It was a feature of Champlain’s policy that from time to time French youths should spend the winter with the Indians—­hunting with them, living in their settlements, exploring their country, and learning their language.  Of Frenchmen thus trained to woodcraft during Champlain’s lifetime the most notable were Etienne Brule, Nicolas Vignau, Nicolas Marsolet, and Jean Nicolet.  Unfortunately the three first did not leave an unclouded record.  Brule, after becoming a most accomplished guide, turned traitor and aided the English in 1629.  Champlain accuses Marsolet of a like disloyalty. [Footnote:  Marsolet’s defence was 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.

Champlain makes it clear that he did not credit Vignau’s tale with the simple credulity of a man who has never been to sea.  He caused Vignau to swear to its truth at La Rochelle before two notaries.  He stipulated that Vignau should go with him over the whole route.  Finally, as they were on the point of sailing together for Canada in the spring of 1613, he once more adjured Vignau in the presence of distinguished witnesses, saying ’that if what he had previously said was not true, he must not give me the trouble to undertake the journey, which involved many dangers.  Again he affirmed all that he had said, on peril of his life.’