It was now only a question of obtaining the consent of the king before petitioning the sovereign pontiff for the canonical establishment of the new episcopal authority.  It was not without difficulty that it was obtained, for the prince could not decide to accept the resignation of a prelate who seemed to him indispensable to the interests of New France.  He finally understood that the decision of Mgr. de Laval was irrevocable; as a mark of confidence and esteem he allowed him to choose his successor.

At this period the misunderstanding created between the common father of the faithful and his most Christian Majesty by the claims of the latter in the matter of the right of regale[9] kept the Church in a false position, to the grief of all good Catholics.  Pope Innocent XI waited with persistent and calm firmness until Louis XIV should become again the elder son of the Church; until then France could not exist for him, and more than thirty episcopal sees remained without occupants in the country of Saint Louis and of Joan of Arc.  It was not, then, to be hoped that the appointment by the king of the Abbe de Saint-Vallier as second bishop of Quebec could be immediately sanctioned by the sovereign pontiff.  It was decided that Mgr. de Laval, to whom the king granted an annuity for life of two thousand francs from the revenues of the bishopric of Aire, should remain titular bishop until the consecration of his successor, and that M. de Saint-Vallier, appointed provisionally grand vicar of the prelate, should set out immediately for New France, where he would assume the government of the diocese.  The Abbe de Saint-Vallier had not yet departed before he gave evidence of his munificence, and proved to the faithful of his future bishopric that he would be to them as generous a father as he whom he was about to replace.  By deed of May 10th, 1685, he presented to the Seminary of Quebec a sum of forty-two thousand francs, to be used for the maintenance of missionaries; he bequeathed to it at the same time all the furniture, books, etc., which he should possess at his death.  Laval’s purpose was to remain for the present in France, where he would busy himself actively for the interests of Canada, but his fixed resolve was to go and end his days on that soil of New France which he loved so well.  It was in 1688, only a few months after the official appointment of Saint-Vallier to the bishopric of Quebec, and his consecration on January 25th of the same year, that Laval returned to Canada.

M. de Saint-Vallier embarked at La Rochelle in the beginning of June, 1685, on the royal vessel which was carrying to Canada the new governor-general, M. de Denonville.  The king having permitted him to take with him a score of persons, he made a most judicious choice:  nine ecclesiastics, several school-masters and a few good workmen destined for the labours of the seminary, accompanied him.  The voyage was long and very fatiguing.  The passengers were, however, less tried than those of two other ships which followed them, on one of which more than five hundred soldiers had been crowded together.  As might have been expected, sickness was not long in breaking out among them; more than one hundred and fifty of these unfortunates died, and their bodies were cast into the sea.