Page:Historic towns of the southern states (1900).djvu/386

 commandant, Marchand, through an Indian princess, ancestor of the Creek chief McGillivray, of Washington's time. A pleasanter remembrance of Toulouse, perhaps also in Marchand's time, was the romance of Madame D'Aubant. Tradition makes her to have been that wife of Alexis Petrovich, the son of Peter the Great, who was thought to have died suddenly in Russia. She only feigned death, however, and escaped to America. At Mobile she met D'Aubant, an old or new lover, and, when he was stationed at the fort among the Alibamons, went there with him, taking their little girl. After his death she returned to Europe.

Mutiny was confined to the outposts, but Mobile had its own troubles. After Bienville finally left the colony in 1740, French influence over the Indians declined. Even he had been unable to restore the confidence and prestige lost through Perier's harsh treatment of the Natchez. By the Tennessee valley and a land trail above Fort Toulouse passing not far from modern Birmingham, the English from Carolina increased their hold on the Chickasaws, and by Adair's address had even provoked a civil war among the Choctaws.