Nicholas Chassin sent the following letter to Father Bobé, a missionary living in France, on July 1, 1722. Father Bobé did not receive this letter until December, 1722.

"I shall tell you, Sir (Father Bobé), that it is very difficult for an officer to go from the Illinois to get a wife in France because of the great expense that it is necessary to incur not only to go down from the Illinois to the sea and to cross over to France but also for the time that he must spend at New Orleans, in France and elsewhere while waiting for means of transportation to return from France to New Orleans and from New Orleans to go back up to the Illinois, without counting several other good reasons and after considering them all carefully all of us young men here have decided not to go to France to get wives but to do without them until it pleases the Company (Company of the Indies) to furnish us the means of doing otherwise."

© Illinois State Museum 31-Dec-96