VILLEGAGNON'S FAILUEE IN BRAZIL 97 



was permitted to live on condition of recantation. Then, 

 mustering the colonists, he warned them to shun the 

 heresies of Luther and Calvin ; thieatened that all who 

 openly professed those detestable doctrines should share 

 the fate of their three comrades : and, his harangue over, 

 feasted the whole assembly in token, says the narrator, 

 of joy and triumph. 



" Meanwhile, in their crazy vessel, the banished minis- Penis and 

 ters drifted slowly on their way. Storms fell upon them, 

 their provisions failed, their water casks were empty, and, 

 tossing in the wilderness of waves, or rocking on the long 

 swells of subsiding gales, they sank almost to despair. 

 In their famine they chewed the Brazil-wood with which 

 the vessel was laden, devoured every scrap of leather, 

 singed and ate the horn of lanterns, hunted rats through 

 the hold, and sold them to each other at enormous prices. 

 At length, stretched on the deck, sick, listless, attenuated, 

 and scarcely able to move a limb, they descried across 

 the waste of sea the faint, cloud-like line that marked the 

 coast of Brittany. Their perils were not past ; for, if we 

 may believe one of them, Jean de Lery, they bore a sealed 

 letter from Villegagnon to the magistrates of the first 

 French port at which they might arrive. It denounced 

 them as heretics, worthy to be burned. Happily, the a Disastrous 

 magistrates leaned to the Reformed, and the malice of the ^^''"""^ 

 commandant failed of its victims." 



Soon after the return of the ministers to France, Ville- 

 gagnon himself followed them, leaving the deserted colony 

 to its fate. The end was not long in coming, and before 

 the close of the year 1558 a Portuguese fleet arrived in the 

 Bay of Eio de Janeiro and overpowered the feeble re- 

 sistance of the little garrison, razed the fort, and put its 

 unhappy defenders to the sword. Thus Coligny's first 

 experiment in colonization failed most disastrously. 



