A man so devoted to money-making as La Barre could hardly be expected to take a very deep interest in the wider schemes of exploration and territorial expansion which appealed to the imagination of a La Salle. Possibly he thought he could curry favour with the court by disparaging the achievements of the latter. In a despatch of the 30th May 1683 we find him saying that he did not think much of the discovery of the mouth of the Mississippi, and that in any case there was a great deal of falsehood mixed up with the tales that were told of it. If the remark was meant to please, it seems to have been successful, for the king in his reply, under date 5th August following, says: "I am persuaded with you that _Sieur de la Salle's discovery is very useless, and such enterprises must be prevented hereafter_, as they tend only to debauch the inhabitants by the hope of gain and to diminish the revenue from the beaver." Could the power of official narrowness and banality go further? A man, taking his life in his hand, penetrates forest and jungle, commits himself to unknown waters, braves the encounter of hostile peoples, takes the risk of treachery among his own followers, faces every form of privation and all extremities of fatigue, travels a thousand leagues, and adds a continent to the possessions of his sovereign, only to have the verdict pronounced by that sovereign that his discoveries are very useless, and that similar expeditions must be prevented for the future lest the beaver trade of Ca Canada suffer!
La Salle's great discovery was made in the month of April 1682. Returning northwards in the autumn, with the intention of proceeding to France, and making a full report of his proceedings to the king, he heard, on reaching Michilimackinac, that the Iroquois were preparing a hostile movement against the Illinois. He determined at once to go back with a picked body of men to protect his threatened allies. The news of his discovery was therefore carried to France by the Récollet, Father Zénobe, who reached Quebec just as the ships were leaving, and may possibly have sailed in the same vessel as Frontenac. He does not seem to have given any information, in passing, to La Barre. The latter was expecting La Salle's return, and chose to put an unfavourable construction on his failure to appear. In writing to the minister he says that Fort Frontenac has been abandoned. The truth was that La Salle had left it in charge of one La Forest, and that subsequently a cousin of the explorer's, named Plet, had come from France to look after the trade of the fort in the interest of the parties in France who had advanced money for its construction and equipment. It is doubtful whether the place was ever left even temporarily unoccupied; but certainly La Salle had no intention of abandoning it. On the contrary, not knowing of Frontenac's recall, he had written to him in October 1682 asking him to maintain La Forest in command and to let him have a sufficient number of men for purposes of defence. What is singular is that he does not appear to have given Frontenac any more information regarding his discovery than Father Zénobe gave to La Barre. Possibly he had some hope, as the latter hints, of organizing a separate government in the new territory he had discovered. In no case, however, can La Barre's proceedings towards him be justified. On the pretext that Fort Frontenac had been abandoned, he took possession of it, and turned it, if we are to credit Meulles, into a trading-post for himself and his friends. He had a barque built there, professedly for the king's service on the lake, but used it mainly, the intendant says, for his own trade.