A. Leblond de Brumath - The Makers of Canada: Bishop Laval

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Governor d'Avaugour supported energetically the measures taken by Mgr.
de Laval; unfortunately 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 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 dignity will not hesitate to
take the side of the missionaries 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 extirpation of the savages."

Mgr. de Laval succeeded beyond his hopes; cordially received by King
Louis XIV, he obtained the recall of Governor d'Avaugour. But this
purpose 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 exterminated the Hurons,
and since this period the colonists had not enjoyed a single hour of
calm; the devotion of Dollard and of his sixteen heroic comrades 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. "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 Canada 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 service 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 impregnable fortress, subdue the
Iroquois, build redoubtable 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,[2] 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 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 immediately created in Canada three courts of justice and above
them the Sovereign Council as a court of appeal.

The Bishop of Petraea 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 materialistic civilization, we can with difficulty imagine
the discomforts, hardships and privations of four long months on a
stormy sea. Scurvy, that fatal consequence 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 unfortunates who were attacked by the infection; he
even attended them at the hospital after they had landed.

The country was still at this time under the stress of the emotion
caused by the terrible earthquake 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 detached; 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 appear 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 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. Lawrence appeared quite livid up to the vicinity of
Tadousac, a most astonishing prodigy, and one capable of surprising
those who know the extent of 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 produced 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 before there had
been but forests.

"Moreover, three circumstances made this earthquake 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 Tadousac, 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 Ile Perce and Gaspe, which are at the mouth of our
river, to beyond Montreal, 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 particular 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 surrounded 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 returns 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 Christians 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 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 confession more than three times. We have seen
admirable reconciliations, enemies falling on their knees before each
other to ask each other's forgiveness, 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."

FOOTNOTES:

[1] _The Old Regime in Canada_, p. 110.

[2] Joseph Sere de la Colombiere, vicar-general and archdeacon of
Quebec, pronounced Mgr. de Laval's funeral oration.

CHAPTER IV

ESTABLISHMENT OF THE SEMINARY

No sooner had he returned, than the Bishop of Petraea devoted all the
strength of his intellect 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 administering
the sacraments, the methods of apostolic 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 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 attachment
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, Quintilian, and the
Fathers of the Church, formed the 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 and
the preparation of the clergy for priestly virtues. In the next place we
have the creation of the chapter, which the Bishop of Petraea 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 perpetual 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 transfer 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 submit his regulation. For him, in the present
condition of New France, there can be no question of fixed livings; the
priests must be by right removable, 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
October 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 endowment and revenue? Mgr. de
Laval resolved to employ the means adopted long ago by Charlemagne to
assure the maintenance of the Frankish clergy: that of tithes or dues
paid by the husbandman 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, 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 impose 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 governor, 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 Mezy, whom this untimely end saved perhaps
from a well-deserved condemnation. He had become reconciled in his
dying hour to his old and venerable friend, and the judges confined
themselves to the erasure of the documents which recalled his
administration.

The worthy Bishop of Petraea 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
wherever it is necessary, which makes you indefatigable in the functions
of your episcopacy, notwithstanding 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 ecclesiastics the task of
administering the sacraments in places most remote from the principal
settlements. I shall add nothing to this statement, which is entirely
sincere, for fear of wounding your natural modesty, etc...." The prince
himself is no less flattering: "My Lord Bishop of Petraea," 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 mission. Its main
reward is reserved by Heaven, which 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 constant 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. Therese; then at the head of six
hundred soldiers, six hundred 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 Indians 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 barbarians 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 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 viceroy, 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 inhabitants, 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
subsequently 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 excessive 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 observance 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,[3] 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 following year,
and the Bishop of Petraea abode there from the time of his return from
France on September 15th, 1663, until the burning of this house on
November 15th, 1701. The first directors of the seminary were, besides
M. de Bernieres, 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 provinces 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
decreed that the tithes should be payable only to the 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 faithful 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."

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