ch followed the
marriage of the King, command was given him of the royal forces destined
for the attack on Mery; and here, happier in his death than in his life,
he fell, sword in hand.

In spite of their reverses, the French kept hold on Acadia. Biencourt,
partially at least, rebuilt Port Royal; while winter after winter the
smoke of fur traders' huts curled into the still, sharp air of these
frosty wilds, till at length, with happier auspices, plans of settlement
were resumed.

Rude hands strangled the "Northern Paraguay" in its birth. Its
beginnings had been feeble, but behind were the forces of a mighty
organization, at once devoted and ambitious, enthusiastic and
calculating. Seven years later the "Mayflower" landed her emigrants at
Plymouth. What would have been the issues had the zeal of the pious lady
of honor preoccupied New England with a Jesuit colony?

In an obscure stroke of lawless violence began the strife of France and
England, Protestantism and Rome, which for a century and a half shook
the struggling communities of North America, and closed at last in the
memorable triumph on the Plains of Abraham.

CHAPTER--IX.

1608, 1609.

CHAMPLAIN AT QUEBEC.

A LONELY ship sailed up the St. Lawrence. The white whales floundering
in the Bay of Tadoussac, and the wild duck diving as the foaming prow
drew near,--there was no life but these in all that watery solitude,
twenty miles from shore to shore. The ship was from Honfleur, and
was commanded by Samuel de Champlain. He was the AEneas of a destined
people, and in her womb lay the embryo life of Canada.

De Monts, after his exclusive privilege of trade was revoked and
his Acadian enterprise ruined, had, as we have seen, abandoned it to
Poutrincourt. Perhaps would it have been well for him had he abandoned
with it all Transatlantic enterprises; but the passion for discovery
and the noble ambition of founding colonies had taken possession of
his mind. These, rather than a mere hope of gain, seem to have been his
controlling motives; yet the profits of the fur-trade were vital to the
new designs he was meditating, to meet the heavy outlay they demanded,
and he solicited and obtained a fresh monopoly of the traffic for one
year.

Champlain was, at the time, in Paris; but his unquiet thoughts turned
westward. He was enamoured of the New World, whose rugged charms had
seized his fancy and his heart; and as explorers of Arctic seas have
pined in their