Chapter IV: Appendix: I. Report of House Committee on Foreign Affairs 221 (1)

II. English forts 237

III. Report of Captain Edward Mott 241

IV. Notes on the archaeology of the Champlain valley by Prof.
George H. Perkins, Ph.D., state geologist of Vermont 245

V. Financial Statement 261

INDEX

ILLUSTRATIONS

The Rodin Bust “La France” Frontispiece
Facing Page
Champlain Memorial Lighthouse at Crown Point Forts 4

Champlain Group at Crown Point Memorial 4

Memorial to Samuel Champlain at Plattsburgh 6

Side View of the Champlain Memorial at Plattsburgh 6

Champlain Statue at Plattsburgh 8

Crouching Indian at base of Champlain Statue 8

Champlain Memorial at Crown Point Forts nearing Completion 12

Front View of Rodin Bust “La France” 18

Steamship “France” that transported French Delegation 26

Banquet to French Delegation, Waldorf-Astoria, May 1, 1912 30

Governor John A. Mead of Vermont 42

Ferry Transporting Commissioners and French Delegation 70

Ambassador Jusserand and French Delegation at Crown Point 72

Commissioners and French Delegation at Crown Point Forts 72

French Delegation at Crown Point Memorial, May 3, 1912 74

M. Hanotaux speaking at Crown Point Forts, May 3, 1912 76

M. Hanotaux speaking at Crown Point Memorial, May 3, 1912 76

Landing Troops and Guests at Crown Point Forts, July 5, 1912 120

Colonel Sanger, Governor Dix and others landing at Crown Point 120

Unveiling Tablet at Fort Amherst, July 5, 1912 126

Tablet unveiled at Fort Amherst, July 5, 1912 128

Colonel Sanger, Governor Dix and Staff approaching Memorial,
July 5, 1912 132

Champlain Memorial Lighthouse, July 5, 1912 134

Governor John A. Dix speaking at Crown Point Memorial,
July 5, 1912 136

Colonel William C. Sanger speaking at Crown Point Memorial 140

Adjutant-General Verbeck, Count and Countess de Peretti de
la Rocca 142

Parade in Plattsburgh, July 6, 1912, escorted by 5th U. S.
Infantry 158

Governor Dix, Lieutenant-Governor Conway, Colonel Cowles,
Commissioners Knapp and Riley 158

Governor John A. Dix 162

Miss Katharine M. Booth, unveiling the Memorial at Plattsburgh 164

Front View and Granite Approach of Memorial at Plattsburgh 164

Governor John A. Dix speaking at Plattsburgh, July 6, 1912 166

Group Picture of Commissioners Knapp, Hill, Witherbee, Frawley
and Foley 216

Group Picture of Commissioners Pell, Riley, Lafontaine, Booth,
Shea and Weaver 216

Charles Alexander Nelson, Indexer 262

The

Tercentenary Celebration

of the

Discovery of Lake Champlain

Part One

MEMORIALS TO SAMUEL CHAMPLAIN

I. CONSTRUCTION OF MEMORIALS TO SAMUEL CHAMPLAIN

The first Report of this Commission was presented to the Honorable the Legislature of the State of New York, September 19, 1911. Subsequently thereto Commissioner and Senator James A. Foley, while still an Assemblyman, introduced a bill in the Assembly designed to empower the Commission to build two suitable permanent memorials to Samuel Champlain in that valley, one at Crown Point Forts and the other at Plattsburgh. Commissioner and Senator James J. Frawley had charge of the bill in the Senate. It was also designed to extend the term of the Commission into the year 1913, long enough to complete such memorials and to dedicate them with appropriate ceremonies. That bill passed the Legislature and upon its approval by Governor Dix, it became chapter 273 of the Laws of 1912. By its terms, it imposed on the Commission the duty of submitting to the Legislature of 1913, a full and complete report of its proceedings and transactions.

On March 27, 1912, the New York Lake Champlain Tercentenary Commission submitted its Financial Report to the Legislature, showing its receipts and disbursements down to March 26, 1912. These two reports of the Commission, already submitted to the Legislature, comprise all the proceedings and transactions of the Commission down to their respective dates, so that all that is necessary to do in this Final Report is to continue the record of its proceedings and transactions from such dates. This will include an account of the visit to this country of the distinguished French delegation, headed by His Excellency, Monsieur Albert Auguste Gabriel Hanotaux in April and May, 1912,—an event exponential of the perfect amity existing between the two Republics—and also an account of the dedicatory ceremonies of the Memorial Lighthouse at Crown Point Forts, New York, on July 5, 1912, and of the Champlain memorial at Plattsburgh, New York, on July 6, 1912.

These did not admit of so extensive an historical treatment of the important events occurring in the Champlain valley, nor of so wide a range of literary productions, as did the Tercentenary exercises, a record of which may be found in the First Report of this Commission. Nevertheless, the interchange of felicitations between the representatives of France and of this country, the cordial greetings everywhere extended to the French visitors and the amicable relations existing between the two peoples, prompting the warmest expressions of good will and generous impulses in addresses of rare literary quality, together with the dedicatory ceremonies themselves, are worthy a permanent record in this Final Report, thereby enlarging it into a volume, and are a fitting sequel to the historical Tercentenary Celebration.

The Commissioners fully realized the opportunity at Crown Point Forts for the construction and embellishment of a great Memorial Lighthouse to commemorate the advent of Samuel Champlain, the herald of civilization, into that valley, and they spared no pains to accomplish that result.

After examining some American memorials to Samuel Champlain and looking over the photographs of others and especially in view of the utilitarian character of the Crown Point memorial in the form of a Lighthouse and of its adaptability to sculptural embellishment, the Commissioners decided to undertake the production of such a Memorial after a design submitted by the architects, Messrs. Dillon, McLellan & Beadel of New York City, including a bronze statue group, the work of the sculptor, Carl Augustus Heber, of New York City. For three years, Mr. Heber was in the studios of Augustus St. Gaudens and Paul Bartlett in Paris and afterward worked on the embellishments of the Pan-American Exposition at Buffalo under Karl Theodore Francis Bitter.

Among Heber’s more important works are the equestrian statue of General Sheridan at Somerset, Ohio; the statue of Franklin at Princeton University; the Schiller at Rochester, N. Y., the heroic statue “Roman Poet” in the Brooklyn Institute, and the bronze statue in St. Andrew’s Church at Stamford, Connecticut. He received a medal at the St. Louis Exposition for his “Pastoral” which is now in the museum of the Chicago Art Institute, and he won the Avery prize at the Architectural League in 1910.

Contracts were let to Booth Brothers and Hurricane Isle Granite Company for the construction of the Memorial Lighthouse on the property of the United States at Crown Point Forts of Fox Island granite according to the design found at pages 346-347 of the original Report of the Commission and for the bronze statue group after the Heber model, consisting of a bronze statue of Champlain with one of his soldiers crouching at his feet at one side and an Indian at the other. Just below the group is a conventionalized stone canoe prow laden with the products of the country. The work progressed as rapidly as was planned. The Fox Island granite came from the State of Maine and had to be delivered at Crown Point Forts, several miles distant from a railroad station. The memorial was practically completed on July 5, 1912, although the foundry work on the bronze statue group was not finished, but was in place before the close of navigation. The Commissioners are gratified that the entire memorial, including granite and bronze work, and architects’ fees, was completed within the contract price of approximately $51,313.83, and has been generally approved by the Governors of New York and Vermont and by all others who have passed judgment upon it. In the production of such memorials, where æsthetics must be combined with utilitarian purposes, not readily susceptible of artistic treatment, it is not to be determined _a priori_ from plans, what the result may be and especially when so much depends upon the location and landscape surroundings, as in the case of this memorial.

The artistic features of this memorial with its group of bronze statuary, with the Rodin allegorical bust “La France” set in its granite base, with eight free standing Doric columns surrounding its central shaft, supporting a visitors’ gallery, that gives a wide outlook over the lake and above that, a lantern platform 50 feet from the ground, all surmounted by a circular capital with the garlands of the frieze binding the top together rising 73 feet above the circular terrace and 101 feet above the level of the lake and in the main after the style of the architecture prevailing in France at the time of Champlain, are rather accentuated by the grandeur of the natural scenery surrounding it, produced by the rugged Adirondacks in the west, the long expanse of undulating waters in the north, historic Chimney Point, the fertile fields, green vales and receding mountains in the east and the majestic ivy-clad ruins in the south, all under an azure vault of sky, “glorious as the gates of Heaven.” This memorial of highly artistic design with surroundings of such natural beauty and sublimity and nearly “throned among the hills” cannot fail to make an impression on the imagination and to produce a pleasing effect upon the mind, which is said by Sir Joshua Reynolds to be “the end of art.”

Inscriptions on the two granite pyramids are the following:

(_Western pyramid_)
NEW YORK
LAKE CHAMPLAIN
TERCENTENARY
COMMISSION

GOVERNOR CHARLES E. HUGHES
GOVERNOR JOHN A. DIX
H. WALLACE KNAPP
HENRY W. HILL
WALTER C. WITHERBEE
JAMES J. FRAWLEY
JAMES SHEA
WILLIAM R. WEAVER
JAMES A. FOLEY
JOHN H. BOOTH
JOHN B. RILEY
LOUIS C. LAFONTAINE
HOWLAND PELL

(_Eastern pyramid_)

VERMONT
LAKE CHAMPLAIN
TERCENTENARY
COMMISSION

GOVERNOR GEORGE H. PROUTY
GOVERNOR JOHN A. MEAD
LYNN M. HAYS
FRANK L. FISH
WALTER H. CROCKETT
HORACE W. BAILEY
GEORGE T. JARVIS
JOHN M. THOMAS
WILLIAM J. VAN PATTEN
ARTHUR F. STONE
FREDERICK O. BEAUPRE

THE CHILDREN OF VERMONT PARTICIPATED IN
THE ERECTION OF THIS MONUMENT IN HONOR OF
SAMUEL CHAMPLAIN

The following _arms_ appear on the base of the monument, in following order from front to rear:

(_East side_)

Arms of “La Compagnie de la Nouvelle France.”
Arms of the State of Vermont.
Arms of France of the time of Louis XIII.

(_West side_)

Arms of the United States.
Arms of the State of New York.
Arms of Brouage. (Birthplace of Champlain.)

Inscription on bronze tablet on the base of the Lighthouse, below the statue of Champlain and the Rodin bust:

+--------------------------------------+
| 1609 TO THE MEMORY OF 1909 |
| SAMUEL CHAMPLAIN |
| INTREPID NAVIGATOR |
| SCHOLARLY EXPLORER |
| CHRISTIAN PIONEER |
| ERECTED BY THE STATE OF NEW YORK AND |
| THE STATE OF VERMONT |
| IN COMMEMORATION OF HIS DISCOVERY OF |
| THE LAKE WHICH BEARS HIS NAME |
+--------------------------------------+

A description of the Rodin bust and the illustrations of this memorial may be found elsewhere in this volume. It was erected under the supervision of Commissioners Walter C. Witherbee, Howland Pell, James Shea, Louis C. Lafontaine and the chairman, Hon. H. Wallace Knapp. The Legislature authorized the construction of two permanent memorials to Samuel Champlain in the Champlain valley by chapter 181 of the Laws of 1911. The Commissioners appointed to supervise the construction of the Champlain memorial at Plattsburgh, were Judge John B. Riley, Judge John H. Booth, Senator James A. Foley and Hon. William R. Weaver, together with the chairman, the Hon. H. Wallace Knapp. They employed Messrs. Dillon, McLellan & Beadel to design the Plattsburgh memorial, the same architects who designed the Crown Point Memorial. Carl Augustus Heber was employed as the sculptor for the Plattsburgh Champlain Statue. The city of Plattsburgh purchased a commanding site for the memorial on the north shore of the harbor, below the outlet of the Saranac river overlooking Cumberland Bay and Lake Champlain.

Copyrighted and by the courtesy of the Powers Engraving Co. of New York]

The Plattsburgh memorial has been described by the architects as follows:

DESCRIPTION

The Plattsburgh memorial to Samuel Champlain consists of a statue and pedestal standing on a terrace in a park overlooking Lake Champlain. The Terrace is bordered by a granite coping, and a flight of steps leads down to the lake.

The pedestal is square, slightly tapering toward the top. It is twenty-two feet high, and built of Massachusetts pink granite. It stands on a platform two steps above the terrace. Its base is surrounded by a granite seat and ornamented in front by the figure of a crouching Indian with bow and shield, carved in granite; at each side by a canoe prow with trophies typical of America in Champlain’s time; and at the rear by a bronze tablet bearing the names of the Commissioners.

The canoe prows were chosen because the birch bark canoe is one of the highest achievements, both constructively and artistically, of any primitive race, and is typical of Eastern North America. Strongly and ingeniously made of materials found in the woods, seaworthy, capable of carrying a heavy load, and so light that it could easily be carried from one waterway to another, it provided the quickest and easiest means of travel for the Indians and for the explorers of this part of the country. Without its assistance, journeys such as Champlain’s would have been vastly more difficult, if not impossible.

The type is fast disappearing with our forests, so it seems fitting to perpetuate it in stone on the monument to Champlain, to whom it was of such service.

The upper part of the pedestal is decorated with carved garlands of Indian corn, and bears the following inscription on the front and back respectively:

_(Front)_

Samuel
Champlain
1567 1635
Navigator
Discoverer
Colonizer

_(Rear)_

Erected by
The State of
New York in
Commemoration
of the
Discovery of
Lake Champlain
1609 1909

_(Inscription on Bronze Tablet on Rear)_

LAKE CHAMPLAIN TERCENTENARY COMMISSION
STATE OF NEW YORK

GOV. CHARLES E. HUGHES.
H. WALLACE KNAPP
HENRY W. HILL
WALTER C. WITHERBEE
JAMES J. FRAWLEY
JAMES SHEA
GOV. JOHN A. DIX
WILLIAM R. WEAVER
JAMES A. FOLEY
JOHN H. BOOTH
JOHN B. RILEY
LOUIS C. LAFONTAINE
HOWLAND PELL

The statue of Champlain, which is nearly twelve feet high and of bronze, represents him in his soldier costume holding in his hand the arquebuse of which he speaks in his memoirs. This and his breastplate, helmet or morion, cloak, doublet, boots, and sword follow carefully the style of his period: the arquebuse, morion and sword being modelled after the ancient pieces in the collection of Hon. Howland Pell.

The monument was designed by Dillon, McLellan & Beadel, the architects of the Champlain Memorial Lighthouse at Crown Point Forts, and the sculpture was done by Carl A. Heber, who modelled the Crown Point memorial figures.

Contracts were let to Booth Brothers and Hurricane Isle Granite Company for the granite work of the Plattsburgh Memorial, which was to be built of Massachusetts pink granite and also for the bronze tablet, steps, coping, etc., and to Carl A. Heber, the sculptor for the bronze statue of Champlain and for the models of the Indian, canoe prow and garlands. The approximate cost of the entire memorial, including architects’ fees, was $20,263.51. This memorial was completed in time for dedication on July 6, 1912. It is a stately and dignified memorial after an original design, about 34 feet high and rising 61½ feet above the level of the lake, and so located as to be readily seen from the decks of passenger steamers entering the port of Plattsburgh. As a work of art, it will stand comparison with any of the memorials to Samuel Champlain in this country.

II. THE ALLEGORICAL BUST, “LA FRANCE,” AND THE PERSONNEL AND MISSION OF THE FRENCH DELEGATION

As the memorials neared completion, it was learned through His Excellency, Jean Adrien Antoine Jules Jusserand, the French Ambassador, that His Excellency, Clément Armand Fallières, President of the Republic of France, and the French people were raising funds to purchase and present to the Lake Champlain Tercentenary Commissions, which was to become a part of the Champlain memorial at Crown Point Forts, an allegorical bust by one of their noted sculptors. The cordial relations existing between the people of France and the people of America, as a result of the Champlain Tercentenary Celebration, awakened in the two peoples something of that friendship, which naturally springs from the pursuit of common purposes, similar ideals and like humanitarian impulses. The Tercentenary tributes to the God-fearing Champlain, whose noble qualities of mind and heart and whose unrequited services to mankind afford the occasion for the intermingling of the two races and the interchange of expressions of good will and cordial greetings, touched the hearts of the French people as nothing else had done, since the time when the people of this country bestowed their tributes on that other distinguished Frenchman and patriot, Marquis de Lafayette, whose services to this nation have ever since provoked the praises of our countrymen. This appears from what followed.

Through the columns of _Le Figaro_ of December 22, 1911, His Excellency, Albert Auguste Gabriel Hanotaux, of the French Academy and President of the Franco-American Committee, which assumed the undertaking of procuring the Rodin allegorical bust, “La France,” appealed to the people of France to support the Committee in its undertaking. In the course of this appeal (rendered into English), he said:

Of the three names (Champlain, Jacques de Liniers and F. de
Lesseps), perhaps the greatest is that of Champlain. He was at
once both founder and originator. Canada owes its existence to
him. Quebec celebrated three years ago the memory of the man who
having full consciousness of what he did placed the first stone
of the French metropolis in America. He had also “great plans and
vast thoughts.” A man of action, he was a man of imagination. He
dreamed of the establishment for the benefit of France, of an
immense dominion covering the American continent from Canada to
Louisiana and Florida, through the valley of the Mississippi. This
was neither more nor less than the idea of the future Republic of
the United States, but in Champlain’s thought it was a matter of a
French America. On the very first page of his book (now so rare and
so much sought for by book-lovers), a book which he dedicated to
the Cardinal Richelieu, the only one capable of comprehending him,
Champlain explains his thought in terms of thrilling clearness.
“It is necessary,” he wrote in 1632, “that under the reign of King
Louis the Just, France beholds herself enriched with a country, the
extent of which exceeds sixteen hundred leagues in length and more
than five hundred in width, and that in a continent which leaves
nothing to be desired in the bounty of its lands and in the profit
which can be drawn from them, both for foreign commerce and for the
delights of life therein. The communication of the great rivers
and lakes, which are like seas stretching across these countries,
affords so great facility for all discoverers in the remote regions
that one can go to the seas of the west, of the east, of the far
north, or even to the south.” When I cited this same page in 1898,
I added: “Sixteen hundred leagues by five hundred! These are
proportions over which one can now labor only in Africa.”

No doubt the great cities which will one day grow up on the banks
of the Sangha, of the Oubanghi, and of the Congo, will celebrate
Brazza, even as the United States prepare to glorify Champlain.

Some months ago our Ambassador at Washington, M. J. J. Jusserand,
called the attention of the Minister of Foreign Affairs to the
frequency of French commemorations in the United States. He
mentioned especially the approaching erection on the borders of
Lake Champlain of a monument consecrated to the memory of our
compatriot and he asked the Government to act so that France
would not be “absent” from these exercises so honorable to her.
The Minister of Foreign Affairs laid the matter before the
Franco-American Committee, who in turn makes its appeal to the
public.

It is not desirable, indeed it is not proper that France absolutely
ignore what is being done for her. Can she forget past services?
Nations have the right to be ungrateful, but they cannot neglect
courtesies—that would be inexcusable. A lack of good manners is
worse than a fault. Since North America, or, to speak more exactly,
the states of New York and Vermont, wish to remember, would we not
be obstinate to forget?

The monument under construction is admirably adapted to the place
and to the claims of the man, which it is designed to celebrate.
There is at the extremity of the lake discovered by Champlain, and
which bears his name, a lighthouse, throwing its rays over the
waters of which, he, first of Europeans, contemplated the immense
extent, empty and wild, and which are now traversed by the fleet
of great steamboats, the region peopled by a swarm of men. A solid
mass of masonry, a crown of columns bearing a terrace, and above
all the lantern of the lighthouse, these are from base to summit
the members of this powerful architecture. From the mass of masonry
rises a rostrum, beneath which Champlain stands like a pilot.

What can France do? What should she do? What stone worthy of her
can she bring to the monument? There is but one solution. It
is that this stone must be precious.... We are at the house of
Rodin. It is known how popular his name is in America. The great
sculptor whose renown extends over the world has nowhere more
ardent admirers. We hasten through the great rooms of the Hotel
Biron. These great bare halls, full of the genius from which
administrative barbarism is undertaking to shut out the glory,
and among so many masterpieces where admiration exhausts itself,
we discover (that is the true word, for the remarkable modesty of
the master scarcely pointed it out to us) a bronze bust: _France_.
Imagine the emotion of this finding! We sought an image, a symbol,
I may say a signature of our country, to send out there and we find
France herself, a darling France, full of grace, of spirit and of
courage; a young French woman to the sensitive nostrils, to the
full cheeks; to the chin, delicate and obstinate, to the glance,
loyal, headstrong and brave; a young woman in whom are summed up
our Clotilde, our Blanche, our Henriette and our Jeanne, crowned
with her tresses as with a helmet, armed with her attire as with
a cuirass. We sought for a French conception and we find the very
image of France. It is this figure we wish to send out there, that
it may be placed near the monument of Champlain. In front of the
mass of masonry, a light construction, an “edicule,” which will
be like a stone shrine sheltering and isolating the bust. And
thus French art will carry its offering simply and beautifully,
associating it with the powerful American commemoration.

If the idea appears good and worthy, worthy of the Government and
of the Embassy, which has been confided to us, worthy of the man
who was three centuries ago the champion of our country, worthy of
the sister republic, then it is necessary that friends sign this
visiting-card which will be sent out there in her name.

The inauguration of the monument will take place next July. A
French delegation will go to deliver Rodin’s bronze to the building
committee. Time presses. We must be ready by the day named. The
bronze which requires some alterations will be quickly completed.
But it is further necessary that the architect place the edicule,
that they cut the stone, that they engrave it in order that the
thought of the master make in the ensemble a delicate, proud work,
a flower of France, blossoming in good art at the foot of the
colossal monument.

A little money is needed. But above all is needed a prompt
expression to prevent at once any fault of taste and lack of
precision. The _Figaro_ opens its columns to us. The _Times_,
the _Matin_, the Parisian press aid us. To-day appears the first
subscription list. We make appeal to the friends of America and to
the friends of France, that it may be rapidly closed up.

To this patriotic appeal generous response was made and the bust was secured. On April 26, 1912, the French delegation on their superb steamship _France_ of La Compagnie Générale Transatlantique in New York harbor was welcomed by members of the New York Lake Champlain Tercentenary Commission, Viscount de Jean, Secretary of the French Embassy at Washington, M. Étienne Marie Louis Lanel, French Consul-General at New York, Paul Fuller, Jr., representing the Franco-American Committee, Hon. McDougall Hawkes, representing the Franco-American Institute in the United States, and Mr. Henry L. Beadel, one of the architects of the Champlain Memorials. The interchange of greetings between the members of the Tercentenary Commission and the visitors prepared the way for the receptions that were to follow at New York, Washington, Philadelphia, Boston, Montreal, Quebec, and elsewhere. The delegation was accompanied by Hon. Robert Bacon, former United States Ambassador to France, and was one of the most representative that had ever come over from France. It included in its membership:

His Excellency, Albert Auguste Gabriel Hanotaux, of the French Academy, former Minister of Foreign Affairs, President of the delegation; Hon. Louis Barthou, Member of the Chamber of Deputies, former Minister of Justice; Baron D’Estournelles de Constant, Member of the French Senate and of The Hague International Tribunal; M. René Bazin of the French Academy; General Lebon, Grand Officer of the Legion of Honor and Member of the Superior Council of War; M. Étienne Lamy of the French Academy; M. Fernand Cormon, painter, President of the Academy of Fine Arts; Count Charles de Chambrun, Secretary of the French Embassy at Washington, representing President Poincaré of the Council of Ministers; M. Paul Vidal de le Blache, Member of the Institute, representing the University of Paris; Le Duc Choiseul, descendant of an old distinguished French family; Count de Rochambeau, descendant of Count de Rochambeau, in command of the French forces in America during the Revolution; M. J. Dal Piaz, Director-General of La Compagnie Générale Transatlantique; M. Louis Blériot, Engineer and Aviator; M. Antoine Girard, Commercial Explorer; M. Léon Barthou, delegate from the Aero Club of France; M. Gabriel Louis Jaray, Member of the Council of State and Secretary of the General Franco-American Committee; M. Gaston Deschamps, representing “_Le Temps_;” M. Régis Gignoux, representing “_Le Figaro_;” M. Roger Gouel, Secretary of the delegation; the Countess de Rochambeau; Madame Blériot; Miss Valentine Girard and Miss Madeline Cormon.

Baron D’Estournelles de Constant, so favorably known to Americans on account of his advocacy of International Peace on a former visit to this country, introduced the members of the delegation to members of the New York Commission, which presented to each visitor one of the official souvenir Champlain badges and later a copy of the first edition of the Official Report of the Tercentenary Celebration. The mission of the delegation was to bring and present to the New York and Vermont Lake Champlain Tercentenary Commissions the allegorical bust “La France,” by Auguste Rodin, bearing the following inscription:

LE XX JUILLET MDCIX LE FRANÇAIS S. CHAMPLAIN
A DÉCOUVERT LE LAC QUI PORTE SON NOM.
LE III MAI MCMXII LES ÉTATS DE
NEW-YORK ET DE VERMONT
ÉLEVANT CE MONUMENT
UNE DÉLÉGATION FRANÇAISE
A SCELLE CETTE FIGURE DE
“LA FRANCE.”

A. Rodin

The architects of the Crown Point memorial thus described the bust:

The plaque represents France with a head-dress that follows somewhat the form of a liberty cap, and is half-indicated as the skin of a cock. A claw and a comb seem almost discernible in the boldly modelled planes and ridges. “La France” herself is a young woman with a strong face. The nose is modelled in a few bold planes, and is large. The eyes are staring and archaic. The mouth is firm, but is more kindly modelled than the nose, and the chin and cheeks are rounded, and, though firm, more feminine than the rest of the countenance. The pose is alert, even aggressive. It is too masculine to be immediately attractive, but familiarity with it seems to subdue its harshness and bring out its charm, until it is seen to possess that indescribable quality of mystery that belongs to a few famous portraits.

M. Hanotaux said that “it was fit to replace the Mona Lisa.” Perhaps he is right. There is no doubt at least that it is the work of a master. It has been placed on the front of the pedestal that carries the statue of Champlain.

ALLEGORICAL INTERPRETATION.

[Suggested by Henry W. Hill, Secretary of the Commission.]

In addition to the foregoing technical description, this _chef-d’œuvre_ may also have another interpretation, for it was designed to symbolize France, through the transformation of ten centuries of turbulence, revolution and evolution, the center of the Republican movement in Europe and finally emerging triumphantly reconstructed and self-reliant, the exponent among Continental nations of the liberty, equality and fraternity of mankind. In her new Renaissance of constitutional government, the spirit of intense patriotism has taken possession of her people and France is another illustration of the solidarity of those communities and stability of those nations, which are actuated by and founded upon popular liberties.

In contemplating this work, we are made to realize that the French as well as the Italians have an intuitive appreciation of the ideals in æsthetics and they are setting the standards of their ideals in art so high, that France as well as Italy is leading most other nations in artistic achievement as may be seen in the marvelous productions of her modern sculptors, whose works are not only found in the Louvre, the Musée du Luxembourg and in other collections, but also adorn the palaces, boulevards and public grounds of Paris and other municipalities of France.

The moderate encouragement given there to art by the state and the people of the country has undoubtedly stimulated original and creative production in sculpture as well as in painting, notwithstanding the apathy once described by Théodore Duret, who declared that “there is nothing sadder to recount in the whole history of art than the persecution inflicted upon truly original and creative artists of the country.” In this martyrdom of those devoted to æsthetic achievements the world over inheres the truth of the Roman adage, _patitur qui vincit_. Auguste Rodin, who was born in Paris in 1840 and elected President of the International Society of Sculptors, Painters and Engravers in 1904, has conquered and lives to see his works admired in both hemispheres, notwithstanding his disregard of the canons and conventionalities of the French Institute, which were repulsive to him. He has devoted himself to a mastery of nature, as zealously as did Michael Angelo to the study of anatomy. He is original and creative and his works are now appreciated by members of the Institute as well as by the savants in art the world over. His success in his field of sculptural achievement is largely due to his intense application to nature, as interpreted through the perspective of a vivid imagination, a poetic temperament and a keen appreciation of the beautiful and the sublime. These have impelled him to reject the conventional details, due to uniform rules applying to all alike, regardless of the individual characteristics, apparent in the works of many sculptors and to devote himself to productions, which are the embodiment of individual realism. In “La France,” one appreciates that he has produced a work with an exuberance of detail as stately as the Greek conception of the ideal head, shown in the marble copy of the Athene Parthenos of Phidias. It is a production of marked originality and has the character and the strength of the works of Donatello and of Michael Angelo, which contain “infinitely subtle shades of form in each sinuosity of contour” and are suggestive of living personalities. Whether or not we accept the intuitional theory of æsthetics, propounded by Benedetto Croce and others, that beauty is spiritual activity or expression and nothing more and is not predicable of nature apart from expression, we cannot fail to appreciate that the works of Rodin,[1] which are true to nature or an improvement upon it, are illustrations of perfect æsthetic expression and therefore fall within Signore Croce’s category of æsthetic productions.

The allegorical bust, “La France,” a work of poetic symbolism, reveals something of the culture and the contemplative character and native resolution of that nation, which struggles and conquers and whose intellectual development—through the various stages of a complex and progressive civilization, broadened by the discovery of her navigators and the assumption of the responsibility of colonial government of her own and alien races, ameliorated by the responsiveness of her statesmen to popular ideas, thus solving the perplexing problems of organization and administration, enlightened by the brilliant achievements of her scientists and of her littérateurs, ennobled by the ethical teachings of her philosophers and uplifted by the inspiration of her poets and by the marvelous creations of her sculptors, her painters and her architects—is the fruition of that universal genius, which is regenerating and immortal. This has enabled France to maintain a leading position in the onward march of civilization and to mold her institutions in conformity to the world’s approved ethical and political standards.

It is not necessary to enumerate her contributions to art, to literature or to science further than to call attention to the fact that her celebrated Pierre Simonde de Laplace was the first to unfold the Nebular Hypothesis in his “Exposition du Système du Monde” to account for the formation of the solar system, and that her Charles Messier was the first to catalogue stationary objects so faint as to be hardly observable through his small telescope and by him first named “nebulae.” The diaphanous, spiral convolutions in such of these, as the great green nebula in Orion, the brilliant white nebula in Andromeda and the whirlpool nebula in Canes Venatici, by the aid of powerful telescopes, may now be photographed and by the revelations of the spectroscope, their dimensions, character and composition may be determined.

If these nebulae, first discovered by Messier, be distant universes, not unlike the Milky Way, as suggested by Dr. Edward Arthur Fath, who estimates the diameter of the nebula in Andromeda at thirty-five trillions of miles, we at most have but little conception of their magnitude and the wonders of the realms of infinite space about us. The contributions of Laplace and Messier as well as of Lalande, Leverrier and others to astronomy indicate to some extent the leading position France has always taken in the domain of science and original research. All nations recognize that _La France est la patrie des sciences et des arts_.

Her contributions to civilization and to the world’s diplomacy entitle her to the gratitude of other civilized nations.

The people of this nation are especially grateful to France for her services in opening up the heart of this continent to its early settlers, for her assistance to our people in their struggle for independence and for other acts of friendship, gratefully acknowledged elsewhere in this Report, the last of which is beautifully expressed in the gift of the Rodin bust, “La France.”

III. SOCIAL FUNCTIONS AND HOSPITALITIES EXTENDED TO THE FRENCH VISITORS IN NEW YORK, WASHINGTON, PHILADELPHIA, BOSTON AND ELSEWHERE

Upon their disembarkation, the visitors took rooms in the Hotel Vanderbilt. In the evening, they witnessed “Les Fourberies de Scapin” of Molière, played by the students of French in the College of the City of New York at the Carnegie Lyceum, and also the French version of an English play. On April 27, 1912, Mayor Gaynor received the delegation in the City Hall of New York and expressed his pleasure at their safe arrival in the city. M. Hanotaux replied that it was an honor to present their respects to the first citizen of the great city of New York. On the same day, members of the French delegation and members of the Lake Champlain Tercentenary Commissions were tendered a luncheon at the Metropolitan Club in New York by Hon. McDougall Hawkes, chairman of the American Board of the French Institute in the United States. Mr. Hawkes in a graceful address welcomed the guests and extended an invitation to the First Loan Exhibit of the Institute that afternoon. In the course of his address he said:

Your visit, Mons. Hanotaux, with other distinguished delegates from
France, who have come on so flattering and pleasing a mission, will
constitute a strong landmark in what has been so interestingly
termed by the distinguished librarian of the city of Paris,
Marcel Poëte, the intellectual expansion of France in the United
States. This so-called expansion, based on intellectual relations
between the two countries, is in fact a natural corollary to other
relations, which for more than three centuries and a half, have
inclined each towards the other in common sympathies. (Applause.)

He was followed by Ambassador Jusserand, Mayor Gaynor, Baron D’Estournelles de Constant, M. Louis Barthou, Mr. Paul Fuller, who spoke in French, and others. At the Loan Exposition that followed in the East Gallery of the building of the American Arts Society, John W. Alexander, President of the National Academy of Design and a Trustee of the French Institute in the United States, in a brief address spoke of the cordial reception given in France to students of art from this country and welcomed the delegation in a most cordial manner to the Institute. M. Fernand Cormon, President of the Fine Arts Academy of France, expressed his thanks for the cordial welcome they had received and declared that

such occasions as the opening of the Museum of French Art in
this country would do much to bring artists of the two countries
into closer communication and would multiply the means and the
occasions, through which Americans and the French could better know
and appreciate one another. For this good work, which has been so
auspiciously begun to-day, you will have our active co-operation
and I extend to you our sincere thanks. (Applause.)

On the following morning the members of the French delegation and the members of the Lake Champlain Tercentenary Commissions were received by former Senator William A. Clark at his Fifth Avenue home and shown through his unique and valuable art collections, in which the visitors expressed deep interest. They were surprised to find so extensive and rare a collection in private hands, and congratulated Senator Clark upon his acquisition and possession of it.

Members of the delegation took the afternoon train for Washington, where they were met by Mr. Chandler Hale, Third Assistant Secretary of State, an aide-de-camp of the President, and Count de Peretti de la Rocca, Counsellor to the French Ambassador. On April 29th they were accompanied by Secretary of War, Henry L. Stimson, Major-General Leonard Wood, General Oliver and others on the _Dolphin_ to Mount Vernon, where M. Hanotaux on behalf of his compatriots placed a wreath of flowers on the tomb of President Washington.

By courtesy of Byron, N. Y. City]

On their return to Washington, Ambassador and Mme. Jusserand tendered them a reception at the French Embassy, which was attended by the diplomatic corps and others, and later the National Press Club also gave them a reception. In the evening Ambassador and Mrs. Jusserand gave them a dinner at the French Embassy, which was followed by a ball given by Mr. John Barrett at the Pan-American Building.

On Tuesday morning, April 30th, they visited the Congressional Library, the Supreme Court, the Senate and the House of Representatives and were then entertained at luncheon at the White House by President and Mrs. Taft, where informal expressions of good will concluded the Washington visit.

They returned to New York in the afternoon and were given a reception and dinner by La Compagnie Générale Transatlantique on board the new steamship _France_, said to be one of the most artistically decorated vessels that ever entered the harbor of New York and flying the largest American flag ever unfurled from the masthead of any vessel, the gift of Ambassador Robert Bacon to this ship on her maiden voyage. Members of the Champlain Tercentenary Commissions were also guests at the dinner, at which M. Paul Faguet, general agent of the company, presided. Among the speakers were M. J. Dal Piaz, director-general of the company, Ambassador Jusserand, M. Gabriel Hanotaux and others. Later in the evening, the Society of the Cincinnati held a reception at the beautiful home of Mr. and Mrs. Charles B. Alexander at No. 4 West 58th Street, at which the members of the French delegation and the members of the Lake Champlain Tercentenary Commissions were guests. On the following day, some members of the French delegation accompanied by Ambassador Robert Bacon went to Boston and were met by Prof. W. H. Schofield of Harvard and William Rotch, president of the Alliance Française at the south station. They were entertained at breakfast by Prof. Schofield and at luncheon by President Lowell of Harvard, where they addressed the students in French. Later in the afternoon they visited the State House and were presented to Governor Foss. Other members of the delegation went to Philadelphia, visited the University of Pennsylvania and Independence Hall, where they saw many portraits of notable persons, including those of Marquis de Lafayette, Count de Rochambeau, Count Matthieu Dumas, the general’s aide, and others, in which they were deeply interested. They were then entertained at luncheon by the Hon. Charlemagne Tower, former Ambassador to Germany, and Mrs. Tower, at which luncheon were Dr. and Mrs. S. Weir Mitchell, Mr. and Mrs. Frank Rosengarten and others.

Copyrighted and by courtesy of Drucker & Co., N. Y. City]

IV. BANQUET AT THE WALDORF-ASTORIA HOTEL, NEW YORK CITY, MAY 1, 1912, AND PRESENTATION OF RODIN BUST “LA FRANCE”

All the members of the delegation returned to New York in the afternoon to attend the principal State banquet tendered to them under the auspices of the Lake Champlain Association and the Tercentenary Commissions of New York and Vermont at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in the evening of May 1, 1912. The Astor gallery of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel where the dinner was served, was beautifully decorated with flowers and the flags of the two nations, intertwined, emblematic of the intimate friendship existing between France and the United States. Elaborate and beautifully designed menu cards with photographs of the Champlain memorials and with the names of the French delegation were provided and all other ante-prandial arrangements had been carefully looked after by the Hon. Frank S. Witherbee and Percival Wilds, the president and secretary of the Lake Champlain Association, and by Hon. Howland Pell of the New York Tercentenary Commission, to all of whom much credit is due for the success of the banquet.

* * * * * Just in time to banquet
The illustrious company assembled here. * * *

On the dais were seated thirty-one of the distinguished guests, including President John H. Finley of the College of the City of New York, the Toastmaster, Ambassador Jusserand, Attorney-General George W. Wickersham, representing the President of the United States, General Horace Porter, former Ambassador to France, Hon. Robert Bacon, former Ambassador to France, Lieutenant-Governor Thomas F. Conway, Mayor William J. Gaynor, Hon. A. Barton Hepburn, members of the French delegation, some members of the Lake Champlain Tercentenary Commissions and others. The other members of the Tercentenary Commissions and the other guests were grouped around thirty-two separate tables, and among them were General Stewart L. Woodford, former Ambassador to Spain, Governor John A. Mead of Vermont, Hon. Francis Lynde Stetson, General Charles Davis, Adjutant-General William Verbeck, Hon. J. G. McCullough, Hon. Frank S. Witherbee, Hon. Henry W. Taft, Hon. Charles B. Alexander, Hon. McDougall Hawkes, Hon. William A. Clark, Stephen H. P. Pell, Esq., Philip Livingston, T. J. Oakley Rhinelander, Hon. Peter Barlow, Hon. Francis K. Pendleton, Hon. Rhinelander Waldo, Hon. Bird S. Coler, A. Eugene Gallatin, Hon. Edward W. Hatch, Hon. Chester B. McLaughlin, Bashford A. Dean, Esq., Hon. John F. O’Brien, Hon. Darwin P. Kingsley, Hon. Frederic R. Coudert, Dr. Lewis Francis, Viscount de Jean, Count Jacques de Portales, Count Henri de Saint Seine, Count de La Fayette, M. Étienne Marie Louis Lanel, Hon. Edward H. Butler, William P. Northrup and others.

The three hundred guests represented many of the historic families of France and America, which had played an important part in the history of the two countries. It was a notable assemblage and thoroughly representative of the official life, culture and best citizenship of the two nations.

After toasts to the President of the United States and to the President of France, the band played The Star Spangled Banner and La Marseillaise. Other national airs of France and the United States interspersed the speeches and were productive of convivial feeling.

President Finley had before him on the table the keystone taken from over the door of the birthplace of Samuel Champlain in Brouage. It was encircled by the French flags on the table. His illuminating and charming articles on “The French in the Heart of America,” commencing in _Scribner’s Magazine_ for September, 1912, and continuing in succeeding numbers of that periodical, show the wide extent of the French settlements in America and something of America’s indebtedness to France.

ADDRESS OF PRESIDENT JOHN H. FINLEY

My selection (by those representing the two Champlain Tercentenary
Commissions and by the Champlain Association, to whose officers
the success of this great occasion is to be credited)—my selection
for this office to-night is due to no fitness except the degree
of my devotion to Champlain and the degree of my personal debt to
France. So far as I know, I am the only man in New York, if not in
the United States, who has ever made a pilgrimage to Champlain’s
birthplace. And no man in America is more grateful to France for
his own birthplace. It is not permitted me to speak my devotion to
Champlain and my gratitude to France. I will let this silent stone
speak for me—this fragment of rock from the coast of France, which
was once a keystone in the arch over the doorway of the home in
Brouage in which, by tradition, Champlain was born. I have brought
it across the sea, in a French vessel, to rebuild it in some
monument here or in Canada, or between the two countries. To-night
it is garlanded by flowers grown in America—in tribute to that
Brouage boy who has made American wildernesses blossom as the rose.
And I pour upon its face a libation in the wine of the land for
whose glory he dared, as a man, all perils of sea and land and died
an exile beneath the gray rock of Quebec, Champlain!

This stone will speak more effectively than my strange vocabulary,
the welcome I would give this most distinguished company from
France to-day. Here is a bit of France, still unnaturalized, that
will vibrate in all its particles with joy when it hears the voices
that speak the most beautiful language on earth. (I have only a
fear that it will disintegrate in its happiness.)

What I would have this stone say will have eloquent supplement in
what will be said by those who represent the Nation, the States of
New York and Vermont and the city of New York. These, gentlemen of
France, it is my honor to present to you.

Those explorers, priests and coureurs des bois whom Champlain
started out into the West gave to the world for all time (and to
a new nation for some time at least) that most wonderful of all
the valleys in the world, the Mississippi Valley. And it is a
noteworthy fact that the three heads of the co-ordinate branches
of our government come from that valley and from the banks of
the rivers discovered by the French. The Chief Justice of the
Supreme Court comes from the River, which Sieur de La Salle with
Tonty traced to the Gulf of Mexico. The Speaker of the House
of Representatives comes from the banks of that tumultuous and
shifting flood known as the Missouri, which Joliet and Marquette
saw hurling great trees into the Mississippi. And the President
of the United States comes from the banks of a river of that same
valley, also discovered, in all probability, by the French,—the
river along which they planted their plates of discovery, the river
which they called La Belle Rivière. I propose the health of the
geographical son of France, the President of the United States,
who is represented here to-night by a member of his Cabinet,
Attorney-General Wickersham. (Applause.)

As Dr. Finley poured a few drops of champagne over the stone the banqueters went to their feet and cheered enthusiastically. President Finley then presented Attorney-General Wickersham, delegated to represent the President, who spoke as follows:

ADDRESS OF ATTORNEY-GENERAL GEORGE W. WICKERSHAM

_Mr. Toastmaster, Mr. Ambassador, Members of the French Delegation,
Ladies and Gentlemen._—In July, 1909, representatives of France,
Canada and the United States, and of the several states bordering
on Lake Champlain, united in celebrating the three hundredth
anniversary of the discovery of that lake by the great pioneer,
whose name it bears. That discovery itself was but the occasion for
a savage combat between the Indians, whom Champlain accompanied
and the ferocious Iroquois whom they encountered. Only one ray of
light struggles through the miserable tale of barbaric celebration
of the victory which the French firearms enabled the Hurons to win
over their enemies. That ray was the half successful effort made by
Champlain to check the infliction by his Indian companions of the
usual fiendish tortures upon their prisoners.

Je leur remonstrois que nous n’usions point de ces cruautez,
wrote Champlain in the account of his Journeys (Voyages), et
que nous les faisions mourir tout d’un coup, et que s’ils
vouloyent que je luy donnasse un coup d’arquebuse, j’en serois
content. Ils dirent que non, et qu’il ne sentiroit point de
mal. Je m’en allay d’avec eux comme fasché de voir tant de
cruautez qu’ils exercoient sur ce corps. Comme ils virent que
je n’en estois contant, ils m’appelerent et me dirent que je
luy donnasse un coup d’arquebuse: ce que je fis, sans qu’il en
vist rien; et luy fis passer tous les tourmens qu’il devoit
souffrir, d’un coup, plustost que de la voir tyranniser.
(Voyages, Oeuvres de Champlain, III, pp. 197-8. Quebec, 1870.)

(I objected that we did not practice these cruelties, and that we
killed our enemies with one blow; that I would be content if they
would let me shoot him with my arquebuse. They said no; that he
felt no pain. I turned away from them as though angered at such
cruelty as they were inflicting upon the wretch. Seeing that I
was vexed, they called me back and said I could shoot him with my
arquebuse, which I did, without his knowing anything, thus ending
the agony which he was suffering at one shot, rather than to see
him further tormented.)

In all the history of this man we find him the same—brave, simple,
humane, unselfish; the embodiment of patriotism and piety—an
example of the finest manly qualities.

It was, therefore, fitting that in perpetual memory of Samuel
Champlain there should be erected at the scene of the combat that
signalized the discovery of this lake—that same Crown Point that
a century and a quarter later was one of the first places to fall
before the arms of American colonials in the War of Independence—a
lighthouse, whose beams shining through the darkness of the night,
even as the compassion of the good Champlain lightened the path
of Stygian horrors to the poor suffering savage whose miseries he
ended, may warn and guide the mariners on those dangerous waters,
through dark and stormy nights, to the safe haven where they would
be.

And it is, therefore, a worthy object that brings this Embassy of
the French Nation from over seas to install at that lighthouse a
bronze bas-relief of France, wrought by the hands of one of the
greatest of living sculptors—that Rodin, whose name is as well
known in America as in his native country; a token which will
remain there as an abiding symbol of the intimate part and mighty
influence which the French people have had in the history and
development of America.

How many illustrious French names are written in the history
of this continent, from the earliest days of struggle with the
miseries of rigorous climate and savage aborigines, down to the
cession by Napoleon of the vast territory of Louisiana! What a roll
of noble names of men who sacrificed all that makes life pleasant,
in the pursuit of ideals in which no thought of self entered, save
the hope and vision of that day when they should be greeted with
the words:

Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for
you from the foundation of the world.

The names of Cartier, Le Jeune, Brébeuf, Lalemant, La Salle,
Joliet, Frontenac, Hennepin, Marquette, Champlain, and many others
rise before us. But among them all, none is more worthy to be
remembered than that of Samuel de Champlain. When, in 1640, Père Le
Jeune visited a place in the country of the Hurons where Champlain
had stopped longest in a journey he had made there twenty-two years
before, he recorded that,