He also wrote at the same time to the general of the order, Goswin
Nickel, acquainting him of the new situation in Canada. On December
17, 1657, the general himself also wrote to Father Brisacier in Latin
as follows: "Father J. de Quen, superior of the Canadian missions, has
written to me on September 20th of this year, that he and his subjects
are being harassed by the Abbé de Queylus, sent out there last summer
by his Eminence the Archbishop of Rouen, to act as his vicar general,
asserting that the marriages celebrated by fathers acting as parish
priests are null; that they are abusing the power and jurisdiction of
the vicar general which they had obtained; that he could dispose of
our men 'ad libitum,' and other things which have no little disturbed
the nascent church. The evil might increase from day to day unless
his Grace the Archbishop, through his zeal and piety, will early look
into the matter. Your Reverence will see whether you can obtain from
him either that the power of this abbé may be revoked or that he shall
so treat with ours that he shall have come to New France not for its
destruction but for its upbuilding." (Arch. Gen., 89.)
The final response to the difficulty came to Quebec on July 11, 1658,
when the letter of Mgr. de Harlay, the archbishop of Rouen, arrived.
"To put an end to the differences," he says, "which have intervened
between the Sieur Abbé de Queylus and the venerable superior of the
Jesuits of the house of Quebec, both our _grands vicaires_ in the
part of our diocese called La Nouvelle France, until it may be more
amply provided for by your authority, we have ordered that Sieur Abbé
de Queylus shall exercise hereafter and from the day of the present
ordinance, the vicariate which we have given him, according to the
powers we have given him, in the extent of the Island of Montreal; as
also the superior of the Jesuits of the house of Quebec shall exercise
_the same powers_ that we have accorded him, without either one or
the other of the two grands vicaires being able to undertake anything
in their different territories without the consent of the one and the
other." This act was made and signed at Paris on March 30, 1658.
It would certainly appear then that Father de Quen's powers had never
been revoked, that Abbé de Queylus had forced the sense of his letters
patent accorded April 22, 1657, since in giving him an extended
jurisdiction he did not revoke previous powers given. There were to be
two independent parallel vicariates under Rouen. In a later letter of
September 3, 1658, of Father de Quen to the general of his order, he
interprets the above as a _confirmation_ of his previous powers, and
not a _new concession_.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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