use of portable chapels and places of
worship in the wilderness, and which had been provided at the cost of
religious persons in France.

Immediately on his arrival in Canada, about the beginning of June, he
took steps for establishing regular religious services at the three
principal trading-posts--Quebec, Three Rivers, and Tadoussac--at the
first of which places a sort of council was held, consisting of himself,
the four Recollets, and "the most intelligent persons in the colony." The
arrangements agreed upon comprised, in addition to dispositions of a
permanent nature at the three principal localities named above, the
sending forward one of the Recollets, Joseph le Caron, into the distant
regions occupied by the Huron tribes, which up to this time had not been
visited by any European.[3] Thus, under Champlain's auspices, were the
first foundations laid for establishing in Canada the faith and services
of the Church of Rome; and especially, in the first instance, for
commencing the "missions to the Indians," which have survived the
vicissitudes of more than two centuries, and subsist to this day in forms
and localities regulated by the progress of civilization on this
continent.

[3] Henceforward the history of the colony, as well as that of the
gradual extension of discovery westward, is inseparably associated
with the proceedings of the religious missionaries, who were the
real pioneers of French influence among the tribes of the interior.

During the winter of 1618 the colony was reduced to the verge of
extinction through the defection of its fickle allies, the Indians. The
station at Three Rivers had become to them a great place of resort; and
while many hundreds of savages were assembled there a quarrel occurred at
Quebec between some Indians and colonists, the particulars of which have
not been very clearly transmitted. But the result was similar to that
which had been experienced in the time of Jacques Cartier, for the
Indians became discontented and hostile, manifesting a disposition to
take advantage of the helplessness of the handful of Europeans
established in their midst. Two Frenchmen were murdered, and this outrage
was followed by a conspiracy, which was entered into by the Indians at
Three Rivers, with the object of consummating the destruction of the
entire colony. The Recollet brother Duplessis discovered the plot, and,
while the French at Quebec remained closely shut up in t