emn harangue, was thrown to the guardian
Manitou. On the seventeenth of June they approached Montreal, where the
assembled traders greeted them with discharges of small arms and cannon.
Here, among the rest, was Champlain's lieutenant, Du Parc, with his
men, who had amused their leisure with hunting, and were revelling in a
sylvan abundance, while their baffled chief, with worry of mind, fatigue
of body, and a Lenten diet of half-cooked fish, was grievously fallen
away in flesh and strength. He kept his word with DeVignau, left the
scoundrel unpunished, bade farewell to the Indians, and, promising to
rejoin then the next year, embarked in one of the trading-ships for
France.

CHAPTER XIII.

1615.

DISCOVERY OF LAKE HURON.

In New France, spiritual and temporal interests were inseparably
blended, and, as will hereafter appear, the conversion of the Indians
was used as a means of commercial and political growth. But, with
the single-hearted founder of the colony, considerations of material
advantage, though clearly recognized, were no less clearly subordinate.
He would fain rescue from perdition a people living, as he says, "like
brute beasts, without faith, without law, without religion, without
God." While the want of funds and the indifference of his merchant
associates, who as yet did not fully see that their trade would find in
the missions its surest ally, were threatening to wreck his benevolent
schemes, he found a kindred spirit in his friend Houd, secretary to the
King, and comptroller-general of the salt-works of Bronage. Near this
town was a convent of Recollet friars, some of whom were well known to
Houel. To them he addressed himself; and several of the brotherhood,
"inflamed," we are told, "with charity," were eager to undertake the
mission. But the Recollets, mendicants by profession, were as weak in
resources as Champlain himself. He repaired to Paris, then filled
with bishops, cardinals, and nobles, assembled for the States-General.
Responding to his appeal, they subscribed fifteen hundred livres for the
purchase of vestments, candles, and ornaments for altars. The King gave
letters patent in favor of the mission, and the Pope gave it his formal
authorization. By this instrument the papacy in the person of Paul the
Fifth virtually repudiated the action of the papacy in the person
of Alexander the Sixth, who had proclaimed all America the exclusive
property of Spain.

The Recollets form a br