edit the assumption that these two
venturesome traders ascended the Fox and Wisconsin rivers, and even
reached the Mississippi, twelve years before Jolliet and Marquette.

With the peace that followed the destruction of the Mohawk villages by
Tracy and Courcelles, and the influx of a considerable population into
Canada, the conditions became more favourable for exploration and the
fur trade. The tame and steady life of the farm had little charm for
many restless spirits, {171} who had fought for France in the Carignan
Regiment. Not a few of them followed the roving Canadian youth into
the forest, where they had learned to love the free life of the
Indians. The priest, the _gentilhomme_, and the _coureur de bois_,
each in his way, became explorers of the western wilderness.

From the moment the French landed on the shores of Canada, they seemed
to enter into the spirit of forest life. Men of noble birth and
courtly associations adapted themselves immediately to the customs of
the Indians, and found that charm in the forest and river which seemed
wanting in the tamer life of the towns and settlements. The English
colonisers of New England were never able to win the affections of the
Indian tribes, and adapt themselves so readily to the habits of forest
life as the French Canadian adventurer.

A very remarkable instance of the infatuation which led away so many
young men into the forest, is to be found in the life of Baron de
Saint-Castin, a native of the romantic Bernese country, who came to
Canada with the Carignan Regiment during 1665, and established himself
for a time on the Richelieu. But he soon became tired of his inactive
life, and leaving his Canadian home, settled on a peninsula of
Penobscot Bay (then Pentagoet), which still bears his name. Here he
fraternised with the Abenaquis, and led the life of a forest chief,
whose name was long the terror of the New England settlers. He married
the daughter of Madocawando, the implacable enemy of the English, and
so influential did he become that, at his summons, all the tribes on
{172} the frontier between Acadia and New England would proceed on the
warpath. He amassed a fortune of three hundred thousand crowns in
"good dry gold," but we are told he only used the greater part of it to
buy presents for his Indian followers, who paid him back in beaver
skins. His life at Pentagoet, for years, was very active and
adventurous, as the annals of New England show.