1034.] THE JESUITS. 5 



brothers found shelter in the garret. The house 

 had been hastily built, eight years before, and now 

 leaked in all parts. Such was the Residence of 

 Notre-Dame des Anges. Here was nourished the 

 germ of a vast enterprise, and this was the cradle 

 of the great mission of New France.^ 



Of the six Jesuits gathered in the refectory for 

 the evening meal, one was conspicuous among the 

 rest, — a tall, strong man, with features that seemed 

 carved by Nature for a soldier, but which the men- 

 tal habits of years had stamped with the visible 

 impress of the priesthood. This was Jean de Bre- 

 beuf, descendant of a noble family of Normandy, 

 and one of the ablest and most devoted zealots 

 whose names stand on the missionary rolls of his 

 Order. His companions were Masse, Daniel, 

 Davost, De None, and the Father Superior, Le 

 Jeune. Masse was the same priest who had been 

 the companion of Father Biard in the abortive 

 mission of Acadia.^ By reason of his useful qual- 

 ities, Le Jeune nicknamed him " le Pere Utile." 

 At present, his special function was the care of 

 the pigs and cow^s, which he kept in the inclos- 

 ure around the buildings, lest they should rav- 

 age the neighboring fields of rye, larley, wheat. 



A The above particulars are gathered from the Relations of 1626 (Lale- 

 mant), and 1632, 1633, 1634, 1635 (Le Jeune), but chiefly from a long 

 letter of the Father Superior to the Provincial of the Jesuits at Paris, 

 containing a curiously minute report of the state of the mission. It was 

 sent from Quebec by the returning ships in the summer of 1634, and will 

 be found in Carayon, Premiere Mission des Jesuites au Canada, 122. The 

 original is in the archives of the Order at Rome. 



2 See " Pioneers of France in the New World." 



1* 



