This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1890 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER IV. THE MARQUIS DE LA ROCHE AND HIS FORTY THIEVES. MORE than half a century had passed away, after the wretched winter at Cap Rouge and the return of Roberval, before any new attempt was made to colonize Canada. During all that time, the old primeval forest was left to its original inhabitants--the wild creatures who roamed the wilderness or swam in the stream, and the scarcely less wild Indians who hunted them. The young braves who had danced round Cartier at Stadacena and Hochelaga, had become old men or had passed away. Many a time, doubtless, had they told by the camp-fire, in the long winter evenings, the story of the great white-winged canoes which had once come so far up their beautiful river, carrying the imposing but deceitful "palefaces " who had sojourned among them for a space, and had then disappeared into the unseen and mysterious region from whence they had come. France, indeed, had, in the meantime, been absorbed and distracted by matters which these poor Indians could have little understood. There came a long and sharp struggle with Spain and Austria, and a religious war of extermination against French Protestants in the name of the religion of love and peace. This had reached its climax in the Massacre of St. Bartholomew. Four kings had in turn succeeded Francis the First on the French throne: Henry the Second, Henry the Third, Charles the Ninth, and Henry the Fourth. During all this time, however, the New World was not forgotten. The great and good Admiral Coligny, who, along with many of the best and bravest sons of France, fell in that frightful massacre, had hoped to find for the French Protestants in this New World, what the Pilgrim Fathers found in it later; "freedom to worship God" according to their...