The vessels bearing the new Governor and Intendant, however, suffered the most hapless violence. Talon's ship was 117 days at sea, and De Courcelles' was hardly more fortunate; but at length they, too, cast anchor beneath the rocky battlement, and Quebec was now flooded with soldiers of the regiment of Carignan-Salières. These bronzed veterans of Savoy came to New France fresh from the Turkish wars, and the sight of their plumed helmets and leathern bandoleers, as they marched through the narrow streets, promised the colonists a speedy riddance of their enemies. The health of Louis XIV. was nowhere in his broad dominions drunk more heartily than in Quebec. At the close of the year extensive preparations were made for the chastisement of the Iroquois. De Courcelles had determined upon a stroke of almost foolhardy boldness: to march over the snow into the country of the Mohawks, a distance of three hundred leagues. Thick ice had formed on the St. Lawrence, and on the 9th of January the audacious Governor set off at the head of his fiery columns. Officers and men alike shared the burdens of transport, but the soldiers of Europe were embarrassed by the unaccustomed snow-shoes which the deep snow forced them to use. Some got no farther than Three Rivers, but the more hardy held their way up the valley of the Richelieu to Lake Champlain and across the Hudson. An unfortunate circumstance, however, had deprived them of guides, and all efforts to find and surprise the Mohawk towns proved unsuccessful. Wandering by mistake beyond Saratoga Lake, they came near to the Dutch village of Corlaer,[7] where, half-frozen and half-starved, they bivouacked in the neighbouring woods. A few days later envoys appeared from Albany to demand why the French had invaded the territories of the Duke of York; and then, for the first time, De Courcelles learned that the New Netherlands had passed into English hands. De Courcelles' explanation was courteously accepted, and having been supplied with provisions, he prepared to retrace his steps to Quebec. His intended victims, the Mohawks, harassed the retreat, killing and taking prisoners; while sixty of his men perished from hunger and exposure before he came in sight of the St. Lawrence, and many more fell before he reached Quebec. In spite of apparent failure, however, this expedition, like that undertaken by Daulac, had a good effect upon the Iroquois, who had come to regard themselves as too remote for French assault. [Footnote 7: Now Schenectady.]