Count Frontenac: Makers of Canada, Volume 3LeSueur, William Dawson
History
Count Frontenac: Makers of Canada, Volume 3
LeSueur, William Dawson
Canada -- History -- To 1763 (New France); Frontenac, Louis de Buade, comte de, 1620-1698
The church on that Easter Sunday was filled to its utmost capacity, over
six hundred persons being present. Amongst these was the watchful La
Salle, who, not only took it all in himself, but by his gestures and
movements called the attention of as many persons as possible to what
was being said, and its obvious import. It was not only the friends of
Frontenac, however, who recognized the drift of the sermon, for the cure
of the parish, the Rev. M. Perrot, said to M. de Fenelon as he came down
from the pulpit: "Really, sir, you have entered into details which have
caused me a great deal of trouble." Other ecclesiastics were affected in
the same manner, amongst them La Salle's own brother, an ecclesiastic of
the Seminary, who went at once to the Superior, the excellent M. Dollier
de Casson, to tell him what had happened. The latter, in turn,
foreseeing trouble, sent to tell La Salle that the Seminary had no
responsibility whatever for M. de Fenelon's sermon, as it had not been
submitted beforehand for approval, and no one had the least notion what
he intended to say. The same communication was made in the most earnest
terms to M. de la Nauguere, who was temporarily filling the place of
governor of Montreal by Frontenac's nomination, with a request that he
would convey the assurance to the governor-general.
The extraordinary thing is that the reverend gentleman who had caused
all this trouble, when spoken to on the subject by the Superior, gave
his word as a man of honour and a priest, that he had no intention
whatever of alluding to the governor-general, adding that those who so
applied his remarks were doing much dishonour to that high officer. The
Abbe Faillon does not like to call M. de Fenelon's word in question, but
he says that he manifestly lacked "one quality very important in a
missionary, the prudence which directs the exercise of zeal, and keeps
it within the bounds that circumstances require."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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