Another paddle stroke, and the canoes shot out on the Gulf of Mexico,--La Salle erect and silent and stern as was his wont. April 9, 1682, a cross is planted with claim to this domain for France. To fire of musketry and chant of Te Deum a new empire is created for King Louis of France. Louisiana is its name. Take a map of North America. Look at it. What had the pathfinders of New France accomplished? Draw a line from Cape Breton to James Bay, from James Bay down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico, from the Gulf of Mexico across to Cape Breton. Inside the triangle lies the French empire of the New World,--in area the size of half Europe. That had the pathfinders accomplished for France. La Salle was too ill to proceed at once from the Mississippi to Quebec. As long as Frontenac remained governor, La Salle could rely on his hungry creditors and vicious enemies--now eager as wolves, to confiscate his furs and seize his seigniory at Fort Frontenac--being restrained by the strong hand of the Viceroy; but while La Salle lay ill at the Illinois fort, Frontenac was succeeded by La Barre as viceroy; and the new Governor was a weak, avaricious old man, ready to believe any evil tale carried to his ears. He at once sided with La Salle's enemies, and wrote the French King that the explorer's "_head was turned_"; that La Salle "_accomplished nothing, but spent his life leading bandits through the forests, pillaging Indians; {141} that all the story of discovering the Mississippi was a fabrication_." When La Salle came from the wilderness he found himself a ruined man. Fort Frontenac had been seized by his enemies. Supplies for the Mississippi had been stopped, and officers were on their way to seize the forts there.