Tracy was a veteran of sixty-two, portly and tall, “one of the largest men I ever saw,” writes Mother Mary; but he was sallow with disease, for fever had seized him, and it had fared ill with him on the long voyage. The Chevalier de Chaumont walked at his side, and young nobles surrounded him, gorgeous in lace and ribbons and majestic in leonine wigs. Twenty-four guards in the king’s livery led the way, followed by four pages and six valets; * and thus, while the Frenchmen shouted and the Indians stared, the august procession threaded the streets of the Lower Town, and climbed the steep pathway that scaled the cliffs above. Breathing hard, they reached the top, passed on the left the dilapidated walls of the fort and the shed of mingled wood and masonry which then bore the name of the Castle of St. Louis; passed on the right the old house of Couillard and the site of Laval’s new seminary, and soon reached the square betwixt the Jesuit college and the cathedral. The bells were ringing in a phrensy of welcome. Laval in pontificals, surrounded by priests and Jesuits, stood waiting to receive the deputy of the king; and, as he greeted Tracy and offered him the holy water, he looked with anxious curiosity to see what manner of man he was. The signs were auspicious. The deportment of the lieutenant-general * Juchereau says that this was his constant attendance when he went abroad. left nothing to desire. A _prie-dieu_ had been placed for him. He declined it. They offered him a cushion, but he would not have it; and, fevered as he was, he knelt on the bare pavement with a devotion that edified every beholder. _Te Deum_ was sung, and a day of rejoicing followed. There was good cause. Canada, it was plain, was not to be wholly abandoned to a trading company. Louis XIV. was resolved that a new France should be added to the old. Soldiers, settlers, horses, sheep, cattle, young women for wives, were all sent out in abundance by his paternal benignity. Before the season was over, about two thousand persons had landed at Quebec at the royal charge. “At length,” writes Mother Juchereau, “our joy was completed by the arrival of two vessels with Monsieur de Courcelle, our governor; Monsieur Talon, our intendant, and the last companies of the regiment of Carignan.” More state and splendor more young nobles, more guards and valets: for Courcelle, too, says the same chronicler, “had a superb train; and Monsieur Talon, who naturally loves glory, forgot nothing which could do honor to the king.” Thus a sunbeam from the court fell for a moment on the rock of Quebec. Yet all was not sunshine; for the voyage had been a tedious one, and disease had broken out in the ships. That which bore Talon had been a hundred and seventeen days at sea, * and others were hardly more fortunate. The hospital was crowded with the sick; so, too, were the church and the neighboring houses; * Talon au ministre, 4 Oct., 1665.