his company, moved as it seems with ambition, because they would have
all the glory of the discovery of those parts themselves, stole privily
away the next night from us, and, without taking their leaves, departed
home for Brittany.' The story, it must be remembered, comes from the
pen of either Roberval or one of his associates.

The subsequent history of Roberval's colony, as far as it is known, can
be briefly told. His ships reached the site of Charlesbourg Royal late
in July 1542. He landed stores and munitions and erected houses,
apparently on a scale of some magnitude, with towers and fortifications
and with great kitchens, halls, and living rooms. Two ships were sent
home in the autumn with news of the expedition, their leader being
especially charged to find out whether the rock crystals carried back
by Cartier had turned out to be diamonds. All the other colonists
remained and spent the winter in this place. In spite of their long
preparation and of their commodious buildings, they seem to have
endured sufferings as great as, or even greater than, those of
Cartier's men at Stadacona seven years before. Supplies of food ran
short, and even in the autumn before the stern winter had begun it was
necessary to put the whole company on carefully measured rations.
Disease broke out among the French, as it had broken out under Cartier,
and about fifty of their number perished before the coming of the
spring. Their lot was rendered more dreadful still by quarrelling and
crime. Roberval could keep his colonists in subjection only by the use
of irons and by the application of the lash. The gibbet, reared beside
the fort, claimed its toll of their number.

The winter of their misery drew slowly to its close. The ice of the
river began to break in April. On June 5, 1543, their leader, Roberval,
embarked on an expedition to explore the Saguenay, 'leaving thirty
persons behind in the fort, with orders that if Roberval had not
returned by the first of July, they were to depart for France.' Whither
he went and what he found we do not know. We read that on June 14.
certain of his company came back with messages to the fort: that five
days later still others came back with instructions that the company at
the fort were to delay their departure for France until July 19. And
here the narrative of the colony breaks off.

Of Roberval's subsequent fate we can learn hardly anything. There is
some evidence to show that Cartier was d