Jouvency's Canadicæ Missionis Relatio
Rome: GIORGIO PLACKO, 1710
Source: We follow the general style of O'Callaghan's Reprint No. 4. The Title-page, Eulogy of Biard, and Table of Contents, are the work of that Editor. The Text, and List of Missions in 1710, he reprinted from Jouvency's Historia Societatis Jesu (Rome, 1710), part v., pp. 321-325, 961, 962; the proof of these we have read from a copy of that work, found in the library of the College of St. Francis Xavier, New York. The bracketed pagination in Arabic figures is that of Jouvency; that in Roman, of O'Callaghan.
CANADICÆ
MISSIONIS
RELATIO
Ab anno 1611 usque ad annum 1613, cum statu ejusdem Missionis, annis 1703 & 1710,
Auctore Josepho Juvencio, Societatis Jesu, Sacerdote.
Ex Historiæ Soc. Jesu. Lib. xv. Part. v, impressa
ROMÆ
Ex Typographia Georgii Plachi
M. D. CC. X.
AN ACCOUNT OF THE
CANADIAN
MISSION
From the year 1611 until the year 1613, with the condition of the same Mission in the years 1703 and 1710,
By Joseph Jouvency, a Priest of the Society of Jesus.
Printed from the History of the Society of Jesus, Book xv., Part v.
ROME
From the Press of Giorgio Placko
1710.
P. Petri Biardi Eulogium ac Vita.
DE Patre Petro Biardo qui tantam in Missione Canadica inchoanda partem gessit hæc scribit Pater Josephus Juvencius in sua Historiâ sub anno 1622.
"Ex omnibus qui hoc anno vivere in provincia Lugdunensi desierunt, luctu maximo elatus est Avenione P. Petrus Biardus Gratianopolitanus. Religionis propagandæ studio navigaverat ad barbaros Canadenses, fueratque inter primos ejus terræ cultores, ut in quinta parte narratum est. Inde pulsus ab hæreticis Anglis, & redire in Galliam coactus, totum se impendit [ii] juvandis popularibus suis, quorum ut saluti consuleret, nihil sibi reliqui ad laborem diligentiamque faciebat. Ejus tamen industriam experti maxime sunt Parodienses in præfectura Carolitana, quam civitatem per usitata ordinis ministeria diu coluit. Novissime regionis præfectus Marchio Ragnius, jussus a rege copias in Campaniam ducere contra Ernestum Mansfeldium Galliæ finibus imminentem, Biardum sibi adsciverat comitem expeditionis, & sacrorum ministrum. Per eam occasionem nescias, utrum spectata magis sit apostolici viri charitas, an patientia. Magna erat in castris inopia commeatuum. Diaria militibus præbebantur adeo maligne, ut nonnulli fame perirent. Biardus cibario, & [198] demensum suum, ac siquid præterea pecuniolæ a ditioribus emendicando corrogasset, inter egentissimos militum partiebatur, se ipsum fraudans diurno victu, ut aliis benigne faceret. Avenionem concesserat [iii] denique, ut attritas tot laboribus vires paucorum dierum otio reficeret. Verum quasi divinans, instare sibi omnium laborum & vitæ finem, totum illud tempus impendit excolendo piis commentationibus animo inter tirones, seque ad primam tirocinii formam senex emeritus ita composuit, ut nullam omitteret earum exercitationum, quibus ad sui mundique contemptum erudiri solent novitii. His intentum, nihilque jam præter cælestia cogitantem mors oppressit, xv. Cal. Decembris."
Adhæc non inutile forsan videbitur adjicere quæ ab auctore antiquiore Philippo scilicet Alegambe scripta sunt in Catalogo Scriptorum Societatis Jesu, sub verbo Biard:
"Petrus Biardus natione Gallus, patriâ Gratianopolitanus, operarius magni zeli, atque adeò multarum palmarum, quas [iv] in horridis et inuiis Canadensium Septentrionalis Americæ populorum siluis primus legit. Extrema ibi omnia passus, nihil tamen inhumanum magis, quàm Hæreticos, expertus est. Feritatis oblita gens barbara integerrimi hominis innocentiam venerari discebat; cùm ecce tibi sanctitatis inimica, Deumque nesciens Hæresis, cum Anglis Canadæ oras irrupit; difficillimæ expeditionis ingens pretium fuit, exosum inde abducere Jesuitam. Habitus [200] est in vinculis aliquamdiu; & vix tandem in Galliam nudus ab omni remissus. Intereà verò dum integrum illi esset ad noualia Canadæ redire, damnum ab Hæreticis illatum sanctè vitus est: reliquo vitæ tempore quæsiuit intentissimis studiis ad vitam illos, à quibus ad necem adductus fuerat. Docuerat olim Theologiam Lugduni, non sine laude. Reuersus è Missione Castrensi, cùm Auenionem diuertisset, & opportunitate temporis vsus secessisset in Nouitiatum, in ipsis [v] penè spiritualium Exercitiorum initiis, ad paradisi contemplationem, vt credimus, euocatus est, die XIX. Nouembris, Anno MDCXXIJ.
Præter Epistolam ad R. P. Præpositum Generalem è Portu Regali, et Relationem Expeditionis Anglorum in Canadam, P. Biardus scripsit Librum pro auctoritate Pontificis, contra Martinettum Ministrum. Gallicè etiam edidit seorsim Relationem Novæ Franciæ & itineris Patrum Societatis Jesu ad illam. Lugduni apud L. Muguet, MDCXVI. in 12."
Eulogy and Life of Father Peter Biard.
CONCERNING Father Peter Biard, who performed so great a part in the establishment of the Canadian Mission, Father Joseph Juvency[46] writes these things in his History, under the year 1622:
"Of all who during the present year have departed this life in the province of Lyons, the most regretted was Father Peter Biard, of Grenoble, who, was taken away at Avignon. With the desire of propagating religion, he had journeyed to the barbarous Canadians, and had been among the first settlers of that country, as has been narrated in the fifth part (of this volume). Upon being driven thence by the heretical English, and compelled to return to France, he entirely devoted himself [ii] to the service of his countrymen; and, that he might provide for their salvation, in no respect showed himself deficient either in labor or diligence. His industry, however, was especially enjoyed by the Paray le Monial, in the prefecture of Charolles, which community he long served with the customary ministrations of the order. Finally, the prefect of the district, Marchio Ragne, upon being ordered by the king to lead troops into Campania against Ernest von Mansfeld,[47] who was threatening the frontiers of France, had selected Biard as his companion during the expedition, and as a minister of sacred rites. Upon that occasion one would doubt whether the charity of the apostolic man, or his patience, were the more remarkable. There was in the camp a great scarcity of provisions. Rations were so poorly furnished to the soldiers that some perished with hunger. Biard divided among the most needy of them, both his own allowance and whatever small sums of money he had collected by begging from the more wealthy, depriving himself of daily sustenance, that he might do a kindness to others. He had retired to Avignon, [iii] at last, that he might with a few days' leisure refresh his energies, which had been worn out by so many toils. But divining, as it were, that the end of all labors and of life was at hand, he spent all that period in disciplining his spirit by pious meditations among the novices; and, although an aged man who had served his time, so adapted himself to the earliest form of the novitiate, that he omitted none of those exercises by which beginners are educated to a contempt of themselves and of the world. While intent upon these, and already thinking of nothing but heavenly things, death seized him on the 17th day of November."
To these things it will perhaps not seem useless to add what has been written by an earlier author, namely, Philip Alegambe,[48] in the Bibliography of the Authors of the Society of Jesus, under the word Biard:
"Peter Biard, a French citizen, born in Grenoble, a laborer of great zeal, and of very many laurels which [iv] he first gathered in the dreadful and pathless forests of the Canadian tribes of North America. Although suffering there every extremity, he still experienced nothing more brutal than the Heretics. The barbarous race, forgetting its savageness, was learning to venerate the character of this most righteous man; when, behold, Heresy, hostile to holiness and ignorant of God, burst, together with the English, upon the shores of Canada. The reward of a very laborious expedition was great,—to drive thence the hated Jesuit. For some time he was kept in bonds; and at last, stripped of everything, he was with difficulty restored to France. But meanwhile, until it was safe to return to the wilds of Canada, he took vengeance in a holy manner for the injury inflicted by the Heretics; during the rest of his life he sought with the greatest enthusiasm to win to life those by whom he had been devoted to death. He had formerly taught Theology at Lyons, not without commendation. On his return from the Military Mission, when he had turned aside to Avignon, and, making use of his opportunity, had retired into the Novitiate, in [v] almost the very beginning of his spiritual Exercises, he was called away to the contemplation of paradise, as we believe, on the 19th day of November, in the year 1622.
Besides a Letter to R. P. General Commander from Port Royal, and An Account of the Expedition of the English against Canada, Father Biard wrote A Book Advocating the authority of the Pontiff against Martinet, a minister. In French, also, he published separately An Account of New France and of the journey thither of the Fathers of the Society of Jesus. Lyons, by L. Muguet, 1616, in 12mo."—[O'Callaghan.]