Père Marquette/Chapter 17
Exception has been taken to the use of the word "journal" as applied to Père Marquette's account of the Mississippi expedition. It has been pointed out that the narrative is not, meticulously speaking, a diary; the entries are not dated properly and consecutively; we are left, not merely in doubt, but in ignorance, as to the exact days on which many of the events occurred. The most that can be claimed for it is that it presents a continuous report, expanded from such rough notes as could be jotted down day by day on the difficult and hazardous voyage which presented few opportunities for tranquil composition. It is on this understanding that what is really a chronicle—though written sometimes in the present tense—has been alluded to by historians as a journal; and it is on this understanding that the word journal is used by Edna Kenton in editing The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents, published in 1925. The admirable arrangement of this volume, the clearness of the type and the thoroughness of the indexing, make it as agreeable as it is serviceable to the student. Miss Kenton points out in her introduction that most of the documents she presents were written under circumstances which precluded finish or dignity of style. She marvels that such direct, vivid, and illuminating pages should have been penned "amid a chaos of distractions."
More revolutionary, however, than all the protests urged against the use of the word "journal," the use of the word "discovery," and the use of the word "leader," is the theory advanced by the Reverend Francis Steck that Père Marquette never wrote the narrative published under his name. The only evidence that can be adduced in support of this theory is the undoubted fact that no manuscript of the so-called journal in the priest's handwriting is known to exist. But if all authorship were denied on such ground, what masses of prose and verse, ascribed confidently to writers dead and gone this many a year, would stand orphaned before the world. Father Steck's other arguments are unconvincing. He points out that the title of the report sent to France by Père Dablon, and published by Thévenot in 1681, reads: Narrative of the Voyages and Discoveries of Father James Marquette of the Society of Jesus, in the year 1673, and the following, and not "Narrative written by Father James Marquette," which would have been conclusive. But as the priest speaks of himself throughout its pages in the first person—"Monsieur Joliet and I held another council to deliberate upon what we should do." "I told the people of the Folle-Avoine of my design to go and discover those remote nations that I might teach them the Mysteries of our holy Religion"—there can have been no doubt in the minds of Thévenot or of his public as to the authorship of the journal.
The internal evidence cited by Father Steck is even less conclusive. He does not, for example, think that Père Marquette would have likened the bone of a fish to a woman's busk. The comparison appears to him an unseemly one. Nor does he think that the priest would have written of the calumet dance: "The slow and measured steps, the rhythmic sound of the voices and drums, might pass for a fine opening of a ballet in France." What should a pious missionary know of French ballets? Very little, evidently, if he thought the solemn Indian rite resembled one. But is the allusion to a ballet or a busk (neither of them things intrinsically evil) so disconcerting as to cast doubt upon the authenticity of a manuscript? Heaven forbid that I should accuse Père Marquette—of all men who ever walked the earth—of indecorum! But it does seem to me that, after seven years' face to face acquaintance with the crude lusts of savagery, a priest might cease to be mincing in his speech, might even come to think of busks and ballets as harmless appurtenances of civilization.
Father Steck's hypothesis would be incomplete if he did not find an author for the journal which he denies to Père Marquette. "The function of historical criticism," he admits, "is not only to tear down, but also to build up." And, having torn down the missionary, he proceeds to build up in his place the ever serviceable Joliet. His supposition briefly stated is this. Père Marquette never kept a diary or wrote a report of the expedition. Although a faithful correspondent when there was nothing in particular to relate, he elected to be silent when he knew that he would be called on to recount the one important adventure of his life. Joliet, on the other hand, wrote two reports, one of which he carried with him on his disastrous journey to Montreal, and the other he left in Père Marquette's keeping at Green Bay. After the shipwreck in the La Chine rapids, Père Dablon wrote to Green Bay asking for the missionary's journal to supply the needed information. Père Marquette was "disconcerted," as well he might be, because he had kept no journal; but he sent in its place the copy of Joliet's report with a few added notes of his own. Père Dablon, conceiving the interests of his order to be of greater worth than his honesty as a priest or his honor as a man, rewrote the narrative under Père Marquette's name, and sent it under Père Marquette's name to Paris. As a consequence it was published in 1681 as Père Marquette's journal, and has been accepted as Père Marquette's journal ever since.
It is an ingenious theory, but it leaves a good deal unexplained. Why did Joliet write to Frontenac that, having lost two men and his box of papers, nothing remained to him but his life and an ardent desire to employ it in any service the governor might direct, when what did remain was a perfectly good copy of the lost documents? Why did he not tell Frontenac that there was this safe and sound copy which—the waterways being open—could have been easily procured from Green Bay? Why did he say nothing about it when he wrote, at Frontenac's request, his imperfect recollections of the expedition? Why did he say nothing about it when he wrote on the 10th of October, 1674, to Monseigneur de Laval: "Only for the shipwreck, Your Grace should have a curious relation. Nothing, however, was left but life." Finally, why did Père Marquette begin the unfinished journal of his last voyage with a memorandum stating that he had received orders to proceed to the mission of La Conception among the Illinois, and that, in compliance with his superior's request, he had sent him "copies of my journal concerning the Mississippi river." And why, when the journal was published by Thévenot, did not Joliet expose the fraud, and claim the manuscript as his own?
Mr. Andrew Lang, in one of his critical papers, alludes to the plays "fondly attributed to Shakespeare by his contemporaries." It does present a certain basis for belief. The journal fondly attributed to Père Marquette by his contemporaries, and by successive generations of readers, remains his journal unless some conclusive evidence of another hand be presented to the world. The question of leadership is of no importance. The question of discovery or rediscovery is of no importance. The question of authorship is of supreme importance, involving, as it does, the truthfulness of Père Marquette, the honesty of Père Dablon, and the common sense of Joliet. It is an easy matter to accuse a man who has been dead for several centuries of fraud, but it is a sorry thing to do on the strength of a conjecture. It is an easy thing to say that a man did not write a work attributed to him, but it is doubtful wisdom to say it unless there be proof to offer. The noble tradition of profound research, lucid thinking, and balanced accuracy which is the scholar's heritage gives to speculation its place in the free world of thought, but accepts no conclusions which are not based upon evidence.