In 1543, Roberval abandoned the colony and returned to France.

The “gold” and “precious stones” he had sent back to France as evidence of the colony’s promise turned out to be worthless minerals — iron pyrite and quartz, not gold and diamonds.

He never answered for abandoning Marguerite, at least not in any official way that the historical record documents.

He returned to France, faced whatever reception his failed colony warranted, and eventually met his end in 1560 in what was described as a violent confrontation in Paris during a period of religious conflict — the Wars of Religion that would tear France apart in the late sixteenth century.

The contrast between his trajectory — returning to France after a failed colonial venture, facing no documented legal consequence for abandoning a woman on an island — and Marguerite’s — surviving that island through extraordinary effort and endurance — is one of the most striking aspects of the story.