Picquet, Francois (2)

a French missionuary, was born at Bourg (in Bresse) December 6, 1708. He took holy orders, and for a time preached in the diocese of Lyons, but finally entered the Congregation of St. Sulpice, and in 1735 was by it sent to Montreal, to share in the work of the North American missions. Towards 1740 he settled north of that city, near the lake of Two Mountains, where he constructed a fort with the money sent for that purpose by Louis XV, and by requisitions. With the aid of this fort he succeeded in keeping sedentary two roaming tribes, the Algonquins and Nipissings, who took to agriculture. He induced them, as well as the Trokas and Hnirons, to submit to France; and during the war of 1742 to 1748, Picquet's measures for the safety of his colony were so effective that it remained untouched by English invasion. Peace being restored, he founded in 1749 a new mission near Lake Ontario, and called it La Presentation; the point, occupied by it is the same where the English afterwards founded Kingston. In 1753 he arrived at Paris, and reported to the minister of the marine as to the flourishing state of the colony, which counted already no less the five hundred families. In the war that broke out soon afterwards, he put himself at the head of the Indians which he had trained, destroyed all English forts south of Ontario, and contributed to the defeat of general Braddock. After the defeat of Quebec (1759), Picquet determined to return to France by way of Louisiana. He started with twenty-five Frenchmen and two small troops of savages, which were successively relieved by others in the tribes he met; traversed Upper Canada, reached Michilimakinac, crossed Michigan, and by the Illinois and the Mississippi rivers went to New Orleans, where he spent twenty-two months. The English had offered a reward for his head. Picquet had never received any reward, except a bounty of a thousand dollars and some books in 1751. The books he had to sell to enable himn.to return to France, and he was compelled to live on his scantv inheritance until the assembly of the clergy of France in 1765 presented him a bounty of twelve hundred pounds, which they gave him a second time in 1770. In 1777 he undertook a. journey to Rome, where Pius VI, to honor his merits, paid all his expenses, and made him a present of five thousand pounds. Picquet came home to die at Verjou, near Bourg, the house of his sister, a poor peasant- woman, July 15, 1781. — Hoefer, Nouv. Biog. Generale, 40:87.