It would be unprofitable, and at best but a repetition, to describe the difficulties Groseilliers and his brother-in-law met with in Paris, the petitions they presented and the many verbal representations they made. In the midst of their ill-success Colonel Carr came to Paris. There is extant a letter of his to Lord Arlington. "Having heard," says he, "by the French in New England of a great traffic in beavers" to be got in the region of Hudson's Bay, and "having had proofs of the assertions" of the two adventurers, he thought "the finest present" he could make to his majesty was to despatch these men to him.
The ambassador pondered on this and at last decided to entrust Groseilliers with a letter to a certain prince—a friend of his—and a patron of the Arts and Sciences. Leaving Radisson despondent in Paris, therefore, the other adventurer crossed the Channel and found himself, with a beating heart, for the first time in the English capital.
CHAPTER III.
1667-1668.
Prince Rupert—His Character—Serves through the Civil War—His Naval Expedition in the West Indies—Residence in France—And ultimately in London—He receives Groseilliers and introduces him to the King.
It was a fortunate chance for Medard Chouart des Groseilliers that threw him, as we shall see, into the hands of such a man as Rupert, Prince of England and Bohemia.
A dashing soldier, a daring sailor, a keen and enlightened student, a man of parts, and at the age of forty-seven still worshipping adventure as a fetish and irresistibly attracted by anything that savoured of novelty, there was perhaps no other noble in England more likely to listen to such a project as the Canadian was prepared to pour into his ear, no prince in the whole of Europe more likely to succumb to its charm.
Rupert may, on good grounds, be considered one of the most remarkable men of that age. He was the third son of the King of Bohemia by the Princess Elizabeth Stuart, eldest daughter of James I. In common with most German princes he had been educated for the army; and, as he used to observe himself in after years, there was no profession better fitted for a prince provided he could be allowed to fight battles. It was a maxim of his that the arts of patience, of strategy, and parleying with the enemy should be left to statesmen and caitiffs; and it can be said with truth of Rupert that no one could possibly have acted more completely in accordance with his rule than himself. "Than Prince Rupert," wrote a chronicler at his death, "no man was more courageous or intrepid. He could storm a citadel but, alas, he could never keep it. A lion in the fray, he was a very lamb, tho' a fuming one, if a siege was called for."
Prince Rupert.
(After a painting by Vandyke.)