One direct effect of the earthquake was to make the ladies form, under the suggestion of Père Chaumonot, the Jesuit, then on a visit to Montreal, and with the co-operation of M. Souart, a pious association under the name of the "Confraternity of the Holy Family." Its formation, on July 31st, was greatly promoted by Madame d'Ailleboust, widow of Louis d'Ailleboust, the former governor general, who, since his death in 1660, had taken up her abode at the Hôtel-Dieu. It was approved in March 1665, by Mgr. Laval. Subsequent associations spread all over Canada for two centuries. The pictures given of the earthquake are most graphically painted by writers of the period, such as those in the "Relations." In the forest the trees were apparently at war, being uprooted and cast against one another, so that the Indians said the forest was intoxicated. The hills and mountains were in the same confusion. Mountains were laid low and the valleys were filled up. The ice beds of the rivers broke up and the water, mingled with mud, poured up in jets on high. The streams quitted their beds or changed the colours of their waters, some yellow, others red; the great St. Lawrence was whitish for eight days. To the affrighted people it seemed that the spirits of darkness and the powers of the air were permitted to league themselves. But there was little loss of life "and the harvest," says Sister Marie de l'Incarnation, "was never more fruitful. There were no sicknesses. You see by this that God only wounds to bless and that his inflictions which we have experienced, are only the chastisement of a good Father." The effects of this earthquake still are visible. From Cape Tourment to Tadoussac there were changes in the contour of the land and of the banks of the St. Lawrence. The picturesque name, Les Eboulements, in the Bay of St. Paul, records the fall of a hill nearby into the river, thus forming the present island. The earthquake spread to New England and the New Netherlands, and similar terrors affected the minds of the people as in Canada. While these warlike physical changes were terrifying Canada, in France the constitution of the bodies governing its temporal law and order were also being overhauled in a more peaceful manner. On February 24th the few remaining rich members of the Company of One Hundred Associates, which had the monopoly of New France since 1626, were constrained, seeing impending dissolution by force, to offer the resignation of their charters, by a renunciation pure and simple. In the March following this was accepted by the king. The colony came at last directly under the crown and happier times were in store for it. Splendid colonizing ideas were being prepared by Louis XIV and Jean Baptiste Colbert, the successor of Mazarin, which if carried out would have prevented the necessity of the cession of 1760. The words of the edict will not surprise our readers. [Illustration: COLBERT]