This "petit discours," as Champlain calls it, is a clear, compact, well-drawn paper, containing an account of the character and products of the country, its trees, plants, fruits, and vines, with a description of the native inhabitants, their mode of living, their clothing, food and its preparation, their banquets, religion, and method of burying their dead, with many other interesting particulars relating to their habits and customs. Henry IV. manifested a deep interest in Champlain's narrative. He listened to its recital with great apparent satisfaction, and by way of encouragement promised not to abandon the undertaking, but to continue to bestow upon it his royal favor and patronage. There chanced at this time to be residing at court, a Huguenot gentleman who had been a faithful adherent of Henry IV. in the late war, Pierre du Guast, Sieur de Monts, gentleman ordinary to the king's chamber, and governor of Pons in Saintonge. This nobleman had made a trip for pleasure or recreation to Canada with De Chauvin, several years before, and had learned something of the country, and especially of the advantages of the fur trade with the Indians. He was quite ready, on the death of De Chastes, to take up the enterprise which, by this event, had been brought to a sudden and disastrous termination. He immediately devised a scheme for the establishment of a colony under the patronage of a company to be composed of merchants of Rouen, Rochelle, and of other places, their contributions for covering the expense of the enterprise to be supplemented, if not rendered entirely unnecessary, by a trade in furs and peltry to be conducted by the company.