Ghost Empire: How the French Almost Conquered North America

John Abbott is a professor of history at Laurentian University’s Algoma University College. He is the co-author of The Border at Sault Ste Marie and The History of Fort St. Joseph.

Anyone expecting a formulaic history of the French experience in North
America should look elsewhere. On the other hand, those prepared to
embark on a quixotic expedition will learn more about the demons that
drive us, the hidden delights of historiography, the intimate and
inseparable bonds that unite past and present, and the history of France
in America than any standard account would afford them.

Marchand’s ostensible quarry is La Salle. The ligaments and joints
that define and connect the various chapters in this traveller’s tale
are the places La Salle sojourned and travelled between during his years
in North America. The journal on this level reads like a version of
Charles Kuralt’s “On the Road” reports. Marchand’s pilgrimage
begins where La Salle concluded his, in Texas, on godforsaken Matagorda
Island and at ill-starred Navasota. Then we’re brought back to the
beginning, to Montreal, then to Kingston, Toronto, Niagara, Detroit, St.
Ignace, Mackinac Island, Green Bay, Chicago, Starved Rock, Kankakee,
Peoria, Ste. Genevieve, Memphis, Arkansas Post, Lafayette, and New
Orleans.

Chapter 6 illustrates Marchand’s technique. It begins with an account
of the advance party, led by La Motte and accompanied by Hennepin, that
La Salle sent by water from Fort Frontenac in late November 1678, to
establish Fort Niagara. The group was storm-stayed at the mouth of the
Humber River, the Carrying Place, where Toronto now stands. Their
landing prompts Marchand to reflect on the destruction of Huronia some
30 years before and the clinical merits of Iroquoian torture techniques
when applied to French Jesuits. This is followed immediately by a
description of a summer’s scene from the Humber’s mouth three
centuries later. Squadrons of sailboats on the lake, and flights of
cyclists “with their streamlined helmets shaped like a wasp’s
abdomen, their Lycra shorts, their skin-tight jerseys of lime green and
cherry red and other shades out of the gumball machine,” lead to a
discussion of Tom Wolfe’s “happiness explosion,” the pleasure
principle, and Father Medaille’s “Maxims of Perfection for Souls Who
Aspire to Great Virtue.” That is followed by a disquisition on the
Sisters of St. Joseph, reference to Baby Point (occupied earlier by the
Seneca village Teiaiagon), Hurricane Hazel’s devastation, and a short
but scathing commentary on the vacuity of “Yours to Discover,” the
invitation on Ontario’s licence plate.

It is not the dog’s breakfast so bold an inventory would seem to
suggest. Marchand’s is a serious search for the spiritual wraiths as
well as the physical remnants of the French empire in North America. He
enjoys his quest. His readers will, too.