ssible, because there are no proper
persons to compose it; and though Duclos, the new intendant, has
proposed two candidates, the first of these, the Sieur de Lafresniere,
learned to sign his name only four months ago, and the other, being
chief surgeon of the colony, is too busy to serve.[304]

Between Bienville, the late governor, and La Mothe-Cadillac, who had
supplanted him, there was a standing quarrel; and the colony was split
into hostile factions, led by the two disputants. The minister at
Versailles was beset by their mutual accusations, and Bienville wrote
that his refusal to marry Cadillac's daughter was the cause of the spite
the governor bore him.[305]

The indefatigable cure De la Vente sent to Ponchartrain a memorial, in
the preamble of which he says that since Monsieur le Ministre wishes to
be informed exactly of the state of things in Louisiana, he, La Vente,
has the honor, with malice to nobody, to make known the pure truth;
after which he goes on to say that the inhabitants "are nearly all
drunkards, gamblers, blasphemers, and enemies of everything good;" and
he proceeds to illustrate the statement with many particulars.[306]

As the inhabitants were expected to work for Crozat, and not for
themselves, it naturally followed that they would not work at all; and
idleness produced the usual results.

The yearly shipment of girls continued; but there was difficulty in
finding husbands for them. The reason was not far to seek. Duclos, the
intendant, reports the arrival of an invoice of twelve of them, "so ugly
that the inhabitants are in no hurry to take them."[307] The Canadians,
who formed the most vigorous and valuable part of the population, much
preferred Indian squaws. "It seems to me," pursues the intendant, "that
in the choice of girls, good looks should be more considered than
virtue." This latter requisite seems, at the time, to have found no more
attention than the other, since the candidates for matrimony were drawn
from the Parisian hospitals and houses of correction, from the former of
which Crozat was authorized to take one hundred girls a year, "in order
to increase the population." These hospitals were compulsory asylums for
the poor and vagrant of both sexes, of whom the great Hopital General of
Paris contained at one time more than six thousand.[308]

Crozat had built his chief hopes of profit on a trade, contraband or
otherwise, with the Mexican ports; but the Spanish officials, fai