Alchemy on the Cartier-Roberval site: the nature of finds and fire assays evidence Commissioned by King François I, Jean-François de la Rocque, Sieur de Roberval, and his pilot, Jacques Cartier, crossed the Atlantic Ocean to Cap-Rouge (near Québec) with nearly 700 persons, with the aim of establishing a permanent colony and of discovering a route to Asia. The colony proved a failure in 1543 after only two years, the project was abandoned, but not without first seeking precious metals near the site.  This talk will focus on presenting material evidence related to the search for precious metals during the short life of the colony. Ore mining and testing, fire assay crucibles, and traces of sulphur and cinnabar are part of the material remains discovered in the last few years by archaeologists of the Commission de la Capitale nationale du Québec.  Compositional analyses were performed on different types of materials and shed new light on this short but rich episode of our history.