south, on the narrow opening connecting Lake Huron and Lake
Michigan, grew up the post known as Michilimackinac. It was then
inevitable that explorers and missionaries should press on into
both Lake Superior and Lake Michigan. By the time that Frontenac
came first to Canada in 1672 the French had a post called St.
Esprit on the south shore of Lake Superior near its western end
and they had also passed westward from Lake Michigan and founded
posts on both the Illinois and the Wisconsin Rivers which flow
into the Mississippi.

France had placed on record her claim to the whole of the Great
West. On a June morning in 1671 there had been a striking scene
at Sainte Marie du Saut. The French had summoned a great throng
of Indians to the spot. There, with impressive ceremony,
Saint-Lusson, an officer from Canada, had set up a cedar post on
which was a plate engraved with the royal arms, and proclaimed
Louis XIV lord of all the Indian tribes and of all the lands,
rivers, and lakes, discovered and to be discovered in the region
stretching from the Atlantic to that other mysterious sea beyond
the spreading lands of the West. Henceforth at their peril would
the natives disobey the French King, or other states encroach
upon these his lands. A Jesuit priest followed Saint-Lusson with
a description to the savages of their new lord, the King of
France. He was master of all the other rulers of the world. At
his word the earth trembled. He could set earth and sea on fire
by the blaze of his cannon. The priest knew the temper of his
savage audience and told of the King's warriors covered with the
blood of his enemies, of the rivers of blood which flowed from
their wounds, of the King's countless prisoners, of his riches
and his power, so great that all the world obeyed him. The