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written about Louisiana and by people who lived in the colony, and give us not only our clearest impressions of the country itself, but of the creoles and travellers who were within its borders from Iberville's time down to that of Kerlerec. Some books, however, were published at New Orleans, and one of the late acts of the colonial government was to confer the monopoly of printing them on M. Braud.

The quarrels in the civil government were reflected in the Church also. When Louisiana had been divided into three ecclesiastical districts, it will be remembered the lower Mississippi had been given to the Capuchins, and they attended faithfully to such administration as they found possible under the circumstances. The Jesuits had been

confined to the Illinois district, but to this they had never been able to reconcile themselves. It seemed to them that every frontier and all newly settled colonies were theirs by right. So they obtained the privilege of having a Superior at New Orleans. This priest secured his own appointment as vicar-general, and took advantage of the trustfulness of the Capuchins. The result was that for years there was a constant struggle between the two orders, which, in fact, was not terminated until France expelled the Jesuits in 1764, when their colonial property was confiscated and sold.

Thus lower Louisiana drifted along, hardly flourishing at best, but finding amusement and employment for the natural esprit of Frenchmen in the quarrels between the governor and the commissary, between the Capuchin and the Jesuit, as well as in war and trade with the Indians. Agriculture was growing, commerce at last really favored, and if France could supply more encouragement, or at least could keep out of European wars, Louisiana might yet become not unworthy of the dreams of La Salle and Iberville. The energy of Vaudreuil was recognized, although at the expense of Louisiana, by his promotion to be Governor-general of Canada, and he departed with the regrets of all. They loved to compare him to Louis XIV., and the counterpart of the Grand Monarque to them was the Grand Marquis.

And although his departure was a loss, his successor was not unequal to the place. Kerlerec came in 1753, and took active charge of his post. Almost his first business. was to study the Indian question and hold a congress at Mobile with the Choctaws, with whom he was favorably impressed. The necessity for counteracting the wiles and the trade of the English appealed to him at once, and he promised all they could ask, while, on the other hand, the chiefs were so much pleased with him that they voted him the "Father of the Choctaws."

Despite all drawbacks, the French had good leaders, understood the Indians, knew the routes of the great valley, and could make up for their lack of numbers by alertness and mobility.

CHAPTER XIV

FRANCO-SPANISH RELATIONS

At the beginning of our story we found Spain the dominant nation in Europe and America. Her infantry was the terror of the world, her fleet of the ocean, and her possessions embraced the fairest provinces of both continents. We have seen how from the defeat of the Armada her power was checked, and later how her wealth could hardly maintain her in a doubtful supremacy. When less able monarchs ruled, her position became impaired, although it was a gradual process and for several generations not realized even by her neighbors. With the extinction of the direct line and the great War of the Spanish Succession, it became evident that the hegemony had passed to France, and from that country came Philip, the new monarch, although it would be a mistake to think of Spain as ever becoming in effect a province of France. The France of Louis XIV. fully realized her own leadership in Europe, but she also realized the pride and the importance still of her ally on the south. The war came about immediately from the family alliance of the two countries; but this itself had been founded on community of religion, feeling, and interest. Spain under Charles V. had great possessions in Italy, the original Latin country, and in the Netherlands, essentially Teutonic. As long as France felt herself bound in by the Spaniards on both sides as

in a vise, fear of the future and true patriotism united her able kings and gradually coalescing nationality in a struggle against Spain. It was not so much a contest for leadership as for existence. When the decline of the Spanish power began, caused by pressure without and stagnation. within, the French fear was removed and gave way to a sense of community of origin and interest. Unconsciously the line was drawn again as it had been under the Roman emperors between Latin and Teuton, a line which even to the present has never been obliterated. The result of the Succession War was gratifying to the Spaniard, although Italy and the Netherlands passed to Austria. His fatherland was preserved intact and the feeling of race affinity with the other great Latin power of Europe was intensified, so that the later Family Compact of the crowns of France and Spain was but the royal seal on the popular feeling. The entente of the two nations was to last for a long time, despite temporary breaks, and it was both more and less than an alliance of the two governments. While there was a sympathetic union, based on blood and somewhat on institutions, it left the two nations independent, each developing its own policy in its own way, but ready to help the other by diplomacy if not by arms. In America their territories adjoined. Spain had finally recognized the fact that France owned the Mississippi valley, although the boundaries between their colonies were not always certain. On the west, Louisiana and New Spain afforded points for negotiation, and the boundary shifted backward and forward with the alternate energy of the two governments.

At first blush it seems strange that the French should have in mind so much the Spaniards, far distant to the west. This may have been due in part to imperfect knowledge of southwestern geography, and yet in some respects it was perfectly natural. Cabeza de Vaca, with some survivors of Narvaez's expedition, had in the sixteenth century crossed the continent, and his report was such that Coronado sent some of these with other men to explore the country as far

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