He
does not fail to mention the hostility of the Iroquois and the threatened
rivalry of the English, who are beginning to covet that country--all of
which only animates him the more to action. Lodged in Paris in an obscure
street, Rue de la Truanderie, and attacked as a visionary or worse, he is
yet petitioning Louis XIV for the government of a realm larger than the
king's own, and holding conference with Colbert.
In the early summer, after his winter of waiting somewhere in the vicinity
in which I have written this chapter, a patent comes to him from the
summer palace at St.-Germain-en-Laye, which must have been to him far more
than his patent of nobility or title to any estate in France:
"Louis, by the grace of God King of France and Navarre, to our dear and
well-beloved Robert Cavelier, Sieur de la Salle, greeting. We have
received with favor the very humble petition made us in your name to
permit you to undertake the discovery of the western parts of New France;
and we have the more willingly consented to this proposal, since we have
nothing more at heart than the exploration of this country, through which,
to all appearances, a way may be found to Mexico.
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