This poem is a resumé of the life of him whom Parkman calls "The Æneas of a destined people." "Yon fair town" alludes to Quebec, which Champlain founded July 3rd, 1608. His defiance of Admiral Kirkt took place in 1628, and was successful for a season, but a second summons from Kirkt next summer led to the first surrender of Canada to England. Champlain died on Christmas Day, 1635, after twenty-seven years of labor for the country in which his name can never be forgotten.
THE PRIEST AND THE MINISTER.
In the opening paragraphs of the third chapter of Parkman's Champlain and His Associates, will be found an account, of which these verses are little more than a paraphrase. When de Monts was commissioned to settle New France, the Roman Catholic clergy insisted that they be given charge of the souls of the heathen in the new land. De Monts was, himself, a Huguenot, and brought his own ministers with him, so that the ship that sailed to Acadia in 1604 bore with it clergy of both sects. This was the cause of ceaseless quarrels. "I have seen our curé and the minister," says Champlain, "fall to with their fists on questions of faith. I cannot say which had the more pluck, or which hit the harder; but I know the minister complained to the Sieur de Monts that he had been beaten." Sagard, the Franciscan friar, gives an account of the death of two of the disputants and of their burial in one grave. I have taken the liberty of making them the central figures of the dispute, though, actually, they were subordinates.
PILOT.
Pilot was one of a number of dogs sent from France to Montreal shortly after its foundation, in order to assist the brave colonists in their warfare with the savages. She and her offspring were invaluable in detecting ambuscades. An account of her useful life will be found in Parkman's Jesuits in North America, chap. xviii.
THE SECRET OF THE SAGUENAY.
Although one legend, and, perhaps, the best substantiated one, asserts that Roberval was assassinated in Paris, there is another to the effect that, fired by the recitals of Cartier of untold wealth to be found in the Saguenay district, he sailed up the river of that name, and was never heard of again. This legend will be found in the Illustrated History of Canada.
JULES' LETTER.
The date of this letter would be about 1670. From 1665 to 1673, bachelors in Canada underwent a martyrdom of great severity, and Jules' fear lest he find himself married in spite of himself is hardly an exaggeration. From 1665 to 1673, about one thousand girls were sent out from France to find husbands in Canada. Each couple married was given an ox, a cow, a pair of swine, a pair of fowls, two barrels of salted meat, and eleven crowns in money. Girls under sixteen and youths under twenty were given twenty livres when they married, and were encouraged to marry at fourteen and eighteen respectively. To such an extent was this rage for marriage carried that, it is said, a widow was married before her first husband's body had been consigned to the grave. Large bounties were paid to parents having from ten to fifteen children, and the slightest sign of courtship between the unmarried officers and ladies of Quebec and Montreal, was chronicled in official documents and transmitted to France. For further particulars, the reader is referred to Parkman's The Old Regime in Canada, chapter xiii.