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Updated: May 15, 2025
Father Ribourde and Father Membré had that morning withdrawn a league up the river to make what they called a retreat for prayer and meditation. The other Frenchmen were divided between lodge and garden.
After the endurance of great fatigue and many sufferings, they at length reached the missionary station at Green Bay. Here they were received as brothers, and here they passed the winter. Early in the spring, as soon as the ice had disappeared from the bay, Lieutenant Tonti and Father Membré set out in a canoe, with a few boatmen, for the station at Michilimackinac.
The narrative ascribed to Membre, and published by Le Clercq, is based on the document preserved in the Archives Scientifiques de In Marine, entitled Relation de la Decouverte de l'Embouchure de la Riviere Mississippi faite par le Sieur de la Salle, l'annee passee, 1682.
Several hours passed, and the Iroquois bands, instead of retiring, were continually drawing nearer, in a very suspicious manner, apparently with the intention of surrounding the Illinois, and cutting off their retreat. The Illinois chief held another council, and requested Father Membré to go back to the Iroquois and inquire into the reason of their conduct.
Pour devenir membre d'une de ces Societes, on doit avoir le moins de cheveux possible. S'il y en reste plusieurs qui resistent aux depilatoires naturelles et autres, on doit avoir quelques connaissances, n'importe dans quel genre. Des le moment qu'on ouvre la porte de la Societe, on a un grand interet dans toutes les choses dont on ne sait rien.
"He put out in a canoe when the Indians were embarking their women and children," said Étienne Renault. "I saw him go." And so it proved afterwards. But L'Esperance had slipped away to bring back Father Membré and Father Ribourde to tend the wounded and dying. Having crossed the river and reached the prairie, Tonty and his allies saw the Iroquois.
He was brother of the chief, Nicanope, who, in his absence, had feasted the French on the day after the nocturnal council with Monso. Chassagoac was afterwards baptized by Membre or Ribourde, but soon relapsed into the superstitions of his people, and died, as the former tells us, "doubly a child of perdition."
These Indians belonged to the Chickasaw tribe, which subsequently became quite prominent in the history of our land. With the Indians a day's journey was about thirty miles. La Salle and Father Membré set out to visit the village, guided by the Indians. They do not appear to have had any hesitation in thus placing themselves entirely in the hands of the savages.
This wonderful expedition was accomplished without the loss of a single life, on the part of the voyagers. Not one was even wounded. Father Membré attributes this, next to God's goodness, to the tact and wisdom manifested by La Salle. As to the missionary fruits of this enterprise, the devoted ecclesiastic writes: "I will say nothing here of conversions.
La Salle, indeed, was a man of such genial and kind disposition and engaging manners that he made friends of all he met. As Father Membré says, "He so impressed the hearts of these Indians that they did not know how to treat us well enough."
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