accompany him.

He passed up the lakes to Michillimackinac; and found his destined
companion at Point St. Ignace, on the north side of the strait; where, in
his palisaded mission-house and chapel, he had labored for two years past
to instruct the Huron refugees from St. Esprit, and a band of Ottawas who
had joined them. Marquette was born in 1637, of an old and honorable
family at Laon, in the north of France, and was now thirty-five years of
age. When about seventeen, he had joined the Jesuits, evidently from
motives purely religious; and in 1666 he was sent to the missions of
Canada. At first he was destined to the station of Tadoussac; and, to
prepare himself for it, he studied the Montagnais language under Gabriel
Druilletes. But his destination was changed, and he was sent to the Upper
Lakes in 1668, where he had since remained. His talents as a linguist must
have been great; for, within a few years, he learned to speak with ease
six Indian languages. The traits of his character are unmistakable. He was
of the brotherhood of the early Canadian missionaries, and the true
counterpart of Garnier or Jogues. He was a devout votary of the Virgin
Mary; who, imaged to his mind in shapes of the most transcendent
loveliness with which the pencil of human genius has ever informed the
canvas, was to him the object of an adoration not unmingled with a
sentiment of chivalrous devotion. The longings of a sensitive heart,
divorced from earth, sought solace in the skies. A subtile element of
romance was blended with the fervor of his worship, and hung like an
illumined cloud over the harsh and hard realities of his daily lot.
Kindled by the smile of his celestial mistress, his gentle and noble
nature knew no fear. For her he burned to dare and to suffer, discover new
lands and conquer new realms to her sway.

He begins the journal of his voyage thus: "The day of the Immaculate