The later volumes (the Editor has seen in Mr. Parkman’s hands the proofs of vols. iv. and v., and there is to be one more) pertain to Iberville and the following century; but a volume of the early cartography is promised as a completion of the publication. On the issue of these three volumes Mr. Parkman in considerable part rewrote his Discovery of the Great West, and republished it in 1879 as La Salle and the Discovery of the Great West. In his Preface he speaks of the collection of documents in Margry’s keeping “to which he had not succeeded in gaining access,” and which, besides the papers in his official charge, included others added by him from other public archives and from private collections in France. “In the course of my inquiries,” says Mr. Parkman, “I owed much to [M. Margry’s] friendly aid; but his collections as a whole remained inaccessible, since he naturally wished to be the first to make known the results of his labors.”
LA SALLE.
This follows a design given in Gravier (pp. 1, 202), which is said to be based on an engraving preserved in the Bibliothèque de Rouen, entitled Cavilli de la Salle François,—and is the only picture meriting notice, except possibly a small vignette of which Gravier gives a fac-simile in his Cavelier de la Salle. Mr. Parkman has a photograph, given to him by Gravier, of a modern painting drawn from the first of these two pictures. In the Magazine of American History, May, 1882, there is an engraving, “after a photograph of the original painting,” leading the reader to suppose a veritable original likeness to have been followed, instead of this photograph of a made-up picture.
It was fortunate that in regard to one point only this deprivation had led Mr. Parkman astray in his earlier edition; and that was upon La Salle’s failure to find the mouth of the Mississippi in 1684, and the conduct therewith of Beaujeu. Mr. Parkman has testified to the authenticity of the La Salle letters in the North American Review, December, 1877, where (p. 428) he says: “The contents of these letters were in good measure known through a long narrative compiled from them by one of the writer’s friends, who took excellent care to put nothing into it which could compromise him. All personalities are suppressed. These letters of La Salle have never been used by any historical writer.” Margry’s publication has been reviewed by J. Thoulet in the Bulletin de la Société de Géographie, November and December, 1880, where a modern map enables the reader to track the explorer’s course. A sketch of this map is given on an earlier page.
The severest criticism of Margry’s publication has come from Dr. Shea, in a tract entitled The Bursting of Pierre Margry’s La Salle Bubble, New York, 1879,—a paper which first appeared in the New York Freeman’s Journal. Margry is judged by his critic to have unwarrantably extended the collection by repeating what had already elsewhere been printed, sometimes at greater length.[672] The “bubble” in question is the view long entertained by Margry that La Salle was the real discoverer of the Mississippi, and which he has set forth at different times in the following places:—
1. “Les Normands dans les vallées de l’Ohio et du Mississippi,” in the Journal general de l’instruction publique, July-September, 1862, placing the event in 1670-1671.
2. Revue maritime et colonial, Paris (1872), xxxiii. 555.
3. La priorité de La Salle sur le Mississipi, Paris, 1873,—a pamphlet.