96 THE FRENCH BLOOD IN AMEEICA 



hortations, sermons, prayers, followed in close succession, 

 and Villegagnon was always present, kneeling on a vel- 

 vet cushion brought after him by a page. Soon, how- 

 ever, he fell into sharp controversy with the ministers 

 upon points of faith. Among the emigrants was a 

 student of the Sorbonne, one Cointac, between whom and 

 the ministers arose a fierce and unintermitted war of 

 words. Is it lawful to mix water with the wine of the 

 Eucharist ? May the sacramental bread be made of meal 

 of Indian corn? These and similar points of dispute 

 filled the fort with wrauglings, begetting cliques, factious 

 and feuds without number. Villegagnon took part with 

 the student, and between them they devised a new doc- 

 trine, abhorrent alike to Geneva and to Eome. The ad- 

 vent of this nondescript heresy was the signal of redoub- 

 led strife. . . . Villegagnon felt himself, too, in a false 



A False positlou. Ou ouc sidc he depended on the Protestant, Co- 



ligny ; on the other, he feared the court. There were 

 Catholics in the colony who might report him as an open 

 heretic. On this point his doubts were set at rest ; for a 

 ship from France brought him a letter from the Cardinal 

 of Lorraine, couched, it is said, in terms which restored 

 him forthwith to the bosom of the Church. Villegagnon 

 now affirmed that he had been deceived in Calvin, and 

 pronounced him a 'frightful heretic' He became des- 

 potic beyond measure, and would bear no opposition. 

 The ministers, reduced nearly to starvation, found them- 

 selves under a tyranny worse than that from which they 

 had fled. 



Expelling the ' ' At Icugth hc drovc them from the fort, and forced them 

 to bivouac on the mainland, at the risk of being butch- 

 ered by Indians, until a vessel loading Brazil-wood in the 

 harbour should be ready to carry them back to France. 

 Having rid himself of the ministers, he caused three of 

 the more zealous Calvinists to be seized, dragged to the 

 edge of a rock, and thrown into the sea. A fourth, equally 

 obnoxious, but who, being a tailor, could ill be spared. 



Ministers 



