While he grasped one link of the great chain, another, no less essential,
escaped from his hand; while he built up a colony on the Mississippi, it
was reasonably certain that evil would befall his distant colony of the
Illinois. The glittering project which he now unfolded found favor in the
eyes of the king and the minister; for both were in the flush of an
unparalleled success, and looked in the future, as in the past, for
nothing but triumphs. They granted more than the petitioner asked, as
indeed they well might, if they expected the accomplishment of all that he
proposed to attempt. La Forest, La Salle's lieutenant, ejected from Fort
Frontenac by La Barre, was now at Paris; and he was despatched to Canada,
empowered to reoccupy, in La Salle's name, both Fort Frontenac and Fort
St. Louis of the Illinois. The king himself wrote to La Barre in a strain
that must have sent a cold thrill through the veins of that official. "I
hear," he says, "that you have taken possession of Fort Frontenac, the
property of the Sieur de la Salle, driven away his men, suffered his land
to run to waste, and even told the Iroquois that they might seize him as
an enemy of the colony." He adds, that, if this is true, he must make
reparation for the wrong, and place all La Salle's property, as well as
his men, in the hands of the Sieur de la Forest, "as I am satisfied that
Fort Frontenac was not abandoned, as you wrote to me that it had been."
[Footnote:_Lettre du Roy a la Barre, Versailles, 10 Avril, 1684,_ MS.]
Four days later, he wrote to the Intendant of Canada, De Meules, to the
effect that the bearer, La Forest, is to suffer no impediment, and that La
Barre is to surrender to him, without reserve, all that belongs to La
Salle. [Footnote:_Lettre du Roy a De Mettles, Versailles, 14 Avril, 1684._
Selgnelay wrote to De Meules to the same effect.] Armed with this letter,
La Forest sailed for Canada. [Footnote: On La Forest's mission,--_Memoire
pour representer a Monseigneur le Marquis de Seignelay la necessite
d'envoyer le Sr. de la Forest en diligence a la Nouvelle France,_ MS.;
_Lettre du Roy a la Barre, 14 Avril, 1684,_ MS.; _Ibid., 31 Oct. 1684,_