Histories of Canada give full space to the names, the characters, and the careers of the bishops, priests, and nuns who moulded the childhood of New France, and to the struggle for supremacy between the Jesuits and rival sects. We have portraits of the Jesuit heroes Breboeuf, Lalemant, Garnier, Isaac Jogues, and many others; of the ladies whose wealth or whose personal efforts founded the Hôtel Dieu at Quebec and at Montreal; of Madame de la Peltrie, Marie Guyard the Mère de l'Incarnation, Jeanne Mance, and Marguerite Bourgeoys; of Laval the first of Canadian bishops; but the record of their devoted lives has only an indirect bearing on the history of colonization. It will be enough to notice very shortly the founding of Montreal, and the episode of the Huron missions, as being landmarks in Canadian story. [Sidenote: _Montreal settled by a company connected with St. Sulpice._] Montreal, it will be remembered, had been in Cartier's time the site of an Indian town, which afterwards disappeared. Champlain had marked it out as a place for a future settlement, and the keen eyes of the Jesuits looked to the island as a mission centre. It had become the property of De Lauzon, one of the One Hundred Associates and afterwards Governor of Canada, and he transferred his grant to a company, the Company of Montreal, formed exclusively for the service of religion, and especially connected with the priests of St. Sulpice. The first settlers numbered about sixty in all, in charge of a chivalrous soldier, De Maisonneuve, and including one of the religious heroines of the time, Mdlle. Jeanne Mance, who was entrusted with funds by a rich French lady to found a hospital. They arrived in Canada in 1641, {85} and in spite of the warnings of the Governor, who urged that they should settle within reach of Quebec on the Island of Orleans, they chose their site at Montreal in the same autumn, and in the following spring began to build a settlement. Ville Marie was the name given to it at the time, the enterprise being dedicated to the Virgin. At the first ceremony, on landing, a Jesuit priest bade the little band of worshippers be of good courage, for they were as the grain of mustard seed; and now the distant, dangerous outpost of France in North America, which a few whole-hearted zealots founded, has become the great city of Montreal. [Sidenote: _The influence of religion on colonization._]