served as a clerk in Laclède's journey up the Mississippi River to establish another fur-trading post. Though highly influenced by Laclède, many historians have also commented on his mother's character and intelligence that proved to be exceptionally important throughout his entire life. With a strong business sense and acumen, she would have helped developed his senses that later proved to be very effective and helpful in later years. Settlement of St. Louis Maxent and Laclède formed a partnership in the early 1760s to build a French trading post on the west bank of the Mississippi River north of the village of Ste. Genevieve, Missouri. They began buying supplies in early 1763, and on July 6, 1763, they obtained the necessary license from the French territorial government to trade with the Native Americans (primarily those living near the Missouri River). Starting in August 1763, Chouteau, Laclède and some 30 other men traveled upriver from New Orleans to Sainte Geneviève with trade goods. By November, the group arrived at Sainte Geneviève, but Laclède found that the village did not have adequate storage for his goods. As it had been settled near the riverbank on bottomland, Laclède "deemed the location insalubrious" for his business. (After repeated flooding, in the 1780s the residents relocated Sainte Geneviève upriver and inland to higher ground.) The French garrison just across the river at Fort de Chartres agreed to store the goods until the British arrived. (Following the Seven Years' War, the French conceded their territory and installations to the victorious British. The fort was to be turned over to the British according to the Treaty of Paris (1763). The commandant of Illinois, Pierre-Joseph Neyon de Villiers, suggested French settlers should relocate from the Illinois Country to New Orleans. (He thought it would be under French control, as he did not know of the Treaty of Fontainebleau (1762) to give control of the area west of the Mississippi to the Spanish). Because of the postwar upheaval, "instead of just establishing a trading post at the mouth of the Missouri, [Laclède] would create an entire community." Laclède believed he could convince many French to move to the west bank of the Mississippi at his new settlement. He planned to store the goods until spring, and then have Chouteau and his team build the trading post at the site they selected in December 1763. As Chouteau wrote, Laclède said, "You