BEAVER AND CANADIAN HISTORY 185 
later, there is another account of a poor woman 
eighty years of age whose son had been slain, 
sending in her little offering of “six beaver skins 
in order to have prayers offered to God for his 
soul.” 
It appears that the beaver skins caused serious 
difficulties to the priests, who were practically 
forced to use them as money and in many other 
ways. Apparently private persons were unable to 
send the skins to France, in fact they could not 
dispose of them for shipment except through the 
French company, which had such unlimited powers 
and which presumably did not pay anything like 
the price offered in Europe, so that the Jesuits 
were forced to lose heavily in the transaction. 
Father Le Jeune writes very strongly on this 
question, and I quote rather fully from him as his 
account has a direct bearing on the beaver and the 
way in which the use and sale of the skins crept in 
to all the dealings between France and Canada. 
He begins with the statement, “The 7th general 
‘congregation of our Society which absolutely for- 
bids all kinds of commerce and business under any 
pretext whatever,’ and further on, “Some of our 
Fathers send me word that we must not even look 
at from the corners of our eyes, or touch with ends 
of our fingers, the skins of any of these animals 
which are of great value here; what can be the 
cause of this advice?” He then relates how they 
have been slandered in France and says, “ Peltry is 
