"Jean de Biencourt, Baron de Poutrincourt, a gentleman of Picardy, a brave chevalier, had carried arms against Henry IV. in the ranks of the Catholics, during the wars of the League. Lescarbot tells how 'The king, holding him besieged in his castle of Beaumont, wished to give him the dukedom of this place in order to attach him to his service.' Poutrincourt refused. But, when the king had abjured his faith, he served this prince loyally and followed him to battle, where he accumulated more honor than fortune. In 1603, he lived in retirement with his wife, Jeanne de Salazar, and his children, in his barony of Saint-Just, in Champagne, struggling painfully against the difficulties of an embarrassed situation, and striving to improve the tillage and crops of his little domain. It was here that De Monts, his former companion in arms, found him. He knew his courage, his intelligence, and his activity, and did not doubt that a voyage to Canada and an agricultural colony in these distant lands, so fertile and primeval, would appeal to his ardent soul. Poutrincourt, in fact, received with enthusiasm the plan of his old friend; however, before binding himself definitely, he wished to find out, on his own account, something about the state of the country, and for this purpose to make a trial voyage."--Rochemonteix's _Les Jésuites et la Nouvelle France_ (Paris, 1896), vol. i., p. 11. Pleased with Annapolis harbor, Poutrincourt decided to settle there with his family, and De Monts gave him a grant of the place. In 1606, Poutrincourt made a second voyage to Port Royal, exploring the coast with Champlain and Lescarbot. After the abandonment of the colony (1607), he went to France, returning to Acadia in 1610, inspired with zeal to convert the savages, but without the aid of the Jesuits. See Parkman's _Pioneers of France in the New World_ (ed. 1885, which will hereafter be cited, unless otherwise noted), pp. 244-322; also Shea's ed. of Charlevoix's _History of New France_, vol. i., p. 260. By the destruction of Port Royal in 1613, he was the heaviest loser--the total loss to the French, according to Charlevoix, being a hundred thousand crowns. In 1614, Poutrincourt visited the ruins of Port Royal for the last time, thence returning to France to engage in the service of the king. He was fatally wounded by a treacherous shot after the taking of Méry (1615). Baird (_Hug. Emig._, vol. i., p. 94), says: "This nobleman, if nominally a Roman Catholic, appears to have been in full sympathy with his Huguenot associates, De Monts and Lescarbot. His hatred of the Jesuits was undisguised." Lescarbot's account of Poutrincourt's dispute with them differs essentially from that given by Biard, _post_.