1610.  Then a half-dozen makeshift arrangements came in the ensuing years.  It was always the same story faithfully repeated in its broad outlines.  Some friendly nobleman would obtain from the King appointment as viceroy of New France and at the same time a trading monopoly for a term of years, always promising to send out some settlers in return.  The monopoly would then be sublet, and Champlain would be recognized as a sort of viceroy’s deputy.  And all for a colony in which the white population did not yet number fifty souls!

Despite the small population, however, Champlain’s task at Quebec was difficult and exacting.  His sponsors in France had no interest in the permanent upbuilding of the colony; they sent out very few settlers, and gave him little in the way of funds.  The traders who came to the St. Lawrence each summer were an unruly and boisterous crew who quarreled with the Indians and among themselves.  At times, indeed, Champlain was sorely tempted to throw up the undertaking in disgust.  But his patience held out until 1627, when the rise of Richelieu in France put the affairs of the colony upon a new and more active basis.  For a quarter of a century, France had been letting golden opportunities slip by while the colonies and trade of her rivals were forging ahead.  Spain and Portugal were secure in the South.  England had gained firm footholds both in Virginia and on Massachusetts Bay.  Even Holland had a strong commercial company in the field.  This was a situation which no far-sighted Frenchman could endure.  Hence Cardinal Richelieu, when he became chief minister of Louis XIII, undertook to see that France should have her share of New World spoils.  “No realm is so well situated as France,” he declared, “to be mistress of the seas or so rich in all things needful.”  The cardinal-minister combined fertility in ideas with such a genius for organization that his plans were quickly under way.  Unhappily his talent for details, for the efficient handling of little things, was not nearly so great, and some of his arrangements went sadly awry in consequence.

At any rate Richelieu in 1627 prevailed upon the King to abolish the office of viceroy, to cancel all trading privileges, and to permit the organization of a great colonizing company, one that might hope to rival the English and Dutch commercial organizations.  This was formed under the name of the Company of New France, or the Company of One Hundred Associates, as it was more commonly called from the fact that its membership was restricted to one hundred shareholders, each of whom contributed three thousand livres.  The cardinal himself, the ministers of state, noblemen, and courtesans of Paris, as well as merchants of the port towns, all figured in the list of stockholders.  The subscription lists contained an imposing array of names.