Not long after the convoking of this assembly Champlain was smitten with paralysis; and on Christmas Day, 1635, he died in the sixty-ninth year of his age. His funeral sermon was preached by the Superior of the Jesuits, Father Le Jeune, and he was buried with all due honour in--as the Jesuit narrative tells us--a "_sepulcre particulier_"; but a careless posterity soon forgot even the place of his interment, and to-day the question as to where he was laid is a matter of antiquarian debate. The contingency of his death had been provided for by the company, who had placed in the hands of Father Le Jeune, a sealed letter, giving authority to a M. de Chateaufort to act as interim governor. The following summer M. de Montmagny came out from France as second governor of Canada. He appears to have been a man of firm and upright character, but the position to which he succeeded was an extremely difficult and critical one. The Jesuits were as yet having very limited success in the conversion of the native tribes, and were even incurring a dangerous amount of suspicion and hostility. They were accused of witchcraft; and it began to be commonly said amongst the savages that baptism was a sure precursor of death. There was truth in the allegation just to this extent, that the fathers, for the most part, were only allowed to baptize those who were already in a dying condition, particularly children. The confusion between _post hoc_ and _propter hoc_ is so common among the civilized and instructed, that we cannot be surprised if Hurons and Algonquins were not proof against it. The Iroquois at the same time were becoming more and more daring in their attacks, while the resources of the colony for repelling them were sadly inadequate. The Company of the Hundred Associates had made a fair beginning in the matter of sending out colonists and supplies--forty-five new settlers came out with Montmagny--but in a few years their capital began to run short, and it became a question whether the magnificent powers and privileges they possessed represented a very profitable business arrangement. The consequence was that, just as before under successive trading companies, the interests both of colonization and of defence were neglected.