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In the late winter of 1778, two years into the American Revolution, Lieutenant Colonel George Rogers Clark began planning an attack on a British post in the far western Illinois Country. Clark and his men descended the Ohio River from Fort Pitt until they reached the Illinois shore at the site of an abandoned French fort known as Fort Massac. Here, they climbed the bluffs into the forests of southern Illinois and began a 120-mile overland march to Kaskaskia, which was situated in the Mississippi valley. They crossed the Kaskaskia River in the darkness, surrounded the small village, and captured the British post without firing a shot. Clark surprised the alarmed villagers with a simple offer: in exchange for an oath of fidelity, the French residents of Illinois would receive the same freedoms and privileges enjoyed by the Americans who now occupied their village. Their land and personal property would remain theirs, and most importantly, the activities of the Catholic churches in the colony would not be disturbed. Gradually, the old village began to be populated with American families—primarily Virginians of Scotch–Irish or English descent. Kaskaskia would serve as the seat of government as Illinois became an American county, and then an American territory.

In the late 1930s and early 1940s, Roger Martin du Gard was one of the most famous writers in the Western world. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1937, and his works, especially Les Thibault, a multivolume novel, were translated into English and read widely. Today, this close friend of André Gide, Albert Camus, and André Malraux is almost unknown, largely because he left unfinished the long project he began in the 1940s, Lieutenant-Colonel de Maumort. With the expert narration that distinguishes all of his books, Martin creates a blend of intellectual history, family drama, and biography.

“De male mort dieu me garde!” (May God save me from a bad death!) is the motto Roger gave the fictional Maumort family. But for André Daspre, his Maumort might well have had such a “bad death.” The two literary figures who were supposed to take the lead in publishing the fragments Roger left behind were never able to play their role. Albert Camus was killed in an automobile accident on January 4, 1960. André Malraux was always preoccupied by his responsibilities as minister of culture under Charles de Gaulle. The other five were old and either busy or ill-prepared.

Meanwhile, stocks closed mixed yesterday led by gains in tech and industrial companies. The Dow did decline twenty-six points. The NASDAQ closed up eighteen, hitting a new record. The S&P 500 gained three points.