And La Salle took possession of the country with just such ceremonies
as had distinguished a similar proceeding at Sault Ste. Marie eleven
years before. It can be said that Frenchmen had at least fairly laid a
basis for future empire from the Lakes to the Gulf. It was for France
to show her appreciation of the enterprise of her sons and make good
her claim to such a vast imperial domain. The future was to show that
she was unequal to the task.

The few remaining years of La Salle's life were crowded with
misfortunes. Duchesneau, the intendant, who had succeeded Talon, was
an enemy of both Frontenac and the explorer. The distinguished
governor was recalled by his royal master, who was tired of the
constant complaints of his enemies against him, and misled by their
accusations. La Barre, the incompetent governor who followed
Frontenac, took possession of Fort St. Louis, which La Salle had
succeeded, after his return from the Gulf of Mexico, in erecting at
Starved Rock on the banks of the Illinois not far from the present city
of Ottawa, where a large number of Indians had {190} returned to their
favourite home. In France, however, the importance of his discovery
was fully recognised, and when he visited his native country in 1683-4
he met with a very cordial reception from the King, and Seignelay, who
had succeeded his father, Colbert, when he resigned. The King ordered
that La Salle's forts be restored to him, and gave him a commission to
found colonies in Louisiana, as the new country through which the
Mississippi flowed had been called since 1682. By a strange irony of
Fate, the expedition of 1684 passed the mouth of the Mississippi, and
La Salle made the first French settlement on the Gulf somewhere in the
vicinity of Matagorda Bay, in the present State of Texas. Misery was
the lot of the little colony from the very first moment it landed on
that lonely shore. When his misfortunes were most grievous, La Salle
decided to make an effort to reach the Illinois country, but he was
assassinated by two of his own men---Duhaut and Liotot--near a branch
of the Trinity River. His nephew Moranget, Nika, a faithful Shawnee
who had been by his side for years, and Sayet, his own servant,
suffered the same fate. The leader of the murderers was killed soon
afterwards by one of his accomplices, and the others found a refuge
among the Indians; but of their subsequent fate we know nothing
positively, except that they we