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Page 65
After having rested three days at the fort, the indefatigable Tonty
reascended the Mississippi, with Ibervile and Bienvile, and finally
parted with them at Natchez. Iberville was so much pleased with that
part of the bank of the river where now exists the city of Natchez that
he marked it down as a most eligible spot for a town, of which he drew
the plan, and which he called Rosalie, after the maiden name of the
Countess Pontchartrain, the wife of the chancellor. He then returned to
the new fort he was erecting on the Mississippi, and Bienville went to
explore the country of the Yatasses, of the Natchitoehes, and of the
Ouachitas. What romance can be more agreeable to the imagination than
to accompany Iberville and Bienville in their wild explorations, and to
compare the state of the country in their time with what it is in our
days?...
After these explorations Iberville departed again for France, to
solicit additional assistance from the government, and left Bienville
in command of the new fort on the Mississippi. It was very hard for the
two brothers, Sauvolle and Bienville, to be thus separated, when they
stood so much in need of each other's countenance, to breast the
difficulties that sprung up around them with a luxuriance which they
seemed to borrow from the vegetation of the country. The distance
between the Mississippi and Biloxi was not so easily overcome in those
days as in ours, and the means which the two brothers had of communing
together were very scanty and uncertain.
Sauvolle died August 22, 1701, and Louisiana remained under the sole
charge of Bienville, who, tho very young, was fully equal to meet that
emergency, by the maturity of his mind and by his other qualifications.
He had hardly consigned his brother to the tomb when Iberville returned
with two ships of the line and a brig laden with troops and provisions.
According to Iberville's orders, and in conformity with the King's
instructions, Bienville left Boisbriant, his cousin, with twenty men,
at the old fort of Biloxi, and transported the principal seat of the
colony to the western side of the river Mobile, not far from the spot
where now stands the city of Mobile. Near the mouth of that river there
is an island, which the French had called Massacre Island from the
great quantity of human bones which they found bleaching on its shores.
It was evident that there some awful tragedy had been acted; but
Tradition, when interrogated, laid her choppy fingers upon her skinny
lips, and answered not....
The year 1703 slowly rolled by and gave way to 1704. Still, nothing was
heard from the parent country. There seemed to be an impassable barrier
between the old and the new continent. The milk which flowed from the
motherly breast of France could no longer reach the parched lips of her
new-born infant; and famine began to pinch the colonists, who scattered
themselves all along the coast, to live by fishing. They were reduced
to the veriest extremity of misery, and despair had settled in every
bosom, in spite of the encouragements of Bienville, who displayed the
most manly fortitude amid all the trials to which he was subjected....
Iberville had not been able to redeem his pledge to the poor colonists,
but he sent his brother Chateaugu� in his place, at the imminent risk
of being captured by the English, who occupied, at that time, most of
the avenues of the Gulf of Mexico. He was not the man to spare either
himself or his family in cases of emergency, and his heroic soul was
inured to such sacrifices. Grateful the colonists were for this act of
devotedness, and they resumed the occupation of their tenements which
they had abandoned in search of food. The aspect of things was suddenly
changed; abundance and hope reappeared in the land, whose population
was increased by the arrival of seventeen persons, who came, under the
guidance of Chateaugue, with the intention of making a permanent
settlement, and who had provided themselves with all the implements of
husbandry.
This excitement had hardly subsided when it was revived by the
appearance of another ship, and it became intense when the inhabitants
saw a procession of twenty females, with veiled faces, proceeding arm
in arm, and two by two, to the house of the Governor, who received them
in state and provided them with suitable lodgings. What did it mean?
The next morning, which was Sunday, the mystery was cleared by the
officiating priest reading from the pulpit, after mass, and for the
general information, the following communication from the minister to
Bienville:
"His majesty sends twenty girls to be married to the Canadians and to
the other inhabitants of Mobile, in order to consolidate the colony.
All these girls are industrious and have received a pious and virtuous
education. You will take care to settle them in life as well as may be
in your power, and to marry them to such men as are capable of
providing them with a commodious home."...
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