In 1672 Colbert, the prime minister, wrote to the intendant of Canada that his majesty wished him to give his attention to the discovery of the South Sea. The wish being the same as a command, the intendant sought for a fitting agent to carry it into effect. COUNT FRONTENAC. Louis de Buade, Compte de Frontenac, showed little loss of physical or mental vigor outwardly, though at seventy incessant wear and tear had begun to tell on a constitution and will of iron. His eye had not lost its fire, nor his step its elasticity, but a deep crease between the brows gave a look of care to his face, and bespoke the power and habit of concentrated thought. His complexion was florid, his moustache, imperial, and eyebrows, white as snow. Notwithstanding a certain cast of sensuality there, the face, if not noble, had that decided distinction about it which impressed the beholder with the idea that he was in the presence of no ordinary man. Men called him the savior of Canada, for he had been sent at a most critical moment to retrieve, if possible, the blunders, the incapacity of his predecessor, Denonville. Crafty, supple, acute, he was the very man to comprehend Indian diplomacy, to penetrate or baffle Indian duplicity, or by a politic act to disarm the hostility of these wily adversaries. At the same time, he not only knew when and where to strike the most deadly blows, but how to draw from success in war the most important, the most fruitful results. The Iroquois, who waged incessant and destructive warfare against Canada, called him the great Onontio. He had not disdained to join an Indian war-dance, in which he was the first to strike the war-post with his hatchet. He harangued his savage allies in their own sententious and highly imaginative rhetoric, imitated their own methods of war, and even their atrocities in roasting prisoners alive,—to the end, perhaps, that the Indians might admire in him the qualities which they most valued in themselves. JOLIET AND MARQUETTE. "_Peace hath her victories no less renowned than war._" In Louis Joliet,[1] Talon, the intendant,[2] found the man he wanted. Joliet promised to see the mouth of the Mississippi before he came back to give an account of himself, and being already a veteran explorer, no less was expected of him than that he would keep his word.