PREFACE
To M. PLACIDE VALCOUR
M. D., Ph D., LL. D.
MY DEAR DR. VALCOUR: You gave me the Inspiration which made this
story haunt me until I wrote it. Gaspard Roussillon's letter,
a mildewed relic of the year 1788, which you so kindly permitted
me to copy, as far as it remained legible, was the point from
which my imagination, accompanied by my curiosity, set out upon
a long and delightful quest. You laughed at me when I became enthusiastic
regarding the possible historical importance at that ancient find,
alas! fragmentary epistle; but the old saying about the beatitude
of him whose cachinations are latest comes handy to me just now,
and I must remind you that "I told you so." True enough,
it was history pure and simple that I had in mind while enjoying
the large hospitality of your gulf-side home. Gaspard Roussillon's
letter then appealed to my greed for materials which would help
along the making of my little book "The Story of Louisiana."
Later, however, as my frequent calls upon you for both documents
and suggestions have informed you, I fell to strumming a different
guitar. And now to you I dedicate this historical romance of old
Vincennes, as a very appropriate, however slight, recognition
of your scholarly attainments, your distinguished career in a
noble profession, and your descent from one of the earliest French
families (if not the very earliest) long resident at that strange
little post on the Wabash, now one of the most beautiful cities
between the greet river and the ocean.
Following, with ever tantalized expectancy, the broken and breezy
hints in the Roussillon letter, I pursued a will-o'-the-wisp,
here, there, yonder, until by slowly arriving increments I gathered
up a large amount of valuable facts, which when I came to compare
them with the history of Clark's conquest of the Wabash Valley,
fitted amazingly well into certain spaces heretofore left open
in that important yet sadly imperfect record.
You will find that I was not so wrong in suspecting that Emile
Jazon, mentioned in the Roussillon letter, was a brother of Jean
Jazon and a famous scout in the time of Boone and Clark. He was,
therefore, a kinsman of yours on the maternal side, and I congratulate
you. Another thing may please you, the success which attended
my long and patient research with a view to clearing up the connection
between Alice Roussillon's romantic life, as brokenly sketched
in M. Roussillon's letter, and the capture of Vincennes by Colonel
George Rogers Clark.
Accept, then, this book, which to those who care only for history
will seem but an idle romance, while to the lovers of romance
it may look strangely like the mustiest history. In my mind, and
in yours I hope, it will always be connected with a breezy summer-
house on a headland of the Louisiana gulf coast, the rustling
of palmetto leaves, the fine flash of roses, a tumult of mocking-bird
voices, the soft lilt of Creole patois, and the endless dash and
roar of a fragrant sea over which the gulls and pelicans never
ceased their flight, and beside which you smoked while I dreamed.
MAURICE THOMPSON.
JULY, 1900.