nd on his entering the fort he was strongly advised to be on
his guard.

The drink he had taken made a complete fool of him, however, and he at
once sent to the village from which he had just returned, bidding his
interpreter to ask the Grand Sun whether he intended to come with his
warriors and kill the French. The Grand Sun, as might have been
expected, sent word back that he did not dream of such a thing, and he
would be very sorry, indeed, to do any harm to his good friends, the
French. This answer fully satisfied the commandant, and he went to his
house, near the fort, disdaining the advice of the informers.

It was on the eve of St. Andrew's Day, in 1729, that a party of the
Natchez approached the French settlement. It was some days in advance of
that fixed, on account of the meddling with the rods. They brought with
them one of the common people, armed with a wooden hatchet, to kill the
commandant, the warriors having too much contempt for him to be willing
to lay hands on him. The natives strayed in friendly fashion into the
houses, and many made their way through the open gates into the fort,
where they found the soldiers unsuspicious of danger and without an
officer, or even a sergeant, at their head.

Soon the Grand Sun appeared, with a number of warriors laden with corn,
as if to pay the first installment of the contribution. Their entrance
was quickly followed by several shots. This being the signal agreed
upon, in an instant the natives made a murderous assault on the unarmed
French, cutting them down in their houses and shooting them on every
side. The commandant, for the first time aware of his blind folly, ran
in terror into the garden of his house, but he was sharply pursued and
cut down. The massacre was so well devised and went on so
simultaneously in all directions that very few of the seven hundred
Frenchmen in the settlement escaped, a handful of the fugitives alone
bringing the news of the bloody affair to New Orleans. The Natchez
completed their vengeance by setting on fire and burning all the
buildings, so that of the late flourishing settlement only a few ruined
walls remained.

As may be seen, this massacre was due to the injustice, and to the
subsequent incompetence, of one man, Chopart, the commandant. It led to
lamentable consequences, in the utter destruction of the Natchez nation
and the loss of one of the most interesting native communities in
America.

No sooner, in fact, had the