WANTON] INDIAN TRIBES OF TH1E LOWER IISSISSIPPI VALLEY 229

dresses, etc. The others were employed in cutting and carrying wood
for cooking, and in pounding corn, of which they make their hom-
iny." They were given to understand that the same fate had befallen
all the other French posts in Louisiana, and that the English would
soon come to take the places of the French.
 As soon as they were assured that not another Frenchman re-
mained at the post they applied themselves to plunder the houses,
the magazine of the Company of the Indies, and all the boats which
were still loaded by the bank of the river. They employed the negroes
to transport the merchandise, which they divided among themselves,
with the exception of the munitions of war, which they placed for
security in a separate cabin. While the brandy lasted, of which they
found a good supply, they passed their days and nights in drinking,
singing, dancing, and insulting in the most barbarous manner the
dead bodies and the memory of the French. The Choctaws and other
savages being engaged in thle same plot they had no fear of reprisals.
One night when they were plunged in drunkenness and asleep,
".adame des Noyers wished to make use of the negroes to revenge
the death of her husband and the French, but she was betrayed by
the person to whom she confided her design, and came very near being
burned alive.a
 Only two men were spared, one a carter named Mayeux, who was
employed to superintend the transportation of the French effects to
the Natchez villages, and the other a tailor, Le Beau, to whom was
assigned the duty of making over articles of clothing for their Indian
wearers. He was also used as a decoy to entice several Frenchmen to
their death. This was done to a Yazoo storekeeper named Le Hou,
who had found temporary refuge in the woods, and to a pirogue
containing five persons, three of whom were shot and a fourth cap-
tured and burned in the frame (cadwre), while the fifth effected his
escape to the Tunica.b
 As stated above,/ there was a party of Yazoo Indians near Natchez
at this time who had descended with M. Codere, the connmandant of
the Yazoo post. According to Le Petit they were going to the
Houmas d to dance the calumet, but Dumont and I)u Pratz state that
they had intended to perform the same function with the Natchez,
but were put off by the great chief until after the massacre, when he
hoped to gain them to his interest." The latter is probably the true
account, and, at any rate, in spite of their recent protestations of
friendship through the storekeeper Ricard, they were unable to with-
stand the presents lavished upon them, and returned to their people
prepared to follow the example that had been set. This they soon did.
 On the 11th of December Father Souel, missionary to these people,
was returning in the evening from visiting the chief of the Yazoos,
 SShea's Charlevoix, Hlst. Louisiana, vi, 83--84; Le Petit in Jes. Rel., LXVIII, 168-171.
As usual, the accounts of Le Petit and 'lharlrviox run almost parallel.
 b Dumont, M6m. Hist. sur La Louisiane. 11, 155 151).
 O P. 227.
 d Jes. Rel., LXVIII, 173.
 e Dumont, M6m. Hist. sur La Louisiano, 1, 160-162; Du Pratz, list. de La Louisiane,
III, 262-263.