Robert Ignatius Cavelier left the College of La Flèche on March 28, 1667, an ex-Jesuit. Before his final letters of freedom were given him he received a kind letter from the general, in which he was told that the French provincial had been instructed by him "to absolve you from your vows and set you free." He added in Latin, "But do you, dearest brother, wheresoever and in whatever state you shall find yourself, be ever mindful of the state from which you have gone forth, and attend to the rock from which you have been hewed, and although you may be separated from us in time and place, strive always to be in heart with us and to live in Christ with us. May His grace be always with you!" (Archives General S. J.) Cf. Rochemonteix "Les Jésuites et la Nouvelle France."
Circumstances in later life separated him largely from intercourse with the Jesuits, as his career took him across the Sulpicians and the Recollects.
Cavelier de La Salle is free! Where will he turn his steps? He has no position and very little of a fortune, for on becoming a Jesuit he had yielded up his inheritance to others of his family. Canada calls him, for his brother François, the priest, had gone there in the September of 1666. Canada, therefore, had doubtless been luring him during his late mental struggles at La Flèche, and the summer of 1667 found the ex-Jesuit with his brother, the Sulpician, at Montreal.
The Abbé de Queylus received the young man of twenty-four years kindly, and doubtless for his brother's sake gave him a "fief noble" of great extent opposite the Sault St. Louis. To encourage him to make good, the title was not given in writing to him till January 9, 1669, when he paid a medal of fine gold, which was to be repaid to the Seminary at every subsequent change of seigneur.
The adventurous Sieur de La Salle set whole-heartedly to work in his new vocation. He gratefully called the seigneury "St. Sulpice" and, commencing the clearing of the land, he mapped out the borders of his future village and subdivided his land as grants to his feudal tenants in lots of sixty arpents, with half an arpent in the village itself. He relieved them of any seigneurial dues till the year 1671, provided they had built their homes by the feast of St. John, 1669. He gave them the right of hunting on their lands and of fishing in front. He took off 200 arpents of land from his fief towards Lake St. Peter for a "common," whereon each could feed his beasts at a feudal fine of five sous a year, while he reserved 400 arpents for his seigneurial manor. This, however, he sold in 1670, when the passion for travel and discovery seized him, as shall be later described.
We have ventured to give the romantic details of the history of one of the early seigneurs because they illustrate the adventuresome period and also because many of these facts surrounding the life of La Salle were not generally known, even by many of the leading historians of Canada. They will help as a key to explain the temperament and character of the celebrated discoverer, in his Canadian life, his enterprises and his misfortunes, his extreme need of movement, his uncertainty, his passion for travel, his reputation for learning, and also his active and ardent faith deepened by his Jesuit training.
His robust health and his commanding figure were of powerful avail to him in his adventurous tasks. The generous blood of Normandy flowed freely in his veins and, like his countrymen, he was active, intelligent, industrious, resourceful and self-regarding. He made a better pioneer than a patient, plodding land owner, as we shall see, and the defects of an untractable youth made the success of the man as an explorer.
We left the young La Salle organizing his seigneury, but before long he is to be found, gun on his shoulder and knapsack on his back, traversing the woods and in his canoe exploring all the rivers and lakes around the neighbourhood. Trading his merchandise for beaver skins with the Indians and coming in contact with the coureurs de bois, he learns the directions of the rivers and the products of the countries through which they pass, and soon there seizes him the great desire to discover the long-sought-for northwest passage to China and Japan and thus to open out a fruitful field for commerce for France, and glory and fortune for himself.
During the autumn of 1668 some Seneca (Tsonnontouan) Indians stopped at St. Sulpice and from them he learned that the river he called the Ohio entered into the Mississippi, which emptied its waters into the "River of the Sault," which he thought to be the Pacific. [104] With the aid of these he started to master the Iroquois language.
Meanwhile, a similar idea of exploring and evangelizing the Shawnee district had presented itself to Dollier de Casson who was now at Quebec, making arrangements with M. de Queylus for his departure.