was provided with
mining tools, he resolved to attack the Outagamie stronghold by regular
approaches, as if he were besieging a fortress of Vauban. Covered by the
fire of three pieces of artillery and eight hundred French and Indian
small-arms, he opened trenches during the night within seventy yards of
the palisades, pushed a sap sixty feet nearer before morning, and on the
third night burrowed to within about twenty-three yards of the wall. His
plan was to undermine and blow up the palisades.

The Outagamies had made a furious resistance, in which their women took
part with desperation; but dreading the threatened explosion, and unable
to resist the underground approaches of their enemy, they asked for a
parley, and owned themselves beaten. Louvigny demanded that they should
make peace with all tribes friendly to the French, give up all
prisoners, and make war on distant tribes, such as the Pawnees, in order
to take captives who should supply the place of those they had killed
among the allies of the French; that they should pay, in furs, the costs
of the war, and give six chiefs, or sons of chiefs, as hostages for the
fulfilment of these conditions.[336]

On the twelfth of October Louvigny reached Quebec in triumph, bringing
with him the six hostages.

The Outagamie question was settled for a time. The tribe remained quiet
for some years, and in 1718 sent a deputation to Montreal and renewed
their submission, which the governor accepted, though they had evaded
the complete fulfilment of the conditions imposed on them. Yet peace was
not secure for a moment. The Kickapoos and Mascoutins would not leave
their neighbors, the Illinois, at rest; the Saginaws made raids on the
Miamis; and a general war seemed imminent. "The difficulty is
inconceivable of keeping these western tribes quiet," writes the
governor, almost in despair.[337]

At length the crisis came. The Illinois captured the nephew of Oushala,
the principal Outagamie war-chief, and burned him alive; on which the
Outagamies attacked them, drove them for refuge to the top of the rock
on which La Salle's fort of St. Louis had been built, and held them
there at mercy. They would have starved to death, had not the victors,
dreading the anger of the French, suffered them to escape.[338] For this
they took to themselves great credit, not without reason, in view of the
provocation. At Versailles, however, their attack on the Illinois seemed
an unpardonable offence