The merchants, La Chesnaye, Le Ber, and Le Moyne, were at the head of the
faction with which La Barre had identified himself; and their hatred of La
Salle knew no bounds. If we are to believe La Potherie, he himself had
formerly, in defence of his monopolies, told the Iroquois that they might
plunder the canoes of traders who had not a pass from him. The adverse
faction now retorted by adding the permission of murder to the permission
of pillage. Margry thinks that La Chesnaye was the prompter of this
villany.]

The old Governor, and the unscrupulous ring with which he was associated,
now took a step, to which he was doubtless emboldened by the tone of the
king's letter, in condemnation of La Salle's enterprise. He resolved to
seize Fort Frontenac, the property of La Salle, under the pretext that the
latter had not fulfilled the conditions of the grant, and had not
maintained a sufficient garrison. [Footnote: La Salle, when at Mackinaw,
on his way to Quebec, in 1682, had been recalled to the Illinois, as we
have seen, by a threatened Iroquois invasion. There is before me a copy of
a letter which he then wrote to Count Frontenac, begging him to send up
more soldiers to the fort at his (La Salle's) expense. Frontenac, being
about to sail for France, gave this letter to his newly arrived successor,
La Barre, who, far from complying with the request, withdrew La Salle's
soldiers already at the fort, and then made its defenceless state a
pretext for seizing it. This statement is made in the memoir addressed to
Seignelay, before cited.] Two of his associates, La Chesnaye and Le Ber,
armed with an order from him, went up and took possession, despite the
remonstrances of La Salle's creditors and mortgagees; lived on La Salle's
stores, sold for their own profit, and (it is said) that of La Barre, the
provisions sent by the king, and turned in the cattle to pasture on the
growing crops. La Forest, La Salle's lieutenant, was told that he might
retain the command of the fort, if he would join the associates; but he