frank resignation; finally, all the great
virtues which I see him practise every day in the seminary where I
sojourn with him, would well deserve here a most hearty eulogy, but his
modesty imposes silence upon me, and the veneration in which he is held
wherever he is known is praise more worthy than I could give him...."

Mgr. de Saint-Vallier left Quebec for France on November 18th, 1686,
only a few days after a fire which consumed the Convent of the
Ursulines; the poor nuns, who had not been able to snatch anything from
the flames, had to accept, until the re-construction of their convent,
the generous shelter offered them by the hospitable ladies of the
Hotel-Dieu. Mgr. de Saint-Vallier did not disembark at the port of La
Rochelle until forty-five days after his departure, for this voyage was
one continuous storm.

FOOTNOTES:

[9] A right, belonging formerly to the kings of France, of enjoying the
revenues of vacant bishoprics.

CHAPTER XV

MGR. DE LAVAL COMES FOR THE LAST TIME
TO CANADA

Mgr. de Saint-Vallier received the most kindly welcome from the king: he
availed himself of it to request some aid on behalf of the priests of
the seminary whom age and infirmity condemned to retirement. He obtained
it, and received, besides, fifteen thousand francs for the building of
an episcopal palace. He decided, in fact, to withdraw from the seminary,
in order to preserve complete independence in the exercise of his high
duties. Laval learned with sorrow of this decision; he, who had always
clung to the idea of union with his seminary and of having but one
common fund with this house, beheld his successor adopt an opposite line
of conduct. Another cause of division rose between the two prelates; the
too great generosity of Mgr. de Saint-Vallier had brought the seminary
into financial embarrassment. The Marquis de Seignelay, then minister,
thought it wiser under such circumstances to postpone till later the
return of Mgr. de Laval to Canada. The venerable bishop, whatever it
must have cost him, adhered to this decision with a wholly Christian
resignation. "You will know by the enclosed letters," he writes to the
priests of the Seminary of Quebec, "what compels me to stay in France. I
had no sooner received my sentence than our Lord granted me the favour
of inspiring me to go before the most Holy Sacrament and make a
sacrifice of all my desires and of that which is the dearest to me in
the world. I began by maki