The arrival of Jacques Cartier in Hochelaga in 1535, at the foot of what is now known as Mount Royal, was an episode especially consequential to the history of New France in his three exploration voyages to the West Indies. Under a mandate from King Francis I to find a waterway to Cathay (China) and to Cipango (Japan), he reached Stadacona (the future site of Québec City) at the end of the summer of 1535. Encouraged, he quickly continued further into the interior, but the rapids surrounding what is now the Island of Montreal blocked his route. He would then visit Hochelaga, which he described in Bref récit, a brief account of his second voyage to the Saint Lawrence Valley. In 1611, the European explorer Samuel de Champlain visited the area. In 1642, the village of Ville-Marie was founded by Paul de Chomedey, sieur de Maisonneuve, but the inhabitants gradually dropped that name, preferring to use instead the name of the island upon which the colony was established, Montreal, a toponym derived from mont royal, the French name of Mount Royal.