In the opening paragraphs of the third chapter of Parkman's
_Champlain and His Associates_, will be found an account, of which
these verses are little more than a paraphrase. When de Monts was
commissioned to settle New France, the Roman Catholic clergy insisted
that they be given charge of the souls of the heathen in the new land.
De Monts was, himself, a Huguenot, and brought his own ministers with
him, so that the ship that sailed to Acadia in 1604 bore with it clergy
of both sects. This was the cause of ceaseless quarrels. "I have seen
our _curé_ and the minister," says Champlain, "fall to with their
fists on questions of faith. I cannot say which had the more pluck, or
which hit the harder; but I know the minister complained to the Sieur
de Monts that he had been beaten." Sagard, the Franciscan friar, gives
an account of the death of two of the disputants and of their burial in
one grave. I have taken the liberty of making them the central figures
of the dispute, though, actually, they were subordinates.