Bishop Laval

THE MAKERS OF CANADA

BISHOP LAVAL

BY

A. LEBLOND DE BRUMATH

TORONTO

MORANG & CO., LIMITED
1906

NOY 24

Entered according to Act of the Parliament of Canada
in the year 1906 by Morang & Co., Limited, in the Depart
ment of Agriculture

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I Page

ESTABLISHMENT OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN

CANADA . . 1

CHAPTER II
THE EARLY YEARS OF FRANCOIS DE LAVAL . 15

CHAPTER III
THE SOVEREIGN COUNCIL , . , .31

CHAPTER IV
ESTABLISHMENT OF THE SEMINARY . , 47

CHAPTER V
MGR. DE LAVAL AND THE SAVAGES . . 81

CHAPTER VI
SETTLEMENT OF THE COLONY . , , 77

CHAPTER VII
THE SMALLER SEMINARY . . . .97

CHAPTER VI II
THE PROGRESS OF THE COLONY . 113

BISHOP LAVAL

CHAPTER IX Page

BECOMES BISHOP OF QUEBEC . . .129

CHAPTER X
FRONTENAC IS APPOINTED GOVERNOR . 143

CHAPTER XI
A TROUBLED ADMINISTRATION . . 167

CHAPTER XII
THIRD VOYAGE TO FRANCE . . 169

CHAPTER XIII
LAVAL RETURNS TO CANADA . . 181

CHAPTER XIV
RESIGNATION OF MGR. DE LAVAL . . 195

CHAPTER XV

MGR. DE LAVAL COMES FOR THE LAST TIME TO

CANADA ... 2U

CHAPTER XVI
MASSACRE OF LACHINE

223

CHAPTER XVII
THE LABOURS OF OLD AGE . . -235

CHAPTER XVIII
LAST DAYS OF MGR. DE LAVAL 249

CONTENTS

CHAPTER XIX Page

DEATH OF MGR. DE LAVAL . . .261

INDEX . . • • • • 271

CHAPTER I

ESTABLISHMENT OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH
IN CANADA

r, standing upon the threshold of the twentieth
century, we cast a look behind us to note the
road traversed, the victories gained by the great
army of Christ, we discover everywhere marvels of
abnegation and sacrifice ; everywhere we see rising
before us the dazzling figures of apostles, of doctors
of the Church and of martyrs who arouse our ad
miration and command our respect. There is no
epoch, no generation, even, which has not given to
the Church its phalanx of heroes, its quota of
deeds of devotion, whether they have become il
lustrious or have remained unknown.

Born barely three centuries ago, the Christianity
of New France has enriched history with pages no
less glorious than those in which are enshrined the
lofty deeds of her elders. To the list, already long,
of workers for the gospel she has added the names
of the Recollets and of the Jesuits, of the Sul-
picians and of the Oblate Fathers, who crossed
the seas to plant the faith among the hordes of
barbarians who inhabited the immense regions to
day known as the Dominion of Canada.

And what daring was necessary, in the early

1

BISHOP LAVAL

days of the colony, to plunge into the vast forests
of North America! Incessant toil, sacrifice, pain
and death in its most terrible forms were the price
that was gladly paid in the service of God by men
who turned their backs upon the comforts of civi
lized France to carry the faith into the unknown
wilderness.

Think of what Canada was at the beginning of
the seventeenth century ! Instead of these fertile
provinces, covered to-day by luxuriant harvests,
man's gaze met everywhere only impenetrable for
ests in which the woodsman's axe had not yet
permitted the plough to cleave and fertilize the
soil ; instead of our rich and populous cities, of
our innumerable villages daintily perched on the
brinks of streams, or rising here and there in the
midst of verdant plains, the eye perceived only
puny wigwams isolated and lost upon the banks of
the great river, or perhaps a few agglomerations of
smoky huts, such as Hochelaga or Stadacone ; in
stead of our iron rails, penetrating in all directions,
instead of our peaceful fields over which trains
hasten at marvellous speed from ocean to ocean,
there were but narrow trails winding through a
jungle of primeval trees, behind which hid in turn
the Iroquois, the Huron or the Algonquin, await
ing the propitious moment to let fly the fatal
arrow ; instead of the numerous vessels bearing
over the waves of the St. Lawrence, at a distance
of more than six hundred leagues from the sea,
2

EARLY MISSIONARIES

the products of the five continents ; instead of
yonder floating palaces, thronged with travellers
from the four corners of the earth, then only an
occasional bark canoe came gliding slyly along by
the reeds of the shore, scarcely stopping except to
permit its crew to kindle a fire, to make prisoners
or to scalp some enemy.

A heroic courage was necessary to undertake
to carry the faith to these savage tribes. It was
condemning one's self to lead a life like theirs, of
ineffable hardships, dangers and privations, now in
a bark canoe and paddle in hand, now on foot and
bearing upon one's shoulders the things necessary
for the holy sacrament; in the least case it was
braving hunger and thirst, exposing one's self to
the rigours of an excessive cold, with which Euro
pean nations were not yet familiar ; it often meant
hastening to meet the most horrible tortures. In
spite of all this, however, Father Le Caron did not
hesitate to penetrate as far as the country of the
Hurons, while Fathers Sagard and Viel were sow
ing the first seeds of Christianity in the St. Law
rence valley. The devotion of the R^collets, to the
family of whom belonged these first missionaries of
Canada, was but ill-rewarded, for, after the treaty
of St. Germain-en-Laye, which restored Canada
to France, the king refused them permission to
return to a region which they had watered with
the sweat of their brows and fertilized with their
blood,

3

BISHOP LAVAL

The humble children of St. Francis had already
evangelized the Huron tribes as far as the Georgian
Bay, when the Company of the Cent Assoeids was
founded by Richelieu. The obligation which the
great cardinal imposed upon them of providing for
the maintenance of the propagators of the gospel
was to assure the future existence of the missions.
The merit, however, which lay in the creation
of a society which did so much for the further
ance of Roman Catholicism in North America is
not due exclusively to the great cardinal, for
Samuel de Champlain can claim a large share of
it. "The welfare of a soul," said this pious founder
of Quebec, "is more than the conquest of an
empire, and kings should think of extending their
rule in infidel countries only to assure therein the
reign of Jesus Christ."

Think of the suffering endured, in order to save
a soul, by men who for this sublime purpose re
nounced all that constitutes the charm of life ! Not
only did the Jesuits, in the early days of the
colony, brave horrible dangers with invincible
steadfastness, but they even consented to imitate
the savages, to live their life, to learn their difficult
idioms. Let us listen to this magnificent testimony
of the Protestant historian Bancroft : —

"The horrors of a Canadian life in the wilder
ness were resisted by an invincible, passive courage,
and a deep, internal tranquillity. Away from the
amenities of life, away from the opportunities of
4

MARTYRS

vain-glory, they became dead to the world, and
possessed their souls in unalterable peace. The few
who lived to grow old, though bowed by the toils
of a long mission, still kindled with the fervour of
apostolic zeal. The history of their labours is con
nected with the origin of every celebrated town in
the annals of French Canada ; not a cape was
turned nor a river entered but a Jesuit led the
way."

Must we now recall the edifying deaths of the
sons of Loyola, who brought the glad tidings of
the gospel to the Hurons ? — Father Jogues, who
returned from the banks of the Niagara with a
broken shoulder and mutilated hands, and went
back, with sublime persistence, to his barbarous
persecutors, to pluck from their midst the palm of
martyrdom; Father Daniel, wounded by a spear
while he was absolving the dying in the village of
St. Joseph; Father Brdbeuf, refusing to escape
with the women and children of the hamlet of St.
Louis, and expiring, together with Father Gabriel
Lalemant, in the most frightful tortures that Satan
could suggest to the imagination of a savage ;
Father Charles Gamier pierced with three bullets,
and giving up the ghost while blessing his converts;
Father de Noue dying on his knees in the snow !

These missions had succumbed in 1648 and 1649
under the attacks of the Iroquois. The venerable
founder of St. Sulpice, M. Olier, had foreseen this
misfortune ; he had always doubted the success of

5

BISHOP LAVAL

missions so extended and so widely scattered with
out a centre of support sufficiently strong to resist
a systematic and concerted attack of all their ene
mies at once. Without disapproving the despatch
of these flying columns of missionaries which visited
tribe after tribe (perhaps the only possible method
in a country governed by pagan chiefs), he believed
that another system of preaching the gospel would
produce, perhaps with less danger, a more durable
effect in the regions protected by the flag of
France. Taking up again the thought of the Bene
dictine monks, who have succeeded so well in other
countries, M. Olier and the other founders of
Montreal wished to establish a centre of fervent
piety which should accomplish still more by ex
ample than by preaching. The development and
progress of religious work must increase with the
material importance of this centre of proselytism.
In consequence, success would be slow, less bril
liant, but surer than that ordinarily obtained by
separate missions. This was, at least, the hope of
our fathers, and we of Quebec would seem unjust
towards Providence and towards them if, beholding
the present condition of the two seminaries of this
city, of our Catholic colleges, of our institutions of
every kind, and of our religious orders, we did not
recognize that their thought was wise, and their
enterprise one of prudence and blessed by God.

Up to 1658 New France belonged to the juris
diction of the Bishops of St. Malo and of Rouen.

BISHOP OF PETILEA

At the time of the second voyage of Cartier, in
1535, his whole crew, with their officers at their
head, confessed and received communion from the
hands of the Bishop of St. Malo. This jurisdiction
lasted until the appointment of the first Bishop of
New France. The creation of a diocese came in
due time; the need of an ecclesiastical superior,
of a character capable of imposing his authority,
made itself felt more and more. Disorders of all
kinds crept into the colony, and our fathers felt
the necessity of a firm and vigorous arm to remedy
this alarming state of affairs. The love of lucre,
of gain easily acquired by the sale of spirituous
liquors to the savages, brought with it evils against
which the missionaries endeavoured to react.

Francois de Laval-Montmorency, who was called
in his youth the Abbe de Montigny, was, on
the recommendation of the Jesuits, appointed
apostolic vicar by Pope Alexander VII, who
conferred upon him the title of Bishop of Petrsea
in partibus. The Church in Canada was then direct
ly connected with the Holy See, and the sovereign
pontiff abandoned to the king of France the right
of appointment and presentation of bishops having
the authority of apostolic vicars.

The difficulties which arose between Mgr. de
Laval and the Abbe de Queylus, Grand Vicar of
Rouen for Canada, were regrettable, but, thanks
to the truly apostolic zeal and the purity of in
tention of these two men of God, these difficulties

7

BISHOP LAVAL

were not long in giving place to a noble rivalry for
good, fostered by a perfect harmony. The Abbe de
Queylus had come to take possession of the Island
of Montreal for the company of St. Sulpice, and
to establish there a seminary on the model of that
in Paris. This creation, with that of the hospital
established by Mile. Mance, gave a great impetus
to the young city of Montreal. Moreover, religion
was so truly the motive of the foundation of the
colony by M. Olier and his associates, that the
latter had placed the Island of Montreal under the
protection of the Holy Virgin. The priests of St.
Sulpice, who had become the lords of the island,
had already given an earnest of their labours ; they
too aspired to venerate martyrs chosen from their
ranks, and in the same year MM. Lemaitre and
Vignal perished at the hands of the wild Iroquois.

Meanwhile, under the paternal direction of Mgr.
de Laval, and the thoroughly Christian administra
tion of governors like Champlain, de Montmagny,
d'Ailleboust, or of leaders like Maisonneuve and
Major Closse, Heaven was pleased to spread its
blessings upon the rising colony; a number of
savages asked and received baptism, and the fer
vour of the colonists endured. The men were not
the only ones to spread the good word ; holy
maidens worked on their part for the glory of God,
whether in the hospitals of Quebec and Montreal,
or in the institution of the Ursulines in the heart
of the city of Champlain, or, finally, in the modest
8

FAILURE AND SUCCESS

school founded at Ville-Marie by Sister Marguerite
Bourgeoys. It is true that the blood of the Indians
and of their missionaries had been shed in floods,
that the Huron missions had been exterminated,
and that, moreover, two camps of Algonquins had
been destroyed and swept away ; but nations as
well as individuals may promise themselves the
greater progress in the spiritual life according as
they commence it with a more abundant and a
richer record ; and the greatest treasure of a nation
is the blood of the martyrs who have founded it.
Moreover, the fugitive Hurons went to convert
their enemies, and even from the funeral pyres of
the priests was to spring the spark of faith for all
these peoples. Two hamlets were founded for the
converted Iroquois, those of the Sault St. Louis
(Caughnawaga) and of La Montagne at Montreal,
and fervent neophytes gathered there.

Certain historians have regretted that the first
savages encountered by the French in North Am
erica should have been Hurons ; an alliance made
with the Iroquois, they say, would have been a
hundred times more profitable for civilization and
for France. What do we know about it? Man
imagines and arranges his plans, but above these
arrangements hovers Providence — fools say, chance
—whose foreseeing hand sets all in order for the
accomplishment of His impenetrable design. Yet,
however firmly convinced the historian may be
that the eye of Providence never sleeps, that the

9

BISHOP LAVAL

Divine Hand is never still, he must be sober in
his observations; he must yield neither to his fancy
nor to his imagination ; but neither must he banish
God from history, for then everything in it would
become incomprehensible and inexplicable, absurd
and barren. It was this same God who guides
events at His will that inspired and sustained the
devoted missionaries in their efforts against the
revenue-farmers in the matter of the sale of in
toxicating liquors to the savages. The struggle
which they maintained, supported by the venerable
Bishop of Petraea, is wholly to their honour; it
was a question of saving even against their will
the unfortunate children of the woods who were
addicted to the fatal passion of intoxication. Un
happily, the Governors d'Avaugour and de Mezy,
in supporting the greed of the traders, were per
haps right from the political point of view, but
certainly wrong from a philanthropic and Christian
standpoint.

The colony continuing to prosper, and the grow
ing need of a national clergy becoming more and
more felt, Mgr. de Laval founded in 1663 a semin
ary at Quebec. The king decided that the tithes
raised from the colonists should be collected by
the seminary, which was to provide for the main
tenance of the priests and for divine service in the
established parishes. The Sovereign Council fixed
the tithe at a twenty-sixth.

The missionaries continued, none the less, to
10

EXTENSION OF MISSIONS

spread the light of the gospel and Christian civili
zation. It seems that the field of their labour had
never been too vast for their desire. Ever onward !
was their motto. While Fathers Garreau and Mes-
nard found death among the Algonquins on the
coasts of Lake Superior, the Sulpicians Dollier and
Gallinee were planting the cross on the shores of
Lake Erie ; Father Claude Allouez was preaching
the gospel beyond Lake Superior; Fathers Dablon,
Marquette, and Druilletes were establishing the
mission of Sault Ste. Marie ; Father Albanel was
proceeding to explore Hudson Bay; Father Mar
quette, acting with Jolliet, was following the course
of the Mississippi as far as Arkansas ; finally, later
on, Father Arnaud accompanied La Vdrendrye as
far as the Rocky Mountains.

The establishment of the Catholic religion in
Canada had now witnessed its darkest days ; its
history becomes intimately interwoven with that
of the country. Up to the English conquest, the
clergy and the different religious congregations, as
faithful to France as to the Holy See, encouraged j
the Canadians in their struggles against the in- I
vaders. Accordingly, at the time of the invasion of
the colony by Phipps, the Americans of Boston
declared that they would spare neither monks nor
missionaries if they succeeded in seizing Quebec ;
they bore a particular grudge against the priests
of the seminary, to whom they ascribed the ravages
committed shortly before in New England by the

11

BISHOP LAVAL

Abenaquis. They were punished for their boasting;
forty seminarists assembled at St. Joachim, the
country house of the seminary, joined the volun
teers who fought at Beauport, and contributed so
much to the victory that Frontenac, to recompense
their bravery, presented them with a cannon cap
tured by themselves.

The Church of Rome had been able to continue
in peace its mission in Canada from the departure
of Mgr. de Laval, in 1684, to the conquest of the
country by the English. The worthy Bishop of
Petreea, created Bishop of Quebec in 1674, was /
succeeded by Mgr. de St. Vallier, then by Mgr. de ^
Mornay, who did not come to Canada, by Mgr. de
Dosquet, Mgr. Pourroy de FAube-Riviere, and
Mgr. de Pontbriant, who died the very year in
which General de L£vis made of his flags on St.
Helen's Island a sacred pyre.

In 1760 the Protestant religion was about to
penetrate into Canada in the train of the victorious
armies of Great Britain, having been proscribed in
the colony from the time of Champlain. With
conquerors of a different religion, the role of the ,
Catholic clergy became much more arduous andt/
delicate ; this will be readily admitted when we
recall that Mgr. Briand was informally apprised
at the time of his appointment that the govern
ment of England would appear to be ignorant of
his consecration and induction by the Bishop of
Rome. But the clergy managed to keep itself on a
12

CONCILIATORY MEASURES

level with its task. A systematic opposition on its
part to the new masters of the country could only
have drawn upon the whole population a bitter
oppression, and we would not behold to-day the
prosperity of these nine ecclesiastical provinces of
Canada, with their twenty-four dioceses, these
numerous parishes which vie with each other in
the advancement of souls, these innumerable re
ligious houses which everywhere are spreading edu
cation or charity. The Act of Quebec in 1774 de
livered our fathers from the unjust fetters fastened
on their freedom by the oath required under the
Supremacy Act; but it is to the prudence of Mgr.
Plessis in particular that Catholics owe the religious
liberty which they now enjoy.

To-day, when passions are calmed, when we
possess a full and complete liberty of conscience,
to-day when the different religious denominations
live side by side in mutual respect and tolerance
of each other's convictions, let us give thanks to
the spiritual guides who by their wisdom and
moderation, but also by their energetic resistance
when it was necessary, knew how to preserve for
us our language and our religion. Let us always
respect the worthy prelates who, like those who
direct us to-day, edify us by their tact, their know
ledge and their virtues.

13

CHAPTER II

THE EARLY YEARS OF FRANCOIS DE LAVAL

great men pass through the world
like meteors ; their brilliance, lightning-like
at their first appearance, continues to cast a dazzl
ing gleam across the centuries: such were Alexan
der the Great, Mozart, Shakespeare and Napoleon.
Others, on the contrary, do not instantly command
the admiration of the masses ; it is necessary, in
order that their transcendent merit should appear,
either that the veil which covered their actions
should be gradually lifted, or that, some fine day,
and often after their death, the results of their
work should shine forth suddenly to the eyes of
men and prove their genius: such were Socrates,
Themistocles, Jacquard, Copernicus, and Christo
pher Columbus.

The illustrious ecclesiastic who has given his
name to our French-Canadian university, respected
as he was by his contemporaries, has been esteemed
at his proper value only by posterity. The reason
is easy to understand : a colony still in its infancy
is subject to many fluctuations before all the
wheels of government move smoothly, and Mgr.
de Laval, obliged to face ever renewed conflicts
of authority, had necessarily either to abandon what

15

BISHOP LAVAL

he considered it his duty to support, or create mal
contents. If sometimes he carried persistence to the
verge of obstinacy, he must be judged in relation to
the period in which he lived : governors like Fron-
tenac were only too anxious to imitate their abso
lute master, whose guiding maxim was, " I am the
state!" Moreover, where are the men of true worth
who have not found upon their path the poisoned
fruits of hatred ? The so-called praise that is some
times applied to a man, when we say of him, " he
has not a single enemy," seems to us, on the con
trary, a certificate of insignificance and obscurity.
The figure of this great servant of God is one of
those which shed the most glory on the history of
Canada ; the age of Louis XIV, so marvellous in
the number of great men which it gave to France,
lavished them also upon her daughter of the new
continent — Brebeuf and Lalemant, de Maisonneuve,
Dollard, Laval, Talon, de la Salle, Frontenac, d'lb-
erville, de Maricourt, de Sainte-Hel&ne, and many
others.

" Noble as a Montmorency " says a well-known
adage. The founder of that illustrious line, Bou
chard, Lord of Montmorency, figures as early as
950 A.D. among the great vassals of the kingdom
of France. The heads of this house bore formerly the
titles of First Christian Barons and of First Barons
of France ; it became allied to several royal houses,
and gave to the elder daughter of the Church
several cardinals, six constables, twelve marshals,
16

THE ANCESTORS OF LAVAL

four admirals, and a great number of distinguished
generals and statesmen. Sprung from this family,
whose origin is lost in the night of time, Fra^ois
de Laval-Montmorency was born at Montigny-sur-
Avre, in the department of Eure-et-Loir, on April
30th, 1623. This charming village, which still exists,
was part of the important diocese of Chartres.
Through his father, Hugues de Laval, Seigneur of
Montigny, Montbeaudry, Alaincourt and Rever-
court, the future Bishop of Quebec traced his des
cent from Count Guy de Laval, younger son of the
constable Mathieu de Montmorency, and through
his mother, Michelle de P^ricard, he belonged to a
family of hereditary officers of the Crown, which
was well-known in Normandy, and gave to the
Church a goodly number of prelates.

Like St. Louis, one of the protectors of his an
cestors, the young Fra^ois was indebted to his
mother for lessons and examples of piety and of
charity which he never forgot. Virtue, moreover,
was as natural to the L avals as bravery on the
field of battle, and whether it were in the retinue
of Clovis, when the First Barons received the
regenerating water of baptism, or on the im
mortal plain of Bouvines ; whether it were by the
side of Blanche of Castile, attacked by the rebel
lious nobles, or in the terrible holocaust of Crecy ;
whether it were in the fight of the giants at Mari-
gnan, or after Pavia during the captivity of the
roi'gentilhomme; everywhere where country and

17

BISHOP LAVAL

religion appealed to their defenders one was sure of
hearing shouted in the foremost ranks the motto
of the Montmorencys: " Dieu ayde au premier
baron chretien ! "

Young Laval received at the baptismal font the
name of the heroic missionary to the Indies, Fran-
cois-Xavier. To this saint and to the founder of
the Franciscans, Fra^ois d'Assise, he devoted
throughout his life an ardent worship. Of his youth
we hardly know anything except the misfortunes
which happened to his family. He was only four
teen years old when, in 1636, he suffered the loss
of his father, and one of his near kinsmen, Henri
de Montmorency, grand marshal of France, and
governor of Languedoc, beheaded by the order of
Richelieu. The bravery displayed by this valiant
warrior in battle unfortunately did not redeem the
fault which he had committed in rebelling against
the established power, against his lawful master,
Louis XIII, and in neglecting thus the traditions
handed down to him by his family through more
than seven centuries of glory.

Some historians reproach Richelieu with cruelty,
but in that troublous age when, hardly free from
the wars of religion, men rushed carelessly on into
the rebellions of the due d'Orleans and the due de
Soissons, into the conspiracies of Chalais, of Cinq-
Mars and de Thou, soon followed by the war of
La Fronde, it was not by an indulgence synony
mous with weakness that it was possible to strength-
18

HIS BROTHERS AND HIS SISTER

en the royal power. Who knows if it was not this
energy of the great cardinal which inspired the
young Francois, at an age when sentiment is so
deeply impressed upon the soul, with those ideas of
firmness which distinguished him later on ?

The future Bishop of Quebec was then a scholar
in the college of La Fleche, directed by the Jesuits,
for his pious parents held nothing dearer than the
education of their children in the fear of God and
love of the good. They had had six children ; the
two first had perished in the flower of their youth
on fields of battle; Francois, who was now the
eldest, inherited the name and patrimony of Mon-
tigny, which he gave up later on to his brother
Jean-Louis, which explains why he was called for
some time Abbd de Montigny, and resumed later
the generic name of the family of Laval ; the
fifth son, Henri de Laval, joined the Benedictine
monks and became prior of La Croix-Saint-Leuf-
froy. Finally the only sister of Mgr. Laval, Anne
Charlotte, became Mother Superior of the religious
community of the Daughters of the Holy Sacra
ment.

Francois edified the comrades of his early youth
by his ardent piety, and his tender respect for the
house of God ; his masters, too, clever as they were in
the art of guiding young men arid of distinguishing
those who were to shine later on, were not slow in
recognizing his splendid qualities, the clear-sighted
ness and breadth of his intelligence, and his wonder-

19

BISHOP LAVAL

ful memory. As a reward for his good conduct he was
admitted to the privileged ranks of those who com
prised the Congregation of the Holy Virgin. We
know what good these admirable societies, founded
by the sons of Loyola, have accomplished and still
accomplish daily in Catholic schools the world
over. Societies which vie with each other in piety
and encouragement of virtue, they inspire young
people with the love of prayer, the habits of regu
larity and of holy practices.

The congregation of the college of La Fleche
had then the good fortune of being directed by
Father Bagot, one of those superior priests always
so numerous in the Company of Jesus. At one
time confessor to King Louis XIII, Father Bagot
was a profound philosopher and an eminent theo
logian. It was under his clever direction that the
mind of Francois de Laval was formed, and we
shall witness later the germination of the seed
which the learned Jesuit sowed in the soul of his
beloved scholar.

At this period great families devoted to God
from early youth the younger members who showed
inclination for the religious life. Francois was only
nine years old when he received the tonsure, and
fifteen when he was appointed canon of the cathe
dral of Evreux. Without the revenues which he
drew from his prebend, he would not have been
able to continue his literary studies ; the death of
his father, in fact, had left his family in a rather
20

BECOMES HEAD OF THE FAMILY

precarious condition of fortune. He was to remain
to the end of his career the pupil of his preferred
masters, for it was under them that, having at the
age of nineteen left the institution where he had
brilliantly completed his classical education, he
studied philosophy and theology at the College de
Clermont at Paris.

He was plunged in these noble studies, when
two terrible blows fell upon him ; he learned of the
successive deaths of his two eldest brothers, who
had fallen gloriously, one at Freiburg, the other
at Nordlingen. He became thus the head of the
family, and as if the temptations which this title
offered him were not sufficient, bringing him as it
did, together with a great name a brilliant future,
his mother came, supported by the Bishop of
Evreux, his cousin, to beg him to abandon the
ecclesiastical career and to marry, in order to main
tain the honour of his house. Many others would
have succumbed, but what were temporal advan
tages to a man who had long aspired to the glory of
going to preach the Divine Word in far-off mis
sions ? He remained inflexible ; all that his mother
could obtain from him was his consent to devote
to her for some time his clear judgment and intel
lect in setting in order the affairs of his family. A
few months sufficed for success in this task. In
order to place an impassable abyss between himself
and the world, he made a full and complete re
nunciation in favour of his brother Jean-Louis of

21

BISHOP LAVAL

his rights of primogeniture and all his titles to
the seigniory of Montigny and Montbeaudry. The
world is ever prone to admire a chivalrous action,
and to look askance at deeds which appear to
savour of fanaticism. To Laval this renunciation of
wordly wealth and honour appeared in the simple
light of duty. His Master's words were inspiration
enough : " Wist ye not that I must be about my
Father's business ? "

Returning to the College de Clermont, he now
thought of nothing but of preparing to receive
worthily the holy orders. It was on September
23rd, 1647, at Paris, that he saw dawn for him the
beautiful day of the first mass, whose memory per
fumes the whole life of the priest. We may guess
with what fervour he must have ascended the steps
of the holy altar ; if up to that moment he had
merely loved his God, he must on that day have
dedicated to Jesus all the powers of his being, all the
tenderness of his soul, and his every heart-beat.

Mgr. de Pericard, Bishop of Evreux, was not
present at the ordination of his cousin ; death had
taken him away, but before expiring, besides ex
pressing his regret to the new priest for having
tried at the time, thinking to further the aims of
God, to dissuade him from the ecclesiastical life,
he gave him a last proof of his affection by appoint
ing him archdeacon of his cathedral. The duties of
the archdeaconry of Evreux, comprising, as it did,
nearly one hundred and sixty parishes, were par-
22

VISITS ROME

ticularly heavy, yet the young priest fulfilled them
for seven years, and M. de la Colombiere explains
to us how he acquitted himself of them : " The
regularity of his visits, the fervour of his enthusi
asm, the improvement and the good order which
he established in the parishes, the relief of the poor,
his interest in all sorts of charity, none of which
escaped his notice : all this showed well that with
out being a bishop he had the ability and merit
of one, and that there was no service which the
Church might not expect from so great a subject."
But our future Bishop of New France aspired to
more glorious fields. One of those zealous apostles
who were evangelizing India at this period, Father
Alexander of Rhodes, asked from the sovereign
pontiff the appointment for Asia of three French
bishops, and submitted to the Holy See the names
of MM. Pallu, Picquet and Laval. There was
no question of hesitation. All three set out im
mediately for Rome. They remained there fifteen
months ; the opposition of the Portuguese court
caused the failure of this plan, and Fra^ois de
Laval returned to France. He had resigned the
office of archdeacon the year before, 1653, in favour
of a man of tried virtue, who had been, neverthe
less, a prey to calumny and persecution, the Abbe
Henri- Marie Boudon ; thus freed from all responsi
bility, Laval could satisfy his desire of preparing
himself by prayer for the designs which God might
have for him.

23

BISHOP LAVAL

In his desire of attaining the greatest possible
perfection, he betook himself to Caen, to the re
ligious retreat of M. de Bernieres. St. Vincent de
Paul, who had trained M. Olier, was desirous also
that his pupil, before going to find a field for his
apostolic zeal among the people of Auvergne,
should prepare himself by earnest meditation in
retirement at St. Lazare. " Silence and introspec
tion seemed to St. Vincent," says M. de Lanjuere,
the author of the life of M. Olier, " the first con
ditions of success, preceding any serious enterprise.
He had not learned this from Pythagoras or the
Greek philosophers, who were, indeed, so careful to
prescribe for their disciples a long period of medi
tation before initiation into their systems, nor even
from the experience of all superior men, who, in
order to ripen a great plan or to evolve a great
thought, have always felt the need of isolation in
the nobler acceptance of the word ; but he had this
maxim from the very example of the Saviour, who,
before the temptation and before the transfigura
tion, withdrew from the world in order to contem
plate, and who prayed in Gethsemane before His
death on the cross, and who often led His disciples
into solitude to rest, and to listen to His most
precious communications."

In this little town of Caen, in a house called the
Hermitage, lived Jean de Bernieres of Louvigny,
together with some of his friends. They had gath
ered together for the purpose of aiding each other

THE JESUITS' CHOICE

in mutual sanctification ; they practised prayer, and
lived in the exercise of the highest piety and
charity. Francois de Laval passed three years in
this Hermitage, and his wisdom was already so
highly appreciated, that during the period of his
stay he was entrusted with two important missions,
whose successful issue attracted attention to him
and led naturally to his appointment to the bishop
ric of Canada.

As early as 1647 the king foresaw the coming
creation of a bishopric in New France, for he con
stituted the Upper Council "of the Governor of
Quebec, the Governor of Montreal and the Superior
of the Jesuits, until there should be a bishop." A
few years later, in 1656, the Company of Montreal
obtained from M. Olier, the pious founder of the
Seminary of St. Sulpice, the services of four of his
priests for the colony, under the direction of one of
them, M. de Queylus, Abbe de Loc-Dieu, whose
brilliant qualities, as well as the noble use which he
made of his great fortune, marked him out natur
ally as the probable choice of his associates for the
episcopacy. But the Jesuits, in possession of all the
missions of New France, had their word to say,
especially since the mitre had been offered by the
queen regent, Anne of Austria, to one of their
number, Father Lejeune, who had not, however,
been able to accept, their rules forbidding it. They
had then proposed to the court of France and the
court of Rome the name of Francois de Laval;

25

BISHOP LAVAL

but believing that the colony was not ready for the
erection of a see, they expressed the opinion that
the sending of an apostolic vicar with the functions
and powers of a bishop in partibus would suffice.
Moreover, if the person sent should not succeed, he
could at any time be recalled, which could not be
done in the case of a bishop. Alexander VII had
given his consent to this new plan, and Mgr. de
Laval was consecrated by the nuncio of the Pope
at Paris, on Sunday, December 8th, 1658, in the
church of St. Germain-des-Pre's. After having
taken, with the assent of the sovereign pontiff, the
oath of fidelity to the king, the new Bishop of
Petraea said farewell to his pious mother (who died
in that same year) and embarked at La Rochelle
in the month of April, 1659. The only property he
retained was an income of a thousand francs assured
to him by the Queen-Mother ; but he was setting
out to conquer treasures very different from those
coveted by the Spanish adventurers who sailed to
Mexico and Peru. He arrived on June 16th at
Quebec, with letters from the king which enjoin
ed upon all the recognition of Mgr. de Laval of
Petrsea as being authorized to exercise episcopal
functions in the colony without prejudice to the
rights of the Archbishop of Rouen.

Unfortunately, men's minds were not very cer
tain then as to the title and qualities of an apostolic
vicar. They asked themselves if he were not a
simple delegate whose authority did not conflict
26

CONFLICT OF AUTHORITY

with the jurisdiction of the two grand vicars of the
Jesuits and the Sulpicians. The communities, at first
divided on this point, submitted on the receipt of
new letters from the king, which commanded the
recognition of the sole authority of the Bishop of
Petrsea. The two grand vicars obeyed, and M. de
Queylus came to Quebec, where he preached the
sermon on St. Augustine's Day (August 28th),
and satisfied the claim to authority of the apostolic
vicar.

But a new complication arose : the St. Andrtf,
which had arrived on September 7th, brought to
the Abbe de Queylus a new appointment as grand
vicar from the Archbishop of Rouen, which con
tained his protests at court against the apostolic
vicar, and letters from the king which seemed to
confirm them. Doubt as to the authenticity of the
powers of Mgr. de Laval might thus, at least,
seem permissible ; no act of the Abbe de Queylus,
however, indicates that it was openly manifested,
and the very next month the abbe returned to
France.

We may understand, however, that Mgr. de
Laval, in the midst of such difficulties, felt the
need of early asserting his authority. He promul
gated an order enjoining upon all the secular
ecclesiastics of the country the disavowal of all
foreign jurisdictions and the recognition of his
alone, and commanded them to sign this regulation
in evidence of their submission. All signed it, in-

27

BISHOP LAVAL

eluding the devoted priests of St. Sulpice at Mont
real.

Two years later, nevertheless, the Abb£ de
Queylus returned with bulls from the Congregation
of the Daterie at Rome. These bulls placed him in
possession of the parish of Montreal. In spite of
the formal forbiddanee of the Bishop of Peteea, he
undertook, strong in what he judged to be his
rights, to betake himself to Montreal. The prelate
on his side believed that it was his duty to take
severe steps, and he suspended the Abbe de Quey
lus. On instructions which were given him by the
king, Governor d'Avaugour transmitted to the
Abbe de Queylus an order to return to France.
The court of Rome finally settled the question by
giving the entire jurisdiction of Canada to Mgr. de
Laval. The affair thus ended, the Abbe de Queylus
returned to the colony in 1668. The population of
Ville-Marie received with deep joy this benefactor,
to whose generosity it owed so much, and on his
side the worthy Bishop of Peteea proved that if he
had believed it his duty to defend his own authority
when menaced, he had too noble a heart to preserve
a petty rancour. He appointed the worthy Abbe
de Queylus his grand vicar at Montreal.

When for the first time Mgr. de Laval set foot
on the soil of America, the people, assembled to
pay respect to their first pastor, were struck by his
address, which was both affable and majestic, by
his manners, as easy as they were distinguished,
28

PERSONAL APPEARANCE

but especially by that charm which emanates from
every one whose heart has remained ever pure. A
lofty brow indicated an intellect above the ordinary;
the clean-cut long nose was the inheritance of the
M ontmorencys ; his eye was keen and bright ; his
eyebrows strongly arched ; his thin lips and promin
ent chin showed a tenacious will; his hair was
scanty ; finally, according to the custom of that
period, a moustache and chin beard added to the
strength and energy of his features. From the mo
ment of his arrival the prelate produced the best
impression. "I cannot," said Governor d'Argenson,
" I cannot highly enough esteem the zeal and piety
of Mgr. of Petrasa. He is a true man of prayer, and
I make no doubt that his labours will bear goodly
fruits in this country." Boucher, governor of Three
Rivers, wrote thus: "We have a bishop whose
zeal and virtue are beyond anything that I can
say."

29

CHAPTER III

THE SOVEREIGN COUNCIL

THE pious bishop who is the subject of this
study was not long in proving that his virtues
were not too highly esteemed. An ancient vessel,
the St. Andre, brought from France two hundred
and six persons, among whom were Mile. Mance,
the foundress of the Montreal hospital, Sister Bour-
geoys, and two Sulpicians, MM. Vignal and Le-
maitre. Now this ship had long served as a sailors'
hospital, and it had been sent back to sea without
the necessary quarantine. Hardly had its passengers
lost sight of the coasts of France when the plague
broke out among them, and with such intensity
that all were more or less attacked by it ; Mile.
Mance, in particular, was almost immediately re
duced to the point of death. Always very delicate,
and exhausted by a preceding voyage, she did not
seem destined to resist this latest attack. Moreover,
all aid was lacking, even the rations of fresh water
ran short, and from a fear of contagion, which will
be readily understood, but which was none the less
disastrous, the captain at first forbade the Sisters of
Charity who were on board to minister to the sick.
This precaution cost seven or eight of these un
fortunate people their lives. At least M. Vignal

31

BISHOP LAVAL

and M. Lemaitre, though both suffering themselves,
were able to offer to the dying the consolations of
their holy office. M. Lemaitre, more vigorous than
his colleague, and possessed of an admirable energy
and devotion, was not satisfied merely with en
couraging and ministering to the unfortunate in
their last moments, but even watched over their
remains at the risk of his own life ; he buried
them piously, wound them in their shrouds, and
said over them the final prayers as they were
lowered into the sea. Two Huguenots, touched
by his devotion, died in the Roman Catholic faith.
The Sisters were finally permitted to exercise
their charitable office. Although ill, they as well
as Sister Bourgeoys, displayed a heroic energy,
and raised the morale of all the unfortunate pas
sengers.

To this sickness were added other sufferings
incident to such a voyage, and frightful storms
did not cease to attack the ship until its entry
into the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Several times
they believed themselves on the point of foun
dering, and the two priests gave absolution to
all. The tempest carried these unhappy people
so far from their route that they did not arrive
at Quebec until September 7th, exhausted by dis
ease, famine and trials of all sorts. Father Dequen,
of the Society of Jesus, showed in this matter an
example of the most admirable charity. He brought
to the sick refreshments and every manner of aid,
32

LAVAL'S DEVOTION

and lavished upon all the offices of his holy minis
try. As a result of his self-devotion, he was attacked
by the scourge and died in the exercise of charity.
Several more, after being conveyed to the hospital,
succumbed to the disease, and the whole country
was infected. Mgr. of Petrasa was admirable in his
devotion ; he hardly left the hospital at all, and
constituted himself the nurse of all these unfortun
ates, making their beds and giving them the most
attentive care. " He is continually at the hospital,"
wrote Mother Mary of the Incarnation, "in order
to help the sick and to make their beds. We do
what we can to prevent him and to shield his
health, but no eloquence can dissuade him from
these acts of self-abasement."

In the spring of the year 1662, Mgr. de Laval
rented for his own use an old house situated on
the site of the present parochial residence at Que
bec, and it was there that, with the three other
priests who then composed his episcopal court, he
edified all the colonists by the simplicity of a ceno-
bitic life. He had been at first the guest of the
Jesuit Fathers, was later sheltered by the Sisters
of the Hotel-Dieu, and subsequently lodged with
the Ursulines. At this period it was indeed incum
bent upon him to adapt himself to circumstances ;
nor did these modest conditions displease the former
pupil of M. de Bernieres, since, as Latour bears
witness, "he always complained that people did too
much for him ; he showed a distaste for all that was

33

BISHOP LAVAL

too daintily prepared, and affected, on the contrary,
a sort of avidity for coarser fare." Mother Mary of
the Incarnation wrote : " He lives like a holy man
and an apostle ; his life is so exemplary that he
commands the admiration of the country. He gives
everything away and lives like a pauper, and one
may well say that he has the very spirit of poverty.
He practises this poverty in his house, in his man
ner of living, and in the matter of furniture and
servants ; for he has but one gardener, whom he
lends to poor people when they have need of him,
and a valet who formerly served M. de Berni£res."

But if the reverend prelate was modest and simple
in his personal tastes, he became inflexible when he
thought it his duty to maintain the rights of the
Church. And he watched over these rights with the
more circumspection since he was the first bishop
installed in the colony, and was unwilling to allow
abuses to be planted there, which later it would be
very difficult, not to say impossible, to uproot.
Hence the continual friction between him and the
governor-general, d'Argenson, on questions of pre
cedence and etiquette. Some of these disputes would
seem to us childish to-day if even such a writer
as Parkman did not put us on our guard against a
premature judgment.1 "The disputes in question,"
writes Parkman, " though of a nature to provoke a
smile on irreverent lips, were by no means so
puerile as they appear. It is difficult in a modern

1 The Old Regime in Canada, p. 110.
34

DISPUTES CONCERNING PRECEDENCE

democratic society to conceive the substantial im
portance of the signs and symbols of dignity and
authority, at a time and among a people where
they were adjusted with the most scrupulous pre
cision, and accepted by all classes as exponents of
relative degrees in the social and political scale.
Whether the bishop or the governor should sit in
the higher seat at table thus became a political
question, for it defined to the popular understand
ing the position of Church and State in their re
lations to government."

In his zeal for making his episcopal authority
respected, could not the prelate, however, have
made some concessions to the temporal power ? It
is allowable to think so, when his panegyrist, the
Abbe Gosselin, acknowledges it in these terms :
"Did he sometimes show too much ardour in the
settlement of a question or in the assertion of his
rights ? It is possible. As the Abbe' Ferland rightly
observes, 'no virtue is perfect upon earth.' But he
was too pious and too disinterested for us to sus
pect for a moment the purity of his intentions." In
certain passages in his journal Father Lalemant
seems to be of the same opinion. All men are
fallible; even the greatest saints have erred. In
this connection the remark of St. Bernardin of
Siena presents itself naturally to the religious mind :
" Each time," says he, " that God grants to a crea
ture a marked and particular favour, and when
divine grace summons him to a special task and to

35

BISHOP LAVAL

some sublime position, it is a rule of Providence to
furnish that creature with all the means necessary
to fulfil the mission which is entrusted to him, and
to bring it to a happy conclusion. Providence pre
pares his birth, directs his education, produces the
environment in which he is to live ; even his faults
Providence will use in the accomplishment of its
purposes."

Difficulties of another sort fixed between the
spiritual and the temporal chiefs of the colony a
still deeper gulf; they arose from the trade in
brandy with the savages. It had been formerly
forbidden by the Sovereign Council, and this meas
ure, urged by the clergy and the missionaries, put a
stop to crimes and disorders. However, for the pur
pose of gain, certain men infringed this wise prohi
bition, and Mgr. de Laval, aware of the extensive
harm caused by the fatal passion of the Indians
for intoxicating liquors, hurled excommunication
against all who should carry on the traffic in brandy
with the savages. " It would be very difficult,"
writes M. de Latour, " to realize to what an excess
these barbarians are carried by drunkenness. There
is no species of madness, of crime or inhumanity to
which they do not descend. The savage, for a glass
of brandy, will give even his clothes, his cabin, his
wife, his children ; a squaw when made drunk — and
this is often done purposely — will abandon herself
to the first comer. They will tear each other to
pieces. If one enters a cabin whose inmates have
36

INTOXICATING SPIRITS

just drunk brandy, one will behold with astonish
ment and horror the father cutting the throat of
his son, the son threatening his father ; the husband
and wife, the best of friends, inflicting murderous
blows upon each other, biting each other, tearing
out each other's eyes, noses and ears ; they are no
longer recognizable, they are madmen ; there is
perhaps in the world no more vivid picture of hell.
There are often some among them who seek
drunkenness in order to avenge themselves upon
their enemies, and commit with impunity all sorts
of crimes under the pretext of this fine excuse,
which passes with them for a complete justification,
that at these times they are not free and not in
their senses." Drunken savages are brutes, it is

I true, but were not the whites who fostered this
fatal passion of intoxication more guilty still than
the wretches whom they ignominiously urged on
to vice ? Let us see what the same writer says of
these corrupters. "If it is difficult," says he, "to

J explain the excesses of the savage, it is also difficult
to understand the extent of the greed, the hypoc
risy and the rascality of those who supply them
with these drinks. The facility for making immense
profits which is afforded them by the ignorance and
the passions of these people, and the certainty of
impunity, are things which they cannot resist ; the
attraction of gain acts upon them as drunkenness
does upon their victims. How many crimes arise
from the same source? There is no mother who

37

BISHOP LAVAL

does not fear for her daughter, no husband who
does not dread for his wife, a libertine armed with
a bottle of brandy; they rob and pillage these
wretches, who, stupefied by intoxication when they
are not maddened by it, can neither refuse nor de
fend themselves. There is no barrier which is not
forced, no weakness which is not exploited, in these
remote regions where, without either witnesses or
masters, only the voice of brutal passion is listened
to, every crime of which is inspired by a glass
of brandy. The French are worse in this respect
than the savages."

Governor d'Avaugour supported energetically
the measures taken by Mgr. de Laval ; unfortun
ately a regrettable incident destroyed the harmony
between their two authorities. Inspired by his good
heart, the superior of the Jesuits, Father Lalemant,
interceded with the governor in favour of a woman
imprisoned for having infringed the prohibition of
the sale of brandy to the Indians. "If she is not
to be punished," brusquely replied d'Avaugour,
" no one shall be punished henceforth ! " And, as
he made it a point of honour not to withdraw this
unfortunate utterance, the traders profited by it.
From that time license was no longer bridled ; the
savages got drunk, the traders were enriched, and
the colony was in jeopardy. Sure of being supported
by the governor, the merchants listened to neither
bishop nor missionaries. Grieved at seeing his
prayers as powerless as his commands, Mgr. de
38

AN APPEAL TO THE THRONE

Laval decided to carry his complaint to the foot of
the throne, and he set sail for France in the autumn
of 1662. " Statesmen who place the freedom of
commerce above morality of action," says Jacques
de Beaudoncourt, "still consider that the bishop
was wrong, and see in this matter a fine opportunity
to inveigh against the encroachments of the clergy;
but whoever has at heart the cause of human dig
nity will not hesitate to take the side of the mis
sionaries who sought to preserve the savages from
the vices which have brought about their ruin and
their disappearance. The Montagnais race, which
is still the most important in Canada, has been
preserved by Catholicism from the vices and the
misery which brought about so rapidly the extir
pation of the savages."

Mgr. de Laval succeeded beyond his hopes ;
i cordially received by King Louis XIV, he obtained
I the recall of Governor d'Avaugour. But this pur
pose was not the only one which he had made the
goal of his ambition ; he had in view another, much
more important for the welfare of the colony.
Fourteen years before, the Iroquois had extermin
ated the Hurons, and since this period the colonists
had not enjoyed a single hour of calm ; the de
votion of Dollard and of his sixteen heroic com
rades had narrowly saved them from a horrible
danger. The worthy prelate obtained from the king
a sufficiently large assignment of troops to deliver
the colony at last from its most dangerous enemies.

39

BISHOP LAVAL

" We expect next year," he wrote to the sovereign
pontiff, " twelve hundred soldiers, with whom, by
God's help, we shall try to overcome the fierce
Iroquois. The Marquis de Tracy will come to Can
ada in order to see for himself the measures which
are necessary to make of New France a strong and
prosperous colony."

M. Dubois d'Avaugour was recalled, and yet he
rendered before his departure a distinguished ser
vice to the colony. " The St. Lawrence," he wrote
in a memorial to the monarch, "is the key to a
country which may become the greatest state in
the world. There should be sent to this colony
three thousand soldiers, to be discharged after three
years of service ; they could make Quebec an im
pregnable fortress, subdue the Iroquois, build re
doubtable forts on the banks of the Hudson, where
the Dutch have only a wretched wooden hut, and
in short, open for New France a road to the sea by
this river." It was mainly this report which induced
the sovereign to take back Canada from the hands
of the Company of the Cent-Associes, who were
incapable of colonizing it, and to reintegrate it in
the royal domain.

Must we think with M. de la Colombiere,1 with
M. de Latour and with Cardinal Taschereau, that
the Sovereign Council was the work of Mgr. de
Laval ? We have some justification in believing it

1 Joseph Sere de la Colombiere, vicar-general and arch-deacon of
Quebec, pronounced Mgr. de Laval's funeral oration.

40

RETURNS TO NEW FRANCE

when we remember that the king arrived at this
important decision while the energetic Laval was
present at his court. However it may be, on April
24th, 1663, the Company of New France abandoned
the colony to the royal government, which im
mediately created in Canada three courts of justice
and above them the Sovereign Council as a court
of appeal.

The Bishop of Petaea sailed in 1663 for North
America with the new governor, M. de Mezy, who
owed to him his appointment. His other fellow-
passengers were M. Gaudais-Dupont, who came to
take possession of the country in the name of the
king, two priests, MM. Maizerets and Hugues
Pommier, Father Rafeix, of the Society of Jesus,
and three ecclesiastics. The passage was stormy
and lasted four months. To-day, when we leave
Havre and disembark a week later at New York,
after having enjoyed all the refinements of luxury
and comfort invented by an advanced but material
istic civilization, we can with difficulty imagine the
discomforts, hardships and privations of four long
months on a stormy sea. Scurvy, that fatal conse
quence of famine and exhaustion, soon broke out
among the passengers, and many died of it. The
bishop, himself stricken by the disease, did not
cease, nevertheless, to lavish his care upon the un
fortunates who were attacked by the infection ; he
even attended them at the hospital after they had
landed,

41

BISHOP LAVAL

The country was still at this time under the
stress of the emotion caused by the terrible earth
quake of 1663. Father Lalemant has left us a
striking description of this cataclysm, marked by
the naive exaggeration of the period : " It was
February 5th, 1663, about half-past five in the
evening, when a great roar was heard at the same
time throughout the extent of Canada. This noise,
which gave the impression that fire had broken out
in all the houses, made every one rush out of doors
in order to flee from such a sudden conflagration.
But instead of seeing smoke and flame, the people
were much surprised to behold walls tottering, and
all the stones moving as if they had become de
tached ; the roofs seemed to bend downward on one
side, then to lean over on the other ; the bells rang
of their own accord ; joists, rafters and boards
cracked, the earth quivered and made the stakes of
the palisades dance in a manner which would ap
pear incredible if we had not seen it in various
places.

" Then every one rushes outside, animals take to
flight, children cry through the streets, men and
women, seized with terror, know not where to take
refuge, thinking at every moment that they must
be either overwhelmed in the ruins of the houses
or buried in some abyss about to open under their
feet ; some, falling to their knees in the snow, cry
for mercy; others pass the rest of the night in
prayer, because the earthquake still continues with
42

THE GREAT EARTHQUAKE

a certain undulation, almost like that of ships at
sea, and such that some feel from these shocks the
same sickness that they endure upon the water.

" The disorder was much greater in the forest. It
seemed that there was a battle between the trees,
which were hurled together, and not only their
branches but even their trunks seemed to leave
their places to leap upon each other with a noise
and a confusion which made our savages say that
the whole forest was drunk.

" There seemed to be the same combat between
the mountains, of which some were uprooted and
hurled upon the others, leaving great chasms in
the places whence they came, and now burying the
trees, with which they were covered, deep in the
earth up to their tops, now thrusting them in, with
branches downward, taking the place of the roots,
so that they left only a forest of upturned trunks.

" While this general destruction was going on on
land, sheets of ice five or six feet thick were broken
and shattered to pieces, and split in many places,
whence arose thick vapour or streams of mud and
sand which ascended high into the air ; our springs
either flowed no longer or ran with sulphurous
waters ; the rivers were either lost from sight or
became polluted, the waters of some becoming
yellow, those of others red, and the great St. Law
rence appeared quite livid up to the vicinity of
Tadousac, a most astonishing prodigy, and one
capable of surprising those who know the extent of

43

BISHOP LAVAL

this great river below the Island of Orleans, and
what matter must be necessary to whiten it.

" We behold new lakes where there never were
any ; certain mountains engulfed are no longer
seen ; several rapids have been smoothed out ; not
a few rivers no longer appear ; the earth is cleft in
many places, and has opened abysses which seem
to have no bottom. In short, there has been pro
duced such a confusion of woods upturned and
buried, that we see now stretches of country of
more than a thousand acres wholly denuded, and
as if they were freshly ploughed, where a little be
fore there had been but forests.

"Moreover, three circumstances made this earth
quake most remarkable. The first is the time of its
duration, since it lasted into the month of August,
that is to say, more than six months. It is true
that the shocks were not always so rude; in certain
places, for example, towards the mountains at the
back of us, the noise and the commotion were long
continued ; at others, as in the direction of Tadou-
sac, there was a quaking as a rule two or three
times a day, accompanied by a great straining, and
we noticed that in the higher places the disturbance
was less than in the flat districts.

" The second circumstance concerns the extent
of this earthquake, which we believe to have been
universal throughout New France ; for we learn
that it was felt from He Perce and Gaspe, which
are at the mouth of our river, to beyond Montreal,
44

RESULTS OF THE EARTHQUAKE

as likewise in New England, in Acadia and other
very remote places ; so that, knowing that the
earthquake occurred throughout an extent of two
hundred leagues in length by one hundred in
breadth, we have twenty thousand square leagues
of land which felt the earthquake on the same day
and at the same moment.

"The third circumstance concerns God's particu
lar protection of our homes, for we see near us
great abysses and a prodigious extent of country
wholly ruined, without our having lost a child or
even a hair of our heads. We see ourselves sur
rounded by confusion and ruins, and yet we have
had only a few chimneys demolished, while the
mountains around us have been overturned."

From the point of view of conversions and re
turns to God the results were marvellous. " One
can scarcely believe," says Mother Mary of the
Incarnation, "the great number of conversions that
God has brought about, both among infidels who
have embraced the faith, and on the part of Chris
tians who have abandoned their evil life. At the
same time as God has shaken the mountains and
the marble rocks of these regions, it would seem
that He has taken pleasure in shaking consciences.
Days of carnival have been changed into days of
penitence and sadness ; public prayers, processions
and pilgrimages have been continual ; fasts on bread
and water very frequent ; the general confessions
more sincere than they would have been in the

45

BISHOP LAVAL

extremity of sickness. A single ecclesiastic, who
directs the parish of Chateau-Richer, has assured
us that he has procured more than eight hundred
general confessions, and I leave you to think what
the reverend Fathers must have accomplished who
were day and night in the confessional. I do not
think that in the whole country there is a single
inhabitant who has not made a general confession.
There have been inveterate sinners, who, to set
their consciences at rest, have repeated their con
fession more than three times. We have seen ad
mirable reconciliations, enemies falling on their
knees before each other to ask each other's forgive
ness, in so much sorrow that it was easy to see that
these changes were the results of grace and of the
mercy of God rather than of His justice."

CHAPTER IV

ESTABLISHMENT OF THE SEMINARY

NO sooner had he returned, than the Bishop of
Petraea devoted all the strength of his intel
lect to the execution of a plan which he had long
meditated, namely, the foundation of a seminary.
In order to explain what he understood by this
word we cannot do better than to quote his own
ordinance relating to this matter : " There shall be
educated and trained such young clerics as may
'appear fit for the service of God, and they shall be
taught for this purpose the proper manner of ad
ministering the sacraments, the methods of apos
tolic catechism and preaching, moral theology, the
ceremonies of the Church, the Gregorian chant, and
other things belonging to the duties of a good
ecclesiastic ; and besides, in order that there may
be formed in the said seminary and among its
clergy a chapter composed of ecclesiastics belonging
thereto and chosen from among us and the bishops
of the said country, our successors, when the king
shall have seen fit to found the seminary, or from
those whom the said seminary may be able of itself
to furnish to this institution through the blessing
of God. We desire it to be a perpetual school of
virtue, and a place of training whence we may

47

BISHOP LAVAL

derive pious and capable recruits, in order to send
them on all occasions, and whenever there may be
need, into the parishes and other places in the said
country, in order to exercise therein priestly and
other duties to which they may have been destined,
and to withdraw them from the same parishes and
duties when it may be judged fitting, reserving to
ourselves always, and to the bishops, our successors
in the said country, as well as to the said seminary,
by our orders and those of the said lords bishops,
the power of recalling all the ecclesiastics who may
have gone forth as delegates into the parishes and
other places, whenever it may be deemed necessary,
without their having title or right of particular at
tachment to a parish, it being our desire, on the
contrary, that they should be rightfully removable,
and subject to dismissal and displacement at the
will of the bishops and of the said seminary, by the
orders of the same, in accordance with the sacred
practice of the early ages of the Church, which is
followed and preserved still at the present day in
many dioceses of this kingdom."

Although this foregoing period is somewhat
lengthy and a little obscure, so weighty with
meaning is it, we have been anxious to quote it,
first, because it is an official document, and because
it came from the very pen of him whose life we are
studying; and, secondly, because it shows that at
this period serious reading, such as Cicero, Quin-
tilian, and the Fathers of the Church, formed the
48

LAVAL'S ORDINANCE

mental pabulum of the people. In our days the
beauty of a sentence is less sought after than its
clearness and conciseness.

It may be well to add here the Abbe Gosselin's
explanation of this mandement : " Three principal
works are due to this document as the glorious
inheritance of the seminary of Quebec. In the first
place we have the natural work of any seminary,
the training of ecclesiastics afid the preparation of
the clergy for priestly virtues. In the next place
we have the creation of the chapter, which the
Bishop of Petrsea always considered important in
a well organized diocese ; it was his desire to find
the elements of this chapter in his seminary, when
the king should have provided for its endowment,
or when the seminary itself could bear the expense.
Finally, there is that which in the mind of Mgr. de
Laval was the supreme work of the seminary, its
vital task : the seminary was to be not only a per
petual school of virtue, but also a place of supply
on which he might draw for the persons needed in
the administration of his diocese, and to which he
might send them back when he should think best.
All livings are connected with the seminary, but
they are all transferable; The prelate here puts
clearly and categorically the question of the trans
fer of livings. In his measures there is neither
hesitation nor circumlocution. He does not seek to
deceive the sovereign to whom he is about to sub
mit his regulation. For him, in the present con-

49

BISHOP LAVAL

dition of New France, there can be no question of
fixed livings ; the priests must be by right remov
able, and subject to recall at the will of the bishop; \/
and, as is fitting in a prelate worthy of the primitive
Church, he always lays stress in his commands on
the holy practice of the early centuries. The question
was clearly put. It was as clearly understood by
the sovereign, who approved some days later of the
regulation of Mgr. de Laval."

It was in the month of April, 1663, that the
worthy prelate had obtained the royal approval of
the establishment of his seminary ; it was on Octo
ber 10th of the same year that he had it registered
by the Sovereign Council.

A great difficulty arose : the missionaries, besides
the help that they had obtained from the Company
of the Cent-Associes, derived their resources from
Europe; but how was the new secular clergy to
be supported, totally lacking as it was in endow
ment and revenue? Mgr. de Laval resolved to
employ the means adopted long ago by Charle
magne to assure the maintenance of the Frankish
clergy : that of tithes or dues paid by the husband
man from his harvest. Accordingly he obtained from
the king an ordinance according to which tithes,
fixed at the amount of the thirteenth part of the
harvests, should be collected from the colonists by
the seminary; the latter was to use them for the
maintenance of the priests, and for divine service in
the established parishes. The burden was, perhaps,
50

DE M&ZY

somewhat heavy. Mgr. de Laval, who, inspired by
the spirit of poverty, had renounced his patrimony
and lived solely upon a pension of a thousand
francs which the queen paid him from her private
exchequer, felt that he had a certain right to im
pose his disinterestedness upon others, but the
colonists, sure of the support of the governor, M.
de Mezy, complained.

The good understanding between the governor-
general and the bishop had been maintained up to
the end of January, 1664. Full of respect for the
character and the virtue of his friend, M. de Mezy
had energetically supported the ordinances of the
Sovereign Council against the brandy traffic; he
had likewise favoured the registration of the law of
tithes, but the opposition which he met in the
matter of an increase in his salary impelled him to
arbitrary action. Of his own authority he displaced
three councillors, and out of petty rancour allowed
strong liquors to be sold to the savages. The open
struggle between the bishop and himself produced
the most unfavourable impression in the colony.
The king decided that the matter must be brought
to a head. M. de Courcelles was appointed gover
nor, and, jointly with a viceroy, the Marquis de
Tracy, and with the Intendant Talon, was entrusted
with the investigation of the administration of M. de
Mezy. They arrived a few months after the death
of de M£zy, whom this untimely end saved per
haps from a well-deserved condemnation. He had

BISHOP LAVAL

become reconciled in his dying hour to his old and
venerable friend, and the judges confined them
selves to the erasure of the documents which re
called his administration.

The worthy Bishop of Petrsea had not lost for a
moment the confidence of the sovereign, as is
proved by many letters which he received from the
king and his prime minister, Colbert. " I send you
by command of His Majesty," writes Colbert, "the
sum of six thousand francs, to be disposed of as
you may deem best to supply your needs and
those of your Church. We cannot ascribe too great
a value to a virtue like yours, which is ever equally
maintained, which charitably extends its help wher
ever it is necessary, which makes you indefatigable
in the functions of your episcopacy, notwithstand
ing the feebleness of your health and the frequent
indispositions by which you are attacked, and which
thus makes you share with the least of your ecclesi
astics the task of administering the sacraments in
places most remote from the principal settlements.
I shall add nothing to this statement, which is en
tirely sincere, for fear of wounding your natural
modesty, etc. . ." The prince himself is no less
flattering: "My Lord Bishop of Petaea," writes
Louis the Great, " I expected no less of your zeal
for the exaltation of the faith, and of your affection
for the furtherance of my service than the conduct
observed by you in your important and holy mis
sion. Its main reward is reserved by Heaven, which
52

DE TRACY'S EXPEDITION

alone can recompense you in proportion to your
merit, but you may rest assured that such rewards
as depend on me will not be wanting at the fitting
time. I subscribe, moreover, to my Lord Colbert's
communications to you in my name."

Peace and harmony were re-established, and with
them the hope of seeing finally disappear the con
stant menace of Iroquois forays. The magnificent
regiment of Carignan, composed of six hundred
men, reassured the colonists while it daunted their
savage enemies. Thus three of the Five Nations
hastened to sue for peace, and they obtained it. In
order to protect the frontiers of the colony, M. de
Tracy caused three forts to be erected on the
Richelieu River, one at Sorel, another at Chambly,
a third still more remote, that of Ste. Thdrese ;
then at the head of six hundred soldiers, six hund
red militia and a hundred Indians, he marched
towards the hamlets of the Mohawks. The result of
this expedition was, unhappily, as fruitless as that
of the later campaigns undertaken against the In
dians by MM. de Denonville and de Frontenac.
After a difficult march they come into touch with
the savages ; but these all flee into the woods, and
they find only their huts stocked with immense
supplies of corn for the winter, and a great number
of pigs. At least, if they cannot reach the barbari
ans themselves, they can inflict upon them a terrible
punishment ; they set fire to the cabins and the
corn, the pigs are slaughtered, and thus a large

53

BISHOP LAVAL

number of their wild enemies die of hunger during
the winter. The viceroy was wise enough to accept
the surrender of many Indians, and the peace
which he concluded afforded the colony eighteen
years of tranquillity.

The question of the apportionment of the tithes
was settled in the following year, 1667. The vice
roy, acting with MM. de Courcelles and Talon,
decided that the tithe should be reduced to a
twenty-sixth, by reason of the poverty of the in-
J habitants, and that newly-cleared lands should pay
nothing for the first five years. Mgr. de Laval,
ever ready to accept just and sensible measures,
agreed to this decision. The revenues thus obtained
were, none the less, insufficient, since the king sub
sequently gave eight or nine thousand francs to
complete the endowment of the priests, whose
annual salary was fixed at five hundred and seventy-
four francs. In 1707 the sum granted by the French
court was reduced to four thousand francs. If we
remember that the French farmers contributed
the thirteenth part of their harvest, that is to
say, double the quantity of the Canadian tithe,
for the support of their pastors, shall we deem ex
cessive this modest tax raised from the colonists
for men who devoted to them their time, their
health, even their hours of rest, in order to procure
for their parishioners the aid of religion ? Is it not
regrettable that too many among the colonists,
who were yet such good Christians in the observ-
54 '

DIRECTORS OF THE SEMINARY

ance of religious practices, should have opposed an
obstinate resistance to so righteous a demand ? Can
it be that, by a special dispensation of Heaven,
the priests and vicars of Canada are not liable to
the same material needs as ordinary mortals, and
are they not obliged to pay in good current coin
for their food, their medicines and their clothes ?

The first seminary, built of stone,1 rose in 1661
on the site of the present vicarage of the cathedral
of Quebec; it cost eight thousand five hundred
francs, two thousand of which were given by Mgr.
de Laval. The first priest of Quebec and first
superior of the seminary, M. Henri de Bernieres,
was able to occupy it in the autumn of the follow
ing year, and the Bishop of Petrasa abode there
from the time of his return from France on Sep
tember 15th, 1663, until the burning of this house
on November 15th, 1701. The first directors of the
seminary were, besides M. de Berni&res, MM. de
Lauson-Charny, son of the former governor-general,
Jean Dudouyt, Thomas Morel, Ange de Maizerets
and Hugues Pommier. Except the first, who was
a Burgundian, they were all born in the two pro
vinces of Brittany and Normandy, the cradles of
the majority of our ancestors.

The founder of the seminary had wished the
livings to be transferable ; later the government
decided to the contrary, and the edict of 1679 de
creed that the tithes should be payable only to the

1 The house was first the presbytery.

55

BISHOP LAVAL

permanent priests; nevertheless the majority of
them remained of their own free will attached to
the seminary. They had learned there to practise
a complete abnegation, and to give to the faith
ful the example of a united and fervent clerical
family. "Our goods were held in common with
those of the bishop," wrote M. de Maizerets, " I
have never seen any distinction made among us
between poor and rich, or the birth and rank of any
one questioned, since we all consider each other as
brothers."

The pious bishop himself set an example of dis
interestedness ; all that he had, namely an income
of two thousand five hundred francs, which the
Jesuits paid him as the tithes of the grain harvested
upon their property, and a revenue of a thousand
francs which he had from his friends in France,
went into the seminary. MM. de Bernieres, de
Maizerets and Dudouyt vied in the imitation of
their model, and they likewise abandoned to the
holy house their goods and their pensions. The
prelate confined himself, like the others, from hu
mility even more than from economy on behalf of
the community, to the greatest simplicity in dress
as well as in his environment. Aiming at the high
est degree of possible perfection, he was satisfied
with the coarsest fare, and incessantly added volun
tary privations to the sacrifices demanded of him
by his difficult duties. Does not this apostolic
poverty recall the seminary established by the pious
56

SEMINARY OF FOREIGN MISSIONS

founder of St. Sulpice, who wrote : " Each had at
dinner a bowl of soup and a small portion of
butcher's meat, without dessert, and in the evening
likewise a little roast mutton " ?

Mortification diminished in no wise the activity
of the prelate ; learning that the Seminary of For
eign Missions at Paris, that nursery of apostles,
had just been definitely established (1663), he con
sidered it his duty to establish his own more firmly
by affiliating it with that of the French capital. " I
have learned with joy," wrote he, "of the establish
ment of your Seminary of Foreign Missions, and
that the gales and tempests by which it has been
tossed since the beginning have but served to ren
der it firmer and more unassailable. I cannot suf
ficiently praise your zeal, which, unable to confine
itself to the limits and frontiers of France, seeks to
spread throughout the world, and to pass beyond
the seas into the most remote regions ; considering
which, I have thought I could not compass a
greater good for our young Church, nor one more
to the glory of God and the welfare of the peoples
whom God has entrusted to our guidance, than by
contributing to the establishment of one of your
branches in Quebec, the place of our residence,
where you will be like the light set upon the
candlestick, to illumine all these regions by your
holy doctrine and the example of your virtue.
Since you are the torch of foreign countries, it is
only reasonable that there should be no quarter of

57

BISHOP LAVAL

the globe uninfluenced by your charity and zeal. I
hope that our Church will be one of the first to
possess this good fortune, the more since it has
already a part of what you hold most dear. Come
then, and be welcome ; we shall receive you with
joy. You will find a lodging prepared and a fund
sufficient to set up a small establishment, which I
hope will continue to grow. . ." The act of union
was signed in 1665, and was renewed ten years
later with the royal assent.

Thanks to the generosity of Mgr. de Laval and
of the first directors of the seminary, building and
acquisition of land was begun. There was erected
in 1668 a large wooden dwelling, which was in
some sort an extension of the episcopal and paro
chial residence. It was destroyed in 1701, with the
vicarage, in the conflagration which overwhelmed
the whole seminary. Subsequently, there was pur
chased a site of sixteen acres adjoining the parochial
church, upon which was erected the house of Ma
dame Couillard. This house, in which lodged in
1668 the first pupils of the smaller seminary, was
replaced in 1678 by a stone edifice, large enough
to shelter all the pupils of both the seminaries.
The seigniory of Beaupre was also acquired, which
with remarkable foresight the bishop exchanged
for the He Jesus. " It was prudent," remarks the
Abb£ Gosselin, "not to have all the property in
the same place; when the seasons are bad in one
part of the country they may be prosperous else-
58

LOUIS JOLIET

where ; and having thus sources of revenue in dif
ferent places, one is more likely never to find them
entirely lacking."

The smaller seminary dates only from the year
1668. Up to this time the large seminary alone
existed ; of the five ecclesiastics who were its in
mates in 1663, Louis Joliet abandoned the priestly
career. It was he who, impelled by his adventurous
instincts, sought out, together with Father Mar-
quette, the mouth of the Mississippi.

59

CHAPTER V

MGR. DE LAVAL AND THE SAVAGES

NOW, what were the results accomplished by
the efforts of the missionaries at this period
of our history ? When in their latest hour they saw
about them, as was very frequently the case, only
the wild children of the desert uttering cries of
ferocious joy, had they at least the consolation of
discerning faithful disciples of Christ concealed
among their executioners ? Alas ! we must admit
that North America saw no renewal of the days
when St. Peter converted on one occasion, at his
first preaching, three thousand persons, and when
St. Paul brought to Jesus by His word thousands
of Gentiles. Were the missionaries of the New
World, then, less zealous, less disinterested, less
eloquent than the apostles of the early days of the
Church ? Let us listen to Mgr. Bourgard : " A few
only among them, like the Brazilian apostle, Father
Anthony Vieyra, died a natural death and found a
grave in earth consecrated by the Church. Many,
like Father Marquette, who reconnoitred the whole
course of the Mississippi, succumbed to the burden
of fatigue in the midst of the desert, and were
buried under the turf by their sorrowful comrades.
He had with him several Frenchmen, Fathers

61

BISHOP LAVAL

Badin, Deseille and Petit ; the two latter left their
venerable remains among the wastes. Others met
death at the bedside of the plague-stricken, and
were martyrs to their charity, like Fathers Turgis
and Dablon. An incalculable number died in the
desert, alone, deprived of all aid, unknown to the
whole world, and their bodies became the susten
ance of birds of prey. Several obtained the glorious
crown of martyrdom; such are the venerable
Fathers Jogues, Corpo, Souel, Chabanel, Ribourde,
Brebeuf, Lalemant, etc. Now they fell under the
blows of raging Indians ; now they were traitor
ously assassinated ; again, they were impaled." In
what, then, must we seek for the cause of the
futility of these efforts ? All those who know the
savages will understand it ; it is in the fickle char
acter of these children of the woods, a character
more unstable and volatile than that of infants.
God alone knows what restless anxiety the con
versions which they succeeded in bringing about
caused to the missionaries and the pious Bishop of
Petraea. Yet every day Mgr. de Laval ardently
prayed, not only for the flock confided to his care
but also for the souls which he had come from so
far to seek to save from heathenism. If one of these
devout men of God had succeeded at the price of a
thousand dangers, of a thousand attempts, in prov
ing to an Indian the insanity, the folly of his belief
in the juggleries of a sorcerer, he must watch with
jealous care lest his convert should lapse from
62

s/

EDUCATION OF THE INDIANS

grace either through the sarcasms of the other red
skins, or through the attractions of some cannibal
festival, or by the temptation to satisfy an ancient
grudge, or through the fear of losing a coveted
influence, or even through the apprehension of the
vengeance of the heathen. Did he think himself
justified in expecting to see his efforts crowned
with success ? Suddenly he would learn that the
poor neophyte had been led astray by the sight
of a bottle of brandy, and that he had to begin
again from the beginning.

No greater success was attained in many efforts
which were exerted to give a European stamp to
the character of the aborigines, than in divers at
tempts to train in civilized habits young Indians
brought up in the seminaries. And we know that
if success in this direction had been possible it
would certainly have been obtained by educators
like the Jesuit Fathers. "With the French ad
mitted to the small seminary," says the Abb£ Fer-
land, " six young Indians were received ; on the
advice of the king they were all to be brought up
together. This union, which was thought likely
to prove useful to all, was not helpful to the
savages, and became harmful to the young French
men. After a few trials it was understood that it
was impossible to adapt to the regular habits neces
sary for success in a course of study these young
scholars who had been reared in complete freedom.
Comradeship with Algonquin and Huron children,

63

BISHOP LAVAL

who were incapable of limiting themselves to the
observance of a college rule, tended to give more
force and persistence to the independent ideas which
were natural in the young French-Canadians, who
received from their fathers the love of liberty and
the taste for an adventurous life."

But we must not infer, therefore, that the mis
sionaries found no consolation in their troublous
task. If sometimes the savage blood revealed itself
in the neophytes in sudden insurrections, we must
admit that the majority of the converts devoted
themselves to the practice of virtues with an energy
which often rose to heroism, and that already there
began to appear among them that holy fraternity
which the gospel everywhere brings to birth. The
memoirs of the Jesuits furnish numerous evidences
of this. We shall cite only the following : " A
band of Hurons had come down to the Mission of
St. Joseph. The Christians, suffering a great dearth
of provisions, asked each other, * Can we feed all
those people ? ' As they said this, behold, a number
of the Indians, disembarking from their little boats,
go straight to the chapel, fall upon their knees and
say their prayers. An Algonquin who had gone to
salute the Holy Sacrament, having perceived them,
came to apprise his captain that these Hurons were
praying to God. ' Is it true ? ' said he. ' Come !
come 1 we must no longer debate whether we shall
give them food or not ; they are our brothers, since
they believe as well as we.":
64

THE MISSION AT GANNENTAHA

The conversion which caused the most joy to Mgr.
de Laval was that of Garakontie, the noted chief of
the Iroquois confederation. Accordingly he wished
to baptize him himself in the cathedral of Quebec,
and the governor, M. de Courcelles, consented to
serve as godfather to the new follower of Christ.
Up to this time the missions to the Five Nations
had been ephemeral ; by the first one Father
Jogues had only been able to fertilize with his
blood this barbarous soil; the second, established at
Gannentaha, escaped the general massacre in 1658
only by a genuine miracle. This mission was com
manded by Captain Dupuis, and comprised fifty-five
Frenchmen. Five Jesuit Fathers were of the num
ber, among them Fathers Chaumonot and Dablon.
Everything up to that time had gone wonderfully
well in the new establishment; the missionaries
knew the Iroquois language so well, and so well
applied the rules of savage eloquence, that they
impressed all the surrounding tribes; accordingly
they were full of trust and dreamed of a rapid
extension of the Catholic faith in these territories.
An Iroquois chief dispelled their illusion by reveal
ing to them the plans of their enemies ; they were
already watched, and preparations were on foot to
cut off their retreat. In this peril the colonists took
counsel, and hastily constructed in the granaries of
their quarters a few boats, some canoes and a large
barge, destined to transport the provisions and the
fugitives. They had to hasten, because the attack

65

BISHOP LAVAL

against their establishment might take place at any
moment, and they must profit by the breaking up of
the ice, which was impending. But how could they
transport this little flotilla to the river which flowed
into Lake Ontario twenty miles away without giv
ing the alarm and being massacred at the first step?
They adopted a singular stratagem derived from
the customs of these people, and one in which the
fugitives succeeded perfectly. " A young French
man adopted by an Indian," relates Jacques de
Beaudoncourt, " pretended to have a dream by
which he was warned to make a festival, ' to eat
everything,' if he did not wish to die presently.

* You are my son,' replied the Iroquois chief, ' I do
not want you to die; prepare the feast and we
shall eat everything.' No one was absent ; some of
the French who were invited made music to charm
the guests. They ate so much, according to the
rules of Indian civility, that they said to their host,

* Take pity on us, and let us go and rest.' ' You
want me to die, then?' 'Oh, no! ' And they betook
themselves to eating again as best they could. Dur
ing this time the other Frenchmen were carrying
to the river the boats and provisions. When all
was ready the young man said: ' I take pity on
you, stop eating, I shall not die. I am going to
have music played to lull you to sleep.' And sleep
was not long in coming, and the French, slipping
hastily away from the banquet hall, rejoined their
comrades. They had left the dogs and the fowls

66

SUCCESS OF THE STRATAGEM

behind, in order the better to deceive the savages ;
a heavy snow, falling at the moment of their de
parture, had concealed all traces of their passage,
and the banqueters imagined that a powerful
Manitou had carried away the fugitives, who would
not fail to come back and avenge themselves. After
thirteen days of toilsome navigation, the French
arrived in Montreal, having lost only three men
from drowning during the passage. It had been
thought that they were all massacred, for the plans
of the Iroquois had become known in the colony ;
this escape brought the greatest honour to Captain
Dupuis, who had successfully carried it out."

M. d'Argenson, then governor, did not approve
of the retreat of the captain; this advanced bulwark
protected the whole colony, and he thought that
the French should have held out to the last man.
This selfish opinion was disavowed by the great
majority; the real courage of a leader does not con
sist in having all his comrades massacred to no
purpose, but in saving by his calm intrepidity the
largest possible number of soldiers for his country.

The Iroquois were tricked but not disarmed. Be
side themselves with rage at the thought that so
many victims about to be sacrificed to their hatred
had escaped their blows, and desiring to end once
for all the feud with their enemies, the Onondagas,
they persuaded the other nations to join them in a
rush upon Quebec. They succeeded easily, and
twelve hundred savage warriors assembled at Cleft

67

BISHOP LAVAL

Rock, on the outskirts of Montreal, and exposed
the colony to the most terrible danger which it had
yet experienced.

This was indeed a great peril; the dwellings
above Quebec were without defence, and separated
so far from each other that they stretched out
nearly two leagues. But providentially the plan of
these terrible foes was made known to the inhabi
tants of the town through an Iroquois prisoner.
Immediately the most feverish activity was exerted
in preparations for defence; the country houses and
those of the Lower Town were abandoned, and the
inhabitants took refuge in the palace, in the fort,
with the Ursulines, or with the Jesuits ; redoubts
were raised, loop-holes bored and patrols estab
lished. At Ville-Marie no fewer precautions were
taken; the governor surrounded a mill which he
had erected in 1658, by a palisade, a ditch, and four
bastions well entrenched. It stood on a height of
the St. Louis Hill, and, called at first the Mill on
the Hill, it became later the citadel of Montreal.
Anxiety still prevailed everywhere, but God, who
knows how to raise up, in the very moment of
despair, the instruments which He uses in His
infinite wisdom to protect the countries dear to
His heart, that same God who gave to France the
heroic Joan of Arc, produced for Canada an unex
pected defender. Bollard and sixteen brave Mont-
realers were to offer themselves as victims to save
the colony. Their devotion, which surpasses all
68

BOLLARD

that history shows of splendid daring, proves the
exaltation of the souls of those early colonists.

One morning in the month of July, 1660, Dol-
lard, accompanied by sixteen valiant comrades,
presented himself at the altar of the church in
Montreal ; these Christian heroes came to ask the
God of the strong to bless the resolve which they
had taken to go and sacrifice themselves for their
brothers. Immediately after mass, tearing them
selves from the embraces of their relatives, they set
out, and after a long and toilsome march arrived at
the foot of the Long Rapid, on the left bank of the
Ottawa; the exact point where they stopped is
probably Greece's Point, five or six miles above
Carillon, for they knew that the Iroquois returning
from the hunt must pass this place. They installed
themselves within a wretched palisade, where they
were joined almost at once by two Indian chiefs
who, having challenged each other's courage, sought
an occasion to surpass one another in valour. They
were Anahotaha, at the head of forty Hurons, and
Metiom&gue, accompanied by four Algonquins.
They had not long to wait ; two canoes bore the
Iroquois crews within musket shot ; those who
escaped the terrible volley which received them and
killed the majority of them, hastened to warn the
band of three hundred other Iroquois from whom
they had become detached. The Indians, relying
on an easy victory, hastened up, but they hurled
themselves in vain upon the French, who, sheltered

69

BISHOP LAVAL

by their weak palisade, crowned its stakes with the
heads of their enemies as these were beaten down.
Exasperated by this unexpected check, the Iro-
quois broke up the canoes of their adversaries, and,
with the help of these fragments, which they set on
fire, attempted to burn the little fortress ; but a
well sustained fire prevented the rashest from ap
proaching. Their pride yielding to their thirst for
vengeance, these three hundred men found them
selves too few before such intrepid enemies, and
they sent for aid to a band of five hundred of their
people, who were camped on the Richelieu Islands.
These hastened to the attack, and eight hundred
men rushed upon a band of heroes strengthened by
the sentiment of duty, the love of country and
faith in a happy future. Futile efforts ! The bullets
made terrible havoc in their ranks, and they recoiled
again, carrying with them only the assurance that
their numbers had not paralyzed the courage of the
French.

But the aspect of things was about to change,
owing to the cowardice of the Hurons. Water
failed the besieged tortured by thirst ; they made
sorties from time to time to procure some, and
could bring back in their small and insufficient
vessels only a few drops, obtained at the greatest
peril. The Iroquois, aware of this fact, profited
by it in order to offer life and pardon to the In
dians who would go over to their side. No more
was necessary to persuade the Hurons, and sud-
70

THE CRISIS OF THE STRUGGLE

denly thirty of them followed La Mouche, the
nephew of the Huron chief, and leaped over the
palisades. The brave Anahotaha fired a pistol shot
at his nephew, but missed him. The Algonquins
remained faithful, and died bravely at their post.
The Iroquois learned through these deserters the
real number of those who were resisting them so
boldly ; they then took an oath to die to the last
man rather than renounce victory, rather than cast
thus an everlasting opprobrium on their nation.
The bravest made a sort of shield with fagots tied
together, and, placing themselves in front of their
comrades, hurled themselves upon the palisades,
attempting to tear them up. The supreme moment
of the struggle has come; Bollard is aware of it.
While his brothers in arms make frightful gaps in
the ranks of the savages by well-directed shots, he
loads with grape shot a musket which is to explode
as it falls, and hurls it with all his might. Unhap
pily, the branch of a tree stays the passage of the
terrible engine of destruction, which falls back
upon the French and makes a bloody gap among
them. " Surrender !" cries La Mouche to Ana
hotaha. " I have given my word to the French, I
shall die with them," replies the bold chief. Al
ready some stakes were torn up, and the Iroquois
were about to rush like an avalanche through this
breach, when a new Horatius Codes, as brave as
the Roman, made his body a shield for his brothers,
and soon the axe which he held in his hand dripped

71

BISHOP LAVAL

with blood. He fell, and was at once replaced. The
French succumbed one by one; they were seen
brandishing their weapons up to the moment of
their last breath, and, riddled with wounds, they
resisted to the last sigh. Drunk with vengeance, the
wild conquerors turned over the bodies to find some
still palpitating, that they might bind them to a
stake of torture ; three were in their mortal agony,
but they died before being cast on the pyre. A
single one was saved for the stake ; he heroically
resisted the refinements of the most barbarous
cruelty ; he showed no weakness, and did not cease
to pray for his executioners. Everything in this
glorious deed of arms must compel the admiration
of the most remote posterity.

The wretched Hurons suffered the fate which
they had deserved ; they were burned in the differ
ent villages. Five escaped, and it was by their
reports that men learned the details of an exploit
which saved the colony. The Iroquois, in fact, con
sidering what a handful of brave men had accom
plished, took it for granted that a frontal attack on
such men could only result in failure ; they changed
their tactics, and had recourse anew to their war
fare of surprises and ambuscades, with the purpose
of gradually destroying the little colony.

The dangers which might be risked by attacking

so fierce a nation were, as may be seen, by no

means imaginary. Many would have retreated, and

awaited a favourable occasion to try and plant for

72

GARAKONTl£

the third time the cross in the Iroquois village.
The sons of Loyola did not hesitate ; encouraged
by Mgr. de Laval, they retraced their steps to the
Five Nations. This time Heaven condescended to
reward in a large measure their persistent efforts,
and the harvest was abundant. In a short time the
number of churches among these people had in
creased to ten.

The famous chief, Garakontie', whose conversion
to Christianity caused so much joy to the pious
Bishop of Petraea and to all the Christians of Can
ada, was endowed with a rare intelligence, and all
who approached him recognized in him a mind as
keen as it was profound. Not only did he keep
faithfully the promises which he had made on re
ceiving baptism, but the gratitude which he con
tinued to feel towards the bishop and the mission
aries made him remain until his death the devoted
friend of the French. " He is an incomparable
man," wrote Father Millet one day. " He is the
soul of all the good that is done here ; he supports
the faith by his influence ; he maintains peace by
his authority; he declares himself so clearly for
France that we may justly call him the protector
of the Crown in this country." Feeling life escaping,
he wished to give what the savages call their "fare
well feast," a touching custom, especially when
Christianity comes to sanctify it. His last words
were for the venerable prelate, to whom he had
vowed a deep attachment and respect. " The guests

73

BISHOP LAVAL

having retired," wrote Father Lamberville, "he
called me to him. ' So we must part at last/ said
he to me; 'I am willing, since I hope to go to
Heaven.' He then begged me to tell my beads
with him, which I did, together with several Chris
tians, and then he called me and said to me : * I
am dying.' Then he gave up the ghost very peace
fully."

The labour demanded at this period by pastoral
visits in a diocese so extended may readily be ima
gined. Besides the towns of Quebec, Montreal and
Three Rivers, in which was centralized the general
activity, there were then several Christian villages,
those of Lorette, Ste. Foy, Sillery, the village of
La Montagne at Montreal, of the Sault St. Louis,
and of the Prairie de la Madeleine. Far from
avoiding these trips, Mgr. de Laval took pleasure
in visiting all the cabins of the savages, one after
another, spreading the good Word, consoling the
afflicted, and himself administering the sacraments
of the Church to those who wished to receive
them.

Father Dablon gives us in these terms the nar
rative of the visit of the bishop to the Prairie de la
Madeleine in 1676. " This man," says he, speaking
of the prelate, " this man, great by birth and still
greater by his virtues, which have been quite re
cently the admiration of all France, and which on
his last voyage to Europe justly acquired for him
the esteem and the approval of the king; this
74

SIMPLICITY

great man, making the rounds of his diocese, was
conveyed in a little bark canoe by two peasants,
exposed to all the inclemencies of the climate,
without other retinue than a single ecclesiastic,
and without carrying anything but a wooden cross
and the ornaments absolutely necessary to a bishop
of gold, according to the expression of authors
in speaking of the first prelates of Christianity."

[The expedition of Dollard is related in detail by Dollier de Casson,
and by Mother Mary of the Incarnation in her letters. The Abbe de
Belmont gives a further account of the episode in his history. The
Jesuit Relations place the scene of the affair at the Chaudiere Falls.
The sceptically-minded are referred to Kingsford's History of Canada,
vol. I., p. 261, where a less romantic view of the affair is taken.] —
Editors' Note on the Dollard Episode.

75

CHAPTER VI

SETTLEMENT OF THE COLONY

TO the great joy of Mgr. de Laval the colony
was about to develop suddenly, thanks to the
establishment in the fertile plains of New France
of the time-expired soldiers of the regiment of
Carignan. The importance of the peopling of his
diocese had always been capital in the eyes of the
bishop, and we have seen him at work obtaining
from the court new consignments of colonists. Ac
cordingly, in the year 1663, three hundred persons
had embarked at La Rochelle for Canada. Un
fortunately, the majority of these passengers were
quite young people, clerks or students, in quest
of adventure, who had never worked with their
hands. The consequences of this deplorable emi
gration were disastrous ; more than sixty of these
poor children died during the voyage. The king
was startled at such negligence, and the three
hundred colonists who embarked the following
year, in small detachments, arrived in excellent
condition. Moreover, they had made the voyage
without expense, but had in return hired to work
for three years with the farmers, for an annual
wage which was to be fixed by the authorities. " It
will seem to you perhaps strange," wrote M. de

77

BISHOP LAVAL

Villeray, to the minister Colbert, " to see that we
make workmen coming to us from France undergo
a sort of apprenticeship, by distribution among the
inhabitants; yet there is nothing more necessary,
first, because the men brought to us are not accus
tomed to the tilling of the soil ; secondly, a man
who is not accustomed to work, unless he is urged,
has difficulty in adapting himself to it; thirdly, the
tasks of this country are very different from those
of France, and experience shows us that a man
who has wintered three years in the country, and
who then hires out at service, receives double the
wages of one just arriving from the Old Country.
These are reasons of our own which possibly would
not be admitted in France by those who do not
understand them."

The Sovereign Council recommended, moreover,
that there should be sent only men from the north
of France, " because," it asserted, " the Normans,
Percherons, Picards, and people from the neigh
bourhood of Paris are docile, laborious, industrious,
and have much more religion. Now, it is import
ant in the establishment of a country to sow good
seed." While we accept in the proper spirit this
eulogy of our ancestors, who came mostly from
these provinces, how inevitably it suggests a com
parison with the spirit of scepticism and irreverence
which now infects, transitorily, let us hope, these
regions of Northern France.

Never before had the harbour of Quebec seen so
78

\/

ARRIVAL OF COLONISTS

much animation as in the year 1665. The solicitor-
general, Bourdon, had set foot on the banks of the
St. Lawrence in early spring; he escorted a number
of girls chosen by order of the queen. Towards the
middle of August two ships arrived bearing four
companies of the regiment of Carignan, and the
following month three other vessels brought, to
gether with eight other companies, Governor de
Courcelles and Commissioner Talon. Finally, on
October 2nd, one hundred and thirty robust colon
ists and eighty -two maidens, carefully chosen, came
to settle in the colony.

If we remember that there were only at this
time seventy houses in Quebec, we may say without
exaggeration that the number of persons who came
from France in this year, 1665, exceeded that of
the whole white population already resident in
Canada. But it was desirable to keep this popu
lation in its entirety, and Commissioner Talon, well
seconded by Mgr. de Laval, tenaciously pursued
this purpose. The soldiers of Carignan, all brave,
and pious too, for the most part, were highly
desirable colonists. " What we seek most," wrote
Mother Mary of the Incarnation, " is the glory of
God and the welfare of souls. That is what we are
working for, as well as to assure the prevalence of
devotion in the army, giving the men to understand
that we are waging here a holy war. There are as
many as five hundred of them who have taken the
scapulary of the Holy Virgin, arid many others

79

BISHOP LAVAL

who recite the chaplet of the Holy Family every
day."

Talon met with a rather strong opposition to
his immigration plans in the person of the great
Colbert, who was afraid of seeing the Mother
Country depopulated in favour of her new daughter
Canada. His perseverance finally won the day, and
more than four hundred soldiers settled in the
colony. Each common soldier received a hundred
francs, each sergeant a hundred and fifty francs.
Besides, forty thousand francs were used in raising
in France the additional number of fifty girls and
a hundred and fifty men, which, increased by two
hundred and thirty- five colonists, sent by the com
pany in 1667, fulfilled the desires of the Bishop of
Petrasa.

The country would soon have been self-support
ing if similar energy had been continuously em
ployed in its development. It is a miracle that a
handful of emigrants, cast almost without resources
upon the northern shore of America, should have
been able to maintain themselves so long, in spite
of continual alarms, in spite of the deprivation
of all comfort, and in spite of the rigour of the
climate. With wonderful courage and patience they
conquered a vast territory, peopled it, cultivated
its soil, and defended it by prodigies of valour
against the forays of the Indians.

The colony, happily, was to keep its bishop, the
worthy Governor de Courcelles, and the best ad-
80

DE TRACY'S FINE QUALITIES

ministrator it ever had, the Commissioner Talon.
But it was to lose a lofty intellect: the Mar
quis de Tracy, his mission ended to the satisfac
tion of all, set sail again for France. From the
moment of his arrival in Canada the latter had
inspired the greatest confidence. "These three
gentlemen," say the annals of the hospital, speak
ing of the viceroy, of M. de Courcelles and M.
Talon, " were endowed with all desirable qualities.
They added to an attractive exterior much wit,
gentleness and prudence, and were admirably
adapted to instil a high idea of the royal majesty
and power ; they sought all means proper for
moulding the country and laboured at this task
with great application. This colony, under their
wise leadership, expanded wonderfully, and accord
ing to all appearances gave hope of becoming most
flourishing." Mgr. de Laval held the Marquis de
Tracy in high esteem. " He is a man powerful in
word and deed," he wrote to Pope Alexander VII,
" a practising Christian, and the right arm of re
ligion." The viceroy did not fear, indeed, to show
that one may be at once an excellent Christian and
a brave officer, whether he accompanied the Bishop
of Petraea on the pilgrimage to good Ste. Anne, or
whether he honoured himself in the religious pro
cessions by carrying a corner of the dais with the
governor, the intendant and the agent of the West
India Company. He was seen also at the laying
of the foundation stone of the church of the

81

BISHOP LAVAL

Jesuits, at the transfer of the relics of the holy
martyrs Flavian and Felicitas, at the consecration
of the cathedral of Quebec and at that of the chief
altar of the church of the Ursulines, in fact, every
where where he might set before the faithful the
good example of piety and of the respect due to
religion.

The eighteen years of peace with the Iroquois,
obtained by the expedition of the Marquis de
Tracy, allowed the intendant to encourage the
development of the St. Maurice mines, to send the
traveller Nicolas Perrot to visit all the tribes of
the north and west, in order to establish or cement
with them relations of trade or friendship, and to
entrust Father Marquette and M. Joliet with the
mission of exploring the course of the Mississippi.
The two travellers carried their exploration as far
as the junction of this river with the Arkansas,
but their provisions failing them, they had to re
trace their steps.

This state of peace came near being disturbed
by the gross cupidity of some wretched soldiers.
In the spring of 1669 three soldiers of the garrison
of Ville-Marie, intoxicated and assassinated an Iro
quois chief who was bringing back from his hunting
some magnificent furs. M. de Courcelles betook
himself at once to Montreal, but, during the pro
cess of this trial, it was learned that several months
before three other Frenchmen had killed six Mo-
hegan Indians with the same purpose of plunder.
82

DE COURCELLES' FIRMNESS

The excitement aroused by these two murders was
such that a general uprising of the savage nations
was feared ; already they had banded together for
vengeance, and only the energy of the governor
saved the colony from the horrors of another war.
In the presence of all the Indians then quartered
at Ville-Marie, he had the three assassins of the
Iroquois chief brought before him, and caused
them to be shot. He pledged himself at the same
time to do like justice to the murderers of the
Mohegans, as soon as they should be discovered.
He caused, moreover, to be restored to the widow
of the chief all the furs which had been stolen
from him, and indemnified the two tribes, and thus
by his firmness induced the restless nations to re
main at peace. His vigilance did not stop at this.
The Iroquois and the Ottawas being on the point of
recommencing their feud, he warned them that he
would not allow them to disturb the general order
and tranquillity. He commanded them to send to
him delegates to present the question of their
mutual grievances. Receiving an arrogant reply
from the Iroquois, who thought their country in
accessible to the French, he himself set out from
Montreal on June 2nd, 1671, with fifty-six soldiers,
in a specially constructed boat and thirteen bark
canoes. He reached the entrance to Lake Ontario,
and so daunted the Iroquois by his audacity that
the Ottawas sued for peace. Profiting by the
alarm with which he had just inspired them, M.

83

BISHOP LAVAL

de Courcelles gave orders to the principal chiefs
to go and await him at Cataraqui, there to treat
with him on an important matter. They obeyed,
and the governor declared to them his plan of con
structing at this very place a fort where they might
more easily arrange their exchanges. Not suspect
ing that the French had any other purpose than
that of protecting themselves against inroads, they
approved this plan ; and so Fort Cataraqui, to-day
the city of Kingston, was erected by Count de
Frontenac, and called after this governor, who was
to succeed M. de Courcelles.

Their transitory apprehensions did not interrupt
the construction of the two churches of Quebec and
Montreal, for they were built almost at the same
time; the first was dedicated on July llth, 1666,
the second, begun in 1672, was finished only in
1678. The church of the old city of Champlain
was of stone, in the form of a Roman cross; its
length was one hundred feet, its width thirty-eight.
It contained, besides the principal altar, a chapel
dedicated to St. Joseph, another to Ste. Anne, and
the chapel of the Holy Scapulary. Thrice enlarged,
it gave place in 1755 to the present cathedral, for
which the foundations of the older church were
used. When the prelate arrived in 1659, the holy
offices were already celebrated there, but the bishop
hastened to end the work which it still required.
" There is here," he wrote to the Common Father
of the faithful, "a cathedral made of stone; it is
84

VILLE-MARIE

large and splendid. The divine service is celebrated
in it according to the ceremony of bishops ; our
priests, our seminarists, as well as ten or twelve
choir-boys, are regularly present there. On great
festivals, the mass, vespers and evensong are sung
to music, with orchestral accompaniment, and our
organs mingle their harmonious voices with those
of the chanters. There are in the sacristy some very
fine ornaments, eight silver chandeliers, and all the
chalices, pyxes, vases and censers are either gilt or
pure silver."

The Sulpicians as well as the Jesuits have always
professed a peculiar devotion to the Virgin Mary.
It was the pious founder of St. Sulpice, M. Olier,
who suggested to the Company of Notre-Dame the
idea of consecrating to Mary the establishment of
the Island of Montreal in order that she might
defend it as her property, and increase it as her
domain. They gladly yielded to this desire, and
even adopted as the seal of the company the figure
of Our Lady ; in addition they confirmed the name
of Ville-Marie, so happily given to this chosen
soil.

It was the Jesuits who placed the church of
Quebec under the patronage of the Immaculate
Conception, and gave it as second patron St. Louis,
King of France. This double choice could not but
be agreeable to the pious Bishop of Petraea. Learn
ing, moreover, that the members of the Society of
Jesus renewed each year in Canada their vow to

85

BISHOP LAVAL

fast on the eve of the festival of the Immaculate
Conception, and to add to this mortification several
pious practices, with the view of obtaining from
Heaven the conversion of the savages, he approved
this devotion, and ordered that in future it should
likewise be observed in his seminary. He sanctioned
other works of piety inspired or established by the
Jesuit Fathers ; the novena, which has remained so
popular with the French- Canadians, at St. Fran9ois-
Xavier, the Brotherhoods of the Holy Rosary and
of the Scapulary of Our Lady of Mount Carmel.
He encouraged, above all, devotion to the Holy
Family, and prescribed wise regulations for this
worship. The Pope deigned to enrich by numerous
indulgences the brotherhoods to which it gave
birth, and in recent years Leo XIII instituted
throughout the Church the celebration of the Festi
val of the Holy Family. " The worship of the Holy
Family," the illustrious pontiff proclaims in a recent
bull, "was established in America, in the region of
Canada, where it became most flourishing, thanks
chiefly to the solicitude and activity of the vener
able servant of God, Fra^ois de Montmorency
Laval, first Bishop of Quebec, and of God's worthy
handmaiden, Marguerite Bourgeoys." According to
Cardinal Taschereau, it was Father Pijard who
established the first Brotherhood of the Holy
Family in 1650 in the Island of Montreal, but the
real promoter of this cult was another Father of the
Company of Jesus, Father Chaumonot, whom Mgr.
86

A CHURCH FOR MONTREAL

de Laval brought specially to Quebec to set at
the head of the brotherhood which he had decided
to found.

It was the custom, in these periods of fervent
faith, to place buildings, cities and even countries
under the aegis of a great saint, and Louis XIII
had done himself the honour of dedicating France
to the Virgin Mary. People did not then blush
to practise arid profess their beliefs, nor to proclaim
them aloud. On the proposal of the Rdcollets in a
general assembly, St. Joseph was chosen as the
first patron saint of Canada ; later, St. Francois-
Xavier was adopted as the second special protector
of the colony.

Montreal, which in the early days of its existence
maintained with its rival of Cape Diamond a strife
of emulation in the path of good as well as in that
of progress, could no longer do without a religious
edifice worthy of its already considerable import
ance. Mgr. de Laval was at this time on a round of
pastoral visits, for, in spite of the fatigue attaching
to such a journey, at a time when there was not
yet even a carriage-road between the two towns,
and when, braving contrary winds, storms and the
snares of the Iroquois, one had to ascend the St.
Lawrence in a bark canoe, the worthy prelate made
at least eight visits to Montreal during the period
of his administration. In a general assembly of
May 12th, 1669, presided over by him, it was de
cided to establish the church on ground which had

87

BISHOP LAVAL

belonged to Jean de Saint- Pere, but since this site
had not the elevation on which the Sulpicians de
sired to see the new temple erected, the work was
suspended for two years more. The ecclesiastics of
the seminary offered on this very height (for M.
D oilier had given to the main street the name of
Notre-Dame, which was that of the future church)
some lots bought by them from Nicolas Gode and
from Mme. Jacques Lemoyne, and situated behind
their house ; they offered besides in the name of
M. de Bretonvilliers the sum of a thousand livres
tournois for three years, to begin the work. These
offers were accepted in an assembly of all the in
habitants, on June 10th, 1672 ; Francois Bailly,
master mason, directed the building, and on the
thirtieth of the same month, before the deeply
moved and pious population, there were laid, im
mediately after high mass, the first five stones.
There had been chosen the name of the Purifi
cation, because this day was the anniversary of
that on which MM. Olier and de la Dauversiere
had caught the first glimpses of their vocation to
work at the establishment of Ville-Marie, and be
cause this festival had always remained in high
honour among the Montrealers. The foundation
was laid by M. de Courcelles, governor-general; the
second stone had been reserved for M. Talon, but,
as he could not accept the invitation, his place was
taken by M. Philippe de Carion, representative of
M. de la Motte Saint-Paul. The remaining stones
88

THE BUILDING OF THE CHURCH

were laid by M. Perrot, governor of the island, by
M. Dollier de Casson, representing M. de Bretonvil-
liers, and by Mile. Mance, foundress of the Montreal
hospital. The sight of this ceremony was one of
the last joys of this good woman ; she died on
June 18th of the following year.

Meanwhile, all desired to contribute to the con
tinuation of the work ; some offered money, others
materials, still others their labour. In their ardour
the priests of the seminary had the old fort, which
was falling into ruins, demolished in order to use
the wood and stone for the new building. As lords
of the island, they seemed to have the incontest
able right to dispose of an edifice which was their
private property. But M. de Bretonvilliers, to whom
they referred the matter, took them to task for
their haste, and according to his instructions the
work of demolition was stopped, not to be resumed
until ten years later. The colonists had an ardent
desire to see their church finished, but they were
poor, and, though a collection had brought in, in
1676, the sum of two thousand seven hundred
francs, the work dragged along for two years more,
and was finished only in 1678. "The church had,"
says M. Morin, " the form of a Roman cross, with
the lower sides ending in a circular apse ; its portal,
built of hewn stone, was composed of two designs,
one Tuscan, the other Doric ; the latter was sur
mounted by a triangular pediment. This beautiful
entrance, erected in 1722, according to the plans of

89

BISHOP LAVAL

Chaussegros de L^ry, royal engineer, was flanked
on the right side by a square tower crowned by a
campanile, from the summit of which rose a beau
tiful cross with fleur-de-lis twenty-four feet high.
This church was built in the axis of Notre-Dame
Street, and a portion of it on the Place d'Armes ;
it measured, in the clear, one hundred and forty
feet long, and ninety- six feet wide, and the tower
one hundred and forty-four feet high. It was razed
in 1830, and the tower demolished in 1843."

Montreal continued to progress, and therefore to
build. The Sulpicians, finding themselves cramped
in their old abode, began in 1684 the construction
of a new seigniorial and chapter house, of one hund
red and seventy-eight feet frontage by eighty-four
feet deep. These vast buildings, whose main facade
faces on Notre-Dame Street, in front of the Place
d'Armes, still exist. They deserve the attention of
the tourist, if only by reason of their antiquity, and
on account of the old clock which surmounts them,
for though it is the most ancient of all in North
America, this clock still marks the hours with
average exactness. Behind these old walls extends
a magnificent garden.

The spectacle presented by Ville-Marie at this
time was most edifying. This great village was the
school of martyrdom, and all aspired thereto, from
the most humble artisan and the meanest soldier to
the brigadier, the commandant, the governor, the
priests and the nuns, and they found in this aspira-
90

LEADERS IN GOOD WORKS

tion, this faith and this hope, a strength and hap
piness known only to the chosen. From the bosom
of this city had sprung the seventeen heroes who
gave to the world, at the foot of the Long Sault, a
magnificent example of what the spirit of Christian
sacrifice can do ; to a population which gave of its
own free will its time and its labour to the building
of a temple for the Lord, God had assigned a
leader, who took upon his shoulders a heavy wood
en cross, and bore it for the distance of a league
up the steep flanks of Mount Royal, to plant it
solemnly upon the summit; within the walls of the
seminary lived men like M. Souart, physician of
hearts and bodies, or like MM. Lemaitre and Vig-
nal, who were destined to martyrdom ; in the halls
of the hospital Mile. Mance vied with Sisters de
Brdsoles, Maillet and de Macd, in attending to the
most repugnant infirmities or healing the most
tedious maladies; last but not least, Sister Bour-
geoys and her pious comrades, Sisters Aimee Chatel,
Catherine Crolo, and Marie Raisin, who formed the
nucleus of the Congregation, devoted themselves
with unremitting zeal to the arduous task of in
struction.

Another favour was about to be vouchsafed to
Canada in the birth of Mile. Leber. M. de Maison-
neuve and Mile. Mance were her godparents, and
the latter gave her her baptismal name. Jeanne
Leber reproduced all the virtues of her godmother,
and gave to Canada an example worthy of the

91

BISHOP LAVAL

primitive Church, and such as finds small favour
in the practical world of to-day. She lived a recluse
for twenty years with the Sisters of the Congrega
tion, and practised, till death relieved her, mortifica
tions most terrifying to the physical nature.

At Quebec, the barometer of piety, if I may be
excused so bold a metaphor, held at the same level
as that of Montreal, and he would be greatly de
ceived who, having read only the history of the
early years of the latter city, should despair of
finding in the centre of edification founded by
Champlain, men worthy to rank with Queylus and
Lemaitre, with Souart and Vignal, with Closse
and Maisonneuve, and women who might vie with
Marguerite Bourgeoys, with Jeanne Mance or with
Jeanne Leber. To the piety of the Sulpicians of
the colony planted at the foot of Mount Royal
corresponded the fervour both of the priests who
lived under the same roof as Mgr. de Laval, and of
the sons of Loyola, who awaited in their house
at Quebec their chance of martyrdom ; the edifying
examples given by the military chiefs of Montreal
were equalled by those set by governors like de
Mezy and de Courcelles ; finally the virtues bor
dering on perfection of women like Mile. Leber
and the foundresses of the hospital and the Con
gregation found their equivalents in those of the
pious Bishop of Petrsea, of Mme. de la Peltrie and
those of Mothers Mary of the Incarnation and
Andrde Duplessis de Sainte-H^lene.
92

MOTHER MARY OF THE INCARNATION

The Church will one day, perhaps, set upon her
altars Mother Mary of the Incarnation, the first
superior of the Ursulines at Quebec. The Theresa
of New France, as she has been called, was en
dowed with a calm courage, an incredible patience,
and a superior intellect, especially in spiritual mat
ters ; we find the proof of this in her letters and
meditations which her son published in France.
"At the head," says the Abbe Ferland, "of a
community of weak women, devoid of resources,
she managed to inspire her companions with the
strength of soul and the trust in God which ani
mated herself. In spite of the unteachableness and
the fickleness of the Algonquin maidens, the trou
blesome curiosity of their parents, the thousand
trials of a new and poor establishment, Mother In
carnation preserved an evenness of temper which
inspired her comrades in toil with courage. Did
some sudden misfortune appear, she arose with all
the greatness of a Christian of the primitive Church
to meet it with steadfastness. If her son spoke to
her of the ill-treatment to which she was exposed
on the part of the Iroquois, at a time when the
affairs of the French seemed desperate, she replied
calmly : < Have no anxiety for me. I do not speak
as to martyrdom, for your affection for me would
incline you to desire it for me, but I mean as to
other outrages. I see no reason for apprehension ;
all that I hear does not dismay me.' When she was
cast out upon the snow, together with her sisters,

93

BISHOP LAVAL

in the middle of a winter's night, by reason of a
conflagration which devoured her convent, her first
act was to prevail upon her companions to kneel
with her to thank God for having preserved their
lives, though He despoiled them of all that they
possessed in the world. Her strong and noble soul
seemed to rise naturally above the misfortunes
which assailed the growing colony. Trusting fully
to God through the most violent storms, she con
tinued to busy herself calmly with her work, as if
nothing in the world had been able to move her.
At a moment when many feared that the French
would be forced to leave the country, Mother of the
Incarnation, in spite of her advanced age, began to
study the language of the Hurons in order to make
herself useful to the young girls of this tribe. Ever
tranquil, she did not allow herself to be carried
away by enthusiasm or stayed by fear. ' We ima
gine sometimes/ she wrote to her former superior
at Tours, * that a certain passing inclination is a
vocation; no, events show the contrary. In our
momentary enthusiasms we think more of our
selves than of the object we face, and so we see
that when this enthusiasm is once past, our tenden
cies and inclinations remain on the ordinary plane
of life.' Built on such a foundation, her piety was
solid, sincere and truly enlightened. In perusing
her writings, we are astonished at finding in them
a clearness of thought, a correctness of style, and a
firmness of judgment which give us a lofty idea of
94

INDUSTRY AND ABILITY

this really superior woman. Clever in handling the
brush as well as the pen, capable of directing the
work of building as well as domestic labour, she
combined, according to the opinion of her contem
poraries, all the qualities of the strong woman of
whom the Holy Scriptures give us so fine a por
trait. She was entrusted with all the business of
the convent. She wrote a prodigious number of
letters, she learned the two mother tongues of the
country, the Algonquin and the Huron, and com
posed for the use of her sisters, a sacred history in
Algonquin, a catechism in Huron, an Iroquois
catechism and dictionary, and a dictionary, cate
chism and collection of prayers in the Algonquin
language."

95

CHAPTER VII

THE SMALLER SEMINARY

THE smaller seminary, founded by the Bishop
of Petraea in 1668, for youths destined to
the ecclesiastical life, justified the expectations of
its founder, and witnessed an ever increasing influx
of students. On the day of its inauguration, Octo
ber 9th, there were only as yet eight French pupils
and six Huron children. For lack of teachers the
young neophytes, placed under the guidance of
directors connected with the seminary, attended
during the first years the classes of the Jesuit
Fathers. Their special costume was a blue cloak,
confined by a belt. At this period the College of
the Jesuits contained already some sixty resident
scholars, and what proves to us that serious studies
were here pursued is that several scholars are quoted
in the memoirs as having successfully defended in
the presence of the highest authorities of the colony
theses on physics and philosophy.

If the first bishop of New France had confined
himself to creating one large seminary, it is certain
that his chosen work, which was the preparation
for the Church of a nursery of scholars and priests,
the apostles of the future, would not have been
complete.

97

BISHOP LAVAL

For many young people, indeed, who lead a
worldly existence, and find themselves all at once
transferred to the serious, religious life of the semin
ary, the surprise, and sometimes the discomfort,
may be great. One must adapt oneself to this at
mosphere of prayer, meditation and study. The
rules of prayer are certainly not beyond the limits of
an ordinary mind, but the practice is more difficult
than the theory. Not without effort can a youthful
imagination, a mind ardent and consumed by its
own fervour, relinquish all the memories of family
and social occupations, in order to withdraw into
silence, inward peace, and the mortification of the
senses. To the devoutly-minded our worldly life
may well seem petty in comparison with the more
spiritual existence, and in the religious life, for the
priest especially, lies the sole source and the indis
pensable condition of happiness. But one must learn
to be thus happy by humility, study and prayer, as
one learns to be a soldier by obedience, discipline
and exercise, and in nothing did Laval more reveal
his discernment than in the recognition of the fact
that the transition from one life to the other must
be effected only after careful instruction and wisely-
guided deliberation.

The aim of the smaller seminary is to guide, by
insensible gradations towards the great duties and
the great responsibilities of the priesthood, young
men upon whom the spirit of God seems to have
rested. There were in Israel schools of prophets;
98

EDUCATION

this does not mean that their training ended in the
diploma of a seer or an oracle, but that this noviti
ate was favourable to the action of God upon their
souls, and inclined them thereto. A smaller semin
ary possesses also the hope of the harvest. It is
there that the minds of the students, by exercises
proportionate to their age, become adapted uncon-
strainedly to pious reading, to the meditation and
the grave studies in whose cycle the life of the
priest must pass.

We shall not be surprised if the prelate's followers
recognized in the works of faith which sprang up in
his footsteps and progressed on all hands at Ville-
Marie and at Quebec shining evidences of the pro
tection of Mary to whose tutelage they had dedi
cated their establishments. This protection indeed
has never been withheld, since to-day the fame of
the university which sprang from the seminary, as a
fruit develops from a bud, has crossed the seas.
Father Monsabre, the eloquent preacher of Notre-
Dame in Paris, speaking of the union of science
and faith, exclaimed: " There exists, in the field of
the New World, an institution which has religiously
preserved this holy alliance and the traditions of the
older universities, the Laval University of Quebec."

Mgr. de Laval, while busying himself with the
training of his clergy, watched over the instruction
of youth. He protected his schools and his dioceses;
at Quebec the Jesuits, and later the seminary, main
tained even elementary schools. If we must believe

99

BISHOP LAVAL

the Abbe de Latour and other writers of the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the children
of the early colonists, skilful in manual labour,
showed, nevertheless, great indolence of mind. "In
general," writes Latour, " Canadian children have
intelligence, memory and facility, and they make
rapid progress, but the fickleness of their character,
a dominant taste for liberty, and their hereditary
and natural inclination for physical exercise do not
permit them to apply themselves with sufficient
perseverance and assiduity to become learned men;
satisfied with a certain measure of knowledge suf
ficient for the ordinary purposes of their occu
pations (and this is, indeed, usually possessed), we
see no people deeply learned in any branch of
science. We must further admit that there are few
resources, few books, and little emulation. No doubt
the resources will be multiplied, and clever per
sons will appear in proportion as the colony in
creases." Always eager to develop all that might
serve for the propagation of the faith or the pro
gress of the colony, the devoted prelate eagerly
fostered this natural aptitude of the Canadians for
the arts and trades, and he established at St.
Joachim a boarding-school for country children;
this offered, besides a solid primary education, les
sons in agriculture and some training for different
trades.

Mgr. de Laval gave many other proofs of his
enlightened charity for the poor and the waifs of
100

SANCTUARY OF SAINTE ANNE ^

fortune ; he approved and encouraged among other
works the Brotherhood of Saint Anne at Quebec.
This association of prayer and spiritual aid had
been established but three years before his arrival ;
it was directed by a chaplain and two directors, the
latter elected annually by secret ballot. He had
wished to offer in 1660 a more striking proof of
his devotion to the Mother of the Holy Virgin,
and had caused to be built on the shore of Beaupre'
the first sanctuary of Saint Anne. This temple
arose not far from a chapel begun two years before,
under the care of the Abbd de Queylus. The origin
of this place of devotion, it appears, was a great
peril to which certain Breton sailors were exposed :
assailed by a tempest in the Gulf of St. Lawrence,
about the beginning of the seventeenth century,
they made a vow to erect, if they escaped death, a
nhapel to good Saint Anne on the spot where they
should land. Heaven heard their prayers, and they
kept their word. The chapel erected by Mgr. de
Laval was a very modest one, but the zealous
missionary of Beaupre, the Abbe Morel, then chap
lain, was the witness of many acts of ardent faith
and sincere piety; the Bishop of Petraea himself
made several pilgrimages to the place. "We con
fess," says he, "that nothing has aided us more
efficaciously to support the burden of the pastoral
charge of this growing church than the special de
votion which all the inhabitants of this country
dedicate to Saint Anne, a devotion which, we

101

BISHOP LAVAL

affirm it with certainty, distinguishes them from
all other peoples." The poor little chapel, built of
uprights, gave place in 1675 to a stone church
erected by the efforts of M. Filion, proctor of the
seminary, and it was noted for an admirable picture
given by the viceroy, de Tracy, who did not dis
dain to make his pilgrimage like the rest, and to
set thus an example which the great ones of the
earth should more frequently give. This church
lasted only a few years ; Mgr. de Laval was still
living when a third temple was built upon its site.
This was enlarged in 1787, and gave place only in
1878 to the magnificent cathedral which we admire
to-day. The faith which raised this sanctuary to
consecrate it to Saint Anne did not die with its
pious founder ; it is still lively in our hearts, since
in 1898 a hundred and twenty thousand pilgrims
went to pray before the relic of Saint Anne, the
precious gift of Mgr. de Laval.

In our days, hardly has the sun melted the thick
mantle of snow which covers during six months the
Canadian soil, hardly has the majestic St. Lawrence
carried its last blocks of ice down to the ocean,
when caravans of pious pilgrims from all quarters
of the country wend their way towards the sanc
tuary raised upon the shores of Beaupre'. Whole
families fill the cars ; the boats of the Richelieu
Company stop to receive passengers at all the
charming villages strewn along the banks of the
river, and the cathedral which raises in the air its
102

WIDESPREAD ENERGY

slender spires on either side of the immense statue
of Saint Anne does not suffice to contain the ever
renewed throng of the faithful.

Even in the time of Mgr. de Laval, pilgrimages
to Saint Anne's were frequent, and it was not only
French people but also savages who addressed to
the Mother of the Virgin Mary fervent, and often
very artless, prayers. The harvest became, in fact,
more abundant in the missions, and

" Les pretres ne pouvaient suffire aux sacrifices." *

From the banks of the Saguenay at Tadousac,
or from the shore of Hudson Bay, where Father
Albanel was evangelizing the Indians, to the re
cesses of the Iroquois country, a Black Robe taught
from interval to interval in a humble chapel the
truths of the Christian religion. " We may say,"
wrote Father Dablon in 1671, "that the torch of
the faith now illumines the four quarters of this
New World. More than seven hundred baptisms
have this year consecrated all our forests ; more
than twenty different missions incessantly occupy
our Fathers among more than twenty diverse na
tions ; and the chapels erected in the districts most
remote from here are almost every day filled with
these poor barbarians, and in some of them there
have been consummated sometimes ten, twenty, and
even thirty baptisms on a single occasion." And,
ever faithful to the established power, the mission
aries taught their neophytes not only religion, but

i Racine's Athalie.

103

BISHOP LAVAL

also the respect due to the king. Let us hearken to
Father Allouez speaking to the mission of Sault
Ste. Marie : " Cast your eyes," says he, " upon the
cross raised so high above your heads. It was upon
that cross that Jesus Christ, the son of God, be
come a man by reason of His love for men, con
sented to be bound and to die, in order to satisfy
His Eternal Father for our sins. He is the master
of our life, the master of Heaven, earth and hell. It
is He of whom I speak to you without ceasing,
and whose name and word I have borne into all
these countries. But behold at the same time this
other stake, on which are hung the arms of the
great captain of France, whom we call the king.
This great leader lives beyond the seas ; he is the
captain of the greatest captains, and has not his
peer in the world. All the captains that you have
ever seen, and of whom you have heard speak, are
only children beside him. He is like a great tree ;
the rest are only little plants crushed under men's
footsteps as they walk. You know Onontio, the
famous chieftain of Quebec ; you know that he is
the terror of the Iroquois, his mere name makes
them tremble since he has desolated their country
and burned their villages. Well, there are beyond
the seas ten thousand Onontios like him. They are
only the soldiers of this great captain, our great
king, of whom I speak to you."

Mgr. de Laval ardently desired, then, the arrival
of new workers for the gospel, and in the year
104

I/

NEW ARRIVALS FROM FRANCE

1668, the very year of the foundation of the
seminary, his desire was fulfilled, as if Providence
wished to reward His servant at once. Missionaries
from France came to the aid of the priests of the
Quebec seminary, and Sulpicians, such as MM. de
Queylus, d'Urfe, Dallet and Brehan de Gallinee,
arrived at Montreal ; MM. Francois de Salignac-
Fenelon and Claude Trouve had already landed
the year before. " I have during the last month,"
wrote the prelate, " commissioned two most good
and virtuous apostles to go to an Iroquois com
munity which has been for some years established
quite near us on the northern side of the great
Lake Ontario. One is M. de Fenelon, whose name
is well-known in Paris, and the other M. Trouve.
We have not yet been able to learn the result of
their mission, but we have every reason to hope for
its complete success."

While he was enjoining upon these two mission
aries, on their departure for the mission on which
he was sending them, that they should always
remain in good relations with the Jesuit Fathers,
he gave them some advice worthy of the most
eminent doctors of the Church :—

"A knowledge of the language," he says, "is neces
sary in order to influence the savages. It is, neverthe
less, one of the smallest parts of the equipment of a
good missionary, just as in France to speak French
well is not what makes a successful preacher. The
talents which make good missionaries are :

105

BISHOP LAVAL

"1. To be filled with the spirit of God; this
spirit must animate our words and our hearts : Ex
abundantia cordis os loquitur.

"2. To have great prudence in the choice and
arrangement of the things which are necessary
either to enlighten the understanding or to bend
the will ; all that does not tend in this direction
is labour lost.

"3. To be very assiduous, in order not to lose
opportunities of procuring the salvation of souls,
and supplying the neglect which is often manifest
in neophytes; for, since the devil on his part circuit
tanquam leo rugiens, qucerens quern devoret, so we
must be vigilant against his efforts, with care,
gentleness and love.

" 4. To have nothing in our life and in our man*
ners which may appear to belie what we say, or
which may estrange the minds and hearts of those
whom we wish to win to God.

66 5. We must make ourselves beloved by our
gentleness, patience and charity, and win men's
minds and hearts to incline them to God. Often a
bitter word, an impatient act or a frowning coun
tenance destroys in a moment what has taken a
long time to produce.

" 6. The spirit of God demands a peaceful and
pious heart, not a restless and dissipated one ; one
should have a joyous and modest countenance : one
should avoid jesting and immoderate laughter, and
in general all that is contrary to a holy and joyful
106

THE ABBE DE QUEYLUS

modesty : Modestia vestra nota sit omnibus homin-
ibus."

The new Sulpicians had been most favourably re
ceived by Mgr. de Laval, and the more so since al
most all of them belonged to great families and had
renounced, like himself, ease and honour, to devote
themselves to the rude apostleship of the Canadian
missions.

The difficulties between the bishop and the Abb£
de Queylus had disappeared, and had left no trace
of bitterness in the souls of these two servants of
God. M. de Queylus gave good proof of this sub
sequently ; he gave six thousand francs to the
hospital of Quebec, of which one thousand were
to endow facilities for the treatment of the poor,
and five thousand for the maintenance of a choir-
nun. His generosity, moreover, was proverbial: "1
cannot find a man more grateful for the favour
that you have done him than M. de Queylus,"
wrote the intendant, Talon, to the minister, Colbert.
"He is going to arrange his affairs in France,
divide with his brothers, and collect his wordly
goods to use them in Canada, at least so he
has assured me. If he has need of your protec
tion, he is striving to make himself worthy of
it, and I know that he is most zealous for the
welfare of this colony. I believe that a little
show of benevolence on your part would redouble
this zeal, of which 1 have good evidence, for
what you desire the most, the education of the

107

BISHOP LAVAL

native children, which he furthers with all his
might."

The abb£ found the seminary in conditions very
different from those prevailing at the time of his
departure. In 1663, the members of the Company
of Notre-Dame of Montreal had made over to the
Sulpicians the whole Island of Montreal and the
seigniory of St. Sulpice. Their purpose was to assure
the future of the three works which they had not
ceased, since the birth of their association, to seek
to establish : a seminary for the education of priests
in the colony, an institution of education for young
girls, and a hospital for the care of the sick.

To learn the happy results due to the eloquence
of MM. Trouve and de Fenelon engaged in the
evangelization of the tribes encamped to the north
of Lake Ontario, or to that of MM. Dollier de
Casson and Gallinee preaching on the shores of
Lake Erie, one must read the memoirs of the
Jesuit Fathers. We must bear in mind that many
facts, which might appear to redound too much
to the glory of the missionaries, the modesty of
these men refused to give to the public. We shall
give an example. One day when M. de Fenelon
had come down to Quebec, in the summer of 1669,
to give account of his efforts to his bishop, Mgr.
de Laval begged the missionary to write a short
abstract of his labours for the memoirs. " Monseig-
neur," replied humbly the modest Sulpician, " the
greatest favour that you can do us is not to allow
108

ARRIVAL OF THE RECOLLETS

us to be mentioned." Will he, at least, like the
traveller who, exhausted by fatigue and privation,
reaches finally the promised land, repose in Capuan
delights ? Mother Mary of the Incarnation informs
us on this point : " M. L'abbe de Fenelon," says she,
" having wintered with the Iroquois, has paid us a
visit. I asked him how he had been able to subsist,
having had only sagamite1 as sole provision, and
pure water to drink. He replied that he was so
accustomed to it that he made no distinction be-

•

tween this food and any other, and that he was
about to set out on his return to pass the winter
again there with M. de Trouve', having left him
only to go and get the wherewithal to pay the
Indians who feed them. The zeal of these great
servants of God is admirable."

The activity and the devotion of the Jesuits and
of the Sulpicians might thus make up for lack of
numbers, and Mgr. de Laval judged that they
were amply sufficient for the task of the holy
ministry. But the intendant, Talon, feared lest the
Society of Jesus should become omnipotent in the
colony ; adopting from policy the famous device of
Catherine de Medici, divide to rule, he hoped that
an order of mendicant friars would counterbalance
the influence of the sons of Loyola, and he brought
with him from France, in 1670, Father Allard,
Superior of the Recollets in the Province of St.
Denis, and four other brothers of the same order.

1 A sort of porridge of water and pounded maize.

109

BISHOP LAVAL

We must confess that, if a new order of monks
was to be established in Canada, it was preferable
in all justice to apply to that of St. Francis rather
than to any others, for had it not traced the first
evangelical furrows in the new field and left glori
ous memories in the colony ?

Mgr. de Laval received from the king in 1671
the following letter :
" My Lord Bishop of Petrsea:

"Having considered that the re-establishment of
the monks of the Order of St. Francis on the lands
which they formerly possessed in Canada might be
of great avail for the spiritual consolation of my
subjects and for the relief of your ecclesiastics in
the said country, I send you this letter to tell you
that my intention is that you should give to the
Rev. Father Allard, the superior, and to the four
monks whom he brings with him, the power of
administering the sacraments to all those who may
have need of them and who may have recourse to
these reverend Fathers, and that, moreover, you s
should aid them with your authority in order that V
they may resume possession of all which belongs to
them in the said country, to all of which I am per
suaded you will willingly subscribe, by reason of
the knowledge which you have of the relief which
my subjects will receive. ..."

The prelate had not been consulted ; moreover,
the intervention of the newcomers did not seem to
him opportune. But he was obstinate and unap-
110

POPULARITY OF THE RECOLLETS

proachable only when he believed his conscience
involved ; he received the Recollets with great
benevolence and rendered them all the service pos
sible. "He gave them abundant aid," says La-
tour, "and furnished them for more than a year
with food and lodging. Although the Order had
come in spite of him, he gave them at the outset
four missions : Three Rivers, He Perce', St. John's
River and Fort Frontenac. These good Fathers
were surprised; they did not cease to praise the
charity of the bishop, and confessed frankly that,
having only come to oppose his clergy, they could
not understand why they were so kindly treated."

After all, the breadth of character of these brave
heroes of evangelic poverty could not but please
the Canadian people ; ever gay and pleasant, and
of even temper, they traversed the country to beg
a meagre pittance. Everywhere received with joy,
they were given a place at the common table; they
were looked upon as friends, and the people related
to them their joys and afflictions. Hardly was a
robe of drugget descried upon the horizon when
the children rushed forward, surrounded the good
Father, and led him by the hand to the family fire
side. The Rdcollets had always a good word for
this one, a consolatory speech for that one, and on
occasion, brought up as they had been, for the most
part under a modest thatched roof, knew how to
lend a hand at the plough, or suggest a good
counsel if the flock were attacked by some sick-
Ill

BISHOP LAVAL

ness. On their departure, the benediction having
been given to all, there was a vigorous hand
shaking, and already their hosts were discounting
the pleasure of a future visit.

On their arrival the Recollet Fathers lodged not
far from the Ursuline Convent, till the moment
when, their former monastery on the St. Charles
River being repaired, they were able to install
themselves there. Some years later they built a
simple refuge on land granted them in the Upper
Town. Finally, having become almoners of the
Chateau St. Louis, where the governor resided,
they built their monastery opposite the castle, back
to back with the magnificent church which bore
the name of St. Anthony of Padua. They recon
quered the popularity which they had enjoyed in
the early days of the colony, and the bishop en
trusted to their devotion numerous parishes and
four missions. Unfortunately, they allowed them
selves to be so influenced by M. de Frontenac, in
\ spite of repeated warnings from Mgr. de Laval,
that they espoused the cause of the governor in the
disputes between the latter and the intendant,
Duchesneau. Their gratitude towards M. de Fron-
tenac, who always protected them, is easily ex
plained, but it is no less true that they should have
respected above all the authority of the prelate
who alone had to answer before God for the re
ligious administration of his diocese.

112

CHAPTER VIII

THE PROGRESS OF THE COLONY

THIS year, 1668, would have brought only con
solations to Mgr. de Laval, if, unhappily, M.
de Talon had not inflicted a painful blow upon the
heart of the prelate : the commissioner obtained
from the Sovereign Council a decree permitting the
unrestricted sale of intoxicating drinks both to the
Ravages and to the French, and only those who
became intoxicated might be sentenced to a slight
penalty. This was opening the way for the greatest
abuses, and no later than the following year Mother
Mary of the Incarnation wrote : " What does the
most harm here is the traffic in wine and brandy.
We preach against those who give these liquors to
the savages; and yet many reconcile their con
sciences to the permission of this thing. They go
into the woods and carry drinks to the savages in
order to get their furs for nothing when they are
drunk. Immorality, theft and murder ensue. . . .
We had not yet seen the French commit such
crimes, and we can attribute the cause of them
only to the pernicious traffic in brandy."

Commissioner Talon was, however, the cleverest
administrator that the colony had possessed, and
the title of the " Canadian Colbert " which Bibaud

*—• 113

BISHOP LAVAL

confers upon him is well deserved. Mother Incar
nation summed up his merits well in the following
terms: "M. Talon is leaving us," said she, "and re
turning to France, to the great regret of everybody
and to the loss of all Canada, for since he has been
here in the capacity of commissioner the coun
try has progressed and its business prospered more
than they had done since the French occupation."
Talon worked with all his might in developing the
resources of the colony, by exploiting the mines, by
encouraging the fisheries, agriculture, the expor
tation of timber, and general commerce, and especi
ally by inducing, through the gift of a few acres of
ground, the majority of the soldiers of the regiment
of Carignan to remain in the country. He entered
every house to enquire of possible complaints ; he
took the first census, and laid out three villages
near Quebec. His plans for the future were vaster
still : he recommended the king to buy or conquer
the districts of Orange and Manhattan ; moreover,
according to Abbe Ferland, he dreamed of connect
ing Canada with the Antilles in commerce. With
this purpose he had had a ship built at Quebec,
and had bought another in order to begin at once.
This very first year he sent to the markets of
Martinique and Santo Domingo fresh and dry cod,
salted salmon, eels, pease, seal and porpoise oil, clap
boards and planks. He had different kinds of wood
cut in order to try them, and he exported masts to
La Rochelle, which he hoped to see used in the
114

TALON'S ACTIVITY

shipyards of the Royal Navy. He proposed to
Colbert the establishment of a brewery, in order to
utilize the barley and the wheat, which in a few
years would be so abundant that the farmer could
not sell them. This was, besides, a means of pre
venting drunkenness, and of retaining in the coun
try the sum of one hundred thousand francs, which
went out each year for the purchase of wines and
brandies. M. Talon presented at the same time to
the minister the observations which he had made
on the French population of the country. " The
people," said Talon, "are a mosaic, and though
composed of colonists from different provinces of
France whose temperaments do not always sym
pathize, they seem to me harmonious enough. There
are," he added, " among these colonists people in
easy circumstances, indigent people and people be
tween these two extremes."

But he thought only of the material develop
ment of the colony ; upon others, he thought, were *
incumbent the responsibility for and defence of
spiritual interests. He was mistaken, for, although
he had not in his power the direction of souls, his
duties as a simple soldier of the army of Christ
imposed upon him none the less the obligation of
avoiding all that might contribute to the loss of
even a single soul. The disorders which were the
inevitable result of a free traffic in intoxicating
liquors, finally assumed such proportions that the
council, without going as far as the absolute pro-

115

BISHOP LAVAL

hibition of the sale of brandy to the Indians, re
stricted, nevertheless, this deplorable traffic ; it for
bade under the most severe penalties the carrying
of firewater into the woods to the savages, but it
continued to tolerate the sale of intoxicating liquors
in the French settlements. It seems that Cavelier
de la Salle himself, in his store at Lachine where
he dealt with the Indians, did not scruple to sell
them this fatal poison.

From 1668 to 1670, during the two years that
Commissioner Talon had to spend in France, both
for reasons of health and on account of family
business, he did not cease to work actively at the
court for his beloved Canada. M. de Bouteroue,
who took his place during his absence, managed to
prejudice the minds of the colonists in his favour
by his exquisite urbanity and the polish of his
manners.

It will not be out of place, we think, to give here
some details of the state of the country and its
/ resources at this period. Since the first companies
in charge of Canada were formed principally of
merchants of Rouen, of La Rochelle and of St.
Malo, it is not astonishing that the first colonists
should have come largely from Normandy and
Perche. It was only about 1660 that fine and
vigorous offspring increased a population which
up to that time was renewed only through immi
gration ; in the early days, in fact, the colonists lost
all their children, but they found in this only a new
116

GROWTH OF POPULATION

reason for hope in the future. " Since God takes
the first fruits," said they, " He will save us the
rest." The wise and far-seeing mind of Cardinal
Richelieu had understood that agricultural develop
ment was the first condition of success for a young
colony, and his efforts in this direction had been
admirably seconded both by Commissioner Talon
and Mgr. de Laval at Quebec, and by the Com
pany of Montreal, which had not hesitated at any
sacrifice in order to establish at Ville-Marie a
healthy and industrious population. If the reader
doubts this, let him read the letters of Talon, of
Mother Mary of the Incarnation, of Fathers Le
Clercq and Charlevoix, of M. Aubert and many
others. " Great care had been exercised," says
Charlevoix, "in the selection of candidates who
had presented themselves for the colonization of
New France. ... As to the girls who were sent
out to be married to the new inhabitants, care was
always taken to enquire of their conduct before
they embarked, and their subsequent behaviour
was a proof of the success of this system. During
the following years the same care was exercised,
and we soon saw in this part of America a genera
tion of true Christians growing up, among whom
prevailed the simplicity of the first centuries of the
Church, and whose posterity has not yet lost sight
of the great examples set by their ancestors. . . .
In justice to the colony of New France we must
admit that the source of almost all the families

117

BISHOP LAVAL

which still survive there to-day is pure and free
from those stains which opulence can hardly efface;
this is because the first settlers were either artisans
always occupied in useful labour, or persons of good
family who came there with the sole intention of
living there more tranquilly and preserving their re-
jiigion in greater security. I fear the less contra
diction upon this head since I have lived with some
of these first colonists, all people still more respec
table by reason of their honesty, their frankness
and the firm piety which they profess than by their
white hair and the memory of the services which
they rendered to the colony."

M. Aubert says, on his part : " The French of
Canada are well built, nimble and vigorous, en
joying perfect health, capable of enduring all sorts
of fatigue, and warlike ; which is the reason why,
during the last war, French- Canadians received a
fourth more pay than the French of Europe. All
these advantageous physical qualities of the French-
Canadians arise from the fact that they have been
born in a good climate, and nourished by good and
abundant food, that they are at liberty to engage
from childhood in fishing, hunting, and journeying
in canoes, in which there is much exercise. As to
bravery, even if it were not born with them as
Frenchmen, the manner of warfare of the Iroquois
and other savages of this continent, who burn alive
almost all their prisoners with incredible cruelty,
caused the French to face ordinary death in battle
118

SEIGNIORIAL TENURE

as a boon rather than be taken alive ; so that they
fight desperately and with great indifference to life."
The consequence of this judicious method of peop
ling a colony was that, the trunk of the tree being
healthy and vigorous, the branches were so like
wise. " It was astonishing," wrote Mother Mary of
the Incarnation, " to see the great number of beau
tiful and well-made children, without any corporeal
deformity unless through accident. A poor man
will have eight or more children, who in the winter
go barefooted and bareheaded, with a little shirt
upon their back, and who live only on eels and
bread, and nevertheless are plump and large."

Property was feudal, as in France, and this con
stitution was maintained even after the conquest of
the country by the English. Vast stretches of land
were granted to those who seemed, thanks to their
state of fortune, fit to form centres of population,
and these seigneurs granted in their turn parts of
these lands to the immigrants for a rent of from
one to three cents per acre, according to the value
of the land, besides a tribute in grain and poultry.
The indirect taxation consisted of the obligation
of maintaining the necessary roads, one day's com
pulsory labour per year, convertible into a payment
of forty cents, the right of mouture, consisting of a
pound of flour on every fourteen from the common
mill, finally the payment of a twelfth in case of
transfer and sale (stamp and registration). This
seigniorial tenure was burdensome, we must admit,

119

BISHOP LAVAL

though it was less crushing than that which weighed
upon husbandry in France before the Revolution.
The farmers of Canada uttered a long sigh of relief
when it was abolished by the legislature in 1867.

The habits of this population were remarkably
simple ; the costume of some of our present out-of-
door clubs gives an accurate idea of the dress of that
time, which was the same for all : the garment of
wool, the cloak, the belt of arrow pattern, and the
woollen cap, called tuque, formed the national cost
ume. And not only did the colonists dress without
the slightest affectation, but they even made their
clothes themselves. " The growing of hemp," says
the Abbe Ferland, "was encouraged, and succeeded
wonderfully. They used the nettle to make strong
cloths ; looms set up in each house in the village
furnished drugget, bolting cloth, serge and ordinary
cloth. The leathers of the country sufficed for a
great portion of the needs of the population. Ac
cordingly, after enumerating the advances in agri
culture and industry, Talon announced to Colbert
with just satisfaction, that he could clothe himself
from head to foot in Canadian products, and that
in a short time the colony, if it were well adminis
tered, would draw from Old France only a few
objects of prime need."

The interior of the dwellings was not less simple,

and we find still in our country districts a goodly

number of these old French houses ; they had only

one single room, in which the whole family ate,

120

A TYPICAL HOUSE

lived and slept, and received the light through
three windows. At the back of the room was the
bed of the parents, supported by the wall, in an
other corner a couch, used as a seat during the day
and as a bed for the children during the night, for
the top was lifted off as one lifts the cover of a box.
Built into the wall, generally at the right of the
entrance, was the stone chimney, whose top pro
jected a little above the roof; the stewpan, in which
the food was cooked, was hung in the fireplace
from a hook. Near the hearth a staircase, or rather
a ladder, led to the loft, which was lighted by two
windows cut in the sides, and which held the grain.
Finally a table, a few chairs or benches completed
these primitive furnishings, though we must not
forget to mention the old gun hung above the bed
to be within reach of the hand in case of a night
surprise from the dreaded Iroquois.

In peaceful times, too, the musket had its ser
vice, for at this period every Canadian was born a
disciple of St. Hubert. We must confess that this
great saint did not refuse his protection in this
country, where, with a single shot, a hunter killed,
in 1663, a hundred and thirty wild pigeons. These
birds were so tame that one might kill them with an
oar on the bank of the river, and so numerous that
the colonists, after having gathered and salted
enough for their winter's provision, abandoned the
rest to the dogs and pigs. How many hunters of our
day would have displayed their skill in these fortu-

121

BISHOP LAVAL

nate times 1 This abundance of pigeons at a period
when our ancestors were not favoured in the matter
of food as we are to-day, recalls at once to our
memory the quail that Providence sent to the Jews
in the desert; and it is a fact worthy of mention that
as soon as our forefathers could dispense with this
superabundance of game, the wild pigeons disap
peared so totally and suddenly that the most ex
perienced hunters cannot explain this sudden disap
pearance. There were found also about Ville-Marie
many partridge and duck, and since the colonists
could not go out after game in the woods, where
they would have been exposed to the ambuscades
of the Iroquois, the friendly Indians brought to
market the bear, the elk, the deer, the buffalo, the
caribou, the beaver and the muskrat. On fast days
the Canadians did not lack for fish ; eels were sold
at five francs a hundred, and in June, 1649, more
than three hundred sturgeons were caught at Mont
real within a fortnight. The shad, the pike, the
wall-eyed pike, the carp, the brill, the maskinonge
were plentiful, and there was besides, more particu
larly at Quebec, good herring and salmon fishing,
while at Malbaie (Murray Bay) codfish, and at
Three Rivers white fish were abundant.

At first, food, clothing and property were all
paid for by exchange of goods. Men bartered, for
example, a lot of ground for two cows and a pair
of stockings ; a more considerable piece of land was
to be had for two oxen, a cow and a little money.
122

TWO CURRENCIES

" Poverty," says Bossuet, speaking of other nations,
" was not an evil ; on the contrary, they looked
upon it as a means of keeping their liberty more
intact, there being nothing freer or more inde
pendent than a man who knows how to live on
little, and who, without expecting anything from
the protection or the largess of others, relies for his
livelihood only on his industry and labour." Voltaire
has said with equal justice : "It is not the scarcity
of money, but that of men and talent, which makes
an empire weak."

On the arrival of the royal troops coin became
less rare. "Money is now common," wrote Mother
Incarnation, "these gentlemen having brought
much of it. They pay cash for all they buy, both
food and other necessaries." Money was worth a
fourth more than in France, thus fifteen cents were
worth twenty. As a natural consequence, two cur
rencies were established in New France, and the
livre tournois (French franc) was distinguished from
the franc of the country. The Indians were dealt
with by exchanges, and one might see them tra
versing the streets of Quebec, Montreal or Three
Rivers, offering from house to house rich furs,
which they bartered for blankets, powder, lead, but
above all, for that accursed firewater which caused
such havoc among them, and such interminable
disputes between the civil and the religious power.
Intoxicating liquors were the source of many dis
orders, and we cannot too much regret that this

123

BISHOP LAVAL

stain rested upon the glory of New France. Yet
such a society, situated in what was undeniably
a difficult position, could not be expected to escape
every imperfection.

The activity and the intelligence of Mgr. de
Laval made themselves felt in every beneficent and
progressive work. He could not remain indifferent
to the education of his flock ; we find him as zealous
for the progress of primary education as for the
development of his two seminaries or his school
at St. Joachim. Primary instruction was given first
by the good Recollets at Quebec, at Tadousac and
at Three Rivers. The Jesuits replaced them, and
were able, thanks to the munificence of the son of
the Marquis de Gamache, to add a college to their
elementary school at Quebec. At Ville-Marie the
Sulpicians, with never-failing abnegation, not con
tent with the toil of their ministry, lent themselves
to the arduous task of teaching; the venerable
superior himself, M. Souart, took the modest title of
headmaster. From a healthy bud issues a fine fruit :
just as the smaller seminary of Quebec gave birth
to the Laval University, so from the school of M.
Souart sprang in 1733 the College of Montreal,
transferred forty years later to the Chateau Vaud-
reuil, on Jacques Cartier Square; then to College
Street, now St. Paul Street. The college rises
to-day on an admirable site on the slope of the
mountain; the main seminary, which adjoins it,
seems to dominate the city stretched at its feet, as
124

TRAINING OF INDIANS

the two sister sciences taught there, theology and
philosophy, dominate by their importance the other
branches of human knowledge.

M. de Fenelon, who was already devoted to the
conversion of the savages in the famous mission of
Montreal mountain, gave the rest of his time to
the training of the young Iroquois; he gathered
them in a school erected by his efforts near Pointe
Claire, on the Dorval Islands, which he had re
ceived from M. de Frontenac. Later on the Broth
ers Charron established a house at Montreal with a
double purpose of charity: to care for the poor and
the sick, and to train men in order to send them to
open schools in the country district. This insti
tution, in spite of the enthusiasm of its founders,
did not succeed, and became extinct about the
middle of the eighteenth century. Finally, in 1838,
Canada greeted with joy the arrival of the sons of
the blessed Jean Baptiste de la Salle, the Brothers
of the Christian Doctrine, so well known through
out the world for their modesty and success in
teaching.

The girls of the colony were no less well looked
after than the boys ; at Quebec, the Ursuline nuns,
established in that city by Madame de la Peltrie,
trained them for the future irreproachable mothers of
families. The attempts made to Gallicize the young
savages met with no success in the case of the
boys, but were better rewarded by the young In
dian girls. "We have Gallicized," writes Mother

125

BISHOP LAVAL

Mary of the Incarnation, "a number of Indian
girls, both Hurons and Algonquins, whom we sub
sequently married to Frenchmen, who get along
with them very well. There is one among them
who reads and writes to perfection, both in her
native Huron tongue and in French ; no one can
discern or believe that she was born a savage. The
commissioner was so delighted at this that he in
duced her to write for him something in the two
languages, in order to take it to France and show
it as an extraordinary production." Further on she
adds, "It is a very difficult thing, not to say im
possible, to Gallicize or civilize them. We have
more experience in this than any one else, and we
have observed that of a hundred who have passed
through our hands we have hardly civilized one.
We find in them docility and intelligence, but
when we least expect it, they climb over our fence
and go off to run the woods with their parents,
where they find more pleasure than in all the com
forts of our French houses."

At Montreal it was the venerable Marguerite
Bourgeoys who began to teach in a poor hovel the
rudiments of the French tongue. This humble
school was transformed a little more than two
centuries later into one of the most vast and im
posing edifices of the city of Montreal. Fire des
troyed it in 1893, but we must hope that this
majestic monument of Ville-Marie will soon rise
again from its ruins to become the centre of opera-
126

MARGUERITE BOURGEOYS

tions of the numerous educational institutions of
the Congregation of Notre-Dame which cover our
country. M. 1'abbe Verreau, the much regretted
principal of the Jacques Cartier Normal School,
appreciates in these terms the services rendered to
education by Mother Bourgeoys, a woman eminent
from all points of view: "The Congregation of
Notre-Dame," says he, "is a truly national in
stitution, whose ramifications extend beyond the
limits of Canada. Marguerite Bourgeoys took in
hand the education of the women of the people,
the basis of society. She taught young women to
become what they ought to be, especially at this
period, women full of moral force, of modesty, of
courage in the face of the dangers in the midst of
which they lived. If the French- Canadians have
preserved a certain character of politeness and ur
banity, which strangers are not slow in admitting,
they owe it in a great measure to the work of Mar
guerite Bourgeoys."

127

CHAPTER IX

BECOMES BISHOP OF QUEBEC

THE creation of a bishopric* in Canada was be
coming necessary, and all was ready for the
erection of a separate see. Mgr. de Laval had
thought of everything : the two seminaries with the
resources indispensable for their maintenance, cathe
dral, parishes or missions regularly established, insti
tutions of education or charity, numerous schools,
a zealous and devoted clergy, respected both by the
government of the colony and by that of the mo
ther country. What more could be desired ? He
had many struggles to endure in order to obtain
this creation, but patience and perseverance never
failed him, and like the drop of water which, falling
incessantly upon the pavement, finally wears away
the stone, his reasonable and ever repeated demands
eventually overcame the obstinacy of the king.
Not, however, until 1674 was he definitely ap
pointed Bishop of Quebec, and could enjoy without
opposition a title which had belonged to him so
long in reality ; this was, as it were, the final conse
cration of his life and the crowning of his efforts.
Upon the news of this the joy of the people and of
the clergy rose to its height: the future of the
Canadian Church was assured, and she would in-

129

BISHOP LAVAL

scribe in her annals a name dear to all and soon to
be glorified.

Shall we, then, suppose that this pontiff was in
deed ambitious, who, coming in early youth to
wield his pastoral crozier upon the banks of the St.
Lawrence, did not fear the responsibility of so lofty
a task ? The assumption would be quite unjustified.
Rather let us think of him as meditating on this
text of St. Paul : " Oportet episcopwn irreprekensi-
bilem esse" the bishop must be irreproachable in his
house, his relations, his speech and even his silence.
His past career guaranteed his possession of that
admixture of strength and gentleness, of authority
and condescension in which lies the great art of
governing men. Moreover, one thing reassured him,
his knowledge that the crown of a bishop is often
a crown of thorns. When the apostle St. Paul
outlined for his disciple the main features of the
episcopal character, he spoke not alone for the im
mediate successors of the apostles, but for all those
who in the succession of ages should be honoured
by the same dignity. No doubt the difficulties
would be often less, persecution might even cease
entirely, but trial would continue always, because
it is the condition of the Church as well as that of
individuals. The prelate himself explains to us the
very serious reasons which led him to insist on
obtaining the title of Bishop of Quebec. He writes
in these terms to the Propaganda : " I have never
till now sought the episcopacy, and I have accepted
130

THE KING PETITIONS THE POPE

it in spite of myself, convinced of my weakness.
But, having borne its burden, I shall consider it a
boon to be relieved of it, though I do not refuse to
sacrifice myself for the Church of Jesus Christ and
for the welfare of souls. I have, however, learned
by long experience how unguarded is the position
of an apostolic vicar against those who are en
trusted with political affairs, I mean the officers of
the court, perpetual rivals and despisers of the
ecclesiastical power, who have nothing more com
mon to object than that the authority of the apos
tolic vicar is doubtful and should be restricted
within certain limits. This is why, after having
maturely considered everything, I have resolved to
resign this function and to return no more to New
France unless a see be erected there, and unless I
be provided and furnished with bulls constituting
me its occupant. Such is the purpose of my journey
to France and the object of my desires."

As early as the year 1662, at the time of his first
journey to France, the Bishop of Petrsea had ob
tained from Louis XIV the assurance that this
prince would petition the sovereign pontiff for the
erection of the see of Quebec ; moreover, the mon
arch had at the same time assigned to the future
bishopric the revenues of the abbey of Maubec.
The king kept his word, for on June 28th, 1664, he
addressed to the common Father of the faithful the
following letter : " The choice made by your Holi
ness of the person of the Sieur de Laval, Bishop of

131

BISHOP LAVAL

Petraaa, to go in the capacity of apostolic vicar to
exercise episcopal functions in Canada has been
attended by many advantages to this growing
Church. We have reason to expect still greater
results if it please your Holiness to permit him to
continue there the same functions in the capacity
of bishop of the place, by establishing for this pur
pose an episcopal see in Quebec ; and we hope that
your Holiness will be the more inclined to this
since we have already provided for the mainten
ance of the bishop and his canons by consenting to
the perpetual union of the abbey of Maubec with
the future bishopric. This is why we beg you to
grant to the Bishop of Petraea the title of Bishop
of Quebec upon our nomination and prayer, with
power to exercise in this capacity the episcopal
functions in all Canada."

However, the appointment was not consumma
ted; the Propaganda, indeed, decided in a rescript
of December 15th, 1666, that it was necessary to
make of Quebec a see, whose occupant should be
appointed by the king; the Consistorial Congre
gation of Rome promulgated a new decree with
the same purpose on October 9th, 1670, and yet
Mgr. de Laval still remained Bishop of Petraea.
This was because the eternal question of jurisdiction
as between the civil and religious powers, the
question which did so much harm to Catholicism in
France, in England, in Italy, and especially in Ger
many, was again being revived. The King of France
132

THE ABBE FERLAND'S OPINION

demanded that the new diocese should be depend
ent upon the Metropolitan of Rouen, while the
pontifical government, of which its providential role
requires always a breadth of view, and, so to speak,
a foreknowledge of events impossible to any nation,
desired the new diocese to be an immediate de
pendency of the Holy See. " We must confess
here," says the Abbe Ferland, "that the sight of
the sovereign pontiff reached much farther into the
future than that of the great king. Louis XIV was
concerned with the kingdom of France ; Clement
X thought of the interests of the whole Catholic
world. The little French colony was growing ;
separated from the mother country by the ocean,
it might be wrested from France by England,
which was already so powerful in America ; what,
then, would become of the Church of Quebec if it
had been wont to lean upon that of Rouen and to
depend upon it ? It was better to establish at once
immediate relations between the Bishop of Quebec
and the supreme head of the Catholic Church ; it
was better to establish bonds which could be broken
neither by time nor force, and Quebec might thus
become one day the metropolis of the dioceses
which should spring from its bosom."

The opposition to the views of Mgr. de Laval
did not come, however, so much from the king as
from Mgr. de Harlay, Archbishop of Rouen, who
had never consented to the detachment of Canada
from his jurisdiction. Events turned out fortunately

133

BISHOP LAVAL

for the apostolic vicar, since the Archbishop of
Rouen was called to the important see of Paris on
the death of the Archbishop of Paris, Hardouin de
Perefixe de Beaumont, in the very year in which
Mgr. de Laval embarked for France, accompanied
by his grand vicar, M. de Lauson-Charny. The
task now became much easier, and Laval had no
difficulty in inducing the king to urge the erection
of the diocese at Quebec, and to abandon his claims
to making the new diocese dependent on the arch
bishopric of Rouen.

Before leaving Canada the Bishop of Quebec had
entrusted the administration of the apostolic vicari-
ate to M. de Berni&res, and, in case of the latter Js
death, to M. Dudouyt. He embarked in the autumn
of 1671.

To the keen regret of the population of Ville-
Marie, which owed him so much, M. de Queylus,
Abbe de Loc-Dieu and superior of the Seminary
of Montreal for the last three years, went to France
at the same time as his ecclesiastical superior. " M.
l'abb£ de Queylus," wrote Commissioner Talon to
the Minister Colbert, " is making an urgent appli
cation for the settlement and increase of the colony
of Montreal. He carries his zeal farther, for he is
going to take charge of the Indian children who fall
into the hands of the Iroquois, in order to have them
educated, the boys in his seminary, and the girls
by persons of the same sex, who form at Mont
real a sort of congregation to teach young girls the
134

PRIVATE BENEFACTORS

petty handicrafts, in addition to reading and writ
ing." M. de Queylus had used his great fortune
in all sorts of good works in the colony, but he was
not the only Sulpician whose hand was always
ready and willing. Before dying, M. Olier had
begged his successors to continue the work at
Ville-Marie, " because," said he, "it is the will of
God," and the priests of St. Sulpice received this
injunction as one of the most sacred codicils of the
will of their Father. However onerous the continua
tion of this plan was for the company, the latter
sacrificed to it without hesitation its resources, its
efforts and its members with the most complete
abnegation.1 Thus when, on March 9th, 1663, the
Company of Montreal believed itself no longer
capable of meeting its obligations, and begged St.
Sulpice to take them up, the seminary subordinated
all considerations of self-interest and human pru
dence to this view. To this MM. de Bretonvilliers,
de Queylus and du Bois devoted their fortunes,
and to this work of the conversion of the savages
priests distinguished in birth and riches gave up
their whole lives and property. M. de Belmont dis
charged the hundred and twenty thousand francs
of debts of the Company of Montreal, gave as
much more to the establishment of divers works,
and left more than two hundred thousand francs

1 Vie de M. Olier, par De Lanjuere. As I wrote this life some years
ago with the collaboration of a gentleman whom death has taken from
us, I helieve myself entitled to reproduce here and there in the present
life of Mgr. de Laval extracts from this hook.

135

BISHOP LAVAL

of his patrimony to support them after his death.
How many others did likewise ! During more than
fifty years Paris sent to this mission only priests
able to pay their board, that they might have the
right to share in this evangelization. This disinter
estedness, unheard of in the history of the most
unselfish congregations, saved, sustained and finally
developed this settlement, to which Roman Catho
lics point to-day with pride. The Seminary of Paris
contributed to it a sum equal to twice the value of
the island, and during the first sixty years more
than nine hundred thousand francs, as one may see
by the archives of the Department of Marine at
Paris. These sums to-day would represent a large
fortune.

Finally the prayers of Mgr. de Laval were heard;
Pope Clement X signed on October 1st, 1674, the
bulls establishing the diocese of Quebec, which was
to extend over all the French possessions in North
America. The sovereign pontiff incorporated with
the new bishopric for its maintenance the abbey of
Maubec, given by the King of France already in
/ 1662, and in exchange for the renunciation by this
prince of his right of presentation to the abbey of
Maubec, granted him the right of nomination to
the bishopric of Quebec. To his first gift the king
had added a second, that of the abbey of Lestrees.
Situated in Normandy and in the archdeaconry
of Evreux, this abbey was one of the oldest of the
order of Citeaux.
136

DIFFICULTIES OF ADMINISTRATION

Up to this time the venerable bishop had had
many difficulties to surmount; he was about to
meet some of another sort, those of the adminis
tration of vast properties. The abbey of Maubec,
occupied by monks of the order of St. Benedict, was
situated in one of the fairest provinces of France,
Le Perry, and was dependent upon the archdiocese
of Bourges. Famous vineyards, verdant meadows,
well cultivated fields, rich farms, forests full of
game and ponds full of fish made this abbey an
admirable domain ; unfortunately, the expenses of
maintaining or repairing the buildings, the dues
payable to the government, the allowances secured
to the monks, and above all, the waste and theft
which must necessarily victimize proprietors sepa
rated from their tenants by the whole breadth of
an ocean, must absorb a great part of the revenues.
Letters of the steward of this property to the
Bishop of Quebec are instructive in this matter.
" M. Porcheron is still the same," writes the stew
ard, M. Matberon, " and bears me a grudge because
I desire to safeguard your interests. I am inces
santly carrying on the work of needful repairs in all
the places dependent on Maubec, chiefly those neces
sary to the ponds, in order that M. Porcheron may
have no damages against you. This is much against
his will, for he is constantly seeking an excuse for
litigation. He swears that he does not want your
farm any longer, but as for me, I believe that this
is not his feeling, and that he would wish the farm

137

BISHOP LAVAL

out of the question, for he is too fond of hunting
and his pleasure to quit it. ... He does his utmost
to remove me from your service, insinuating many
things against me which are not true ; but this does
not lessen my zeal in serving you."

Mgr. de Laval, who did not hesitate at any ex
ertion when it was a question of the interests of his
Church, did not fail to go and visit his two abbeys.
He set out, happy in the prospect of being able to
admire these magnificent properties whose rich re
venues would permit him to do so much good in
his diocese ; but he was painfully affected at the
sight of the buildings in ruins, sad relics of the
wars of religion. In order to free himself as much
as possible from cares which would have encroached
too much upon his precious time and his pastoral
duties, Laval caused a manager to be appointed
by the Royal Council for the abbey of Lestre'es,
and rented it for a fixed sum to M. Berthelot.
He also made with the latter a very advanta
geous transaction by exchanging with him the
Island of Orleans for the He Jesus ; M. Berthelot
was to give him besides a sum of twenty-five
thousand francs, which was employed in building
the seminary. Later the king made the Island of
Orleans a county. It became the county of St.
Lawrence.

Mgr. de Laval was too well endowed with quali
ties of the heart, as well as with those of the
mind, not to have preserved a deep affection for his
138

FAMILY DETAILS

family ; he did not fail to go and see them twice
during his stay in France. Unhappily, his brother,
Jean-Louis, to whom he had yielded all his rights
as eldest son, and his titles to the hereditary lord
ship of Montigny and Montbeaudry, caused only
grief to his family and to his wife, Franchise de
Chevestre. As lavish as he was violent and hot-
tempered, he reduced by his excesses his numerous
family (for he had had ten children), to such pov
erty that the Bishop of Quebec had to come to his
aid ; besides the assistance which he sent them, the
prelate bought him a house. He extended his pro
tection also to his nephews, and his brother, Henri
de Laval, wrote to him about them as follows :
"The eldest is developing a little; he is in the army
with the king, and his father has given him a good
start. I have obtained from my petitions from Paris
a place as monk in the Congregation of the Cross
for his second son, whom I shall try to have reared
in the knowledge and fear of God. I believe that
the youngest, who has been sent to you, will have
come to the right place ; he is of good promise.
My brother desires greatly that you may have the
goodness to give Fanchon the advantage of an
education before sending him back. It is a great
charity to these poor children to give them a little
training. You will be a father to them in this
matter." One never applied in vain to the heart of
the good bishop. Two of his nephews owed him
their education at the seminary of Quebec ; one of

139

BISHOP LAVAL

them, Fanchon (Charles-Fran9ois-Guy), after a bril
liant course in theology at Paris, became vicar-
general to the Swan of Cambrai, the illustrious
Fenelon, and was later raised to the bishopric of
Ypres.

Meanwhile, four years had elapsed since Mgr.
de Laval had left the soil of Canada, and he did
not cease to receive letters which begged him re
spectfully to return to his diocese. "Nothing is
lacking to animate us but the presence of our
lord bishop," wrote, one day, Father Dablon. " His
absence keeps this country, as it were, in mourn
ing, and makes us languish in the too long separa
tion from a person so necessary to these growing
churches. He was the soul of them, and the zeal
which he showed on every occasion for the wrelfare
of our Indians drew upon us favours of Heaven
most powerful for the success of our missions ; and
since, however distant he be in the body, his heart
is ever with us, we experience the effects of it in
the continuity of the blessings with which God
favours the labours of our missionaries." Accord
ingly, he did not lose a moment after receiving the
decrees appointing him Bishop of Quebec. On May
19th, 1675, he renewed the union of his seminary
with that of the Foreign Missions in Paris. " This
union," says the Abbe Ferland, " a union which he
had effected for the first time in 1665 as apostolic
bishop of New France, was of great importance to
his diocese. He found, indeed, in this institution,
140

LAVAL RETURNS TO CANADA

good recruits, who were sent to him when needed,
and faithful correspondents, whom he could address
with confidence, and who had sufficient influence
at court to gain a hearing for their representations
in favour of the Church in Canada." On May 29th
of the same year he set sail for Canada ; he was
accompanied by a priest, a native of the city of
Orleans, M. Glandelet, who was one of the most
distinguished priests of the seminary.

To understand with what joy he was received
by his parishioners on his arrival, it is enough to
read what his brother, Henri de Laval, wrote to
him the following year : "I cannot express to you
the satisfaction and inward joy which I have re
ceived in my soul on reading a report sent from
Canada of the manner in which your clergy and
all your people have received you, and that our
Lord inspires them all with just and true senti
ments to recognize you as their father and pastor.
They testify to having received through your be
loved person as it were a new life. I ask our Lord
every day at His holy altars to preserve you some
years more for the sanctification of these poor
people and our own."

141

CHAPTER X

FRONTENAC IS APPOINTED GOVERNOR

DURING the early days of the absence of its
first pastor, the Church of Canada had en
joyed only days of prosperity ; skilfully directed by
MM. de Berni£res and de Dudouyt, who scrupu
lously followed the line of conduct laid down for
them by Mgr. de Laval before his departure, it was
pursuing its destiny peacefully. But this calm, fore
runner of the storm, could not last ; it was the
destiny of the Church, as it had been the lot of
nations, to be tossed incessantly by the violent
winds of trial and persecution. The difficulties
which arose soon reached the acute stage, and all
the firmness and tact of the Bishop of Quebec
were needed to meet them. The departure of
Laval for France in the autumn of 1671 had been
closely followed by that of Governor de Courcelles
and that of Commissioner Talon. The latter was
not replaced until three years later, so that the new
governor, Count de Frontenac, who arrived in the
autumn of 1672, had no one at his side in the
Sovereign Council to oppose his views. This was
allowing too free play to the natural despotism of
his character. Louis de Buade, Count de Palluau
and de Frontenac, lieutenant-general of the king's

143

BISHOP LAVAL

armies, had previously served in Holland under
the illustrious Maurice, Prince of Orange, then in
France, Italy and Germany, and his merit had
gained for him the reputation of a great captain.
The illustrious Turenne entrusted to him the com
mand of the reinforcements sent to Candia when
that island was besieged by the Turks. He had a
keen mind, trained by serious study ; haughty to
wards the powerful of this world, he was affable to
ordinary people, and thus made for himself numer
ous enemies, while remaining very popular. Father
Charlevoix has drawn an excellent portrait of him :
"His heart was greater than his birth, his wit
lively, penetrating, sound, fertile and highly culti
vated : but he was biased by the most unjust pre
judices, and capable of carrying them very far. He
wished to rule alone, and there was nothing he
^vould not do to remove those whom he was afraid
of finding in his way. His worth and ability were
equal ; no one knew better how to assume over the
people whom he governed and with whom he had
to deal, that ascendency so necessary to keep them
in the paths of duty and respect. He won when he
wished it the friendship of the French and their
allies, and never has general treated his enemies
with more dignity and nobility. His views for the
aggrandizement of the colony were large and true,
but his prejudices sometimes prevented the execu
tion of plans which depended on him. ... He
justified, in one of the most critical circumstances
144

FORT CATARAQUI

of his life, the opinion that his ambition and the
desire of preserving his authority had more power
over him than his zeal for the public good. The
fact is that there is no virtue which does not belie
itself when one has allowed a dominant passion to
gain the upper hand. The Count de Frontenac
might have been a great prince if Heaven had
placed him on the throne, but he had dangerous
faults for a subject who is not well persuaded that
his glory consists in sacrificing everything to the
service of his sovereign and the public utility."

It was under the administration of Frontenac
that the Compagnie des Indes Occidentales, which
had accepted in 1663 a portion of the obligations
and privileges of the Company of the Cent.-
Associes, renounced its rights over New France.
Immediately after his arrival he began the con
struction of Fort Cataraqui ; if we are to believe
some historians, motives of personal interest guided
him in the execution of this enterprise ; he thought
only, it seems, of founding considerable posts for
the fur trade, favouring those traders who would
consent to give him a share in their profits. The
work was urged on with energy. La Salle obtained
from the king, thanks to the support of Frontenac,
letters patent of nobility, together with the owner
ship and jurisdiction of the new fort.

With the approval of the governor, Commissioner
Talon's plan of having the course of the Mississippi
explored was executed by two bold men : Louis

BISHOP LAVAL

Joliet, citizen of Quebec, already known for pre
vious voyages and for his deep knowledge of the
Indian tongues, and the devoted missionary, Father
Marquette. Without other provisions than Indian
corn and dried meat they set out in two bark
canoes from Michilimackinac on May 17th, 1673 ;
only five Frenchmen accompanied them. They
reached the Mississippi, after having passed the
Baie des Puants and the rivers Outagami and Wis
consin, and ascended the stream for more than
sixty leagues. They were cordially received by the
tribe of the Illinois, which was encamped not far
from the river, and Father Marquette promised to
return and visit them. The two travellers reached
the Arkansas River and learned that the sea was
not far distant, but fearing they might fall into the
hands of hostile Spaniards, they decided to retrace
their steps, and reached the Baie des Puants about
the end of September.

The following year Father Marquette wished to
keep his promise given to the Illinois. His health
is weakened by the trials of a long mission, but
what matters this to him ? There are souls to save.
He preaches the truths of religion to the poor
savages gathered in attentive silence; but his
strength diminishes, and he regretfully resumes the
road to Michilimackinac. He did not have time to
reach it, but died near the mouth of a river which
long bore his name. His two comrades dug a grave
for the remains of the missionary and raised a cross
146

LA SALLE'S YOUTH

near the tomb. Two years later these sacred bones
were transferred with the greatest respect to St.
Ignace de Michilimackinac by the savage tribe of
the Kiskakons, whom Father Marquette had chris
tianized.

With such an adventurous character as he pos
sessed, Cavelier de la Salle could not learn of the
exploration of the course of the Upper Mississippi
without burning with the desire to complete the
discovery and to descend the river to its mouth.
Robert Rene Cavelier de la Salle was born at
Rouen about the year 1644. He belonged to an
excellent family, and was well educated. From his
earliest years he was passionately fond of stories of
travel, and the older he grew the more cramped he
felt in the civilization of Europe; like the met
tled mustang of the vast prairies of America, he
longed for the immensity of unknown plains, for
the imposing majesty of forests which the foot of
man had not yet trod. Maturity and reason gave a
more definite aim to these aspirations; at the age
of twenty-four he came to New France to try his
fortune. He entered into relations with different
Indian tribes, and the extent of his commerce led
him to establish a trading-post opposite the Sault
St. Louis. This site, as we shall see, received
soon after the name of Lachine. Though settled at
this spot, La Salle did not cease to meditate on the
plan fixed in his brain of discovering a passage to
China and the Indies, and upon learning the news

147

BISHOP LAVAL

that MM. Dollier de Casson and Galline'e were go
ing to christianize the wild tribes of south-western
Canada, he hastened to rejoin the two devoted
missionaries. They set out in the summer of 1669,
with twenty-two Frenchmen. Arriving at Niagara,
La Salle suddenly changed his mind, and aban
doned his travelling companions, under the pretext
of illness. No more was needed for the Frenchman,
ne malin,1 to fix upon the seigniory of the future
discoverer of the mouth of the Mississippi the
name of Lachine ; M. Dollier de Casson is sus
pected of being the author of this gentle irony.

Eight years later the explorations of Joliet and
Father Marquette revived his instincts as a dis
coverer; he betook himself to France in 1677 and
easily obtained authority to pursue, at his own ex
pense, the discovery already begun. Back in Canada
the following year, La Salle thoroughly prepared
for this expedition, accumulating provisions at Fort
Niagara, and visiting the Indian tribes. In 1679,
accompanied by the Chevalier de Tonti, he set out
at the head of a small troop, and passed through
Michilimackinac, then through the Baie des Puants.
From there he reached the Miami River, where he
erected a small fort, ascended the Illinois, and,
reaching a camp of the Illinois Indians, made an
alliance with this tribe, obtaining from them per
mission to erect upon their soil a fort which he
called Crevecceur. He left M. de Tonti there

1 Allusion to a verse of the poet Boileau,
148

LA SALLE'S MISFORTUNES

with a few men and two Rdcollet missionaries,
Fathers de la Ribourde and Membre, and set out
again with all haste for Fort Frontenac, for he
was very anxious regarding the condition of his
own affairs. He had reason to be. " His creditors,"
says the Abbe Ferland, " had had his goods seized
after his departure from Fort Frontenac ; his brig-
antine Le Griffon had been lost, with furs valued
at thirty thousand francs ; his employees had ap
propriated his goods ; a ship which was bringing
him from France a cargo valued at twenty-two
thousand francs had been wrecked on the Islands
of St. Pierre ; some canoes laden with merchan
dise had been dashed to pieces on the journey be
tween Montreal and Frontenac ; the men whom
he had brought from France had fled to New York,
taking a portion of his goods, and already a con
spiracy was on foot to disaffect the Canadians in
his service. In one word, according to him, the
whole of Canada had conspired against his enter
prise, and the Count de Frontenac was the only
one who consented to support him in the midst of
his misfortunes." His remarkable energy and ac
tivity remedied this host of evils, and he set out
again for Fort Crevecceur. To cap the climax of his
misfortunes, he found it abandoned; being attacked
by the Iroquois, whom the English had aroused
against them, Tonti and his comrades had been
forced to hasty flight. De la Salle found them
again at Michilimackinac, but he had the sorrow

149

BISHOP LAVAL

of learning of the loss of Father de la Ribourde,
whom the Illinois had massacred. Tonti and his
companions, in their flight, had been obliged to
abandon an unsafe canoe, which had carried them
half-way, and to continue their journey on foot.
Such a series of misfortunes would have discour
aged any other than La Salle; on the contrary, he
made Tonti and Father Membre retrace their steps.
Arriving with them at the Miami fort, he rein
forced his little troop by twenty- three Frenchmen
and eighteen Indians, and reached Fort Cr&ve-
cceur. On February 6th, 1682, he reached the
mouth of the Illinois, and then descended the
Mississippi. Towards the end of this same month
the bold explorers stopped at the juncture of the
Ohio with the Father of Rivers, and erected there
Fort Prudhomme. On what is Fame dependent ?
A poor and unknown man, a modest collaborator
with La Salle, had the honour of giving his name
to this little fort because he had been lost in the
neighbourhood and had reached camp nine days
later.

Providence was finally about to reward so much
bravery and perseverance. The sailor who from the
yards of Christopher Columbus's caravel, uttered
the triumphant cry of " Land! land ! " did not cause
more joy to the illustrious Genoese navigator than
La Salle received from the sight of the sea so
ardently sought. On April 9th La Salle and his
comrades could at length admire the immense blue
150

LOUISIANA ANNEXED

sheet of the Gulf of Mexico. Like Christopher
Columbus, who made it his first duty on touch
ing the soil of the New World to fall upon
his knees to return thanks to Heaven, La Salle's
first business was to raise a cross upon the shore.
Father Membre intoned the Te Deum. They
then raised the arms of the King of France,
in whose name La Salle took possession of the
Mississippi, and of all the territories watered by
the tributaries of the great* river:

Their trials were not over : the risks to be run in
traversing so many regions inhabited by barbarians
were as great and as numerous after success as
before. La Salle was, moreover, delayed for forty
days by a serious illness, but God in His goodness
did not wish to deprive the valiant discoverers of
the fruits of their efforts, and all arrived safe and
sound at the place whence they had started. After
having passed a year in establishing trading-posts
among the Illinois, La Salle appointed M. de Tonti
his representative for the time being, and betook
himself to France with the intention of giving an
account of his journey to the most Christian mon
arch. His enemies had already forestalled him at
the court; we have to seek the real cause of this
hatred in the jealousy of traders who feared to find
in the future colonists of the western and southern
country competitors in their traffic. But far from
listening to them, the son of Colbert, Seignelay,
then minister of commerce, highly praised the

151

BISHOP LAVAL

valiant explorer, and sent, in 1684, four ships with
two hundred and eighty colonists to people Louisi
ana, this new gem in the crown of France. But La
Salle has not yet finally drained the cup of disap
pointment, for few men have been so overwhelmed
as he by the persistence of ill-fortune. It was not
enough that the leader of the expedition should be
incapable, the colonists must needs be of a con
tinual evil character, the soldiers undisciplined, the
workmen unskilful, the pilot ignorant. They pass
the mouth of the Mississippi, near which they
should have disembarked, and arrive in Texas ;
the commander refuses to send the ship about, and
La Salle makes up his mind to land where they
are. Through the neglect of the pilot, the vessel
which was carrying the provisions is cast ashore,
then a gale arises which swallows up the tools, the
merchandise and the ammunition. The Indians,
like birds of prey, hasten up to pillage, and mas
sacre two volunteers. The colonists in exasperation
revolt, and stupidly blame La Salle. He saves them,
nevertheless, by his energy, and makes them raise
a fort with the wreck of the ships. They pass two
years there in a famine of everything; twice La
Salle tries to find, at the cost of a thousand suffer
ings, a way of rescue, and twice he fails. Finally,
when there remain no more than thirty men, he
chooses the ten most resolute, and tries to reach
Canada on foot. He did not reach it: on May 20th,
1687, he was murdered by one of his comrades.
152

MADAME DE LA PELTRIE

" Such was the end of this daring adventurer," says
Bancroft.1 "For force of will, and vast conceptions;
for various knowledge and quick adaptation of his
genius to untried circumstances ; for a sublime
magnanimity that resigned itself to the will of
Heaven and yet triumphed over affliction by energy
of purpose and unfaltering hope, he had no superior
among his countrymen. . . . He will be remem
bered in the great central valley of the West."

It was with deep feelings of joy that Mgr. de
Laval, still in France at this period, had read the
detailed report of the voyage of discovery made by
Joliet and Father Marquette. But the news which
he received from Canada was not always so com
forting ; he felt especially deeply the loss of two
great benefactresses of Canada, Madame de la Pel-
trie and Mother Incarnation. The former had used
her entire fortune in founding the Convent of the
Ursulines at Quebec. Heaven had lavished its gifts
upon her ; endowed with brilliant qualities, and
adding riches to beauty, she was happy in possess
ing these advantages only because they allowed her
to offer them to the Most High, who had given
them to her. She devoted herself to the Christian
education of young girls, and passed in Canada the
last thirty-two years of her life. The Abbe Cas-
grain draws the following portrait of her: "Her
whole person presented a type of attractiveness and
gentleness. Her face, a beautiful oval, was remark-

1 History of the United States, Vol. II., page 821.

153

BIS*HOP LAVAL

able for the harmony of its lines and the perfection
of its contour. A slightly aquiline nose, a clear cut
and always smiling mouth, a limpid look veiled by
long lashes which the habit of meditation kept half
lowered, stamped her features with an exquisite
sweetness. Though her frail and delicate figure did
not exceed medium height, and though everything
about her breathed modesty and humility, her gait
was nevertheless full of dignity and nobility ; one
recognized, in seeing her, the descendant of those
great and powerful lords, of those perfect knights
whose valiant swords had sustained throne and
altar. Through the most charming simplicity there
were ever manifest the grand manner of the seven
teenth century and that perfect distinction which is
traditional among the families of France. But this
majestic ensemble was tempered by an air of intro
spection and unction which gave her conversation
an infinite charm, and it gained her the esteem and
affection of all those who had had the good fortune
to know her." She died on November 18th, 1671,
only a few days after the departure for France of
the apostolic vicar.

Her pious friend, Mother Mary of the Incarna
tion, first Mother Superior of the Ursulines of
Quebec, soon followed her to the tomb. She ex
pired on April 30th, 1672. In her numerous writ
ings on the beginnings of the colony, the modesty
of Mother Mary of the Incarnation has kept us in
the dark concerning several important services ren-
154

MOTHER MARY OF THE INCARNATION

dered by her to New France, and many touching
details of her life would not have reached us if her
companion, Madame de la Peltrie, had not made
them known to us. In Mother Incarnation, who
merited the glorious title of the Theresa of New
France, were found all the Christian virtues, but
more particularly piety, patience and confidence in
Providence. God was ever present and visible in
her heart, acting everywhere and in everything.
We see, among many other instances that might
be quoted, a fine example of her enthusiasm for
Heaven when, cast out of her convent in the heart
of the winter by a conflagration which consumed
everything, she knelt upon the snow with her
Sisters, and thanked God for not having taken from
them, together with their properties, their lives,
which might be useful to others.

If Madame de la Peltrie and Mother Mary of
the Incarnation occupy a large place in the history
of Canada, it is because the institution of the Ursu-
lines, which they founded and directed at Quebec,
exercised the happiest influence on the formation
of the Christian families in our country. " It was,"
says the Abbe Ferland, "an inestimable advantage
for the country to receive from the schools main
tained by the nuns, mothers of families reared in
piety, familiar with their religious duties, and cap
able of training the hearts and minds of the new
generation." It was thanks to the efforts of Madame
de la Peltrie, and to the lessons of Mother Incar-

155

BISHOP LAVAL

nation and her first co-workers, that those patriar
chal families whose type still persists in our time,
were formed in the early days of the colony. The
same services were rendered by Sister Bourgeoys to
the government of Montreal.

156

CHAPTER XI

A TROUBLED ADMINISTRATION

A THOROUGH study of history and the analy-
-£^_ sis of the causes and effects of great historical
events prove to us that frequently men endowed
with the noblest qualities have rendered only slight
services to their country, because, blinded by the
consciousness of their own worth, and the certainty
which they have of desiring to work only for the
good of their country, they have disdained too
much the advice of wise counsellors. With eyes
fixed upon their established purpose, they trample
under foot every obstacle ; and every man who
differs from their opinion is but a traitor or an
imbecile : hence their lack of moderation, tact and
prudence, and their excess of obstinacy and vio
lence. To select one example among a thousand,
what marvellous results would have been attained
by an entente cordiale between two men like Du-
pleix and La Bourdonnais.

Count de Frontenac was certainly a great man:
he made Canada prosperous in peace, glorious in
war, but he made also the great mistake of aiming
at absolutism, and of allowing himself to be guided
throughout his administration by unjustified pre
judices against the Jesuits and the religious orders.

157

BISHOP LAVAL

Only the Sovereign Council, the bishop and the
royal commissioner could have opposed his omni
potence. Now the office of commissioner remained
vacant for three years, the bishop stayed in France
till 1675, and his grand vicar, who was to represent
him in the highest assembly of the colony, was
never invited to take his seat there. As to the
council, the governor took care to constitute it of
men who were entirely devoted to him, and he
thus made himself the arbiter of justice. The coun
cil, of which Peuvret de Mesnu was secretary, was
at this time composed of MM. Le Gardeur de
Tilly, Damours, de la Tesserie, Dupont, de Mouchy,
and a substitute for the attorney-general.

The first difficulty which Frontenac met was
brought about by a cause rather insignificant in
itself, but rendered so dangerous by the obstinacy
of those who were concerned in it that it caused
a deep commotion throughout the whole coun
try. Thus a foreign body, sometimes a wretched
little splinter buried in the flesh, may, if we allow
the wound to be poisoned, produce the greatest
disorders in the human system. We cannot read
without admiration of the acts of bravery and
daring frequently accomplished by the coureurs de
bois. We experience a sentiment of pride when
we glance through the accounts which depict for
us the endurance and physical vigour with which
these athletes became endowed by dint of continual
struggles with man and beast and with the very
158

THE COUREURS DE BOIS

elements in a climate that was as glacial in winter
as it was torrid in summer. We are happy to think
that these brave and strong men belong to our
race. But in the time of Frontenac the ecclesiasti
cal and civil authorities were averse to seeing the
colony lose thus the most vigorous part of its
population. While admitting that the coureurs de
bois became stout fellows in consequence of their
hard experience, just as the fishermen of the French
shore now become robust sailors after a few seasons
of fishing on the Newfoundland Banks, the parallel
is not complete, because the latter remain through
out their lives a valuable reserve for the French
fleets, while the former were in great part lost to
the colony, at a period when safety lay in num
bers. If they escaped the manifold dangers which
they ran every day in dealing with the savages
in the heart of the forest, if they disdained to
link themselves by the bond of marriage to a
squaw and to settle among the redskins, the cou
reurs de bois were none the less drones among
their compatriots ; they did not make up their
minds to establish themselves in places where they
might have become excellent farmers, until through
age and infirmity they were rather a burden than a
support to others.

To counteract this scourge the king published in
1673, a decree which, under penalty of death, for
bade Frenchmen to remain more than twenty-four
hours in the woods without permission from the

159

BISHOP LAVAL

governor. Some Montreal officers, engaged in trade,
violated this prohibition; the Count de Frontenac
at once sent M. Bizard, lieutenant of his guards,
with an order to arrest them. The governor of
Montreal, M. Perrot, who connived with them,
publicly insulted the officer entrusted with the
orders of the governor-general. Indignant at such
insolence, M. de Frontenac had M. Perrot arrested
at once, imprisoned in the Chateau St. Louis and
judged by the Sovereign Council. Connected with
M. Perrot by the bonds of friendship, the Abbd de
Fenelon profited by the occasion to allude, in the
sermon which he delivered in the parochial church
of Montreal on Easter Sunday, to the excessive
labour which M. de Frontenac had exacted from
the inhabitants of Ville-Marie for the erection of
Fort Cataraqui. According to La Salle, who heard
the sermon, the Abbe de Fenelon said : " He who
is invested with authority should not disturb the
people who depend on him; on the contrary, it is
his duty to consider them as his children and to treat
them as would a father. . . . He must not disturb
the commerce of the country by ill-treating those
who do not give him a share of the profits they may
make in it ; he must content himself with gaining by
honest means ; he must not trample on the people,
nor vex them by excessive demands which serve
his interests alone. He must not have favourites
who praise him on all occasions, or oppress, under
far-fetched pretexts, persons who serve the same
160

F^NELON'S SERMON

princes, when they oppose his enterprises. . . . He
has respect for priests and ministers of the Church."
Count de Frontenac felt himself directly aimed
at ; he was the more inclined to anger, since, the
year before, he had had reasons for complaint of
the sermon of a Jesuit Father. Let us allow the
governor himself to relate this incident: "I had
need," he wrote to Colbert, "to remember your
orders on the occasion of a sermon preached by a
Jesuit Father this winter (1672) purposely and
without need, at which he had a week before
invited everybody to be present. He gave expres
sion in this sermon to seditious proposals against
the authority of the king, which scandalized many,
by dilating upon the restrictions made by the bishop
of the traffic in brandy. ... I was several times
tempted to leave the church and to interrupt the
sermon ; but I eventually contented myself, after
it was over, with seeking out the grand vicar and
the superior of the Jesuits and telling them that I
was much surprised at what I had just heard, and
that I asked justice of them. . . . They greatly
blamed the preacher, whose words they disavowed,
attributing them, according to their custom, to an
excess of zeal, and offered me many excuses, with
which I condescended to seem satisfied, telling
them, nevertheless, that I would not accept such
again, and that, if the occasion ever arose, I would
put the preacher where he would learn how he
ought to speak. ..."

161

BISHOP LAVAL

On the news of the words which were pro
nounced in the pulpit at Ville-Marie, M. de Fron-
tenac summoned M. de F&ielon to send him a
verified copy of his sermon, and on the refusal of
the abbe', he cited him before the council. M. de
Fenelon appeared, but objected to the jurisdiction of
the court, declaring that he owed an account of his
actions to the ecclesiastical authority alone. Now
the official authority of the diocese was vested in
the worthy M. de Bernieres, the representative
of Mgr. de Laval. The latter is summoned in his
turn before the council, where the Count de Fron-
tenac, who will not recognize either the authority
of this official or that of the apostolic vicar, objects
to M. de Bernieres occupying the seat of the absent
Bishop of Petraea. In order not to compromise his
right thus contested, M. de Bernieres replies to the
questions of the council " standing and without
taking any seat." The trial thus begun dragged
along till autumn, to be then referred to the court
of France. The superior of St. Sulpice, M. de
Bretonvilliers, who had succeeded the venerable M.
Olier, did not approve of the conduct of the Abb^
Fenelon, for he wrote later to the Sulpicians of
Montreal: " I exhort you to profit by the example
of M. de Fenelon. Concerning himself too much
with secular affairs and with what did not affect
him, he has ruined his own cause and compromised
the friends whom he wished to serve. In matters
of this sort it is always best to remain neutral."
162

CONTINUED FRICTION

Frontenac was about to be blamed in his turn.
The governor had obtained from the council a
a decree ordering the king's attorney to be present
at the rendering of accounts by the purveyor of the
Quebec Seminary, and another decree of March 4th,
1675, declaring that not only, as had been customary
since 1668, the judges should have precedence over
the churchwardens in public ceremonies, but also
that the latter should follow all the officers of
justice; at Quebec these officers should have their
^Jbench immediately behind that of the council, and
in the rest of the country, behind that of the local
governors and the seigneurs. This latter decree
was posted everywhere. A missionary, M. Thomas
Morel, was accused of having prevented its publi
cation at Levis, and was arrested at once and im
prisoned in the Chateau St. Louis with the clerk
of the ecclesiastical court, Romain Becquet, who
had refused to deliver to the council the registers
of this ecclesiastical tribune. He was kept there a
month. MM. de Bernieres and Dudouyt protested,
declaring that M. Morel was amenable only to the
diocesan authority. We see in such an incident
some of the reasons which induced Laval to insist
upon the immediate constitution of a regular
diocese. Summoned to produce forthwith the
authority for their pretended ecclesiastical juris
diction, "they produced a copy of the royal dec
laration, dated March 27th, 1659, based on the
bulls of the Bishop of Petaea, and other docu-

163

BISHOP LAVAL

ments, establishing incontestably the legal authority
of the apostolic vicar." The council had to yield ;
it restored his freedom to M. Morel, and postponed
until later its decision as to the validity of the
claims of the ecclesiastical court.

This was a check to the ambitions of the Count
de Frontenac. The following letter from Louis
XIV dealt a still more cruel blow to his absolu
tism : " In order to punish M. Perrot for having
resisted your authority," the prince wrote to him,
" I have had him put into the Bastille for some
time ; so that when he returns to your country,
not only will this punishment render him more
circumspect in his duty, but it will serve as an
example to restrain others. But if I must inform
you of my sentiments, after having thus satisfied
my authority which was violated in your person, I
will tell you that without absolute need you ought
not to have these orders executed throughout the
extent of a local jurisdiction like Montreal with
out communicating with its governor. ... I have
blamed the action of the Abbe de Fenelon, and
have commanded him to return no more to Can
ada ; but I must tell you that it was difficult to
enter a criminal procedure against him, or to com
pel the priests of St. Sulpice to bear witness against
him. He should have been delivered over to his
bishop or to the grand vicar to suffer the ecclesias
tical penalties, or should have been arrested and
sent back to France by the first ship. I have been
164

RECONSTRUCTION OF THE COUNCIL

told besides," added the monarch, "that you would
not permit ecclesiastics and others to attend to
their missions and other duties, or even leave their
residence without a passport from Montreal to
Quebec ; that you often summoned them for very
slight causes ; that you intercepted their letters and
did not allow them liberty to write. If the whole
or part of these things be true, you must mend
your ways." On his part Colbert enjoined upon the
governor a little more calmness and gentleness.
" His Majesty," wrote the minister, "has ordered
me to explain to you, privately, that it is absolutely
necessary for the good of your service to moderate
your conduct, and not to single out with too great
severity faults committed either against his service
or against the respect due to your person or charac
ter." Colbert rightly felt that fault-finding letters
were not sufficient to keep within bounds a tem
perament as fiery as that of the governor of Can
ada; on the other hand, a man of Frontenac's
worth was too valuable to the colony to think of
dispensing with his services. The wisest course was
to renew the Sovereign Council, and in order to
withdraw its members from the too preponderant
influence of the governor, to put their nomination
in the hands of the king.

By the royal edict of June 5th, 1675, the council
was reconstituted. It was composed of seven mem
bers appointed by the Crown; the governor-general
occupied the first place, the bishop, or in his ab-

165

BISHOP LAVAL

sence, the grand vicar, the second, and the com
missioner the third. As the latter presided in the
absence of the governor, and as the king was
anxious that "he should have the same functions
and the same privileges as the first presidents of
the courts of France," as moreover the honour
devolved upon him of collecting the opinions or
votes and of pronouncing the decrees, it was in
reality the commissioner who might be considered
as actual president. It is, therefore, easy to under
stand the continual disputes which arose upon the
question of the title of President of the Council
between Frontenac and the Commissioner Jacques
Duchesneau. The latter, at first "President des tre-
soriers de lageneraUte de Tours" had been appointed
intendant of New France by a commission which
bears the same date as the royal edict reviving the
Sovereign Council. While thinking of the material
good of the colony, the Most Christian King took
care not to neglect its spiritual interests ; he under
took to provide for the maintenance of the parish
priests and other ecclesiastics wherever necessary,
and to meet in case of need the expenses of the
divine service. In addition he expressed his will
"that there should always be in the council one
ecclesiastical member," and later he added a clerical
councillor to the members already installed. There
were summoned to the council MM. de Villeray, de
Tilly, Damours, Dupont, Louis Rene' de Lotbiniere,
de Peyras, and Denys de Vitre. M. Denis Joseph
166

DIVISION IN THE COUNCIL

Ruette d'Auteuil was appointed solicitor-general;
his functions consisted in speaking in the name of
the king, and in making, in the name of the prince
or of the public, the necessary statements. The
former clerk, M. Peuvret de Mesnu, was retained
in his functions.

The quarrels thus generated between the governor
and the commissioner on the question of the title o£--
president grew so embittered that discord did not
cease to prevail between the two men on even the
most insignificant questions. Forcibly involved in
these dissensions, the Sovereign Council itself was
divided into two hostile camps, and letters of com
plaint and denunciation rained upon the desk of
the minister in France : on the one hand the gover
nor was accused of receiving presents from the
savages before permitting them to trade at Mont
real, and was reproached for sending beavers to
New England; on the other hand, it was hinted
that the commissioner was interested in the business
of the principal merchants of the colony. Scrupu
lously honest, but of a somewhat stern tempera
ment, Duchesneau could not bend to the imperious
character of Frontenac, who in his exasperation
readily allowed himself to be impelled to arbitrary
acts ; thus he kept the councillor Damours in prison
for two months for a slight cause, and banished
from Quebec three other councillors, MM. de
Villeray, de Tilly and d'Auteuil. The climax was
reached, and in spite of the services rendered to the

167

BISHOP LAVAL

country by these two administrators, the king de
cided to recall them both in 1682. Count de Fron-
tenac was replaced as governor by M. Lefebvre de
la Barre, and M. Duchesneau by M. de Meulles.

168

CHAPTER XII

THIRD VOYAGE TO FRANCE

TAISEMBARKING in the year 1675 on that
-L^ soil where as apostolic vicar he had already
accomplished so much good, giving his episcopal
benediction to that Christian throng who came to
sing the Te Deum to thank God for the happy
return of their first pastor, casting his eyes upon
that manly and imposing figure of one of the most
illustrious lieutenants of the great king, the Count
de Frontenac, what could be the thoughts of Mgr.
de Laval? He could not deceive himself: the letters
received from Canada proved to him too clearly
that the friction between the civil powers and re
ligious authorities would be continued under a
governor of uncompromising and imperious char
acter. With what fervour must he have asked of
Heaven the tact, the prudence and the patience so
necessary in such delicate circumstances !

Two questions, especially, divided the governor
and the bishop : that of the permanence of livings,
and the everlasting matter of the sale of brandy to
the savages, a question which, like the phoenix,
was continually reborn from its ashe^. " The pre
late," says the Abbe Gosselin, "desired to establish
parishes wherever they were neces' ary, and procure

169

BISHOP LAVAL

for them good and zealous missionaries, and, as far
as possible, priests residing in each district, but
removable and attached to the seminary, which
received the tithes and furnished them with all
they had need of. But Frontenac found that this
system left the priests too dependent on the bishop,
and that the clergy thus closely connected with the
bishop and the seminary, was too formidable and
too powerful a body. It was with the purpose of
weakening it and of rendering it, by the aid which
it would require, more dependent on the civil
authority, that he undertook that campaign for
permanent livings which ended in the overthrow
of Mgr. de Laval's system."

Colbert, in fact, was too strongly prejudiced
against the clergy of Canada by the reports of Talon
and Frontenac. These three men were wholly de
voted to the interests of France as well as to those
of the colony, but they judged things only from a
purely human point of view. " I see," Colbert wrote
in 1677 to Commissioner Duchesneau, " that the
Count de Frontenac is of the opinion that the trade
with the savages in drinks, called in that country
intoxicating, does not cause the great and terrible
evils to which Mgr. de Quebec takes exception,
and even that it is necessary for commerce; and I
see that you are of an opinion contrary to this. In
this matter, Before taking sides with the bishop,
you should enquire very exactly as to the number
pf murders, assassinations, cases of arson, and other
170

THE LIQUOR TRAFFIC

excesses caused by brandy . . . and send me the
proof of this. If these deeds had been continual,
His Majesty would have issued a most severe and
vigorous prohibition to all his subjects against
engaging in this traffic. But, in the absence of this
proof, and seeing, moreover, the contrary in the
evidence and reports of those that have been long
est in this country, it is not just, and the general
policy of a state opposes in this the feelings of a
bishop who, to prevent the abuses that a small
number of private individuals may make of a thing
good in itself, wishes to abolish trade in an article
which greatly serves to attract commerce, and the
savages themselves, to the orthodox Christians."
Thus M. Dudouyt could not but fail in his mission,
and he wrote to Mgr. de Laval that Colbert, while
recognizing very frankly the devotion of the bishop
and the missionaries, believed that they exaggerated
the fatal results of the traffic. The zealous colla
borator of the Bishop of Quebec at the same time
urged the prelate to suspend the spiritual penalties
till then imposed upon the traders, in order to de
prive the minister of every motive of bitterness
against the clergy.

The bishop admitted the wisdom of this coun
sel, which he followed, and meanwhile the king,
alarmed by a report from Commissioner Duches-
neau, who shared the view of the missionaries,
desired to investigate and come to a final decision
on the question. He therefore ordered the Count

171

BISHOP LAVAL

de Frontenac to choose in the colony twenty-four
competent persons, and to commission them to
examine the drawbacks to the sale of intoxicating
liquors. Unfortunately, the persons chosen for this
enquiry were engaged in trade with the savages ;
their conclusions must necessarily be prejudiced.
They declared that " very few disorders arose from
the traffic in brandy, among the natives of the
country; that, moreover, the Dutch, by distribu
ting intoxicating drinks to the Iroquois, attracted
by this means the trade in beaver skins to Orange
and Manhattan. It was, therefore, absolutely neces
sary to allow the brandy trade in order to bring
the savages into the French colony and to prevent
them from taking their furs to foreigners."

We cannot help being surprised at such a judg
ment when we read over the memoirs of the time,
which all agree in deploring the sad results of this
traffic. The most crying injustice, the most revolt
ing immorality, the ruin of families, settlements
devastated by drunkenness, agriculture abandoned,
the robust portion of the population ruining its
health in profitless expeditions : such were some of
the most horrible fruits of alcohol. And what do
we find as a compensation for so many evils ? A
few dozen rascals enriched, returning to squander
in France a fortune shamefully acquired. And let
it not be objected that, if the Indians had not been
able to purchase the wherewithal to satisfy their
terrible passion for strong drink, they would have
172

ANOTHER JOURNEY TO FRANCE

carried their furs to the English or the Dutch, for
it was proven that the offer of Governor Andros,
to forbid the sale of brandy to the savages in New
England on condition that the French would act
likewise in New France, was formally rejected.
" To-day when the passions of the time have long
been silent," says the Abbe Ferland, " it is impos
sible not to admire the energy displayed by the
noble bishop, imploring the pity of the monarch
for the savages of New France with all the courage
shown by Las Casas, when he pleaded the cause of
the aborigines of Spanish America. Disdaining the
hypocritical outcries of those men who prostituted
the name of commerce to cover their speculations
and their rapine, he exposed himself to scorn and
persecution in order to save the remnant of those
indigenous American tribes, to protect his flock
from the moral contagion which threatened to
weigh upon it, and to lead into the right path the
young men who were going to ruin among the
savage tribes."

The worthy bishop desired to prevent the laxity
of the sale of brandy that might result from the
declaration of the Committee of Twenty-four, and
in the autumn of 1678 he set out again for France.
To avoid a journey so fatiguing, he might easily
have found excuses in the rest needed after a
difficult pastoral expedition which he had just con
cluded, in the labours of his seminary which de
manded his presence, and especially in the bad

173

BISHOP LAVAL

state of his health; but is not the first duty of
a leader always to stand in the breach, and to give
to all the example of self-sacrifice ? A report from
his hand on the disorders caused by the traffic in
strong liquors would perhaps have obtained a for
tunate result, but thinking that his presence at the
court would be still more efficacious, he set out.
He managed to find in his charity and the good
ness of his heart such eloquent words to depict the
evils wrought upon the Church in Canada by the
scourge of intoxication, that Louis XIV was moved,
and commissioned his confessor, Father La Chaise,
to examine the question conjointly with the Arch
bishop of Paris. According to their advice, the king
expressly forbade the French to carry intoxicating
liquors to the savages in their dwellings or in the
woods, and he wrote to Frontenac to charge him
to see that the edict was respected. On his part,
Laval consented to maintain the cas reserve only
against those who might infringe the royal pro
hibition. The Bishop of Quebec had hoped for
more ; for nothing could prevent the Indians from
coming to buy the terrible poison from the French,
and moreover, discovery of the infractions of the law
would be, if not impossible, at least most difficult.
Nevertheless, it was an advantage obtained over
the dealers and their protectors, who aimed at
nothing less than an unrestricted traffic in brandy.
A dyke was set up against the devastations of the
scourge; the worthy bishop might hope to maintain
174

FAVOURS TO ST. SULPICE

it energetically by his vigilance and that of his
coadjutors. Unfortunately, he could not succeed
entirely, and little by little the disorders became so
multiplied that M. de Denonville considered brandy
as one of the greatest evils of Canada, and that the
venerable superior of St. Sulpice de Montreal,
M. Dollier de Casson, wrote in 1691 : " I have
been twenty-six years in this country, and I have
seen our numerous and flourishing Algonquin mis
sions all destroyed by drunkenness." Accordingly,
it became necessary later to fall back upon the
former rigorous regulations against the sale of in
toxicating liquors to the Indians.

Before his departure for France the Bishop of
Quebec had given the devoted priests of St.
Sulpice a mark of his affection: he constituted the
parish of Notre-Dame de Montreal according to
the canons of the Church, and joined it in per
petuity to the Seminary of Ville-Marie, "to be
administered, under the plenary authority of the
Bishops of Quebec, by such ecclesiastics as might
be chosen by the superior of the said seminary.
The priests of St. Sulpice having by their efforts
and their labours produced during so many years in
New France, and especially in the Island of Mont
real, very great fruits for the glory of God and the
advantage of this growing Church, we have given
them, as being most irreproachable in faith, doc
trine, piety and conduct, in perpetuity, and do give
them, by virtue of these presents, the livings of the

175

BISHOP LAVAL

Island of Montreal, in order that they may be per
fectly cultivated as up to now they have been, as
best they might be by their preachings and ex
amples." In fact, misunderstandings like that which
had occurred on the arrival of de Queylus were
no longer to be feared ; since the authority to
which Laval could lay claim had been duly estab
lished and proved, the Sulpicians had submitted
and accepted his jurisdiction. They had for a longer
period preserved their independence as temporal
lords, and the governor of Ville-Marie, de Maison-
neuve, jealous of preserving intact the rights of
those whom he represented, even dared one day
to refuse the keys of the fort to the governor-
general, M. d'Argenson. Poor de Maisonneuve paid
for this excessive zeal by the loss of his position,
for d'Argenson never forgave him.

The parish of Notre-Dame was united with the
Seminary of Montreal on October 30th, 1678, one*
year after the issuing of the letters patent which
recognized the civil existence of St. Sulpice de
Montreal. Mgr. de Laval at the same time united
with the parish of Notre-Dame the chapel of Bon-
secours. On the banks of the St. Lawrence, not far
from the church of Notre-Dame, rises a chapel of
modest appearance. It is Notre-Dame de Bonse-
cours. It has seen many generations kneeling on
its square, and has not ceased to protect with its
shadow the Catholic quarter of Montreal. The
buildings about it rose successively, only to give
176

THE NEW CHAPEL

way themselves to other monuments. Notre-Dame
de Bonsecours is still respected; the piety of Catho
lics defends it against all attacks of time or pro
gress, and the little church raises proudly in the air
that slight wooden steeple that more than once has
turned aside the avenging bolt of the Most High.
Sister Bourgeoys had begun it in 1657; to obtain
the funds necessary for its completion she betook
herself to Paris. She obtained one hundred francs
from M. Mace^ a priest of St. Sulpice. One of the
associates of the Company of Montreal, M. de Fan-
camp, received for her from two of his fellow-part
ners, MM. Denis and Lepretre, a statuette of the
Virgin made of the miraculous wood of Montagu,
and he himself, to participate in this gift, gave her
a shrine of the most wonderful richness to contain
the precious statue. On her return to Canada, Mar
guerite Bourgeoys caused to be erected near the
house of the Sisters a wooden lean-to in the form
of a chapel, which became the provisional sanctuary
of the statuette. Two years later, on June 29th, the
laying of the foundation stone of the chapel took
place. The work was urged with enthusiasm, and
encouraged by the pious impatience of Sister Bour
geoys. The generosity of the faithful vied in en
thusiasm, and gifts flowed in. M. de Maisonneuve
offered a cannon, of which M. Souart had a bell
made at his expense. Two thousand francs, fur
nished by the piety of the inhabitants, and one
hundred louis from Sister Bourgeoys and her nuns,

177

BISHOP LAVAL

aided the foundress to complete the realization of
a wish long cherished in her heart ; the new chapel
became an inseparable annex of the parish of Ville-
Marie.

These most precious advantages were recognized
on November 6th, 1678, by Mgr. de Laval, who
preserved throughout his life the most tender de
votion to the Mother of God. On the other hand,
the prelate imposed upon the parish priest the
obligation of having the Holy Mass celebrated
there on the Day of the Visitation, and of going
there in procession on the Day of the Assumption.
Is it necessary to mention with what zeal, with
what devotion the Canadians brought to Mary in
this new temple their homage and their prayers?
Let us listen to the enthusiastic narrative of Sister
Morin, a nun of St. Joseph: "The Holy Mass is
said there every day, and even several times a day,
to satisfy the devotion and the trust of the people,
which are great towards Notre-Dame de Bonse-
cours. Processions wend their way thither on oc
casions of public need or calamity, with much
success. It s the regular promenade of the devout
persons of the town, who make a pilgrimage there
every evening, and there are few good Catholics
who, from all the places in Canada, do not make
vows of offerings to this chapel in all the dangers
in which they find themselves."

The church of Notre-Dame de Bonsecours was
twice remodelled ; built at first of oak on stone
178

NOTRE-DAME DE BONSECOURS

foundations, it was rebuilt of stone and consumed
in 1754 in a conflagration which destroyed a part
of the town. In 1772 the chapel was rebuilt as it
exists now, one hundred and two feet long by
forty-six wide.

179

CHAPTER XIII

LAVAL RETURNS TO CANADA

MGR. DE LAVAL was still in France when
the edict of May, 1679, appeared, decreeing
on the suggestion of Frontenac, that the tithe
should be paid only to " each of the parish priests
within the extent of his parish where he is estab
lished in perpetuity in the stead of the removable
priest who previously administered it." The ideas
of the Count de Frontenac were thus victorious,
and the king retracted his first decision. He had
in his original decree establishing the Seminary of
Quebec, granted the bishop and his successors "the
right of recalling and displacing the priests by them
delegated to the parishes to exercise therein paro
chial functions." Laval on his return to Canada
conformed without murmur to the king's decision;
he worked, together with the governor and com
missioner, at drawing up the plan of the parishes
to be established, and sent his vicar-general to in
stall the priests who were appointed to the different
livings. He desired to inspire his whole clergy with
the disinterestedness which he had always evinced,
for not only did he recommend his priests "to
content themselves with the simplest living, and
with the bare necessaries of their support," but

181

BISHOP LAVAL

besides, agreeing with the governor and the com
missioner, he estimated that an annual sum of five
hundred livres merely, that is to say, about three
hundred dollars of our present money, was sufficient
for the lodging and maintenance of a priest. This
was more than modest, and yet, without a very
considerable extension, there was no parish capable
of supplying the needs of its priest. There was in
deed, it is true, an article of the edict specifying
that in case of the tithe being insufficient, the
necessary supplement should be fixed by the coun
cil and furnished by the seigneur of the place and
by the inhabitants; but this manner of aiding the
priests who were reduced to a bare competence
was not practical, as was soon evident. Another
article gave the title of patron to any seigneur who
should erect a religious edifice; this article was just
as fantastic, "for," wrote Commissioner Duchesneau,
" there is no private person in this country who is
in a position to build churches of any kind."

The king, always well disposed towards the
clergy of Canada, came to their aid again in this
matter. He granted them an annual income of eight
thousand francs, to be raised from his "Western
Dominions" that is to say, from the sum derived in
Canada from the droit du quart and the farm of
Tadousac ; from these funds, which were distri
buted by the seminary until 1692, and after this
date by the bishop alone, two thousand francs were
to be set aside for priests prevented by illness or
182

APPEAL FROM THE SULPICIANS

old age from fulfilling the duties of the holy minis
try, and twelve hundred francs were to be employed
in the erection of parochial churches. This aid came
aptly, but was not sufficient, as Commissioner de
Beauharnois himself admits. And yet the deplor
able state in which the treasury of France then
was, on account of the enormous expenses indulged
in by Louis XIV, and especially in consequence of
the wars which he waged against Europe, obliged
him to diminish this allowance. In 1707 it was re
duced by half.

It was feared for a time by the Sulpicians that
the edict of 1679 might injure the rights which
they had acquired from the union with their semin
ary of the parishes established on the Island of
Montreal, and they therefore hastened to request
from the king the civil confirmation of this canoni
cal union. "There is," they said in their request,
"a sort of need that the parishes of the Island of
Montreal and of the surrounding parts should be
connected with a community able to furnish them
with priests, who could not otherwise be found in
the country, to administer the said livings ; these
priests would not expose themselves to a sea voyage
and to leaving their family comforts to go and
sacrifice themselves in a wild country, if they did
not hope that in their infirmity or old age they
would be free to withdraw from the laborious
administration of the parishes, and that they would
find a refuge in which to end their days in tran-

183

BISHOP LAVAL

quillity in a community which, on its part, would
not pledge itself in such a way as to afford them
the hope of this refuge, and to furnish other priests
in their place, if it had not the free control of the
said parishes and power to distribute among them the
ecclesiastics belonging to its body whom it might
judge capable of this, and withdraw or exchange
them when fitting." The request of the Sulpicians
was granted by the king.

It was not until 1 680 that the Bishop of Quebec
could return to Canada. The all-important questions
of the permanence of livings and of the traffic in
brandy were not the only ones which kept him in
France ; another difficulty, that of the dependence
of his diocese, demanded of his devotion a great
many efforts at the court. The circumstances were
difficult. France was plunged at this period in the
famous dispute between the government and the
court of Rome over the question of the right of
regale, a dispute which nearly brought about a
schism. The Archbishop of Paris, Mgr. de Harlay,
who had laboured so much when he was Bishop of
Rouen to keep New France under the jurisdiction
of the diocese of Normandy, used his influence to
make Canada dependent on the archbishopric of
Paris. The death of this prelate put an end to this
claim, and the French colony in North America
continued its direct connection with the Holy See.

Mgr. de Laval strove also to obtain from the
Holy Father the canonical union of the abbeys of
184

RECALL OF FRONTENAC

Maubec and of Lestrees with his bishopric ; if he
had obtained it, he could have erected his chapter
at once, assuring by the revenues of these monas
teries a sufficient maintenance for his canons. The
opposition of the religious orders on which these
abbeys depended defeated his plan, but in compen
sation he obtained from the generosity of the king
a grant of land on which his successor, Saint-
Vallier, afterwards erected the church of Notre-
Dame des Victoires. The venerable prelate might
well ask favours for his diocese when he himself set
an example of the greatest generosity. By a deed,
dated at Paris, he gave to his seminary all that he
possessed : He Jesus, the seigniories of Beaupre and
Petite Nation, a property at Chateau Richer, finally
books, furniture, funds, and all that might belong
to him at the moment of his death.

Laval returned to Canada at a time when the
relations with the savage tribes were becoming
so strained as to threaten an impending rupture.
So far had matters gone that Colonel Thomas
Dongan, governor of New York, had urged the
Iroquois to dig up the hatchet, and he was only
too willingly obeyed. Unfortunately, the two
governing heads of the colony were replaced just
at that moment. Governor de Frontenac and
Commissioner Duchesneau were recalled in 1682,
and supplanted by de la Barre and de Meulles.
The latter were far from equalling their prede
cessors. M. de Lefebvre de la Barre was a clever

185

BISHOP LAVAL

sailor but a deplorable administrator; as for the
commissioner, M. de Meulles, his incapacity did
not lessen his extreme conceit.

On his arrival at Quebec, Laval learned with deep
grief that a terrible conflagration had, a few weeks
before, consumed almost the whole of the Lower
Town. The houses, and even the stores being then
built of wood, everything was devoured by the
flames. A single dwelling escaped the disaster,
that of a rich private person, M. Aubert de la
Chesnaie, in whose house mass was said every
Sunday and feast-day for the citizens of the Lower
Town who could not go to the parish service. To
bear witness of his gratitude to Heaven, M. de la
Chesnaie came to the aid of a good number of his
fellow-citizens, and helped them with his money to
rebuild their houses. This fire injured the mer
chants of Montreal almost as much as those of
Quebec, and the Histoire de FHdtel-Dieu relates
that " more riches were lost on that sad night than
all Canada now possesses."

The king had the greatest desire for the future
reign of harmony in the colony ; accordingly he
enjoined upon M. de Meulles to use every effort
to agree with the governor-general: "If the latter
should fail in his duty to the sovereign, the com
missioner should content himself with a remon
strance and allow him to act further without dis
turbing him, but as soon as possible afterwards
should render an account to the king's council of
186

LAVAL TO THE KING

what might be prejudicial to the good of the
state." Mgr. de Laval, to whom the prince had
written in the same tenor, replied at once: "The
honour which your Majesty has done me in writing
to me that M. de Meulles has orders to preserve
here a perfect understanding with me in all things,
and to give me all the aid in his power, is so evi
dent a mark of the affection which your Majesty
cherishes for this new Church and for the bishop
who governs it, that I feel obliged to assure your
Majesty of my most humble gratitude. As I do
not doubt that this new commissioner whom you
have chosen will fulfil with pleasure your com
mands, I may also assure your Majesty that on
my part I shall correspond with him in the fulfil
ment of my duty, and that I shall all my life
consider it my greatest joy to enter into the in
tentions of your Majesty for the general good of
this country, which constitutes a part of your do
minions." Concord thus advised could not displease
a pastor who loved nothing so much as union and
harmony among all who held the reins of power, a
pastor who had succeeded in making his Church
a family so united that it was quoted once as a
model in one of the pulpits of Paris. If he some
times strove against the powerful of this earth, it
was when it was a question of combating injustice
or some abuse prejudicial to the welfare of his
flock. "Although by his superior intelligence," says
Latour, " by his experience, his labours, his virtues,

187

BISHOP LAVAL

his birth and his dignity, he was an oracle whose
views the whole clergy respected, no one ever more
distrusted himself, or asked with more humility, or
followed with more docility the counsel of his
inferiors and disciples. . . . He was less a superior
than a colleague, who sought the right with them
and sought it only for its own sake. Accordingly,
never was prelate better obeyed or better seconded
than Mgr. de Laval, because, far from having that
professional jealousy which desires to do everything
itself, which dreads merit and enjoys only des
potism, never did prelate evince more appreciative
confidence in his inferiors, or seek more earnestly to
give zeal and talent their dues, or have less desire
to command, or did, in fact, command less." The
new governor brought from France strong preju
dices against the bishop ; he lost them very quickly,
and he wrote to the minister, the Marquis de Seig-
nelay: " We have greatly laboured, the bishop and
I, in the establishment of the parishes of this coun
try. I send you the arrangement which we have
arrived at concerning them. We owe it to the
bishop, who is extremely well affected to the coun
try, and in whom we must trust." The minister
wrote to the prelate and expressed to him his
entire satisfaction in his course.

The vigilant bishop had not yet entirely re
covered from the fatigue of his journey when he
decided, in spite of the infirmities which were be
ginning to overwhelm him, and which were to
188

A PASTORAL VISIT

remain the constant companions of his latest years,
to visit all the parishes and the religious com
munities of his immense diocese. He had already
traversed them in the winter time in his former
pastoral visits, shod with snowshoes, braving the
fogs, the snow and the bitterest weather. In the
suffocating heat of summer, travel in a bark canoe
was scarcely less fatiguing to a man of almost
sixty years, worn out by the hard ministry of a
quarter of a century. However, he decided on a
summer journey, and set out on June 1st, 1681,
accompanied by M. de Maizerets, one of his
grand vicars. He visited successively Lotbiniere,
Batiscan, Champlain, Cap-de-la-Madeleine, Trois
Rivi&res, Chambly, Sorel, St. Ours, Contrecceur,
Vercheres, Boucherville, Repentigny, Lachesnaie,
and arrived on June 19th at Montreal. The marks
of respectful affection lavished upon him by the
population compel him to receive continual visits;
but he has come especially for his beloved religious
communities, and he honours them all with his
presence, the Seminary of St. Sulpice as well as
the Congregation of Notre-Dame and the hospital.
These labours are not sufficient for his apostolic
zeal ; he betakes himself to the house of the Jesuit
Fathers at Laprairie, then to their Indian Mission
at the Sault St. Louis, finally to the parish of
St. Francois de Sales, in the He Jesus. Descend
ing the St. Lawrence River, he sojourns succes
sively at Longueuil, at Varennes, at Lavaltrie, at

189

BISHOP LAVAL

Nicolet, at Becancourt, at Gentilly, at Ste. Anne
de la Parade, at Deschambault. He returns to
Quebec; his devoted fellow- workers in the semin
ary urge him to rest, but he will think of rest
only when his mission is fully ended. He sets out
again, and lie aux Oies, Cap-Saint-Ignace, St.
Thomas, St. Michel, Beaumont, St. Joseph de
Levis have in turn the happiness of receiving their
pastor. The undertaking was too great for the
bishop's strength, and he suffered the results which
could not but follow upon such a strain. The
registers of the Sovereign Council prove to us that
only a week after his return he had to take to his
bed, and for two months could not occupy his seat
among the other councillors. "His Lordship fell ill
of a dangerous malady," says a memoir of that time.
"For the space of a fortnight his death was ex
pected, but God granted us the favour of bringing
him to convalescence, and eventually to his former
health."

M. de la Baire, on his arrival, desired to inform
himself exactly of the condition of the colony. In
a great assembly held at Quebec, on October 10th,
1682, he gathered all the men who occupied posi
tions of consideration in the colony. Besides the
governor, the bishop and the commissioner, there
were noticed among others M. Dollier de Casson,
the superior of the Seminary of St. Sulpice at
Montreal, several Jesuit Fathers, MM. de Varen-
nes, governor of Three Rivers, d'Ailleboust, de
190

DANGER FROM THE INDIANS

Brussy and Le Moyne. The information which M.
de la Barre obtained from the assembly was far
from reassuring; incessantly stirred up by Governor
Dongan's genius for intrigue, the Iroquois were
preparing to descend upon the little colony. If
they had not already begun hostilities, it was be
cause they wished first to massacre the tribes allied
with the French ; already the Hurons, the Algon-
quins, the Conestogas, the Delawares and a portion
of the Illinois had fallen under their blows. It was
necessary to save from extermination the Ottawa
and Illinois tribes. Now, one might indeed raise a
thousand robust men, accustomed to savage war
fare, but, if they were used for an expedition, who
would cultivate in their absence the lands of these
brave men? A prompt reinforcement from the
mother country became urgent, and M. de la Barre
hastened to demand it.

The war had already begun. The Iroquois had
seized two canoes, the property of La Salle, near
Niagara ; they had likewise attacked and plundered
fourteen Frenchmen en route to the Illinois with
merchandise valued at sixteen thousand francs. It
was known, besides, that the Cayugas and the
Senecas were preparing to attack the French settle
ments the following summer. In spite of all, the
expected help did not arrive. One realizes the
anguish to which the population must have been
a prey when one reads the following letter from
the Bishop of Quebec: " Sire, the Marquis de Seig-

191

BISHOP LAVAL

nelay will inform your Majesty of the war which
the Iroquois have declared against your subjects of
New France, and will explain the need of sending
aid sufficient to destroy, if possible, this enemy,
who has opposed for so many years the establish
ment of this colony. . . . Since it has pleased your
Majesty to choose me for the government of this
growing Church, I feel obliged, more than any one,
to make its needs manifest to you. The paternal
care which you have always had for us leaves me
no room to doubt that you will give the necessary
orders for the most prompt aid possible, without
which this poor country would be exposed to a
danger nigh unto ruin."

The expected reinforcements finally arrived ; on
November 9th, 1684, the whole population of Que
bec, assembled at the harbour, received with joy
three companies of soldiers* composed of fifty-two
men each. The Bishop of Quebec did not fail to
express to the king his personal obligation and the
gratitude of all: "The troops which your Majesty
has sent to defend us against the Iroquois," he
wrote to the king, " and the lands which you
have granted us for the subsidiary church of the
Lower Town, and the funds which you have allotted
both to rebuild the cathedral spire and to aid in the
maintenance of the priests, these are favours which
oblige me to thank your Majesty, and make me
hope that you will deign to continue your royal
bounties to our Church and the whole colony."
192

APPOINTMENT OF DENONVILLE

M. de la Barre was thus finally able to set out
on his expedition against the Iroquois. At the head
of one hundred and thirty soldiers, seven hundred
militia and two hundred and sixty Indians, he
marched to Lake Ontario, where the Iroquois,
intimidated, sent him a deputation. The ambassa
dors, who expected to see a brilliant army full of
ardour, were astonished to find themselves in the
presence of pale and emaciated soldiers, worn out
more by sickness and privations of every kind
than by fatigue. The governor, in fact, had lost ten
or twelve days at Montreal; on the way the pro
visions had become spoiled and insufficient, hence
the name of Famine Creek given to the place where
he entered with his troops, above the Oswego River.
At this sight the temper of the delegates changed,
and their proposals showed it; they spoke with
arrogance, and almost demanded peace ; they under
took to indemnify the French merchants plundered
by them on condition that the army should decamp
on the morrow. Such weakness could not attract to
M. de la Barre the affection of the colonists; the
king relieved him from his functions, and appointed
as his successor the Marquis de Denonville, a colonel
of dragoons, whose valour seemed to promise the
colony better days.

193

CHAPTER XIV

RESIGNATION OF MGR. DE LAVAL

THE long and conscientious pastoral visit which
he had just ended had proved to the indefati
gable prelate that it would be extremely difficult
to establish his parishes solidly. Instead of grouping
themselves together, which would have given them
the advantages of union both against the attacks of
savages and for the circumstances of life in which
man has need of the aid of his fellows, the colonists
had built their dwellings at random, according to
the inspiration of the moment, and sometimes at
long distances from each other ; thus there existed,
as late as 1678, only twenty-five fixed livings, and
it promised to be very difficult to found new ones.
To give a pastor the direction of parishioners estab
lished within an enormous radius of his parish
house, was to condemn his ministry in advance to
inefficacy. To prove it, the Abbe Gosselin cites a
striking example. Of the two missionaries who
shared the southern shore, the one, M. Morel,
ministered to the country between Berthier and
Riviere du Loup; the other, M. Volant de Saint-
Claude, from Berthier to Riviere du Chene, and
each of them had only about sixty families scattered
here and there. And how was one to expect that

195

BISHOP LAVAL

these poor farmers could maintain their pastor and
build a church ? Almost everywhere the chapels
were of wood or clapboards, and thatched ; not
more than eight or nine centres of population could
boast of possessing a stone church ; many hamlets
still lacked a chapel and imitated the Lower Town
of Quebec, whose inhabitants attended service in
a private house. As to priests' houses, they were a
luxury that few villages could afford: the priest
had to content himself with being sheltered by a
respectable colonist.

During the few weeks when illness confined
him to his bed, Laval had leisure to reflect on
the difficulties of his task. He understood that his
age and the infirmities which the Lord laid upon
him would no longer permit him to bring to so
arduous a work the necessary energy. "His hu
mility," says Sister Juchereau, " persuaded him
that another in his place would do more good than
he, although he really did a great deal, because he
sought only the glory of God and the welfare of
his flock." In consequence, he decided to go and
carry in person his resignation to the king. But
before embarking for France, with his accustomed
prudence he set his affairs in order. He had one plan,
especially, at heart, that of establishing according
to the rules of the Church the chapter which had
already existed de facto for a long while. Canons are
necessary to a bishopric ; their duties are not merely
decorative, for they assist the bishop in his episco-
196

A CHAPTER ESTABLISHED

pal office, form his natural council, replace him on
certain occasions, govern the diocese from the death
of its head until the deceased is replaced, and finally
officiate in turn before the altars of the cathedral in
order that prayer shall incessantly ascend from the
diocese towards the Most High. The only obstacle
to this creation until now had been the lack of
resources, for the canonical union with the abbeys
of Maubec and Lestrees was not yet an accomp
lished fact. Mgr. de Laval resolved to appeal to
the unselfishness of the priests of the seminary, and
he succeeded : they consented to fulfil without extra
salary the duties of canons.

By an ordnance of November 6th, 1684, the
Bishop of Quebec established a chapter composed
of twelve canons and four chaplains. The former,
among whom were five priests born in the colony,
were M. Henri de Bernieres, priest of Quebec, who
remained dean until his death in 1700 ; MM. Louis
Ange de Maizerets, archdeacon, Charles Glandelet,
theologist, Dudouyt, grand cantor, and Jean Gau-
thier de Brulon, confessor. The ceremony of instal
lation took place with the greatest pomp, amid the
boom of artillery and the joyful sound of bells and
music; governor, intendant, councillors, officers and
soldiers, inhabitants of the city and the environ
ments, everybody wished to be present. It remained
to give a constitution to the new chapter. Mgr. de
Laval had already busied himself with this for
several months, and corresponded on this subject

197

BISHOP LAVAL

with M. Charon, a clever lawyer of Paris. Accord
ingly, the constitution which he submitted for the
infant chapter on the very morrow of the ceremony
was admired unreservedly and adopted without
discussion. Twenty-four hours afterwards he set
sail accompanied by the good wishes of his priests,
who, with anxious heart and tears in their eyes,
followed him with straining gaze until the vessel
disappeared below the horizon. Before his depart
ure, he had, like a father who in his last hour
divides his goods among his children, given his
seminary a new proof of his attachment : he left it
a sum of eight thousand francs for the building of
the chapel.

It would seem that sad presentiments assailed
him at this moment, for he said in the deed of gift :
" I declare that my last will is to be buried in this
chapel ; and if our Lord disposes of my life during
this voyage I desire that my body be brought here
for burial. I also desire this chapel to be open to
the public." Fortunately, he was mistaken, it was
not the intention of the Lord to remove him so
soon from the affections of his people. For twenty
years more the revered prelate was to spread about
him good works and good examples, and Provi
dence reserved for him the happiness of dying in
the midst of his flock.

His generosity did not confine itself to this grant.
He could not leave his diocese, which he was not
sure of seeing again, without giving a token of re-
198

LAVAL ASKS FOR A SUCCESSOR

membrance to that school of St. Joachim, which
he had founded and which he loved so well; he
gave the seminary eight thousand francs for the
support of the priest entrusted with the direction
of the school at the same time as with the ministry
of the parish, and another sum of four thousand
francs to build the village church.

A young Canadian priest, M. Guyon, son of a
farmer of the Beaupr£ shore, had the good fortune
of accompanying the bishop on the voyage. It
would have been very imprudent to leave the ven
erable prelate alone, worn out as he was by trouble
some fits of vertigo whenever he indulged too long
in work ; besides, he was attacked by a disease of
the heart, whose onslaughts sometimes incapaci
tated him.

It would be misjudging the foresight of Mgr.
de Laval to think that before embarking for the
mother country he had not sought out a priest
worthy to replace him. He appealed to two men
whose judgment and circumspection he esteemed,
M. Dudouyt and Father Le Valois of the Society
of Jesus. He asked them to recommend a true
servant of God, virtuous and zealous above all.
Father Le Valois indicated the Abbe Jean Baptiste
de la Croix de Saint- Vallier, the king's almoner,
whose zeal for the welfare of souls, whose charity,
great piety, modesty and method made him the
admiration of all. The influence which his position
and the powerful relations of his family must gain

199

BISHOP LAVAL

for the Church in Canada were an additional argu
ment in his favour ; the superior of St. Sulpice,
M. Tronson, who was also consulted, praised highly
the talents and the qualities of the young priest.
" My Lord has shown great virtue in his resig
nation," writes M. Dudouyt. "I know no occasion
on which he has shown so strongly his love for his
Church ; for he has done everything that could be
desired to procure a person capable of preserving
and perfecting the good work which he has begun
here." If the Abbe de Saint- Vallier had not been a
man after God's own heart, he would not have
accepted a duty so honourable but so difficult. He
was not unaware of the difficulties which he would
have to surmount, for Mgr. de Laval explained
them to him himself with the greatest frankness ;
and, what was a still greater sacrifice, the king's
almoner was to leave the most brilliant court in the
world for a very remote country, still in process
of organization. Nevertheless he accepted, and
Laval had the satisfaction of knowing that he was
committing his charge into the hands of a worthy
successor.

It was now only a question of obtaining the con
sent of the king before petitioning the sovereign
pontiff for the canonical establishment of the new
episcopal authority. It was not without difficulty
that it was obtained, for the prince could not de
cide to accept the resignation of a prelate who
seemed to him indispensable to the interests of
200

SCHISM

New France. He finally understood that the de
cision of Mgr. de Laval was irrevocable ; as a mark
of confidence and esteem he allowed him to choose
his successor.

At this period the misunderstanding created be
tween the common father of the faithful and his
most Christian Majesty by the claims of the latter
in the matter of the right of regale1 kept the
Church in a false position, to the grief of all good
Catholics. Pope Innocent XI waited with per
sistent and calm firmness until Louis XIV should
become again the elder son of the Church ; until
then France could not exist for him, and more
than thirty episcopal sees remained without occu
pants in the country of Saint Louis and of Joan of
Arc. It was not, then, to be hoped that the ap
pointment by the king of the Abbe de Saint- Vallier
as second bishop of Quebec could be immediately
sanctioned by the sovereign pontiff. It was decided
that Mgr. de Laval, to whom the king granted an
annuity for life of two thousand francs from the
revenues of the bishopric of Aire, should remain
titular bishop until the consecration of his successor,
and that M. de Saint- Vallier, appointed provision
ally grand vicar of the prelate, should set out im
mediately for New France, where he would as
sume the government of the diocese. The Abbe de
Saint- Vallier had not yet departed before he gave

1 A right, belonging formerly to the kings of France, of enjoying the
revenues of vacant bishoprics.

201

BISHOP LAVAL

evidence of his munificence, and proved to the
faithful of his future bishopric that he would be to
them as generous a father as he whom he was
about to replace. By deed of May 10th, 1685, he
presented to the Seminary of Quebec a sum of
forty-two thousand francs, to be used for the main
tenance of missionaries ; he bequeathed to it at the
same time all the furniture, books, etc., which he
should possess at his death. Laval's purpose was
to remain for the present in France, where he
would busy himself actively for the interests of
Canada, but his fixed resolve was to go and end
his days on that soil of New France which he
loved so well. It was in 1688, only a few months
after the official appointment of Saint- Vallier to
the bishopric of Quebec, and his consecration on
January 25th of the same year, that Laval re
turned to Canada.

M. de Saint- Vallier embarked at La Rochelle in
the beginning of June, 1685, on the royal vessel
which was carrying to Canada the new governor-
general, M. de Denonville. The king having per
mitted him to take with him a score of persons, he
made a most judicious choice: nine ecclesiastics,
several school-masters and a few good workmen
destined for the labours of the seminary, accom
panied him. The voyage was long and very fati
guing. The passengers were, however, less tried
than those of two other ships which followed
them, on one of which more than five hundred
202

A PASTORAL VISIT

soldiers had been crowded together. As might have
been expected, sickness was not long in breaking
out among them; more than one hundred and
fifty of these unfortunates died, and their bodies
were cast into the sea.

Immediately after his arrival the grand vicar
visited all the religious establishments of the town,
and he observed everywhere so much harmony and
good spirit that he could not pass it over in silence.
Speaking with admiration of the seminary, he said:
" Every one in it devoted himself to spiritual medi
tation, with such blessed results that from the
youngest cleric to the highest ecclesiastics in holy
orders each one brought of his own accord all his
personal possessions to be used in common. It
seemed to me then that I saw revived in the
Church of Canada something of that spirit of un-
worldliness which constituted one of the principal
beauties of the budding Church of Jerusalem in the
time of the apostles." The examples of brotherly
unity and self-effacement which he admired so
much in others he also set himself: he placed in the
library of the seminary a magnificent collection of
books which he had brought with him, and de
posited in the coffers of the house several thousand
francs in money, his personal property. Braving
the rigours of the season, he set out in the winter
of 1685 and visited the shore of Beaupre, the
Island of Orleans, and then the north shore as far as
Montreal. In the spring he took another direction,

203

BISHOP LAVAL

and inspected all the missions of Gaspesia and
Acadia. He was so well satisfied with the condition
of his diocese that he wrote to Mgr. de Laval :
" All that I regret is that there is no more good
forme to do in this Church."

In the spring of this same year, 1686, a valiant
little troop was making a more warlike pastoral
visit. To seventy robust Canadians, commanded by
d'Iberville, de Sainte-Helene and de Maricourt,
all sons of Charles Le Moyne, the governor had
added thirty good soldiers under the orders of
MM. de Troyes, Duchesnil and Catalogne, to take
part in an expedition for the capture of Hudson
Bay from the English. Setting out on snowshoes,
dragging their provisions and equipment on tobog
gans, then advancing, sometimes on foot, sometimes
in bark canoes, they penetrated by the Ottawa
River and Temiskaming and Abitibi Lakes as far
as James Bay. They did not brave so many dan
gers and trials without being resolved to conquer
or die ; accordingly, in spite of its twelve cannon,
Fort Monsipi was quickly carried. The two forts,
Rupert and Ste. Anne, suffered the same fate, and
the only one that remained to the English, that
named Fort Nelson, was preserved to them solely
because its remote situation saved it. The head of
the expedition, M. de Troyes, on his return to
Quebec, rendered an account of his successes to M.
de Denonville and to a new commissioner, M. de
Champigny, who had just replaced M. de Meulles.
204

ILL-HEALTH

The bishop's infirmities left him scarcely any
respite. "My health," he wrote to his successor,
"is exceedingly good considering the bad use I
make of it. It seems, however, that the wound
which I had in my foot during five or six months
at Quebec has been for the last three weeks threat
ening to re-open. The holy will of God be done ! "
And he added, in his firm resolution to pass his
last days in Canada : " In any case, I feel that I
have sufficient strength and health to return this
year to the only place which now can give me
peace and rest. In pace in idipsum dormiam et re-
quiescam. Meanwhile, as we must have no other
aim than the good pleasure of our Lord, whatever
desire He gives me for this rest and peace, He
grants me at the same time the favour of making
Him a sacrifice of it in submitting myself to the
opinion that you have expressed, that I should stay
this year in France, to be present at your return
next autumn." The bad state of his health did not
prevent him from devoting his every moment to
Canadian interests. He went into the most infini
tesimal details of the administration of his diocese,
so great was his solicitude for his work. "We must
hasten this year, if possible," he wrote, "to labour
at the re-establishment of the church of Ste.
Anne du Petit- Cap, to which the whole country
has such an attachment. We must work also to
push forward the clearing of the lands of St.
Joachim, in order that we may have the proper

205

BISHOP LAVAL

rotation crops on each farm, and that the farms
may suffice for the needs of the seminary." In an
other letter he concerns himself with the sum of
three thousand francs granted by the king each
year for the marriage portion of a certain number
of poor young girls marrying in Canada. "We
should," says he, " distribute these moneys in par
cels, fifty francs, or ten crowns, to the numerous
poor families scattered along the shores, in which
there is a large number of children." He practises
this wise economy constantly when it is a question,
not of his personal property, but of the funds of his
seminary. He finds that his successor, whom the
ten years which he had passed at court as king's
almoner could not have trained in parsimony, al
lows himself to be carried away, by his zeal and his
desire to do good, to a somewhat excessive expense.
With what tact and delicacy he indulges in a dis
creet reproach ! " Magna est fides tua" he writes to
him, "and much greater than mine. We see that
all our priests have responded to it with the same
confidence and entire submission with which they
have believed it their duty to meet your sentiments,
in which they have my approval. My particular
admiration has been aroused by seeing in all your
letters and in all the impulses of your heart so
great a reliance on the lovable Providence of God
that not only has it permitted you not to have the
least doubt that it would abundantly provide the
wherewithal for the support of all the works which
206

LETTERS TO CANADA

it has suggested to you, but that upon this basis,
which is the firm truth, you have had the courage
to proceed to the execution of them. It is true that
my heart has long yearned for what you have ac
complished ; but I have never had sufficient confi
dence or reliance to undertake it. I always awaited
the means quce pater posuit in sud potestate. I hope
that, since the Most Holy Family of our Lord has
suggested all these works to you, they will give
you means and ways to maintain what is so much
to the glory of God and the welfare of souls. But,
according to all appearances, great difficulties will
be found, which will only serve to increase this
confidence and trust in God." And he ends with
this prudent advice : " Whatever confidence God
desires us to have in His providence, it is certain
that He demands from us the observance of rules
of prudence, not human and political, but Christian
and just."

He concerns himself even with the servants, and
it is singular to note that his mind, so apt to under
take and execute vast plans, possesses none the
less an astonishing sagacity and accuracy of obser
vation in petty details. One Valet, entrusted with
the purveyance, had obtained permission to wear
the cassock. "Unless he be much changed in his
humour," writes Mgr. de Laval, "it would be well
to send him back to France ; and I may even opine
that, whatever change might appear in him, he
would be unfitted to administer a living, the basis

207

BISHOP LAVAL

of his character being very rustic, gross, and dis
pleasing, and unsuitable for ecclesiastical functions,
in which one is constantly obliged to converse and
deal with one's neighbours, both children and
adults. Having given him the cassock and having
admitted him to the refectory, I hardly see any
other means of getting rid of him than to send
him back to France."

In his correspondence with Saint- Vallier, Laval
gives an account of the various steps which he
was taking at court to maintain the integrity of
the diocese of Quebec. This was, for a short time,
at stake. The Recollets, who had followed La Salle
in his expeditions, were trying with some chance of
success to have the valley of the Mississippi and
Louisiana made an apostolic vicariate independent
of Canada. Laval finally gained his cause; the juris
diction of the bishopric of Quebec over all the
countries of North America which belonged to
France was maintained, and later the Seminary
of Quebec sent missionaries to Louisiana and to
the Mississippi.

But the most important questions, which formed
the principal subject both of his preoccupations and
of his letters, are that of the establishment of the
Recollets in the Upper Town of Quebec, that of a
plan for a permanent mission at Baie St. Paul,
and above all, that of the tithes and the support of
the priests. This last question brought about be
tween him and Mgr. de Saint- Vallier a most com-
208

AN APPRECIATION

plete conflict of views. Yet the differences of
opinion between the two servants of God never
prevented them from esteeming each other highly.
The following letter does as much honour to him
who wrote it as to him to whom such homage is
rendered : " The noble house of Laval from which
he sprang," writes Mgr. de Saint- Vallier, "the
right of primogeniture which he renounced on en
tering upon the ecclesiastical career ; the exemplary
life which he led in France before there was any
thought of raising him to the episcopacy ; the assi
duity with which he governed so long the Church
in Canada ; the constancy and firmness which he
showed in surmounting all the obstacles which op
posed on divers occasions the rectitude of his inten
tions and the welfare of his dear flock ; the care
which he took of the French colony and his efforts
for the conversion of the savages ; the expeditions
which he undertook several times in the interests of
both ; the zeal which impelled him to return to
France to seek a successor ; his disinterestedness
and the humility which he manifested in offering
and in giving so willingly his frank resignation ;
finally, all the great virtues which I see him prac
tise every day in the seminary where I sojourn with
him, would well deserve here a most hearty eulogy,
but his modesty imposes silence upon me, and the
veneration in which he is held wherever he is
known is praise more worthy than I could give

him "

209

BISHOP LAVAL

Mgr. de Saint- Vallier left Quebec for France on
November 18th, 1686, only a few days after a fire
which consumed the Convent of the Ursulines ; the
poor nuns, who had not been able to snatch any
thing from the flames, had to accept, until the re
construction of their convent, the generous shelter
offered them by the hospitable ladies of the Hotel-
Dieu. Mgr. de Saint- Vallier did not disembark at
the port of La Rochelle until forty-five days after
his departure, for this voyage was one continuous
storm.

210

CHAPTER XV

MGR. DE LAVAL COMES FOR THE LAST TIME
TO CANADA

MGR. DE SAINT-VALLIER received the
most kindly welcome from the king: he
availed himself of it to request some aid on behalf
of the priests of the seminary whom age and in
firmity condemned to retirement. He obtained it,
and received, besides, fifteen thousand francs for
the building of an episcopal palace. He decided, in
fact, to withdraw from the seminary, in order to
preserve complete independence in the exercise
of his high duties. Laval learned with sorrow of
this decision ; he, who had always clung to the
idea of union with his seminary and of having but
one common fund with this house, beheld his suc
cessor adopt an opposite line of conduct. An
other cause of division rose between the two pre
lates ; the too great generosity of Mgr. de Saint-
Vallier had brought the seminary into financial
embarrassment. The Marquis de Seignelay, then
minister, thought it wiser under such circumstances
to postpone till later the return of Mgr. de Laval
to Canada. The venerable bishop, whatever it must
have cost him, adhered to this decision with a
wholly Christian resignation. " You will know by

211

BISHOP LAVAL

the enclosed letters," he writes to the priests of the
Seminary of Quebec, " what compels me to stay in
France. I had no sooner received my sentence than
our Lord granted me the favour of inspiring me to
go before the most Holy Sacrament and make a
sacrifice of all my desires and of that which is the
dearest to me in the world. I began by making the
amende honorable to the justice of God, who deigned
to extend to me the mercy of recognizing that it
was in just punishment of my sins and lack of faith
that His providence deprived me of the blessing
of returning to a place where I had so greatly of
fended ; and I told Him, I think with a cheerful
heart and a spirit of humility, what the high priest
Eli said when Samuel declared to him from God
what was to happen to him : 'Dominus est: quod
bonum est in oculis suis faciatS But since the will of
our Lord does not reject a contrite and humble
heart, and since He both abases and exalts, He
gave me to know that the greatest favour He could
grant me was to give me a share in the trials which
He deigned to bear in His life and death for love
of us ; in thanksgiving for which I said a Te Deum
with a heart filled with joy and consolation in my
soul : for, as to the lower nature, it is left in the
bitterness which it must bear. It is a hurt and a
wound which will be difficult to heal and which
apparently will last until my death, unless it please
Divine Providence, which disposes of men's hearts
as it pleases, to bring about some change in the
212

WARLIKE PREPARATIONS

condition of affairs. This will be when it pleases
God, and as it may please Him, without His crea
tures being able to oppose it."

In Canada the return of the revered Mgr. de
Laval was impatiently expected, and the governor,
M. de Denonville, himself wrote that " in the pre
sent state of public affairs it was necessary that the
former bishop should return, in order to influence
men's minds, over which he had a great ascendency
by reason of his character and his reputation for
sanctity." Some persons wrongfully attributed to
the influence of Saint- Vallier the order which de
tained the worthy bishop in France ; on the con
trary, Saint- Vallier had said one day to the minis
ter, " It would be very hard for a bishop who has
founded this church and who desires to go and
die in its midst, to see himself detained in France.
If Mgr. de Laval should stay here the blame would
be cast upon his successor, against whom for this
reason many people would be ill disposed."

M. de Denonville desired the more eagerly the
return of this prelate so beloved in New France,
since difficulties were arising on every hand. Con
vinced that peace with the Iroquois could not last,
he began by amassing provisions and ammunition
at Fort Cataraqui, without heeding the protests of
Colonel Dongan, the most vigilant and most ex
perienced enemy of French domination in America;
then he busied himself with fortifying Montreal.
He visited the place, appointed as its governor the

213

BISHOP LAVAL

Chevalier de Callieres, a former captain in the regi
ment of Navarre, and in the spring of 1687 em
ployed six hundred men under the direction of M.
du Luth, royal engineer, in the erection of a pali
sade. These wooden defences, as was to be ex
pected, were not durable and demanded repairs
every year. The year 1686, which had begun with
the conquest of the southern portion of Hudson
Bay, was spent almost entirely in preparations for
war and negotiations for peace ; the Iroquois, never
theless, continued their inroads. Finally M. de
Denonville, having received during the following
spring eight hundred poor recruits under the com
mand of Vaudreuil, was ready for his expedition.
Part of these reinforcements were at once sent to
Montreal, where M. de Callieres was gathering a
body of troops on St. Helen's Island : eight hundred
and thirty-two regulars, one thousand Canadians,
and three hundred Indian allies, all burning with
the desire of distinguishing themselves, awaited now
only the signal for departure.

"With this superiority of forces," says one author,
"Denonville conceived, however, the unfortunate
idea of beginning hostilities by an act which dis
honoured the French name among the savages, that
name which, in spite of their great irritation, they
had always feared and respected." With the purpose
of striking terror into the Iroquois he caused to be
seized the chiefs whom the Five Nations had sent
as delegates to Cataraqui at the request of Father
214

DENONVILLE'S TREACHERY

de Lamberville, and sent them to France to serve
on board the royal galleys. This violation of the
law of nations aroused the fury of the Iroquois, and
two missionaries, Father Lamberville and Millet,
though entirely innocent of this crime, escaped tor
ture only with difficulty. The king disapproved
wholly of this treason, and returned the prisoners
to Canada; others who, at Fort Frontenac, had
been taken by M. de Champigny in as treacherous
a manner, were likewise restored to liberty.

The army, divided into four bodies, set out on
June llth, 1687, in four hundred boats. It was
joined at Sand River, on the shore of Lake Ontario,
by six hundred men from Detroit, and advanced
inland. After having passed through two very dan
gerous defiles, the French were suddenly attacked
by eight hundred of the enemy ambushed in the
bed of a stream. At first surprised, they promptly
recovered from their confusion, and put the savages
to flight. Some sixty Iroquois were wounded in
this encounter, and forty-five whom they left dead
on the field of battle were eaten by the Ottawas,
according to the horrible custom of these canni
bals. They entered then into the territory of the
Tsonnontouans, which was found deserted ; every
thing had been reduced to ashes, except an im
mense quantity of maize, to which they set fire;
they killed also a prodigious number of swine, but
they did not meet with a single Indian.

Instead of pursuing the execution of these repri-

215

BISHOP LAVAL

sals by marching against the other nations, M. de
Denonville proceeded to Niagara, where he built a
fort. The garrison of a hundred men which he left
there succumbed in its entirety to a mysterious
epidemic, probably caused by the poor quality of
the provisions. Thus the campaign did not produce
results proportionate to the preparations which had
been made ; it humbled the Iroquois, but by this
very fact it excited their rage and desire for ven
geance ; so true is it that half-measures are more
dangerous than complete inaction. They were, be
sides, cleverly goaded on by Governor Dongan.
Towards the end of the summer they ravaged the
whole western part of the colony, and carried their
audacity to the point of burning houses and killing
several persons on the Island of Montreal.

M. de Denonville understood that he could not
carry out a second expedition ; disease had caused
great havoc among the population and the soldiers,
and he could no longer count on the Hurons of
Michilimackinac, who kept up secret relations with
the Iroquois. He was willing to conclude peace, and
consented to demolish Fort Niagara and to bring
back the Iroquois chiefs who had been sent to
France to row in the galleys. The conditions were
already accepted on both sides, when the negotia
tions were suddenly interrupted by the duplicity of
Kondiaronk, surnamed the Rat, chief of the Michili
mackinac Hurons. This man, the most cunning
and crafty of Indians, a race which has nothing to
216

THE RAT

learn in point of astuteness from the shrewdest dip
lomat, had offered his services against the Iroquois
to the governor, who had accepted them. En
kindled with the desire of distinguishing himself by
some brilliant deed, he arrives with a troop of
Hurons at Fort Frontenac, where he learns that a
treaty is about to be concluded between the French
and the Iroquois. Enraged at not having even been
consulted in this matter, fearing to see the interests
of his nation sacrificed, he lies in wait with his troop
at Famine Creek, falls upon the delegates, and,
killing a number of them, makes the rest prisoners.
On the statement of the latter that they were go
ing on an embassy to Ville-Marie, he feigns sur
prise, and is astonished that the French governor-
general should have sent him to attack men who
were going to treat with him. He then sets them
at liberty, keeping a single one of them, whom he
hastens to deliver to M. de Durantaye, governor
of Michilimackinac ; the latter, ignorant of the
negotiations with the Iroquois, has the prisoner
shot in spite of the protestations of the wretched
man, who the Rat pretends is mad. The plan of
the Huron chief has succeeded ; it remains now
only to reap the fruits of it. He frees an old Iro
quois who has long been detained in captivity and
sends him to announce to his compatriots that the
French are seeking in the negotiations a cowardly
means of ridding themselves of their foes. This
news exasperated the Five Nations ; henceforth

217

BISHOP LAVAL

peace was impossible, and the Iroquois went to join
the English, with whom, on the pretext of the de
thronement of James II, war was again about to
break out. M. de Callieres, governor of Montreal,
set out for France to lay before the king a plan for
the conquest of New York ; the monarch adopted
it, but, not daring to trust its execution to M. de
Denonville, he recalled him in order to entrust
it to Count de Frontenac, now again appointed
governor.

We can easily conceive that in the danger thus
threatening the colony M. de Denonville should
have taken pains to surround himself with all the
men whose aid might be valuable to him. " You
will have this year," wrote M. de Brisacier to M.
Glandelet, "the joy of seeing again our two pre
lates. You will find the first more holy and more
than ever dead to himself; and the second will ap
pear to you all that you can desire him to be for
the particular consolation of the seminary and the
good of New France." On the request of the gover
nor-general, in fact, Mgr. de Laval saw the obstacle
disappear which had opposed his departure, and he
hastened to take advantage of it. He set out in the
spring of 1688, at that period of the year when
vegetation begins to display on all sides its festoons
of verdure and flowers, and transforms Normandy
and Touraine, that garden of France, into genuine
groves ; the calm of the air, the perfumed breezes of
the south, the arrival of the southern birds with
218

DEATH OF FRIENDS

their rich and varied plumage, all contribute to
make these days the fairest and sweetest of the
year; but, in his desire to reach as soon as possible
the country where his presence was deemed neces
sary, the venerable prelate did not wait for the
spring sun to dry the roads soaked by the rains of
winter ; accordingly, in spite of his infirmities, he
was obliged to travel to La Rochelle on horseback.
However, he could not embark on the ship Le
Soldi d'Afrique until about the middle of April.

His duties as Bishop of Quebec had ended on

January 25th preceding, the day of the episcopal

consecration of M. de Saint- Vallier. It would seem

that Providence desired that the priestly career of

the prelate and his last co-workers should end at

the same time. Three priests of the Seminary of

Quebec went to receive in heaven almost at the

same period the reward of their apostolic labours.

M. Thomas Morel died on September 23rd, 1687 ;

M. Jean Guyon on January 10th, 1688 ; and M.

Dudouyt on the fifteenth of the same month. This

last loss, especially, caused deep grief to Mgr. de

Laval. He desired that the heart of the devoted

missionary should rest in that soil of New France

for which it had always beat, and he brought it

with him. The ceremony of the burial at Quebec of

the heart of M. Dudouyt was extremely touching ;

the whole population was present. Up to his latest

day this priest had taken the greatest interest

in Canada, and the letter which he wrote to the

219

BISHOP LAVAL

seminary a few days before his death breathes the
most ardent charity ; it particularly enjoined upon
all patience and submission to authority.

The last official document signed by Mgr. de
Laval as titulary bishop was an addition to the
statutes and rules which he had previously drawn
up for the Chapter of the city of Champlain. He
wrote at the same time : " It remains for me now,
sirs and dearly beloved brethren, only to thank you
for the good affection that you preserve towards me,
and to assure you that it will not be my fault if I
do not go at the earliest moment to rejoin you in
the growing Church which I have ever cherished as
the portion and heritage which it has pleased our
Lord to preserve for me during nearly thirty years.
I supplicate His infinite goodness that he into whose
hands He has caused it to pass by my resignation
may repair all my faults."

The prelate landed on June 3rd. "The whole
population," says the Abbe Ferland, "was hear
tened and rejoiced by the return of Mgr. de Laval,
who came back to Canada to end his days among
his former flock. His virtues, his long and arduous
labours in New France, his sincere love for the
children of the country, had endeared him to the
Canadians ; they felt their trust in Providence re
newed on beholding again him who, with them,
at their head, had passed through many years of
trial and suffering/' He hardly took time to rest,
but set out at once for Montreal, where he was
220

SAINT- VALLIER ARRIVES

anxious to deliver in person to the Sulpicians the
document of spiritual and devotional union which
had been quite recently signed at Paris by the
Seminary of St. Sulpice and by that of the For
eign Missions. Returning to Quebec, he had the
pleasure of receiving his successor on the arrival of
the latter, who disembarked on July 31st, 1688.

The reception of Mgr. de Saint- Vallier was as
cordial as that offered two months before to his
predecessor. " As early as four o'clock in the morn
ing/' we read in the annals of the Ursulines, "the
whole population was alert to hasten preparations-
Some arranged the avenue along which the new
bishop was to pass, others raised here and there the
standard of the lilies of France. In the course of the
morning Mgr. de Laval, accompanied by several
priests, betook himself to the vessel to salute his
successor^ whom the laws of the old French etiquette
kept on board his ship until he had replied to all
the compliments prepared for him. Finally, about
two o'clock in the afternoon, the whole clergy, the
civil and military authorities, and the people having
assembled on the quay, Mgr. de Saint- Vallier made
his appearance, addressed first by M. de Bernieres
in the name of the clergy. He was next greeted by
the mayor, in the name of the whole town, then
the procession began to move, with military music
at its head, and the new bishop was conducted to
the cathedral between two files of musketeers, who
did not fail to salute him and to fire volleys along

221

BISHOP LAVAL

the route." "The thanksgiving hymn which re
echoed under the vaults of the holy temple found
an echo in all hearts," we read in another account ;
" and the least happy was not that of the worthy
prelate who thus inaugurated his long and laborious
episcopal career."

222

CHAPTER XVI

MASSACRE OF LACHINE

virtue of Mgr. de Laval lacked the supreme
JL consecration of misfortune. A wearied but
triumphant soldier, the venerable shepherd of souls,
coming back to dwell in the bishopric of Quebec,
the witness of his first apostolic labours, gave
himself into the hands of his Master to disap
pear and die. " Lord," he said with Simeon, " now
lettest thou thy servant depart in peace accord
ing to thy word." But many griefs still remained
to test his resignation to the Divine Will, and
the most shocking disaster mentioned in our an
nals was to sadden his last days. The year 1688
had passed peacefully enough for the colony, but
it was only the calm which is the forerunner of the
storm. The Five Nations employed their time in
secret organization ; the French, lulled in this de
ceptive security, particularly by news which had
come from M. de Valrennes, in command of Fort
Frontenac, to whom the Iroquois had declared that
they were coming down to Montreal to make peace,
had left the forts to return to their dwellings and
to busy themselves with the work of the fields.
Moreover, the Chevalier de Vaudreuil, who com
manded at Montreal in the absence of M. de Cal-

223

BISHOP LAVAL

litres, who had gone to France, carried his lack of
foresight to the extent of permitting the officers
stationed in the country to leave their posts. It is
astonishing to note such imprudent neglect on the
part of men who must have known the savage
nature. Rancour is the most deeply-rooted defect
in the Indian, and it was madness to think that
the Iroquois could have forgotten so soon the insult
inflicted on their arms by the expedition of M. de
Denonville, or the breach made in their independ
ence by the abduction of their chiefs sent to France
as convicts. The warning of their approaching in
cursion had meanwhile reached Quebec through a
savage named Ataviata ; unfortunately, the Jesuit
Fathers had no confidence in this Indian ; they
assured the governor-general that Ataviata was a
worthless fellow, and M. de Denonville made the
mistake of listening too readily to these prejudices
and of not at least redoubling his precautions.

It was on the night between August 4th and 5th,
1689 ; all was quiet on the Island of Montreal. At
the end of the evening's conversation, that necessary
complement of every well-filled day, the men had
hung their pipes, the faithful comrades of their
labour, to a rafter of the ceiling ; the women had
put away their knitting or pushed aside in a corner
their indefatigable spinning-wheel, and all had has
tened to seek in sleep new strength for the labour
of the morrow. Outside, the elements were un
chained, the rain and hail were raging. As daring
224

THE IROQUOIS ATTACK

as the Normans when they braved on frail vessels
the fury of the seas, the Iroquois, to the number of
fifteen hundred, profited by the storm to traverse
Lake St. Louis in their bark canoes, and landed
silently on the shore at Lachine. They took care
not to approach the forts ; the darkness was so thick
that the soldiers discovered nothing unusual and
did not fire the cannon as was the custom on the
approach of the enemy. Long before daybreak the
savages, divided into a number of squads, had sur
rounded the houses within a radius of several miles.
Suddenly a piercing signal is given by the chiefs, and
at once a horrible clamour rends the air ; the terrify
ing war-cry of the Iroquois has roused the sleepers
and raised the hair on the heads of the bravest. The
colonists leap from their couches, but they have no
time to seize their weapons ; demons who seem to
be vomited forth by hell have already broken in the
doors and windows. The dwellings which the Iro
quois cannot penetrate are delivered over to the
flames, but the unhappy ones who issue from them
in confusion to escape the tortures of the fire are
about to be abandoned to still more horrible tor
ments. The pen refuses to describe the horrors of
this night, and the imagination of Dante can hardly
in his "Inferno" give us an idea of it. The butchers
killed the cattle, burned the houses, impaled women,
compelled fathers to cast their children into the
flames, spitted other little ones still alive and com
pelled their mothers to roast them. Everything was

225

BISHOP LAVAL

burned and pillaged except the forts, which were
not attacked ; two hundred persons of all ages and
of both sexes perished under torture, and about
fifty, carried away to the villages, were bound to
the stake and burned by a slow fire. Nevertheless
the great majority of the inhabitants were able to
escape, thanks to the strong liquors kept in some
of the houses, with which the savages made ample
acquaintance. Some of the colonists took refuge in
the forts, others were pursued into the woods.

Meanwhile the alarm had spread in Ville-Marie.
M. de Denonville, who was there, gives to the
Chevalier de Vaudreuil the order to occupy Fort
Roland with his troops and a hundred volunteers.
De Vaudreuil hastens thither, accompanied by
de Subercase and other officers ; they are all
eager to measure their strength with the enemy,
but the order of Denonville is strict, they must
remain on the defensive and run no risk. By
dint of insistence, Subercase obtained permission
to make a sortie with a hundred volunteers; at
the moment when he was about to set out he
had to yield the command to M. de Saint-Jean,
who was higher in rank. The little troop went and
entrenched itself among the debris of a burned
house and exchanged an ineffectual fire with the
savages ambushed in a clump of trees. They soon
perceived a party of French and friendly Indians
who, coming from Fort Remy, were proceeding
towards them in great danger of being surrounded
226

INEXPLICABLE NEGLECT

by the Iroquois, who were already sobered. The
volunteers wished to rush out to meet this rein
forcement, but their commander, adhering to his
instructions, which forbade him to push on farther,
restrained them. What might have been foreseen
happened : the detachment from Fort Remy was
exterminated. Five of its officers were taken and
carried off towards the Iroquois villages, but suc
ceeded in escaping on the way, except M. de la
Rabeyre, who was bound to the stake and perished
in torture.

On reading these details one cannot understand
the inactivity of the French : it would seem that
the authorities had lost their heads. We cannot
otherwise explain the lack of foresight of the offi
cers absent from their posts, the pusillanimous or
ders of the governor to M. de Vaudreuil, his impru
dence in sending too weak a troop through the
dangerous places, the lack of initiative on the part
of M. de Saint-Jean, finally, the absolute lack of
energy and audacity, the complete absence of that
ardour which is inherent in the French character.

After this disaster the troops returned to the
forts, and the surrounding district, abandoned thus
to the fury of the barbarians, was ravaged in all
directions. The Iroquois, proud of the terror which
they inspired, threatened the city itself; we note
by the records of Montreal that on August 25th
there were buried two soldiers killed by the savages,
and that on September 7th following, Jean Beaudry

227

BISHOP LAVAL

suffered the same fate. Finding nothing more to
pillage or to burn, they passed to the opposite shore,
and plundered the village of Lachesnaie. They
massacred a portion of the population, which was
composed of seventy-two persons, and carried off
the rest. They did not withdraw until the autumn,
dragging after them two hundred captives, includ
ing fifty prisoners taken at Lachine.

This terrible event, which had taken place at no
great distance from them, and the news of which
re-echoed in their midst, struck the inhabitants of
Quebec with grief and terror. Mgr. de Laval was
cruelly affected by it, but, accustomed to adore in
everything the designs of God, he seized the occa
sion to invoke Him with more fervour ; he imme
diately ordered in his seminary public prayers to
implore the mercy of the Most High. M. de Fron-
tenac, who was about to begin his second adminis
tration, learned the sinister news on his arrival at
Quebec on October 15th. He set out immediately
for Montreal, which he reached on the twenty-
seventh of the same month. He visited the environ
ments, and found only ruins and ashes where for
merly rose luxurious dwellings.

War had just been rekindled between France
and Great Britain. The governor had not men
enough for vast operations, accordingly he pre
pared to organize a guerilla warfare. While the
Abenaquis, those faithful allies, destroyed the settle
ments of the English in Acadia and killed nearly
228

PHIPPS BEFORE QUEBEC

two hundred persons there, Count de Frontenac
sent in the winter of 1689-90, three detachments
against New England ; all three were composed of
only a handful of men, but these warriors were well
seasoned. In the rigorous cold of winter, traversing
innumerable miles on their snowshoes, sinking some
times into the icy water, sleeping in the snow, car
rying their supplies on their backs, they surprised
the forts which they went to attack, where one
would never have believed that men could execute
so rash an enterprise. Thus the three detachments
were alike successful, and the forts of Corlaer in
the state of New York, of Salmon Falls in New
Hampshire, and of Casco on the seaboard, were
razed.

The English avenged these reverses by capturing
Port Royal. Encouraged by this success, they sent
Phipps at the head of a large troop to seize Quebec,
while Winthrop attacked Montreal with three thou
sand men, a large number of whom were Indians.
Frontenac hastened to Quebec with M. de Calli&res,
governor of Montreal, the militia and the regular
troops. Already the fortifications had been pro
tected against surprise by new and well-arranged
entrenchments. The hostile fleet appeared on Octo
ber 16th, 1690, and Phipps sent an officer to summon
the governor to surrender the place. The envoy,
drawing out his watch, declared with arrogance to
the Count de Frontenac that he would give him an
hour to decide. " I will answer you by the mouth

229

BISHOP LAVAL

of my cannon," replied the representative of Louis
XIV. The cannon replied so well that at the first
shot the admiral's flag fell into the water ; the
Canadians, braving the balls and bullets which
rained about them, swam out to get it, and this
trophy remained hanging in the cathedral of Que
bec until the conquest. The Histoire de rH6tel-
Dieu de Quebec depicts for us very simply the
courage and piety of the inhabitants during this
siege. " The most admirable thing, and one which
surely drew the blessing of Heaven upon Quebec
was that during the whole siege no public devotion
was interrupted. The city is arranged so that the
roads which lead to the churches are seen from the
harbour ; thus several times a day were beheld pro
cessions of men and women going to answer the
summons of the bells. The English noticed them ;
they called M. de Grandeville (a brave Canadian,
and clerk of the farm of Tadousac, whom they had
made prisoner) and asked him what it was. He an
swered them simply : ' It is mass, vespers, and the
benediction.7 By this assurance the citizens of Que
bec disconcerted them ; they were astonished that
women dared to go out ; they judged by this that
we were very easy in our minds, though this was
far from being the case."

It is not surprising that the colonists should have
fought valiantly when their bishops and clergy set the
example of devotion, when the Jesuits remained con
stantly among the defenders to encourage and assist
230

PHIPPS RETREATS

on occasion the militia and the soldiers, when Mgr.
de Laval, though withdrawn from the conduct of
religious affairs, without even the right of sitting in
the Sovereign Council, animated the population by
his patriotic exhortations. To prove to the inhabi
tants that the cause which they defended by strug
gling for their homes was just and holy, at the
same time as to place the cathedral under the pro
tection of Heaven, he suggested the idea of hanging
on the spire of the cathedral a picture of the Holy
Family. This picture was not touched by the balls
and bullets, and was restored after the siege to the
Ursulines, to whom it belonged.

All the attempts of the English failed; in a fierce
combat at Beauport they were repulsed. There
perished the brave Le Moyne de Sainte-Helene ;
there, too, forty pupils of the seminary established
at St. Joachim by Mgr. de Laval distinguished
themselves by their bravery and contributed to the
victory. Already Phipps had lost six hundred men.
He decided to retreat. To cap the climax of mis
fortune, his fleet met in the lower part of the river
with a horrible storm ; several of his ships were
driven by the winds as far as the Antilles, and the
rest arrived only with great difficulty at Boston.
Winthrop's army, disorganized by disease and dis
cord, had already scattered.

A famine which followed the siege tried the
whole colony, and Laval had to suffer by it as
well as the seminary, for neither had hesitated

231

BISHOP LAVAL

before the sacrifices necessary for the general weal.
" All the furs and furniture of the Lower Town were
in the seminary," wrote the prelate ; " a number of
families had taken refuge there, even that of the
intendant. This house could not refuse in such need
all the sacrifices of charity which were possible, at
the expense of a great portion of the provisions
which were kept there. The soldiers and others
have taken and consumed at least one hundred
cords of wood and more than fifteen hundred planks.
In brief, in cattle and other damages the loss to the
seminary will amount to a round thousand crowns.
But we must on occasions of this sort be patient,
and do all the good we can without regard to future
need."

The English were about to suffer still other re
verses. In 1691 Major Schuyler, with a small army
composed in part of savages, came and surprised
below the fort of the Prairie de la Madeleine a
camp of between seven and eight hundred soldiers,
whose leader, M. de Saint-Cirque, was slain ; but
the French, recovering, forced the major to retreat,
and M. de Valrennes, who hastened up from Cham-
bly with a body of inhabitants and Indians, put the
enemy to flight after a fierce struggle. The English
failed also in Newfoundland ; they were unable to
carry Fort Plaisance, which was defended by M. de
Brouillan ; but he who was to do them most harm
was the famous Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville, son
of Charles Le Moyne. Born in Montreal in 1661, he
232

D'IBERVILLE'S EXPLOITS

subsequently entered the French navy. In the year
1696 he was ordered to drive the enemy out of New
foundland; he seized the capital, St. John's, which
he burned, and, marvellous to relate, with only a
hundred and twenty-five men he subdued the whole
island, slew nearly two hundred of the English, and
took six or seven hundred prisoners. The following
year he set out with five ships to take possession of
Hudson Bay. One day his vessel found itself alone
before Fort Nelson, facing three large ships of the
enemy ; to the amazement of the English, instead
of surrendering, d'Iberville rushes upon them. In
a fierce fight lasting four hours, he sinks the strong
est, compels the second to surrender, while the third
flees under full sail. Fort Bourbon surrendered al
most at once, and Hudson Bay was captured.

After the peace d'Iberville explored the mouths
of the Mississippi, erected several forts, founded the
city of Mobile, and became the first governor of
Louisiana. When the war began again, the king
gave him a fleet of sixteen vessels to oppose the
English in the Indies. He died of an attack of fever
in 1706.

During this time, the Iroquois were as dangerous
to the French by their inroads and devastations as
the Abenaquis were to the English colonies; accord
ingly Frontenac wished to subdue them. In the
summer of 1696, braving the fatigue and privations
so hard to bear for a man of his age, Frontenac set
out from He Perrot with more than two thousand

233

BISHOP LAVAL

men, and landed at the mouth of the Oswego River.
He found at Onondaga only the smoking remains
of the village to which the savages had themselves
set fire, and the corpses of two Frenchmen who had
died in torture. He marched next against the Onei-
das ; all had fled at his approach, and he had to be
satisfied with laying waste their country. There re
mained three of the Five Nations to punish, but
winter was coming on and Frontenac did not wish
to proceed further into the midst of invisible ene
mies, so he returned to Quebec.

The following year it was learned that the Treaty
of Ryswick had just been concluded between France
and England. France kept Hudson Bay, but Louis
XIV pledged himself to recognize William III as
King of England. The Count de Frontenac had not
the good fortune of crowning his brilliant career by
a treaty with the savages ; he died on November
28th, 1698, at the age of seventy-eight years. In
reaching this age without exceeding it, he presented
a new point of resemblance to his model, Louis the
Great, according to whom he always endeavoured
to shape his conduct, and who was destined to die
at the age of seventy-seven.

NOTE. — The incident of the flag- mentioned above on page 230 is
treated at greater length in Dr. Le Sueur's Frontenac, pp. 295-8, in
the "Makers of Canada" series. He takes a somewhat different view
of the event. —Ed.

234

CHAPTER XVII

THE LABOURS OF OLD AGE

fTlHE peace lasted only four years. M. de Cal-
lieres, who succeeded Count de Frontenac,
was able, thanks to his prudence and the devotion
of the missionaries, to gather at Montreal more
than twelve hundred Indian chiefs or warriors, and
to conclude peace with almost all the tribes. Chief
Kondiaronk had become a faithful friend of the
French ; it was to his good-will and influence that
they were indebted for the friendship of a large
number of Indian tribes. He died at Montreal
during these peaceful festivities and was buried
with pomp.

The war was about to break out anew, in 1701,
with Great Britain and the other nations of Europe,
because Louis XIV had accepted for his grandson
and successor the throne of Spain. M. de Calli&res
died at this juncture; his successor, Philippe de
Kigaud, Marquis de Vaudreuil, brought the greatest
energy to the support in Canada of a struggle which
was to end in the dismemberment of the colony.
God permitted Mgr. de Laval to die before the
Treaty of Utrecht, whose conditions would have
torn the patriotic heart of the venerable prelate.

Other reasons for sorrow he did not lack, espe-

235

BISHOP LAVAL

cially when Mgr. de Saint- Vallier succeeded, on his
visit to the king in 1691, in obtaining a reversal of
the policy marked out for the seminary by the first
bishop of the colony ; this establishment would be
in the future only a seminary like any other, and
would have no other mission than that of the train
ing of priests. By a decree of the council of Feb
ruary 2nd, 1692, the number of the directors of the
seminary was reduced to five, who were to con
cern themselves principally with the training of
young men who might have a vocation for the
ecclesiastical life ; they might also devote themselves
to missions, with the consent of the bishop. No
ecclesiastic had the right of becoming an associate
of the seminary without the permission of the bis
hop, within whose province it was to employ the
former associates for the service of his diocese with
the consent of the superiors. The last part of the
decree provided that the four thousand francs given
by the king for the diocese of Quebec should be
distributed in equal portions, one for the seminary
and the two others for the priests and the church
buildings. As to the permanence of priests, the de
cree issued by the king for the whole kingdom was
to be adhered to in Canada. In the course of the
same year Mgr. de Saint- Vallier obtained, more
over, from the sovereign the authority to open at
Quebec in Notre-Dame des Anges, the former
convent of the Recollets, a general hospital for the
poor, which was entrusted to the nuns of the Hotel-
236

A REVERSAL OF POLICY

Dieu. The poor who might be admitted to it would
be employed at work proportionate to their strength,
and more particularly in the tilling of the farms be
longing to the establishment. If we remember that
Mgr. de Laval had consecrated twenty years of his
life to giving his seminary, by a perfect union be
tween its members and his whole clergy, a formid
able power in the colony, a power which in his
opinion could be used only for the good of the
Church and in the public interest, and that he now
saw his efforts annihilated forever, we cannot help
admiring the resignation with which he managed to
accept this destruction of his dearest work. And
not only did he bow before the impenetrable designs
of Providence, but he even used his efforts to pacify
those around him whose excitable temperaments
might have brought about conflicts with the autho
rities. The Abbe Gosselin quotes in this connection
the following example : " A priest, M. de Franche-
ville, thought he had cause for complaint at the be
haviour of his bishop towards him, and wrote him a
letter in no measured terms, but he had the good
sense to submit it previously to Mgr. de Laval,
whom he regarded as his father. The aged bishop
expunged from this letter all that might wound
Mgr. de Saint- Vallier, and it was sent with the
corrections which he desired." The venerable pre
late did not content himself with avoiding all that
might cause difficulties to his successor ; he gave
him his whole aid in any circumstances, and in par-

237

BISHOP LAVAL

ticular in the foundation of a convent of Ursulines
at Three Rivers, and when the general hospital was
threatened in its very existence. "Was it not a
spectacle worthy of the admiration of men and
angels," exclaims the Abbe Fornel in his funeral
oration on Mgr. de Saint- Vallier, " to see the first
Bishop of Quebec and his successor vieing one with
the other in a noble rivalry and in a struggle of re
ligious fervour for the victory in exercises of piety ?
Have they not both been seen harmonizing and re
conciling together the duties of seminarists and
canons ; of canons by their assiduity in the recita
tion of the breviary, and of seminarists in conde
scending to the lowest duties, such as sweeping and
serving in the kitchen ? " The patience and trust in
God of Mgr. de Laval were rewarded by the follow
ing letter which he received from Father La Chaise,
confessor to King Louis XIV : " I have received
with much respect and gratitude two letters with
which you have honoured me. I have blessed God
that He has preserved you for His glory and the
good of the Church in Canada in a period of deadly
mortality ; and I pray every day that He may pre
serve you some years more for His service and the
consolation of your old friends and servants. I hope
that you will maintain towards them to the end
your good favour and interest, and that those who
would wish to make them lose these may be unable
to alter them. You will easily judge how greatly I
desire that our Fathers may merit the continuation
238

AN EPIDEMIC

of your kindness, and may preserve a perfect union
with the priests of your seminary, by the sacrifice
which I desire they should make to the latter, in
consideration of you, of the post of Tamarois, in
spite of all the reasons and the facility for preserv
ing it to them . . . ."

The mortality to which the reverend father al
ludes was the result of an epidemic which carried
off, in 1700, a great number of persons. Old men in
particular were stricken, and M. de Bernieres among
others fell a victim to the scourge. It is very prob
able that this affliction was nothing less than the
notorious influenza which, in these later years, has
cut down so many valuable lives throughout the
world. The following years were still more terrible
for the town; smallpox carried off one-fourth of
the population of Quebec. If we add to these trials
the disaster of the two conflagrations which con
sumed the seminary, we shall have the measure of
the troubles which at this period overwhelmed the
city of Cham plain. The seminary, begun in 1678,
had just been barely completed. It was a vast edifice
of stone, of grandiose appearance ; a sun dial was
set above a majestic door of two leaves, the ap
proach to which was a fine stairway of cut stone.
"The building," wrote Frontenac in 1679, "is
very large and has four storeys, the walls are seven
feet thick, the cellars and pantries are vaulted, the
lower windows have embrasures, and the roof is of
slate brought from France." On November 15th,

239

BISHOP LAVAL

1701, the priests of the seminary had taken their
pupils to St. Michel, near Sillery, to a country
house which belonged to them. About one in the
afternoon fire broke out in the seminary buildings.
The inhabitants hastened up from all directions to
the spot and attempted with the greatest energy to
stay the progress of the flames. Idle efforts ! The
larger and the smaller seminary, the priests' house,
the chapel barely completed, were all consumed,
with the exception of some furniture and a little
plate and tapestry. The cathedral was saved, thanks
to the efforts of the state engineer, M. Levasseur
de Nere, who succeeded in cutting off the commu
nication of the sacred temple with the buildings in
flames. Mgr. de Laval, confined then to a bed of
pain, avoided death by escaping half-clad ; he ac
cepted for a few days, together with the priests of
the seminary, the generous hospitality offered them
by the Jesuit Fathers. In order not to be too long
a burden to their hosts, they caused to be pre
pared for their lodgment the episcopal palace which
had been begun by Mgr. de Saint- Vallier. They
removed there on December 4th following. The
scholars had been divided between the episcopal
palace and the house of the Jesuits. " The prelate,"
says Sister Juchereau, " bore this affliction with
perfect submission to the will of God, without ut
tering any complaint. It must have been, however,
the more grievous to him since it was he who had
planned and erected the seminary, since he was its
240

A SECOND FIRE

father and founder, and since he saw ruined in one
day the fruit of his labour of many years." Thanks
to the generosity of the king, who granted aid to
the extent of four thousand francs, it was possible
to begin rebuilding at once. But the trials of the
priests were not yet over. " On the first day of Oc
tober, 1705," relate the annals of the Ursulines,
"the priests of the seminary were afflicted by a
second fire through the fault of a carpenter who
was preparing some boards in one end of the new
building. While smoking he let fall in a room full
of shavings some sparks from his pipe. The fire be
ing kindled, it consumed in less than an hour all
the upper storeys. Only those which were vaulted
were preserved. The priests estimate that they have
lost more in this second fire than in the first. They
are lodged below, waiting till Providence furnishes
them with the means to restore their building. The
Jesuit Fathers have acted this time with the same
charity and cordiality as on the former occasion.
Mgr. L'Ancien1 and M. Petit have lived nearly
two months in their infirmary. This rest has been
very profitable to Monseigneur, for he has come
forth from it quite rejuvenated. May the Lord
grant that he be preserved a long time yet for the
glory of God and the good of Canada ! "

When Nehemiah returned to Jerusalem to raise
it from its ruins, a great grief seized upon him at
the sight of the roofs destroyed, the broken doors,

1 A respectfully familiar sobriquet given to Mgr. de Laval.

241

BISHOP LAVAL

the shattered ramparts of the city of David. In the
middle of the night he made the circuit of these
ruins, and on the morrow he sought the magistrates
and said to them : " You see the distress that we
are in ? Come, and let us build up the wall of Jeru
salem." The same feelings no doubt oppressed the
soul of the octogenarian prelate when he saw the
walls cracked and blackened, the heaps of ruins, sole
remnants of his beloved house. But like Nehemiah
he had the support of a great King, and the confi
dence of succeeding. He set to work at once, and
found in the generosity of his flock the means to
raise the seminary from its ruins. While he found
provisional lodgings for his seminarists, he himself
took up quarters in a part of the seminary which
had been spared by the flames ; he arranged, adjoin
ing his room, a little oratory where he kept the
Holy Sacrament, and celebrated mass. There he
passed his last days and gave up his fair soul to
God.

Mgr. de Saint- Vallier had not like his predeces
sor the sorrow of seeing fire consume his seminary ;
he had set out in 1700 for France, and the differ
ences which existed between the two prelates led the
monarch to retain Mgr. de Saint- Vallier near him.
In 1705 the Bishop of Quebec obtained permission
to return to his diocese. But for three years hos
tilities had already existed between France and Eng
land. The bishop embarked with several monks on
the Seine, a vessel of the Royal Navy. This ship
242

SAINT- VALLIER CAPTURED

carried a rich cargo valued at nearly a million francs,
and was to escort several merchant ships to their
destination at Quebec. The convoy fell in, on July
26th, with an English fleet which gave chase to it ;
the merchant ships fled at full sail, abandoning the
Seine to its fate. The commander, M. de Meaupou,
displayed the greatest valour, but his vessel, having
a leeward position, was at a disadvantage ; besides,
he had committed the imprudence of so loading the
deck with merchandise that several cannon could
not be used. In spite of her heroic defence, the
Seine was captured by boarding, the commander
and the officers were taken prisoners, and Mgr. de
Saint- Vallier remained in captivity in England till
1710.

The purpose of Mgr. de Saint- Vallier 's journey
to Europe in 1700 had been his desire to have
ratified at Rome by the Holy See the canoni
cal union of his abbeys, and the union of the parish
of Quebec with the seminary. On setting out he
had entrusted the administration of the diocese to
MM. Maizerets and Glandelet; as to ordinations, to
the administration of the sacrament of confirma
tion, and to the consecration of the holy oils, Mgr.
de Laval would be always there, ready to lavish his
zeal and the treasures of his charity. This long ab
sence of the chief of the diocese could not but im
pose new labours on Mgr. de Laval. Never did he
refuse a sacrifice or a duty, and he saw in this
an opportunity to increase the sum of good which

243

BISHOP LAVAL

he intended soon to lay at the foot of the throne
of the Most High. He was seventy-nine years of
age when, in spite of the havoc then wrought by the
smallpox throughout the country, he went as far as
Montreal, there to administer the sacrament of con
firmation. Two years before his death, he officiated
pontifically on Easter Day in the cathedral of Que
bec. " On the festival of Sainte Magdalene," say the
annals of the general hospital, "we have had the
consolation of seeing Mgr. de Laval officiate pontifi
cally morning and evening. . . He was accompanied
by numerous clergy both from the seminary and from
neighbouring missions. . . . We regarded this favour
as a mark of the affection cherished by this holy
prelate for our establishment, for he was never wont
to officiate outside the cathedral, and even there but
rarely on account of his great age. He was then
more than eighty years old. The presence of a per
son so venerable by reason of his character, his vir
tues, and his great age much enhanced this festival.
He gave the nuns a special proof of his good-will
in the visit which he deigned to make them in the
common hall." The predilection which the pious
pontiff constantly preserved for the work of the
seminary no whit lessened the protection which he
generously granted to all the projects of education
in the colony ; the daughters of Mother Mary of
the Incarnation as well as the assistants of Mother
Marguerite Bourgeoys had claims upon his affec
tion. He fostered with all his power the establish-
244

A MONTREAL FOUNDATION

ment of the Sisters of the Congregation, both at
Three Rivers and at Quebec. His numerous works
left him but little respite, and this he spent at his
school of St. Joachim in the refreshment of quiet
and rest. Like all holy men he loved youth, and
took pleasure in teaching and directing it. Accord
ingly, during these years when, in spite of the six
teen lustra which had passed over his venerable
head, he had to take upon himself during the long
absence of his successor the interim duties of the
diocese, at least as far as the exclusively episcopal
functions were concerned, he learned to understand
and appreciate at their true value the sacrifices of
the Charron Brothers, whose work was unfortu
nately to remain fruitless.

In 1688 three pious laymen, MM. Jean Francois
Charron, Pierre Le Ber, and Jean Fredin had estab
lished in Montreal a house with a double purpose
of charity : to care for the poor and the sick, and
to train men and send them to open schools in the
country districts. Their plan was approved by the
king, sanctioned by the bishop of the diocese, en
couraged by the seigneurs of the island, and wel
comed by all the citizens with gratitude. In spite
of these symptoms of future prosperity the work
languished, and the members of the community
were separated and scattered one after the other.
M. Charron did not lose courage. In 1692 he de
voted his large fortune to the foundation of a hos
pital and a school, and received numerous gifts from

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BISHOP LAVAL

charitable persons. Six hospitallers of the order of
St. Joseph of the Cross, commonly called Freres
Charron, took the gown in 1701, and pronounced
their vows in 1704, but the following year they
ceased to receive novices. The minister, M. de Pont-
chartrain, thought "the care of the sick is a task
better adapted to women than to men, notwith
standing the spirit of charity which may animate
the latter," and he forbade the wearing of the cos
tume adopted by the hospitallers. Francois Char
ron, seeing his work nullified, yielded to the inevit
able, and confined himself to the training of teach
ers for country parishes. The existence of this es
tablishment, abandoned by the mother country to
its own strength, was to become more and more
precarious and feeble. Almost all the hospitallers
left the institution to re-enter the world ; the care
of the sick was entrusted to the Sisters. Fra^ois
Charron made a journey to France in order to ob
tain the union for the purposes of the hospital of
the Brothers of St. Joseph with the Society of
St. Sulpice, but he failed in his efforts. He ob
tained, nevertheless, from the regent an annual
subvention of three thousand francs for the training
of schoolmasters (1718). He busied himself at once
with finding fitting recruits, and collected eight.
The elder sister of our excellent normal schools of
the present day seemed then established on solid
foundations, but it was not to be so. Brother Char
ron died on the return voyage, and his institution,
246

THE CHARRON ORDER FAILS

though seconded by the Seminary of St. Sulpice,
after establishing Brothers in several villages in the
environs of Montreal, received from the court a
blow from which it did not recover : the regent
forbade the masters to assume a uniform dress and
to pledge themselves by simple vows. The number
of the hospitallers decreased from year to year, and
in 1731 the royal government withdrew from them
the annual subvention which supported them, how
ever poorly. Finally their institution, after vainly
attempting to unite with the Brothers of the Chris
tian Doctrine, ceased to exist in 1745.

Mgr. de Laval so greatly admired the devotion
of these worthy men that he exclaimed one day :
" Let me die in the house of these Brothers ; it is a
work plainly inspired by God. I shall die content
if only in dying I may contribute something to
the shaping or maintenance of this establishment."
Again he wrote : " The good M. Charron gave us
last year one of their Brothers, who rendered great
service to the Mississippi Mission, and he has fur
nished us another this year. These acquisitions will
spare the missionaries much labour. ... I beg you
to show full gratitude to this worthy servant of
God, who is as affectionately inclined to the mis
sions and missionaries as if he belonged to our body.
We have even the plan, as well as he, of forming
later a community of their Brothers to aid the
missions and accompany the missionaries on their
journeys. He goes to France and as far as Paris to

247

BISHOP LAVAL

find and bring back with him some good recruits to
aid him in forming a community. Render him all
the services you can, as if it were to missionaries
themselves. He is a true servant of God." Such
testimony is the fairest title to glory for an insti
tution.

248

CHAPTER XVIII

LAST YEARS OF MGR. DE LAVAL

TLLNESS had obliged Mgr. de Laval to hand in
J- his resignation. He wrote, in fact, at this period
of his life to M. de Denonville: "I have been for
the last two years subject to attacks of vertigo
accompanied by heart troubles which are very fre
quent and increase markedly. I have had one quite
recently, on the Monday of the Passion, which
seized me at three o'clock in the morning, and I
could not raise my head from my bed." His in
firmities, which he bore to the end with admirable
resignation, especially affected his limbs, which he
was obliged to bandage tightly every morning, and
which could scarcely bear the weight of his body.
To disperse the unwholesome humours, his arm
had been cauterized ; to cut, carve and hack the
poor flesh of humanity formed, as we know, the
basis of the scientific and medical equipment of the
period. These sufferings, which he brought as a
sacrifice to our Divine Master, were not sufficient
for him ; he continued in spite of them to wear
upon his body a coarse hair shirt. He had to serve
him only one of those Brothers who devoted their
labour to the seminary in exchange for their living
and a place at table. This modest servant, named

249

BISHOP LAVAL

Houssart, had replaced a certain Lemaire, of whom
the prelate draws a very interesting portrait in one
of his letters : " We must economize," he wrote to
the priests of the seminary, " and have only watch
ful and industrious domestics. We must look after
them, else they deteriorate in the seminary. You
have the example of the baker, Louis Lemaire, an
idler, a gossip, a tattler, a man who, instead of
walking behind the coach, would not go unless
Monseigneur paid for a carriage for him to follow
him to La Rochelle, and lent him his dressing-gown
to protect him from the cold. Formerly he worked
well at heavy labour at Cap Tourmente ; idleness
has ruined him in the seminary. As soon as he had
reached my room, he behaved like a man worn out,
always complaining, coming to help me to bed only
when the fancy took him ; always extremely vain,
thinking he was not dressed according to his posi
tion, although he was clad, as you know, more
like a nobleman than a peasant, which he was, for I
had taken him as a beggar and almost naked at La
Rochelle. . . . As soon as he entered my room he
sat down, and rather than be obliged to pretend to
see him, I turned my seat so as not to see him. . .
We should have left that man at heavy work, which
had in some sort conquered his folly and pride, and
it is possible that he might have been saved. But he
has been entirely ruined in the seminary. . . ."This
humorous description proves to us well that even in
the good old days not all domestics were perfect.
250

A SERVANT'S TESTIMONY

The affectionate and respectful care given by
Houssart to his master was such as is not bought
with money. Most devoted to the prelate, he has
left us a very edifying relation of the life of the
venerable bishop, with some touching details. He
wrote after his death : " Having had the honour of
being continually attached to the service of his
Lordship during the last twenty years of his holy
life, and his Lordship having had during all that
time a great charity towards me and great confi
dence in my care, you cannot doubt that I contracted
a great sympathy, interest and particular attachment
for his Lordship." In another letter he speaks to us
of the submission of the venerable bishop to the
commands of the Church. " He did his best," he
writes, "notwithstanding his great age and con
tinual infirmities, to observe all days of abstinence
and fasting, both those which are commanded by
Holy Church and those which are observed from
reasons of devotion in the seminary, and if his
Lordship sometimes yielded in this matter to the
command of the physicians and the entreaties of the
superiors of the seminary, who deemed that he
ought not to fast, it was a great mortification for
him, and it was only out of especial charity to his
dear seminary and the whole of Canada that lie
yielded somewhat to nature in order not to die
so soon. . ."

Never, in spite of his infirmities, would the pre
late fail to be present on Sunday at the cathedral

251

BISHOP LAVAL

services. When it was impossible for him to go on
foot, he had himself carried. His only outings
towards the end of his life consisted in his visits to
the cathedral or in short walks along the paths of
his garden. Whenever his health permitted, he
loved to be present at the funerals of those who
died in the town ; those consolations which he
deigned to give to the afflicted families bear witness
to the goodness of his heart. " It was something
admirable," says Houssart, " to see, firstly, his as
siduity in being present at the burial of all who
died in Quebec, and his promptness in offering the
holy sacrifice of the mass for the repose of their
souls, as soon as he had learned of their decease ;
secondly, his devotion in receiving and preserving
the blessed palms, in kissing his crucifix, the image
of the Holy Virgin, which he carried always upon
him, and placed at nights under his pillow, his
badge of servitude and his jscapulary which he
carried also upon him ; thirdly, his respect and
veneration for the relics of the saints, the pleasure
which he took in reading every day in the Lives of
the Saints, and in conversing of their heroic deeds ;
fourthly, the holy and constant use which he made
of holy water, taking it wherever he might be in
the course of the day and every time he awoke in
the night, coming very often from his garden to his
room expressly to take it, carrying it upon him in a
little silver vessel, which he had had made purpose
ly, when he went to the country. His Lordship had
252

SUFFERING AND ENDURANCE

so great a desire that every one should take it that
he exercised particular care in seeing every day
whether the vessels of the church were supplied
with it, to fill them when they were empty ; and
during the winter, for fear that the vessels should
freeze too hard and the people could not take any
as they entered and left the church, he used to
bring them himself every evening and place them
by our stove, and take them back at four o'clock in
the morning when he went to open the doors."

With a touching humility the pious old man
scrupulously conformed to the rules of the semi
nary and to the orders of the superior of the
house. Only a few days before his death, he ex
perienced such pain that Brother Houssart de
clared his intention of going and asking from the
superior of the seminary a dispensation for the sick
man from being present at the services. At once
the patient became silent ; in spite of his tortures
not a complaint escaped his lips. It was Holy
Wednesday : it was impossible to be absent on that
day from religious ceremonies. We do not know
which to admire most in such an attitude, whether
the piety of the prelate or his submission to the
superior of the seminary, since he would have been
resigned if he had been forbidden to go to church,
or, finally, his energy in stifling the groans which
suffering wrenched from his physical nature. Few
saints carried mortification and renunciation of ter
restrial good as far as he. "He is certainly the most

253

BISHOP LAVAL

austere man in the world and the most indifferent
to wordly advantage," wrote Mother Mary of the
Incarnation. " He gives away everything and lives
like a pauper ; and we may truly say that he has
the very spirit of poverty. It is not he who will
make friends for worldly advancement and to in
crease his revenue ; he is dead to all that. . . . He
practises this poverty in his house, in his living, in
his furniture, in his servants, for he has only one
gardener, whom he lends to the poor when they
need one, and one valet. . ." This picture falls
short of the truth. For forty years he arose at two
o'clock in the morning, summer and winter : in his
last years illness could only wrest from him one
hour more of repose, and he arose then at three
o'clock. As soon as he was dressed, he remained at
prayer till four and then went to church. He opened
the doors himself, and rang the bells for mass,
which he said, half an hour later, especially for the
poor workmen, who began their day by this pious
exercise.

His thanksgiving after the holy sacrifice lasted
till seven o'clock, and yet, even in the greatest cold
of the severe Canadian winter, he had nothing to
warm his frozen limbs but the brazier which he had
used to celebrate the mass. A good part of his day,
and often of the night, when his sufferings deprived
him of sleep, was also devoted to prayer or spiritual
reading, and nothing was more edifying than to see
the pious octogenarian telling his beads or reciting
254

HIS MANNER OF LIFE

his breviary while walking slowly through the paths
of his garden. He was the first up and the last to
retire, and whatever had been his occupations dur
ing the day, never did he lie down without having
scrupulously observed all the spiritual offices, read
ings or reciting of beads. It was not, however, that
his food gave him a superabundance of physical vig
our, for the Trappists did not eat more frugally than
he. A soup, which he purposely spoiled by diluting
it amply with hot water, a little meat and a crust
of very dry bread composed his ordinary fare, and
dessert, even on feast days, was absolutely banished
from his table. "For his ordinary drink," says
Brother Houssart, " he took only hot water slightly
flavoured with wine ; and every one knows that his
Lordship never took either cordial or dainty wines,
or any mixture of sweets of any sort whatever,
whether to drink or to eat, except that in his last
years I succeeded in making him take every even
ing after his broth, which was his whole supper, a
piece of biscuit as large as one's thumb, in a little
wine, to aid him to sleep. I may say without exag
geration that his whole life was one continual fast,
for he took no breakfast, and every evening only a
slight collation. . . . He used his whole substance
in alms and pious works ; and when he needed any
thing, such as clothes, linen, etc., he asked it from
the seminary like the humblest of his ecclesiastics.
He was most modest in matters of dress, and I had
great difficulty in preventing him from wearing his

255

BISHOP LAVAL

clothes when they were old, dirty and mended.
During twenty years he had but two winter cas
socks, which he left behind him on his death, the
one still quite good, the other all threadbare and
mended. To be brief, there was no one in the
seminary poorer in dress. . ." Mgr. de Laval set an
example of the principal virtues which distinguish
the saints ; so he could not fail in that which our
Lord incessantly recommends to His disciples,
charity ! He no longer possessed anything of his
own, since he had at the outset abandoned his
patrimony to his brother, and since later on he had
given to the seminary everything in his possession.
But charity makes one ingenious : by depriving
himself of what was strictly necessary, could he not
yet come to the aid of his brothers in Jesus Christ ?
" Never was prelate," says his eulogist, M. de la
Colombiere, " more hostile to grandeur and exalta
tion. ... In scorning grandeur, he triumphed over
himself by a poverty worthy of the anchorites of
the first centuries, whose rules he faithfully ob
served to the end of his days. Grace had so thor
oughly absorbed in the heart of the prelate the
place of the tendencies of our corrupt nature that
he seemed to have been born with an aversion to
riches, pleasures and honours. ... If you have
noticed his dress, his furniture and his table, you
must be aware that he was a foe to pomp and
splendour. There is no village priest in France who
is not better nourished, better clad and better lodged
256

SELF-SACRIFICE AND CHARITY

than was the Bishop of Quebec. Far from having an
equipage suitable to his rank and dignity he had
not even a horse of his own. And when, towards the
end of his days, his great age and his infirmities did
not allow him to walk, if he wished to go out he
had to borrow a carriage. Why this economy ? In
order to have a storehouse full of garments, shoes
and blankets, which he distributed gratuitously,
with paternal kindness and prudence. This was a
business which he never ceased to ply, in which he
trusted only to himself, and with which he con
cerned himself up to his death."

The charity of the prelate was boundless. Not
only at the hospital of Quebec did he visit the poor
and console them, but he even rendered them ser
vices the most repugnant to nature. " He has been
seen," says M. de la Colombiere, " on a ship where
he behaved like St. Francois-Xavier, where, minis
tering to the sailors and the passengers, he breathed
the bad air and the infection which they exhaled ;
he has been seen to abandon in their favour all his
refreshments, and to give them even his bed, sheets
and blankets. To adminster the sacraments to them
he did not fear to expose his life and the lives of
the persons who were most dear to him." When he
thus attended the sick who were attacked by con
tagious fever, he did his duty, even more than his
duty ; but when he went, without absolute need,
and shared in the repugnant cares which the most
devoted servants of Christ in the hospitals under-

257

BISHOP LAVAL

take only after struggles and heroic victory over
revolted nature he rose to sublimity. It was because
he saw in the poor the suffering members of the
Saviour ; to love the poor man, it is not enough to
wish him well, we must respect him, and we cannot
respect him as much as any child of God deserves
without seeing in him the image of Jesus Christ
himself. No one acquires love for God without
being soon wholly enkindled by it ; thus it was no
longer sufficient for Mgr. de Laval to instruct and
console the poor and the sick, he served them also
in the most abject duties, going as far as to wash
with his own hands their sores and ulcers. A mad
man, the world will say; why not content one's self
with attending those people without indulging in
the luxury of heroism so repugnant ? This would
have sufficed indeed to relieve nature, but would it
have taught those incurable and desperate cases
that they were the first friends of Jesus Christ,
that the Church looked upon them as its jewels, and
that their fate from the point of view of eternity
was enviable to all ? It would have relieved without
consoling and raising the poor man to the height
which belongs to him in Christian society. Official
assistance, with the best intentions in the world,
the most ingenious organization and the most per
fect working, can, however, never be charity in the
perfectly Christian sense of this word. If it could
allay all needs and heal all sores it would still have
accomplished only half of the task : relieving the
258

SYMPATHY WITH THE POOR

body without reaching the soul. And man does
not live by bread alone. He who has been disin
herited of the boons of fortune, family and health,
he who is incurable and who despairs of human
joys needs something else besides the most com
fortable hospital room that can be imagined ; he
needs the words which fell from the lips of God :
" Blessed are the poor, blessed are they that suffer,
blessed are they that mourn." He needs a pitying
heart, a tender witness to indigence nobly borne, a
respectful friend of his misfortune, still more than
that, a worshipper of Jesus hidden in the persons of
the poor, the orphan and the sick. They have be
come rare in the world, these real friends of the
poor ; the more assistance has become organized,
the more charity seems to have lost its true nature;
and perhaps we might find in this state of things a
radical explanation for those implacable social an
tagonisms, those covetous desires, those revolts
followed by endless repression, which bring about
revolutions, and by them all manner of tyranny.
Let us first respect the poor, let us love them, let
us sincerely admire their condition as one ennobled
by God, if we wish them to become reconciled
with Him, and reconciled with the world. When
the rich man is a Christian, generous and respect
ful of the poor, when he practises the virtues which
most belong to his social position, the poor man
is very near to conforming to those virtues which
Providence makes his more immediate duty, hu-

259

BISHOP LAVAL

mility, obedience, resignation to the will of God
and trust in Him and in those who rule in His
name. The solution of the great social problem
lies, as it seems to us, in the spiritual love of the
poor. Outside of this, there is only the heathen
slave below, and tyranny above with all its terrors.
That is what religious enthusiasm foresaw in cen
turies less well organized but more religious than
ours.

260

CHAPTER XIX

DEATH OF MGR. DE LAVAL

THE end of a great career was now approaching.
In the summer of 1707, a long and painful
illness nearly carried Mgr. de Laval away, but he
recovered, and convalescence was followed by mani
fest improvement. This soul which, like the lamp
of the sanctuary, was consumed in the tabernacle
of the Most High, revived suddenly at the moment
of emitting its last gleams, then suddenly died out
in final brilliance. The improvement in the condi
tion of the venerable prelate was ephemeral ; the
illness which had brought him to the threshold of
the tomb proved fatal some weeks later. He died
in the midst of his labours, happy in proving by the
very origin of the disease which brought about his
death, his great love for the Saviour. It was, in
fact, in prolonging on Good Friday his pious stations
in his chilly church (for our ancestors did not heat
their churches, even in seasons of rigorous cold),
that he received in his heel the frost-bite of which
he died. Such is the name the writers of the time
give to this sore ; in our days, when science has de
fined certain maladies formerly misunderstood, it is
permissible to suppose that this so-called frost-bite
was nothing else than diabetic gangrene. No illu-

261

BISHOP LAVAL

sion could be cherished, and the venerable old man,
who had not, so to speak, passed a moment of his
existence without thinking of death, needed to
adapt himself to the idea less than any one else. In
order to have nothing more to do than to prepare
for his last hour he hastened to settle a question
which concerned his seminary : he reduced definitely
to eight the number of pensions which he had es
tablished in it in 1680. This done, it remained for
him now only to suffer and die. The ulcer increased
incessantly and the continual pains which he felt be
came atrocious when it was dressed. His intolerable
sufferings drew from him, nevertheless, not cries and
complaints, but outpourings of love for God. Like
Saint Vincent de Paul, whom the tortures of his
last malady could not compel to utter other words
than these : " Ah, my Saviour ! my good Saviour 1"
Mgr. de Laval gave vent to these words only : " O,
my God ! have pity on me ! O God of Mercy ! "
and this cry, the summary of his whole life : " Let
Thy holy will be done ! " One of the last thoughts
of the dying man was to express the sentiment of
his whole life, humility. Some one begged him to
imitate the majority of the saints, who, on their
death-bed, uttered a few pious words for the edi
fication of their spiritual children. "They were
saints," he replied, "and I am a sinner." A speech
worthy of Saint Vincent de Paul, who, about to
appear before God, replied to the person who re
quested his blessing, " It is not for me, unworthy
262

HIS DEATH

wretch that I am, to bless you." The fervour with
which he received the last sacraments aroused the
admiration of all the witnesses of this supreme hour.
They almost expected to see this holy soul take
flight for its celestial mansion. As soon as the
prayers for the dying had been pronounced, he
asked to have the chaplets of the Holy Family re
cited, and during the recitation of this prayer he
gave up his soul to his Creator. It was then half-
past seven in the morning, and the sixth day of the
month consecrated to the Holy Virgin, whom he
had so loved (May, 1708).

It was with a quiver of grief which was felt in all
hearts throughout the colony that men learned the
fatal news. The banks of the great river repeated
this great woe to the valleys ; the sad certainty that
the father of all had disappeared forever sowed
desolation in the homes of the rich as well as in the
thatched huts of the poor. A cry of pain, a deep
sob arose from the bosom of Canada which would
not be consoled, because its incomparable bishop
was no more ! Etienne de Citeaux said to his monks
after the death of his holy predecessor : " Alberic
is dead to our eyes, but he is not so to the eyes of
God, and dead though he appear to us, he lives for
us in the presence of the Lord ; for it is peculiar to
the saints that when they go to God through death,
they bear their friends with them in their hearts to
preserve them there forever." This is our dearest
desire ; the friends of the venerable prelate were and

263

BISHOP LAVAL

still are to-day his own Canadians : may he remain
to the end of the ages our protector and intercessor
with God !

There were attributed to Mgr. de Laval, accord
ing to Latour and Brother Houssart, and a witness
who would have more weight, M. de Glandelet, a
priest of the seminary of Quebec, whose account
was unhappily lost, a great number of miraculous
cures. Our purpose is not to narrate them ; we have
desired to repeat only the wonders of his life in
order to offer a pattern and encouragement to all
who walk in his steps, and in order to pay the debt
of gratitude which we owe to the principal founder
of the Catholic Church in our country.

The body of Mgr. de Laval lay in state for three
days in the chapel of the seminary, and there was
an immense concourse of the people about his mor
tuary bed, rather to invoke him than to pray for his
soul. His countenance remained so beautiful that
one would have thought him asleep ; that imposing
brow so often venerated in the ceremonies of the
Church preserved all its majesty. But alas ! that
aristocratic hand, which had blessed so many gener
ations, was no longer to raise the pastoral ring over
the brows of bowing worshippers ; that eloquent
mouth which had for half a century preached the
gospel was to open no more ; those eyes with look
so humble but so straightforward were closed for
ever ! " He is regretted by all as if death had car
ried him off in the flower of his age," says a chroni-
264

THE FUNERAL SERVICE

cle of the time, " it is because virtue does not grow
old." The obsequies of the prelate were celebrated
with a pomp still unfamiliar in the colony ; the body,
clad in the pontifical ornaments, was carried on the
shoulders of priests through the different religious
edifices of Quebec before being interred. All the
churches of the country celebrated solemn services
for the repose of the soul of the first Bishop of New
France. Placed in a leaden coffin, the revered re
mains were sepulchred in the vaults of the cathe
dral, but the heart of Mgr. de Laval was piously
kept in the chapel of the seminary, and later, in
1752, was transported into the new chapel of this
house. The funeral orations were pronounced, which
recalled with eloquence and talent the services ren
dered by the venerable deceased to the Church, to
France and to Canada. One was delivered by M.
de la Colombiere, archdeacon and grand vicar of
the diocese of Quebec ; the other by M. de Bel-
mont, grand vicar and superior of St. Sulpice at
Montreal.

Those who had the good fortune to be present in
the month of May, 1878, at the disinterment of the
remains of the revered pontiff and at their re
moval to the chapel of the seminary where, accord
ing to his intentions, they repose to-day, will re
call still with emotion the pomp which was dis
played on this solemn occasion, and the fervent joy
which was manifested among all classes of society.
An imposing procession conveyed them, as at the

265

BISHOP LAVAL

time of the seminary obsequies, to the Ursulines ;
from the convent of the Ursulines to the Jesuit
Fathers', next to the Congregation of St. Patrick,
to the Hotel-Dieu, and finally to the cathedral,
where a solemn service was sung in the presence of
the apostolic legate, Mgr. Conroy. The Bishop of
Sherbrooke, M. Antoine Racine, pronounced the
eulogy of the first prelate of the colony.

The remains of Mgr. de Laval rested then in
peace under the choir of the chapel of the seminary
behind the principal altar. On December 16th,
1901, the vault was opened by order of the com
mission entrusted by the Holy See with the conduct
of the apostolic investigation into the virtues and
miracles in specie of the founder of the Church in
Canada. The revered remains, which were found in
a perfect state of preservation, were replaced in
three coffins, one of glass, the second of oak, and
the third of lead, and lowered into the vault. The
opening was closed by a brick wall, well cemented,
concealed between two iron gates. There they rest
until, if it please God to hear the prayers of the
Catholic population of our country, they may be
placed upon the altars. This examination of the re
mains of the venerable prelate was the last act in
his apostolic ordeal, for we are aware with what
precaution the Church surrounds herself and with
what prudence she scrutinizes the most minute de
tails before giving a decision in the matter of canon
ization. The documents in the case of Mgr. de
266

A GREAT MEMORY

Laval have been sent to the secretary of the Sacred
Congregation of Rites at Rome ; and from there
will come to us, let us hope, the great news of the
canonization of the first Bishop of New France.

Sleep your sleep, revered prelate, worthy son of
crusaders and noble successor of the apostles. Long
and laborious was your task, and you have well
merited your repose beneath the flagstones of your
seminary. Long will the sons of future generations
go there to spell out your name, — the name of an
admirable pastor, and, as the Church will tell us
doubtless before long, of a saint.

267

INDEX

INDEX

AILLEBOUST, M. d', governor of New

France,, 8
Albanel, Father, missionary to the

Indians at Hudson Bay, 11, 103
Alexander VII, Pope, appoints
Laval apostolic vicar with the
title of Bishop of Petraea in parti-
bus, 7, 26 ; petitioned by the king
to erect an episcopal see in Que
bec, 131 ; wants the new diocese
to be an immediate dependency of
the Holy See, 133

Alexander of Rhodes, Father, 23

Algonquin Indians, 2, 9, 11

Allard, Father, Superior of the
Re'collets in the province of St.
Denis, 109, 110

Allouez, Father Claude, 11 ; ad
dresses the mission at Sault Ste.
Marie, 104

Anahotaha, Huron chief, joins Dol-
lard, 69, 71

Andros, Sir Edmund, governor of
New England, 173

Argenson, Governor d', 29 ; his
continual friction with Laval, 34 ;
disapproves of the retreat of Cap
tain Dupuis from the mission of
Gannentaha, 67

Arnaud, Father, accompanies La
Verendrye as far as the Rocky
Mountains, 11

Assise, Fran9ois d', founder of the
Franciscans, 18

Aubert, M., on the French-Cana
dians, 118, 119

Auteuil, Denis Joseph Ruette d',
solicitor-general of the Sovereign
Council, 167

Avaugour, Governor d', withdraws
his opposition to the liquor trade
and is recalled, 38-40 ; his last
report, 40 ; references, 10, 28

B

BAGOT, FATHER, head of the college
of La Fleche, 20

Bailly, Francois, directs the build-
'mg of the Notre-Dame Church,
88

Bancroft, George, historian, quoted,
4, 5, 152, 153

Beaudoncourt, Jacques de, quoted,
39 ; describes the escape of the
Gannentaha mission from the
massacre of 1658, 66, 67

Beaumont, Hardouin de Pere'fixe de,
Archbishop of Paris, 134

Belmont, M. de, his charitable
works, 135, 136 ; preaches Laval's
funeral oration, 265

Bernieres, Henri de, first superior
of the Quebec seminary, 55, 56 ;
entrusted with Laval's duties dur
ing his absence, 134, 143, 162 ;
appointed dean of the chapter
established by Laval, 197 ; his
death, 239

Bermeres; Jean de, his religious

271

BISHOP LAVAL

retreat at Caen, 24, 25 ; referred
to, 33, 34

Berthelot, M., rents the abbey of
Lestrees from Laval, 138; ex
changes He Jesus for the Island
of Orleans, 138

Bishop of Petraea, see Laval-Mont-
morency

Bouchard, founder of the house of
Montmorency, 16

Boucher, governor of Three Rivers,
29

Boudon, Abbe Henri-Marie, arch
deacon of the Cathedral of Ev-
reux, 23

Bourdon, solicitor-general, 79

Bourgard, Mgr., quoted, 61

Bourgeoy s, Sister Marguerite, founds
a school in Montreal which grows
into the Ville-Marie Convent, 9,
126 ; on board the plague-stricken
St. Andre, 31, 32 ; as a teacher,
91, 92, 156 ; through her efforts
the church of Notre-Dame de
Bonsecours is erected, 177, 178

Bouteroue, M. de, commissioner
during Talon's absence, 116

Brebeuf, Father, his persecution
and death, 5, 16, 62

Bretonvilliers, M. de, superior of
St. Sulpice, 88, 89, 135, 162

Briand, Mgr., Bishop of Quebec,
12

Bizard, Lieutenant, dispatched by
Frontenac to arrest the law
breakers and insulted by Perrot,
160

Brothers of the Christian Doctrine,
the, 125

Brulon, Jean Gauthier de, confessor

272

of the chapter established by
Laval, 197

CAEN, the town of, 24

Callieres, Chevalier de, governor of
Montreal, 214 ; lays before the
king a plan to conquer New York,
218 ; at Quebec when attacked by
Phipps, 229 ; makes peace with
the Indians, 235 ; his death, 235

Canons, the duties of, 196, 197

Carignan Regiment, the, 53, 77, 79,
114

Carion, M. Philippe de, 88

Cataraqui, Fort (Kingston), built
by Frontenac and later called
after him, 84, 145 ; conceded to
La Salle, 145

Cathedral of Quebec, the, 84, 85

Champigny, M. de, commissioner,
replaces Meulles, 204, 215

Champlain, Samuel de, governor of
New France and founder of Que
bec, 4, 8, 12

Charlevoix, Pierre Fran£ois Xavier
de, on colonization, 117, 118 ; his
portrait of Frontenac, 144, 145

Charron Brothers, the, make an
unsuccessful attempt to establish
a charitable house in Montreal,
125, 245-8

Chateau St. Louis, 112, 160, 163

Chaumonot, Father, 65 ; the head of
the Brotherhood of the Holy
Family, 86, 87

Chevestre, Fran9oise de, wife of
Jean-Louis de Laval, 139

Clement X, Pope, 133 ; signs the

INDEX

bulls establishing tbe diocese of
Quebec, 136
Closse, Major, 8, 92
Colbert, Louis XIV's prime minis
ter, 52 ; a letter from Villeray to,
77, 78 ; opposes Talon's immigra
tion plans, 80 ; receives a letter
from Talon, 107; Talon's pro
posals to, 115 ; a dispatch from
Frontenac to, 161 ; reproves Fron-
tenac's overbearing conduct, 165 ;
asks for proof of the evils of the
liquor traffic, 170, 171
College de Clermont, 21, 22
College of Montreal, the, 124, 125
Colombiere, M. de la, quoted, 23,

256, 257

Company of Montreal, the, 25 ; its
financial obligations taken up by
the Seminary of St. Sulpice, 135
Company of Notre-Dame of Mon
treal, 85, 108, 127, 189
Company of the Cent Associes,
founded by Richelieu, 4 ; inca
pable of colonizing New France,
abandons it to the royal govern
ment, 40, 41 ; assists the mission
aries, 50 ; a portion of its obliga
tions undertaken by the West
India Company, 145
Consistorial Congregation of Rome,

the, 132
Couillard, Madame, the house of,

58

Courcelles, M. de, appointed gover
nor in de Mezy's place, 51 ; acts
as godfather to Garakontie", Indian
chief, 65 ; an instance of his firm
ness, 82, 83 ; meets the Indian
chiefs at Cataraqui, and gains

their approval of building a fort
there, 84 ; succeeded by Fronte
nac, 84 ; lays the corner-stone of
the Notre-Dame Church in Mon
treal, 88 ; returns to France, 143

Coureurs de bois, the, 158, 159

Crevecceur, Fort, 148, 149

D

DABLON, FATHER, 11, 62, 65 ; de
scribes Laval's visit to the Prairie
de la Madeleine, 74, 75 ; quoted,
103, 140

Damours, M., member of the Sove
reign Council, 158, 166; impri
soned by Frontenac, 167

Daniel, Father, his death, 5

Denonville, Marquis de, succeeds
de la Barre, 193, 202, 204 ; urges
Laval's return to Canada, 213 ;
his expedition against the Iro-
quois, 214-16 ; seizes Indian
chiefs to serve on the king's gal
leys, 214, 215 ; builds a fort at
Niagara, 216 ; recalled, 218

Dequen, Father, 32, 33

Dollard, makes a brave stand against
the Iroquois, 39, 68-72, 75 (note)

Dollier de Casson, superior of the
Seminary of St. Sulpice, 11 ; at
the laying of the first stone of the
Church of Notre-Dame, 89 ;
preaching on the shores of Lake
Erie, 108 ; joined by La Salle,
148 ; speaks of the liquor traffic,
175 ; at Quebec, 190

Dongan, Colonel Thomas, governor
of New York, urges the Iroquois
to strife, 185, 191, 213, 216

273

BISHOP LAVAL

Dosquet, Mgr. de, Bishop of Que
bec, 12

Druilletes, Father, 11

Duchesneau, intendant, his disputes
with Frontenac upon the question
of President of the Council, 166,
167; recalled, 168, 185; asked
by Colbert for proof of the evils
of the liquor traffic, 170, 171 ; in
structed by the king to avoid dis
cord with La Barre, 186, 187

Dudouyt, Jean, director of the
Quebec seminary, 55, 56, 134,
143, 163 ; his mission to France
in relation to the liquor traffic,
171 ; grand cantor of the chapter
established by Laval, 197 ; his
death, 219 ; burial of his heart in
Quebec, 219

Dupont, M., member of the Sove
reign Council, 158, 166

Dupuis, Captain, commander of the
mission at Gannentaha, 65 ; how
he saved the mission from the
general massacre of 1658, 65-7

E

EARTHQUAKE of 1663, 42-5 ; its re
sults, 45, 46

FAMINE Creek, 193, 217

Fenelon, Abbe de, see Salignac-
Fenelon

Ferland, Abbe, quoted, 35 ; on the
education of the Indians, 63, 64 ;
his tribute to Mother Mary of the
Incarnation, 93-5; on Talon's
ambitions, 114; quoted, 130;
his opinion of the erection of an

274?

episcopal see at Quebec, 133 ; on
the union of the Quebec Semin
ary with that of the Foreign
Missions in Paris, 140 ; on La
Salle's misfortunes, 149 ; quoted,
155 ; praises Laval's stand against
the liquor traffic, 173 ; on Laval's
return to Canada, 220

Five Nations, the, sue for peace,
53 ; missions to, 65 ; references,
217, 223, 234

French-Canadians, their physical
and moral qualities, 118, 119;
habits and dress, 120 ; houses,
120, 121 ; as hunters, 121, 122

Frontenac, Fort, 84, 215, 217, 223

Frontenac, Louis de Buade, Count
de, governor of Canada, 16 ; builds
Fort Cataraqui, 84, 145 ; succeeds
Courcelles, 84, 143 ; his disputes
with Duchesneau, 112, 166, 167 ;
early career, 144 ; Charlevoix's
portrait of, 144, 145 ; orders Per-
rot's arrest, 160 ; his quarrel with
the Abbe de Fe'nelon, 160-5 ; re
proved by the king for his abso
lutism, 164, 165 ; his recall, 168,
185 ; succeeds in having per
manent livings established, 181 ;
again appointed governor, 218,
228 ; carries on a guerilla warfare
with the Iroquois, 228, 229 ; de
fends Quebec against Phipps,
129-31 ; attacks the Iroquois,
233, 234 ; his death, 234

GALLINEB, Brehan de, Sulpician

priest, 11, 105, 108, 148
Gannentaha, the mission at, 65 ;

INDEX

how it escaped the general mas
sacre of 1658, 65-7

Garakontie', Iroquois chief, his con
version,, 65 ; his death, 73, 74

Gamier, Father Charles, his death, 5

Garreau, Father, 11

Gaudais-Dupont, M., 41

Glandelet, Charles, 141, 197, 218 ;
in charge of the diocese during
Saint- Vallier's absence, 243

Gosselin, Abbe', quoted, 35 ; his ex
planation of Laval's mandement,
49, 50 ; quoted, 58, 59 ; on the
question of permanent livings,
169, 170

H

HARLAY, MGR. DE, Archbishop of
Rouen, opposes Laval's petition
for an episcopal see at Quebec,

133 ; called to the see of Paris,

134 ; his death, 184
Hermitage, the, a religious retreat,

24, 25

Hotel-Dieu Hospital (Montreal), es
tablished by Mile. Mance, 8

Hotel-Dieu, Sisters of the, 33, 210,
236

Houssart, Laval's servant, 250, 251,
252, 253, 255, 264

Hudson Bay, explored by Father
Albanel, 11, 103; English forts
on, captured by Troyes, 204, 214;
Iberville's expedition to, 233

Hurons, the, 2, 3, 4, 5, 9, 39 ; forty
of them join Bollard, 69 ; but
betray him, 70, 71 ; they suffer a
well-deserved fate, 72

IBERVILLE, LE MOYNE n', takes part
in an expedition to capture Hud

son Bay, 204, 233 ; attacks the
English settlements in Newfound
land, 233 ; explores the mouths
of the Mississippi, founds the city
of Mobile, and becomes the first
governor of Louisiana, 233 ; his
death, 233

He Je'sus, 58, 185, 189

Illinois Indians, 148

Innocent XI, Pope, 201

Iroquois, the 2 ; their attacks on
the missions, 5 ; persecute the
missionaries, 8 ; conclude a treaty
of peace with de Tracy which
lasts eighteen years, 54, 82 ; their
contemplated attack on the mis
sion of Gannentaha, 65 ; make an
attack upon Quebec, 67-72 ; threa
ten to re-open their feud with the
Ottawas, 83; urged to war by
Dongan, 185, 191 ; massacre the
tribes allied to the French, 191 ;
descend upon the colony, 191,
192 ; La Barre's expedition
against, 193 ; Denonville's expedi
tion against, 214 ; several seized
to serve on the king's galleys,
214, 215 ; their massacre of La-
chine, 224-7

JESUITS, the, their entry into New
France, 1 ; their self-sacrificing
labours, 4 ; in possession of all
the missions of New France, 25 ;
as educators, 63 ; their devotion
to the Virgin Mary, 85 ; religious
zeal, 109 ; provide instruction for
the colonists, 124 ; at the defence
of Quebec, 230 ; shelter the

275

BISHOP LAVAL

seminarists after the fire, 240,
241

Joliet, Louis, with Marquette, ex
plores the upper part of the
Mississippi, 11, 59, 82, 146, 153

Jogues, Father, his persecution and
death, 5, 62, 65

Juchereau, Sister, quoted, 240, 241

K

KINGSTON, see Cataraqui

Kondiaronk (the Rat), Indian chief,
his duplicity upsets peace nego
tiations with the Iroquois, 216-
18 ; his death, 235

LA BARRE, LEFEBVRE DE, replaces
Frontenac as governor, 168, 185 ;
holds an assembly at Quebec to
inquire into the affairs of the
colony, 190 ; demands reinforce
ments, 191 ; his useless expedi
tion against the Iroquois, 193 ;
his recall, 193

La Chaise, Father, confessor to
Louis XIV, 174, 238

La Chesnaie, M. Aubert de, 186

Lachesnaie, village, massacred by
the Iroquois, 228

Lachine, 116, 147, 148 ; the mas
sacre of, 225-7

La Fleche, the college of, 19, 20

Lalemant, Father Gabriel, his per
secution and death, 5, 62 ; his
account of the great earthquake,
42-5 ; references, 16, 35, 38

Lamberville, Father, describes the
death of Garakontie, Indian chief,
74 ; 215

276

La Montagne, the mission of, at

Montreal, 9, 74, 125
La Mouche, Huron Indian, deserts

Dollard, 71

Lanjuere, M. de, quoted, 24, 135
La Rochelle, 26, 77, 114, 116, 202,

219

La Salle, Cavelier de, 16, 116;
Fort Cataraqui conceded to, 145;
his birth, 147 ; comes to New
France, 147; establishes a trad
ing-post at Lachine, 147, 148 ;
starts on his expedition to the
Mississippi, 148 ; returns to look
after his affairs at Fort Frontenac,
149 ; back to Crevecoeur and finds
it deserted, 149 ; descends the
Mississippi, 150 ; raises a cross
on the shore .of the Gulf of Mexi
co and takes possession in the
name of the King of France, 151 ;
spends a year in establishing
trading-posts among the Illinois,
151 ; visits France, 151 ; his mis
fortunes, 152 ; is murdered by
one of his servants, 152 ; Ban
croft's appreciation of, 152, 153 ;
his version of the Abbe de Fe'ne-
lon's sermon, 160, 161
Latour, Abbe de, quoted, 33 ; on
the liquor question, 36-8 ; re the
Sovereign Council, 40 ; describes
the characteristics of the young
colonists, 100; on Laval, 187,
188, 264
Lauson-Charny, M. de, director of

the Quebec Seminary, 55, 134
Laval, Anne Charlotte de, only sis
ter of Bishop Laval, 19
Laval, Fanchon (Charles-Fra^ois-

INDEX

Guy), nephew of the bishop,
140

Laval, Henri de, brother of Bishop
Laval, 19, 21, 139, 141

Laval, Hugues de, Seigneur of
Montigny, etc., father of Bishop
Laval, 17 ; his death, 18

Laval, Jean-Louis de, receives the
bishop's inheritance, 19, 21, 22,
139

Laval-Montmorency, Francois de,
first Bishop of Quebec, his birth
and ancestors, 17 ; death of his
father, 18 ; his education, 19-21 ;
death of his two brothers, 21 ;
his mother begs him, on becom
ing the head of the family, to
abandon his ecclesiastical career,
21 ; renounces his inheritance in
favour of his brother Jean-Louis,
21, 22 ; his ordination, 22 ; ap
pointed archdeacon of the Cathe
dral of Evreux, 22 ; spends fifteen
months in Rome, 23 ; three years
in the religious retreat of M. de
Bernieres, 24, 25 ; embarks for
New France with the title of
Bishop of Petraea in partibus, 26 ;
disputes his authority with the
Abbe de Queylus, 27, 28 ; given
the entire jurisdiction of Canada,
28 ; his personality and appear
ance, 28, 29 ; his devotion to the
plague-stricken, 33 ; private life,
33, 34 ; friction with d'Argenson
on questions of precedence, 34 ;
opposes the liquor trade with the
savages, 36-9 ; carries an appeal
to the throne against the liquor
traffic, 39 ', returns to Canada,

41 ; his efforts to establish a
seminary at Quebec, 47-50 ; ob
tains an ordinance from the king
granting the seminary permission
to collect tithes, 50 ; receives
letters from Colbert and the king,
52, 53 ; takes up his abode in the
seminary, 55 ; his pastoral visits,
74, 75, 87 ; founds the smaller
seminary in 1668, 97-9 ; his ef
forts to educate the colonists, 97-
100, 124 ; builds the first sanc
tuary of Sainte Anne, 101 ; his
ardent desire for more mission
aries is granted, 104, 105 ; his
advice to the missionaries, 105-7 ;
receives a letter from the king re
the Recollet priests, 110 ; created
Bishop of Quebec (1674), 129 ;
his reasons for demanding the
title of Bishop of Quebec, 130,
131 ; visits the abbeys of Maubec
and Lestrees, 138 ; leases the
abbey of Lestre'es to M. Berthe-
lot, 138 ; exchanges the Island
of Orleans for He Jesus, 138 ;
visits his family, 139 ; renews the
union of his seminary with that
of the Foreign Missions, 140 ;
returns to Canada after four years
absence, 141 ; ordered by the
king to investigate the evils of the
liquor traffic, 171, 172 ; leaves
again for France (1678), 173 ; ac
quires from the king a slight
restriction over the liquor traffic,
174 ; confers a favour on the
priests of St. Sulpice, 175, 176 ;
returns to Canada (1680), 184,
186 ; wills all that he possesses to

277

BISHOP LAVAL

his seminary, 185 ; makes a pas
toral visit of his diocese, 189 ; his
ill-health, 190 ; writes to the king
for reinforcements, 191, 192 ; de
cides to carry his resignation in
person to the king, 196 ; estab
lishes a chapter, 197, 198 ; sails
for France, 198 ; to remain titular
bishop until the consecration of
his successor, 201 ; returns to
Canada, 202, 220 ; ill-health, 205 ;
reproves Saint- Vallier's extrava
gance, 206 ; an appreciation of,
by Saint- Vallier, 209 ; a letter
from Father La Chaise to, 238,
239 ; officiates during Saint-
Vallier's absence, 244 ; his last
illness, 249-53, 261, 262; his
death, 263 ; and burial, 264-6
Laval University, 15, 99, 124
Leber, Mile. Jeanne, 91, 92
Le Caron, Father, Recollet mission
ary, 3

Lejeune, Father, 25
Leinaitre, Father, put to death by
the Iroquois, 8 ; ministers to the
plague-stricken on board the St.
Andre, 31, 32
Le Soleil d'Afrique, 219
Lestre'es, the abbey of, 136, 138, 185
Liquor traffic, the, forbidden by the
Sovereign Council, 36; opposed
by Laval, 36-9; the Sovereign
Council gives unrestricted sway
to, 113; again restricted by the
council, 115, 116 ; a much dis
cussed question, 169-75
Lorette, the village of, 74
Lotbiniere, Louis Rene de, mem
ber of the Sovereign Council, 166

278

Louis XIV of France, recalls d'Avau-
gour, and sends more troops to
Canada, 39 ; writes to Laval, 52,
53 ; petitions the Pope for the
erection of an episcopal see in
Quebec, 131, 132 ; demands that
the new diocese shall be depen
dent upon the metropolitan of
Rouen, 132, 133 ; granted the
right of nomination to the bishop
ric of Quebec, 136 ; his decree of
1673, 159, 160 ; reproves Fronte-
nac for his absolutism, 164, 165 ;
orders Frontenac to investigate
the evils of the liquor traffic, 171,
172 ; forbids intoxicating liquors
being carried to the savages in
their dwellings or in the woods,
174 ; contributes to the mainten
ance of the priests in Canada,
182, 183 ; his efforts to keep the
Canadian officials in harmony,
186, 187 ; sends reinforcements,
192 ; grants Laval an annuity for
life, 201 ; at war again, 235

M

MAISONNEUVE, M. DE, governor of
Montreal, 8, 16, 92, 176

Maizerets, M. Ange de, comes to
Canada, 41 ; director of the Que
bec seminary, 55, 56 ; accom
panies Laval on a tour of his dio
cese, 189 ; archdeacon of the chap
ter established by Laval, 197 ; in
charge of the diocese during
Saint- Vallier's absence, 243

Mance, Mile., establishes the Hotel-
Dieu Hospital in Montreal, 8 ;
on board the plague-stricken 'St.

INDEX

Andre, 31; at the laying of the
first stone of the church of Notre-
Dame, 89 ; her death, 89 ; her
religious zeal, 91, 92

Maricourt, Le Moyne de, 16 ; takes
part in an expedition to capture
Hudson Bay, 204

Marquette, Father, with Joliet ex
plores the upper part of the Mis
sissippi, 11, 59, 82, 146, 153;
his death, 146, 147

Maubec, the abbey of, 131 ; incor
porated with the diocese of
Quebec, 136 ; a description of,
137

Membre, Father, descends the Mis
sissippi with La Salle, 149, 150,
151

Mesnu, Peuvret de, secretary of the
Sovereign Council, 158, 166

Me'tiomegue, Algonquin chief, joins
Dollard, 69

Meulles, M. de, replaces Duches-
neau as commissioner, 168, 185 ;
replaced by Champigny, 204

Mezy, Governor de, 10; succeeds
d'Avaugour, 41 ; disagrees with
the bishop, 51 ; his death, 51, 52

Michilimackinac, 146, 149, 216

Millet, Father, pays a tribute to
Garakontie', 73 ; 215

Mississippi River, explored by Mar
quette and Joliet as far as the
Arkansas River, 11, 59, 82, 146 ;
La Salle descends to its mouth,
150, 151

Monsipi, Fort (Hudson Bay), cap
tured by the French, 204

Montigny, Abbe de, one of Laval's
early titles, 7, 19

Montigny-sur-Avre, Laval's birth
place, 17

Montmagny, M. de, governor of
New France, 8

Montmorency, Henri de, near kins
man of Laval, 18; beheaded by
the order of Richelieu, 18

Montreal, the Island of, 8, 86;
made over to the Sulpicians, 108,
175 ; the parishes of, united with
the Seminary of St. Sulpice, 175,
176, 183

Montreal, the mission of La Mon-
tagne at, 9, 74 ; its first Roman
Catholic church, 87-90 ; its reli
gious zeal, 90-2; see also Ville-
Marie

Morel, Thomas, director of the
Quebec seminary, 55, 101 ; his
arrest, 163 ; set at liberty, 164 ;
his death, 219

Morin, M., quoted, 89, 90

Mornay, Mgr. de, Bishop of Que
bec, 12

Mother Mary of the Incarnation,
on Laval's devotion to the sick,
33 ; on his private life, 34, 254 ;
on the results of the great earth
quake, 45, 46 ; on the work of
the Sisters, 79, 80 ; her religious
zeal and fine qualities, 92, 93 ;
Abbe Ferland's appreciation of,
93-5 ; speaks of the work of Abbe'
Fe'nelon and Father Trouve", 109 ;
on the liquor traffic, 113 ; sums
up Talon's merits, 114; speaks
of the colonists' children, 119 ;
on civilizing the Indians, 125,
126 ; an appreciation of, by Abbe

279

BISHOP LAVAL

Verreau, 127 ; her death, 154 ;
her noble character, 155
Mouchy, M. de, member of the
Sovereign Council, 158

N
NELION, Fort (Hudson Bay), held

by the English against de Troyes'

expedition, 204 ; captured by

Jberville, 233
Newfoundland, English settlements

attacked by Iberville, 232
Notre-Dame Church (Montreal), 87-

90, 176
Notre-Dame de Bonsecours, chapel

(Montreal), 176-9
Notre-Dame de Montreal, the parish

of, 175, 176
Notre-Dame des Victoires, church

of, 185
Noue, Father de, his death, 5

O

OBLATE FATHERS, their entry into
New France, 1

Olier, M., founder of the Seminary
of St. Sulpice, 5, 6, 25; places
the Island of Montreal under the
protection of the Holy Virgin, 8,
85 ; his death, 135 ; succeeded
by Breton villiers, 162

Onondagas, the, 67

Ottawa Indians, threaten to re-open
their feud with the Iroquois, 83 ;
215

P

PALLU, M., 23

Parkman, Francis, quoted, 34, 35
Pe'ricard, Mgr. de, Bishop 01
Evreux, 21 ; his death, 22
280

Pe'ricard, Michelle de, mother of
Bishop Laval, 17 ; her death, 26

Peltrie, Madame de la, 92 ; estab
lishes the Ursuline Convent in
Quebec, 125 ; a description of, by
Abbe' Casgrain, 153, 154 ; her
death, 154

Permanence of livings, a much dis
cussed question, 169, 181, 184,
236

Perrot, Francois Marie, governor of
Montreal, 89 ; his anger at Bizard,
160 ; arrested by Froutenac, 160,
164

Perrot, Nicholas, explorer, 82

Peyras, M. de, member of the
Sovereign Council, 166

Phipps, Sir William, attacks Que
bec, 11, 229-31

Picquet, M., 23

Plessis, Mgr., Bishop of Quebec, 13

Pommier, Hugues, comes to Cana
da, 41 ; director of the Quebec
seminary, 65

Pontbriant, Mgr. de, Bishop of
Quebec, 12

Pourroy de rAube-Riviere, Mgr.,
Bishop of Quebec, 12

Prairie de la Madeleine, 74, 232

Propaganda, the, 130, 131

Prudhomme, Fort, erected by La
Salle, 150

QUEBEC, attacked by Phipps, 11,
229-31 ; the bishops of, 12 ; at
tacked by the Iroquois, 67-72 ;
arrival of colonists (1665), 78, 79 ;
the cathedral of, 84, 85 ; its reli
gious fervour, 92; the Lower

INDEX

Town consumed by fire, 186 ;
overwhelmed by disease and fire,
239

Quebec Act, the, 13

Queylus, Abbe de, Grand Vicar of
Rouen for Canada, 7 ; comes to
take possession of the Island of
Montreal for the Sulpicians, and
to establish a seminary, 8 ; dis
putes Laval's authority, 27 ; goes
to France, 27 ; returns with bulls
placing him in possession of the
parish of Montreal, 28 ; suspend
ed from office by Bishop Laval
and recalled to France, 28; re
turns to the colony and is ap
pointed grand vicar at Montreal,
28 ; his religious zeal, 92 ; his
generosity, 107 ; returns to France,
134 ; his work praised by Talon,
134

RAFEIX, FATHER, comes to Canada,
41

Re'collets, the, their entry into New
France, 1 ; refused permission to
return to Canada after the Treaty
of St. Germain-en-Laye, 3, 110 ;
propose St. Joseph as the patron
saint of Canada, 87 ; their popu
larity, 111, 112 ; build a monas
tery in Quebec, 112; espouse
Frontenac's cause in his disputes
with Duchesneau, 112 ; provide
instruction for the colonists, 124 ;
their establishment in Quebec,
208

Regale, the question of the right of
184, 201

Ribourde, Father de la, 149 ; killed
by the Iroquois, 149, 150

Richelieu, Cardinal, founds the
Company of the Cent Associes,
4 ; orders Henri de Montmorency
to be beheaded, 18 ; referred to,
117

Rupert, Fort (Hudson Bay), cap
tured by the French, 204

SAGARD, FATHER, Recollet mission
ary, 3

Sainte Anne, the Brotherhood of,
101

Sainte Anne, the first sanctuary of,
built by Laval, 101 ; gives place
to a stone church erected through
the efforts of M. Filion, 102 ; a
third temple built upon its site,
102 ; the present cathedral built
(1878), 102 ; the pilgrimages to,
102, 103

Sainte-Helene, Andre*e Duplessis de,
92

Sainte-Helene, Le Moyne de, 16 ;
takes part in an expedition to
capture Hudson Bay, 204 ; his
death at the siege of Quebec, 231

Saint- Vallier, Abbe Jean Baptiste
de la Croix de, king's almoner,
199 ; appointed provisionally
grand vicar of Laval, 201 ; leaves
a legacy to the seminary of Que
bec, 202; embarks for Canada,
202 ; makes a tour of his diocese,
203, 204 ; his extravagance, 206 ;
pays a tribute to Laval, 209 ;
leaves for France, 210 ; obtains a
grant for a Bishop's Palace, 211 ;
281

BISHOP LAVAL

his official appointment and con
secration as Bishop of Quebec,
202, 219 ; returns to Canada,
221 ; opens a hospital in Notre-
Dame des Anges, 236 ; in France
from 1700 to 1705, when return
ing to Canada is captured by an
English vessel and kept in cap
tivity till 1710, 242, 243 ; the ob
ject of his visit to France, 243
St. Andre, the, 27; the plague

breaks out on board, 31, 32
Ste. Anne, Fort (Hudson Bay), cap
tured by the French, 204
St. Bernardine of Siena, quoted, 35,

36

St. Fra^ois-Xavier, adopted as the
second special protector of the
colony, 87
St. Ignace de Michilimackinac, La

Salle's burying-place, 147
St. Joachim, the seminary of Que
bec has a country house at, 12 ;
the boarding-school at, establish
ed by Laval, 100, 124, 245 ; re
ceives a remembrance from Laval,
199
St. Joseph, the first patron saint of

Canada, 87

St. Malo, the Bishop of, 6, 7
St. Sulpice de Montre'al, see Semin
ary of St. Sulpice
St. Sulpice, the priests of, see Sul-

picians

Salignac-Fe'nelon, Abbe Francois de,
goes to the north shore of Lake
Ontario to establish a mission,
105, 108 ; teaches the Iroquois,
125 ; his sermon preached against
Frontenac, 160, 161 j his quarrel
282

with Frontenac, 160-5 ; forbidden
to return to Canada, 164
Sault St. Louis (Caughnawaga), the

mission of, 9, 74, 147, 189
Sault Ste. Marie, the mission of, 11 ;
addressed by Father Allouez, 104
Seignelay, Marquis de, Colbert's
son, sends four shiploads of
colonists to people Louisiana,
151, 152 ; postpones Laval's re
turn to Canada, 211
Seigniorial tenure, 119, 120
Seminary, the, at Quebec, founded
by Laval (1663), 10 ; the priests
of, assist in defending Quebec
against Phipps, 11, 12 ; Laval's
ordinance relating to, 47, 48 ; its
establishment receives the royal
approval, 50 ; obtains permission
to collect tithes from the colon
ists, 50 ; its first superior and
directors, 55 ; affiliated with the
Seminary of Foreign Missions at
Paris, 57, 58 ; a smaller seminary
built (1668), 58, 59, 97-9 ; the
whole destroyed by fire (1701),
58, 240, 241 ; its union with the
Seminary of Foreign Missions re
newed, 140 ; receives a legacy
from Saint- Vallier, 202 ; sends
missionaries to Louisiana, 208 ;
in financial difficulties, 211
Seminary of Foreign Missions at
Paris, affiliated with the Quebec
Seminary, 57, 58 ; contributes to
the support of the mission at
Ville-Marie, 136 ; its union with
the Quebec Seminary renewed,
140 ; a union with the Seminary
of St. Sulpice formed, 221

INDEX

Seminary of Montreal, see Ville-
Marie Convent

Seminary of St. Sulpice, the, founded
by M. Olier, 5, 6, 25 ; enlarged,
90 ; its ancient clock, 90 ; takes
up the financial obligations of
the Company of Montreal, 135 ;
joined to the parish of Notre-
Dame de Montreal, 175, 176,
183 ; visited by Laval, 189 ; affili
ated with the Seminary of Foreign
Missions, 221

Seine, the, captured by the English
with Saint-Vallier on board, 242,
243

Souart, M., 91, 92, 124

Sovereign Council, the, fixes the
tithe at a twenty-sixth, 10 ; for
bids the liquor trade with the
savages, 36 ; registers the royal
approval of the establishment of
the Quebec Seminary, 50 ; re
commends that emigrants be sent
only from the north of France,
78 ; passes a decree permitting
the unrestricted sale of liquor,
113 ; finds it necessary to restrict
the liquor trade, 115, 116; its
members, 158 ; judges Perrot,
160 ; its re-construction, 165-7 ;
a division in its ranks, 167 ; passes
a decree affecting the policy of
the Quebec Seminary, 236

Sulpicians, their entry into New
France, 1 ; become the lords of
the Island of Montreal, 8, 108 ;
their devotion to the Virgin Mary,
85 ; at Ville-Marie, 92 ; more
priests arrive, 105, 106 ; their re
ligious zeal, 109 j provide in

struction for the colonists, 124 ;
granted the livings of the Island
of Montreal, 175, 176 ; request
the king's confirmation of the
union of their seminary with the
parishes on the Island of Mon
treal, 183, 184

TALON, intendant, appointed to in
vestigate the administration of
de Mezy, 51 ; his immigration
plans opposed by Colbert, 80 ;
writes to Colbert in praise of the
Abbe de Queylus, 107 ; brings
out five Recollet priests, 109 ; ob
tains from the Sovereign Council
a decree permitting the unre
stricted sale of liquor, 113 ; de
velops the resources of the coun
try, 114, 115 ; returns to France
for two years, 116; praises Abbe
de Queylus' work, 134, 135 ; re
tires from office, 143

Taschereau, Cardinal, 40, 86

Tesserie, M. de la, member of the
Sovereign Council, 158

Tilly, Le Gardeur de, member of
the Sovereign Council, 158, 166,
167

Tithes, the levying of, on the
colonists, 10, 50, 51, 54 ; pay
able only to the permanent priests,
55 ; the edict of 1679, 181 ; La
val and Saint-Vallier disagree
upon the question of, 208, 209

Tonti, Chevalier de, accompanies
La Salle as far as Fort Creve-
coeur, 148 ; attacked by the Iro-
quois and flees to Michilimack-

283

169016

BISHOP LAVAL

inac, 149 ; again joins La Salle
and descends the Mississippi with
him, 150 ; appointed La Salle' s
representative, 151

Tracy, Marquis de, viceroy, appoint
ed to investigate the administra
tion of de Mezy, 51 ; builds three
forts on the Richelieu River, 63 ;
destroys the hamlets of the Mo
hawks and concludes a treaty of
peace with the Iroquois which
lasts eighteen years, 53, 54, 82 ;
reduces the tithe to a twenty-
sixth, 54 ; returns to France, 81 ;
his fine qualities, 81, 82 ; presents
a valuable picture to the church
at Sainte Anne, 102

Treaty of Ryswick, 234

Treaty of St. Germain-en-Laye, 3,
110

Treaty of Utrecht, 235

Trouve, Claude, goes to the north
shore of Lake Ontario to establish
a mission, 105, 108

Troyes, Chevalier de, leads an ex
pedition to capture Hudson Bay,
204

Turgis, Father, 62

U

URSULINE CONVENT (Quebec), estab
lished by Madame de la Peltrie,
112, 155 ; consumed by fire, 210

Ursuline Sisters, 33, 125^ 154, 231

VALBENNES, M. DE, commands Fort
Frontenac, 223 ; 232

Vaudreuil, Chevalier de, 214 ; in
command at Montreal, 223 ; op
posing the Iroquois at massacre
of Lachine, 226, 227 ; succeeds
Callieres as governor of Montreal,
235

Verreau, Abbe, pays a tribute to
Mother Mary of the Incarnation,
127

Viel, Father, Recollet missionary, 3

Vignal, Father, ministers to the
plague-stricken on board the St.
Andre, 31, 32 ; referred to, 8, 91,
92

Ville-Marie (Montreal), the school
at, founded by Marguerite Bour-
geoys, 9 ; the Abbe' de Queylus re
turns to, 28 ; takes precautions
against the Iroquois, 68; the
school of martyrdom, 90, 91; for
tified by Denonville, 213, 214 ;
governed by Vaudreuil in Cal
lieres' absence, 223 ; besieged by
Winthrop, 229 ; references, 82,
83, 85, 122, 124, 135, 162, 178,
217

Ville-Marie Convent, founded by
Marguerite Bourgeoys, 126, 127,
175, 176

Villeray, M. de, writes to Colbert,
77, 78 ; member of the Sovereign
Council, 166, 167

Vitre, Denys de, member of the
Sovereign Council, 166

W

West India Company, 81
Winthrop, Fitz-John, attacks Mon
treal, 229, 231

284

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