However, the French crown failed to make good use of Villegaignon's exploits to expand the reach of the French kingdom into the New World, as was being done at the time with the claims of Jacques Cartier in the present-day province of Quebec, Canada.
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He sent one of his ships, the Grande Roberge, to Honfleur, entrusted with letters to King Henry II, Gaspard de Coligny and according to some accounts, the Protestant leader John Calvin.
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From 1555 to 1567, French Huguenots, under the leadership of vice-admiral Nicolas Durand de Villegaignon, made an attempt to establish the colony of France Antarctique in what is now Brazil, but were expelled.
Pierre Richier, also Pierre Richer, dit de Lisle, (circa 1506-1580) was a French Calvinist theologian, who accompanied Philippe de Corguilleray on a French expedition to Brazil in 1556, to reinforce the colony of France Antarctique.
He tries to convince his captors by speaking in French (reciting the poem by Étienne Jodelle found in André Thévet's Singularities of France Antarctique) but the Tupinambás don't believe that the Frenchman was a prisoner of the Portuguese they have killed, and the Chief thinks he is Portuguese because "No Frenchman would shoot at the Tupinambá."