The White and the Gold (38 page)

It was an unusual step to put the affairs of a frontier town in the hands of a religious organization, but those responsible for the move had shown a high degree of imagination as well as sound judgment. The Sulpicians were secular priests and without exception gentlemen of property. Anyone who eschews the advantages of living comfortably on inherited wealth and joins an order where he dons the white rabat of the parish priest and devotes all his time to the service of the people who lack the privileges he could be enjoying is certain, in the first place, to be of a high heart. He must have courage and resolution and, above all, a sense of imagination.
Les Messieurs de St. Sulpice
, as they were called, were not driven by fanaticism nor filled with gloom and doubts. They walked in the sunshine. They considered the service of mankind a joyous mission.
As their funds were ample, they were in a rare position to do much good.

But the transfer of Montreal Island to the Sulpicians, which was not completed until four years later, was not to be brought about without difficulty. The first contingent, consisting of four members, reached New France late in the summer of 1657, having been delayed by the death of the founder of the seminary, Monsieur Olier. They found themselves involved at once in a sharp flare-up of the strained feelings between Quebec and Montreal. There had been a growing realization of the need for a permanent head of the Church in Canada. As the vows of the Jesuits precluded any of them from accepting a bishopric, it occurred to the messieurs of the seminary that one of their number might reasonably be selected. They moved quickly to secure for one of the original four, the Abbé de Queylus, the approval of the Assembly of the French Clergy. This seems to have been accomplished before the Jesuits bestirred themselves in the matter. The latter had not been concerned prior to this, but they began now to see the disadvantages of a bishopric vested in another order; particularly in view of their great services to the colony and the extent of their sacrifices. They started quietly to use their enormous interest at court. They used it to such good advantage that Mazarin temporized and delayed his sanction of the appointment of the Abbé de Queylus.

Queylus was a man of high character and undoubted capacity. He had considerable personal wealth and had become noted for his generosity. On the surface he was an excellent choice for the new post of Canadian bishop. In the situation which developed, however, he proceeded to demonstrate that he lacked at least some of the qualities which would be needed in the exercise of such wide powers. He was both aggressive and ambitious and quite lacking in discretion. These weaknesses showed when he paid a visit to Quebec soon after his arrival and preached two inflammatory sermons. The lack of wisdom he thus displayed was due to his receipt while in Quebec of letters from the Archbishop of Rouen appointing him vicar-general for all of Canada. The archbishop had been taking the position that Canada was under his jurisdiction because most of the ships bound for the colony sailed from ports in his diocese, and his appointment of Queylus was his first move to have this recognized. The latter now considered himself safely seated in the saddle, and he resented the opposition which was apparent immediately in the
attitude of the Jesuit fathers. He lashed out at them so vigorously from the pulpit that they retaliated in kind, declaring that the abbé was warring on them more savagely than the Iroquois.

In the meantime there had been a stirring under the surface in France. Largely due to the influence of Anne of Austria, Pope Alexander VII conferred the new post on François Xavier de Laval-Montmorency, Abbé de Montigny. He was a relatively young man, having reached the age of thirty-six years, and although his family was both wealthy and great (“as noble as a Montmorency” was a common saying in France), he had devoted himself to good works and had lived an extremely ascetic life. The Queen Mother was delighted with the appointment. She set aside for him from her own funds a pension of one thousand livres annually and she wrote personally to Governor d’Argenson in Quebec, “I wish to join this letter to that of the King, my son, to let you know that, according to his inclination and to mine, you must have the Bishop of Petraea acknowledged as vicar-apostolic all over the country of Canada under the power of the King.”

In making this appointment the Pope had shrewdly kept in mind a conflict which was sharply dividing the Church in France into two camps: the Gallican party, which believed that all temporal power belonged to the King, and the papal party, which considered the Pope supreme in everything. The Jesuit order was strongly committed to the latter view. In appointing Laval vicar-apostolic instead of bishop, the Pope placed him directly under papal supervision. The bishopric of Petraea was given him as well. This ignored the Concordat of Bologna, which had placed the appointment of bishops in the Pope’s hands but with the understanding that the nominations must come from the King of France. It was true that in this case the nomination had come from the King, but specifically for the post of Bishop of Canada. The royal assent to the lesser title granted was both reluctant and uneasy. The papal party had won a victory. Laval came to Canada, therefore, with the somewhat halfhearted backing of the King but the wholehearted approval of the Jesuit fathers.

The young appointee, who was destined to be one of the most controversial figures in early Canadian history and eventually one of the best loved, arrived at Quebec in June 1659. It was six in the afternoon when the ship warped into its moorings, and a rosy stream of sunlight from the west fell on the battlements of the citadel and the metal roofs of the episcopal buildings along the crest. The little
city had already gained an atmosphere of its own. It looked old, as though memories and traditions clung to its crooked streets. The vicar-apostolic, realizing the need to make an impression, had arrayed himself in his pontifical vestments, and Father Jerome Lalemant, who stood beside him, wrote later in one of his letters, “He looked as an angel of heaven.”

It is possible, however, that the young Vicomte d’Argenson, who had come down to the moorings to extend an official greeting, felt some misgivings when he observed the stern and exacting dark eyes of the new head of the Church, the strong and somewhat massive nose protruding from the pale face with more than a hint of the masterful nature of its owner, the forehead which combined intelligence with nobility, the thin lips which told of an unbending will. It was inevitable that this inflexible cleric would clash on points of authority with the soldierly aristocrat who represented the King. Marie de l’Incarnation, who was as active and zealous as ever in the direction of the Ursulines, seems to have cut to the core of things in one of her long letters to her son; the letters which did so much to lend posterity a clear insight into the currents of thought which stirred in the colony. It was clear, she wrote, that he (Laval) was the choice of God if not of man. She was quite right in her estimate of the role he was to play. No one lacking the qualities of Laval, the stern will, the determination to have his own way, which he believed to be the way of God, could have succeeded in the new post.

The immediate arrangements made by the newcomer were an indication of the character of the man. He showed no inclination to set himself up in state. After staying for a short time with the Jesuit fathers, he rented from the Ursulines the small house which Madame de la Peltrie had built for herself beside the seminary. That lady of many contradictions refused to listen to his protests and moved out at once so that he could have the tiny two-story stone house which was no more than thirty by twenty feet. It might have been expected, in view of her gentle upbringing and refinement, that she would have invested it during her years of occupancy with some degree of charm, perhaps even a hint of elegance. Those who had seen her crossing the ice in her bare feet on the freezingly cold night when the seminary burned down in 1650 to help in the rescue of her pupils would not have been surprised when it was found that such was not the case. The bishop fell heir to two plain wooden
bedsteads with straw mattresses, two worn quilts, a few yards of fustian serving as bed curtains, a plain wooden table with two books,
The Epistles and Gospels
and a
Selection of Meditations
, a straw-bottomed chair, a stool, and a crucifix painted on wood.

In this modest dwelling, therefore, the new head of the Church established himself, sharing the inadequate space with three priests and two male servants, a valet-cook and a gardener. He built a high paling around the small garden in which it was set, but otherwise he does not seem to have made any changes.

Another immediate demonstration was given of the character of Laval. In Montreal the Abbé de Loc-Dieu, the proper designation of the aggressive Queylus, was continuing to display belief that his appointment as vicar-apostolic by the Archbishop of Rouen made him the clerical head of all New France. This was a state of affairs which the scion of the noble house of Montmorency could not tolerate. A believer in action, Laval was not content to leave any doubt as to where he stood. Receiving no response after summoning the recalcitrant abbé to Quebec, he persuaded the governor to take a squad of soldiers to Montreal and bring Queylus back willy-nilly. Such, at least, is the story that one school of historians tells. Others say that Queylus went to Quebec of his own free will, having an equal desire to discuss the rival claims. It all seems to hinge on the interpretation of one document and, to an even greater extent, on the sympathies of the narrators. Those who desire to keep the Laval record stainless hold strongly to the second version.

This position seems an unnecessary one. No great blame can be laid at Laval’s door if he took summary action. It is clear enough that the querulous Queylus was behaving heedlessly and that Laval himself had every reason to believe in the full legality of his position. The situation, moreover, could not be allowed to drag along. The history of the day, so distressingly filled with the grim details of the Indian wars, loses one of its most diverting episodes when the struggle between the two embattled churchmen is passed over or qualified; this good, thumping fight between two men who saw only one way and did not fear consequences.

This much is certain, that there were stormy scenes between the two men. It was a bitter clash of wills; but Laval, armed with authority from both Pope and King, was the winner. The protesting abbé took the next ship back to France; some say of his own free will, some that he was given no choice in the matter.

The incident created a storm on both sides of the Atlantic. The Sulpicians protested bitterly. Queylus proceeded to unite the Gallican party behind him, with the tacit support, at least, of the Archbishop of Rouen. The hand of Laval reached back across the Atlantic, however, and shattered the efforts of the dissentients. The King, who was on his way to the southern frontier of France, where he would meet and marry the Infanta of Spain, was persuaded to write a letter to Queylus. “My will,” declared the young monarch, “is that you remain in my kingdom, enjoining you not to leave it without my express permission.”

Queylus disregarded the royal command and set out for Rome, hoping to win the Pope over to his side of the controversy. This action seems to have been anticipated, and the inner papal circle had been told that Queylus and his supporters were secret supporters of Jansenism. The disobedient Sulpician received a decidedly cool reception when he reached Rome.

But the militant abbé was a fighter, a worthy opponent for the stern protagonist at Quebec. He seems to have made a good impression in the Eternal City. Gradually he won some support for his claims and was given bulls from the Congregation of the
Daterie
, an office of the
Curia
, confirming the independence of the Sulpicians in Montreal. Armed with these, he took passage on a ship sailing for Canada and on August 3, 1661, he arrived at Quebec, triumphant and belligerent; the bulls under his arm, figuratively speaking, to be employed as weapons in the resolving of his dispute with Laval.

It would be an understatement to say that Laval was angry when he discovered that, in spite of all the precautions and the definite orders of the King, the unpredictable Queylus had returned to New France. His first move was to charge that the Sulpician had obtained the bulls by fraud and misrepresentation. An order was issued that the abbé was to remain in Quebec until the authorities in France had been notified of his illegal entry. Argenson was supposed to act in concert by placing the abbé in confinement pending the disposition of his case, but the young governor, caught between two fires and having divided sympathies, temporized. Laval waited no more than a day and then sent a peremptory demand to the governor. Before Argenson could make up his mind, the turbulent Sulpician took matters into his own hands. His servants obtained a canoe, and during the hours of darkness he started off on his way up the river to Montreal.

If Laval had been angry before, his ire now grew by comparison to extreme heights. He suspended the abbé from the exercise of all priestly duties. This order, sent off early the next morning, overtook the runaway Sulpician before he reached Montreal. Not at all perturbed, Queylus sat himself down to wait whatever might befall. He had not long to wait. Laval had sent wrathful messages to France and in course of time he received the needed authorization. Argenson had from the King a command to give his full support to Laval. This left the governor with nothing to do but obey. He brought Queylus to Quebec and sent him back to France on the first ship.

The bulls from the Congregation of the
Daterie
were withdrawn. The Archbishop of Rouen gave in and renounced his claim to any form of supervision over the Church in Canada. Queylus remained for the next seven years in France in an unhappy semi-obscurity. Laval had won a complete victory.

It must be said at the outset that the first few years of Laval’s rule in New France were contentious and quarrelsome ones. This determined priest, who was to prove himself a powerful and effective head of the Church and to become in time mellow and gentle, considered himself at first under the necessity of fighting with the temporal officers over the duties and privileges of his office. He was breaking new ground and as vicar of the Pope he felt that he took precedence over any state official. The two governors who served in this period considered for their part that the dignity of the kingship lay in their hands and that they must not yield on points of observance.