Die standing by as godmother, and that that name was first whispered
to the world by the trees of the forests of the Vosges, whose wood may
even have furnished the blocks to fashion first its letters. So may we go
back and write this interesting if not important fact of French pioneering
in America.
But let us rehearse to ourselves once more before we separate the epic
sequence of adventure and suffering which tells how much more than a name
France gave to that continent just rising from the seas when the savants
of St. Die touched her face with the baptismal water of their recluse
learning.
Again the "boundless vision grows upon us; an untamed continent; vast
wastes of forest verdure; mountains silent in primeval sleep; river, lake,
and glimmering pool; wilderness oceans mingling with the sky"--the America
not of the imaging of the mountain men of St. Die but of the seeing and
enduring of the seamen of Dieppe and St. Malo and Rochelle and Rouen.
Again Jacques Cartier stands alone within this "shaggy continent," a
thousand miles beyond the banks of the Baccalaos and the Isles of the
Demons.
Pages:
551
552
553
554
555
556
557
558
559
560
561
562
563
564
565
566
567
568
569
570
571
572
573
574
575