Mortification diminished in no wise the activity of the prelate; learning that the Seminary of Foreign Missions at Paris, that nursery of apostles, had just been definitely established (1663), he considered it his duty to establish his own more firmly by affiliating it with that of the French capital.  “I have learned with joy,” wrote he, “of the establishment of your Seminary of Foreign Missions, and that the gales and tempests by which it has been tossed since the beginning have but served to render it firmer and more unassailable.  I cannot sufficiently praise your zeal, which, unable to confine itself to the limits and frontiers of France, seeks to spread throughout the world, and to pass beyond the seas into the most remote regions; considering which, I have thought I could not compass a greater good for our young Church, nor one more to the glory of God and the welfare of the peoples whom God has entrusted to our guidance, than by contributing to the establishment of one of your branches in Quebec, the place of our residence, where you will be like the light set upon the candlestick, to illumine all these regions by your holy doctrine and the example of your virtue.  Since you are the torch of foreign countries, it is only reasonable that there should be no quarter of the globe uninfluenced by your charity and zeal.  I hope that our Church will be one of the first to possess this good fortune, the more since it has already a part of what you hold most dear.  Come then, and be welcome; we shall receive you with joy.  You will find a lodging prepared and a fund sufficient to set up a small establishment, which I hope will continue to grow....”  The act of union was signed in 1665, and was renewed ten years later with the royal assent.

Thanks to the generosity of Mgr. de Laval and of the first directors of the seminary, building and acquisition of land was begun.  There was erected in 1668 a large wooden dwelling, which was in some sort an extension of the episcopal and parochial residence.  It was destroyed in 1701, with the vicarage, in the conflagration which overwhelmed the whole seminary.  Subsequently, there was purchased a site of sixteen acres adjoining the parochial church, upon which was erected the house of Madame Couillard.  This house, in which lodged in 1668 the first pupils of the smaller seminary, was replaced in 1678 by a stone edifice, large enough to shelter all the pupils of both the seminaries.  The seigniory of Beaupre was also acquired, which with remarkable foresight the bishop exchanged for the Ile Jesus.  “It was prudent,” remarks the Abbe Gosselin, “not to have all the property in the same place; when the seasons are bad in one part of the country they may be prosperous elsewhere; and having thus sources of revenue in different places, one is more likely never to find them entirely lacking.”

The smaller seminary dates only from the year 1668.  Up to this time the large seminary alone existed; of the five ecclesiastics who were its inmates in 1663, Louis Joliet abandoned the priestly career.  It was he who, impelled by his adventurous instincts, sought out, together with Father Marquette, the mouth of the Mississippi.