M. d'Ailleboust was now called upon to act as governor general,
replacing M. de Lauson-Charny _ad interim_, till another was formally
appointed. On arriving M. Queylus, superseding Father Pijart, unwisely
and ambitiously took up the functions of parish priest himself in
the hitherto Jesuit church and remained there for a year. This was
open hostility. He was assisted on occasions by the chaplain of
the Ursulines, M. Guillaume Vignal, and that of the Hôtel-Dieu, M.
Jean Lebey, both secular priests. M. Queylus lived at the château
with the governor general while the Jesuits inhabited the official
presbytery. The position was electrical and there was open hostility.
There were two factions. Occasional interchange of courtesies and
ministry were, however, carried on and a semblance of diplomatic peace
at last arrived at, so that d'Argenson, the new governor general,
writing on September 5, 1658, a year later, says: "I was surprised,
after having heard in France of the little differences between the
reverend Jesuits and M. l'Abbé de Queylus, to see the union between
them and the church entirely at peace." He recommended, however, the
appointment of a bishop as a solution of the difficulty. D'Argenson had
arrived unexpectedly at Quebec on July 11th. He brought over powers to
settle the ecclesiastical "impasse." During the year the Jesuits had
communicated with the archbishop of Rouen, Mgr. de Harlay, and a brief
of March 30, 1656, written in French, arranged that there should be
two "grands vicaires," one for the Quebec district in the person of
the superior of the Jesuits, and M. de Queylus, who should exercise
his jurisdiction in that of Montreal only. This was not communicated
to M. de Queylus till August 8th. He was at first inclined to dispute
the situation, but d'Argenson, assuring him of the cognizance of
the Company of Montreal of this matter, he "peacefully" acquiesced,
departing from Quebec on August 21st with M. and Mme. d'Ailleboust,
whose presence was no longer required there. During his stay in Quebec
M. Queylus founded the church of Ste. Anne de Beaupré, since, the great
Canadian shrine, the scene of many pilgrimages, and in many ways showed
himself a progressive administrator. He was certainly an active man,
with the defects of his qualities.
The explanation of the letter brought by d'Argenson is as follows:
Shortly after the surprise received by the appearance of the Sulpician
vicar general the superior of the Jesuits, Père de Quen wrote to Father
Brisacier, the Jesuit rector of the college at Rouen, to ask him to
enquire of his Grace the Archbishop of Rouen if he had withdrawn his
faculties as vicar general or not.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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