246 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [bull. 43 



the real author of the massacre of the French, but St. Come had wished to 

 throw the fault ou another. They appeared at the moment when preparations 

 were making to attack the fort during the coming night. 



Mr. Perrier sent soldiers to meet them and conduct them to his quarters. 

 The Sun told the general that he was charmed to treat with him, and that he 

 came to repeat to him what he had told him through the envoy, that it was not 

 he who had killed the French, that he was then too young to speak, and that it 

 was the ancients who had formed this criminal project. " I am well aware," he 

 added, " that it will always be ascribed to me, because I am the sovei'eign of 

 my nation, yet I am quite innocent." In fact, it has always been believed in the 

 colony that his whole crime was in not daring to resist his nation or notify the 

 French of what was plotting against them. Up to that time, and especially 

 before he had attained the dignity of Sun, he had never given any grounds to 

 distrust him. St. Come, who was likewise not hostile to the French, also 

 cleared him as well as he could; but the other chief merely said that he re- 

 gretted deeply all that had happened. " We had no sense," he continued, " but 

 hereafter we shall have." As they stood in the rain, which became more 

 violent, Perrier told them to take shelter in a neighboring cabin, and as soon as 

 they entered he placed four sentinels there and appointed three oflicers to watch 

 it by turns. 



He then summoned the head chief of the Tonicas and a Natche chief, called 

 the Tattooed-seri)ent, to endeavor liy these means to extract some light from 

 his prisoners, but it seems that these two men could elicit nothing new. My 

 authorities do not state whetlier the Tattooed-serpent was then in our camp as 

 a friend or as a prisoner, but toward the close of 1721, while I was at tlie 

 Natchez, I saw that he was regarded as the best friend we had in that nation, 

 and he was said to be a very close relation of the Sun. The commission con- 

 fided to him by Perrier induces me to believe that he had always remained 

 strongly attached to us.* 



To return to those who had been arrested : Le Sueur, who was one of the 

 three officers to whom they had been committed, and who undei'stood their 

 language very well, wished to converse with them, but they made him no reply, 

 and he left them to rest, while the other two officers reposed. Half an hour 

 later these awoke, and he in his turn went to sleep. About 3 o'clock he was 

 awakened by a loud noise. He sprang to his two pocket pistols, and perceived 

 St. Come and the Sun in the posture of men who are on the point of escaping. 

 He told them that he would blow out the brains of the first who stirred, and, as 

 he was alone, the sentinels and other two officers being in pursuit of the Flour 

 chief, whom they had by their negligence allowed to escape, he called for help. 

 Perrier was the first to run up, and gave new orders to pursue the fugitive". Imt 

 all in vain. 



Early in the morning of the 25th a Natche approached the cami). H(» was 

 led into the cabin where the Sun was, and informed him that the Flour chief 

 had come into the fort; that having awaked his nephew and 8 or 10 of the oldest 

 warriors, he had told them that the French intended to burn them all; that 

 for his part he was sternly resolved no longer to remain exposed to fall intu 

 their hands, and that lie advised them to seek safety witli him; that they had 

 followed his advice and escaped witli their wives and children; that all the 

 others had deliberated whether to do the same, but had deferred too long 

 conung to a resolution, and day breaking, they saw that escape was Impossible. 

 On this, the head chief told Mr. le Sueur that the Flour chief was a usurper, 

 who although not noble, had seized the place he occupied, which made him the 



" This was not tlie samo man ; tlie ono Cliarlovoix learned of in 1721 died in 1725. 

 Tattooed-serpent was prohnbly a liorcditary title. 



