With the re-establishment of the Jesuit mission the last days of Champlain are inseparably allied.  A severe experience had proved that the colonizing zeal of the crown was fitful and uncertain.  Private initiative was needed to supplement the official programme, and of such initiative the supply seemed scanty.  The fur traders notoriously shirked their obligations to enlarge the colony, and after 1632 the Huguenots, who had a distinct motive for emigrating, were forbidden by Richelieu to settle in Canada.  There remained the enthusiasm of the Jesuits and the piety of those in France who supplied the funds for their work among the Montagnais, the Hurons, and the Iroquois.  As the strongest order in the Roman Catholic Church, the Jesuits possessed resources which enabled them to maintain an active establishment in Canada.  Through them Quebec became religious, and their influence permeated the whole colony as its population increased and the zone of occupation grew wider.  Le Jeune, Lalemant, Brebeuf, and Jogues are among the outstanding names of the restored New France.

During the last two years of his life Champlain lived patriarchally at Quebec, administering the public affairs of the colony and lending its religious impulses the strength of his support and example.  Always a man of serious mind, his piety was confirmed by the reflections of advancing age and his daily contact with the missionaries.  In his household there was a service of prayer three times daily, together with reading at supper from the lives of the saints.  In pursuance of a vow, he built a chapel named Notre Dame de la Recouvrance, which records the gratitude he felt for the restoration of Quebec to France.  He was, in short, the ideal layman—­ serving his king loyally in all business of state, and demeaning himself as a pilgrim who is about to set forth for the City of God.

It is not to be inferred from the prominence of Champlain’s religious interests that he neglected his public duties, which continued to be many and exacting.  One of his problems was to prevent the English from trading in the St Lawrence contrary to treaty; another was to discourage the Hurons from selling their furs to the Dutch on the Hudson.  The success of the mission, which he had deeply at heart, implied the maintenance of peace among the Indians who were friendly to the French.  He sought also to police the region of the Great Lakes by a band of French soldiers, and his last letter to Richelieu (dated August 15, 1635) contains an earnest appeal for a hundred and twenty men, to whom should be assigned the duty of marshalling the Indian allies against the English and Dutch, as well as of preserving order throughout the forest.  The erection of a fort at Three Rivers in 1634 was due to his desire that the annual barter should take place at a point above Quebec.  A commission which he issued in the same year to Jean Nicolet to explore the country of the Wisconsins, shows that his consuming zeal for exploration remained with him to the end.