132 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters. 



the secret of many a success. It inspired a salutary fear where 

 the common law of England and even the civil law of continental 

 Europe would only have provoked contempt. 



At Frontenac La Salle wrought wonders. The natives were 

 compliant to his will like clay in the hands of a potter. At his 

 bidding they settled near his fort, cleared land, tilled it, worked 

 on the fortifications and on houses, sent their children to school. 

 According to Parkman, "seignior by royal grant of water-front 

 for five leagues, — feudal lord of the forests around, — commander 

 of a garrison raised and paid by himself, — founder of the mis- 

 sion, — patron of the church, — he reigned the autocrat of his 

 lonely empire." Nor was he altogether destitute of feudal trap- 

 pingSj — for, according to his chaplain, Hennepin, on state occa- 

 sions he wore a scarlet mantle laced with gold. 



On the Illinois river his success was still more marvelous. The 

 colony he there extemporized was reckoned in 1684 to contain 

 4,000 Indian warriors or 20,000 souls, like the peasantry of the 

 middle-ages, clustered around his rock fort, " Starved Rock," 

 perched high as an eagle's nest. The region around he had be- 

 gun to parcel out among his followers. 



Feeling equal to the grandest enterprises, he had longed for 

 liberty to beard the Spaniard in Northern Mexico. Having been 

 granted that liberty, had he not been betrayed on his way back 

 to the Mississippi, he would have made Starved Rock the strat- 

 egic base of active operations against Mexicans. All the region 

 between that post, styled St. Louis, and the South Sea, was sub- 

 jected to him by his French commission. 



Judging by such an experiment, and before the failures in this 

 direction which followed hard after, it was not unreasonable to 

 hope for founding feudal baronies far west with French retainers 

 as henchmen of each dignitary, and a crowd of aboriginal vassals 

 beneath all the whites; but supporting all by fur and farming in 

 time of peace, and not less by filling the ranks in time of war. 

 There still exists an early map of New France with a fort in 

 every seigniory. 



Enterprising Frenchmen, who aspired to the independence of a 

 mediieval nobleman, must needs go west' in order to find what 



