seul de la troupe de M. de la Salle, sur qui ce celebre voyageur put
compter." Tonty derived his information from the survivors of La Salle's
party. Couture, whose statements are embodied in the _Relation de la Mort
de M. de la Salle_, was one of Tonty's men, who, as will be seen
hereafter, were left by him at the mouth of the Arkansas, and to whom
Cavelier told the story of his brother's death. Couture also repeats the
statements of one of La Salle's followers, undoubtedly a Parisian boy
named Barthelemy, who was violently prejudiced against his chief, whom he
slanders to the utmost of his skill, saying that he was so enraged at his
failures that he did not approach the sacraments for two years; that he
nearly starved his brother Cavelier, allowing him only a handful of meal a
day; that he killed with his own hand "quantite de personnes" who did not
work to his liking; and that he killed the sick in their beds without
mercy, under the pretence that they were counterfeiting sickness, in order
to escape work. These assertions certainly have no other foundation than
the undeniable strictness and rigor of La Salle's command. Douay says that
he confessed and made his devotions on the morning of his death, while
Cavelier always speaks of him as the hope and the staff of the colony.

Douay declares that La Salle lived an hour after the fatal shot; that he
gave him absolution, buried his body, and planted a cross on his grave. At
the time, he told Joutel a different story; and the latter, with the best
means of learning the facts, explicitly denies the friar's printed
statement. Couture, on the authority of Cavelier himself, also says that
neither he nor Douay were permitted to take any step for burying the body.
Tonty says that Cavelier begged leave to do so, but was refused. Douay,
unwilling to place upon record facts from which the inference might easily
be drawn that he had been terrified from discharging his duty, no doubt
invented the story of the burial, as well as that of the edifying behavior
of Moranget, after he had been struck in the head with an axe.]