Henry IV. manifested a deep interest in Champlain's narrative. He listened
to its recital with great apparent satisfaction, and by way of
encouragement promised not to abandon the undertaking, but to continue to
bestow upon it his royal favor and patronage.

There chanced at this time to be residing at court, a Huguenot gentleman
who had been a faithful adherent of Henry IV. in the late war, Pierre du
Guast, Sieur de Monts, gentleman ordinary to the king's chamber, and
governor of Pons in Saintonge. This nobleman had made a trip for pleasure
or recreation to Canada with De Chauvin, several years before, and had
learned something of the country, and especially of the advantages of the
fur trade with the Indians. He was quite ready, on the death of De Chastes,
to take up the enterprise which, by this event, had been brought to a
sudden and disastrous termination. He immediately devised a scheme for the
establishment of a colony under the patronage of a company to be composed
of merchants of Rouen, Rochelle, and of other places, their contributions
for covering the expense of the enterprise to be supplemented, if not
rendered entirely unnecessary, by a trade in furs and peltry to be
conducted by the company.

In less than two months after the return of the last expedition, De Monts
had obtained from Henry IV., though contrary to the advice of his most
influential minister, [32] a charter constituting him the king's lieutenant
in La Cadie, with all necessary and desirable powers for a colonial
settlement. The grant included the whole territory lying between the 4Oth
and 46th degrees of north latitude. Its southern boundary was on a parallel
of Philadelphia, while its northern was on a line extended due west from
the most easterly point of the Island of Cape Breton, cutting New Brunswick
on a parallel near Fredericton, and Canada near the junction of the river