George Bancroft, History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent, Vol. 3, 15th edition.

[155] By the side of the cross a cedar column was planted,

Chap. XX.}

and marked with the lilies of the Bourbons. Thus were the authority and the faith of France uplifted, in the presence of the ancient races of America, in the heart of our continent. Yet this daring ambition of the servants of a military monarch was doomed to leave no abiding monument,—this echo of the middle age to die away.

In the same year, Marquette gathered the wander-

1671.

ing remains of one branch of the Huron nation round a chapel at Point St. Ignace, on the continent north of the peninsula of Michigan. The climate was repulsive; but fish abounded, at all seasons, in the strait; and the establishment was long maintained as the key to the west, and the convenient rendezvous of the remote Algonquins. Here, also, Marquette once more gained a place among the founders of Michigan.

The countries south of the village founded by Mar-

1672.

quette were explored by Allouez and Dablon, who bore the cross through Eastern Wisconsin and the north of Illinois, visiting the Mascoutins and the Kickapoos on the Milwauke, and the Miamis at the head of Lake Michigan. The young men of the latter tribe were intent on an excursion against the Sioux, and they prayed to the missionaries to give them the victory. After finishing the circuit, Allouez, fearless of danger, extended his rambles to the cabins of the Foxes on the river which bears their name.

The long-expected discovery of the Mississippi was

1673

at hand, to be accomplished by Joliet, of Quebec, of whom there is no record, but of this one excursion, that gives him immortality, and by Marquette, who, after years of pious assiduity to the poor wrecks of Hurons, whom he planted, near abundant fisheries, on