LAHONTAN. 249 



But it soon became the fiisbion/' he complains, '' to decry what had 

 been admired. Being written by Christian presbyters, could these 

 letters, it was asked, be of any real value ? Writers were not ashamed," 

 he finally adds, " to prefer, or to affect to prefer, to the travels of such 

 men as Dutetre and Charlevoix, those of a Earon de Lahontan, an 

 ignorant man and a liai'." 



It is at Lahontan that Charlevoix himself probably glances when he 

 says (Journal, 66) : " There are some .travellers who make no scruple 

 to fill their journals with whatever they hear said, without troubling 

 themselves about the truth of anything. You would not, doubtless, 

 have me follow their example, and impose upon you for truth all the 

 extravagant things that have been placed to the account of our savages, 

 or that have been taken as they could from their traditions. These 

 traditions, on the other hand, are so little to be relied on, and almost 

 always contradict each other so grossly, that it is almost impossible to 

 discover anything from them that may be depended on." And in the 

 same writer's account of the interior of the church of the Jesuits at 

 Quebec: "I do not mention," Charlevoix says, '•'the four great 

 cylindric massive columns, made of one blocJc, of a certain Canadian 

 porphyry^ Hack as jet, without spot or vein, with which it pleased the 

 Baron de Lahontan to enrich the grand altar. They would certainly 

 be much better," he continues, "than those they have, which are 

 hollow and coarse imitations of marble [grossierement marbrees]. But 

 this author might easily obtain pardon, if he had disguised the truth 

 only to adorn the churches." And again : Charlevoix names Lahontan 

 in connection with the fur-trade of Montreal, at the same time giving a 

 sense to Lahontan's words which they do not po5<sess. "If you meet, 

 madam, by chance, with the book of Lahontan," says Charlevoix to 

 la duchesse de Lesdignieres, to whom his Journal is addressed, " where 

 mention is made of this fair [the periodical trade-sale of furs at 

 Montreal], I would have you take care how you give credit to what he 

 says of it : he does not even preserve probability. The women of 

 Montreal never gave any foundation for what this author reports of 

 them," &c. What Lahontan had said was : " Vous seriez surpris 

 de voir les debauches, les festins, les jeux et les depenses que ces 

 coureurs de bois font tant en habits qu' en femmes, d^s qii 'ils sent 

 arrives." He then explained that he referred especially to the unmar- 

 ried coureurs de hois: these, he said, on returning to Montreal, after 

 their lengthened absences in the forest, behaved '' comme les matelots 



