IN SEARCH OF
MADEMOISELLE
| HENRY T COATES & CO. | PHILADELPHIA 1901 |
Copyright, 1901, by
HENRY T. COATES AND COMPANY.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
TO THE MEMORY
OF
THE LATE MEDICAL INSPECTOR
Benjamin Franklin Gibbs,
UNITED STATES NAVY.
NOTE.
There were no more vivid episodes in the colonizationof the New World than those resulting fromthe attempts of the French people to gain a permanentfoothold on our shores. This fact has longbeen recognized by sober historians as well asby the writers of fiction, for all the fascination ofromance holds over the whole field of inquiry.
The most thrilling chapter in all this history,strangely neglected or overlooked by the romanticwriters, is that of the struggle between the Spanishand French colonists for dominion over our ownland of Florida. To me, whose profession it is tosee pictures in the words of other men and to producethem, this historic page has appealed verystrongly as the proper setting for a human drama—aninviting canvas upon which the imaginationmay paint a moving picture of the emotions, desiresand passions—the loves and hates—of men andwomen like ourselves—against the somber and sometimeslurid background of historic fact.
I have tried, so far as I have used history, tobe scrupulously exact. I have carefully read theoriginal or authorized editions of the writings of[iv]Hakluyt, Réné de Laudonnière, and a number ofothers; but there is little to be found in themwhich will not also be found much more vividlydepicted in the writings of Mr. Francis Parkman.Some of the names will be recognized. Jean Ribault,Laudonnière, Menendez, the Indians Satouriona,Olotoraca and Emola, and others, were all real men.As for those others who are of the imagination—asfor Mademoiselle and those who searched for her, itis to be hoped that they will not be found at oddswith the events and scenes in which they are placed.These things, or others like them, must have been,for the writer of historic fiction may rely on the factthat human nature remains much the same, no matterhow great the lapse of years.
G. G.
Bryn Mawr, March, 1901.
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