The French in the Heart of America | Page 2

days of
bitterness, to go no further if he carry any hatred in his heart.
JOHN FINLEY. STATE EDUCATION BUILDING, ALBANY, N. Y.
Washington's Birthday, 1915.

CONTENTS
I. INTRODUCTION
II. FROM LABRADOR TO THE LAKES
III. THE PATHS OF THE GRAY FRIARS AND BLACK GOWNS
IV. FROM THE GREAT LAKES TO THE GULF
V. THE RIVER COLBERT: A COURSE AND SCENE OF EMPIRE

VI. THE PASSING OF NEW FRANCE AND THE DREAM OF ITS
REVIVAL
VII. THE PEOPLING OF THE WILDERNESS
VIII. THE PARCELLING OF THE DOMAIN
IX. IN THE TRAILS OF THE COUREURS DE BOIS
X. IN THE WAKE OF THE "GRIFFIN"
XI WESTERN CITIES THAT HAVE SPRUNG FROM FRENCH
FORTS
XII. WESTERN TOWNS AND CITIES THAT HAVE SPRUNG
FROM FRENCH PORTAGE PATHS
XIII. FROM LA SALLE TO LINCOLN
XIV. THE VALLEY OF THE NEW DEMOCRACY
XV. WASHINGTON: THE UNION OF THE EASTERN AND THE
WESTERN WATERS
XVI. THE PRODUCERS
XVII. THE THOUGHT OF TO-MORROW
XVIII. "THE MEN OF ALWAYS"
XIX. THE HEART OF AMERICA
EPILOGUE

THE FRENCH IN THE HEART OF AMERICA
From "a series of letters to a friend in England," in 1793, "tending to
shew the probable rise and grandeur of the American Empire":
"_It struck me as a natural object of enquiry to what a future increase
and elevation of magnitude and grandeur the spreading empire of
America might attain, when a country had thus suddenly risen from an
uninhabited wild, to the quantum of population necessary to govern and
regulate its own administration._"
G. IMLAY ("A captain in the American Army during the late war, and
a commissioner for laying out land in the back settlements").

CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
I address the reader as living in the land from which the pioneers of

France went out to America; first, because I wrote these chapters in that
land, a few steps from the Seine; second, because I should otherwise
have to assume the familiarity of the reader with much that I have
gathered into these chapters, though the reader may have forgotten or
never known it; and, third, because I wish the reader to look at these
new-world regions from without, and, standing apart and aloof, to see
the present restless life of these valleys, especially of the Mississippi
Valley, against the background of Gallic adventure and pious endeavor
which is seen in richest color, highest charm, and truest value at a
distance.
But, while I must ask my readers in America to expatriate themselves
in their imaginations and to look over into this valley as aliens, I wish
them to know that I write, though myself in temporary exile, as a son of
the Mississippi Valley, as a geographical descendant of France; that my
commission is given me of my love for the boundless stretch of prairie
and plain whose virgin sod I have broken with my plough; of the lure
of the waterways and roads where I have followed the boats and the
trails of French voyageurs and coureurs de bois; and of the possessing
interest of the epic story of the development of that most virile
democracy known to the world. The "Divine River," discovered by the
French, ran near the place of my birth. My county was that of "La
Salle," a division of the land of the Illinois, "the land of men." The Fort,
or the Rock, St. Louis, built by La Salle and Tonty, was only a few
miles distant. A little farther, a town, Marquette, stands near the place
where the French priest and explorer, Père Marquette, ministered to the
Indians. Up-stream, a busy city keeps the name of Joliet on the lips of
thousands, though the brave explorer would doubtless not recognize it
as his own; and below, the new- made Hennepin Canal makes a shorter
course to the Mississippi River than that which leads by the ruins of La
Salle's Fort Crèvecoeur. It is of such environment that these chapters
were suggested, and it has been by my love for it, rather than by any
profound scholarship, that they have been dictated. I write not as a
scholar--since most of my life has been spent in action, not in
study--but as an academic coureur de bois and of what I have known
and seen in the Valley of Democracy, the fairest and most fruitful of
the regions where France was pioneer in America.

There should be written in further preface to all the chapters which
follow a paragraph from the beloved historian to whom I am most
indebted and of whom I shall speak later at length. I first read its
entrancing sentences when a youth in college, a quarter of a century
ago, and I have never been free of its spell. I would have it written not
only in France but somewhere at the