Repairing to the Ursuline Convent at Tours, Madame de la Peltrie made choice of three nuns to share with her the bliss of founding a convent at Quebec. The most remarkable of these was the devout Marie de l'Incarnation. At this time the latter was forty years of age, tall, stately, and forceful in appearance, and with a history as romantic as that of Madame de la Peltrie herself. At seventeen she had made an unhappy marriage. Two years later her husband died, and left her with an infant son. She gave the child into the charge of her sister, and devoted herself to solitude and religious meditation. Visions, ecstasies, rapture, and dejection took alternate possession of her mind. Fastings and the severest forms of discipline henceforward made up the melancholy routine of the life of the "holy widow." Love for her child for a long time kept her from taking the veil, but at length, by prayer and fasting, she emancipated herself from this maternal weakness of the flesh, and was rapturously received by the Ursulines of Tours. Yet in spite of the vagaries of her devout mind, Madame de l'Incarnation possessed a singular aptness for practical affairs. Several of her early years had been spent in the house of her brother-in-law, where she had displayed an amazing talent for the ordinary business of life. A knowledge of this trait had doubtless led the Jesuits to press her appointment as Superior of the new Ursuline Convent which Madame de la Peltrie proposed establishing at Quebec. Meanwhile, the Duchesse d'Aiguillon, Richelieu's niece, had also been moved by the pleadings from Quebec, and she determined to found a Hôtel-Dieu. Three nuns of the Hospital were entrusted with this project. The ship bearing Madame de la Peltrie, the three Ursulines, and the three Hospitalières set sail from Dieppe early in May, 1639. The excitement and activity of the outer world must have contrasted strangely with the peacefulness of their quiet cloisters; yet the frail nuns were buoyed up by a marvellous enthusiasm and a noble faith. This faith, however, was destined to be sorely tried. Winds and waves beset them on the way, icebergs struck terror into their spirits, and it was not till the middle of July that the leaking ship came to anchor in the harbour of Tadousac. Thence they proceeded in small boats up the river; and on the 1st of August the welcoming cannon of Fort St. Louis boomed forth, and Quebec was _en fête_ in honour of so notable an arrival.