Canada

In the closing years of the sixteenth century the spirit of French expansion, which had remained so strangely inactive for nearly three generations, once again began to manifest itself. The Sieur de La Roche, another Breton nobleman, the merchant traders, Pontgrave of St. Malo and Chauvin of Honfleur, came forward one after the other with plans for colonizing the unknown land. Unhappily these plans were not easily matured into stern realities. The ambitious project of La Roche came to grief on the barren sands of Sable Island.

Louis XIV, the greatest of the Bourbon monarchs, had now taken into his own hands the reins of power. Nominally he had been king of France since 1642, when he was only five years old, but it was not until 1658 that the control of affairs by the regency came to an end. Moreover, Colbert was now chief minister of state, so that colonial matters were assured of a searching and enlightened inquiry. Richelieu's interest in the progress of New France had not endured for many years after the founding of his great Company.

The ten years following 1663 form a decade of extraordinary progress in the history of New France. The population of the colony had trebled, and now numbered approximately seven thousand; the red peril, thanks to Tracy's energetic work, had been lessened; while the fur trade had grown to large and lucrative proportions. With this increase in population and prosperity, there came a renaissance of enthusiasm for voyages of exploration and for the widening of the colony's frontiers. Glowing reports went home to the King concerning the latent possibilities of the New World.

 JEAN DE BREBEUF. - CHARLES GARNIER. - JOSEPH MARIE CHAUMONOT. - 
 NOEL CHABANEL. - ISAAC JOGUES. - OTHER JESUITS. - NATURE OF THEIR FAITH. - 
 SUPERNATURALISM. - VISIONS. - MIRACLES.

 THE CENTRE OF THE MISSIONS. - FORT. - CONVENT. - HOSPITAL. - CARAVANSARY. - 
 CHURCH. - THE INMATES OF SAINTE MARIE. - DOMESTIC ECONOMY. - MISSIONS. - 
 A MEETING OF JESUITS. - THE DEAD MISSIONARY.

Few passages of history are more striking than those which record the efforts of the earlier French Jesuits to convert the Indians. Full as they are of dramatic and philosophic interest, bearing strongly on the political destinies of America, and closely involved with the history of its native population, it is wonderful that they have been left so long in obscurity. While the infant colonies of England still clung feebly to the shores of the Atlantic, events deeply ominous to their future were in progress, unknown to them, in the very heart of the continent.

 OSSOSSANE. - THE NEW CHAPEL. - A TRIUMPH OF THE FAITH. - 
 THE NETHER POWERS. - SIGNS OF A TEMPEST. - SLANDERS. - 
 RAGE AGAINST THE JESUITS. - THEIR BOLDNESS AND PERSISTENCY. - 
 NOCTURNAL COUNCIL. - DANGER OF THE PRIESTS. - BREBEUF'S LETTER. - 
 NARROW ESCAPES. - WOES AND CONSOLATIONS.

 HURON TRADERS. - BATTLE AT THREE RIVERS. - ST. JOSEPH. - 
 ONSET OF THE IROQUOIS. - DEATH OF DANIEL. - THE TOWN DESTROYED.

NATIVE TRIBES.

 DU PERON'S JOURNEY. - DAILY LIFE OF THE JESUITS. - 
 THEIR MISSIONARY EXCURSIONS. - CONVERTS AT OSSOSSANE. - 
 MACHINERY OF CONVERSION. - CONDITIONS OF BAPTISM. - BACKSLIDERS. - 
 THE CONVERTS AND THEIR COUNTRYMEN. - THE CANNIBALS AT ST. JOSEPH.