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Documents Covering Impeachment of Bierwille	7
has kindly permitted the Quarterly to make use of these documents and they have been translated for us by Albert Godfrey Sanders, Professor of Romance Languages, Millsaps College, Mississippi. Every line of this translation is dignified by ability not only to understand the French text, but to transmute it into limpid English that preserves the soul of the original. Mr. Sanders has also enriched the document with helpful explanatory notes and comments.
The Quarterly prints the translation without change, except that we have divided the documents into paragraphs with headings, indicative of their contents. The figures, (ex greg p. 2) scattered through the text are the pages of the French originals. Briefly stated the documents are:
1.	Instructions of Pontchartrain, Minister of Louis XIV, to D?Artaguette inclosing the charges against Bienville and directing him to investigate and if necessary to arrest the accused and send him prisoner to France.
2.	D?Artaguette?s brief report of his conclusions after hearing the evidence.
3.	Abstract of the testimony taken by him and transmitted with his report, or made in France for use there.
4.	The testimony in full of the several witnesses examined by D?Artaguette at Fort Louis (Mobile) on February 24-27, 1708.
D?Artaguette?s Report refers to the Charges but does not incorporate them and this makes his Report somewhat obscure, but enough is found in it to show the general character of the accusations preferred by La Salle. D?Artaguette?s comment on these items is clear and convincing. Another thing standing out in the evidence is that Bienville did not lack friends in the Colony and their testimony was evidently credited by the Judge. Of these witnesses, Joseph and Jacques Chauvin were members of a family destined to high and honorable place in the later history of the Colony. There were four brothers with the family name Chauvin, ?who followed Bienville to Louisiana. Like the Le-moynes they affixed to their family names, titular designations, De Lery, Beaulieu, de LaFreniere, Boisclair and the like.?1 Two of these men were among the first settlers at Fort Louis (old Mobile) and when the seat of the Colony was transferred to New
Kxrace King, Old Families of New Orleans, 169.
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