“His race may be a line of thieves,
    His acts may strike the soul with horror;
  Yet infamy no soiling leaves—­
    The rogue to-day’s the prince to-morrow.”

This demoralizes:  the expedient for the just—­that which will do, not that which should do, if success requires, must be resorted to.  This idea, like the pestilence which rides the breeze, reaches every heart, and man’s actions are governed only by the law—­not by a high moral sense of right.  Providence, it is supposed, prepares for all exigencies in the operations of nature.  If this be true, it may be that the peculiarities of blood, and the consequence to human character, may, in the Anglo-American, be specially designed for his mission on this continent; for assuredly he is the eminently successful man in all enterprises which are essential in subduing the earth, and aiding in the spreading of his race over this continent.  Every opposition to his progress fails, and the enemies of this progress fall before him, and success is the result of his every effort.  That the French Creoles retain the chivalry and noble principles of their ancestry is certainly true; but that they have failed to preserve the persevering enterprise of their ancestors is equally true.

Emigration from France, to any considerable extent, was stayed after the cessation of Louisiana to the United States, and the French settlements ceased to expand.  The country along and north of Red River, on the Upper Mississippi and the Washita, was rapidly filled up with a bold, hardy American population, between whom and the French sparsely peopling the country about Natchitoches on the Red, and Monroe on the Washita River, there was little or no sympathy; and the consequence was that many of those domiciled already in these sections left, and returned to the Lower Mississippi, or went back to France.

There had been, anterior to this cession, two large grants of land made to the Baron de Bastrop and the Baron de Maison Rouge, upon the Washita and Bartholomew, including almost the entire extent of what is now two parishes.  These grants were made by the European Government upon condition of settlement within a certain period.  The Revolution in France was expelling many of her noblest people, and the Marquis de Breard, with many followers, was one of these:  he came, and was the pioneer to these lands.  A nucleus formed, and accessions were being made, but the government being transferred and the country becoming Americanized, this tide of immigration was changed from French to American, and the requisite number of settlers to complete the grants was not reached within the stipulated period, and they were, after more than half a century, set aside, and the lands disposed of as public lands by the United States Government.  Had the government continued in the hands of France, it is more than probable that the titles to these tracts would never have been contested, even though the requisite number of settlers had not been upon the lands to complete the grants at the specified period; and it is also probable there would have been, in proper time, the required number.  But this transfer of dominion was exceedingly distasteful to the French population.