44 [i ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



when IMonsoigneur Plessis preached a sermon in the Basilica to celebrate 

 Nelson's victory at the Nile, no church in Canada responded with 

 heartier alacrity than the Ursuline chapel to the Bishop's mandement 

 ordaining a general thanksgiving for the blessings ensured to the French- 

 Canadians by the just laws and protecting amis of the British Crown. 



And this appreciation of British right and prowess was not wrung 

 from any assemblage of mere frightened women, cowering for protection 

 beneath the first strong hand; but sprang spontaneous from the well- 

 proved heroines of three sieges and four battles. 



VII. 



St. Ursula is reverenced in the cloisters as a great patroness of 

 learning. St. Angela founded the Ursulines as a teaching order in 1537. 

 And La Mère Marie de l'Incarnation and her successors have always 

 looked upon their school as the prime object of all their work in Canada. 

 Ursuline teachers and boarders are always drawn from the best social 

 classes in their respective communitaes ; and these female Etons exert 

 considerable influenjce in different parts of the Eoman Catholic world, 

 with their 500 convents, their 12,000 nuns, and their 100,000 pupils. 



Quebec society offered a fair field and much favour to the Ursuline 

 teachers in the 18th century. Charlevoix found it very much to his 



taste in 1720. " a little world where all is select A 



Governor-General with his staff, nobles, and troops; an Intendant, with 

 a Superior Council .... a Commissaiy of Marine, a Grand Prévôt, 

 a Grand Voyer; a Superintendent of Streams and Forests, whose juris- 

 diction is certainly the most extensive in the world; merchants in easy 

 circumstances, or at least living as if they were ; a bishop and a large 

 ï^taff of clergy ; Itécollets and Jesuits ; three old-established communities 

 of nuns ; and other circles almost las brilliant as those surrounding the 



Governor and Intendant There are abundant means of passing 



the time agreeably Current news is confined to a few topics. 



News from Europe comes all at one time; but then it lasts a whole 

 year. . . . The arts and sciences have their turn, so that conversation 

 never languishes. The Canadians breathe, from their earliest years, an 

 air of good will which makes them very agreeable in social intercourse. 

 Nowhere else is our language spoken with greater purity. . . . There 

 are no really rich people here. . . . Very few trouble themselves about 

 laying up riches. They live well; tliat is, if they can also afi'ord to dress 

 well. But they will stint themselves at table in order to dress the better 

 for it: and it must be admitted that dress is becoming to our Canadians. 

 They are a fine-looking people, and the best blood of France rims in 

 their veins. Good humour and refined mannere are common to all ; and 



