conceived and failed to execute was carried to success ten years after his death by Iberville. He discovered the river from the Gulf, and, entering it, explored its course until he identified it as the river discovered from the Lakes by La Salle. And he it was who selected the site for the future city upon the Mississippi, the possession of which meant, to any power that held it, domination of the Gulf of Mexico and of the great waterway, the life artery of the American continent. When Iberville selected that site upon the narrow neck of land lying between the river and an equally navigable chain of lakes, he wrote the history of his city in advance.
The first year of the eighteenth century saw France indeed mistress of the Mississippi and of the Gulf of Mexico, but Iberville, like De Soto and La Salle, was cut off in the prime of life and activity, and his work was left to another for accomplishment—to Bienville, his young brother.
One cannot think of New Orleans without Bienville, nor of Bienville without New Orleans. From the time he came into the country, a mere stripling, midshipman to Iberville, until he left it, a middle-aged man, the city
