The Life of Venerable Sister Margaret BourgeoisAnonymous
History
The Life of Venerable Sister Margaret Bourgeois
Anonymous
Bourgeoys, Marguerite, Saint, 1620-1700
Mme. de Champigni, wife of the Governor of Quebec, bore testimony to the
virtues of the deceased as follows: "Perhaps no one feels so afflicted
as I, at the death of Sister Bourgeois. For you, her daughters, your
consolation must be great indeed, knowing that you have a saint praying
for your community, in heaven. I shall keep with religious respect the
three beads of her rosary you were good enough to send me."
But the renown of her virtues was not confined to Canada alone. There
were in France also many distinguished persons who knew her merit, among
others M. Gabriel Souart, who, as we have seen, was sent to Canada in
1657, by M. Olier, and who returned to France in 1680, on account of
failing health. This gentleman was an eye-witness of the labors of the
illustrious dead, during the first struggling years of Montreal, and
often spoke of the wonders she accomplished to M. de Turmenie the King's
minister. Once, during the war between France and England, that raged so
fiercely in the year 1688, these two gentlemen were conversing on the
probable result of the bloody struggle. M. de Turmenie expressed his
well-grounded fear that Canada would eventually fall into the hands of
the English. M. Souart, on the contrary, said he did not fear the issue,
as he had unbounded confidence in God, and the prayers of Sister
Bourgeois, whom he familiarly styled the little St. Genevieve of Canada,
and hoped through the efficacy of her prayers, that no evil would befall
either the country or the Church. Canada was miraculously preserved at
this time from the bristling guns of a formidable English fleet, as we
read in history. M. de Turmenie wrote this conversation to the holy
Foundress in a letter dated Paris, March 20th, 1691, and concluded with
the following remark: "Your friend pronounced these words at my house a
few days before his death. I do not relate them to you in order to
excite your vanity, from which may God preserve you, but to let you know
by his last words, the esteem and affection that holy man had for you."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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