The mortality to which the reverend father alludes was the result of an epidemic which carried off, in 1700, a great number of persons. Old men in particular were stricken, and M. de Bernieres among others fell a victim to the scourge. It is very probable that this affliction was nothing less than the notorious influenza which, in these later years, has cut down so many valuable lives throughout the world. The following years were still more terrible for the town; smallpox carried off one-fourth of the population of Quebec. If we add to these trials the disaster of the two conflagrations which consumed the seminary, we shall have the measure of the troubles which at this period overwhelmed the city of Champlain. The seminary, begun in 1678, had just been barely completed. It was a vast edifice of stone, of grandiose appearance; a sun dial was set above a majestic door of two leaves, the approach to which was a fine stairway of cut stone. "The building," wrote Frontenac in 1679, "is very large and has four storeys, the walls are seven feet thick, the cellars and pantries are vaulted, the lower windows have embrasures, and the roof is of slate brought from France." On November 15th, 1701, the priests of the seminary had taken their pupils to St. Michel, near Sillery, to a country house which belonged to them. About one in the afternoon fire broke out in the seminary buildings. The inhabitants hastened up from all directions to the spot and attempted with the greatest energy to stay the progress of the flames. Idle efforts! The larger and the smaller seminary, the priests' house, the chapel barely completed, were all consumed, with the exception of some furniture and a little plate and tapestry. The cathedral was saved, thanks to the efforts of the state engineer, M. Levasseur de Nere, who succeeded in cutting off the communication of the sacred temple with the buildings in flames. Mgr. de Laval, confined then to a bed of pain, avoided death by escaping half-clad; he accepted for a few days, together with the priests of the seminary, the generous hospitality offered them by the Jesuit Fathers. In order not to be too long a burden to their hosts, they caused to be prepared for their lodgment the episcopal palace which had been begun by Mgr. de Saint-Vallier. They removed there on December 4th following. The scholars had been divided between the episcopal palace and the house of the Jesuits. "The prelate," says Sister Juchereau, "bore this affliction with perfect submission to the will of God, without uttering any complaint. It must have been, however, the more grievous to him since it was he who had planned and erected the seminary, since he was its father and founder, and since he saw ruined in one day the fruit of his labour of many years." Thanks to the generosity of the king, who granted aid to the extent of four thousand francs, it was possible to begin rebuilding at once. But the trials of the priests were not yet over. "On the first day