The poor Foxes had lost in this terrible experience upward of fifteen hundred of the bravest of their tribe, which was now reduced to a few half-starved bands. But their spirit was not gone. Next year the officers at Quebec wrote home to Paris: "The Fox Indians are daily becoming more insolent." They had begun to change their tactics; instead of wasting their energies on the French, they began to make friends with, or to intimidate, neighboring tribes. By means of small, secret war parties, they would noiselessly swarm out of the Wisconsin forests and strike hard blows at the prairie Indians of Illinois, who preferred to remain their enemies. In this manner the Illinois Indians were reduced to a mere handful, and were compelled to seek shelter under the guns of the French fort at Kaskaskia. At the same time the Foxes were in close alliance with the Sioux and other great western tribes, who helped them lock the gate of the Fox-Wisconsin rivers, and plunder and murder French traders wherever they could be found throughout Wisconsin. Again it seemed evident that New France, unless something were done, could never maintain its chain of communication with Louisiana, or conduct any fur trade in the Northwest. The something decided on was an attempt to destroy the Foxes, root and branch. For this purpose there was sent out to Wisconsin, in 1716, a well-equipped expedition under an experienced captain named De Louvigny, numbering eight hundred men, whites and Indians. The Foxes were found living in a walled town upon the mound now known as Little Butte des Morts, on the west side of Fox River, opposite the present Neenah. The wall consisted of three rows of stout palisades, reënforced by a deep ditch; tradition says there were here assembled five hundred braves and three thousand squaws and other noncombatants. The French found it necessary to lay siege to this forest fortress, just as they would attack a European city of that time; trenches and mines were laid, and pushed forward at night, until, at the close of the third day, everything was ready to blow up the palisades. At this point the Foxes surrendered, but they gained easy terms for those days, for De Louvigny was no butcher of men, and appeared to appreciate their bravery. They gave up their prisoners, they furnished enough slaves to the allies of the French to take the place of the warriors slain, they agreed to furnish furs enough to pay the expenses of the expedition, and sent six hostages to Quebec to answer for their future behavior. The next year, De Louvigny returned to the valley of the Fox, from Quebec, and made a treaty with the Foxes, but nothing came of it. Treaties were easily made with Indian tribes, in the days of New France, and as easily broken by either side.