Out of this deadly danger Champlain escaped through the confession of a vacillating spirit named Natel, who regretted his share in the plot, but, once involved, had fears of the poniard.  Finally he confessed to Testu, the pilot, who immediately informed Champlain.  Questioned as to the motive, Natel replied that ’nothing had impelled them, except that they had imagined that by giving up the place into the hands of the Basques or Spaniards they might all become rich, and that they did not want to go back to France.’  Duval, with five others, was then seized and taken to Tadoussac.  Later in the summer Pontgrave brought the prisoners back to Quebec, where evidence was taken before a court-martial consisting of Champlain, Pontgrave, a captain, a surgeon, a first mate, a second mate, and some sailors.  The sentence condemned four to death, of whom three were afterwards sent to France and put at the discretion of De Monts.  Duval was ’strangled and hung at Quebec, and his head was put on the end of a pike, to be set in the most conspicuous place on our fort, that he might serve as an example to those who remained, leading them to deport themselves correctly in future, in the discharge of their duty; and that the Spaniards and Basques, of whom there were large numbers in the country, might not glory in the event.’

It will be seen from the recital of Duval’s conspiracy that Champlain was fortunate to escape the fate of Hudson and La Salle.  While this cause celebre was running its course to a tragic end, the still more famous habitation grew day by day under the hands of busy workmen.  As fruits of a crowded and exciting summer Champlain could point to a group of three two-storeyed buildings.  ‘Each one,’ he says, ’was three fathoms long and two and a half wide.  The storehouse was six fathoms long and three wide, with a fine cellar six feet deep.  I had a gallery made all round our buildings, on the outside, at the second storey, which proved very convenient.  There were also ditches, fifteen feet wide and six deep.  On the outer side of the ditches I constructed several spurs, which enclosed a part of the dwelling, at the points where we placed our cannon.  Before the habitation there is a place four fathoms wide and six or seven long, looking out upon the river-bank.  Surrounding the habitation are very good gardens.’

Three dwellings of eighteen by fifteen feet each were a sufficiently modest starting-point for continental ambitions, even when supplemented by a storehouse of thirty-six feet by eighteen.  In calling the gardens very good Champlain must have been speaking with relation to the circumstances, or else they were very small, for there is abundant witness to the sufferings which Quebec in its first twenty years might have escaped with the help of really abundant gardens.  At St Croix and Port Royal an attempt had been made to plant seeds, and at Quebec Champlain doubtless renewed the effort, though with small practical result.  The point is important in its bearing on the nature of the settlement.  Quebec, despite such gardens as surrounded the habitation, was by origin an outpost of the fur trade, with a small, floating, and precarious population.  Louis Hebert, the first real colonist, did not come till 1617.