But despite this calm a dark cloud of alarm hung over the colony. The air was full of rumors concerning the expedition which it was confidently alleged the English were about to direct against Canada. Priests and traders, nobles and bourgeois, bushrangers, and red-skinned children of the forest, were content to forget prejudices and animosities in consideration of the common interest, and to unite in the extremity of their peril. Yet through all, the elements of true Gallic light-heartedness relieved the poignant distress of the moment. It was plainly understood that the situation of the colony was most precarious. The garrison of Ville Marie consisted of but seven or eight hundred soldiers, and of these many were posted at various points in the surrounding country to protect the colonists while gathering in the harvest. It was deemed advisable to draw in all of these for the protection of the town. Prolonged echoes reverberated from Mount Royal and across the St. Lawrence as guns were fired to recall the troops. Soon they began to arrive, accompanied by many of the settlers seeking the protection of the forts. At this crisis the clamor of fear and anxiety and endeavor penetrated even to the cloistered cell where the recluse, Jeanne Le Ber, strove to shut out all sign of earth’s joys and sorrows, and to devote herself to the contemplation of heavenly glories. Yielding to the urgent entreaties of the Sisters of the Congregation, Jeanne Le Ber wrote upon a sacred picture a prayer of her own composing, addressed to the Virgin. This the nuns caused to be fastened up on a barn in the country (owned by the community, and supposed to be peculiarly liable to attack), as a sort of talisman, to preserve it from harm. This was Anne Barroy’s hour of triumph; enjoying it to the fullest extent, her pride swelled to enormous proportions. At this moment beauty, birth, breeding and worldly pride could bear no comparison with the temporal as well as spiritual advantages of superior holiness. “Our saint” and “that sainted one” were the mildest terms in which Anne permitted herself to allude to her cousin, and she never wearied of talking. “When I enter her apartment,” the enthusiast would declare, with impressive solemnity, “I perceive in the air a certain odor of sanctity which gives me the sensation of an agreeable perfume. Truly she speaks like a seraph and is the companion of angels. What a blessing to rest beneath a roof which affords shelter to so perfect a creature, though there may be those not so far away who fail to appreciate their privileges.” “For me!” cried Nanon with a clatter, “I had no necessity to travel to Canada to make acquaintance with saints. We have them at home, and of superior quality. There was St. Anne d’Auray, Mother of the Blessed Virgin; and St. Geneviève of Paris, at whose shrine kings and nobles worshipped; but indeed, I have no taste for home-made articles.”