n was not productive of
good. There was so little cordiality and so much contention between the
parties, that Montmorenci threw up his viceroyalty in disgust, that is
to say, he sold out to the Duke de Ventadour. Ventadour was in a world
of difficulties. France was then half Protestant and half Catholic.
Ventadour's chief object in purchasing Canada was to diffuse the
Catholic Religion throughout the new world. With much energy of
character, he was singularly pious. He attended mass regularly at an
early hour every morning. His bedroom was religiously fitted up; the
symbol of redemption hung constantly over the head of his bed. He was
no bigot. He was thoroughly in earnest. He was only not wise. The man
who had caused Champlain so much annoyance was himself a Huguenot, and
not that only,--to the Duke's mortification, he had taken to Canada
chiefly Protestants, and had even caused the Roman Catholic emigrants
to attend Protestant worship on shipboard. Two thirds of the crews of
his ships were Protestants. They sang psalms on the St. Lawrence. The
new viceroy was much annoyed on ascertaining that De Caen had permitted
such a state of things. The exercise of the Protestant religion, he had
given orders, should be barely tolerated, and he had been disobeyed.
Champlain did not trouble himself about religious squabbles. He made
himself difficulties with the Indians, leaving religious dissensions to
be made by his would be superior. Amid all these difficulties the fur
trade languished, and the celebrated Cardinal Richelieu, who knew the
advantages to be derived from Ventadour's pious missionary effort,
revoked the privileges of De Caen's new company, and established a
newer company called the Hundred Associates. The associates were not
only to colonize, but they were amply to supply necessaries to the
colonists. They were to send out a large number of clergymen. Those
clergymen were to create churches and erect parsonages. They were to be
supported by the Associates for fifteen years. They were to have
glebes, or reserved lands, assigned to them for their sufficient
support. At a blow the wily cardinal had extinguished psalm singing on
the St. Lawrence for at least a century. In 1627 the Hundred Associates
were formed. But plans cannot be always carried into effect as soon as
determined upon. War was proclaimed by England against France in the
following year, 1628. The weakest and the meanest of English kings had
caused the Pur