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Thus was the little colony made well again. Lest the Indians should know how weak they were during that terrible winter, they continued to dread; but no attack was made upon them, and in the spring Cartier made ready to return to France. This time Donacona and four other chiefs were seized by stratagem and taken on board ship. A cross 30 feet high, with the fleur-de-lys fastened to it, was set up on the shore, and in the middle of May the waters of the St. Lawrence began to bear them down to the Gulf and the open Atlantic. Exactly one month later Cartier was being greeted by the cheers of the people of his native St. Malo.

Alas! Donacona and the other Indian braves whom the French had borne away never returned to Stadacona and their forest haunts. Before Cartier was ready to make another voyage to Canada, five years later, all had pined away and died. It was then that the Sieur de Roberval, a nobleman of Picardy, was appointed by King Francis as lieutenant, with the high-sounding titles of Governor of Canada, Hochelaga, Saguenay, Newfoundland, Belle Isle, Carpunt, Labrador, the Great Bay, and of Baccalaos, as well as Lord of Norembaga, which latter country existed only in imagination. Roberval meant to have gone out with Cartier, but was detained until the following year. On his third voyage Jacques Cartier visited Hochelaga and tried to pass up the river beyond the village, but the dangerous rapids of Lachine caused him to pause. When he returned to France a year later, he took with him some small transparent stones which he supposed were diamonds, but which were really only quartz crystals; he also carried away what he deemed to be gold ore, but which turned out to be merely mica. On the way back he met the Sieur de Roberval, who afterwards built a fort on the St. Lawrence and explored the surrounding country. But Roberval wrought nothing, and famine at length reduced the survivors to a state of abject dependence upon the natives. In vain Roberval entreated the King to come to his rescue with supplies of colonists, food, and ammunition. Instead of acceding to this petition, King Francis despatched orders for his lieutenant to return home to France. Roberval reluctantly obeyed, and thus this first attempt to establish a French colony on the banks of the St. Lawrence ended in failure.