Or De Maure, or Desmaures

3. Joseph Bouchett«, A topographical Dictionary of the Province of Loiccr Canada, London, 1S32.

Hère again we meet Trith Jacques Cartier in tlie âge of discoveries, according to a sort of nurser}' rh}Tiie, common '"n Québec, and which I ventnre to render in English by the lollowing strophes:

The great discoverer Came in by error.

As he T\'ias left idle, He tliought lie'd play fiddle And make fhe Indians dance ; So lie sailed froni Fiance.

His fiddle vras a gun That g-ave nobodv f un ; Thei-efore lie bad to qxiit .And shorten his viisit. Besides, they ail were sick, And tlie Indians fit to Icick — 'So lie sailed back to France.

Thèse lines (with the rythm and apirit of which I hope you are duly impressed) refer both to the expédition of 1535-36, which wintered at the Eiver St. Charles, and that of 1541 qnartered at Cap Eouge,

On the 23rd May 1541 five vessels left St. Malo under the conunand of Cartier, and arrived at Cap Eouge at the end of August; a fort was erected immediately, at the entrance of the river. The prospective settlers oocupied the post on the 2nd September, landing the goats, pigs, etc., brought for that purpose. The same day, Macé Jalobert, Cartier's brother-in-law, and Etienne ISToël liis nephew, sailed vrith two vessels for France, because they "were without any news of the vessels of Eoberval, who had not yet reached Québec as had been promised in the spring of that year. *This country,'' Cartier wrote home by them, "is quite fit for agricultural pursuits, as good as any that can be desired. We hâve sown the seeds of Brittany, such as cabbages, turtiips, kttuces, etc., and they hâve corne up in eight days.'^

CAP EOUGE 125

The place was calkd Charlesbourg. It is situated ten miles from Québec. The Viscount de Beaupré remained in command of the fort and the colony on the 7th September, -«-hen Cartier sailed for the présent Montréal. Soon after he returned, and made his arrangements for the winter.

It is not known what happened from that moment until the next spring, 1542; but the Indians showed themselves aggressive, and précautions had to be taken against attack. In view of this situation and the non-arrival of Iîol)erva], Cartier left for St. Malo in May. On entering the harbour of St. John, Xe\rfoundland, on his way, he found the fleet under the orders of Roberral himself, but could not be persuaded to go back. He vras dissatisfisd with the whole affair, and said that ail he expected for the future was to utilize the mines of the countr}', which he belieyed vrera to be found in abundance. Consequently he vrent on to France, and Eoberval made his way up the St. Lawrence in a rather shat\' state of mind.

The king of France had giren Eoberval three large ships ^^ell fitted out Trith provisions and bearing two hundred persons, men and women, soldiers and sailors, etc. Some noblemen and gentlemen also formed part of the expédition, such as Paul d'Anxhilhon de Senneterre first lieutenant, De l'Epinay ensign, captain de Guinecourt. Me??rs. de Xoirfontaine, de la Mire, Villeneure, TaJbot, and tha celehrated fpilot and author of marine \rorks, Jean Alphonse Fonteneau (i).

4. Tn le Bulletin â^s RerTi'^rchr<t hif^toriques, october. 139S, Mr. Suite ■uTote the foUowing- lines on Jean Alphonse: "Le pilote de "Roberv-al porte le surnom de "Saintong-eois'' pour indiquer, .sans doute, la province de France où demeurait son père. Le Dr X.-E. Dionne (7a youvellc-Franee) le fait naître "au village de Saintonsre près de Coirnac". Cog^nac est une ville de rAnsfoumois. sur la Charente, et en descendant quelque peu

126 CAP EOUGE

In July 1542 they arrived at Charlesbourg. The post was fortified anîw and took the name of France-Roy. A hundred and thirty years later another village was called Charlesbourg, a few leagues north of Québec (5),

But it was toc late to 'sxpect a crop from the land that summer and the résidents already there had paid no attention to fanning or gardening. Conséquent the (provisions must nin short during the coming winter, for even hunting was an art unknown to the pretended settlers. It is "à propos'"' to note hère that thèse people had been taken out of the prisons of France under a royal warrant, and therefore were not at ail the kind of folks required to lay the foundations of a steady colony. In addition to this, Eoberval soon found Senneterre to be even worse than anyone in this convict gang, and had to get rid of him under the pretext of sending him to France in quest of provisions. Senneterre took with him, without knowing it, instructions that procured him a warm and close rec-eption — in goal — when he got there. He left this country, for the counirj-'s good on the 1-ith September.

The winter of 1542-43 was horrible. Famine and riot

cette rivière, on arrive à Xaintes, capitale de la Saintonge. (Dictionnaire de Trévoux). Jean Alphonse paraît donc être né entre Cognac et Xaintes, soit sur les limites des deux petites provinces en question. Le vrai nom de la famille est Fonteneau ; celle-ci pourrait bien être la même que celle de Pierre Fonteneau dit Desmoulins, natif de Xaintes, qui se maria au Cliâteau-Eiclier, le 18 février, 1697, avec Antoinette Gervais. (Taugniay, Dictionnaire généalogique, vol. 1, p. 234). La parenté, à un siècle et demi de distance, est un peu éloigTiée, sans doute, mais on a renoué des relations de cette nature dans plus d"un cas, d'après l'idée assez juste qu'il ne saurait y avoir de prescription."

Jean Alphonse (or Alfonse) lived in la Rochelle, Saint-Jean du Pérot Street, vvhere he ^A-rote his book Cosmographie, in 1544-45. (See Mr. Paul Gaffarel's study in le Bulletin des Recherches historiques, May, 1898).