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In fact the Jesuits followed the traders; their missions were on the sites of trading posts, and they themselves often traded. When St. Lusson, with the coureur de bois, Nicholas Perrot, took official possession of the Northwest for France at the Sault Ste. Marie in 1671, the cost of the expedition was defrayed by trade in beaver.
Thus in the eyes of both Church and State the coureur de bois was a mauvais sujet, and the offence of taking to the forest without a licence became punishable by death or the galleys. Though Frontenac was not the author of this severe measure, duty required him to enforce it. Perrot was a friend and defender of the coureurs de bois, whom he used as employees in the collection of peltries.
Once she heard that he was a coureur des bois on the prairies, again that he was a voyageur in the Louisiana lowlands; but those of his people who kept near her inclined to jest at her faith and urged her to marry Leblanc, the notary's son, who truly loved her. To these she only replied, "I cannot."
As for a ruler, we have discovered that a man makes a most excellent sovereign for himself." "And excellent said," cried Castleton. "None of ye know the West," went on the coureur. "Your Virginia, we know well of it a collection of beggars, prostitutes and thieves. Your New England a lot of cod-fishing, starving snivelers, who are most concerned how to keep life in their bodies from year to year.
Thus in the eyes of both Church and State the coureur de bois was a mauvais sujet, and the offence of taking to the forest without a licence became punishable by death or the galleys. Though Frontenac was not the author of this severe measure, duty required him to enforce it. Perrot was a friend and defender of the coureurs de bois, whom he used as employees in the collection of peltries.
Morel de la Durantaye could not resign himself to the prosaic life of a cultivator. He did not become a coureur de bois like many of his friends and associates, but like them he had a taste for the wild woods, and he pursued a career not far removed from theirs.
What more he might have said I do not know, but there now appeared in the yard a tall, reverend old gentleman, in the costume of the coureur de bois, though his belt was richly chased, and he wore an order on his breast. There was something more refined than powerful in his appearance, but he had a keen, kindly eye, and a manner unmistakably superior.
"I am called Iberville," said the young man simply. Then: "My father and myself started from Quebec with good Nick Perrot, the coureur du bois " "I know him too," the governor interjected "a scoundrel worth his weight in gold to your Count Frontenac." "For whose head Count Frontenac has offered gold in his time," answered Iberville, with a smile.
The chief guide, Jean Morel, is a coureur de bois of the old type broad-shouldered, red-bearded, a fearless canoeman, a good hunter and fisherman simple of speech and deep of heart: a good man to trust in the rapids. "Tell me, Jean," I ask in the comfortable leisure of our voyage which conduces to pipe-smoking and conversation, "tell me, are you a Frenchman or an Englishman?"
Well, I was tired, but I got out and dodged around through the smoke to find out where our boys were, but they were mixed up worse than ever. I was just in time to save a coureur from killing one of our Indians with his own hatchet. Most of the regulars scattered as soon as they lost sight of their officers. And Berthier, I found him lying under a log all gone to pieces with fright.
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