ESTABLISHMENT OF THE SEMINARY
No sooner had he returned, than the Bishop of Petræa devoted all the
strength of his intellect to the execution of a plan which he had long
meditated, namely, the foundation of a seminary. In order to explain
what he understood by this word we cannot do better than to quote his
own ordinance relating to this matter: "There shall be educated and
trained such young clerics as may appear fit for the service of God, and
they shall be taught for this purpose the proper manner of administering
the sacraments, the methods of apostolic catechism and preaching, moral
theology, the ceremonies of the Church, the Gregorian chant, and other
things belonging to the duties of a good ecclesiastic; and besides, in
order that there may be formed in the said seminary and among its clergy
a chapter composed of ecclesiastics belonging thereto and chosen from
among us and the bishops of the said country, our successors, when the
king shall have seen fit to found the seminary, or from those whom the
said seminary may be able of itself to furnish to this institution
through the blessing of God. We desire it to be a perpetual school of
virtue, and a place of training whence we may derive pious and capable
recruits, in order to send them on all occasions, and whenever there may
be need, into the parishes and other places in the said country, in
order to exercise therein priestly and other duties to which they may
have been destined, and to withdraw them from the same parishes and
duties when it may be judged fitting, reserving to ourselves always, and
to the bishops, our successors in the said country, as well as to the
said seminary, by our orders and those of the said lords bishops, the
power of recalling all the ecclesiastics who may have gone forth as
delegates into the parishes and other places, whenever it may be deemed
necessary, without their having title or right of particular attachment
to a parish, it being our desire, on the contrary, that they should be
rightfully removable, and subject to dismissal and displacement at the
will of the bishops and of the said seminary, by the orders of the same,
in accordance with the sacred practice of the early ages of the Church,
which is followed and preserved still at the present day in many
dioceses of this kingdom."
Although this foregoing period is somewhat lengthy and a little obscure,
so weighty with meaning is it, we have been anxious to quote it, first,
because it is an official document, and because it came from the very
pen of him whose life we are studying; and, secondly, because it shows
that at this period serious reading, such as Cicero, Quintilian, and the
Fathers of the Church, formed the mental pabulum of the people. In our
days the beauty of a sentence is less sought after than its clearness
and conciseness.
It may be well to add here the Abbé Gosselin's explanation of this
_mandement_: "Three principal works are due to this document as the
glorious inheritance of the seminary of Quebec. In the first place we
have the natural work of any seminary, the training of ecclesiastics and
the preparation of the clergy for priestly virtues. In the next place we
have the creation of the chapter, which the Bishop of Petræa always
considered important in a well organized diocese; it was his desire to
find the elements of this chapter in his seminary, when the king should
have provided for its endowment, or when the seminary itself could bear
the expense. Finally, there is that which in the mind of Mgr. de Laval
was the supreme work of the seminary, its vital task: the seminary was
to be not only a perpetual school of virtue, but also a place of supply
on which he might draw for the persons needed in the administration of
his diocese, and to which he might send them back when he should think
best. All livings are connected with the seminary, but they are all
transferable. The prelate here puts clearly and categorically the
question of the transfer of livings. In his measures there is neither
hesitation nor circumlocution. He does not seek to deceive the sovereign
to whom he is about to submit his regulation. For him, in the present
condition of New France, there can be no question of fixed livings; the
priests must be by right removable, and subject to recall at the will of
the bishop; and, as is fitting in a prelate worthy of the primitive
Church, he always lays stress in his commands on the _holy practice of
the early centuries_. The question was clearly put. It was as clearly
understood by the sovereign, who approved some days later of the
regulation of Mgr. de Laval."
It was in the month of April, 1663, that the worthy prelate had obtained
the royal approval of the establishment of his seminary; it was on
October 10th of the same year that he had it registered by the Sovereign
Council.
A great difficulty arose: the missionaries, besides the help that they
had obtained from the Company of the Cent-Associés, derived their
resources from Europe; but how was the new secular clergy to be
supported, totally lacking as it was in endowment and revenue? Mgr. de
Laval resolved to employ the means adopted long ago by Charlemagne to
assure the maintenance of the Frankish clergy: that of tithes or dues
paid by the husbandman from his harvest. Accordingly he obtained from
the king an ordinance according to which tithes, fixed at the amount of
the thirteenth part of the harvests, should be collected from the
colonists by the seminary; the latter was to use them for the
maintenance of the priests, and for divine service in the established
parishes. The burden was, perhaps, somewhat heavy. Mgr. de Laval, who,
inspired by the spirit of poverty, had renounced his patrimony and lived
solely upon a pension of a thousand francs which the queen paid him from
her private exchequer, felt that he had a certain right to impose his
disinterestedness upon others, but the colonists, sure of the support of
the governor, M. de Mézy, complained.
The good understanding between the governor-general and the bishop had
been maintained up to the end of January, 1664. Full of respect for the
character and the virtue of his friend, M. de Mézy had energetically
supported the ordinances of the Sovereign Council against the brandy
traffic; he had likewise favoured the registration of the law of tithes,
but the opposition which he met in the matter of an increase in his
salary impelled him to arbitrary action. Of his own authority he
displaced three councillors, and out of petty rancour allowed strong
liquors to be sold to the savages. The open struggle between the bishop
and himself produced the most unfavourable impression in the colony. The
king decided that the matter must be brought to a head. M. de Courcelles
was appointed governor, and, jointly with a viceroy, the Marquis de
Tracy, and with the Intendant Talon, was entrusted with the
investigation of the administration of M. de Mézy. They arrived a few
months after the death of de Mézy, whom this untimely end saved perhaps
from a well-deserved condemnation. He had become reconciled in his
dying hour to his old and venerable friend, and the judges confined
themselves to the erasure of the documents which recalled his
administration.
The worthy Bishop of Petræa had not lost for a moment the confidence of
the sovereign, as is proved by many letters which he received from the
king and his prime minister, Colbert. "I send you by command of His
Majesty," writes Colbert, "the sum of six thousand francs, to be
disposed of as you may deem best to supply your needs and those of your
Church. We cannot ascribe too great a value to a virtue like yours,
which is ever equally maintained, which charitably extends its help
wherever it is necessary, which makes you indefatigable in the functions
of your episcopacy, notwithstanding the feebleness of your health and
the frequent indispositions by which you are attacked, and which thus
makes you share with the least of your ecclesiastics the task of
administering the sacraments in places most remote from the principal
settlements. I shall add nothing to this statement, which is entirely
sincere, for fear of wounding your natural modesty, etc...." The prince
himself is no less flattering: "My Lord Bishop of Petræa," writes Louis
the Great, "I expected no less of your zeal for the exaltation of the
faith, and of your affection for the furtherance of my service than the
conduct observed by you in your important and holy mission. Its main
reward is reserved by Heaven, which alone can recompense you in
proportion to your merit, but you may rest assured that such rewards as
depend on me will not be wanting at the fitting time. I subscribe,
moreover, to my Lord Colbert's communications to you in my name."
Peace and harmony were re-established, and with them the hope of seeing
finally disappear the constant menace of Iroquois forays. The
magnificent regiment of Carignan, composed of six hundred men, reassured
the colonists while it daunted their savage enemies. Thus three of the
Five Nations hastened to sue for peace, and they obtained it. In order
to protect the frontiers of the colony, M. de Tracy caused three forts
to be erected on the Richelieu River, one at Sorel, another at Chambly,
a third still more remote, that of Ste. Thérèse; then at the head of six
hundred soldiers, six hundred militia and a hundred Indians, he marched
towards the hamlets of the Mohawks. The result of this expedition was,
unhappily, as fruitless as that of the later campaigns undertaken
against the Indians by MM. de Denonville and de Frontenac. After a
difficult march they come into touch with the savages; but these all
flee into the woods, and they find only their huts stocked with immense
supplies of corn for the winter, and a great number of pigs. At least,
if they cannot reach the barbarians themselves, they can inflict upon
them a terrible punishment; they set fire to the cabins and the corn,
the pigs are slaughtered, and thus a large number of their wild enemies
die of hunger during the winter. The viceroy was wise enough to accept
the surrender of many Indians, and the peace which he concluded afforded
the colony eighteen years of tranquillity.
The question of the apportionment of the tithes was settled in the
following year, 1667. The viceroy, acting with MM. de Courcelles and
Talon, decided that the tithe should be reduced to a twenty-sixth, by
reason of the poverty of the inhabitants, and that newly-cleared lands
should pay nothing for the first five years. Mgr. de Laval, ever ready
to accept just and sensible measures, agreed to this decision. The
revenues thus obtained were, none the less, insufficient, since the king
subsequently gave eight or nine thousand francs to complete the
endowment of the priests, whose annual salary was fixed at five hundred
and seventy-four francs. In 1707 the sum granted by the French court was
reduced to four thousand francs. If we remember that the French farmers
contributed the thirteenth part of their harvest, that is to say, double
the quantity of the Canadian tithe, for the support of their pastors,
shall we deem excessive this modest tax raised from the colonists for
men who devoted to them their time, their health, even their hours of
rest, in order to procure for their parishioners the aid of religion? Is
it not regrettable that too many among the colonists, who were yet such
good Christians in the observance of religious practices, should have
opposed an obstinate resistance to so righteous a demand? Can it be
that, by a special dispensation of Heaven, the priests and vicars of
Canada are not liable to the same material needs as ordinary mortals,
and are they not obliged to pay in good current coin for their food,
their medicines and their clothes?
The first seminary, built of stone,[3] rose in 1661 on the site of the
present vicarage of the cathedral of Quebec; it cost eight thousand five
hundred francs, two thousand of which were given by Mgr. de Laval. The
first priest of Quebec and first superior of the seminary, M. Henri de
Bernières, was able to occupy it in the autumn of the following year,
and the Bishop of Petræa abode there from the time of his return from
France on September 15th, 1663, until the burning of this house on
November 15th, 1701. The first directors of the seminary were, besides
M. de Bernières, MM. de Lauson-Charny, son of the former
governor-general, Jean Dudouyt, Thomas Morel, Ange de Maizerets and
Hugues Pommier. Except the first, who was a Burgundian, they were all
born in the two provinces of Brittany and Normandy, the cradles of the
majority of our ancestors.
The founder of the seminary had wished the livings to be transferable;
later the government decided to the contrary, and the edict of 1679
decreed that the tithes should be payable only to the permanent
priests; nevertheless the majority of them remained of their own free
will attached to the seminary. They had learned there to practise a
complete abnegation, and to give to the faithful the example of a united
and fervent clerical family. "Our goods were held in common with those
of the bishop," wrote M. de Maizerets, "I have never seen any
distinction made among us between poor and rich, or the birth and rank
of any one questioned, since we all consider each other as brothers."
The pious bishop himself set an example of disinterestedness; all that
he had, namely an income of two thousand five hundred francs, which the
Jesuits paid him as the tithes of the grain harvested upon their
property, and a revenue of a thousand francs which he had from his
friends in France, went into the seminary. MM. de Bernières, de
Maizerets and Dudouyt vied in the imitation of their model, and they
likewise abandoned to the holy house their goods and their pensions. The
prelate confined himself, like the others, from humility even more than
from economy on behalf of the community, to the greatest simplicity in
dress as well as in his environment. Aiming at the highest degree of
possible perfection, he was satisfied with the coarsest fare, and
incessantly added voluntary privations to the sacrifices demanded of him
by his difficult duties. Does not this apostolic poverty recall the
seminary established by the pious founder of St. Sulpice, who wrote:
"Each had at dinner a bowl of soup and a small portion of butcher's
meat, without dessert, and in the evening likewise a little roast
mutton"?
Mortification diminished in no wise the activity of the prelate;
learning that the Seminary of Foreign Missions at Paris, that nursery of
apostles, had just been definitely established (1663), he considered it
his duty to establish his own more firmly by affiliating it with that of
the French capital. "I have learned with joy," wrote he, "of the
establishment of your Seminary of Foreign Missions, and that the 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 Beaupré was also acquired, which with remarkable foresight
the bishop exchanged for the Ile Jésus. "It was prudent," remarks the
Abbé 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 seminary dates only from the year 1668. Up to this time the
large seminary alone existed; of the five ecclesiastics who were its
inmates in 1663, Louis Joliet abandoned the priestly career. It was he
who, impelled by his adventurous instincts, sought out, together with
Father Marquette, the mouth of the Mississippi.
FOOTNOTES:
[3] The house was first the presbytery.