years of his holy life, and his Lordship
having had during all that time a great charity towards me and great
confidence in my care, you cannot doubt that I contracted a great
sympathy, interest and particular attachment for his Lordship." In
another letter he speaks to us of the submission of the venerable bishop
to the commands of the Church. "He did his best," he writes,
"notwithstanding his great age and continual infirmities, to observe all
days of abstinence and fasting, both those which are commanded by Holy
Church and those which are observed from reasons of devotion in the
seminary, and if his Lordship sometimes yielded in this matter to the
command of the physicians and the entreaties of the superiors of the
seminary, who deemed that he ought not to fast, it was a great
mortification for him, and it was only out of especial charity to his
dear seminary and the whole of Canada that he yielded somewhat to nature
in order not to die so soon...."

Never, in spite of his infirmities, would the prelate fail to be present
on Sunday at the cathedral services. When it was impossible for him to
go on foot, he had himself carried. His only outings towards the end of
his life consisted in his visits to the cathedral or in short walks
along the paths of his garden. Whenever his health permitted, he loved
to be present at the funerals of those who died in the town; those
consolations which he deigned to give to the afflicted families bear
witness to the goodness of his heart. "It was something admirable," says
Houssart, "to see, firstly, his assiduity in being present at the burial
of all who died in Quebec, and his promptness in offering the holy
sacrifice of the mass for the repose of their souls, as soon as he had
learned of their decease; secondly, his devotion in receiving and
preserving the blessed palms, in kissing his crucifix, the image of the
Holy Virgin, which he carried always upon him, and placed at nights
under his pillow, his badge of servitude and his scapulary which he
carried also upon him; thirdly, his respect and veneration for the
relics of the saints, the pleasure which he took in reading every day in
the _Lives of the Saints_, and in conversing of their heroic deeds;
fourthly, the holy and constant use which he made of holy water, taking
it wherever he might be in the course of the day and every time he awoke
in the night, coming very often from his garden to his room expressly to
take it, carrying i