Marcel Giraud - A History of French Louisiana

A History of French Louisiana

French Colonial Louisiana Map by John Snead

Volume Two

Years of Transition, 1715-1717

MARCEL GIRAUD

Louisiana State University Press

BATON ROUGE AND LONDON

Copyright 1958 by Presses Universitaires de France
Originally published as Histoire de la Louisiane franaise, Tome Second: Annes de transition (1715-1717).
Translation copyright 1993 by Louisiana State University Press
All rights reserved
Manufactured in the United States of America
First printing
02 01 00 99 98 97 96 95 94 93 5 4 3 2 1

Designer: Laura Roubique Gleason
Typeface: Palatino
Typesetter: Graphic Composition, Inc.
Printer and binder: Thomson-Shore, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Giraud, Marcel, 1900
A history of French Louisiana.

Translation of Histoire de la Louisiana franaise.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Contents: v. 1. The reign of Louis XIV, 1698-1715,
translation by Joseph C. Lambertv. 2. Years of
transition, 1715-1717, translated by Brian Pearce
v. 5. The company of the Indies, 1723-1731,
translated by Brian Pearce.
1. LouisianaHistoryTo 1803. I. Title.
F372.G513 976.3 71-181565
ISBN 0-8071-0058-7 (v. 1)

Translation of this volume has been made possible through the generous assistance of the French Ministry of Culture.

The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources.

French Colonial Louisiana

THE FIRST YEARS of the Regency were not a period of fresh achievements in Louisiana. No fundamental changes took place in the internal life of the colony which was still subject to Antoine Crozats debilitating regime.

However, the interest that Louisiana had aroused in France at the end of Louis XIVs reign became both greater and more focused, and the numerous suggestions put forward in relation to the colony seemed to show that it was on the eve of innovations. The ruling personages expressed new ideas and tendencies from which Louisiana was soon to benefit. Scientific curiosity, quickening in the home country, spread increasingly to the Mississippi colony and raised questions that went beyond the concerns dominant at the beginning of the century. Inclinations toward active measures were even shown in this connection. To be sure, they led to no decisive results, largely because of the countrys financial situation, but these dispositions and the movement of ideas that underlay them implied a presumption that the future of Louisiana would be different from its past. With the coming of the Regency, in fact, the colony entered a brief period of transition in which, beneath a seeming immobility, the need for a new regime made itself felt, while, in the home country, conditions were being created that prepared the way for the Company of the West. It fell to the latter, helped by the new tendencies and profiting from the suggestions advanced during these few years, to provide a foundation for the peopling and the economy of Louisiana that it had not managed to acquire under the rule of Pontchartrain.

A History of French Louisiana

AFTER THE DEATH of Louis XIV, councils took the place of secretaries of state, and the direction of colonial affairs was removed from the comte de Pontchartrain, who had been in charge of them since the birth of Louisiana. Henceforth, the colonies came under the Council of the Navy and also, to a certain extent, under the Council of Trade, an organ standing between state finance and the navy that the Regent set up at the beginning of 1716 on the model of what existed under the late king.

Judging by the great number of reform projects put forward at this time, the country hoped for important changes from this new regime. Memoranda flooded in, coming from the most diverse sources and encouraged by the duc dOrlans himself. To examine them and extract suggestions that could contribute to the good of the state, the Regent set up a special commission consisting of state councillors and masters of requests.

Most of these memoranda sought solutions for the kingdoms financial weakness.

The duc dOrlans was considered intelligentmore intelligent than industrious, perhapsand his mind was curious, open, liberal, and concerned with problems of finance and foreign policy. It was logical for many people openly to denounce religious intolerance, something to which he was not at all inclined.

In a narrower context, great hopes were placed in the Council of the Navy, especially in the comte de Toulouse, who was its leading member, more so than Marshal dEstres. The latters principal qualification to be chairman of the council was his position as Vice-Admiral of France and his personal knowledge of the West Indies, to which he had made several voyages.

The comte de Toulouse, a very different man from the Regent, was no brilliant personality. His qualities were those of a hardworking individual, capable of application to a task, regular, and exact. In his administrative career he was distinguished by a methodical mind and a concern for well-ordered management, which he also applied to the regulation of his household and which showed itself even in his favorite recreations, such as hunting, where he had the rules and ordinances affecting venery codified so as to establish some sort of order and rule in the functions of the office of Grand Veneur.

This background, together with his disinterestedness and honesty, fitted the comte de Toulouse for the dominant role he was given in the Council of the Navy. He was prepared for it by his knowledge of maritime law and the administrative side of the navy, which he owed to the instruction of Jean-Baptiste du Trousset de Valincourt, his colleague in the Council of Prizes and secretary-general of the navy. Merchants and shipowners could not fail to welcome the news of Toulouses appointment to the post he was to occupy for several years. During the war he had, on a number of occasions, intervened in their interest against the hindrances that Pontchartrain, in full accord with Louis XIV, put in the way of freedom of trade, and he had reproached the minister of the navy for following a policy which, as he saw it, risked discouraging new discoveries. people had every reason to believe that under the guidance of these men, Louisiana would at last enter a new phase of existence.