Little of interest occurred in the colony, if we may call it by that name, for several years after this. In 1620 Champlain began the construction of the Chateau St. Louis on a portion of the ground now covered by Dufferin Terrace; yet at this date the whole population of Quebec did not exceed fifty persons. Amongst these there was only one who could be called a settler in the true sense of the word. This was Louis Hebert who had come to Canada in 1617 under a contract with the company, the terms of which do not give us a favourable opinion of the liberality of that corporation or of their desire to open up the country. Hebert, who was a chemist and apothecary by profession, was bound to serve the company for three years for a hundred crowns a year, his wife and children being also liable to be called upon for any help they could render. He received an allotment of land; but he could only work on it at such times as his services were not required by the company. At the end of three years he might grow crops, but he must sell his produce to the company at such prices as were current in France. Notwithstanding these restrictions, Hebert managed in the course of time to establish himself in comfort, and to become a substantial _bourgeois_ of the new colony. The Recollet fathers had now been five years in the country, yet the interests of religion were not flourishing. They found that they were not receiving the assistance from the company that had been promised; and, not only so, but that their influence with the natives was constantly being undermined by the company's agents and servants, whose one preoccupation was trade. In their perplexity and discouragement--for they were really making no headway at all--it occurred to them that, if they could have the assistance of a few Jesuit fathers, the situation might be materially improved, their impression being that the Jesuits, if they came, would probably have some independent means of their own, and moreover that the high credit they enjoyed in France would stand them in good stead in the colony. They consequently sent home one of their number to conduct negotiations to that end. The result was that, in the month of June 1625, three Jesuit fathers and two coadjutors came out to Quebec, to begin that career of evangelization and of dauntless, self-sacrificing effort which has won for their order an imperishable name in the annals of French colonization in North America.