This attempt to obtain a private monopoly having failed, we are surprised to find a monopoly being granted in 1589 by Henry IV to a gentleman of Brittany, the Sieur de la Roche, apparently in accordance with a promise given verbally or otherwise by Henry III at sometime before his assassination in August, 1659. This document was one similar to that granted by Francis I to Roberval and it made de la Roche the king's lieutenant governor in New France--with real vice-regal privileges. The commission differed in this from Roberval's that it gave power to the lieutenant general to choose merchants to accompany him and forbade all others to trade in the same regions without his consent under penalty of confiscation of merchandise and vessels. Again a miserable fiasco was to take place. The lieutenant governor had to draw upon the jails and galleys for his colonists. He arrived with sixty men under the direction of pilot Chedotel at Sable Island, twenty-five leagues to the south of the Island of Cape Breton. Arrived there he disembarked, according to Lescarbot, the greater part of those he had drawn from the prisons, left them provisions and merchandise, and promised to return for them as soon as he had found on the mainland, a suitable place for settlement. Taking a little bark, he went to the Acadian coast, but on returning was surprised by so violent a wind that he was driven back to France in less than twelve days. The fate of the abandoned colonists had better be told by Champlain. In the description of his voyages, dedicated to Cardinal Richelieu and published in 1632, Champlain's criticism of de la Roche's expedition was "that the fault of this attempt at colonizing was that this marquis did not have some one experienced in such matters explore and reconnoitre, before assuming so excessive an outlay." On the other hand we can be glad that Canada did not start her origin as a colony with such stuff as composed the greater part of Roberval's and de la Roche's consignments.
In 1598 the Edict of Nantes had been published in France and it was soon to affect Canada in this wise. In France it had restored civil and religious liberty to the Huguenots, Protestants or French Calvinists. The spirit of conciliation was in the air and Huguenots now began to take their place in the judicature and financial posts, and in the army. Next year we find a sailor merchant of St. Malo named Dupont Gravé soliciting a commission for Sieur Chauvin, of Normandy, a Huguenot, a man of great skill and experience in navigation, captain in the King's navy and of some influence at the court. As the King remembered the good services of M. Chauvin he granted a monopoly to him on the condition that no one should trade in Canada unless he had Chauvin's permission and should settle in the country and make a home there. Chauvin was to bear all the expenses, and he was to take 500 men to fortify the country and defend it, and to teach the Catholic faith to the Indians.