The imprisonment of Conde was a source of fresh
embarrassment; but the young Duo de Montmorency assumed his place,
purchasing from him the profitable lieuteuancy of New France for eleven
thousand crowns, and continuing Champlain in command. Champlain had
succeeded in binding the company of merchants with new and more
stringent engagements; and, in the vain belief that these might not be
wholly broken, he began to conceive fresh hopes for the colony. In this
faith he embarked with his wife for Quebec in the spring of 1620; and,
as the boat drew near the landing, the cannon welcomed her to the rock
of her banishment. The buildings were falling to ruin; rain entered on
all sides; the courtyard, says Champlain, was as squalid and dilapidated
as a grange pillaged by soldiers. Madame de Champlain was still very
young. If the Ursuline tradition is to be trusted, the Indians, amazed
at her beauty and touched by her gentleness, would have worshipped her
as a divinity. Her husband had married her at the age of twelve when, to
his horror, he presently discovered that she was infected with the
heresies of her father, a disguised Huguenot. He addressed himself at
once to her conversion, and his pious efforts were something more than
successful. During the four years which she passed in Canada, her zeal,
it is true, was chiefly exercised in admonishing Indian squaws and
catechising their children; but, on her return to France, nothing would
content her but to become a nun.
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