The following is an extract: "Il parvient ... jusqu'a la riviere des
Illinois. Il y construisit un fort situe a 350 lieues au-dela du fort de
Frontenac, et suivant ensuite le cours de cette riviere, il trouve qu'elle
se jettoit dans un grand fleuve appelle par ceux du pays Missisippi, c'est
a dire _grande eau_, environ cent lieues audessous du fort qu'il venoit de
construire." This fort was Fort Crevecoeur, built in 1680, near the site of
Peoria. The memoir goes on to relate the descent of La Salle to the Gulf,
which concluded this expedition of 1679-82.] This silence is the more
significant, as it is this very niece who had possession of the papers in
which La Salle recounts the journeys of which the issues are in question.
[Footnote: The following is an extract, given by Margry, from a letter of
the aged Madeleine Cavelier, dated 21 Fevrier, 1756, and addressed to her
nephew M. Le Baillif, who had applied for the papers in behalf of the
minister, Silhouette: "J'ay cherche une occasion sure pour vous anvoye les
papiers de M. de la Salle. Il y a des cartes que j'ay jointe a ces
papiers, qui doivent prouver que, en 1675, M. de Lasalle avet deja fet
deux voyages en ces decouverte, puisqu'il y avet une carte, que je vous
envoye, par laquelle il est fait mention de l'androit auquel M. de Lasalle
aborda pres le fleuve de Mississipi." This, though brought forward to
support the claim of discovery prior to Joliet, seems to indicate that La
Salle had not reached the Mississippi, but only approached it, previous to
1675.

Margry, in a series of papers in the _Journal General de l'Instruction
Publique_ for 1862, first took the position that La Salle reached the
Mississippi in 1670 and 1671, and has brought forward in defence of it all
the documents which his unwearied research enabled him to discover. Father
Tailhan, S.J., has replied at length, in the copious notes to his edition
of Nicolas Perrot, but without having seen the principal document cited by
Margry, and of which extracts have been given in the notes to this