The White and the Gold (59 page)

The consummation of this pact was the signal for a storm of protest in the colony. The cards had been laid on the table for all to see, and it was clear that the two interested parties had dealt themselves a winning hand. Frontenac had built the fort with government money and had then turned it over to his new ally, the visionary La Salle. Between them they would have a monopoly of the western fur trade. They would become wealthy at the expense of Montreal, where trade would be cut in two.

Paying little heed to the uproar, La Salle proceeded to carry out his promises. He replaced the wooden palisades, which Raudin had raised at Cataraqui with such remarkable celerity, with a wall of hewn stone. Inside this he erected a barracks for the men of the garrison, a mill, and a bakery. The staff he maintained at the start consisted of two officers, a surgeon, and ten soldiers. There were in addition thirty workers and two Récollet fathers, Luc Buisset and Louis Hennepin. Cannon frowned through gun emplacements in the walls. Outside the fort a village was established and in short order one hundred acres of land had been cleared and crops planted. La Salle carried on the work, in fact, with as much energy as Frontenac had displayed in the erection of the first fort.

It became apparent at this point that these two outstanding men had joined forces with more in mind than making a profit from the western fur trade. They had a far greater objective, the conquest of the West. The establishment of Fort Frontenac was the first step in this magnificent design.

While La Salle was in France making these arrangements and living in Spartan style because his personal purse was almost empty, he was introduced by the Prince de Conti to a man who was to play a large part in his life. This was a young Italian named Henri de Tonty, who had come to France under unusual circumstances.

The father of this brave officer was a Neopolitan banker, Lorenzo de Tonty, who got into trouble in his native city by dabbling in politics and involving himself so deeply on the losing side that he had to flee with his family. He chose France as a place of sanctuary
because his fellow countryman, Cardinal Mazarin, was in power at the time and might be agreeable to assisting the exiles. Lorenzo de Tonty was longheaded, a man of ideas and schemes and stratagems, all having to do with money. He was carrying in his clever brain a plan which he called a form of insurance but which was, in reality, an ingenious gamble. He proposed to Mazarin that a public loan be promoted by which ten different classes of subscribers would pay in a certain fixed amount, bringing the total subscription to something in excess of a million livres. The first class was to consist of children under seven years of age, the second from seven years to fourteen, and so on up to the last class, which would be limited to people of sixty-three or over. The money thus raised would go to the government and a rate of interest would be fixed. The interest would be divided among the subscribers in each class and, when deaths occurred, the share of the deceased in succeeding payments would be divided among the survivors. As the circle narrowed, the lucky ones would find their incomes mounting and the last few would be able to live, literally, like kings. When the last subscriber in any class passed away, the capital would revert to the state.

This scheme was indeed an enticing form of gamble, and both Tonty and Mazarin were convinced that it would have a strong appeal for the public. The cardinal saw in it a great advantage for the state and took the scheme to Louis XIV. The young King was equally enthusiastic, and the plan was duly authorized. But the Tontine Royale, as it was called, found no favor in other administrative circles, and in Parliament registration was denied. The King, it now developed, had put some money into the promotion fund and this had all been spent. The royal enthusiasm shriveled and was replaced by such an acid viewpoint on the scheme that the ingenious banker was sent to the Bastille, where he remained for a number of years; during the whole period, in fact, of his son Henri’s youth.

The idea of the tontines was not destined to oblivion. It was revived in 1689—many years after La Salle’s meeting with the banker’s son—and was carried out successfully. The widow who outlasted the other subscribers received the shares of all the rest, an income of 73,500 livres a year! It is not surprising that gambles of this kind became very popular and that tontines were organized in all parts of the world, even in a country which was then beginning to emerge in the form of seacoast colonies and would later become the United States of America.

Henri de Tonty, the son of Lorenzo, was a sailor. He had entered the French service as a cadet and through sheer merit and bravery had advanced rapidly to the rank of captain. At the battle of Libisso a grenade shot away his right hand. Knowing that he could not expect medical aid at once, the gallant young officer cut away the jagged flesh with a knife and kept on fighting. He had an iron hand made and thus, at a time when rumors still circulated in France about a mysterious prisoner who was called the Man in the Iron Mask, Tonty became known as the Man with the Iron Hand. He wore a glove over it and was believed to be capable of handling a sword just as well with his artificial hand as before.

When he met La Salle, Tonty was in his late twenties. He was a tall fellow with a prominent nose jutting out from gaunt cheeks. His mustache had waxed ends that turned up sharply. In appearance he had something of Cyrano about him and in character an even more pronounced resemblance to that inspired poet and swordsman. He had never known fear, and no man had ever been more completely free of selfish instincts.

La Salle conceived an immediate liking for Tonty and offered him a post as his lieutenant in America. Tonty accepted gladly. They remained friends until the early death of La Salle separated them. The brave Italian seems to have been the only real friend the reserved La Salle ever had.

L
A SALLE never seemed concerned over the ease with which he made enemies. He was too engrossed in his dreams to care what other men thought of him. At his seigneury of St. Sulpice, which already was called La Chine in derision because he had failed to reach China, he had stalked about in solitary absorption, his hands behind his back, his head bent forward, his brows knitted, neither seeing those he encountered nor returning their greetings. It was the same in Montreal, where he paced the streets in frowning silence. He was so completely the slave of his ideas, so driven by his ambitions, that many people thought him unsettled mentally. Subsequent events deepened this impression and led to a conviction in some quarters that he was actually mad; a belief that his enemies were only too ready to embrace.

On his return from France with Fort Frontenac in his pocket as well as the western concessions, including that of buffalo hunting, the feeling against him intensified. The men of the colony declared that this young madman was planning to establish a personal empire, a great new world of trade for his own aggrandizement. The merchants of Montreal had taken serious alarm, believing that La Salle had stolen a march on them. Jacques le Ber and Charles le Moyne, the most fair-minded of men, joined in the chorus. When the new intendant Duchesneau, who hated Frontenac and opposed him at every turn, presented evidence that the governor had formed a partnership with La Salle to control the trade which would now flow through the new fort at Cataraqui, the outcry became general.
Were these ambitious and money-mad men to be allowed to gather the valley of the Mississippi into their eager hands as well?

La Salle was practical enough to know that money was needed in large quantities to carry out the plans which filled his head. He was willing to go to any lengths to get it. But a study of this strange man and the short life of spectacular adventure which fate allowed him leaves the conviction that he had no concern over money for its own sake. It was never more than a means to an end. His was the true pioneering spirit, and the almost demoniac passion with which he fought to claim the Mississippi was not inspired by a consideration of future profits. He saw glory in the accomplishment and he would have been content if no other reward had offered.

At the same time he was sufficiently farseeing to know that mere possession of the waterway would not be enough. The country beyond must be opened up for trade; and to that end he had many plans.

After he had won his patents from the King and had extracted such considerable sums from his far from liberal relatives, La Salle took ship for Canada. With him were Henri de Tonty and another recruit who had expressed willingness to join in the adventure, La Motte de Lussière. On the ship with them was a pertinacious priest, a Récollet named Louis Hennepin. Despite the fact that La Salle had occasion during the long voyage to reprove Hennepin for interference in matters which did not concern him, he listened later when the priest manifested a desire to join them. La Salle was not a good judge of subordinates and seems to have had about him always some intractable and useless adherents, among whom Hennepin must be numbered. It was La Salle, nevertheless, who obtained for the priest the consent of his Provincial to going on the expedition. Hennepin, an inveterate busybody, constituted himself later the historian of the party.

No time was to be lost in setting out for the West. La Motte was sent ahead with a party of volunteers to prepare a base on the Niagara River. Hennepin went with him and has left a long and characteristic description of their adventures and difficulties. La Salle and Tonty followed with the bulk of the party, finding that La Motte had succeeded in erecting a warehouse on the west shore of the Niagara in a fold of the hills. La Motte was having eye trouble and was already weary of this kind of pioneering. It was with relief
that the rest of the party saw him depart for home. There was no way of getting rid of Hennepin, however. That busy recorder of events and of his own personal reactions was in the middle of everything, preaching, exhorting, interfering.

The next step was to build a boat above the Falls, one large enough to take the whole party with their supplies over the waters of the Great Lakes. La Salle had received disturbing intelligence from the colony that his enemies, now including his brother at Montreal, who was standing like a watchdog over the family funds, were combining actively against him. He felt it advisable to return at once and do whatever he could to repair his fences. This meant a trip on foot, across the face of the Iroquois country and over the frozen surface of Lake Ontario, a matter of many months. The task of constructing the boat, therefore, fell to the lot of Henri de Tonty.

The Man with the Iron Hand rose nobly to the need. He was not an engineer but he had several good mechanics to rely upon and he seems to have possessed all the qualities needed—a stout heart, a resolute will, and a deep conviction of duty. While La Salle was plowing on snowshoes over the Iroquois trails, in constant danger of his life, his Italian-born friend was performing a miracle of another kind, the construction of the forty-five-foot vessel which had been designed.

Maître Moyse, the head carpenter, set his crew to work on the ribs of the vessel. The blacksmith, who is designated by no other name than La Forge, set up a workshop and proceeded to hammer out the metal parts needed. Father Hennepin had a small chapel built for him and did a great deal of preaching in addition to training some of the party to supply the chants. He continued to have time to set down his impressions of everything that happened.

It was a good thing for posterity, if not for his fellow workers, that Father Hennepin was along. He has left some picturesque impressions of the winter work. Unfortunately he went to the ludicrous extreme later of boasting that he, and not La Salle, had discovered the mouth of the Mississippi and so placed everything he had put on paper before under suspicion. In his narrative of the days along the Niagara he tells of the uneasiness of the Indians thereabouts who were sure the wooden monster boded them no good. Some Mohawks came over to observe and took alarm at once at the great spread of the ship’s ribs. They refused to leave and settled themselves down in sullen disapproval, muttering threats to burn the strange monster before it could be put into the water.

One of the warriors made the mistake of attacking the blacksmith at a time when the latter was engaged at his anvil on a red-hot bar. La Forge was a stout fellow with no fear of these copper-skinned watchers. He raised the heated bar above his head and invited the brave to come on. The Mohawk hesitated long enough to enable Father Hennepin to administer such a stinging rebuke that he gave up his evil design. This was the priest’s version; but it was noticeable that the brave kept an uneasy eye on the heated bar while he lent an ear to the rhetoric of the cleric.

By spring the resolution of the Man with the Iron Hand had prevailed. The vessel was ready. It was christened the
Griffin
as a compliment to the Comte de Frontenac and it seems to have been a fine and shipshape achievement. Father Hennepin pronounced a blessing and the hull was shoved out into the middle of the stream. Here, safely anchored against the strong Niagara current, the ship provided the Frenchmen with a snug sanctuary. They hunted and fished and loafed through the spring and early summer, waiting for La Salle to return. It was not until late in August that the leader put in an appearance. He brought with him three Jesuit missionaries (to the chagrin, no doubt, of the scribbling Récollet) and no other tangible assets.