racy and sedition, were fast stirring into life. Hopes
had been dashed; wild expectations had come to nought. The adventurers
had found, not conquest and gold, but a dull exile in a petty fort by a
hot and sickly river, with hard labor, ill fare, prospective famine, and
nothing to break the weary sameness but some passing canoe or floating
alligator. Gathered in knots, they nursed each other's wrath, and
inveighed against the commandant.

Why are we put on half-rations, when he told us that provision should be
made for a full year? Where are the reinforcements and supplies that he
said should follow us from France? Why is he always closeted with
Ottigny, Arlac, and this and that favorite, when we, men of blood as
good as theirs, cannot gain his ear for a moment? And why has he sent La
Roche Ferriere to make his fortune among the Indians, while we are kept
here, digging at the works?

Of La Roche Ferriere and his adventures, more hereafter. The young
nobles, of whom there were many, were volunteers, who had paid their own
expenses, in expectation of a golden harvest, and they chafed in
impatience and disgust. The religious element in the colony--unlike the
former Huguenot emigration to Brazil--was evidently subordinate. The
adventurers thought more of their fortunes than of their faith; yet
there were not a few earnest enough in the doctrine of Geneva to
complain loudly and bitterly that no ministers had been sent with them.
The burden of all grievances was thrown upon Laudonniere, whose greatest
errors seem to have arisen from weakness and a lack of judgment,--fatal
defects in his position.

The growing discontent was brought to a partial head by one Roquette,
who gave out that by magic he had discovered a mine of gold and silver,
high up the river, which would give each of them a share of ten thousand
crowns, besides fifteen hundred thousand for the king. But for
Laudonniere, he said, their fortunes would all be made. He found an ally
in a gentleman named Genre, one of Laudonniere's confidants, who, still
professing fast adherence to the interests of the latter, is charged by
him with plotting against his life. Many of the soldiers were in the
conspiracy. They made a flag of an old shirt, which they carried with
them to the rampart when they went to their work, at the same time
wearing their arms, and watching an opportunity to kill the commandant.
About this time, overheating himself, he fell ill, and was confined t