Perhaps the heretic might have liked him
more if the Jesuit had liked him less. The adventurous explorer of Lake
Huron, the bold invader of the Iroquois, befits but indifferently the
monastic sobrieties of the fort of Quebec, and his sombre environment of
priests. Yet Champlain was no formalist, nor was his an empty zeal. A
soldier from his youth, in an age of unbridled license, his life had
answered to his maxims; and when a generation had passed after his visit
to the Hurons, their elders remembered with astonishment the continence
of the great French war-chief.
His books mark the man,--all for his theme and his purpose, nothing for
himself. Crude in style, full of the superficial errors of carelessness
and haste, rarely diffuse, often brief to a fault, they bear on every
page the palpable impress of truth.
With the life of the faithful soldier closes the opening period of New
France. Heroes of another stamp succeed; and it remains to tell the
story of their devoted lives, their faults, follies, and virtues.
END NOTES:
[FN#1] Herrera, Hist. General, Dec. I. Lib. LX. c. 11; De Laet, Novus
Orbis, Lib. I. C. 16 Garcilaso, Just. de la Florida, Part I. Lib. I. C.
3; Gomara, Ilist. Gin. des Indes Occidentales, Lib. II. c. 10. Compare
Peter Martyr, De Rebus Oceanicis, Dec.
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