so ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



deputation re-entered the Hôtel-Dieu, and their records state that " the 

 peace of the cloister was delightful after a day of such fatigue and dis- 

 sipation." In Xovembcr t*liey all went into Madame de la Peltrie's 

 liouse, near which a bam was converted into a temporar}' chapel, "nof^ — 

 as their annalist quaintly says — " in the style of the Renaissance, but 

 in that of the ISTaissance." The makeshift cloister and chapel were all 

 that was most uncomfortable. " I see everything here to make you 

 suffer," said the kindly bishop. The nuns, however, rejoiced at re-union 

 under any circumstances: Ecce quam honum et quam jucundum lidbi- 

 tare fratres in unum. 



1689 was a year big with the fate of empires. The Great Imperial 

 War between France and England had just begun. It was to be 

 renewed at intervals for more than a |Cent,ury, to culminate in both the 

 Old World and the New in 1759, and to continue till Trafalgar had con- 

 firmed the British command of the sea for more than another hundred 

 years. In Canada Frontenac began by a bold swift stroke at New Eng- 

 land. In the British colonies, Peter Schuyler was formulating the 

 original " Glorious Enterprise " of conquering New France that Pitt 

 found the means of carrying out seventy j-ears later. 



In the midst of these wars and rumours of war, the Ursulines com- 

 pleted their present (convcnt and celebrated their first jubilee. 'AH of 

 the original three were dead; but a nun who came out in 1640, and 

 so was in her fiftieth year of service, took part in all the proceedings. 

 Longevity has always been distinctive of this conmiunity. At every 

 succeeding jubilee there have been nuns who had already assisted ait a 

 previous one. And the senior nun in 1908, the tercentennial year of 

 Quebec, was not the junior in 1839, the bicentennial 3^ear of the convent. 

 The Indians were already receding before civilization in 1689 ; and there 

 were fewer at the jubilee feast than there used to be round the hospitable 

 tables of La Mère Marie. The nearby friendly tribes had begun to 

 wither at the toujch of the town; the hostile war-paths stopped farther 

 and farther west. The massacre of Lachine sent a shudder of appre- 

 hension through the whole colony. But no Indians ever again threatened 

 the safety of Quebec. Frontenac, on the contrary, carried the war into 

 the Iroquois country. And the Ursulines, who had drawn the sword at 

 need in 1660, did so again for the common good in 1696, by equipping 

 a tiny though efficient contingent of two men. But their favourite 

 weapon was and remained conversion. 



In 1690, New England made her counterstrokc. On the 7th of 

 October the vanguard of tlic American fleet was siglited below Murray 

 Bay. Quebec stood aghast, defenceless ; for Frontenac was much further 

 olî inland than Phi;r wi^s by théT St. I^awrence. The Ursulines were 



