" [Footnote: "Jesuit
Relations" (Thwaites), 55:111-113.]
This remarkable proclamation and this extraordinary speech are to be found
in the records. And the historian would end the incident here. But one may
at least wonder what impressions of Louis the Great and Paris and France
these savages carried back to their lodges to ponder over and talk about
in the winter nights; and one must wonder, too, what impression the
proclamation and pantomime of possession made upon their primitive minds.
Perrot translated the proclamation for them, and asked them to repeat
"Long live the king!" but it must have been a free translation that he
made into their idioms; he must have softened "vassals" to "children," and
"king" to "father," and made them understand that the laws and customs of
Versailles would not curb their freedom of coiffure or attire, of chase or
of leisure, on the shores of Superior.
The speech of Allouez may seem full of hyperbole to those who know, in
history, the king, and, by sight, the palace employed in the priest's
similes; but if we think of Louis XIV not in his person but as a
representative of the civilization of Europe that was asserting its first
claim there in the wilderness, and give to the word of the priest
something of the import of prophecy, the address becomes mild, indeed.
Pages:
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93