rly one hundred and
sixty parishes, were particularly heavy, yet the young priest fulfilled
them for seven years, and M. de la Colombiere explains to us how he
acquitted himself of them: "The regularity of his visits, the fervour of
his enthusiasm, the improvement and the good order which he established
in the parishes, the relief of the poor, his interest in all sorts of
charity, none of which escaped his notice: all this showed well that
without being a bishop he had the ability and merit of one, and that
there was no service which the Church might not expect from so great a
subject."

But our future Bishop of New France aspired to more glorious fields. One
of those zealous apostles who were evangelizing India at this period,
Father Alexander of Rhodes, asked from the sovereign pontiff the
appointment for Asia of three French bishops, and submitted to the Holy
See the names of MM. Pallu, Picquet and Laval. There was no question of
hesitation. All three set out immediately for Rome. They remained there
fifteen months; the opposition of the Portuguese court caused the
failure of this plan, and Francois de Laval returned to France. He had
resigned the office of archdeacon the year before, 1653, in favour of a
man of tried virtue, who had been, nevertheless, a prey to calumny and
persecution, the Abbe Henri-Marie Boudon; thus freed from all
responsibility, Laval could satisfy his desire of preparing himself by
prayer for the designs which God might have for him.

In his desire of attaining the greatest possible perfection, he betook
himself to Caen, to the religious retreat of M. de Bernieres. St.
Vincent de Paul, who had trained M. Olier, was desirous also that his
pupil, before going to find a field for his apostolic zeal among the
people of Auvergne, should prepare himself by earnest meditation in
retirement at St. Lazare. "Silence and introspection seemed to St.
Vincent," says M. de Lanjuere, the author of the life of M. Olier, "the
first conditions of success, preceding any serious enterprise. He had
not learned this from Pythagoras or the Greek philosophers, who were,
indeed, so careful to prescribe for their disciples a long period of
meditation before initiation into their systems, nor even from the
experience of all superior men, who, in order to ripen a great plan or
to evolve a great thought, have always felt the need of isolation in the
nobler acceptance of the word; but he had this maxim from the very
examp