Armand Louis De Delondarce De La Hontan, baron de la Hontan et Herleche, a French traveller, born near Mont de Marsan, Gascony, about 1667, died in Hanover in 1715. His travels, which were widely read in French and translated into English and other languages, make him play an important part in Canadian affairs, but he evidently came out merely as a private soldier. The voluminous Canadian documents are utterly silent as to him and his services. He came over in 1683 in one of the three companies of marines sent to enable Gov. de la Barre to invade the Iroquois cantons. He was in that governor's fruitless expedition, and in Denonville's against the Senecas. In 1688 he was sent to Michilimackinac and Sault Ste. Marie with a detachment, and pretended to have discovered and explored Long river, a branch of the Mississippi, which he peopled with fictitious tribes, misleading geographers for many years. He soon after descended to Quebec, and in November, 1690, sailed for France. He was sent back to Canada in 1691, and while he was returning to France soon after with despatches from Frontenac, the vessel put in to Placentia, Newfoundland, and La Hontan rendered signal service in defending it against the English. He was accordingly made king's lieutenant in Newfoundland and Acadia, with a company of 100 men.

On arriving there in 1693 he got into difficulties with Gov. de Brouillon, and made his escape to Portugal. He then visited Spain, Denmark, and England. After vainly soliciting redress and advancement from the French court, he published his Nou-veaux voyages de M. le baron de Lahontan dans l'Amerique Septentrionale (2 vols. 12mo, the Hague, 1703; the second volume relating chiefly to the Indians). A third volume, Dialogue de M. le baron de Lahontan et d'un sauvage dans l'Amerique, avec les voyages du meme en Portugal, appeared at Amsterdam in 1704. The dialogue is fictitious and merely a vehicle for anti-Christian ideas. The voyages are dedicated to the king of Denmark, and are said to have been rewritten by Gueudeville. La Hontan also wrote Reponse a la lettre d'un parti-culier opposee au manifeste de S. M. le roide la Grande Bretagne contre la Suede, published by Leibnitz after the baron's death. Truth and fiction are so blended in his work that it has long ceased to be of any authority.