22 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



The unshaken faith of botli wr.s fully justified. The tide of fortune 

 M'as already on the turn. This very year New France became a Eoyal 

 Province. And in 1665 de Courcelles, the new Governor, arrived. With 

 him was his lieutenant, the Marquis de Tracy, and Jean Talon, the 

 great Intendant, well called the Colbert of Canada. The pitifully weak 

 tiarrison was strongly reinforced by the famous Régiment de Carignan, 

 fresh from its victorious Hungarian campaign against the Turks. Twa 

 hundred and twelve new colonists of title or fortune came out to take up 

 concessions of land. And, most; important of all, perhaps, there was a 

 very much larger number of more humble immigrants, who were destined 

 to a long and successful career under the well-known name of habitants. 

 With these arrivals a different régime began. The first great hero-age 

 was over. 



La ]\Ière Marie had a deep, though indirect, influence on the new 

 order of things. All the women of the old order had passed through her 

 school, all the girls of the new were her pupils. Her reputation for 

 sanctity and wisdom extended over people of both sexes and all classes. 

 And she never failed to throw the whole weight of this wider influence 

 into the scale on the side of Laval, in his fights for the missionary system 

 against the parochial one favoured by the Governors, and for Indian pro- 

 hibition against the indiscriminate brandy traflic favoured by the traders. 

 Laval was the living embodiment of the Church militant, and was in- 

 clined to stretch his authority rather far over spheres of public influence 

 which are generally understood to be within the province of the civil 

 power. But his missionary system, worked under his own eye, and 

 through his seminary, undoubtedly met the needs of a new and extending 

 population better than the fixed cures which the Governors vainly tried 

 to establish. Laval wanted his shepherds to keep continual touch with 

 him and each other, while they followed their flocks about the ever- 

 opening pastures; but the Governors preferred to find each individual 

 shepherd sitting ready for inspection inside an isolated fold. As for 

 the brandy trade, it was simply debauching the Indians, body and soul. 

 And when La Mère Marie supported Laval on these two burning ques- 

 tions, she proved herself as statesmanlike in the first as she was philan- 

 thropic in the second. 



Her leti:ers show how many human interests she touched, and with 

 how sure a hand she set each interest in its due relation to her belief 

 and practice. She was an indefatigable writer : in one autumn she sent 

 home over 600 letters. Her correspondents range from Eoyal ty down; 



