THE PLOT TO DESTROY ME—THE INTERDICT—THE RETREAT AT THE JESUITS’ COLLEGE—THE LOST GIRL, EMPLOYED BY THE BISHOP, RETRACTS—THE BISHOP CONFOUNDED, SEES HIS INJUSTICE, MAKES AMENDS—TESTIMONIAL LETTERS—THE CHALICE—THE BENEDICTION BEFORE I LEAVE CANADA.
The first week of September, 1851, I was hearing confessions in one of the churches of Montreal, when a fine-looking girl came to confess sins, whose depravity surpassed anything I had ever heard. Though I forbade her twice to do it, she gave me the names of several priests who were the accomplices of her orgies. The details of her iniquities were told with such cynical impudence that the idea struck me, at once, that she was sent by some one to ruin me. I abruptly stopped her disgusting stories by saying: “The way you confess your sins, is a sure indication that you do not come here to reconcile yourself to God, but to ruin me. By the grace of God, you will fail. I forbid you to come any more to my confessional. If I see you again among my penitents, I will order the beadle to turn you out of the church.”
I instantly shut the door of the small aperture through which she was speaking to me.
She answered something which I could not understand. But the tone of her voice, the shaking of her hands and head, with her manner of walking, when she left the confessional, indicated that she was beside herself with rage, as she went to speak a few words to a carter who was in the church preparing himself to confess.
The next evening, I said to Rev. Mr. Brassard that I suspected that a girl was sent to my confessional to ruin me.
He answered: “Did I not warn you sometime ago that there was a plot to destroy you? I have not the least doubt but that that girl was hired to begin that diabolical work. You have no idea of my anxiety about you. For I know your enemies will not shrink from any iniquity to destroy your good name, and prevent you from directing the tide of emigration from Canada to the valley of the Mississippi.”
I replied “that I could not partake of his fears; that God knew my innocence and the purity of my motives; He would defend and protect me.”
“My dear Chiniquy,” replied Mr. Brassard, “I know your enemies. They are not numerous, but they are implacable, and their power for mischief knows no limits. Surely, God can save you from their hands; but I cannot share your security for the future. Your answer to the bishop, in reference to Mrs. Chenier, when you refused to send her to the nunnery, that he might inherit her fortune, has, forever, alienated him from you. Bishop Bourget has the merited reputation of being the most revengeful man in Canada. He will avail himself of the least opportunity to strike you without mercy.”
I answered: “Though there should be a thousand Bishops Bourget to plot against me, I will not fear them, so long as I am in the right, as I am to-day.”
As the clock struck twelve, I bade him good night, and ten minutes later I was sound asleep.