In his zeal for making his episcopal authority respected, could not the prelate, however, have made some concessions to the temporal power?  It is allowable to think so, when his panegyrist, the Abbe Gosselin, acknowledges it in these terms:  “Did he sometimes show too much ardour in the settlement of a question or in the assertion of his rights?  It is possible.  As the Abbe Ferland rightly observes, ’no virtue is perfect upon earth.’  But he was too pious and too disinterested for us to suspect for a moment the purity of his intentions.”  In certain passages in his journal Father Lalemant seems to be of the same opinion.  All men are fallible; even the greatest saints have erred.  In this connection the remark of St. Bernardin of Siena presents itself naturally to the religious mind:  “Each time,” says he, “that God grants to a creature a marked and particular favour, and when divine grace summons him to a special task and to some sublime position, it is a rule of Providence to furnish that creature with all the means necessary to fulfil the mission which is entrusted to him, and to bring it to a happy conclusion.  Providence prepares his birth, directs his education, produces the environment in which he is to live; even his faults Providence will use in the accomplishment of its purposes.”

Difficulties of another sort fixed between the spiritual and the temporal chiefs of the colony a still deeper gulf; they arose from the trade in brandy with the savages.  It had been formerly forbidden by the Sovereign Council, and this measure, urged by the clergy and the missionaries, put a stop to crimes and disorders.  However, for the purpose of gain, certain men infringed this wise prohibition, and Mgr. de Laval, aware of the extensive harm caused by the fatal passion of the Indians for intoxicating liquors, hurled excommunication against all who should carry on the traffic in brandy with the savages.  “It would be very difficult,” writes M. de Latour, “to realize to what an excess these barbarians are carried by drunkenness.  There is no species of madness, of crime or inhumanity to which they do not descend.  The savage, for a glass of brandy, will give even his clothes, his cabin, his wife, his children; a squaw when made drunk—­and this is often done purposely—­will abandon herself to the first comer.  They will tear each other to pieces.  If one enters a cabin whose inmates have just drunk brandy, one will behold with astonishment and horror the father cutting the throat of his son, the son threatening his father; the husband and wife, the best of friends, inflicting murderous blows upon each other, biting each other, tearing out each other’s eyes, noses and ears; they are no longer recognizable, they are madmen; there is perhaps in the world no more vivid picture of hell.  There are often some among them who seek drunkenness in order to avenge themselves upon their enemies, and commit with impunity all sorts of crimes under the pretext of this fine