the bells for mass, which he said, half an hour
later, especially for the poor workmen, who began their day by this
pious exercise.

His thanksgiving after the holy sacrifice lasted till seven o'clock, and
yet, even in the greatest cold of the severe Canadian winter, he had
nothing to warm his frozen limbs but the brazier which he had used to
celebrate the mass. A good part of his day, and often of the night, when
his sufferings deprived him of sleep, was also devoted to prayer or
spiritual reading, and nothing was more edifying than to see the pious
octogenarian telling his beads or reciting his breviary while walking
slowly through the paths of his garden. He was the first up and the last
to retire, and whatever had been his occupations during the day, never
did he lie down without having scrupulously observed all the spiritual
offices, readings or reciting of beads. It was not, however, that his
food gave him a superabundance of physical vigour, for the Trappists did
not eat more frugally than he. A soup, which he purposely spoiled by
diluting it amply with hot water, a little meat and a crust of very dry
bread composed his ordinary fare, and dessert, even on feast days, was
absolutely banished from his table. "For his ordinary drink," says
Brother Houssart, "he took only hot water slightly flavoured with wine;
and every one knows that his Lordship never took either cordial or
dainty wines, or any mixture of sweets of any sort whatever, whether to
drink or to eat, except that in his last years I succeeded in making him
take every evening after his broth, which was his whole supper, a piece
of biscuit as large as one's thumb, in a little wine, to aid him to
sleep. I may say without exaggeration that his whole life was one
continual fast, for he took no breakfast, and every evening only a
slight collation.... He used his whole substance in alms and pious
works; and when he needed anything, such as clothes, linen, etc., he
asked it from the seminary like the humblest of his ecclesiastics. He
was most modest in matters of dress, and I had great difficulty in
preventing him from wearing his clothes when they were old, dirty and
mended. During twenty years he had but two winter cassocks, which he
left behind him on his death, the one still quite good, the other all
threadbare and mended. To be brief, there was no one in the seminary
poorer in dress...." Mgr. de Laval set an example of the principal
virtues which distinguis