102 CHARACTER OF THE CANADIAN JESUITS. [1637. 



study music under the Fathers of the Oratory. To 

 provide funds for the journey, he stole a sum of 

 about the value of a dollar from his uncle, the priest. 

 This act, which seems to have been a mere pecca- 

 dillo of boyish levity, determined his future career. 

 Finding himself in total destitution at Beaune, he 

 wrote to his mother for money, and received in 

 reply an order from his father to come home. 

 Stung with the thought of being posted as a thief 

 in his native village, he resolved not to do so, but 

 to set out forthwith on a pilgrimage to Rome ; 

 and accordingly, tattered and penniless, he took 

 the road for the sacred city. Soon a conflict began 

 within him between his misery and the pride which 

 forbade him to beg. The pride was forced to 

 succumb. He begged from door to door ; slept 

 under sheds by the wayside, or in haystacks ; and 

 now and then found lodging and a meal at a 

 convent. Thus, sometimes alone, sometimes with 

 vagabonds whom he met on the road, he made his 

 way through Savoy and Lombardy in a pitiable 

 condition of destitution, filth, and disease. At 

 length he reached Ancona, when the thought oc- 

 cured to him of visiting the Holy House of Loretto, 

 and imploring the succor of the Virgin Mary. Nor 

 were his hopes disappointed. He had reached 

 that renowned shrine, knelt, paid his devotions, 

 and offered his prayer, when, as he issued from the 

 door of the chapel, he was accosted by a young 

 man, whom he conjectures to have been an angel 

 descended to his relief, and who was probably some 

 penitent or devotee bent on works of charity or 



