La Salle and the discovery of the great West - North Central ...

;1687.] THE COLONISTS ABANDONED. 403Joutel was disappointed. It had been bis hopethroughout that the King would send a ship to therelief of the wretched band at Fort St. Louis ofTexas. But Louis XIV. hardened his heart, andleft them to their fate.tion to the minister Seignelay.This report remained unknown inan English collection of autographs and old manuscripts, whence Iobtained it by purchase, in 1854, both the buyer and seller being atthe 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 clearhand, though in a few places obscured by the fading of the ink, aswell as by occasional erasures and interlineations of the writer.is, as already stated, confused and unsatisfactory in its statementsand all the latter part has been lost. On reaching France, he hadthe impudence to tell Abbe" Tronson, Superior of St. Sulpice, "qu'ilavait laisse M. de la Salle dans un tres-beau pays avec M. de Chefdevilleen bonne sante." — Lettre de Tronson a Mad. Fauvel- Cavelier,29 Nov., 1688.Cavelier addressed to the King a memorial on the importance ofkeeping possession of the Illinois. It closes with an earnest petitionfor money in compensation for his losses, as, according to his ownstatement, he was completely epuise. It is affirmed in a memorialof the heirs of his cousin, Francois Plet, that he concealed thedeath of La Salle some time after his return to France, in order toget possession of property which would otherwise have been seizedby the creditors of the deceased. The prudent abM died rich andvery old, at the house of a relative, having inherited a large estateafter his return from America. Apparently, this did not satisfyhim ; for there is before me the copy of a petition, written about1717, in which he asks, jointly with one of his nephews, to be givenpossession of the seigniorial property held by La Salle in America.The petition was refused.Young Cavelier, La Salle's nephew, died some years after, anofficer in a regiment. He has been erroneously supposed to be thesame with one De la Salle, whose name is appended to a lettergiving an account of Louisiana, and dated at Toulon, 3 Sept., 1898.This person was the son of a naval official at Toulon, and was notrelated to the Cavelier*.It