Читать книгу The White and the Gold - Thomas B. Costain - Страница 28

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Perhaps also the aging sophisticate had become convinced that he had nothing to gain in the New World. The metals and precious stones which Cartier had carried back in his carefully packed and sealed casks had proved to be of little value. The gold was genuine enough, but the captain’s report made it clear that the metal existed in such minute quantities that there could be little profit in it. The diamonds were found to be rock crystal. This was a great disappointment and also the cause of much wry joking. For a long period thereafter anything which proved to be valueless was popularly referred to as “a Canadian diamond.” The legend of the Kingdom of Saguenay had been dispelled. The dream of finding fabulous wealth in America had been found lacking in substance; the bubble of easy wealth had been pricked.

The Sieur de Roberval was killed in a street affray in Paris near the Church of the Holy Innocents. Cartier spent the rest of his life in a small stone manor house at Limoilou near St. Malo, enjoying the company of his beloved Catherine and the respect of all citizens of the ancient seaport. It was recorded on September 1, 1557, “this said Wednesday about five in the morning died Jacques Cartier.”

Fishermen continued to sail every spring to the banks off Newfoundland. In the anterooms of kings and sometimes in the secrecy of royal council meetings there was still talk of conquering and colonizing America. The interest, however, seems to have been largely academic. Spain continued to prosper from the gold which came out of Mexico and Peru, but the northern half of the continent held out no such inducements. Men shuddered at the story of the lovely and unfortunate Marguerite living alone on the Isle of Demons and of men swinging on improvised gallows outside Roberval’s feudal castle. The appetite for this kind of adventure ran thin for three quarters of a century thereafter in the veins of Frenchmen and Englishmen alike.