Immediately after his arrival the grand vicar visited all the religious establishments of the town, and he observed everywhere so much harmony and good spirit that he could not pass it over in silence.  Speaking with admiration of the seminary, he said:  “Every one in it devoted himself to spiritual meditation, with such blessed results that from the youngest cleric to the highest ecclesiastics in holy orders each one brought of his own accord all his personal possessions to be used in common.  It seemed to me then that I saw revived in the Church of Canada something of that spirit of unworldliness which constituted one of the principal beauties of the budding Church of Jerusalem in the time of the apostles.”  The examples of brotherly unity and self-effacement which he admired so much in others he also set himself:  he placed in the library of the seminary a magnificent collection of books which he had brought with him, and deposited in the coffers of the house several thousand francs in money, his personal property.  Braving the rigours of the season, he set out in the winter of 1685 and visited the shore of Beaupre, the Island of Orleans, and then the north shore as far as Montreal.  In the spring he took another direction, and inspected all the missions of Gaspesia and Acadia.  He was so well satisfied with the condition of his diocese that he wrote to Mgr. de Laval:  “All that I regret is that there is no more good for me to do in this Church.”

In the spring of this same year, 1686, a valiant little troop was making a more warlike pastoral visit.  To seventy robust Canadians, commanded by d’Iberville, de Sainte-Helene and de Maricourt, all sons of Charles Le Moyne, the governor had added thirty good soldiers under the orders of MM. de Troyes, Duchesnil and Catalogne, to take part in an expedition for the capture of Hudson Bay from the English.  Setting out on snowshoes, dragging their provisions and equipment on toboggans, then advancing, sometimes on foot, sometimes in bark canoes, they penetrated by the Ottawa River and Temiskaming and Abitibi Lakes as far as James Bay.  They did not brave so many dangers and trials without being resolved to conquer or die; accordingly, in spite of its twelve cannon, Fort Monsipi was quickly carried.  The two forts, Rupert and Ste. Anne, suffered the same fate, and the only one that remained to the English, that named Fort Nelson, was preserved to them solely because its remote situation saved it.  The head of the expedition, M. de Troyes, on his return to Quebec, rendered an account of his successes to M. de Denonville and to a new commissioner, M. de Champigny, who had just replaced M. de Meulles.