the report of the good they will have seen among the Christian people of Quebec.

We have also thought of setting apart some for the study of new languages. We were considering three other languages, of Peoples that are nearest to us,- that of the Algonquains, scattered on all sides, both to the South and to the North of our great Lake; that of the neutral Nation, which is a main gateway for the Southern tribes; that of the Nation of the Stinkards, 14 which is one of the most important openings for the Western tribes, and somewhat more for the Northern. But we have not yet found ourselves strong enough to keep our acquisitions, and at the same time to dream of so many new conquests; so we have judged it wiser to defer the execution of this plan for [24] some time longer, and to content ourselves, meanwhile, with seizing the opportunity that God has sent to our doors,—that of entering a nation of the Neutral language through the arrival in this country of the Weanohronons, 15 who have taken refuge here, as we shall relate hereafter, and who formed one of the Nations allied with the neutral Nation.

We have the more readily given up the idea of applying ourselves to the Algonquain language, that our Fathers at Quebec and the three rivers are studying it diligently. We hope to get some brave worker from that quarter, who will come here to break the ice and give us entrance and opportunity among these tribes who are around us, who are familiar with no other language but the Algonquin. May it please his divine Majesty to give his blessing to all these ideas and enterprises.

NOTES TO VOL. XVI

(Figures in parentheses, following number of note, refer to pages of English text.)

1 (p. 9).— For sketch of the duchess d'Aiguillon, see vol. viii., note 62.

2 (p. 9).— This order of Hospital Nuns (vol. viii., note 64) was one of the oldest of the hospital orders in France. Laroche-Héron, in Servantes de Dieu en Canada (Montreal, 1855), p. 17, says: "The mother-house in Dieppe existed in France before the year 1250." De Launay states that the order was reformed and reëstablished in 1609, receiving its revised constitution in 1636.- Religieuses Hospitalières de Saint-Joseph (Paris, 1887), p. 79. Le Jeune says (vol. vii. of this series, pp. 287, 289) that the Dieppe hospital was one of the best regulated in Europe;" and he quotes a letter from its superior, describing the character and death of a little Indian girl placed under her care by Le Jeune in 1634. The nuns who founded the hospital at Quebec, as related in our text, were the following: Marie Guenet de St. Ignace (superior), aged 29; Anne le Cointre de St. Bernard, aged 28; and Marie Forestier de St. Bonaventure, aged 22. The duchess d'Aiguillon gave (Aug. 16, 1637), to establish the Quebec Hotel-Dieu, the sum of 22,400 livres; and again (Jan. 31, 1640), for its enlargement, 40, 500 livres. For historical sketch of this hospital, see Laroche-Héron, ut supra.

3 (p. 11). According to Littré, the term " election" was in olden times applied to the courts of first instance in which were decided all matters pertaining to taxes, levies, and excise; also to the district under the jurisdiction of each court. The judges of such court were termed "the elect," because they were originally chosen by election, for the duty of imposing taxes.

4 (p. 13).— Marie Guyard was born at Tours, France, Oct. 28, 1599; her father was either a dealer in or a manufacturer of silk, her mother the descendant of a noble family. At the age of eighteen, she married (though only in obedience to her parents) Claude Martin, a silk manufacturer of Tours, who died Oct. 19, 1619,- leaving to his widow a son (born in the preceding April), and but the fragments of his fortune, which had been, shortly before his death, swept away by unexpected reverses. Inclined to the religious life

from her earliest childhood, she now not only refused to marry again, but resolved to become a nun. Love for her child long hindered her from this step; but finally (1632) she placed him in her sister's charge, and entered the Ursuline convent at Tours, where she made profession Jan. 25, 1633, under the name of Marie of the Incarnation. Some time during the following year, it would seem, she had a vision of a strange and distant country, in which the Virgin and Christ appointed her to labor; this was fulfilled, as she thought, when Madame de la Peltrie (vol. xi., note 4) invited her to take charge of the Ursuline house that she was about to establish in Canada. Another nun was appointed from the convent at Tours,— Marie de Savonnière de St. Joseph, aged 23; a third, Cécile Richer de la Croix, aged 30, was obtained from the Ursulines of Dieppe; and a young girl of nineteen, Charlotte Barré, accompanied them, who after her arrival in Canada took the veil, under the name of Mother St. Ignace. All these Ursulines, with the Hospital Nuns (note 2, ante) and several Jesuit missionaries, arrived at Quebec Aug. 1, 1639. The Ursulines were temporarily lodged in a small house near the river-bank; but in 1641 they removed to their own convent, built upon the site still occupied by them. These nuns have maintained, since their foundation, a school for girls, not only for French and Canadians, but for Indians—these last being for many years the especial objects of their care. For historical sketches of this convent, see Baunard's Vie de Marie de l'Incarnation, pp. 499-506; and Laroche-Héron's Servantes de Dieu. Marie of the Incarnation remained superior of this house until her death (Apr. 30, 1672), ruling it, amid many financial and other embarrassments, with great energy and wisdom, and winning the admiration and regard of all. Parkman says of her (Jesuits, p. 186): "She carried on a vast correspondence, embracing every one in France who could aid her infant community with money or influence; she harmonized and regulated it with excellent skill; and, in the midst of relentless austerities, she was loved as a mother by her pupils and dependents." Though a woman of ardent zeal and enthusiasm, she possessed great resolution, fortitude, and perseverance, and was gifted with unusual executive ability. She had also a talent for languages, and is said to have left an Algonkin dictionary, and numerous other MSS. in that tongue; these have disappeared, and it is supposed that they were destroyed with the convent, in the fire of 1686. Her correspondence, however, furnished material for Lettres spirituelles et historiques, collected by her son, and published in 1681; a new and enlarged edition has been published by Richaudeau (Tournai, 1876). A catechism (in French), written by her, was published by her son, in 1684; a third edition appeared at Tournai in 1878.

This son, Claude Martin, became a Benedictine priest, making his profession Feb. 3, 1642. He was a man of great talent and piety, and occupied many important and responsible positions in his order, being finally appointed (1668) an assistant to the Father General. He died at Marmoutiers, Aug. 9, 1696, leaving numerous religious works (mostly in MS.), notable among which is a biography of his mother (Paris, 1677). Other lives of this noted woman are those of Charlevoix (Paris, 1724), Casgrain (Quebec, 1864), Richaudeau (Paris, 1873; Tournai, 1874), Chapot (Paris, 1892), and Baunard (Paris, 1893). Marie was characterized by Bossuet as the "Theresa of her century and of the New World." She received beatification, by papal decree, in 1877.

5 (p. 17).- Roy says (Canada-Français, vol. ii., p. 448): "The country of Canada, considered as a prolongation of France on the other side of the Atlantic, was in some sort annexed to the province of Normandy. It was to the parliament of Rouen that belonged jurisdiction in the earlier legal matters concerning the colony; and it was from the archbishop of Rouen that the missionaries requested their credentials before embarkation. That prelate, regarding this land as a natural extension of his ecclesiastical domain, named its grand vicars."-Cf. Biard's argument as to ownership by France of lands across the sea (vol. iv. of this series, p. 109); also, concerning the appointment of grand vicars, Journ. des Jésuites, pp. 185–187. There were many other ties between New France and Normandy. From the latter province had come the majority of Canada's early settlers; and it was the merchants of Rouen and Dieppe who had the most important commercial interests in New France. The offices of the Hundred Associates were established at Rouen; and the parliament of that city was, for a time, charged by the king with jurisdiction over the colonies. As for religious affairs, they were at first ordered directly from Rome; later, the archbishop of Rouen practically became the spiritual head of the Canadian colony,— the missionaries (many of whom came from his diocese), and probably the secular priests as well, applying to him for grant or confirmation of their spiritual authority therein. Rochemonteix says (Jésuites, vol. ii., p. 203): "Thus the archbishop of Rouen, Primate of Normandy, became accustomed, little by little, to regard Canada as an integral part of his domain. It was Mgr. de Harlay, who exercised the first act of authority over New France; and his successor went so far as to maintain that the mere fact that he had sent to Canada priests of his diocese, placed that country under his authority." This claim was the beginning (1647) of a conflict for ecclesiastical supremacy in Canada, which was finally ended only by the peremptory recall to France (1659), by a royal lettre du cachet,