LAHONTAN. ?27 



lish edition: "Having flattered myself," he says, "with the vain 

 hopes of retrieving the King of France's favour before the declara- 

 tion of this war, I was so far from thinking to put these letters and 

 memoii's to the press, that I designed to commit them to the flames, 

 if that monarch had done me the honour of reinstating me in my 

 former places with the good leave of the Messieurs de Pontchartrain, 

 the father and the son. It was with that view that I neglected ta 

 put them in such a dress as might now be wished for, for the satis- 

 faction of the reader that gives himself the trouble to peruse them." 

 The two Pontchartrains he considers to be his enemies. Towards 

 the end of his pi-eface he speaks of them again. "I envy the state 

 of a poor savage," he says, "who tramples upon laws and pays homage 

 to no sceptre. I wish I could spend the rest of my life in his hut, 

 and so be no longer exposed to the chagrin of bending the knee to a 

 set of men that sacrifice the public good to their private interest, and 

 are bom to plague honest men. The two ministers of State I have to 

 do with," he continues, "have been solicited in vain by the Duchess 

 of Lude, Cardinal Brouillon, Count Guiscar, M. de Quiros, and Count 

 d'Avaux. Nothing could prevail, he says, though all that is laid 

 to my charge consists only in not bearing the affront of a governor 

 whom they protect, at a time when a hundred other officers who live 

 under the imputation of crimes infinitely greater than mine, are ex- 

 cused for three months' absence from Court. Now the reason is 

 that they give less quarter to those who have the misfortune to dis- 

 please the two Messieurs de Pontchartrain, than to such as act con- 

 trary to the King's orders." 



What finally were the fortunes of Lahontan, and when and where 

 he died, we have not been able to discover. At the time of the pub- 

 lication of his Letters in English (1704), he was still only about 

 thirty-seven years of age, if, as he says, he was between his fifteenth 

 and sixteenth year when he went to Canada ia 1683. We part com- 

 pany with him in England; and it is pleasant to hear him at the 

 begianing of the last century bearing the same grateful testimony to 

 the character of his temporary home, which refugees from the adjoin- 

 ing contiaent and elsewhere have again and again been constrained 

 to bear in almost every successive year that has since intervened. 

 "After all my misfortunes" — these are the words with which Lahon- 

 tan closes the preface to his work — ^" after all my misfortunes, I have 



