ecretly stolen away in the night and left his chief to go on to the
St. Lawrence alone. But these are among historic questions in dispute,
and it is useless to dwell on them here. What we do know to a
certainty is that Roberval spent some months on the banks of the St.
Lawrence,--probably from the spring of 1542 to late in the autumn of
1543,--and built a commodious fort at Charlesbourg, which he renamed
France-Roy. He passed a miserable winter, as many of the colonists he
had brought with him had been picked up amongst the lowest classes of
France, and he had to govern his ill-assorted company with a rigid and
even cruel hand. Roberval is said to have visited the Saguenay and
explored its waters and surrounding country for a considerable
distance, evidently hoping {46} to verify the fables of Donnacona and
other Indians that gold and precious stones were to be found somewhere
in that region. His name has been given to a little village at Lake
St. John, on the assumption that he actually went so far on his
Saguenay expedition, while romantic tradition points to an isle in the
Gulf, the Isle de la Demoiselle, where he is said to have abandoned his
niece Marguerite,--who had loved not wisely but too well--her lover,
and an old nurse. This rocky spot appears to have become in the story
an isle of Demons who tormented the poor wretches, exposed to all the
rigours of Canadian winters, and to starvation except when they could
catch fish or snare wild fowl. The nurse and lover as well as the
infant died, but Marguerite is said to have remained much longer on
that lonely island until at last Fate brought to her rescue a passing
vessel and carried her to France, where she is said to have told the
story of her adventures.

After this voyage Roberval disappeared from the history of Canada.
Cartier is supposed to have died about 1577 in his old manor house of
Limoilou, now in ruins, in the neighbourhood of St. Malo. He was
allowed by the King to bear always the name of "Captain"--an
appropriate title for a hardy sailor who represented so well the
heroism and enterprise of the men of St. Malo and the Breton coast.
The results of the voyages of Cartier, Roberval, and the sailors and
fishermen who frequented the waters of the Great Bay, as the French
long called it, can be seen in the old maps that have come down to us,
and show the increasing geographical knowledge. {47} To this
knowledge, a famous pilot, Captain Jehan Alfon