46 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



He died during the night of the 25th-36th February, 1710. In the 

 morning at eight o'clock, the Baron de Longueuil with Lienard de Beau- 

 jeu and the Sieur de Blain come and seal up all papers, etc., and on the 

 day following they again appear with Maître LePailleur and make a de- 

 tailed inventory of all his effects ; of which the most intere&iing items are 

 his diaries for 1676-1677-1678, and some others undated. None of these 

 are known to-day and unless they were sent to his brother La Tourette, 

 who had returned to Lyons, it is most unlikely that they will ever come 

 to light. 



Slight as this find may seem it gives us some valuable details of 

 the personality of Dulhut. He held the lease of the ground floor of the 

 house of Charles Delaunay, which stood on the lot now occupied by No. 

 60 St. Paul Street, he had his valet, his silver forks and sppons, his cane 

 with its silver pommel and chain, his big atlas and a " History of the 

 Jews " in five volumes, probably Josephus, his silk stockings, his era- " 

 vates and cufi^s of fine muslin, three perukes, his scarlet cloak and his 

 good brown suit, gold-laced and with its buttons and button-holes em- 

 broidered in gold, but everything much used as became a man who no 

 longer moved abroad, whose days were passed at a window in summer 

 and by the fire in winter. 



From his back windows he could look out on the broad St. Law- 

 rence, that highway which had led him so many a weary league into the 

 wilderness; from the front he could catch a glim,p)se of the house and 

 garden he had built and planted over forty years before and from which 

 he had gone forth for some reason we cannot now discover. When he 

 built it he Avas a man of about twenty-five ; he stood well with many 

 powerful personages in France; in Canada he was an intimate friend of 

 Frontenac, he was well-to-do, perhaps wealthy; there is no hint of 

 scandal or suggestion of any motive for his sudden departure. Surely 

 there was some heart-break at the bottom of the whole story. 



His life from the day he left Montreal was of necessity one of hard- 

 ship and loneliness. He was often for years together in the depth of 

 the woods, " aux profondeurs des bois " as it was expressively described 

 in his day. 



When he returned to Montreal, a man drawing towards the allot- 

 ment of three score and ten, for such rest and comfort as were possible, 

 he had not a relative near him. His brother. La Tourette, had returned 

 to France and was living in Lyons, so probably had his brother-in-law 

 Lussigny and his cousin Delietto ; his uncle. Patron, was dead, as was his 

 cousin Henri de «Tionti, and Alphonse was stationed at Detroit. 



Apart from the dry bones of notarial documents and occasional 

 and generally hostile mention in the reports of the intendant. 



