While thus, in that fine light, on the limpid water, under the tender blue of a crystal sky, the heroic and charming soul of our ancestors was evoked, our ship, surrounded by a whole fleet of decorated barks, draws near the pier at Crown Point and stops in front of the monument of Champlain. This monument is a lighthouse, of gray granite, sparkling with grains of mica which shine in the sun like the facets of precious stones. The location of that edifice is well adapted to the calling and the glory of him who was in these parts the guide of navigators. In front of that lighthouse, on the prow of a symbolic vessel, there stands upright the figure of the good pilot whose wake we have followed. * * * While awaiting the completion of the statue, which has been begun, we have fastened to the pedestal the image of France, modelled with infinitely delicate love by the strong hand of the sculptor Rodin. That will be a token and, as it were, the sign of the mother country on the monument which commemorates and consecrates a French achievement.
At the moment when that image, veiled by the flags of France and of the United States, is uncovered, appears to the gaze of the assembled crowd, the Marseillaise vibrates in the resonant light. Our American friends and the Canadians present applaud and cheer. We are deeply moved, we Frenchmen, before this figure, where we recognize clearly the force and the sweetness of the mother country, the uprightness of her thoughts, the loftiness of her sentiments, the nobility of her generous desires. Never has an artist’s idea better expressed by the sovereign gift of art all that there is of depth, of rarity, of the unique, in hearts animated by the imperative desire to maintain the dominion of France; to enhance her glory. The head of the French delegation, M. Gabriel Hanotaux, of the French Academy, former Minister of Foreign Affairs, accompanied by the French Ambassador and the Governors of the States of New York and of Vermont, delivers that precious pledge of remembrance and of hope to the friendship of the American people. His eloquent words are most appropriate to the occasion which reunites us, to the decorations which astonish us, to the character of the great man whose admirable work gives us, at the end of three centuries, the joy of seeing in this place the infinite results of a French undertaking. The orator, in reviewing the life and work of Champlain, points out how similar to Corneille was the soul of that contemporary of Richelieu, and how this discoverer of new ways, this builder of towns, this initiator of civilization into the New World, this idealist, prompt in the realization of his ideas, has succeeded by the power of a thoughtful desire, preparing his projects far in advance by prudent thought, wisely conceived, rapidly executed—having, in a word, as a historian has said in the temperate and forceful language of long ago, “the intentions of all he did.”
After M. Hanotaux, the Governors of New York and Vermont spoke. Their excellent discourses, warmly applauded, reminded me again how well the history of Champlain is known in America. In him they honor by turns the incarnation of the genius of France; the honor and chivalry of France. To that explorer, to that colonizer, they give that beautiful name of “honest man” which our ancestors of the seventeenth century claimed more passionately than any other title: navigator, explorer, honest man. * * *
After that moving ceremony we were taken in automobiles to the ruins of Fort Frédéric, which was constructed in 1731 by the Marquis de Beauharnois. The whole population of Port Henry comes with us; they surround us, showing us every courtesy.
In a group of children I see a pretty little boy with blue eyes.
“Doest thou know French”?
“Yes, sir.”
“What is thy name”?
“Henri Pigeon.”
With a name so extremely French one does not need a certificate of origin. A French priest, Father Guttin, professor in the College of Saint-Michel at Burlington, on the other shore of Lake Champlain, told me that Henri Pigeon is one of many children of a very honorable and hard-working Canadian family. The father of that child works in the mines at Port Henry.