nt of New
France, declared the whole region between Baie St. Paul and the Saguenay
to be so rugged and mountainous as to make it unfit for civilized
habitation. But Philippe Gaultier, Sieur de Comporte, was of the right
material to be a good colonist. Born in 1641 he was twenty-four years of
age when he came to Canada. Already he had had some stirring adventures,
one of which might well have proved grimly fatal had he not found a
refuge across the sea. Comporte, then serving as a volunteer in a
Company of Infantry led by his uncle, La Fouille, was involved in one of
the bloody brawls of the time that Richelieu had made such stern efforts
to suppress. The Company was in garrison at La Motte-Saint-Heray in
Poitou. On July 9th, 1665, one of its members, Lanoraye, came in with
the tale of an insult offered to the company by a civilian in the town.
Lanoraye had been marching through the streets with a drum beating, in
order to secure recruits, when one Bonneau, the local judge, attacked
him, and took away the drum. Lanoraye rushed to arouse his fellow
soldiers. When Comporte and half a dozen other hot-heads had listened to
his tale, they cried with one voice, "Let us go and demand the drum. He
must give it up." So at eight or nine o'clock at night they set out to
look for Bonneau. They came upon him unexpectedly in the streets of the
town. He was accompanied by seven or eight persons with whom he had
supped and all were armed with swords, pistols or other weapons. When
Lanoraye demanded the drum, Bonneau was defiant and told him to go away
or he should chastise him. The inevitable fight followed. Comporte,
whose own account we have, says that it lasted some time and the results
were fatal. Comporte declares that he himself struck no blows but the
fact remains that two of Bonneau's party were so severely wounded that
they died. Comporte and the rest of the Company soon went to Canada. In
their absence he and others were sentenced to death.

In Canada he appears to have behaved himself. In France a simple
volunteer, in New France he became an important citizen. Talon trusted
him and made him Quarter-Master-General. In 1672 Comporte received an
enormous grant of land stretching along the St. Lawrence from Cap aux
Oies to Cap a l'Aigle, a distance of some eighteen miles, including
Malbaie and a good deal more. About the same time he married Marie
Bazire, daughter of one of the chief merchants in the colony, by whom he
had a nume