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What Became of Jolliet’s Journal?
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 December 2015
Extract
Early in the fall of 1672 Louis Jolliet, fur trader and explorer, was selected by Intendant Jean Talon to ascertain into which body of water the Mississippi River disembogued. The remote purpose of this assignment was much like that of the one entrusted to Sieur de Saint Lusson in 1671, who in June of that year supervised the annexation ceremonies conducted at Sault Ste. Marie. In fact, the two enterprises were closely allied, that of Jolliet being a further step, on the part of the French Government, toward seizing for its own advancement the reins of political ascendancy and economic control in the new West—the Great Lakes and Mississippi River regions—so emphatically expressed in the Lusson demonstration at Sault Ste. Marie.
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- Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 1949
References
1 A detailed and thorough study of the Mississippi enterprise will be found in Steck, Francis Borgia O.F.M., The Jolliett-Marquette Expedition, 1673 (Glendale, Calif.: The Arthur H. Clark Company, 1928).Google Scholar (Hereafter cited as J. M. E.)
2 That Lusson had secret instructions is certain from Talon’s letter to Colbert, November 11, 1671. Not even Governor Courcelles knew what they were. Lusson’s subsequent procès verbal suggests them, however. See Steck, , J. M. E., 126.Google Scholar
3 Kellogg, Louise Phelps, The French Regime in Wisconsin and the Northwest (Madison, 1925), 197.Google Scholar
4 Jean Delanglez, S. J. Life and Voyages of Louis Jolliet, 1645–1700 (Chicago: Institute of Jesuit History, 1948), 134.Google Scholar (Hereafter cited as Jolliet.)
5 Steck, , J. M. E., 169–170.Google Scholar
6 The map is in Thwaites, R. G. (ed.) : Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents (Cleveland: The Burrows Brothers Company, 1896–1901), Vol. 59, facing p. 86.Google Scholar (Hereafter cited as J. R.) For a study of this map, see Gravier, Gabriel, Etude sur une Carte inconnue—La première dressée par Louis Jolliet en 1614 (Paris, 1880).Google Scholar
7 Steck, , J. M. E., 171–173 Google Scholar; Thwaites, , J. R., Vol. 59, map facing p. 86.Google Scholar
8 Steck, , J. M. E., 173–180 Google Scholar; Relation de la decouverte de la Mer du Sud. Faite par les Rivières de la Nouvelle France envoyée de Quebec par le Père Dablon Superieur general des missions de la Compagnie de Jesus le lr aoust 1674. MS preserved in the Archives of the Seminary of St. Sulpice in Paris. A photostat and photograph copy is in the possession of the present writer who also placed a copy of it in the Newberry Library, Ayer Collection (Chicago, III.). Photographic reproductions of pertinent pages of this MS will be found in the writer’s J. M. E., Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4.
9 Steck, , J. M. E., 180–182 Google Scholar; MS preserved in the Archives of the Seminary of St. Sulpice in Paris. It takes up the four last pages of the Relation, just cited. Pertinent pages of it will be found reproduced in J. M. E., Nos. 3 and 4.
10 Steck, J. M. E., 187. Margry, Pierre, (ed.), Memoires et Documents pour servir a l’histoire des origines francaises de pays d’Outremer (Paris, 1879–1888), Vol. I, 257–258.Google Scholar
11 Steck, J. M. E., 184–186; Relation de la Nouvelle France, 1673. MS preserved in the Bibliothèque Nationale (Paris), Collection Renaudot, Vol. 30, fol. 176–177. The present writer has a photostat copy of it.
12 Rochemonteix, Camille de, S. J., , Les Jesuites et la Nouvelle-France au XVIIe Siècle, 3 vols. (Paris, 1895–1896), Vol. III, p. 11 Google Scholar, note. See also Steck, , J. M. E., 234–235.Google Scholar
13 Récit des Voyages et des Decouvertes du P. Jacques Marquette de la Compagnie de Jesus, en l’année 1613 et aux Suivantes. MS preserved in the Archives of St. Mary’s College in Montreal. The present writer has a photostat copy of this MS. He placed a copy of it also in the Newberry Library, Ayer Collection. Pertinent pages of the MS are reproduced in J. M. E., Nos. 5, 6, 7, 8. (Hereafter cited as Récit.)
14 Steck, , J. M. E., 188 Google Scholar; Journal of Marquette’s second voyage to the Illinois country. MS preserved in the Archives of St. Mary’s College in Montreal, Canada. The present writer has a photostat copy of this MS and placed a copy of it also in the Newberry Library, Ayer Collection. Pertinent pages of it are reproduced in J. M. E., Nos. 10 and 11. See also No. 12.
15 Supra, Document B.
16 Supra, Document F.
17 Repplier, Agnes, Père Marquette, Priest, Pioneer and Adventurer (Garden City, N. Y.: Doubleday, Doran and Company, 1929), 264.Google Scholar
18 Delanglez, , “The ‘Récit de Voyages et des Decouvertes du Père Jacques Marquette’” in Mid-America (Chicago), [Vol. 17 (new series), Nos. 3 and 4, July and October, 1946, pp. 173–194 and 211–258], 219–220 Google Scholar. (This study will be cited as M-A.)
19 Supra, Document under Factor 5.
20 Supra, Document B.
21 Supra, Document under Factor 5.
22 Kellogg, op. cit., 198.
23 Supra, Document D.
24 Supra, Documents A, D and E.
25 Supra, Document D.
26 Deknglez, M-A, 224; also his Jolliet, 130.
27 Martin, Felix, S. J., (ed.), Missions du Canada, 2 vols. (Paris: Charles Douniol, Editeur, 1861), Vol. I, 205–210.Google Scholar
28 Thwaites, , J. R., Vol. 58, 255–263.Google Scholar
29 Namely, the Douniol and the Thwaites edition.
30 Douniol edition, 209.
31 edition, Thwaites, J. R., 58, 255.Google Scholar If the phrase “in the spring of the year 1674” was a later insertion by Dablon, its absence in the Douniol edition of this Relation is explained.
32 Kellogg, op. cit., 197.
33 See the map in Thwaites, J. R., Vol. 59, facing page 86.
34 See Steck, , J. M. E., 237, 307 Google Scholar. Perhaps this project explains the great emphasis which the reports of both Jolliet and Dablon lay on the advantages for colonization offered by the Illinois country. For Dablon’s allied project, see Steck, , J. M. £., 233–235.Google Scholar
35 Supra, Document B.
36 Supra, Document F.
37 See Steck, , J. M. E., 234 Google Scholar; Thwaites, , J. R., Vol. 59, 67–69.Google Scholar
38 Supra, Document F.
39 Thwaites, , J. R., Vol. 58, 255.Google Scholar
40 Supra, Document D.
41 Delanglez, , Jolliet, 132.Google Scholar
42 Delanglez, , M-A, 211–258 Google Scholar. See also Steele, , “The ‘Real Author’ of the Récit ” in THE AMERICAS (Washington, D. C), Vol. IV, No. 4, April, 1948, 474–500.Google Scholar
43 See his J. M. E., Chapter VI, passim.
44 Supra, Document under Factor 5.
45 Steck, J. M. E., 306; also 310. The “two manuscripts A and B,” are Dablon’s Relation of August 1, 1674, and Jolliet’s letter. (See J. M. E., 297; also supra, (B) and (E).
It might be well to list here the materials that my latest critic proposes as the sources which Dablon used when writing the Récit (See M-A, 183–184). They are as follows: (1) the Relation of August 1, 1674; (2) Jolliet’s map with the dedicatory letter to Frontenac; (3) further talks with Jolliet between July, 1674, and the autumn of 1678; (4) talks with Jacques Largilier, a Jesuit donné after 1675; (5) interviews with Thiberge and Plattier, two members of the 1673 expedition; (6) Marquette’s map; (7) Marquette’s journal of his second voyage to the Illinois country; (8) the Jesuit Relations, either printed or manuscript, between 1655 and 1673.
Now, how does this list compare with mine, drawn up twenty years ago and cited above? Let us see. Items 1, 2, and 8 were also on my list. The remaining five items were not on my list, and here are the reasons: items 3, 4 and 5 are assumptions; item 6 is still an open question; but for one point in it—”mon journal”—Marquette’s ambiguous statement, item 7 is quite irrelevant.
Now let us see which items are on my list and not on my critic’s. They are (1) Jolliet’s journal, i. e., the copy of it, the subject of this paper; (2) Marquette’s personal notes, assumed to have been sent by him in place of the journal which Dablon wanted, the assumption being suggested by a desire to have Dablon keep his promise and Marquette, in the absence of a journal written by himself, doing the best he could in the circumstances.
After comparing the two lists, the. reader may judge for himself which of the two bears the earmarks of a serious, careful and impartial investigation.
46 The fact is that Marquette suffered an attack of his ailment only a month later, on November 26, which he records in his journal or diary on December 15 (1674) as having “turned into a bloody flux.” On January 24 (1675) he had his companion inform the Illinois Indians that his illness prevented him “from going to see them” and that he “would even have some difficulty in going there in the spring, if it continued.” Thwaites, J. R., Vol. 59, 171, 175, 177.
47 Steck, , J. M. E., 307.Google Scholar
48 Idem.
49 Delanglez, , M-A, 211–256, passim Google Scholar.
50 Thwaites, , J. R., Vol. 59, 89–163 Google Scholar, passim.
51 Steck, , J. M. E., 306, 310.Google Scholar
52 Supra, Documents A and E.
53 Supra, Documents B and C.
54 Thwaites, , J. R., Vol. 59, 167.Google Scholar
55 Ibidem, 99.
56 Ibidem, 141, 145.
57 Dictionnaire Encyclopédique (Paris: Librairie Larousse, 1938), “Quarantaine”—“séjour plus ou moins long”; e. g., “il était jadis de 40 jours.” See also Heath’s Standard French and English Dictionary (New York, 1934), “Quarantaine” and “Quarante” —e. g., “Je m’en fiche comme de l’an quarante.”
58 New Standard Dictionary of the English Language (New York: Funk and Wagnails Company, 1946), “Forty, n., 5. [Colloq.] A large amount or degree.”
In his introduction to the Récit, Dablon states that Jolliet “passed through a thousand dangers” (supra, Document G), meaning, of course, “many dangers,” unless we take it that someone counted them.
59 Delanglez, , M-A, 185–190.Google Scholar
60 Supra, Document under Factor 5.
61 Delanglez, , M-A, 187, 251.Google Scholar
62 Steck, , “The ‘Real Author’ of the Récit,” loc. cit ., 485–486.Google Scholar
63 Delanglez, , M-A, 194.Google Scholar
64 Steck, , J. M, E., 306, 310.Google Scholar
65 Supra, under note 45.
66 Delanglez, , M-A, 173.Google Scholar
67 Steck, , “The ‘Real Author’ of the Récit,” loc. cit ., 476–477.Google Scholar
68 Steck, J. M. E., Chapters I and II, passim.
69 Delanglez, M-A, 220.
70 Thwaites, , J. R., Vol. 59, 89.Google Scholar
71 Marquette died in 1675, and in 1678 Dablon sent the Récit to Paris.
72 The first edition appeared in Paris in 1681.
73 Steck, , J. M. E., 237, 237–238, 307.Google Scholar
74 Ibidem, 238.
75 ibidem. Here, too, the “forty-nine voyages” seems to be a general or colloquial way of saying “many voyages.” Did he actually make forty-nine, one less than fifty?
76 Ibidem, 238–239.
77 Ibidem, 307.
78 Ibidem, 237–238.
79 The better-known market edition appeared in 1928 with photographic reproductions of maps and of documents relative to the 1673 expedition.
80 From this circumstance the present writer did not at any time conclude that its author could not have been Marquette. He merely contended that the discovery justified an investigation of the Récit as to its authenticity. See his J. M. E., 281, 285–286. The first one to blunder on this point was the late Miss Repplier, op. cit., 259–260. That same year, 1929, the same blunder appeared in the critique prepared by the late Gilbert J. Garraghan, S. J. (Thought [New York], Vol. IV, No. 1, 57 Google Scholar) —one of several features of the critique that seems to show that the critique was not written as it appeared by Garraghan who, as a trained historian, would hardly have made that blunder.
81 Repplier, op. cit., 261.
82 Troilus and Cressida, Act. V, Sc.5.