Roberval, Jean François de La Roque, Sieur de, << raw behr val, zhahn frahn swah duh luh rohk, syur duh >> (1500?-1560), was a French nobleman and soldier and an explorer and colonizer in Canada. He made the first French attempt to establish a permanent colony in America, but failed.
King Francis I appointed Roberval lieutenant general of Canada in 1541. The next year, Roberval sailed to Canada with about 200 colonists. In waters near Newfoundland, he met the French navigator Jacques Cartier. Cartier had spent the winter near what is now Quebec City and was returning to France. Roberval and the colonists reoccupied Cartier’s settlement. They explored the St. Lawrence River from what is now the Montreal area to the mouth of the Saguenay River, in search of a fabled kingdom of gold. But the winter of 1543 was marked by famine, disease, and mutiny, and so later that year, Roberval returned to France with the few surviving colonists.
