To learn the happy results due to the eloquence of MM.  Trouve and de Fenelon engaged in the evangelization of the tribes encamped to the north of Lake Ontario, or to that of MM.  Dollier de Casson and Gallinee preaching on the shores of Lake Erie, one must read the memoirs of the Jesuit Fathers.  We must bear in mind that many facts, which might appear to redound too much to the glory of the missionaries, the modesty of these men refused to give to the public.  We shall give an example.  One day when M. de Fenelon had come down to Quebec, in the summer of 1669, to give account of his efforts to his bishop, Mgr. de Laval begged the missionary to write a short abstract of his labours for the memoirs.  “Monseigneur,” replied humbly the modest Sulpician, “the greatest favour that you can do us is not to allow us to be mentioned.”  Will he, at least, like the traveller who, exhausted by fatigue and privation, reaches finally the promised land, repose in Capuan delights?  Mother Mary of the Incarnation informs us on this point:  “M. l’abbe de Fenelon,” says she, “having wintered with the Iroquois, has paid us a visit.  I asked him how he had been able to subsist, having had only sagamite[5] as sole provision, and pure water to drink.  He replied that he was so accustomed to it that he made no distinction between this food and any other, and that he was about to set out on his return to pass the winter again there with M. de Trouve, having left him only to go and get the wherewithal to pay the Indians who feed them.  The zeal of these great servants of God is admirable.”

The activity and the devotion of the Jesuits and of the Sulpicians might thus make up for lack of numbers, and Mgr. de Laval judged that they were amply sufficient for the task of the holy ministry.  But the intendant, Talon, feared lest the Society of Jesus should become omnipotent in the colony; adopting from policy the famous device of Catherine de Medici, divide to rule, he hoped that an order of mendicant friars would counterbalance the influence of the sons of Loyola, and he brought with him from France, in 1670, Father Allard, Superior of the Recollets in the Province of St. Denis, and four other brothers of the same order.  We must confess that, if a new order of monks was to be established in Canada, it was preferable in all justice to apply to that of St. Francis rather than to any others, for had it not traced the first evangelical furrows in the new field and left glorious memories in the colony?

Mgr. de Laval received from the king in 1671 the following letter: 

     “My Lord Bishop of Petraea: