Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, vol 1 | Page 5

us no intimation of its character or extent. A careful examination of his numerous writings will, however, render it obvious that it was limited and rudimentary, scarcely extending beyond the fundamental branches which were then regarded as necessary in the ordinary transactions of business. As the result of instruction or association with educated men, he attained to a good general knowledge of the French language, but was never nicely accurate or eminently skilful in its use. He evidently gave some attention in his early years to the study and practice of drawing. While the specimens of his work that have come down to us are marked by grave defects, he appears nevertheless to have acquired facility and some skill in the art, which he made exceedingly useful in the illustration of his discoveries in the new world.
During Champlain's youth and the earlier years of his manhood, he appears to have been engaged in practical navigation. In his address to the Queen [10] he says, "this is the art which in my early years won my love, and has induced me to expose myself almost all my life to the impetuous waves of the ocean." That he began the practice of navigation at an early period may likewise be inferred from the fact that in 1599 he was put in command of a large French ship of 500 tons, which had been chartered by the Spanish authorities for a voyage to the West Indies, of which we shall speak more particularly in the sequel. It is obvious that he could not have been intrusted with a command so difficult and of so great responsibility without practical experience in navigation; and, as it will appear hereafter that he was in the army several years during the civil war, probably from 1592 to 1598, his experience in navigation must have been obtained anterior to that, in the years of his youth and early manhood.
Brouage offered an excellent opportunity for such an employment. Its port was open to the commerce of foreign nations, and a large number of vessels, as we have already seen, was employed in the yearly distribution of the salt of Saintonge, not only in the seaport towns of France, but in England and on the Continent. In these coasting expeditions, Champlain was acquiring skill in navigation which was to be of very great service to him in his future career, and likewise gathering up rich stores of experience, coming in contact with a great variety of men, observing their manners and customs, and quickening and strengthening his natural taste for travel and adventure. It is not unlikely that he was, at least during some of these years, employed in the national marine, which was fully employed in guarding the coast against foreign invasion, and in restraining the power of the Huguenots, who were firmly seated at Rochelle with a sufficient naval force to give annoyance to their enemies along the whole western coast of France.
In 1592, or soon after that date, Champlain was appointed quarter-master in the royal army in Brittany, discharging the office several years, until, by the peace of Vervins, in 1598, the authority of Henry IV. was firmly established throughout the kingdom. This war in Brittany constituted the closing scene of that mighty struggle which had been agitating the nation, wasting its resources and its best blood for more than half a century. It began in its incipient stages as far back as a decade following 1530, when the preaching of Calvin in the Kingdom of Navarre began to make known his transcendent power. The new faith, which was making rapid strides in other countries, easily awakened the warm heart and active temperament of the French. The principle of private judgment which lies at the foundation of Protestant teaching, its spontaneity as opposed to a faith imposed by authority, commended it especially to the learned and thoughtful, while the same principle awakened the quick and impulsive nature of the masses. The effort to put down the movement by the extermination of those engaged in it, proved not only unsuccessful, but recoiled, as usual in such cases, upon the hand that struck the blow. Confiscations, imprisonments, and the stake daily increased the number of those which these severe measures were intended to diminish. It was impossible to mark its progress. When at intervals all was calm and placid on the surface, at the same time, down beneath, where the eye of the detective could not penetrate, in the closet of the scholar and at the fireside of the artisan and the peasant, the new gospel, silently and without observation, was spreading like an all-pervading leaven. [11]
In 1562, the repressed forces of the Huguenots could no longer be restrained, and, bursting forth, assumed the form of organized civil war.