“We behold new lakes where there never were any; certain mountains engulfed are no longer seen; several rapids have been smoothed out; not a few rivers no longer appear; the earth is cleft in many places, and has opened abysses which seem to have no bottom.  In short, there has been produced such a confusion of woods upturned and buried, that we see now stretches of country of more than a thousand acres wholly denuded, and as if they were freshly ploughed, where a little before there had been but forests.

“Moreover, three circumstances made this earthquake most remarkable.  The first is the time of its duration, since it lasted into the month of August, that is to say, more than six months.  It is true that the shocks were not always so rude; in certain places, for example, towards the mountains at the back of us, the noise and the commotion were long continued; at others, as in the direction of Tadousac, there was a quaking as a rule two or three times a day, accompanied by a great straining, and we noticed that in the higher places the disturbance was less than in the flat districts.

“The second circumstance concerns the extent of this earthquake, which we believe to have been universal throughout New France; for we learn that it was felt from Ile Perce and Gaspe, which are at the mouth of our river, to beyond Montreal, as likewise in New England, in Acadia and other very remote places; so that, knowing that the earthquake occurred throughout an extent of two hundred leagues in length by one hundred in breadth, we have twenty thousand square leagues of land which felt the earthquake on the same day and at the same moment.

“The third circumstance concerns God’s particular protection of our homes, for we see near us great abysses and a prodigious extent of country wholly ruined, without our having lost a child or even a hair of our heads.  We see ourselves surrounded by confusion and ruins, and yet we have had only a few chimneys demolished, while the mountains around us have been overturned.”

From the point of view of conversions and returns to God the results were marvellous.  “One can scarcely believe,” says Mother Mary of the Incarnation, “the great number of conversions that God has brought about, both among infidels who have embraced the faith, and on the part of Christians who have abandoned their evil life.  At the same time as God has shaken the mountains and the marble rocks of these regions, it would seem that He has taken pleasure in shaking consciences.  Days of carnival have been changed into days of penitence and sadness; public prayers, processions and pilgrimages have been continual; fasts on bread and water very frequent; the general confessions more sincere than they would have been in the extremity of sickness.  A single ecclesiastic, who directs the parish of Chateau-Richer, has assured us that he has procured more than eight hundred general confessions, and I leave you to think