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The delegation's stay in Brest lasted two weeks.
Everyone was able to make the most of this stop to recover from the crossing. They were back on solid ground and enjoying the comfort of a proper bed once more.
That did not mean, however, that they would be spending their days cooped up in the rooms prepared for them. The authorities in Brest had put together a programme worthy of a minister, both to impress their visitors and give them an idea of the kingdom's true power, and to prepare them for what awaited them in Paris and Versailles.
There, the ceremonies and splendours of the Court would far surpass anything they had seen so far.
Among other things, they were taken on a tour of certain parts of the arsenal. This was not entirely without precedent, as foreign princes were sometimes invited to visit the kingdom's military and naval facilities as part of their education. Naturally, they were shown only what the authorities considered safe and appropriate for them to see.
Even if these visitors did not come from any of Europe's great powers, there were still limits that could not be crossed, particularly in an area as sensitive as shipbuilding.
The chiefs showed particular interest in the shipyards, which were quite different from those in New France. No new warships were under construction there at the time, but that did not mean there was any shortage of activity. Work was nearing completion on the fitting-out of a sixty-four-gun ship of the line, whose imposing hull towered over the surrounding facilities. She was an Artésien-class, two-deck vessel, laid down in early 1771 and launched in December of the following year.
According to the chief shipwright, Joseph Louis Ollivier, the vessel would be both fast and powerful, the ideal balance for combat.
Her name was the Éveillé.
Ollivier knew his trade, and this particular ship, inside out. After all, he was the man responsible for her construction. Once he started talking, it was difficult to get him to stop.
François, who had seen ships even larger than this one, was not particularly impressed by her size. Nevertheless, he showed just as much interest as the Indigenous chiefs in the entire process of building a ship, from selecting the trees to fitting her out with guns and equipment.
Those two weeks were also used to prepare for the journey to Paris and continue familiarising the delegates with the customs and etiquette of the French royal Court. Continue, indeed, because they had not been idle during the crossing. As soon as their health had permitted, François and the other members of the escort had begun explaining the rules of proper conduct, the various forms of greeting, and the precautions they would need to take when being presented to the King.
They had all made progress. They now knew the main rules and understood that an apparently insignificant gesture could take on disproportionate importance in a salon. But they still had a great deal to learn if they wanted to appear before the Court without constantly feeling that they had committed some offence.
Fortunately, as they had been told during their first meal in Brest, the French authorities had agreed to adapt certain aspects of the protocol to accommodate their visitors. The delegates would be allowed to retain some of their customs and would not be judged on the clothes they wore. They would be free to appear before the King and his Court in traditional dress, in French-style clothing, or in a mixture of the two.
This flexibility was welcome, even if it did not solve every difficulty.
Akwiratheka, in particular, was struggling to remember the countless rules of etiquette. He was beginning to suspect that the French took a peculiar delight in inventing ever more rules, each stranger than the last, as though they were deliberately trying to make it impossible for anyone to master them all.
How to greet someone, how to speak, how to sit at table, how to bring food to one's mouth, which hand to use and when... And everything could change depending on the person standing before you. Even silence had its own rules.
For the great Mohawk chief, it was a terrible ordeal.
Everything went in one ear and almost immediately out the other. His powerful muscles and his pride were of no help whatsoever. He might as well have been trying to catch the wind.
Every evening, François would visit him for a few hours to help him prepare for the challenges ahead. He answered his questions, some of which were asked several times over, and they practised by acting out various situations.
Fortunately, François had brought his book on etiquette with him. When he had left Montrouge, he had not yet known that his real mission would take him to New York. He had simply thought that this little volume might prove extremely useful during his stay in France.
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On the morning of Friday, 18 June, as the first rays of sunlight timidly appeared above the rooftops of Brest, the delegation set out on its journey. The carriages hired for the trip were spacious and reasonably comfortable. The luggage had been securely fastened to the roofs and rear of the vehicles to ensure that nothing was lost along the way.
The convoy left the city to a chorus of applause and headed towards Rennes, the first stop on a long journey that would eventually bring them to Paris.
From there, they travelled through Nantes, Angers, and Tours. Everywhere they went, the local authorities had been informed of their arrival and gave them a warm welcome. But the inhabitants were intensely curious.
Their passage attracted lingering stares, whispered conversations, and, at times, indiscreet questions. Some people approached them with almost indecent fascination, while others allowed themselves remarks that the members of the escort considered disrespectful.
Most of the time, their behaviour and comments fell into that broad grey area where it was difficult to tell whether they had actually gone too far.
François and the other members of the escort had to intervene on several occasions, reminding both onlookers and members of the local elite that these men were highly respected chiefs and guests of the King, not exotic animals put on display for people to gawk at and mock.
Most of these incidents were relatively minor, but François could not help finding the situation unpleasant. He was almost certain that he would not have been able to remain calm had his wife been there with them.
In his mind, this was also a test. He wanted to know whether, one day, he would be able to show his family France and its beauties without them ever having to feel humiliated.
After Tours, the convoy passed through Amboise, further along the road that followed the Loire. The chiefs were able to admire the château overlooking the town, as well as the Clos Lucé, where Leonardo da Vinci was said to have breathed his last in the arms of King François I.
It was here that the members of the delegation began to realise that the word château could refer to buildings of entirely different kinds. The châteaux of Amboise and Brest had absolutely nothing in common.
One was magnificent and refined, worthy of a fairy tale. The other was cold and austere, designed simply to defend a strategic harbour. It was like comparing a jewel box to a strongbox.
François was discovering the place alongside his companions, for this was the first time he had ever visited it, in either of his lives. He listened intently to all the explanations and anecdotes shared with them, admiring every detail that adorned the various rooms.
There was something in those ancient stones, sculpted by men of extraordinary talent, that conveyed a sense of perspective and harmony and inspired genuine respect.
He searched for a long time for a word that might sum up his impression. The only one he could find was magical.
François was not the only one to fall under its spell.
After Amboise, they discovered the Château de Blois, followed by Chambord, and once again, the experience left them utterly astonished. It surpassed everything they had admired so far, and even went beyond what they had thought humanly possible.
There were no words to describe what they felt upon discovering the place. They were overwhelmed.
There was simply too much to take in: too many things to look at, too many details to appreciate, too much beauty concentrated in a single place. The walls, the doors, the rooftops, the chimneys, the mouldings, the tapestries... Everything combined to form such a rich and elaborate whole that the eye scarcely knew where to rest.
Their gazes darted from one detail to another. They retraced their steps, looked up at the richly decorated ceilings, and discovered ornaments they had failed to notice only moments before.
The representatives were particularly astonished by the imposing double-helix staircase at the centre of the château, the one that allowed two people to climb or descend without ever crossing paths.
François even thought he saw one of the Huron representatives discreetly wipe away a tear.
He supposed that, even if some of them did not fully understand everything they were seeing, or why anyone would go to such lengths to build something so carefully when it was, in the end, nothing more than an enormous residence that must have been impossible to heat, they were perfectly capable of appreciating the beauty of its architecture.
At last, on Thursday, 15 July, the Indigenous delegation arrived in Paris.
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Paris.
Capital of the Kingdom of France, even though the King had not resided there since the reign of Louis XIV, the Sun King.
The convoy had already been travelling through the outskirts for over an hour. These were districts where it was not always easy to tell whether one was still in the countryside or had already entered the city. The distinction, however, became increasingly clear as the carriages advanced towards the historic centre.
The houses stood closer and closer together, eventually forming tall walls on either side of the streets they followed. Fields became scarcer, then disappeared altogether. Meanwhile, the bustle around the vehicles continued to grow as they struggled to make their way over uneven cobblestones.
The rumble of carriage wheels, the creaking of carts, the clatter of hooves, the sounds of animals, and the conversations of passers-by blended into a new, continuous din that kept the members of the delegation glued to the windows.
They watched everything with a curiosity they no longer bothered to conceal. For men who had never seen a city on such a scale, the spectacle was breathtaking, almost intimidating.
Indeed, Quebec, despite its importance in New France, could in no way be compared to Paris.
Here, the streets seemed endless. Some were wide and straight, others narrow and winding. The houses blocked their field of vision, as though they had sprung up from the ground like trees.
The architecture itself was different. The buildings formed an ensemble that was far from uniform. Some seemed to have stood for several centuries, while others bore the marks of more recent alterations. The façades, gables, rooftops, and ornaments all told a story whose details the delegates could not possibly know, yet whose depth they instinctively sensed.
Europe had a monumental past behind it, and this was evident at almost every street corner.
As for the passers-by, there were so many of them that it became difficult to distinguish the various sections of the population.
Merchants, craftsmen, labourers, nuns, clergymen, children, soldiers, nobles, and peasants. Men and women on foot, in carts, on horseback, in carriages, or carried in sedan chairs. They all crossed one another's paths in an endless stream of movement, giving the city a liveliness the visitors had encountered nowhere else since leaving Quebec.
At the sight of it all, some of the chiefs began to wonder how the authorities managed to feed such an enormous population.
It was a perfectly reasonable question. Even François found it difficult to imagine the sheer quantities of food required to keep such a vast machine running, let alone the means employed every day to bring it all to the markets.
Fortunately, that was not his responsibility. He already had more than enough to deal with in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine Regiment.
François, his eyes bright with amusement, smiled discreetly as he watched his travelling companions' reactions. Their leisurely pace gave them ample opportunity to notice even the smallest details: the richly decorated façade of a private mansion, a sign hanging above a shop, a garden concealed behind a tall iron gate, or the bell tower of a church whose spire seemed intent on piercing a low-hanging cloud.
From the moment the convoy entered the capital, the carriages had begun attracting attention. Whenever curious onlookers managed to make out the occupants through the windows, they discovered strangely dressed men with unfamiliar features and complexions, some wearing feathered headdresses that struck them as even more astonishing.
The sight prompted whispered comments and, at times, poorly concealed laughter. To the French, these outfits seemed downright grotesque. Only the more educated among them wondered whether the visitors might be ambassadors from the Ottoman Empire, some distant African kingdom, or perhaps even the East Indies.
One thing was certain: these people had come from far away. They were certainly not Europeans.
Naturally, the convoy became increasingly difficult to overlook as more and more curious onlookers joined the procession accompanying it. François smiled when he saw children running alongside the carriages, waving enthusiastically at the travellers.
He merely raised his hand in a small gesture, just to humour them. In response, their carriage was greeted with delighted shouts and warm applause, accompanied by bursts of laughter. The children seemed to find it particularly amusing whenever he returned their greetings with a little wave of his own.
François's smile widened.
Of course, they had no idea what was going on. Only the oldest Parisians might remember that, half a century earlier, an Indigenous delegation had stayed in the capital before travelling to Versailles to meet the King.
For the overwhelming majority of the city's inhabitants, these visitors were something entirely new.
The behaviour of some onlookers eventually became rather uncomfortable, however. A few went beyond the bounds of mere curiosity.
A hunched old man with a glassy right eye, as though it had frozen over, made a particularly offensive remark, fortunately beyond the delegates' hearing. An officer from the escort immediately shoved him aside and struck him hard across the shoulder with his baton, knocking him to the ground.
The officer then straightened in his saddle, rising as though to make himself taller, and declared in a firm voice, loud enough for everyone in the street to hear, that the travellers under his protection were guests of the King and deserved the respect befitting their rank.
There was no room for argument in his tone.
A large part of the crowd moved away from the carriages as though His Majesty himself were riding inside them. Some even bowed. Nevertheless, they continued to follow the small procession of heavily laden vehicles.
The convoy continued on its way, following the capital's main thoroughfares as much as possible, until it finally came to a halt in the main courtyard of the magnificent Hôtel de Soubise, right in the heart of the highly aristocratic Marais district. This vast residence, acquired by the influential Rohan-Soubise family at the beginning of the century, was truly magnificent and perfectly suited to the image the Crown wished to project.
It was comfortable and prestigious, with spacious rooms ideally suited to hosting lavish receptions.
In 1725, the chiefs from the Mississippi Valley had first been taken to the headquarters of the Compagnie des Indes. But the circumstances were very different this time. The journey had been organised at the initiative of the Indigenous nations themselves, not by the powerful trading company.
It would have been a mistake to give the impression that their presence was primarily intended to serve the company's interests.
So... this is it?
François looked out through the left-hand window of his carriage and saw a group of liveried servants quickly gathering around the vehicles, accompanied by stable boys who immediately set about tending to the horses. They were surrounded. Fortunately, all these people were there to welcome them.
A carriage door opened, and the major was the first to step down.
The gravel crunched beneath his carefully polished shoes, which shone so brightly they could almost have served as mirrors.
The first thing he did was look around. More out of habit than any genuine precaution, since they were in an elegant neighbourhood, inside the residence of a family whose name was known throughout the kingdom.
All the curious onlookers had been kept back at the mansion gates. There was therefore no reason to expect any trouble.
Is this really just a private mansion? François wondered, his gaze sweeping across the many windows overlooking the courtyard. It looks more like a palace. Even if the Navy and Foreign Affairs ministries are only renting part of the building, it must have cost a fortune!
His attention returned to the servants, and he could not help noticing how rigorously they all went about their work. It was quite impressive. Every movement was precise and efficient, as though each had been practised thousands of times.
"Don't they look like soldiers?" Le Loutre whispered, having approached him without François noticing.
"That was precisely what I was thinking," François admitted, watching the men tend to the horses, passengers, and luggage for a few more seconds.
"I suppose it could hardly be otherwise. The people who reside here bear a distinguished name."
"Soubise?" François asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Not quite. The title of Prince of Soubise died with its last holder, but his family line continues. The lady of the house is his daughter."
"Hmm... I caught a glimpse of him once or twice, from a distance."
"You mean the Prince of Soubise?"
François slowly nodded.
"Was that during the last war, or on some other occasion?"
"During the war," the major replied, his tone turning somewhat cold. "That man nearly cost us a battle despite having a considerable army at his disposal. Fortunately, Marshal de Richelieu arrived in time to turn defeat into a resounding victory."
Le Loutre did not answer immediately.
"You must be referring to the Battle of Rossbach."
Seeing the look of surprise on the major's face, the priest allowed himself a faint smile.
"Don't be surprised, Monsieur. I may not be a soldier, but a man must take an interest in all sorts of subjects if he wishes to hold an intelligent conversation with anyone."
He quickly searched his memory for what he knew about the battle.
"Hmm. We were indeed very fortunate at Rossbach. Not only did the battle end in a resounding victory, but the King of Prussia himself was captured. It profoundly altered the course of the war, and not merely on the European front."
As he listened, François realised that the missionary had no idea that the man standing before him was the very person who had captured Frederick II.
After a brief moment's thought, he decided to say nothing. There was no reason to revisit that episode, at least not now.
Le Loutre was about to continue explaining the Soubise family and its younger branches when the arrival of their hosts interrupted him.
A man approaching thirty, impeccably dressed and groomed, was making his way towards them with an elegant stride. He was accompanied by a woman whose gown must have cost more than a major's monthly pay and who appeared to be roughly the same age. She was short, with a rather square face covered in a thick layer of powder, whether to conform to aristocratic fashion or to conceal imperfections in her skin.
Behind them came four children, three boys and a girl, kept under close watch by a rather careworn nursemaid. The youngest appeared to be about five, while the eldest must have been nine or ten. All of them bore a strong resemblance to their father.
François's attention settled chiefly on the woman.
Why do women wear so much make-up? She looks like a clown.
All the servants bowed respectfully as the couple passed.
"Gentlemen, welcome to Paris," the man said, stopping in front of them and greeting them with a polite bow. "Please, consider this house your own. I am Henri de Rohan, Prince of Guéméné, at your service. And this is my wife, the Princess of Guéméné."
"Victoire de Rohan, at your service," she added in a very gentle voice. "You are most welcome in our home. We have had an entire wing of the mansion prepared so that you may enjoy the most comfortable stay possible."
Her husband nodded before continuing.
"Should anything not be to your liking, please do not hesitate to let us know. We shall do everything in our power to put it right."
"Thank you very much, Your Highnesses," François replied, bowing respectfully. "I hope we shall all enjoy living under the same roof and that everyone will look back on this stay with fond memories."
He hesitated briefly before adding:
"Er... were you aware that we were arriving?"
The Prince of Guéméné studied the major for a few moments.
He was not much older than him, yet he already possessed a degree of confidence and authority rarely found in a man of his age. His attire, bearing, and above all his gaze betrayed considerable military experience. There was a certain energy about this major, one that seemed to envelop him like a cloak, although it was nowhere near as unmistakable or commanding as that of his father, Jules-Hercule Mériadec de Rohan, Prince of Rohan and lieutenant-general of the King's armies.
"There is no reason, Monsieur, why it should have been otherwise," he replied politely.
His gaze shifted towards the carriages, which were surprisingly ordinary considering the importance attached to the occasion. There were no bright colours, no coats of arms, no gilding.
He turned his attention back to the major.
"To answer your question, we have, of course, been kept informed of your progress ever since you left Brest. This has allowed us to make the necessary preparations for your arrival."
A rather tall, gaunt servant whose age was difficult to determine then approached the prince and exchanged a few words with him, too quietly for anyone else to hear.
"Very well," Guéméné replied simply. "If you will excuse us, gentlemen, our men will see to your luggage and have it taken up to your rooms. My wife will show our guests around the house."
The princess smiled, genuinely delighted at the prospect of introducing these men from the New World to her home.
"As for us, Major," the prince continued, "there are several matters we need to discuss. I suggest we go inside. We shall have more privacy there."
François exchanged a glance with Le Loutre, who was wearing a clean cassock, though it was just as plain as the one he had worn throughout the journey. The missionary gave a single, almost imperceptible nod.
The other members of the escort, most of them interpreters, showed no particular reaction. They all seemed eager to discover the rooms prepared for them and, above all, to sit on something other than a carriage bench.
The major bowed once more and followed the Prince of Guéméné inside.