, 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-hearted. The old Duchesse de Rohan starved with the populace.
{124} Salbert, the most eloquent of Huguenot pastors, preached that
martyrdom was better than surrender. Meanwhile, Richelieu built his
mole across the harbour, and Buckingham wasted the English troops to
which the citizens looked for their salvation. Then the town yielded.

The fall of La Rochelle was a great personal triumph for Richelieu, but
the war with England brought disaster to the Company of New France. At
Dieppe there had lived for many years an Englishman named Jarvis, or
Gervase, Kirke, who with his five sons--David, Lewis, Thomas, John, and
James--knew much at first hand about the French merchant marine. Early
in the spring of 1628 Kirke (who had shortly before moved to London)
secured letters of marque and sent forth his sons to do what damage
they could to the French in the St Lawrence. Champlain had spent the
winter at Quebec and was, of course, expecting his usual supplies with
the opening of navigation. Instead came Lewis Kirke, sent from
Tadoussac by his brother David, to demand surrender.

Champlain made a reply which, though courteous, was sufficiently bold
to convince the Kirkes that Quebec could be best captured {125} by
starvation. They therefore sailed down the St Lawrence to intercept
the fleet from France, confident that their better craft would overcome
these 'sardines of the sea.' The plan pr