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Updated: June 26, 2025
To his friends he expressed serious apprehensions that some great calamity had happened. M. Joutel was left in charge of the camp, and La Salle, with Father Douay and another companion, set out in search of the lost ones. Father Douay gives the following account of the tragic scene which ensued: "All the way La Salle conversed with me of matters of piety, grace, and predestination.
Many weeks passed away, and no tidings whatever were heard of the exploring party. One morning early in March, M. Joutel chanced to be upon the roof of a hut, when he saw far away on the prairie, eight men approaching. He immediately took a well-armed party and advanced to meet them. They proved to be a portion of the exploring band. They said that others were returning by another route.
The Indians insisted upon carrying the Frenchmen into the village upon their backs, saying that it was their invariable custom in the reception of guests. They were constrained to submit. Seven savages stooped down, and each one received one of the guests upon his shoulders. Others led the horses. M. Joutel was a very tall man and very heavy.
Joutel generously gave up the better part of his wardrobe to La Salle and his two relatives. Duhaut, who had saved his baggage from the wreck of the "Aimable," was required to contribute to the necessities of the party; and the scantily furnished chests of those who had died were used to supply the wants of the living.
Meanwhile, adds Joutel, "we had the mortification and chagrin of seeing this scoundrel walking about the camp in a scarlet coat laced with gold which had belonged to the late Monsieur de la Salle, and which lie had seized upon, as also upon all the rest of his property."
Thus this band would pass from field to field throughout the whole village. M. Joutel says that, so far as he could learn, they did not seem to have any definite idea of God. They had certain shadowy notions of some being or beings above themselves, but apparently did not consider that these beings took any special interest in scenes occurring here below.
That day they discovered, at a distance, an Indian village. La Salle, leaving M. Joutel in charge of the camp, took his brother and seven men, and set out to reconnoitre. They came to a village of twenty-five wigwams, very pleasantly situated. Each wigwam contained four or five men, besides quite a number of women and children.
The narrative of Cavelier unfortunately fails us several weeks before the death of his brother, the remainder being lost. On a study of these various documents, it is impossible to resist the conclusion that neither Cavelier nor Douay always wrote honestly. Joutel, on the contrary, gives the impression of sense, intelligence, and candor throughout.
They had three horses, thirty hatchets, five dozen knives, thirty pounds of powder, and thirty pounds of bullets. Three Indians volunteered as guides for a portion of the way. When the Cenis chief found that M. Joutel was about to undertake so long and perilous a journey, with so small a band, he was astonished, and did everything in his power to dissuade him from such an enterprise.
M. Joutel was annoyed in accompanying a murderer on this mission, but it was not safe to make any remonstrance. Duhaut kept careful guard over all the effects. He intrusted a few hatchets and knives to his envoys, with instructions to purchase corn, and, if possible, a horse. They had not gone far before they saw three savages approaching them on horseback.
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