So, in this sowing, did France become the mother of western cities, of
Pittsburgh and Buffalo, of Erie, of St. Louis, of Detroit and New Orleans,
of Peoria and St. Joseph, and still other cities whose names have never
been heard by the people--of France--even as Phoenicia, in the wanderings
of her adventurous son, Cadmus, became the mother of Thebes and the
godmother of Greek culture and of European literature. Palamedes and
Simonides added some letters to the alphabet brought, according to
tradition, by Cadmus to Greece, and Cadmus suffered the doom of those who
sow dragon's teeth, as France has suffered, but still is his name kept in
the memory of every school child; and so should be remembered those who
planted the lead plates and sowed the teeth that sprang into the "Spartoi"
of a new civilization.
Of the sowing of St. Lusson at the "Soo" and La Salle at New Orleans we
have spoken. Long later (1749), the first of whom we have record after La
Salle, another French sower went forth to sow along the rivers close to
the foot of the Alleghany Mountains--Celoron de Bienville, Chevalier de
St.
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