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Beaujeu and a dozen more fell dead upon the spot, and the Indians already began to fly, their courage being unable to endure the unwonted tumult of such a portentous detonation. But reanimated by the clamorous exhortations of Dumas and De Ligneris, and observing that the regulars and militia still preserved a firm front, they returned once more to their posts and resumed the combat.
"I am determined to go," said Beaujeu. "What! Will you let your father go alone? I know we shall win." Seeing him so confident the Indians forgot their fears, and the war dance was danced. Then, smeared with paint and led by Beaujeu himself dressed like a savage, they marched to meet the British. There were about six hundred Indians and half as many Frenchmen.
A few years later, after the death of the King, Commines entered into the involved politics of France, and incurred the displeasure of Anne de Beaujeu who imprisoned him at Loches; or, as he expressed it in Scripture phrase, "I ventured on the great ocean, and the waves devoured me."
It was, however, part of the amusement of the place, for Lord Dalgarno and other young men of quality to treat Monsieur de Beaujeu with a great deal of mock ceremony, which being observed by the herd of more ordinary and simple gulls, they paid him, in clumsy imitation, much real deference.
Beaujeu wished to touch at Madeira: La Salle, for excellent reasons, refused; and hence there was great indignation among passengers and crew. There was an incessant chafing between the two commanders; and when at length, after a long and wretched voyage, they reached St. Domingo, Beaujeu showed clearly that he was, to say the least, utterly indifferent to the interests of the expedition.
La Sale then steered to the west, and passed by, without perceiving it, without deigning even to attend to certain signs which he was asked to observe, the mouth of the Mississippi. When he perceived his mistake, and entreated M. de Beaujeu to turn back, the latter would no longer consent.
"Though," says Beaujeu, "M. Howe was a firm man, he begged the Chevalier La Corne not to let him bleed to death for want of aid, but permit him to send for an English surgeon." To this La Corne, after consulting with his officers, consented, and Marin went to the English with a white flag and a note from Howe explaining the situation.
He was a proud man, accustomed to authority, and he regarded La Salle and his party as passengers, whom he was conveying to their destination, and who, while on board his vessels, were to be subservient to his will. On the other hand, La Salle regarded Beaujeu as one of his officers, who was to be implicitly obedient to his directions.
He soon recovered them; but remained so weak that he could not raise his hand to his mouth, and, under the conviction that he was a dead man, he sent for his son-in-law, Peter of Bourbon, Sire de Beaujeu; and "Go," said he, "to Amboise, to the king, my son; I have intrusted him as well as the government of the kingdom to your charge and my daughter's care.
Gage brought up his two cannon and opened fire, and the Indians, who had a horror of artillery, began also to fall back. The English advanced in regular lines, cheering loudly. Beaujeu fell dead; but Captain Dumas, who succeeded him in command, advanced at the head of his small party of French soldiers, and opened a heavy fire.
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