Amongst the French in Canada there were not wanting bold spirits to follow up this daring stroke. Chief amongst them, not merely for the character of his achievements, but for his uncommon and romantic personality, was the Chevalier de Troyes. This Canadian nobleman, who was of advanced years, was a retired captain in the army. He believed he now saw an opportunity to win a lasting distinction, and to rival, and perhaps surpass, the exploits of Champlain, Lusson, Frontenac and the other hero-pioneers of New France. Scholarly in his tastes, and frail of body, though by profession a soldier, he emerged from privacy on Christmas Eve, 1685, and asked of the Governor a commission to drive the English utterly from the Northern Bay. The authority the old soldier sought for was granted. He was empowered to "search for, seize and occupy the most advantageous posts, to seize the robbers, bushrangers and others whom we know to have taken and arrested several of our French engaged in the Indian trade, whom we order him to arrest, especially the said Radisson and his adherents wherever they may be found, and bring them to be punished as deserters, according to the rigour of the ordinances." The rigour of the ordinances was death. Fourscore Canadians were selected to form part of the expedition against the Hudson's Bay Company's posts by the Chevalier de Troyes. For his lieutenants, the leader chose the three sons of a nobleman of New France named Charles Le Moine. One, the eldest, a young man of only twenty-five, was to bear an enduring distinction in the annals of France as one of her most able and intrepid naval commanders. This was the Sieur d'Iberville. His brothers, taking their names, as he had done, from places in their native land, were called the Sieurs de Sainte Hèlène and de Marincourt. Thirty soldiers were directly attached to the Chevalier's command, veterans who had, almost to a man, seen service in one or other of the great European wars. That they might not be without the ministrations of religion, Father Sylvie, a Jesuit priest, accompanied the expedition. [Sidenote: Expedition of de Troyes.] "The rivers," writes a chronicler of the Troyes expedition, "were frozen and the earth covered with snow when that small party of vigorous men left Montreal in order to ascend the Ottawa River as far as the height of land and thence to go down to James' Bay." At the beginning of April they arrived at the Long Sault, where they prepared some canoes in order to ascend the Ottawa River. From Lake Temiscamingue they passed many portages until they reached Lake Abbitibi, at the entrance or most southern extremity of which they built a small fort of stockades. After a short halt they continued their course towards James' Bay.