There is no abstract available for this thesis.

The Histoire de la Nouvelle-France (1609, 1611, 1612, 1617, 1618) by Marc Lescarbot (v. 1570--1641) is read as a symbolic foundation for the young colony of Port-Royal, Acadia (Annapolis, Nova Scotia), a construct which functions as a valid genesis for French America (thus, "New France" in the title refers specifically to this habitation as well as to the men who contributed to its making). Chapter I is devoted to a reading of the work's abundant paratext and identifies the topics at stake in the unfavourable rumours about the Acadian expeditions as well as about the lieutenant of Port-Royal, Jean de Biencourt, sieur de Poutrincourt. Moreover, this chapter explores the subjective marks, disseminated in the paratext, that build up the historian's ethos, which works as a proof of the validity of his object. This chapter investigates as well the metadiscursive comments on the writing of history and their incidence on the referentiality of the work. Chapter II compares the compilation of travel accounts contained in the Histoire with its sources. This comparison shows how the alteration of these accounts of travellers---who recorded themselves the result of their American expeditions---strengthens the division of the stereotyped dichotomy between the man of letters and the man of action, two functions respectively assigned to Lescarbot and Poutrincourt in the Histoire. The order of this compilation as well as the organisation of its various parts according to a diegetical logic shape specific places where a tension emerges between a reliable discourse, intended to a readership interested in the actual conditions of a colonial establishment, and the production of a textual "coating" aiming at attracting a courtly readership, to which the Jesuits, who challenged Poutrincourt's colonial project, addressed their requests. In chapter III, where are confronted the written and mapped representations of Port-Royal, this tension is even more manifest.

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