Jean Baptiste Rene Robinet' followed out much the same line of thought as De Maillet, but less soberly; and Bonnet's speculations in the Palingenesie, which appeared in 1769, have already been mentioned.
Admiral de Coligny made several unsuccessful endeavours to form a colony in Florida under Jean Ribault of Dieppe, Rene de Laudonniere and others, but the settlers were furiously assailed by the Spaniards and the attempt was abandoned.
Like Rene Descartes, he was present at the siege of La Rochelle in 1627.
In 1673 a French expedition organized in Canada under Jacques Marquette and Louis Joliet sailed down the Mississippi to the mouth of the Arkansas, and nine years later (1682) Rene Robert Cavelier, sieur de la Salle, reached the mouth of the river, took formal possession of the country which it drains, and named it Louisiana in honour of Louis XIV.
See Vie de Pasteur, by Rene Vallerey-Radot (Paris, 1900).
