ntial sum. Champlain was convinced that the stability of trade
(upon which, in turn, exploration depended) could be secured only in
this way. It was he who memorialized President Jeannin[2]; enlisted
the sympathy of the king's almoner, Beaulieu; appealed to the royal
council; proposed the office of viceroy to Soissons; and began the
endeavour to organize a new trading company. Considering that early in
1612 he suffered a serious fall from his horse, this record of activity
is sufficiently creditable for one twelvemonth. Meanwhile the Indians
at Sault St Louis grieved at his absence, and his enemies told them he
was dead.

[Illustration: HENRI DE BOURBON, PRINCE DE CONDE, VICEROY OF NEW
FRANCE. From Laverdiere's _Champlain_ in M'Gill University Library.]

It was not until 1614 that the new programme in its entirety could be
carried out. {75} This time the delay came, not from the court, but
from the merchants. Negotiations were in progress when the ships
sailed for the voyage of 1613, but Champlain could not remain to
conclude them, as he felt that he must keep faith with the Indians.
However, on his return to France that autumn, he resumed the effort,
and by the spring of 1614 the merchants of Rouen, St Malo, and La
Rochelle had been brought to terms among themselves as participants in
a monopoly which was leased from the viceroy. Conde received a
thousand crowns a year, and the new company also agreed to take out six
families of colonists each season. In return it was granted the
monopoly for eleven years. De Monts was a member of the company and
Quebec became its headquarters in Canada. But the moving spirit was
Champlain, who was appointed lieutenant to the viceroy with a salary
and the right to levy for his own purposes four men from each ship
trading in the river.

Once more disappointment followed. Save for De Monts, Champlain's
company was not inspired by Champlain's patriotism. During the first
three years of its existence the obligation to colonize was wilfully
disregarded, while in the fourth year the treatment accorded {76} Louis
Hebert shows that good faith counted for as little with the fur traders
when they acted in association as when they were engaged in cut-throat
competition.

Champlain excepted, Hebert was the most admirable of those who risked
death in the attempt to found a settlement at Quebec. He was not a
Norman peasant, but a Parisian apothecary. We have already seen that
he