Mgr. de Saint-Vallier received the most kindly welcome from the king: he availed himself of it to request some aid on behalf of the priests of the seminary whom age and infirmity condemned to retirement. He obtained it, and received, besides, fifteen thousand francs for the building of an episcopal palace. He decided, in fact, to withdraw from the seminary, in order to preserve complete independence in the exercise of his high duties. Laval learned with sorrow of this decision; he, who had always clung to the idea of union with his seminary and of having but one common fund with this house, beheld his successor adopt an opposite line of conduct. Another cause of division rose between the two prelates; the too great generosity of Mgr. de Saint-Vallier had brought the seminary into financial embarrassment. The Marquis de Seignelay, then minister, thought it wiser under such circumstances to postpone till later the return of Mgr. de Laval to Canada. The venerable bishop, whatever it must have cost him, adhered to this decision with a wholly Christian resignation. "You will know by the enclosed letters," he writes to the priests of the Seminary of Quebec, "what compels me to stay in France. I had no sooner received my sentence than our Lord granted me the favour of inspiring me to go before the most Holy Sacrament and make a sacrifice of all my desires and of that which is the dearest to me in the world. I began by making the _amende honorable_ to the justice of God, who deigned to extend to me the mercy of recognizing that it was in just punishment of my sins and lack of faith that His providence deprived me of the blessing of returning to a place where I had so greatly offended; and I told Him, I think with a cheerful heart and a spirit of humility, what the high priest Eli said when Samuel declared to him from God what was to happen to him: '_Dominus est: quod bonum est in oculis suis faciat_.' But since the will of our Lord does not reject a contrite and humble heart, and since He both abases and exalts, He gave me to know that the greatest favour He could grant me was to give me a share in the trials which He deigned to bear in His life and death for love of us; in thanksgiving for which I said a Te Deum with a heart filled with joy and consolation in my soul: for, as to the lower nature, it is left in the bitterness which it must bear. It is a hurt and a wound which will be difficult to heal and which apparently will last until my death, unless it please Divine Providence, which disposes of men's hearts as it pleases, to bring about some change in the condition of affairs. This will be when it pleases God, and as it may please Him, without His creatures being able to oppose it."