This text was obtained via automated optical character recognition.
It has not been edited and may therefore contain several errors.

---

6
The Louisiana Historical Quarterly
the right to challenge any witness for cause and this necessitated his presence when the oath was administered to them. The record shows he exercised the privilege as to several of the witnesses.
The historians of Louisiana have noticed this incident in Bienville?s early career in Louisiana, but have not given the Investigation the importance it deserves, for it was not only the first judicial investigation in Louisiana, but the only one up to that time that involved the place and perhaps the life of the accused. The King conferred full power on D?Artaguette, not only to investigate the charges but to arrest Bienville and send him as a prisoner to France. It was therefore a great event in the young Colony, and though now almost forgotten, the record of the trial is worthy of preservation here, to show how such things were conducted in the first years of French rule in Louisiana.
The Documents printed herewith do not cover the long series of complaints against Bienville that harassed his early career in Louisiana, culminating in this trial, but the papers now printed are in every respect complete and apparently cover all that was said and done at that particular time. There are no indications in the recent Indices of the French Archives, that any papers exist showing subsequent reports by D?Artaguette. In the Report made by him and here reproduced, he does not specifically acquit Bienville, possibly because that was not within his power, and for many years thereafter the unsettled issue remained before the Council of State in Paris to vex the home government and to annoy Bienville. In 1710 Cadillac was appointed Governor of Louisiana to fill the* vacancy created by the death of De Muys, but he did not assume the office until the transfer to Crozat in 1712. In this last year, Duclos was appointed Commissaire Or-donnateur to replace D?Artaguette who had returned to France in 1710. The royal instructions issued to Cadillac in 1710, and to him and to Duclos in 1712, authorized them to reopen the charges against Bienville, but nothing was done by these officers and the matter was allowed to be forgotten.
The documents printed herewith are translated from copies of the originals in the French archives. These copies were made years ago under the supervision of Dr. Dunbar Rowland for the State of Mississippi and they are now in the Department of Archives and History of that State. Dr. Rowland is Director of the Department and also State Historian of Mississippi. He