During the calm, which was soon to be perturbed, Charles d'Ailleboust completed his fortifications with four regular bastions, so well constructed that the fort exterior was the pride of Canada. The fault was the delay in not having chosen another site, for even now the floods and the ice-pushes from the St. Lawrence threatened many times to upheave the fortifications, and by 1672 the fort was in ruins. Yet for the present they were of avail and inspired fear in the Iroquois and pride in the colonists. Agriculture was largely advanced by d'Ailleboust by cultivating lands for himself and having the same done for the settlement.
But war was again looming ahead. Signs were not wanting by the gradual dispersal of the Indian allies from the fort during the late autumn. On November 17th, three Hurons who were at Ville Marie, having gone to the hunt, returned, with the loss of one of their companions. A few days after, having gone in search of him, they were captured by a band of Iroquois. On November 30, 1646, two Frenchmen were taken at a distance from the camp. Thus it became evident that the peace had never been thoroughly intended, for news came in on all sides of disasters from the Iroquois. The year 1647 passed in troublous vexations. To the great joy of the settlement M. de Maisonneuve returned in the spring of 1648 and found that life was indeed a warfare.
The wars of the Iroquois were fiercer than ever. Fear filled the hearts of all the Montrealers. The fort was the centre of surprises. Yet this year the first windmill was constructed by de Maisonneuve, at what is still known as Windmill Point. It was built with loopholes for musketry, so that the mill was intended not only to grind the wheat but to be an advanced redoubt and a challenge to the Iroquois to show them that the French were not ready to abandon their field of glory. On October 21st Charles d'Ailleboust went to France whence he would return as the governor general.
A word should now be said of the government of the country. By a decree of the king in 1647 it had been arranged that the government of the country should be left in the matter of police, commerce and war in the hands of three, viz., the governor general, the superior of the Jesuits and the governor of Montreal.