particular, was almost immediately reduced 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 unfortunate people their lives. At least M. Vignal and M. Lemaître, though both suffering themselves, were able to offer to the dying the consolations of their holy office. M. Lemaître, more vigorous than his colleague, and possessed of an admirable energy and devotion, was not satisfied merely with encouraging 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 passengers.

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 foundering, 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 disease, 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, and lavished upon all the offices of his holy ministry. 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 Petræa was admirable in his devotion; he hardly left the hospital at all, and constituted himself the nurse of all these unfortunates, 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 Quebec, 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 cenobitic life. He had been at first the guest of the Jesuit Fathers, was later sheltered by the Sisters of the Hôtel-Dieu, and subsequently lodged with the Ursulines. At this period it was indeed incumbent upon him to adapt himself to circumstances; nor did these modest conditions displease the former pupil of M. de Bernières, since, as Latour bears witness, "he always complained that people did too much for him; he showed a distaste for all that was 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 manner 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 Bernières."

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 precedence 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 democratic society to conceive the substantial importance of the signs and symbols of dignity and authority, at a time and among a people where they were adjusted with the most scrupulous precision, 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 understanding the position of Church and State in their relations 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 Abbé 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 Abbé Ferland rightly observes, 'no virtue is perfect upon earth.' But he was too pious and too disinterested for us to suspect 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 creature a marked and particular favour, and when divine grace summons him to a special task and to 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 prepares 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 measure, urged by the clergy and the missionaries, put a stop to crimes and disorders. However, for the purpose of gain, certain men infringed this wise prohibition, 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