aithful and his most Christian Majesty by the claims of the latter
in the matter of the right of _regale_[9] kept the Church in a false
position, to the grief of all good Catholics. Pope Innocent XI waited
with persistent and calm firmness until Louis XIV should become again
the elder son of the Church; until then France could not exist for him,
and more than thirty episcopal sees remained without occupants in the
country of Saint Louis and of Joan of Arc. It was not, then, to be hoped
that the appointment by the king of the Abbe de Saint-Vallier as second
bishop of Quebec could be immediately sanctioned by the sovereign
pontiff. It was decided that Mgr. de Laval, to whom the king granted an
annuity for life of two thousand francs from the revenues of the
bishopric of Aire, should remain titular bishop until the consecration
of his successor, and that M. de Saint-Vallier, appointed provisionally
grand vicar of the prelate, should set out immediately for New France,
where he would assume the government of the diocese. The Abbe de
Saint-Vallier had not yet departed before he gave evidence of his
munificence, and proved to the faithful of his future bishopric that he
would be to them as generous a father as he whom he was about to
replace. By deed of May 10th, 1685, he presented to the Seminary of
Quebec a sum of forty-two thousand francs, to be used for the
maintenance of missionaries; he bequeathed to it at the same time all
the furniture, books, etc., which he should possess at his death.
Laval's purpose was to remain for the present in France, where he would
busy himself actively for the interests of Canada, but his fixed resolve
was to go and end his days on that soil of New France which he loved so
well. It was in 1688, only a few months after the official appointment
of Saint-Vallier to the bishopric of Quebec, and his consecration on
January 25th of the same year, that Laval returned to Canada.

M. de Saint-Vallier embarked at La Rochelle in the beginning of June,
1685, on the royal vessel which was carrying to Canada the new
governor-general, M. de Denonville. The king having permitted him to
take with him a score of persons, he made a most judicious choice: nine
ecclesiastics, several school-masters and a few good workmen destined
for the labours of the seminary, accompanied him. The voyage was long
and very fatiguing. The passengers were, however, less tried than those
of two other ships which followed them, on o