r and fasting, she emancipated herself from this
maternal weakness of the flesh, and was rapturously received by the
Ursulines of Tours. Yet in spite of the vagaries of her devout mind,
Madame de l'Incarnation possessed a singular aptness for practical
affairs. Several of her early years had been spent in the house of her
brother-in-law, where she had displayed an amazing talent for the
ordinary business of life. A knowledge of this trait had doubtless led
the Jesuits to press her appointment as Superior of the new Ursuline
Convent which Madame de la Peltrie proposed establishing at Quebec.
Meanwhile, the Duchesse d'Aiguillon, Richelieu's niece, had also been
moved by the pleadings from Quebec, and she determined to found a
Hotel-Dieu. Three nuns of the Hospital were entrusted with this
project.

The ship bearing Madame de la Peltrie, the three Ursulines, and the
three Hospitalieres set sail from Dieppe early in May, 1639. The
excitement and activity of the outer world must have contrasted
strangely with the peacefulness of their quiet cloisters; yet the
frail nuns were buoyed up by a marvellous enthusiasm and a noble
faith. This faith, however, was destined to be sorely tried. Winds and
waves beset them on the way, icebergs struck terror into their
spirits, and it was not till the middle of July that the leaking ship
came to anchor in the harbour of Tadousac. Thence they proceeded in
small boats up the river; and on the 1st of August the welcoming
cannon of Fort St. Louis boomed forth, and Quebec was _en fete_ in
honour of so notable an arrival.

Pending the erection of a suitable building at Quebec, the nuns of the
Hospital established themselves at the mission palisade of Sillery,
and the Ursulines began their work in the small wooden structure on
the river's brink below the rock. An outbreak of smallpox among the
Indians soon over-crowded their wretched tenement, and infected
savages came thither only to die. Worn out with labour, the
indefatigable nuns continued bravely to contend with the disease and
suffering around them, and the monuments of their high endurance and
beautiful devotion are to be found to-day in the ivy-clad cloisters in
Garden Street, where the gentle Ursulines still minister to the
maidens of French Canada; and in the pretentious hospital on Palace
Hill where nuns still care tenderly for the sick and dying, and read
the inspiring history of their order back to 1639.

About the middle of the