of Tadousac; from these funds, which were distributed by the
seminary until 1692, and after this date by the bishop alone, two
thousand francs were to be set aside for priests prevented by illness or
old age from fulfilling the duties of the holy ministry, and twelve
hundred francs were to be employed in the erection of parochial
churches. This aid came aptly, but was not sufficient, as Commissioner
de Beauharnois himself admits. And yet the deplorable state in which the
treasury of France then was, on account of the enormous expenses
indulged in by Louis XIV, and especially in consequence of the wars
which he waged against Europe, obliged him to diminish this allowance.
In 1707 it was reduced by half.

It was feared for a time by the Sulpicians that the edict of 1679 might
injure the rights which they had acquired from the union with their
seminary of the parishes established on the Island of Montreal, and they
therefore hastened to request from the king the civil confirmation of
this canonical union. "There is," they said in their request, "a sort of
need that the parishes of the Island of Montreal and of the surrounding
parts should be connected with a community able to furnish them with
priests, who could not otherwise be found in the country, to administer
the said livings; these priests would not expose themselves to a sea
voyage and to leaving their family comforts to go and sacrifice
themselves in a wild country, if they did not hope that in their
infirmity or old age they would be free to withdraw from the laborious
administration of the parishes, and that they would find a refuge in
which to end their days in tranquillity in a community which, on its
part, would not pledge itself in such a way as to afford them the hope
of this refuge, and to furnish other priests in their place, if it had
not the free control of the said parishes and power to distribute among
them the ecclesiastics belonging to its body whom it might judge capable
of this, and withdraw or exchange them when fitting." The request of the
Sulpicians was granted by the king.

It was not until 1680 that the Bishop of Quebec could return to Canada.
The all-important questions of the permanence of livings and of the
traffic in brandy were not the only ones which kept him in France;
another difficulty, that of the dependence of his diocese, demanded of
his devotion a great many efforts at the court. The circumstances were
difficult. France was plung