Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 26.djvu/84

68 of the illicit traffic in furs carried on by the coureurs de bois, caused this and other remote western posts to be abandoned.

It must not be forgotten that New France was at all times subject to the tyrannical domination of the French court and affairs in the colony fluctuated according to changing circumstances in Europe. France now became involved in the War of the Spanish Succession and her remote overseas empire underwent a period of complete neglect.

But with the termination of this war and the death of the brilliant but frustrated French king, an important change took place. At the court of the Regent who succeeded Louis XIV, the significance of this wide, savage, little known dependency was again recognized; especially the discovery of an overland route to the Pacific assumed acute importance in the eyes of the statesmen of Versailles.

In 1715, a plan was presented to the Regent for the accomplishment of this great purpose. Du Luth's post at the mouth of the Kaministiquia was to be re-opened, and two other posts, one on the Lake of the Christineaux (Crees)—now Lake of the Woods—and another on Lake Winnipeg, were to be established. Fur monopolies were to reward the men who built and maintained the posts, but a considerable sum of money was to be provided from the royal treasury for the actual expeditions which were to set out from these bases in search of the Western Sea.

This plan was only partially carried out. The Kaministiquia post was re-built by a Canadian officer, the Lieutenant de la Noue, in 1717, and a few years later the Jesuit traveler and historian Charlevoix was sent down the Great Lakes and the Mississippi to seek all possible information as to overland routes to the Pacific.

We are not concerned here with the interesting reports and recommendations made by Charlevoix.

Al-