gales
and tempests by which it has been tossed since the beginning have but
served to render it firmer and more unassailable. I cannot sufficiently
praise your zeal, which, unable to confine itself to the limits and
frontiers of France, seeks to spread throughout the world, and to pass
beyond the seas into the most remote regions; considering which, I have
thought I could not compass a greater good for our young Church, nor one
more to the glory of God and the welfare of the peoples whom God has
entrusted to our guidance, than by contributing to the establishment of
one of your branches in Quebec, the place of our residence, where you
will be like the light set upon the candlestick, to illumine all these
regions by your holy doctrine and the example of your virtue. Since you
are the torch of foreign countries, it is only reasonable that there
should be no quarter of the globe uninfluenced by your charity and
zeal. I hope that our Church will be one of the first to possess this
good fortune, the more since it has already a part of what you hold most
dear. Come then, and be welcome; we shall receive you with joy. You will
find a lodging prepared and a fund sufficient to set up a small
establishment, which I hope will continue to grow...." The act of union
was signed in 1665, and was renewed ten years later with the royal
assent.

Thanks to the generosity of Mgr. de Laval and of the first directors of
the seminary, building and acquisition of land was begun. There was
erected in 1668 a large wooden dwelling, which was in some sort an
extension of the episcopal and parochial residence. It was destroyed in
1701, with the vicarage, in the conflagration which overwhelmed the
whole seminary. Subsequently, there was purchased a site of sixteen
acres adjoining the parochial church, upon which was erected the house
of Madame Couillard. This house, in which lodged in 1668 the first
pupils of the smaller seminary, was replaced in 1678 by a stone edifice,
large enough to shelter all the pupils of both the seminaries. The
seigniory of Beaupre was also acquired, which with remarkable foresight
the bishop exchanged for the Ile Jesus. "It was prudent," remarks the
Abbe Gosselin, "not to have all the property in the same place; when the
seasons are bad in one part of the country they may be prosperous
elsewhere; and having thus sources of revenue in different places, one
is more likely never to find them entirely lacking."

The smaller