When Cartier reached France there were serious political troubles which prevented the authorities from acting at once, and so it was not until 1538 that Francis took up the question of New France overseas. He organized an expedition of which Lord Roberval was to be chief and Cartier captain-general, and with a crew recruited mainly from the prisons Cartier left St. Malo in 1541, sailed up the St. Lawrence, explored the rapids (afterwards known as La Chine), spent a miserable winter and returned to St. Malo a disappointed man. The Indians had lost faith in him, for when they welcomed him and asked for their chiefs, whose loss they had felt keenly, Cartier told them that the chiefs had stayed in France, whereas they had died. Superseded at home by political favourites, and distrusted in New France by the natives, Cartier retired from the sea, his name passes from history and the first chapter of the history of New France comes to an end. CHAPTER II. CHAMPLAIN. “There are few chapters in history so full of romantic interest, so compelling in their demands for sympathy and admiration, as the record of the century and a half that began with the wooden fortress of Champlain under the bluff at Quebec, and ended with the fall of Montcalm on the Heights of Abraham.” —HON. ELIHU ROOT. CHAMPLAIN AND THE GREAT LAKES. On the Bay of Biscay, on the west coast of France, and not very far from Rochelle, there is a small village now some miles from the sea, but which in the days of Cartier and for some years after was a flourishing seaport. This is called Brouage, and is almost a deserted village to-day, the sea having receded and the railway passed it by. The great salt marshes are still there to remind one of the time when cargoes of salt were shipped from this harbour, and where ships, then considered great, found safe anchorage. In this seaport, with its face to the great mysterious Western land, young Samuel de Champlain, son of a sea captain, grew up during the stirring times of civil war in France. When a boy of nine[5] his city was captured by Henry of Navarre, who, after years of struggle, during which were many mighty deeds of valour, finally overcame his enemies, entered Paris in triumph, and was crowned King of France. Indeed, the struggle was so long that Champlain grew up sufficiently to be accounted a gallant officer in Henry’s army. When peace was declared and the country had settled down, Champlain in his love for adventure entered the service of the King of Spain, and made trips to the West Indies, going inland in America even to the city of Mexico.