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Needless to say the gulf coast where they landed and the river lands which they followed proved a great disappointment to them in that respect. Iberville and his brother Bienville realized that this was a fertile land suited to planting and not mining; but Ibei'ville died early and Bienville was just a boy of twenty-two, when he assumed the governorship upon Sauvole’s death and had no influence in France. Hence France continued to ship to our shores, usually against their will, convicts and adventurers of both sexes instead of sending the kind of people needed to build up a substantial community.
At last, however, she realized her mistake and authorized a bishop to select the right sort of girls to send to Louisiana to become wives and establish homes. The bishop selected eighty girls who, though poor, were well raised and well educated. (1) Each girl was provided with a marriage outfit.
They were put in charge of sisters Gertrude, Louise, and Bergere on board the ship La Baline and landed at Ship Island January 5, 1721. They were brought to Biloxi and soon were all married to eligible men. Sister Gertrude was so pleased with the success of their venture that she promised to return again soon with more girls.
This was the first shipment of Cassette Girls to the province. The next ones to come arrived at New Orleans in February, 1728.
(1)	Hist. Colections La. and Fla. (Penicaut) French, p. 157.
We can safely assume that many, if not all, of the eighty young ladies who came to Biloxi in 1721, in the care of Sister Gertrude, were married before her eyes in the little church. In this connection we may note that the curate’s house stood immediately east of the church, facing the square and the water beyond, (1> but there was no resident priest. In 1721 there were but two priests in the province; (2) one at Yazoo and one at New Orleans. There was always a chaplain at New Orleans, throughout the French regime, and the indefatigable traveler Father Charlevoix was there between 1720 and 1722. Surely, while the prospective grooms were gathering for the eighty marriages to be, we can count upon Father Charlevoix to be on hand to perform the ceremonies if he was within reach at the time, which it appears he was. (3)
THE IBERVILLE CANNON
Four old cannons are to be seen in Central Beach Park, the Community House grounds. They are old French iron cannons of the bell-muzzle type, two of them four feet long and two about six feet long. They were removed from the deck of a vessel of Iberville’s fleet by Mr. Eugene Tiblier, Sr., of Biloxi, and his father, in 1893. The vessel was one of those reported as “Utterly lost” (4) in the “Terrible equinoctial storm” of 1723.
(1)	See plate, p. 18.
(2)	Jesuit Relations, p. XLVII.
(3)	Fortier, Hist, of La., p. 81.
(4)	Mississippi, the Heart of the South, 1-p. 224.