René Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle (1643-1687), was a French explorer and colonizer, best known for his discovery of the Mississippi Delta. His career is a remarkable tale of wanderings in North America and of the intrigues of Versailles.

René Robert Cavelier, later Sieur de La Salle, was born on Sept. 21, 1643, near Rouen into a wealthy bourgeois family. In 1658 he entered the novitiate of the Society of Jesus, taking his vows in 1660. But Cavelier proved to be somewhat intractable, and after several unsuccessful attempts to conform to the rigid discipline of the Jesuit order he was released from his vows in 1667.

With no prospects in France, Cavelier followed family connections and a wandering spirit and set out for New France that same year. He was immediately granted a seigneury, known as Lachine, by his Sulpician brother's order on Montreal Island. It is an instructive comment...