ame the county of St. Lawrence.

Mgr. de Laval was too well endowed with qualities of the heart, as well
as with those of the mind, not to have preserved a deep affection for
his family; he did not fail to go and see them twice during his stay in
France. Unhappily, his brother, Jean-Louis, to whom he had yielded all
his rights as eldest son, and his titles to the hereditary lordship of
Montigny and Montbeaudry, caused only grief to his family and to his
wife, Francoise de Chevestre. As lavish as he was violent and
hot-tempered, he reduced by his excesses his numerous family (for he had
had ten children), to such poverty that the Bishop of Quebec had to come
to his aid; besides the assistance which he sent them, the prelate
bought him a house. He extended his protection also to his nephews, and
his brother, Henri de Laval, wrote to him about them as follows: "The
eldest is developing a little; he is in the army with the king, and his
father has given him a good start. I have obtained from my petitions
from Paris a place as monk in the Congregation of the Cross for his
second son, whom I shall try to have reared in the knowledge and fear of
God. I believe that the youngest, who has been sent to you, will have
come to the right place; he is of good promise. My brother desires
greatly that you may have the goodness to give Fanchon the advantage of
an education before sending him back. It is a great charity to these
poor children to give them a little training. You will be a father to
them in this matter." One never applied in vain to the heart of the good
bishop. Two of his nephews owed him their education at the seminary of
Quebec; one of them, Fanchon (Charles-Francois-Guy), after a brilliant
course in theology at Paris, became vicar-general to the Swan of
Cambrai, the illustrious Fenelon, and was later raised to the bishopric
of Ypres.

Meanwhile, four years had elapsed since Mgr. de Laval had left the soil
of Canada, and he did not cease to receive letters which begged him
respectfully to return to his diocese. "Nothing is lacking to animate us
but the presence of our lord bishop," wrote, one day, Father Dablon.
"His absence keeps this country, as it were, in mourning, and makes us
languish in the too long separation from a person so necessary to these
growing churches. He was the soul of them, and the zeal which he showed
on every occasion for the welfare of our Indians drew upon us favours of
Heaven most powerful for