Canada -- History -- To 1763 (New France); Laval, François de, 1623-1708
We can easily conceive that in the danger thus threatening the colony M.
de Denonville should have taken pains to surround himself with all the
men whose aid might be valuable to him. "You will have this year," wrote
M. de Brisacier to M. Glandelet, "the joy of seeing again our two
prelates. You will find the first more holy and more than ever dead to
himself; and the second will appear to you all that you can desire him
to be for the particular consolation of the seminary and the good of New
France." On the request of the governor-general, in fact, Mgr. de Laval
saw the obstacle disappear which had opposed his departure, and he
hastened to take advantage of it. He set out in the spring of 1688, at
that period of the year when vegetation begins to display on all sides
its festoons of verdure and flowers, and transforms Normandy and
Touraine, that garden of France, into genuine groves; the calm of the
air, the perfumed breezes of the south, the arrival of the southern
birds with their rich and varied plumage, all contribute to make these
days the fairest and sweetest of the year; but, in his desire to reach
as soon as possible the country where his presence was deemed necessary,
the venerable prelate did not wait for the spring sun to dry the roads
soaked by the rains of winter; accordingly, in spite of his infirmities,
he was obliged to travel to La Rochelle on horseback. However, he could
not embark on the ship _Le Soleil d'Afrique_ until about the middle of
April.
His duties as Bishop of Quebec had ended on January 25th preceding, the
day of the episcopal consecration of M. de Saint-Vallier. It would seem
that Providence desired that the priestly career of the prelate and his
last co-workers should end at the same time. Three priests of the
Seminary of Quebec went to receive in heaven almost at the same period
the reward of their apostolic labours. M. Thomas Morel died on September
23rd, 1687; M. Jean Guyon on January 10th, 1688; and M. Dudouyt on the
fifteenth of the same month. This last loss, especially, caused deep
grief to Mgr. de Laval. He desired that the heart of the devoted
missionary should rest in that soil of New France for which it had
always beat, and he brought it with him. The ceremony of the burial at
Quebec of the heart of M. Dudouyt was extremely touching; the whole
population was present. Up to his latest day this priest had taken the
greatest interest in Canada, and the letter which he wrote to the
seminary a few days before his death breathes the most ardent charity;
it particularly enjoined upon all patience and submission to authority.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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