Although this foregoing period is somewhat lengthy and a little obscure, so weighty with meaning is it, we have been anxious to quote it, first, because it is an official document, and because it came from the very pen of him whose life we are studying; and, secondly, because it shows that at this period serious reading, such as Cicero, Quintilian, and the Fathers of the Church, formed the mental pabulum of the people.  In our days the beauty of a sentence is less sought after than its clearness and conciseness.

It may be well to add here the Abbe Gosselin’s explanation of this mandement:  “Three principal works are due to this document as the glorious inheritance of the seminary of Quebec.  In the first place we have the natural work of any seminary, the training of ecclesiastics and the preparation of the clergy for priestly virtues.  In the next place we have the creation of the chapter, which the Bishop of Petraea always considered important in a well organized diocese; it was his desire to find the elements of this chapter in his seminary, when the king should have provided for its endowment, or when the seminary itself could bear the expense.  Finally, there is that which in the mind of Mgr. de Laval was the supreme work of the seminary, its vital task:  the seminary was to be not only a perpetual school of virtue, but also a place of supply on which he might draw for the persons needed in the administration of his diocese, and to which he might send them back when he should think best.  All livings are connected with the seminary, but they are all transferable.  The prelate here puts clearly and categorically the question of the transfer of livings.  In his measures there is neither hesitation nor circumlocution.  He does not seek to deceive the sovereign to whom he is about to submit his regulation.  For him, in the present condition of New France, there can be no question of fixed livings; the priests must be by right removable, and subject to recall at the will of the bishop; and, as is fitting in a prelate worthy of the primitive Church, he always lays stress in his commands on the holy practice of the early centuries.  The question was clearly put.  It was as clearly understood by the sovereign, who approved some days later of the regulation of Mgr. de Laval.”

It was in the month of April, 1663, that the worthy prelate had obtained the royal approval of the establishment of his seminary; it was on October 10th of the same year that he had it registered by the Sovereign Council.

A great difficulty arose:  the missionaries, besides the help that they had obtained from the Company of the Cent-Associes, derived their resources from Europe; but how was the new secular clergy to be supported, totally lacking as it was in endowment and revenue?  Mgr. de Laval resolved to employ the means adopted long ago by Charlemagne to assure the maintenance of the Frankish clergy:  that of tithes or dues