Sir Duluth and Father Hennepin on Mushrooms
Letters exchanged between Father Louis Hennepin and Daniel Greysolon, Sir Duluth. From a special collection at Northern Illinois University, translated from the French by Peter S. Svenson.
To: Daniel Greysolon, Sir Duluth
Montreal, New France
From: Father Louis Hennepin
Rome
Date: August 23, 1701
Dear Duluth,
Remember our exchange when you rescued me from my kidnappers? I asked you, “Do you have to look so much like a French musketeer?” And you replied, “I am literally a French musketeer. Do you have to look so much like Friar Tuck?” Forgive me. An old man on my deathbed, let me put things right. I anticipate my reward but I look back at the enemies I made. I hope you were not one. I only spent a short while in New France. And we did not know each other well. But we tore it up, didn’t we? I should think they will name a city after you someday. I will be content with a street or two named after me, perhaps a bridge. One doesn’t wish to be prideful. But you deserve your glories.
One thing bothers me. Please tell me what you remember of our time on Lake Superior, our final full day together. My memories of the event are confused. We caught no fish yet we were out there for hours.
Please accept, dear Sir, the expression of my most sincere feelings.
Louis
To: Father Louis Hennepin
From: Daniel Greysolon, Sir Duluth
Date: December 7, 1701
Dear Louis,
That was so long ago I’d forgotten it. The year was 1680. I gave the warriors a proper dressing-down in the council for kidnapping you. I refused their gifts in order to show my displeasure – except for the three slaves which I only took because I needed them to carry my stuff. What was I to do with no slaves out in the middle of nowhere? My fellow Frenchmen were useless, drunk on port half the time. You liked it, it would have done well as Communion wine. Myself, I will portage a barrel of beer 100 leagues on my back as you know.
I was irritated with you for going and getting yourself kidnapped. It was a delicate situation but you just charged in preaching your gospels to the first war party you could find. They didn’t mean anything by it. They thought your prayers were spells and felt bad that I was so angry with them. I don’t think they realized their treaty with France meant they couldn’t kidnap any Frenchmen. It’s a good thing I didn’t tell them you were Belgian.
I greeted you with, “Father Hennepin, I presume?” I really had to put on a show as I hustled us away. But I was ready to strangle you. Once we were out of earshot I shouted, “Do you have any idea of the beaver money at stake here?” You just chuckled, claiming to serve God. But you served at the pleasure of the King like I did. Your soul-saving lubricated the wheels of commerce that I established, subordinating God to the aims of the Royal Treasury. You never understood that.
Once I got you to the miles-long spit at the west end of Lake Superior, my Ojibwe friends insisted we stay in one of the wigwams, but I thought I had better keep you isolated. I explained to them you were crazy and that I would be setting up camp down the beach. I said you were meeting a party soon who would take you back to Europe, and that I would come eat with them after you were gone. They understood and did not take offense.
On our last day, you and I awoke in the sand. The air was warm but smelled like fall. It was calm, and after the slaves made us duck-egg mushroom omelets, you and I launched a canoe. I never could get them to make a good omelet. But we ate and then went on the water to catch lunch. My recollection is that within the hour, the color blue started looking a little funny. And blue was everywhere we looked, the sky was blue and the lake was blue, and they met at the horizon. So everything was funny. I later came to understand this is the peculiar poisoning of a certain mushroom, likely intended to derange our senses as the slaves made their getaway. “Look,” you said while the canoe bobbed up and down ever so slightly, “Your slaves are running away.” I saw them melt into the scenery. My hungover Frenchmen did nothing.
“Does the water move, or does the canoe move?” you asked.
“The mind moves,” I said.
The thickly wooded hillside breathed, crawling with game and trickling with rocky streams. The sky was a vault of eyes when I had a vision of a city shining on the hill. Debrided of trees, sawmills shipping lumber. There was a canal, a bridge, and 100,000 people — bigger than Venice. “Hennepin!” I cried. “Do you see it!”
But you saw another city, a city of sin and madness, needing only your grace to save it.
I ask you to believe, dear Sir, in the expression of my best wishes.
Duluth
An index of Jim Richardson’s writing may be found here.