St.
Charles to but a single other sign of permanency in the stone manor house
of Robert Gifart, which had, the previous year, been built at Beauport.

The French pushed their explorations toward the west and missionary
stations were established in the country of the Hurons. Two French
fur-traders reached in 1658 the western extremity of Lake Superior, and
heard from the Indians there of the great river--the Mississippi--running
toward the south. Upon the return of the traders to Canada an expedition
was organized to proceed to the distant region to which the traders had
penetrated, exchange trinkets for furs, and convert the natives to the
Christian faith. It was now that the French began to reap the fatal
fruits of their causeless war on the Iroquois. The latter attacked and
dispersed the expedition, killing several Frenchmen. In 1665, western
exploration was resumed, Father Allouez reaching the Falls of St. Mary in
September of that year, and coasting along the southern shore of Lake
Superior to the great village of the Chippewas. Delegations from a number
of Indian nations, including the Illinois tribe, met Father Allouez in
council at St. Mary's, and complained of the hostile visitations of the
Iroquois from the east and the Sioux from the west. Father Allouez
promised them protection against the Iroquois. Soon after this the French
summoned a great convention of the tribes to St. Mary's, and in presence
of the chieftains formally took possession of the country in behalf of
the king of France. A large wooden cross was elevated with religious
ceremonies. The priests chanted and prayed and the French king was
proclaimed sovereign of the country along the upper lakes and southward
to the sea. Thus was founded the short-lived empire of France in America.

The only French occupation of the St. Lawrence was not of the kind to
flourish. Sir William Alexander, in a tract which he published in 1624,
to induce a more active immigration on the part of his countrymen to his
province of New Scotland (Nova Scotia), accounts for the want of
stability in the French colony in that they were "only desirous to know
the nature and quality of the soil and did never seek to have (its
products) in such quantity as was requisite for their maintenance,
affecting more by making a needless ostentation that the world should
know they had been there, more in love with glory than with virtue....
Being always subject to divisions among themselve