refrain voicing the miseries of marriage. Evidence in favour of
La Sale’s authorship is brought forward by M. E. Gossart (Bibliophile
belge, 1871, pp. 83-7), who quotes from his didactic treatise of La
Salle a passage paraphrased from St Jerome’s treatise against
Jovinian which contains the chief elements of the satire. Gaston
Paris (Revue de Paris, Dec. 1897) expressed an opinion that to find
anything like the malicious penetration by which La Sale divines
the most intimate details of married life, and the painful exactness
of the description, it is necessary to travel as far as Balzac. The
theme itself was common enough in the middle ages in France, but
the dialogue of the Quinze Joyes is unusually natural and pregnant.
Each of the fifteen vignettes is perfect in its kind. There is no redundance.
The diffuseness of romance is replaced by the methods
of the writers of the fabliaux.
In the Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles the Italian novella is naturalized in France. The book is modelled on the Decameron of Boccaccio, and owes something to the Latin Facetiae of the contemporary scholar Poggio; but the stories are rarely borrowed, and in cases where the Nouvelles have Italian parallels they appear to be independent variants. In most cases the general immorality of the conception is matched by the grossness of the details, but the ninety-eighth story narrates what appears to be a genuine tragedy, and is of an entirely different nature from the other contes. It is another version of the story of Floridam et Elvide already mentioned.
Not content with allowing these achievements to La Sale, some critics have proposed to ascribe to him also the farce of Maître Pathelin.
The best editions of La Sale’s undoubted and reputed works are:—Petit Jehan de Saintré by J. M. Guichard (1843); Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles by Thomas Wright (Bibl. elzévérienne, 1858); Les Quinze Joyes de mariage by P. Jannet (Bibl. elzév., 1857). La Salade was printed more than once during the 16th century. La Salle was never printed. For its contents see E. Gossart in the Bibliophile belge (1871, pp. 77 et seq.). See also the authorities quoted above, and Joseph Nève, Antoine de la Salle, sa vie et ses ouvrages . . . suivi du Réconfort de Madame de Fresne . . . et de fragments et documents inédits (1903), who argues for the rejection of Les Quinze Joyes and the Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles from La Sale’s works; Pietro Toldo, Contributo allo studio della novella francese del XV e XVI secolo (1895), and a review of it by Gaston Paris in the Journal des Savants (May 1895); L. Stern, “Versuch über Antoine de la Salle,” in Archiv für das Studium der neueren Sprachen, vol. xlvi.; and G. Raynaud, “Un Nouveau Manuscrit du Petit Jehan de Saintré,” in Romania, vol. xxxi. (M. Br.)
LASALLE, ANTOINE CHEVALIER LOUIS COLLINET,
Count (1775–1809), French soldier, belonged to a noble family
in Lorraine. His grandfather was Abraham Fabert, marshal
of France. Entering the French army at the age of eleven,
he had reached the rank of lieutenant when the Revolution
broke out. As an aristocrat, he lost his commission, but he
enlisted in the ranks, where his desperate bravery and innate
power of command soon distinguished him. By 1795 he had
won back his grade, and was serving as a staff-officer in the army
of Italy. On one occasion, at Vicenza, he rivalled Seydlitz’s
feat of leaping his horse over the parapet of a bridge to avoid
capture, and, later, in Egypt, he saved Davout’s life in action.
By 1800 he had become colonel, and in one combat in that year
he had two horses killed under him, and broke seven swords.
Five years later, having attained the rank of general of brigade,
he was present with his brigade of light cavalry at Austerlitz.
In the pursuit after Jena in 1806, though he had but 600 hussars
and not one piece of artillery with him, he terrified the commandant
of the strong fortress of Stettin into surrender, a feat
rarely equalled save by that of Cromwell on Bletchingdon House.
Made general of division for this exploit, he was next in the Polish
campaign, and at Heilsberg saved the life of Murat, grand
duke of Berg. When the Peninsular War began, Lasalle was
sent out with one of the cavalry divisions, and at Medina de
Rio Seco, Gamonal and Medellin broke every body of troops
which he charged. A year later, at the head of one of the cavalry
divisions of the Grande Armée he took part in the Austrian war.
At Wagram he was killed at the head of his men. With the
possible exception of Curély, who was in 1809 still unknown,
Napoleon never possessed a better leader of light horse. Wild
and irregular in his private life, Lasalle was far more than
a beau sabreur. To talent and experience he added that
power of feeling the pulse of the battle which is the true gift
of a great leader. A statue of him was erected in Lunéville in
1893. His remains were brought from Austria to the Invalides
in 1891.
LA SALLE, RENÉ ROBERT CAVELIER, Sieur de (1643–1687),
French explorer in North America, was born at Rouen
on the 22nd of November 1643. He taught for a time in a school
(probably Jesuit) in France, and seems to have forfeited his
claim to his father’s estate by his connexion with the Jesuits.
In 1666 he became a settler in Canada, whither his brother, a
Sulpician abbé, had preceded him. From the Seminary of St
Sulpice in Montreal La Salle received a grant on the St Lawrence
about 8 m. above Montreal, where he built a stockade and
established a fur-trading post. In 1669 he sold this post (partly
to the Sulpicians who had granted it to him) to raise funds for
an expedition to China[1] by way of the Ohio,[2] which he supposed,
from the reports of the Indians, to flow into the Pacific. He
passed up the St Lawrence and through Lake Ontario to a
Seneca village on the Genesee river; thence with an Iroquois
guide he crossed the mouth of the Niagara (where he heard the
noise of the distant falls) to Ganastogue, an Iroquois colony
at the head of Lake Ontario, where he met Louis Joliet and
received from him a map of parts of the Great Lakes. La Salle’s
missionary comrades now gave up the quest for China to preach
among the Indians. La Salle discovered the Ohio river, descended
it at least as far as the site of Louisville, Kentucky, and possibly,
though not probably, to its junction with the Mississippi, and
in 1669–1670, abandoned by his few followers, made his way
back to Lake Erie. Apparently he passed through Lake Erie,
Lake Huron and Lake Michigan, and some way down the Illinois
river. Little is known of these explorations, for his journals
are lost, and the description of his travels rests only on the
testimony of the anonymous author of a Histoire de M. de la
Salle. Before 1673 La Salle had returned to Montreal. Becoming
convinced, after the explorations of Marquette and Joliet in
1673, that the Mississippi flowed into the Gulf of Mexico, he
conceived a vast project for exploring that river to its mouth
and extending the French power to the lower Mississippi Valley.
He secured the support of Count Frontenac, then governor of
Canada, and in 1674 and 1677 visited France, obtaining from
Louis XIV. on his first visit a patent of nobility and a grant of
lands about Fort Frontenac, on the site of the present Kingston,
Ontario, and on his second visit a patent empowering him to
explore the West at his own expense, and giving him the buffalo-hide
monopoly. Late in the year 1678, at the head of a small
party, he started from Fort Frontenac. He established a post
above Niagara Falls, where he spent the winter, and where,
his vessel having been wrecked, he built a larger ship, the
“Griffon,” in which he sailed up the Great Lakes to Green Bay
(Lake Michigan), where he arrived in September 1679. Sending
back the “Griffon” freighted with furs, by which he hoped to
satisfy the claims of his creditors, he proceeded to the Illinois
river, and near what is now Peoria, Illinois, built a fort, which
he called Fort Crèvecœur. Thence he detached Father Hennepin,
with one companion, to explore the Illinois to its mouth, and,
leaving his lieutenant, Henri de Tonty (c. 1650–c. 1702),[3] with
about fifteen men, at Fort Crèvecœur, he returned by land,
afoot, to Canada to obtain needed supplies, discovering the fate
of the “Griffon” (which proved to have been lost), thwarting
the intrigues of his enemies and appeasing his creditors. In
July 1680 news reached him at Fort Frontenac that nearly
all Tonty’s men had deserted, after destroying or appropriating
most of the supplies; and that twelve of them were on their
way to kill him as the surest means of escaping punishment.
- ↑ The name La Chine was sarcastically applied to La Salle’s settlement on the St Lawrence.
- ↑ The Iroquois seem to have used the name Ohio for the Mississippi, or at least for its lower part; and this circumstance makes the story of La Salle’s exploration peculiarly difficult to disentangle.
- ↑ Tonty (or Tonti), an Italian, born at Gaeta, was La Salle’s principal lieutenant, and was the equal of his chief in intrepidity. Before his association with La Salle he had engaged in military service in Europe, during which he had lost a hand. He accompanied La Salle to the mouth of the Mississippi, and was in command of Fort St Louis from the time of its erection until 1702, except during his journeys down the Mississippi in search of his chief. In 1702 he joined d’Iberville in lower Louisiana, and soon after was despatched on a mission to the Chickasaw Indians. This is the last authentic trace of him.
