, so I am informed, almost ready to accede to Crozat's proposition, and turn over to him the revenues and government of the colonies."
The old man grew earnest and eloquent.
"What! turn over an empire such as this to a miserable trading huckster, the son of a peasant—permit him to name the governors and officers! Why, under his rule, such cattle as la Salle and de la Vente would feed fat upon the miseries of the people! Great God, Placide, do you appreciate what that means? To create this peddler of silks and laces lord of a boundless domain, more magnificent than Louis in his wildest schemes of conquest ever dreamed? Why, boy, the day will come when for a thousand leagues the silver lilies will signal each other from every hill top; marts of commerce will thrive and flourish; the land will smile with farms and cities, with proud palaces and with granite castles. The white sails of our boats will fleck every lake and sea and river with their rich burdens of trade, pouring a fabulous and a willing wealth into the coffers of the king. Gold and silver mines will yield their precious stores, while from these niggard natives we will wrest with mighty arm the tribute they so contemptuously deny the weakling curs who snap and snarl at my heels. Grey tower and fortress will guard every inlet, and watch this sheltered coast. In every vale the low chant of holy nuns will breathe their benediction upon a happy people. And hordes of nations yet unknown and races yet unborn, in future legends, in song, in story and in rhyme, will laud the name of Bourbon and the glory of the French. Oh lad! lad! 'tis an ambition worthy a god."
The governor had risen, and waving his long arms this way and that, pointed out the confines of his mighty dreamland empire with as much assurance as if cities and towns would spring up at his bidding.
His whole frame spoke the most intense emotion. The face, glorified and transfigured by the allurement of his brilliant mirage, seemed that of another man.
"Ah, Placide! Placide! it stings me that this chivalrous king of ours, this degenerate grandson of Henry the Great, should think of selling for a few paltry livres such an heritage as this. Shame to you Louis, shame!"
His tone had grown so loud, so peremptory, I interrupted.