riod in
which he lived: governors like Frontenac were only too anxious to
imitate their absolute master, whose guiding maxim was, "I am the
state!" Moreover, where are the men of true worth who have not found
upon their path the poisoned fruits of hatred? The so-called praise that
is sometimes applied to a man, when we say of him, "he has not a single
enemy," seems to us, on the contrary, a certificate of insignificance
and obscurity. The figure of this great servant of God is one of those
which shed the most glory on the history of Canada; the age of Louis
XIV, so marvellous in the number of great men which it gave to France,
lavished them also upon her daughter of the new continent--Brebeuf and
Lalemant, de Maisonneuve, Dollard, Laval, Talon, de la Salle, Frontenac,
d'Iberville, de Maricourt, de Sainte-Helene, and many others.

"Noble as a Montmorency" says a well-known adage. The founder of that
illustrious line, Bouchard, Lord of Montmorency, figures as early as 950
A.D. among the great vassals of the kingdom of France. The
heads of this house bore formerly the titles of First Christian Barons
and of First Barons of France; it became allied to several royal houses,
and gave to the elder daughter of the Church several cardinals, six
constables, twelve marshals, four admirals, and a great number of
distinguished generals and statesmen. Sprung from this family, whose
origin is lost in the night of time, Francois de Laval-Montmorency was
born at Montigny-sur-Avre, in the department of Eure-et-Loir, on April
30th, 1623. This charming village, which still exists, was part of the
important diocese of Chartres. Through his father, Hugues de Laval,
Seigneur of Montigny, Montbeaudry, Alaincourt and Revercourt, the future
Bishop of Quebec traced his descent from Count Guy de Laval, younger son
of the constable Mathieu de Montmorency, and through his mother,
Michelle de Pericard, he belonged to a family of hereditary officers of
the Crown, which was well-known in Normandy, and gave to the Church a
goodly number of prelates.

Like St. Louis, one of the protectors of his ancestors, the young
Francois was indebted to his mother for lessons and examples of piety
and of charity which he never forgot. Virtue, moreover, was as natural
to the Lavals as bravery on the field of battle, and whether it were in
the retinue of Clovis, when the First Barons received the regenerating
water of baptism, or on the immortal plain of Bouvines; whe