Since his arrival the post had experienced many vicissitudes, and at the time in which our story opens the British government claimed right of dominion over the great territory drained by the Wabash, and, indeed, over a large, indefinitely outlined part of the North American continent lying above Mexico; a claim just then being vigorously questioned, flintlock in hand, by the Anglo-American colonies.
Of course the handful of French people at Vincennes, so far away from every center of information, and wholly occupied with their trading, trapping and missionary work, were late finding out that war existed between England and her colonies.

Nor did it really matter much with them, one way or another.

They felt secure in their lonely situation, and so went on selling their trinkets, weapons, domestic implements, blankets and intoxicating liquors to the Indians, whom they held bound to them with a power never possessed by any other white dwellers in the wilderness.

Father Beret was probably subordinate to Father Gibault.

At all events the latter appears to have had nominal charge of Vincennes, and it can scarcely be doubted that he left Father Beret on the Wabash, while he went to live and labor for a time at Kaskaskia beyond the plains of Illinois.
It is a curious fact that religion and the power of rum and brandy worked together successfully for a long time in giving the French posts almost absolute influence over the wild and savage men by whom they were always surrounded.