Now that his mission had been achieved and he was no longer as robust as of old, the Iron Governor asked the minister to keep him in mind for some suitable sinecure in France if the opportunity came.  This the minister readily promised, but the promise was still unfulfilled when Frontenac was stricken with his last illness.  On November 28, 1698, the greatest of the Onontios, or governors, passed away.  “Devoted to the service of his king,” says his eulogist, “more busied with duty than with gain; inviolable in his fidelity to his friends, he was as vigorous a supporter as he was an untiring foe.”  Had his official career closed with his recall in 1682, Frontenac would have ranked as one of the singular misfits of the old French colonial system.  But the brilliant successes of his second term made men forget the earlier days of petulance and petty bickerings.  In the sharp contrasts of his nature Frontenac was an unusual man, combining many good and great qualities with personal shortcomings that were equally pronounced.  In the civil history of New France he challenges attention as the most remarkable figure.

CHAPTER VI

LA SALLE AND THE VOYAGEURS

The greatest and most enduring achievement of Frontenac’s first term was the exploration of the territory southwestward of the Great Lakes and the planting of French influence there.  This work was due, in large part, to the courage and energy of the intrepid La Salle.  Rene-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, like so many others who followed the fleur-de-lis into the recesses of the new continent, was of Norman birth and lineage.  Rouen was the town of his nativity; the year 1643 probably the date of his birth.  How the days of his youth were spent we do not know except that he received a good education, presumably in a Jesuit seminary.  While still in the early twenties he came to Montreal where he had an older brother, a priest of the Seminary of St. Sulpice.  This was in 1666.  Through, the influence of his brother, no doubt, he received from the Seminary a grant of the seigneury at Lachine on the river above the town, and at once began the work of developing this property.

If La Salle intended to become a yeoman of New France, his choice of a site was not of the best.  The seigneury which he acquired was one of the most dangerous spots in the whole colony, being right in the path of Iroquois attack.  He was able to gather a few settlers around him, it is true, but their homes had to be enclosed by palisades, and they hardly dared venture into the fields unarmed.  Though the Iroquois and the French were just now at peace, the danger of treachery was never absent.  On the other hand no situation could be more favorable for one desiring to try his hand at the fur trade.  It was inevitable, therefore, that a young man of La Salle’s adventurous temperament and commercial ancestry should soon forsake the irksome drudgery of clearing land for the more