Mary Queen of the Scots was a tiny infant in
swaddling clothes. The labors of Rafael Sanzio were still fresh in the
memory of his surviving pupils. Michael Angelo was in the zenith of
his fame, bending his energies to the beautifying of the great
cathedral. Martin Luther was in the sere old age of his life, waiting
for the command of the Master, which should bid him lay down his
armor. A hundred years were to elapse before Charles I. of England
must pay with his life the price of his folly.
Joliet, a French trader, was a man possessed of far more brains than
marked the average men of his times. He had not only the indomitable
courage which is essential to the successful explorer, but he had also
the rare ability to manage men; and we find him in 1672 with a
commission from the French king directing him to explore the valley
which was to be a part of New France. The lands which he visited must
be his fee to the king; certain rights of trade he wisely secured to
himself. So, with Pere Marquette, a Jesuit priest, he undertook the
mission, which we may doubt whether to call a journey of discovery or
an errand of diplomacy. Crossing the ocean, their route lay along the
St. Lawrence River to the Great Lakes; through the Great Lakes to the
country of the Illini; down the Illinois to the Mississippi, and down
the Mississippi to its junction with the Arkansas.
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