Dying at
Quebec at the age of sixty-eight, and after twenty-seven years of
service to the colony, he had probably drawn his life through more and
a greater variety of perils than have ever been encountered by man. He
was dauntless and all-enduring, fruitful in resource, self-controlled
and persevering, and, though not wiser than his age, purer and more
true. He was as lithesome as an Indian, and could outdo him in some
physical efforts and endurance. His almost yearly voyages between France
and Quebec led him through strange contrasts of court and wilderness
life; but he was the same man in both. His discovery of the lake which
bears his name, his journey to Lake Huron, under the lure of the
impostor Vignau, encouraging his own dream of a passage through the
continent to India, and his many tramps for Indian warfare or discovery,
are most attractive episodes for our author.
Mr. Parkman relates incidentally the massacre in Frenchman's Bay, the
efforts and cross purposes of the Recollets and the Jesuit missionaries,
and furnishes a vivid sketch of the fortunes of the settlement under
threatened assaults from Indians and in a temporary surrender to the
English.
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