the rude settlements on the
St. Lawrence into a body politic--a reflex of feudal France; and of
Colbert, who made available its natural wealth and resources by peopling
it with the best scions of the motherland, the noblesse and peasantry
of Normandy, Brittany, and Aquitaine. There too might be seen the keen,
bold features of Cartier, the first discoverer, and of Champlain, the
first explorer of the new land and the founder of Quebec. The gallant,
restless Louis Buade de Frontenac was pictured there side by side with
his fair countess, called by reason of her surpassing loveliness
"the divine;" Vaudreuil too, who spent a long life of devotion to his
country, and Beauharnais, who nourished its young strength until it was
able to resist not only the powerful confederacy of the Five Nations
but the still more powerful league of New England and the other English
Colonies. There, also, were seen the sharp, intellectual face of Laval,
its first bishop, who organized the Church and education in the
Colony; and of Talon, wisest of intendants, who devoted himself to the
improvement of agriculture, the increase of trade, and the well-being
of all the King's subjects in New France. And one more striking
portrait was there, worthy to rank among the statesmen and rulers of
New France,--the pale, calm, intellectual features of Mere Marie de
l'Incarnation, the first superior of the Ursulines of Quebec, who, in
obedience to heavenly visions, as she believed, left France to found
schools for the children of the new colonists, and who taught her own
womanly graces to her own sex, who were destined to become the future
mothers of New France.

In marked contrast with the military uniforms of the officers
surrounding the council-table were the black robes and tonsured heads
of two or three ecclesiastics, who had been called in by the Governor
to aid the council with their knowledge and advice. There were the
Abbe Metavet, of the Algonquins of the North; Pere Oubal, the Jesuit
missionary of the Abenaquais of the East, and his confrere, La
Richardie, from the wild tribes of the Far West; but conspicuous among
the able and influential missionaries who were the real rulers of the
Indian nations allied with France was the famous Sulpicien, Abbe Piquet,
"the King's missionary," as he was styled in royal ordinances, and the
apostle to the Iroquois, whom he was laboring to convert and bring over
to the side of France in the great dispute raised be