e. His fiscal regime, particularly
after France engaged in her duel with the House of Hapsburg, was
disorganized and intolerable. Nor did he recognize that, for the French,
the desire to emigrate required even greater encouragement than the
commercial instinct. He compelled his company to transport settlers, but
the number was not large, and he kindled no popular enthusiasm for the
cause of colonization. France had once led the crusade eastward. Under
proper guidance she might easily have contributed more than she did to
the exodus westward.

At any rate Richelieu, 'a man in the grand style, if ever man was,' had
decided that New France should no longer languish, and the Company of
One Hundred Associates was the result. In 1627 he abolished the office
of viceroy, deprived the De Caens of their charter, and prepared to make
Canada a real colony. The basis of the plan was an association of one
hundred members, each subscribing three thousand livres. Richelieu's
own name heads the list of members, followed by those of the minister
of finance and the minister of marine. Most of the members resided
in Paris, though the seaboard and the eastern provinces were also
represented. Nobles, wealthy merchants, small traders, all figure in
the list, and twelve titles of nobility were distributed among the
shareholders to help in the enlistment of capital. The company received
a monopoly of trade for fifteen years, and promised to take out three
hundred colonists annually during the whole period covered by the grant.
It also received the St Lawrence valley in full ownership. One notable
provision of the charter was that only Roman Catholics should be sent
to New France, and the company was placed under special obligation to
maintain three priests in each settlement until the colony could support
its own clergy.

Champlain was now sixty years of age, and he had suffered much.
Suddenly there burst forth this spontaneous enthusiasm of Richelieu the
all-powerful. Was Champlain's dream of the great city of Ludovica to
come true after all?

Alas, like previous visions, it faded before the glare of harsh,
uncompromising facts. The year in which Richelieu founded his Company
of New France was also the year of a fierce Huguenot revolt. Calling on
England for aid, La Rochelle defied Paris, the king, and the cardinal.
Richelieu laid siege to the place. Guiton, the mayor, sat at his
council-board with a bare dagger before him to warn the faint