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It was Pierre Le Moyne, Sieur d'Iberville, who first made good France's claim to the Mississippi. He reached the river by sea in 1699 and ascended to a point some eighty miles beyond the present city of New Orleans. Farther east, on Biloxi Bay, he built Fort Maurepas and planted his first colony.
François Hertel and Hertel de Rouville, Le Moyne d'Iberville with his brothers Bienville and Sainte-Hélène, D'Aillebout de Mantet and Repentigny de Montesson, are but a few representatives of the militiamen who sped forth at the call of Frontenac to destroy the settlements of the English. What followed was war in its worst form, including the massacre of women and children.
The wind proved perverse. Icefloes, driving towards the south end of the Bay, delayed the sloops. Again Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville could not constrain patience to await the favour of wind and weather. With crews of voyageurs he pushed off from the ship in two canoes. Fog fell.
During his lifetime the results seemed pitifully small, but the task once undertaken was never abandoned. By steadfastness he prevailed, and at his death had created a colony which became the New France of Talon and Frontenac, of La Salle and D'Iberville, of Brébeuf and Laval.
The ice proved brashy, soft to each step, and the men slithered through the water up to the armpits as they carried the canoes. D'Iberville could keep his men together only by firing guns through the fog and holding hands in a chain as the two crews portaged across the soft ice.
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