ed their bloody raids against the French settlements. Courcelle therefore decided to march at once against their villages beyond Lake Champlain, in what is now New York state and to teach them a lesson. But he did not know the nature of a winter expedition in this northern climate. Leaving Quebec on January 9, he reached Three Rivers on the 16th, and proceeded to Fort Saint-Louis on the Richelieu, where he had fixed the rendezvous of the troops. The cold was very severe, and many soldiers were frozen at the outset. On January 29 the little band, five or six hundred French and Canadians, left Fort Saint-Louis, unfortunately without waiting for a party of Algonquins who should have acted as scouts. It was a distressing march. The soldiers had to walk through deep snow, and the unfamiliar use of snowshoes was a great trial to the Europeans. At night, no shelter! They had to sleep in the open air, under the canopy of the sky and the cold light of the glimmering stars. Having no guides, Courcelle and his men lost their way in that unknown country. After seventeen days of extreme toil they found that, instead of reaching the Mohawk district, they were near Corlaer in the New Netherlands, sixty miles distant. The vanguard had a brush with two hundred Iroquois, who slipped away after killing six French soldiers and leaving four of their own number dead. The governor could go no farther with his exhausted troops and was forced to retrace his steps. The retreat was worse than the forward march. The supply of provisions failed, and to the suffering from cold was soon added hunger. Many soldiers died of exposure and starvation. In reading the account of the ill-fated expedition, one is reminded of the disastrous retreat of Napoleon's army in 1812 through the icy solitudes of Russia. By this sad experience the military commanders of New France found that they had something to learn of the art of making war in North America, and must respect the peculiarities of the climate and c