242 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



* Tu marcheras toi-meme 

 Pendant plus de mille ans; 

 Le dernier jugeraeut 

 Finira ton tourment ! ' " 



He has been tramping ever since, wearing his shoemaker's 

 apron, and always with five sous, never more or less, in his pocket, 

 glad to drink a glass of wine with any honest bourgeois he meets, 

 but much tormented in soul when he halts for that purpose. The 

 ballad, as sung in French Canada, is given in full in Ernest 

 Gagnon's collection. 



Among the miracles recorded by ecclesiastics, the most strik- 

 ing was the defeat of the English expedition against Quebec in 

 1690 by the Virgin Mary, to whom a church, still standing in 

 Lower Town Notre Dame des Victoires was forthwith dedicated. 

 Miraculous cures were wrought by the relics of the Jesuit Brebeuf , 

 murdered in the country of the Hurons near Penetanguishene, 

 and through invoking the Jesuit Le Jeune. These are about the 

 only miracles officially credited to the Jesuits ; they bear no com- 

 parison with those ascribed to the Jesuit Anchieta in Brazil ; still 

 less with those of St. Francis Xavier and the missionary thauma- 

 turgists of his day. The performance of miracles by the Cana- 

 dian Jesuits may possibly have been hindered by the presence of 

 heretic traders from the neighboring English and Dutch colo- 

 nies; it was cynically suggested at the time that unless they 

 could banish the smallpox, always raging among the Indians 

 and frequently attacking the settlements, it was useless to work 

 minor wonders as a means of impressing either red men or white. 



The nuns were more successful. Marie de Tlncarnation and 

 the Mere de Saint- Augustin possessed the spiritual charismata of 

 the Christian women of whom Tertullian wrote : " There is at this 

 day among us a sister who has the gift of revelations, which she 

 receives in church amid the solemnities of the Lord's day by 

 ecstasy of the spirit; she converses with angels and sometimes 

 also with the Lord, and she both hears and sees mysteries." The 

 astounding visions of these two Quebec nuns are described at 

 length by a recent biographer, Abbd Casgrain. Both were fore- 

 warned of the earthquake of 1663, when, as the Relations say, 

 rivers and lakes changed their beds, mountains were swallowed, 

 and forests hurled in the air, the trees falling on end with the 

 roots upward ; the warning was conveyed by the appearance of 

 demons, which gathered over Quebec and were restrained for a 

 time, but only for a time, by a majestic youth of whom they 

 stood in awe. The statue of Notre Dame de Toute-Grace, at 

 the Hotel-Dieu Convent, was wonderfully gifted. The Mere du 

 Saint-Esprit, of that house, foretold its destruction by fire. In 

 1810 a Protestant woman visited it at Christmas and prayed 



