* Le Roy a Laval, 9 Avril, 1667 (extract in Faillon). ** Ancien règlement du Petit Séminaire de Québec, see Abeille VIII., no. 32. read and write; and for a time a certain number of them received some instruction in Latin. When, in 1686, Saint-Vallier visited the school, he found in all thirty-one boys under the charge of two priests; but the number was afterwards greatly reduced, and the place served, as it still serves, chiefly as a retreat during vacations for the priests and pupils of the seminary of Quebec. A spot better suited for such a purpose cannot be conceived. From the vast meadows of the parish of St. Joachim, that here border the St. Lawrence, there rises like an island a low flat hill, hedged round with forests like the tonsured head of a monk. It was here that Laval planted his school. Across the meadows, a mile or more distant, towers the mountain promontory of Cape Tourmente. You may climb its woody steeps, and from the top, waist-deep in blueberry-bushes, survey, from Kamouraska to Quebec, the grand Canadian world outstretched below; or mount the neighboring heights of St. Anne, where, athwart the gaunt arms of ancient pines, the river lies shimmering in summer haze, the cottages of the _habitants_ are strung like beads of a rosary along the meadows of Beaupré, the shores of Orleans bask in warm light, and far on the horizon the rock of Quebec rests like a faint gray cloud; or traverse the forest till the roar of the torrent guides you to the rocky solitude where it holds its savage revels. High on the cliffs above, young birch-trees stand smiling in the morning sun; while in the abyss beneath the snowy waters plunge from depth to depth, and, half way down, the slender hare-bell hangs from its mossy nook, quivering in the steady thunder of the cataract. Game on the river; trout in lakes, brooks, and pools; wild fruits and flowers on meadows and mountains,--a thousand resources of honest and wholesome recreation here wait the student emancipated from books, but not parted for a moment from the pious influence that hangs about the old walls embosomed in the woods of St. Joachim. Around on plains and hills stand the dwellings of a peaceful peasantry, as different from the restless population of the neighboring states as the denizens of some Norman or Breton village.