others who stood faithful to him. A goldsmith of the neighborhood, moved
at his deplorable condition, offered the use of his house; and the Abbe
Cavelier had him removed thither. But there was a tavern hard by, and the
patient was tormented with daily and nightly riot. At the height of the
fever, a party of Beaujeu's sailors spent a night in singing and dancing
before the house; and, says Cavelier, "The more we begged them to be
quiet, the more noise they made." La Salle lost reason and well-nigh life;
but at length his mind resumed its balance, and the violence of the
disease abated. A friendly Capucin friar offered him the shelter of his
roof; and two of his men supported him thither on foot, giddy with
exhaustion and hot with fever. Here he found repose, and was slowly
recovering, when some of his attendants rashly told him of the loss of the
ketch "St. Francois;" and the consequence was a critical return of the
disease. [Footnote: The above particulars are from the unpublished memoir
of La Salle's brother, the Abbe Cavelier, already cited.]

There was no one to fill his place; Beaujeu would not; Cavelier could not.
Joutel, the gardener's son, was apparently the most trusty man of the
company; but the expedition was virtually without a head. The men roamed
on shore, and plunged into every excess of debauchery, contracting
diseases which eventually killed them.

Beaujeu, in the extremity of ill humor, resumed his correspondence with
Seignelay. "But for the illness of the Sieur de la Salle," he writes, "I
could not venture to report to you the progress of our voyage, as I am
charged only with the navigation, and he with the secrets; but as his
malady has deprived him of the use of his faculties, both of body and
mind, I have thought myself obliged to acquaint you with what is passing,
and of the condition in which we are."