village called Peoria, where the Indians received them well, and
continuing down the river, passed the Missouri, the Ohio, and finally,
having gone far enough to convince themselves that the river emptied
into the Gulf of Mexico and not into the Gulf of California, they turned
about and reached Green Bay again in September, having paddled more than
2,500 miles. Marquette, shattered in health, remained at Green Bay,
while Joliet pushed on to Montreal to tell of his discoveries. Marquette
rallied sufficiently at the end of a year to attempt a mission among the
Illinois Indians, where death found him in the spring of 1675. Joliet
spent his last years in a vain endeavor to persuade the government of
France to undertake on a grand scale the development of the rich lands
along the Mississippi.

But the story which Joliet took back with him to Quebec fired anew the
ambition of La Salle. He conceived New France as a great empire in the
wilderness, and he determined to descend the mighty river to its mouth
and establish a city there which would hold the river for France against
all comers. Such occupation would, according to French doctrine, give
France an indisputable right to the whole territory which the river and
its tributaries drained, and La Salle's plan was to establish a chain of
forts stretching from Lake Erie to the Gulf, to build up around these
great cities, and so to lay the foundations for the mightiest empire in
history. We may well stand amazed before a plan so ambitious, and before
the determination with which this great Frenchman set about its
accomplishment.

To most men, such a scheme seemed but the dream of an enthusiast; but La
Salle was in deadly earnest, and for eight years he labored to perfect
the details of the plan. At last, on April 9, 1682, he planted the flag
of France at the mouth of the Mississippi, naming the country Louisiana