A ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



all Canadians, because she was the prophetess, as Laval was the prophet, 

 whoi>e steadfast inspiration upheld Canada through the Three Years' 

 HoiTor that began wath the Iroquois fury of 1660 and ended with the 

 seven months' eartliquake of 1663. 



IL 



When Louis XL lay on his death-bed, in his château of Plessis-les- 

 Tours, he wished to send the holiest man he could find to bring the 

 greatest saint of Christendom to console his last days on earth. Courtiers 

 and populace all agreed on the same individual, the great-great-grand- 

 father of La Mère Marie, who was accordingly sent to Rome and on 

 to the wildest part of the Calabrian coast, whence he brought back the 

 famous ascetic, St. François de Paule. No members of the family prized 

 this signal honour more than the parents of Marie Guyard. Her father, 

 who was a silk merchant, had such a reputation for piety and justice 

 that his decisions carried more weight than those of the courts of law; 

 while her mother was his equal in devotion and his helpmeet in good 

 works. 



Marie was born on the 18th of October, 1599, in the old royal city 

 of Tours, amid ce doux pays de la Touraine which Belleforest has called 

 le jardin de France et le plaisir des Boys. " Do not ask me why I love 

 Touraine!" exclaims Balzac, when describing the valley of the Indre 

 from Azay to Montbazon. Here, and along the Loire, are all the finest 

 châteaux: Amboise, with its terraces and chapel; Chenonceaux, with 

 its gardens, its white walls, its towers rising sheer from the water, and 

 its romantic memories of Diane de Poictiers and Catherine de Medici; 

 Azay-le-Eideau, a vision of beauty, set in the woods beside the winding 

 river; Troches, with its ancient towers and ramparts massively rooted 

 into its steep hill ; and Chinon, where the statue of Rabelais looks down 

 on the market-place and over the quiet quays beside the Loire, where 

 Henry II. breathed his last, and where Charles VII. was called tp the 

 relief of Orleans by Joan of Arc. And the heart of Touraine is Tours, 

 calm and beautiful on the southern bank of the Loire, which lingers past 

 in slow meanderings. Here stood an archbishop's palace, here soared a 

 great cathedral; and here was set that exquisite lifctle gem of Gothic 

 architecture, La Psalette, all aglow with the sacred music which so took 

 the ear of the young Marie and wrought her heart to ecstasy. 



But her deepest and most thrilling form of ecstasy came to her in 

 visions of divinity. She had always been a religious child; and every 

 predisposing influence carried her on toward the fulness of self-surrender 

 and devotion. The piety of her family was a Touraine tradition; the 



