200 VILLEMARIE DE MONTREAL. [1641. 



but now Father La Place, a Jesuit, revealed it 

 to hei". On the day after her arrival at Rochelle, 

 as she entered the Church of the Jesuits, she 

 met Dauversiere coming out. "Then," says her 

 biographer, "these two persons, who had never 

 seen nor heard of each other, were enlightened su- 

 pernaturally, whereby their most hidden thoughts 

 were mutually made known, as had happened 

 already with M. Olier and this same M. de la 

 Dauversiere." ^ A long conversation ensued be- 

 tween them ; and the delights of this interview 

 were never effaced from the mind of Mademoiselle 

 Mance. " She used to speak of it like a seraph," 

 writes one of her nuns, " and far better than many 

 a learned doctor could have done." ^ 



She had found her destiny. The ocean, the 

 wilderness, the solitude, the Iroquois, — nothing 

 daunted her. She would go to Montreal with 

 Maisonneuve and his forty men. Yet, when the 

 vessel was about to sail, a new and sharp misgiving 

 seized her. How could she, a woman, not yet 

 bereft of youth or charms, live alone in the forest, 

 among a troop of soldiers? Her scruples were 

 relieved by two of the men, who, at the last 

 moment, refused to embark without their wives, — 

 and by a young woman, who, impelled by enthu- 

 siasm, escaped from her friends, and took passage, 

 in spite of them, in one of the vessels. 



1 Faillon, Vie de M"* Mance, I. 18. Here again the Abbe Ferland, 

 with his usual good sense, tacitly rejects the supernaturalism. 



2 La Soeur Morin, Annales des Hospitalieres de Villemarie, MS., cited by 

 Faillon. 



