ACROSS the pages of time, there flashes now and then a restless spirit, a wandering spirit, one tired by ambition and consumed by that same ambition and who leaves the world richer for his work, but ends it all in the bleakest of personal tragedy.

Such was Robert Cavalier Sieur de LaSalle, a gentleman of France, who claimed the heart of an empire for his monarch, a colonial empire which other kings who followed Louis XIV allowed to slip from their grasp into the hands of England, their ancient rival.

The Kings of England were no wiser than their counter parts across in France, across the English channel. They held the center of an im-mensely rich continent for less than a quarter of a century and saw it slip into the hands of a young and struggling nation born of the inspired work and belief in the equality of man and hardship in battle of a long string of colonies, that reached from the northern mountains and lakes of Vermont and New Hampshire down along the Atlantic seaboard through the river valleys of New York and Pennsylvania, the tobacco fields of Virginia and the rice fields and pine woods of the Carolinas and Georgia.

The routine stf daily masses and prayers, the long study to reach the geal of the priesthtsod and the life of such a spiritual leader in a small Itiwo parish of 17th century France-these were not meant for the rest-less spirit that was LaSalle.

So, when still in his early 20's LaSalle said farewell to the Jesuit seminary in France, where he had been a student, took his small allowance from his family and set out for Canada, another of the goodly company of explorers and Jesuits and Franciscans, who were destined to play such an important role at old Starved Rock.

It was a grand scheme, that youthful LaSalle had in mind-to set up a chain of forts in the heart of the continent that would shut off the westward expansion of the British colonies adding beyond measure to the wealth and domain of his beloved France and at the same time enrich his own fortune.

LaSalle, in the words of Shakespeare, lacked the quality of character to bind men to him with hoops of steel. Courageous, but cold of character he was a good foil for his loyal companion, Henry Tonti, the man with the "Iron Rand" whose charitable attitude towards lonely men in the wilderness made them as loyal to him as to the real leader of the many expeditions led by LaSalle up and down the valley of the Illinois, from 1679 to 1683.

Those four years are among the most significant in middle western colonial history. They established the lillies of France in the valleys of Illinois and the Mississippi, saw the planting of the first French colonies in the state, saw the Inlians gather in numbers up to 20,000 or more for protection under the guns of Fort St. Louis built on old Starved Rock in 1682-83. They saw the beginning of law, the white man's law, in the land of the Illini, saw the first business deals in real estate and in the fur trade made out on the Rock, saw the Indian change swiftly from one who had been on his own resources for unkown centuries to one dependent partly on the white man for barter, for aid against his enemies and saw him adopt, in many cases, the religious beliefs of the pale face instead of sticking to his own pagan rites.

LaSalle, then, at 23 set himself up with a grant of land at Montreal Island, Canada, called LaChine by some in derision because in all his wanderings he was like others-he could not find a direct and shorter route to China. That was the goal of the explorers of his day-and none succeeded. The China trade in silks and spices and other luxuries was a lucrative one for traders and ship owners and was eagerly sought as a way to wealth.

A tribe of wandering Senecas paid him a visit one winter and told him of a great river "Oyo, eight moons away that "empties into the sea."

That set LaSalle off on a two year trip, still veiled in mystery. Ap-parently he discovered the Ohio. Re may have found the Illinois and the Mississippi, but all this is conjecture-nothing is certain. His plan tation, LaChine, was sold in 1669 to a Seminary at Montreal, which financed his two year trip, starting with four canoes and 14 men to find the Ohio. Parkman in, "LaSalle and the Discovery of the Fast" doubts that LaSalle saw the Mississippi, bu~ he certainly knew well the lay out of the mid-west from his two year trip. France basea' her claims to the heart of the continent on his explorations.

Re knew the routes from the Lakes to the Illinois river, from some source, even before Marquette and Joliet used them for the first time in the summer and fall of 1673.

Back in Canada in 1672 LaSalle attached himself to Governor Fron-tenac waiting for his grand scheme to materialize.

That was to set up the French forts in a strategic position, then claim the midwest beyond the Alleghenies for France, drift down the Illinois and the Mississippi to the gulf coast and there bolster the French claim again. Then the seat of French government in North America could be transferred from cold inhospitable Canada to the fertile Mississippi valley. French colonies would then be established, trade and commerce would flourish and France would have a vastly rich empire in North America to add to her Canadian possessions.

Louis the Magnificent took time out from the gay life of the French court, its quadrilles and its idlers and sycophants to listen to the grand scheme of LaSalle in 1674. Louis nodded his head in approval, called for quill and parchment and drew up the royal order approving the designs of LaSalle and also making LaSalle a noble for what he had already done.

He moved swiftly now, with a land grant given him at Fort Frontenac (now Kingston, Ontario) along with trading rights on Lake Ontario and in the distant land of the Illinois Indians which he was determined to explore.

Fort Conti on the Niagara river was built to control that portage against enemies.

Axes rang and trees crashed all one summer, that of 1679, when he built the Griffon, the first sailing vessel on the Great Lakes. Indians fled in terror into the thick timber, when she spread her white sails on August 7, 1679 and Set out for distant Mackinac in far northern Michigan and then to Green Bay, Wisconsin. At Mackinac, he left his boon com-panion, Tonti, with 20 men to build a trading post, then proceeded south along the eastern shores of Lake Michigan to the mouth of the St. Joseph river. LaSalle was to go to Green Bay, The Griffon loaded with furs was to go to Niagara to unload, then return to Fort St. Joseph with supplies.

But the Griffon vanished and was never heard from again. That was only the beginning of the troubles of LaSalle.

LaSalle had a party of 14 men with him including the Francisan fathers, Louis Hennepin and Zenobe Membre, and Gabriel de Ia Ribourde, the latter then 65 years old and destined with Membre to die at the hands of Indians. His men fell to with axes and Fort Miami was built, the third of his projected chain of forts in the wilderness. That gave him the key to Illinois via the Kankakee river. November 12, 1679, Tonti arrived with his grim message, that the Griffon had never reached Niagara or even Mackinac. LaSalle waited for the balance of Tonti's men to arrive at the fort.

Instructions were nailed to trees, to the master of the Griffon and her crew as to his plans and where he had gone.

December 3, 1679 LaSalle and his force of 29 men set out for the Illinois and Mississippi in bitter weather through land filled with dreary and icy marshes. The Indians had fired the prairies in the fall-the game had been driven away. Hunger and cold assailed the explorers. A buffalo mired in the muddy marsh along the Illinois met a sudden end and provided badly needed meat.

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