However, in the middle of the night which followed this interview, Cartier took advantage of a favourable wind and set sail for France, arriving soon afterwards at St.Malo.
But Roberval arrived at Charlesbourg (going the roundabout way through the straits of Belle Isle, for Cartier had told him nothing of the convenient passage through Cabot Strait), and there spent the winter of 1542-3, sending his ships back to France.

This winter was one of horrors.

Roberval was a headstrong, passionate man, perfectly reckless of human life.

He maintained discipline by ferocious sentences, putting many of his men in irons, whipping others cruelly, women as well as men, and shooting those who seemed the most rebellious.

Even the Indians were moved to pity, and wept at the sight of the woes of these unhappy French men and women under the control of a bloodthirsty tyrant, and many of them dying of scurvy, or miserably weak from that disease.[10] [Footnote 10: A story was subsequently told of Roberval's stern treatment which had a germ of truth in it, though it has since been the foundation of many a romance.