TL was educating me on the Tontine in it being a matter of a group of people all placing money into one account, whereby it would then be held until the last one survived. Of course such things would be outlawed as someone might decide to help others to the other side, leaving the mass of cash and coin as their own inheritance.
What is interesting in this is the history of the Tontine in the namesake being a rather glorious Italian military man who actually was a part of opening up America for the French in discovery with Robert Cavelier La Salle in the Mississippi, as La Salle's lieutenant.
Henri de Tonty was the protege of Prince de Conti, a group of investors for La Salles opening up of the west with the help of Abbe' Renaudot.
Officer Tonty was interesting in having had his hand blown off by a grenade in the Scicilian Wars, was the son of Governour Tonty of Gaeta, who arrived in France as a financier after political upheaval in Naples, and in France created the form of life insurance known as the Tontine.
Henri de Tonty was a most capable man and exactly the man La Salle and America required. La Salle on this two boat voyage of discovery in the Mississippi required such a man, and wrote this praise of him.
"His honorable character and his amiable disposition were well known to you; but perhaps you would not have thought him capable of doing things for which a strong constitution, an acquaintance with the country, and the use of both hands seemed absolutely necessary. Nevertheless, his energy and address make him equal to anything; and now, at a season when everybody is in fear of the ice, he is setting out to begin a new fort, two hundred leagues from this place, and to which I have taken the liberty to give the name of Fort Conti. It is situated near that great cataract, more than a hundred and twenty toises in height, by which the lakes of higher elevation precipitate themselves into Lake Frontenac [Ontario]. From there one goes by water, five hundred leagues, to the place where Fort Dauphin is to be begun; from which it only remains to descend the great river of the Bay of St. Esprit, to reach the Gulf of Mexico."
Francis Parkman. La Salle and the Discovery of the Great West / France and England in North America (Kindle Locations 1736-1743).
It is of note this Italian Frenchman, signed his name in the French Tonty and not the Italian Tonti. He was a perfect second in command for his missing hand had been replaced by an iron hand literally, covered with a glove, and with this iron fist he administered order to unruly Indians in breaking heads and knocking out teeth. After which the Indians deemed Tonty to be big medicine in the mystery of his powerful hand.
Into this company would be a friar of some note named Father Hennepin, whose name would like many French clergy give name to parts of America. The friar would be forever enshrined in Minnesota in the area of that great river the Mississippi.
He was a most interesting equal to Tonty in saving souls, but somehow always finding a way of doing it on battlefields in Holland or on voyages of discovery as his joyful lust for adventure was what drove his saving of souls.
This Catholic friar was also the boldest of liars if not one of the bravest of explorers.
The amazing group of the French La Salle entrepreneur, Hennepin the frair liar and Tonty the Italian thumper were the leadership over a motley crew all filled with intrigue by the Jesuits looking to sabotage the voyage of the discovery of the Mississippi.
What an interesting world it was in the primal discovery of the American frontier.
agtG
