that he acted under constraint.] Vignau, with more
imagination, stands on the roll of fame as a frank
impostor.

Champlain, as we have seen, spent the whole of 1612 in
France, and it was at this time that Vignau appeared in
Paris with a tale which could not but kindle excitement
in the heart of an explorer. The basis of fact was that
Vignau had undoubtedly passed the preceding winter with
the Algonquins on the Ottawa. The fable which was built
upon this fact can best be told in Champlain's own words.

He reported to me, on his return to Paris in 1612,
that he had seen the North Sea; that the river of the
Algonquins [the Ottawa] came from a lake which emptied
into it; and that in seventeen days one could go from
the Falls of St Louis to this sea and back again; that
he had seen the wreck and debris of an English ship
that had been wrecked, on board of which were eighty
men who had escaped to the shore, and whom the savages
killed because the English endeavoured to take from
them by force their Indian corn and other necessaries
of life; and that he had seen the scalps which these
savages had flayed off, according to their custom,
which they would show me, and that they would likewise
give me an English boy whom they had kept for me. This
intelligence greatly pleased me, for I thought that
I had almost found that for which I had for a long
time been searching.