ionaries, to gather at Montreal more than twelve hundred Indian
chiefs or warriors, and to conclude peace with almost all the tribes.
Chief Kondiaronk had become a faithful friend of the French; it was to
his good-will and influence that they were indebted for the friendship
of a large number of Indian tribes. He died at Montreal during these
peaceful festivities and was buried with pomp.

The war was about to break out anew, in 1701, with Great Britain and the
other nations of Europe, because Louis XIV had accepted for his grandson
and successor the throne of Spain. M. de Callieres died at this
juncture; his successor, Philippe de Rigaud, Marquis de Vaudreuil,
brought the greatest energy to the support in Canada of a struggle which
was to end in the dismemberment of the colony. God permitted Mgr. de
Laval to die before the Treaty of Utrecht, whose conditions would have
torn the patriotic heart of the venerable prelate.

Other reasons for sorrow he did not lack, especially when Mgr. de
Saint-Vallier succeeded, on his visit to the king in 1691, in obtaining
a reversal of the policy marked out for the seminary by the first bishop
of the colony; this establishment would be in the future only a seminary
like any other, and would have no other mission than that of the
training of priests. By a decree of the council of February 2nd, 1692,
the number of the directors of the seminary was reduced to five, who
were to concern themselves principally with the training of young men
who might have a vocation for the ecclesiastical life; they might also
devote themselves to missions, with the consent of the bishop. No
ecclesiastic had the right of becoming an associate of the seminary
without the permission of the bishop, within whose province it was to
employ the former associates for the service of his diocese with the
consent of the superiors. The last part of the decree provided that the
four thousand francs given by the king for the diocese of Quebec should
be distributed in equal portions, one for the seminary and the two
others for the priests and the church buildings. As to the permanence of
priests, the decree issued by the king for the whole kingdom was to be
adhered to in Canada. In the course of the same year Mgr. de
Saint-Vallier obtained, moreover, from the sovereign the authority to
open at Quebec in Notre-Dame des Anges, the former convent of the
Recollets, a general hospital for the poor, which was entrusted to the
n