The Feast of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virginwhom
I have always invoked since 1 have been in this country of the
Outaouacs, to obtain from God the grace of being able to visit
the nations who
dwell along the Missisipi River was precisely the day on which
Monsieur Jollyet arrived with orders from Monsieur the Count
de Frontenac,
our governor, and Monsieur Talon, our intendant, to accomplish
this discovery with me. I was all the more delighted at this
good news,
since I saw that my plans were about to be accomplished; and since
1 found myself in the blessed necessity of exposing my life for
the salvation of all these peoples, and especially of the llinois,
who
had very urgently entreated me, when I was at the point of St.
Esprit, to carry the word of God to their country.
We were not long in preparing all our equipment, although we
were about to begin a voyage, the duration of which we could
not foresee.
Indian corn, with some smoked meat, constituted all our provisions;
with these we embarked Monsieur Jollyet and myself, with 5 menin
2 bark canoes, fully resolved to do and suffer everything for
so glorious air undertaking.
Accordingly, on the 17th day of May 1673, we started from the
mission of St. Ignace at Michilimakinac, where I then was.
The joy that we
felt at being selected for this expedition animated our courage,
and rendered the labor of paddling from morning to night agreeable
to us. And because we were going to seek unknown countries, we
took every precaution in our power, so that, if our undertaking
were hazardous,
it should not be foolhardy. To that end, we obtained all the information
that we could from the savages who had frequented those regions;
and we even traced out from their reports a map of the whole of
that new country; on it we indicated the rivers which we were
to navigate,
the names of the peoples and of the places through which we were
to pass, the course of the great river, and the direction we were
to follow when we reached it.
Above all, I placed our voyage under the protection of the Blessed
Virgin Immaculate, promising her that, if she granted us the
favor of discovering the great river, I would give it the name
of the
Conception, and that I would also make the first mission
that I should establish
among those new peoples, bear the same name. This I have actually
done, among the Ilinois.
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