CHAPTER I.
EMBARKATION.—VOYAGE.—ARRIVAL IN QUEBEC.—FIRST DWELLING.
It was on the 4th of May, 1639, that the 'St. Joseph' set sail from Dieppe. The coincidences were cheering: with St. Joseph for pilot, the sweet Star of the Sea for beacon light, and the Mother of St. Augustine for protectress, the good ship might fairly have been expected to weather all storms and brave all perils. It was accompanied by some other vessels, bound like itself for the Western World. Many a guardian angel must have rejoiced at the departure of that little fleet, bearing God's messengers of salvation to nations seated in darkness and enveloped in the shades of death. On board the 'St. Joseph,' as the safest and most commodious of the ships, was the Ursuline colony, five in number, including the Foundress with her secular companion, and three Hospital Sisters from Dieppe, who were going to establish a house of the Hôtel Dieu at Quebec, under the auspices of the Duchess d'Aiguillon, a niece to Cardinal Richelieu. Father Vimont, a Jesuit, took passage in this ship; Fathers Poncet and Chaumonot each in one of the others, thus the better to ensure spiritual aid for the whole crew.
It was with joy in her heart, and thanksgiving on her lips, that the Venerable Mother turned her face towards the great goal of her earthly hopes, the savage land, where, as she said, she would have the chance of risking her life for love of Him who had bestowed it. The first movement of the vessel in that direction seemed to her like a step towards the bliss of heaven and, under the sheltering wings of Providence, she felt as tranquil on the treacherous waters as a child reposing at peace in its mother's arms.
It was not long before the travellers had an opportunity of realizing how securely grounded are the hopes which rest in God. Scarcely had they lost sight of the French shore, when they came in view of a Spanish fleet, evidently bearing towards them. The only means of escape was by sailing close to the English coast. Thanks to Divine Providence, the plan succeeded, but as it involved a deviation from their direct course, their progress was, in consequence, so much retarded, that they did not clear the Channel until the 20th of May.
The cabin assigned to the Sisters in the 'St. Joseph' was transformed into a miniature monastery, where the conventual exercises were daily gone through with admirable fervour and regularity. Meditation, Mass, and Holy Communion, sanctified the early hours, and at stated intervals the Office was recited in choir by the Ursulines on one side, and the Hospital Sisters on the other, Father Vimont presiding. Although the voyage was very long and tempestuous, the Holy Sacrifice was omitted only on thirteen days of exceptional storm.
"They that go down to the sea in ships, doing business in the great waters; these have seen the works of the Lord, and His wonders in the deep" (Ps. cvi. 23, 24). It was the Feast of the Holy Trinity. The last sounds of the morning Office had just arisen from the Sisters' little sanctuary, when with the dying echo of the song of praise mingled a cry of terror from the watch on-deck. In the dense fog of the preceding night, the ship had drifted alarmingly close to an iceberg, but of this peril the crew, of course, remained unconscious while the fog continued. At last the mist yielded to the sun's rays, and then the awful spectacle broke on them in all its horrors. The iceberg was of enormous dimensions. It looked, the Venerable Mother tells us, like a fortified city floating on the deep; its frowning towers and battlements relieved here and there by tall graceful spars, which imagination could easily have transformed into spires and pinnacles of churches and turrets. On it came proudly through the waters, as if impatient to crush the frail vessel that lay in its path, utterly helpless and all but hopeless. Even the elements seemed to have conspired for the destruction of that devoted ship; no friendly breeze arose to send it bounding beyond the reach of danger; the winds were hushed, and in the struggle for life, its chances were as nothing. Death seemed so inevitable and so near, that Father Vimont gave a general absolution, and all prepared as best they could to meet the fate from which there appeared no escape. But where, meantime, was the heavenly Star, to whose guidance they had confided themselves so lovingly and so implicitly? Temporarily hidden, for the trial of their faith and trust, but ready to shine out with renewed brightness as soon as both should have been sufficiently proved. Just as the last faint hope was vanishing, Father Vimont made a vow in the name of the ship's company to perform a specified act of devotion in honour of the Mother of God, if she would deign to take compassion, on them in this extremity of distress. Swifter than thought, the prayer for mercy reached the throne of Heaven's Queen, and with equal rapidity came the answer. As a last chance, the captain issued orders, to turn the helm in a particular direction; the steersman, misunderstanding, turned it in the opposite, and, wonderful to say, the apparent mistake saved the ship. Obeying the new impulse, it was borne to one side of the dreaded iceberg, and, when once out of its direct path, the imminence of the danger was over. As it floated past the enormous, moving mountain, the rescued crew could vividly realize the peril which they had escaped, and estimate as it deserved the extent of their debt of gratitude to the Heavenly Mother who had befriended them so effectually in the hour of their extreme need.
After a tedious and in many ways trying voyage of three months, the 'St. Joseph' touched at Tadoussac, where to their great joy, the Sisters met several Indians. Never having seen white people before, the poor savages were lost in astonishment, but how did their wonder redouble when they learned that these ladies were "great captains' daughters," as they would themselves have expressed it, who had quitted, home, country, and all the comforts of civilized life, for no other purpose than to come and teach them and their children how to escape eternal fire, and ensure everlasting happiness! They could not comprehend the strange tidings, and to discover if possible the real object of the new-comers, they followed along the shore as the ship resumed its way to Quebec, keeping a close and watchful eye on its movements.
The missioners spent their first night in Canada at the Isle of Orleans, which they reached on the evening of the 31st of July. As they landed, the sun had just set in all the splendour which his setting is wont to wear in Canada. The sky was literally glowing with gorgeous colours of every hue, intermingled with ethereal gold, as if in descending to his rest, the mighty monarch had left a fold of his mantle of glory floating on the western heavens, to symbolize that brighter mantle of celestial light which soon would envelop the benighted race whom those devoted missioners had come so far to seek and to help to save. The island was uninhabited, so three wigwams were constructed in Indian fashion, one for the Nuns, one for the Jesuits and a third for the sailors. Unable to contain their holy joy, the Sisters entoned a canticle of thanksgiving, and for the first time since their creation, those venerable woods re- echoed with songs of praise to the one true God and His adorable Incarnate Son.
On the following day, August the 1st, 1639, the missioners reached Quebec. Their first act on landing was to kneel and reverently press their lips to the soil of the adopted country which was to be to them thenceforth in place of home and fatherland. They were received with the greatest enthusiasm. The moment they stepped on shore, a salute was fired from Fort St. Louis. They were met at the landing-place by the whole population headed by the Governor-General, Monsieur de Montmagny, and the Jesuit Fathers of the colony, and after mutual salutations, were escorted to the church, where the holy Sacrifice was offered with all the solemnity that circumstances permitted, the ceremony concluding with the Te Deum. After having been hospitably entertained by the Governor, the Sisters of the two communities proceeded to their destined dwellings. As a mark of the general joy, the day was inscribed in the red letter calendar and work totally suspended.
The next day, the Jesuits conducted the Sisters to the mission at Sillery, already noticed in the introductory chapter as formed on the model of the Reductions of Paraguay. It would need a skilful artist to paint that beautiful scene; on the one hand, the heavenly joy of the Mother of the Incarnation and her companions, at sight of the Indian children, for whose spiritual and temporal welfare their hearts had so long yearned with more than mother's love; on the other, the amazement of the little ones at finding themselves the objects of so much unwonted solicitude. Utterly bewildered, they at first received the Sisters' caresses with the characteristic caution and reserve of their nation, but the language of kindness is easily understood, and very soon the children had rightly interpreted their visitors' affectionate advances. Attracted by their gentleness, their affability, their unmistakable disinterestedness, they followed them step by step through the hamlet, gaining confidence every moment. With the whole savage population for escort, the Sisters proceeded to the little church, which was the chief ornament, as well as the great treasure of the village, and there the Indians all joined in a hymn which the Jesuit Fathers had composed for them in their own language. The strain was simple, the temple humble, the congregation illiterate and poorly clad, yet who shall say that colonnaded aisle or fretted dome of proud cathedral ever resounded with music sweeter in the ear of heaven, than was that unpretending hymn of the despised Indians! Who would not envy the emotions of the Venerable Mother and her fervent Sisters, as they knelt in the lowly church among the poor savages in the hamlet of Sillery! This visit over, the Ursulines and Hospitaliers separated, each community repairing to its appointed home. The Ursulines were located in the Lower Town, at the foot of the mountain road, not far from the spot occupied later by the Church of Our Lady of Victories. The Hospital Sisters were lodged near Fort St. Louis.
The abode assigned to the Ursulines until a monastery could be built for them, contained only two apartments, the larger of which, sixteen feet square, served at once as choir, parlour, refectory and common dormitory; the second was reserved for the school-room. A little shed near the house was fitted up as a chapel, and although so very poor as forcibly to recall the stable of Bethlehem, it was precious to them beyond words to tell, for there the adorable Sacrifice was henceforth daily offered, and there too at all times dwelt quite close to them in the Sacrament of His love, the Divine Spouse for whose sake they had renounced themselves and all things here below. A wooden palisade round the dwelling supplied the place of cloister walls. In this most miserable abode they spent three years, amidst unimaginable privations and inconveniences, exposed to extreme cold in winter, and overpowering heat in summer; breathing the air vitiated by a crowd of Indians, whose uncleanly habits are proverbial, and whose very clothes exhaled a sickening odour. When the children presented themselves at the school for the first time, their attire was scanty, and of the coarsest materials. They wore a mass of tangled hair, guiltless since first it began to grow, of all acquaintance with scissors, brush or comb, and they were covered all over with a greasy substance, which to judge from the care employed in laying it on, must have been deemed an indispensable finishing touch to the juvenile Indian's toilet. To bring that untidy hair into order, and to remove that personal adornment, unsightly in appearance, as unattractive in aroma, became a question of privilege. The Foundress claimed it as her right, because as she said, she was fit for nothing else, but others thought themselves entitled to the honour too, so finally a compromise was agreed on, and all had their turn. The children's uncivilized ways must no doubt have at first occasioned many a mortification to the Sisters; for instance, the Mother of the Incarnation tells us that they daily found some disgusting mixture in their food, a bunch of hair, a handful of cinders, or even an old shoe being no uncommon addition to the ordinary ingredients, yet so completely did grace triumph over nature in these Christian heroines, that unsavoury as was the seasoning of their soup, and countless as were the discomforts of their position, they enjoyed indescribable happiness in their poverty, and preferred their humble lodging with its uncouth inmates, to the grandest mansion without them. Their dwelling, they called the "Louvre", and in their poor pupils, the eye of faith enabled them to discern ornaments more costly, more precious and more prized than all the splendour which art can devise and wealth purchase for the embellishment of regal palaces, for what is the value of a palace, compared with that of a soul?