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Updated: July 9, 2025
When this youthful ambassador reached France, Henry of Navarre had perished by the knife of Ravaillac, and Marie de' Medici, that wily, cruel, and false Italian, was regent during the minority of her son, Louis XIII. The Jesuits were now all-powerful at the Louvre, and it was decided that Fathers Biard and Ennemond Massé should accompany Biencourt to Acadia.
It has been generally believed that Biencourt died in Acadia about 1623, after making over all his rights to Charles La Tour, who was his personal friend and follower from his boyhood. Recently, however, the discovery of some old documents in Paris throws some doubt on the generally accepted statement of the place of his death.
In the various vicissitudes of the little settlement the father and his son participated, and after it had been destroyed by Argall, they remained with Biencourt and his companions. In the course of time, the elder La Tour established a trading post on the peninsula at the mouth of the Penobscot in Acadian history a prominent place, as often in possession of the English as the French.
Here was argument for endless strife. Other interests, too, were adverse. Poutrincourt, in his discouragement, had abandoned his plan of liberal colonization, and now thought of nothing but beaver-skins. He wished to make a trading-post; the Jesuits wished to make a mission. When the vessel anchored before Port Royal, Biencourt, with disgust and anger, saw another Jesuit landed at the pier.
And with him sailed in 1604 Jean de Biencourt, Seigneur de Poutrincourt, whose ancestors had been illustrious in Picardy for five hundred years. Champlain made a third, joining the expedition as geographer rather than shipmaster. Lescarbot and Hébert came two years later. The company left Havre in two ships on March 7, 1604, according to Champlain, or just a month later, according to Lescarbot.
The man of most note, after De Monts and Champlain, was Jean de Biencourt, a rich nobleman of Picardy, better known in Acadian history as the Baron de Poutrincourt, who had distinguished himself as a soldier in the civil wars. A man of energy and enterprise, he was well fitted to assist in the establishment of a colony.
The indignant fathers excommunicated him. On this, the sagamore Louis, son of the grisly convert Membertou, begged leave to kill them; but Biencourt would not countenance this summary mode of relieving his embarrassment. He again, in the King's name, ordered the clerical mutineers to return to the fort.
Biencourt and nearly all the inmates of the fort were absent some distance in the country, and returned to see the English in complete possession. The destruction of Port Royal by Argall ends the first period in the history of Acadia as a French colony.
It was during this period that the English Puritans landed at Plymouth , at Salem , and at Boston , and made a lodgment there on the south-west flank of Acadia. The Baron de Poutrincourt died in 1615, leaving his estate to his son Biencourt.
One evening, as the forlorn tenants of Port Royal sat together disconsolate, Biard was seized with a spirit of prophecy. He called upon Biencourt to serve out the little of wine that remained, a proposal which met with high favor from the company present, though apparently with none from the youthful Vice-Admiral.
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