ORGANIZATION OF TEMPERANCE SOCIETIES IN KAMOURASKA AND SURROUNDING
COUNTRY—THE GIRL IN THE GARB OF A MAN IN THE SERVICE OF THE CURATES OF
QUEBEC AND EBOULEMENTS—FRIGHTENED BY THE SCANDALS SEEN EVERYWHERE—GIVE
UP MY PARISH OF KAMOURASKA TO JOIN THE “OBLATES OF MARY IMMACULATE OF
LONGGUEIL.”
Two days after my arrival at Kamouraska, I received a letter from the
surrounding priests, at the head of whom was the Grand Vicar Mailloux,
expressing the hope that I would not try to form any temperance society
in my new parish, as I had done in Beauport; for the good reasons, they
said, that drunkenness was not prevailing in that part of Canada, as it
was in the city of Quebec. I answered them politely, that, so long as I
should be at the head of this new parish, I would try, as I had ever
done, to mind my own business, and I hoped that my neighboring friends
would do the same. Not long after, I saw that the curates felt ashamed
of their vain attempt to intimidate me.
The next Sabbath, the crowd was greater than at the first. Having heard
that the merchants were to start the next day, with their schooners, to
buy their winter provisions of rum, I said, in a very solemn way, before
my sermon:
“My friends, I know that, to-morrow, the merchants leave for Quebec, to
purchase their rum. Let me advise them, as their best friend, not to buy
any; and as the ambassador of Christ, I forbid them to bring a single
drop of those poisonous drinks here. It will surely be their ruin, if
they pay no attention to this friendly advice; for they will not sell a
single drop of it, after next Sabbath. That day, I will show to the
intelligent people of this parish, that rum, and all the other drugs
sold here, under the name of brandy, wine and beer, are nothing else
than disgusting, deadly and cursed poisons.”
I then preached on the words of our Saviour: “Be always ready; for ye
know neither the day nor the hour when the Son of Man cometh.” Though
the people seemed much pleased and impressed by that second sermon, they
felt exceedingly irritated at my few warning words to the merchants.
When the service was over, they all rallied around the merchants to tell
them not to mind what they had heard.
“If our young curate,” said they, “thinks he will lead us by the nose,
as he has done with the drunkards of Beauport, he will soon see his
mistake. Instead of one hundred tons, as you brought last fall, bring us
two hundred, this year; we will drink them to his health. We have a good
crop, and we want to spend a jolly winter.”
It is probable that the church of Kamouraska had never seen within its
walls such a crowd as on the second Sabbath of October, 1842. It was
literally crammed. Curiosity had attracted the people, who, not less
eager to hear my first grand sermon against rum, than to see the failure
they expected, and wished, of my first efforts to form a temperance
society. Long before the public service, at the door of the church, as
well as during the whole preceding week, the people had pledged
themselves never to give up their strong drink, and never to join the
temperance society.
But what are the resolutions of man against God? Is He not their master?
The half of that first sermon on temperance was not heard, when that
whole multitude had forgotten their public promises. The hearts were not
only touched—they were melted and changed by God, who wanted to show,
once more, that His works of mercy were above all the works of His
hands.
From the very first day of my arrival in Kamouraska, I had made a
serious and exact inquiry about the untold miseries brought upon the
people by intoxicating drinks.
I had found that, during the last twenty years, twelve men had been
drowned, and eight had been frozen to death, who had left twenty widows
and sixty orphans in the most distressing poverty. Sixty farmers had
lost their lands, and had been obliged to emigrate to other places,
where they were suffering all the pangs of poverty from the drunkenness
of their parents; several other families had their properties mortgaged
for their whole value, to the rum merchants, and were expected, every
day, to be turned out from their inheritances, to pay their rum bills.
Seven mothers had died in delirium tremens, one had hung herself,
another drowned herself when drunk. One hundred thousand dollars had
been paid to the rum merchants during the last fifteen years. Two
hundred thousand more were due to the storekeeper; three-fourths of
which were for strong drink. Four men had been murdered, among whom was
their landlord, Achilles Tache, from their drunken habits!
When I had recapitulated all these facts, which were public and
undeniable, and depicted the desolation of the ruined families, composed
of their own brothers, sisters, and dear children; when I brought before
their minds, the tears of the widows, the cries of the starving and
naked children, the shame of the families, the red hands of the
murderers, and the mangled bodies of their victims; the eternal cries of
the lost from drunkenness, the broken-hearted fathers and mothers, whose
children had been destroyed by strong drink; when I proved to them that
there was not a single one in their midst who had not suffered, either
in his own person, or in that of his father or mother, brothers, sisters
or children. Yes, when I had given them the simple and awful story of
the crimes committed in their midst; the ruin and deaths, the misery of
thousands of precious souls for whom Christ died in vain, the church was
filled with such sobs and cries that I often could not be heard. Many
times my voice was drowned by the indescribable confusion and
lamentation of that whole multitude. Unable to contain myself, several
times I stopped and mingled my sobs and cries with those of my people.
When the sermon, which lasted two hours, was finished, I asked all those
who were determined to help me in stopping the ravages of intoxicating
drinks, in drying the tears which they caused to flow, and saving the
precious souls they were destroying, to come forward and take the public
pledge of temperance, by kissing a crucifix which I held in my hand.
Thirteen hundred and ten came.
Not fifty of the people had refused to enroll themselves under the
blessed and glorious banners of temperance! and these few recalcitrants
came forward, with a very few exceptions, the next time I spoke on the
subject.
The very same day, the wives of the merchants sent despatches to their
husbands in Quebec, to tell them what had been done, and not a single
barrel of intoxicating drinks was brought by them. The generous example
of the admirable people of Kamouraska spoke with an irresistible
eloquence to the other parishes of that district, and before long, the
blessed banners of temperance floated over all the populations of St.
Pascal, St. Andrew, Isle Verte, Cacouna, Riviere du Loup, Rimouski,
Matane, St. Anne, St. Roch, Madawaska, St. Benoit, St. Luce, etc., on
the south side of the St. Lawrence, and the Eboulements, La Malbaye, and
the other parishes on the north side of the river; and the people kept
their pledge with such fidelity that the trade in rum was literally
killed in that part of Canada, as it had been in Beauport and its
vicinity.
The blessed fruits of this reform were soon felt and seen everywhere, in
the public prosperity and the spread of education. Kamouraska, which was
owing $200,000, to the merchants in 1842, had not only paid its
interest, but had reduced its debt to only $120,000, when I left it to
go to Montreal, in 1846.
God only knows my joy at these admirable manifestations of his mercies
toward my country. However, the joys of man are never without their
mixture of sadness.
In the good providence of God, being invited by all the curates to
establish temperance societies among their people, I had the sad
opportunity, as no priest ever had in Canada, to know the secret and
public scandals of each parish. When I went to the Eboulements, on the
north side of the river, invited by the Rev. Noel Toussignant, I learned
from the very lips of that young priest, and the ex-priest, Tetreau, the
history of the most shameful scandals.
In 1830, a young priest of Quebec, called Derome, had fallen in love
with one of his young female penitents of Vercheres, where he had
preached a few days, and he had persuaded her to follow him to the
parsonage of Quebec. The better to conceal their iniquity from the
public, he persuaded his victim to dress herself as a young man, and
throw her dress into the river, to make her parents and the whole parish
believe that she was drowned. I had seen her many times at the parsonage
of Quebec, under the name of Joseph, and had much admired her refined
manners, though more than once I was very much inclined to think that
the smart Joseph was no one else than a lost girl. But the respect I had
for the curate of Quebec (who was the coadjutor of the bishop) and his
young vicars, caused me to reject those suspicions as unfounded.
However, many, even among the first citizens of the city, had the same
suspicions, and they pressed me to go to the coadjutor and warn him; but
I refused, and told those gentlemen to do that delicate work themselves,
and they did it.
The position of that high dignitary and his vicar was not then a very
agreeable one. Their bark had evidently drifted into dangerous waters.
To keep Joseph among themselves was impossible, after the friendly
advice from such high quarters, and to dismiss him was not less
dangerous. He knew too well how the curate of Quebec, with his vicars,
were keeping their vows of celibacy, to dismiss him without danger to
themselves; a single word from his lips would destroy them. Happily, for
them, Mr. Clement, then curate of the Eboulements, was in search of such
a servant, and took him to his parsonage, after persuading the
bishop-coadjutor to give Joseph a large sum of money to seal his lips.
Things went on pretty smoothly between Joseph and the priest for several
years, till some suspicions arose in the minds of the sharp-sighted
people of the parish, who told the curate that it would be safer and
more honorable for him to get rid of his servant. In order to put an end
to those suspicions, and to retain him in the parsonage, the curate
persuaded him to marry the daughter of a poor neighbor.
The three bans were published, and the two girls were duly married by
the curate, who continued his criminal intimacies, in the hope that no
one would trouble him any more on that subject. But not long after he
was removed to La Petite Riviere, and in 1838, the Rev. M. Tetreau was
appointed curate of the Eboulements. This new priest, knowing nothing of
the abominations which his predecessor had practiced, continued to
employ Joseph. One day, when Joseph was working at the gate of the
parsonage, in the presence of several people, a stranger came and asked
him if Mr. Tetreau was at home.
“Yes, sir, Mr. Curate is at home,” answered Joseph; “but as you seem a
stranger to the place, would you allow me to ask you from what parish
you come?”
“I am not ashamed of my parish,” answered the stranger. “I come from
Vercheres.”
At the word “Vercheres,” Joseph turned so pale that the stranger was
puzzled. He looked carefully at him, and exclaimed:
“Oh! my God! What do I see here? Genevieve! Genevieve! over whom we have
mourned so long as drowned! Here you are, disguised as a man!”
“Dear uncle” (it was her uncle); “for God’s sake, not a word more here!”
But it was too late; the people who were there had heard the uncle and
the niece. Their long and secret suspicions were well-founded. One of
their former priests had kept a girl, under the disguise of a man, in
his house; and to blind his people more thoroughly, he had married that
girl to another, in order to have them both in the house when he
pleased, without awakening any suspicion!
The news went, almost as quickly as lightning, from one end to the other
of the parish, and spread all over the country, on both sides of the St.
Lawrence. I had heard of that horror, but I could not believe it.
However, I had to believe it, when, on the spot, I heard from the lips
of the ex-curate, M. Tetreau, and the new curate, M. Noel de
Toussignant, and from the lips of my landlord, the Honorable Laterriere,
the following details, which had come to light only a short time before.
The justice of the peace had investigated the matter, in the name of
public morality. Joseph was brought before the magistrates, who decided
that a physician should be charged to make, not a _post mortem_ but an
_ante-mortem_ inquest. The Honorable Laterriere, who made the inquest,
declared that Joseph was a girl, and the bonds of marriage were legally
dissolved.
At the same time, the curate M. Tetreau, had sent a dispatch to the
Right Rev. Bishop-coadjutor of Quebec, informing him that the young man
whom he had kept in his house, several years, was legally proved a girl;
a fact which, I need hardly state, was well known by the bishop and his
vicars! They immediately sent a trustworthy man with £500, to induce the
girl to leave the country without delay, lest she were prosecuted and
sent to the penitentiary. She accepted the offer, and crossed the lines
to the United States with her $2,000, where she was soon married, and
where she still lives.
I wished that this story had never been told me, or at least, that I
might be allowed to doubt some of its circumstances; but there was no
help. I was forced to acknowledge that in my Church of Rome, there was
such corruption from head to foot, which could scarcely be surpassed in
Sodom. I remember what the Rev. Mr. Perras had told me of the tears and
desolation of Bishop Plessis, when he had discovered that all the
priests of Canada, with the exception of three, were atheists.
[Illustration: CARDINAL NEWMAN.]
I would not be honest, did I not confess that the personal knowledge of
that fact, which I learned in all its scandalous details from the very
lips of unimpeachable witnesses, saddened me, and for a time, shook my
faith in my religion, to its foundation. I felt secretly ashamed to
belong to a body of men so completely lost to every sense of honesty, as
the priests and bishops of Canada. I had heard of many scandals before.
The infamies of the grand vicar Manceau and Quiblier of Montreal,
Cadieux at Three Rivers, and Viau at Riviere Ouelle. The public acts of
depravity of the priests Lelievre, Tabeau, Pouliot, Belisle, Brunet,
Quevillon, Huot, Lajuste, Rabby, Crevier, Bellecourt, Valle, Mignault,
Noel, Pinet, Duguez, Davely and many others, were known to me, as well
as by the whole clergy. But the abominations of which Joseph was the
victim seemed to overstep the conceivable limits of infamy. For the
first time, I sincerely regretted that I was a priest. The priesthood of
Rome seemed then, to me, the very fulfillment of the prophecy of
Revelation, about the great prostitute, who makes the nations drunk with
the wines of her prostitutions.
Auricular confession, which I knew to be the first, if not the only
cause, of these abominations, appeared to me, what it really is, a
school of perdition for the priest and his female penitents. The
priest’s oath of celibacy, was to my eyes, in those hours of distress,
but a shameful mask to conceal a corruption which was unknown in the
most depraved days of old paganism. New and bright lights came, then,
before my mind which, had I followed them, would have guided me to the
truth of the gospel. But I was blind! The Good Master had not yet
touched my eyes with his divine and life-giving hand. I had no idea that
there could be any other church than the Church of Rome, in which I
could be saved. I was, however, often saying to myself: “How can I hope
to conquer on a battlefield where so many, as strong and even much
stronger than I am, have perished?”
I felt no longer at peace. My soul was filled with trouble and anxiety.
I not only distrusted myself, but I lost confidence in the rest of the
priests and bishops. In fact, I could not see any one in whom I could
trust. Though my beautiful and dear parish of Kamouraska was, more than
ever, overwhelming me with tokens of its affection, gratitude and
respect, it had lost its attraction for me. To whatever side I turned my
eyes, I saw nothing but the most seducing examples of perversion. It
seemed as if I were surrounded by numberless snares, from which it was
impossible to escape. I wished to depart from this deceitful and lost
world.
When my soul was as drowned under the waves of a bitter sea, the Rev.
Mr. Guignes, Superior of the Monastery of the Fathers of Oblates of Mary
Immaculate, at Longueuil, near Montreal, came to pass a few days with
me, for the benefit of his health.
I spoke to him of that shameful scandal, and did not conceal from him
that my courage failed me, when I looked at the torrent of iniquity
which was sweeping everything, under our eyes, with an irresistible
force.
“We are here alone, in the presence of God,” I said to him. “I confess
that I feel an unspeakable horror at the moral ruin which I see
everywhere in our church. My priesthood, of which I was so proud till
lately, seems to me, to-day, the most ignominious yoke, when I see it
dragged in the mud of the most infamous vices, not only by the immense
majority of the priests, but even by our bishops. How can I hope to save
myself, when I see so many stronger than I am, perishing all around me?”
The Reverend Superior, with the kindness of a father and the gravity of
an apostle, answered me:
“I understand your fears perfectly. They are legitimate and too
well-founded. Like you, I am a priest; and like you, if not more than
you, I know the numberless and formidable dangers which surround the
priest. It is because I know them too well, that I have not dared to be
a secular priest, a single day. I knew the humiliating and disgraceful
history of Joseph and the coadjutor bishop of Quebec. Nay! I know many
things still more horrible and unspeakable which I have learned when
preaching and hearing confessions in France and in Canada. My fear is
that, to-day, there are not many more undefiled souls among the priests,
than in Sodom, in the days of Lot. The fact is, that it is morally
impossible for a secular priest to keep his vows of celibacy, except by
a miracle of the grace of God. Our holy church would be a modern Sodom,
long ago, had not our merciful God granted her the grace that many of
our priests have always enrolled themselves among the armies of the
regular priests, in the different religious orders which are, to the
church, what the ark was to Noah and his children, in the days of the
deluge. Only the priests whom God calls, in His mercy, to become members
of any of those orders, are safe. For they are under the paternal care
and surveillance of superiors whose zeal and charity are like a shield
to protect them. Their holy and strict laws are like strong walls and
high towers which the enemy cannot storm.”
He then spoke to me, with an irresistible eloquence, of the peace of
soul which a regular priest enjoys within the walls of his monastery. He
represented, in the most attractive colors, the spiritual and constant
joys of the heart which one feels when living, day and night, under the
eyes of a superior to whom he has vowed a perfect submission. He added:
“Your providential work is finished in the diocese of Quebec. The
temperance societies are established almost everywhere. We are in need
of your long experience and your profound studies on that subject, in
the diocese of Montreal. It is true that the good Bishop de Nancy has
done what he could to support that holy cause, but, though he is working
with the utmost zeal, he has not studied that subject enough to make a
lasting impression on the people. Come with us. We are more than thirty
priests, oblates of Mary Immaculate, who will be too happy to second
your efforts in that noble work, which is too much for one man alone.
Moreover, you cannot do justice to your great parish of Kamouraska and
to the temperance cause together. You must give up one, to consecrate
yourself to the other. Take courage, my young friend! Offer to God the
sacrifice of your dear Kamouraska, as you made the sacrifice of your
beautiful Beauport, some years ago, for the good of Canada and in the
interest of the Church, which calls you to its help.”
It seemed to me that I could oppose no reasonable argument to these
considerations. I fell on my knees, and made the sacrifice of my
beautiful and precious Kamouraska. The last Sabbath of September, 1846,
in the midst of tears and desolation which no words can depict, I gave
my farewell address to the so dear and intelligent people of Kamouraska,
to go to Longueuil and become a novice of the Oblates of Mary
Immaculate.