26 THE LABIL\DOR rENINSUL.\. cn.vr. xxi. 



to its source and found the mission of Assuapmuslian, 

 about 300 miles from the mouth of tlie Saugenay. The 

 Saugenay missions were kept up until 1716, when for a 

 period of thi*ee years the missions were left destitute. 

 In 1720 they were resumed by the Pere Pierre-]\Iicliel 

 Lam-e. He was succeeded by Pere Jean-Baptiste Maiu-ice, 

 who remained among the Montagnais until 1745, and was 

 succeeded by Pere Claude-Godefroy Cocquart. His suc- 

 cessor, Pere Jean-Baptiste de la Brosse, in 1766, extended 

 the missions to the south of the Saugenay, and also to 

 the Bay of Chalem-s. In 1769 he established schools at 

 Seven Islands, and composed an alphabet and a catechism 

 for the Montagnais. He found the Montagnais who 

 assembled there utterly destitute of rehgion. The chapel 

 which Pere Cocquart had built there was burnt in 1759 

 by the English during the expedition to Quebec. In 

 1769 Pere de la Brosse visited the different trading posts 

 on the north shore of the gulf, as far as Masquarro. He 

 wrote a dictionary of the Montagnais language, and died 

 about the year 1776. He was the last Jesuit who served 

 the Saugenay missions. After liis death the bishops of 

 Quebec took the missions under their charge, causing 

 them to be visited each year by one of their priests, 

 between Tadousac and Masquarro, and in the interior as 

 far as the Lake St. John. 



Such were the habits, customs, and superstitions of 

 the Montagnais Indians from the time they were first 

 known to Europeans up to the close of the last century. 

 The present condition of this wide-spread branch of 

 the great Cree nation ^\411 form the subject of a fiitiu-e 

 chapter. 



