Constant le Marchand de Lignery Constant le Marchand de Lignery , generally known as " Lignery " ( baptized March 27 , 1662 , Charentilly , near Tours , France — February 19 , 1732 , Trois - Rivières , New France ) was a French military officer in New France ( Canada ) . He was twice commandant at Michilimackinac . Background . Lignery was the son of Joseph le Marchand de Lignery and Marguerite Du Sillar . He began his military career in 1675 as a lieutenant in the Régiment d ’ Auvergne . In 1683 he transferred to the navy , serving as a midshipman at Rochefort . In 1687 he went to Canada as a lieutenant on half - pay . He was made a knight of the Order of Saint Louis in 1728 . He married Anne Robutel de La Noue , daughter of the seigneur de Île Saint - Paul , on November 10 , 1691 in Montreal . They had seven sons and two daughters . The best known of these was François - Marie Le Marchand de Lignery , a captain in the colonial regular troops and knight of the Order of Saint - Louis . In the summer of 1759 this son was fatally wounded by the English in fighting near Fort Niagara . At Michilimackinac . He fought in the Iroquois War , where his service was recognized by his superiors . In 1688 he was promoted to lieutenant , and in 1705 to captain . In 1712 , at the beginning of a 25 - year war between the French and the Foxes , Canadian Governor Philippe de Rigaud de Vaudreuil sent him to reoccupy the former post of Michilimackinac , which had been abandoned by royal orders in 1696 . War against the Foxes . A few years later , in 1715 , acting Governor Claude de Ramezay placed him in command of a major expedition against the Foxes . He was ordered to assemble a force of " coureurs de bois " and northern Indians and lead them to the Chicago portage . This force would join a second force , recruited among the Indians of the southern Great Lakes , and move together against the Foxes . However , due to a series of mishaps — the supply convoy from Montreal did not arrive on time and the French volunteers were unruly and hard to discipline — the southern contingent never assembled ; neither did Lignery and his army reach the assembly point . On December 1 , 1715 a Fox war party led by Pemoussa ( He Who Walks ) attacked the French expedition along the Chicago lakefront , driving the French and their Indian allies back toward Michigan . Lignery returned to the command of Michilimackinac in 1722 after an absence of about three years . The Foxes were again at war with the French , attacking whites and natives in the Illinois country , a part of Louisiana . Louisiana , however , was a different colony from Canada , and Lignery and Vaudreuil adopted a policy of conciliation to preserve the peace in the west . In 1724 Lignery negotiated a treaty with the Foxes that ended their war on the Chippewas but allowed the war on the Illinois Indians to continue . Although Lignery denied it , officials in Louisiana and France felt that Vaudreuil and Lignery had sacrificed the southern colony to keep it from sharing in the western fur trade . Two years later , acting Governor Charles Le Moyne de Longueuil sent Lignery back to Baie des Puants ( Green Bay ) to renegotiate the treaty . At a council on June 7 , 1726 he was able to obtain a promise from the Foxes not to make war on any of the French allies . 1728 expedition against the Foxes . A new governor , Charles de la Boische , Marquis de Beauharnois , arrived in New France in 1726 . In August 1728 he sent Lignery , recently promoted to major , in command of an army of 450 Frenchmen and 1 , 000 Indians against the Foxes . This was the largest force ever to advance so far into the interior , but it failed to secure a decisive engagement with the enemy . Lignery arrived at the fortified Fox village at the mouth of the Fox River on August 17 . Here and elsewhere during the campaign , the Foxes fled to the west ; the French could do no more than burn their villages and their crops . The expedition continued up the Fox River as far as the Wisconsin River portage before retracing their steps . Governor Beauharnois blamed Lignery for the failure to defeat the Foxes . He made serious accusations against him in his report to the ministry , and Jean - Frédéric Phélypeaux , comte de Maurepas ordered him tried by a council of war . Lignery was accused of mismanaging supplies , of having been so slow in pursuit that the Foxes were able to make good their escape , of refusing to turn over command to his lieutenant in spite of having a debilitating illness , and of having abandoned large quantities of supplies at Michilimackinac on the return trip to Canada . After hearing witnesses and reviewing other evidence , the council of war unanimously dismissed the charges . Lignery died a short time later , in 1731 or 1732 ( sources differ ) in Trois - Rivières , where he had been named town major in 1728 .