Nations; henceforth peace was impossible, and the Iroquois went to join the English, with whom, on the pretext of the dethronement of James II, war was again about to break out.  M. de Callieres, governor of Montreal, set out for France to lay before the king a plan for the conquest of New York; the monarch adopted it, but, not daring to trust its execution to M. de Denonville, he recalled him in order to entrust it to Count de Frontenac, now again appointed governor.

We can easily conceive that in the danger thus threatening the colony M. de Denonville should have taken pains to surround himself with all the men whose aid might be valuable to him.  “You will have this year,” wrote M. de Brisacier to M. Glandelet, “the joy of seeing again our two prelates.  You will find the first more holy and more than ever dead to himself; and the second will appear to you all that you can desire him to be for the particular consolation of the seminary and the good of New France.”  On the request of the governor-general, in fact, Mgr. de Laval saw the obstacle disappear which had opposed his departure, and he hastened to take advantage of it.  He set out in the spring of 1688, at that period of the year when vegetation begins to display on all sides its festoons of verdure and flowers, and transforms Normandy and Touraine, that garden of France, into genuine groves; the calm of the air, the perfumed breezes of the south, the arrival of the southern birds with their rich and varied plumage, all contribute to make these days the fairest and sweetest of the year; but, in his desire to reach as soon as possible the country where his presence was deemed necessary, the venerable prelate did not wait for the spring sun to dry the roads soaked by the rains of winter; accordingly, in spite of his infirmities, he was obliged to travel to La Rochelle on horseback.  However, he could not embark on the ship Le Soleil d’Afrique until about the middle of April.

His duties as Bishop of Quebec had ended on January 25th preceding, the day of the episcopal consecration of M. de Saint-Vallier.  It would seem that Providence desired that the priestly career of the prelate and his last co-workers should end at the same time.  Three priests of the Seminary of Quebec went to receive in heaven almost at the same period the reward of their apostolic labours.  M. Thomas Morel died on September 23rd, 1687; M. Jean Guyon on January 10th, 1688; and M. Dudouyt on the fifteenth of the same month.  This last loss, especially, caused deep grief to Mgr. de Laval.  He desired that the heart of the devoted missionary should rest in that soil of New France for which it had always beat, and he brought it with him.  The ceremony of the burial at Quebec of the heart of M. Dudouyt was extremely touching; the whole population was present.  Up to his latest day this priest had taken the greatest interest in Canada, and the letter which he wrote to the seminary a few days before his death breathes the most ardent charity; it particularly enjoined upon all patience and submission to authority.