“Mr. Brassard will be your pastor, and Mr. Chiniquy, as his vicar, will remain in your midst. He has signed an act of submission, which we have found sufficient, on the condition that the bishop will let you live in peace, and withdraw the sentence he says he has fulminated against you. If he does not accept those conditions, we will tell him, it is not Mr. Chiniquy, but you, who wants a schism, and we will go with Mr. Chiniquy to Rome, to plead his cause and prove his innocence before his holiness.”
After this, we all knelt to thank and bless God; and never people went back to their homes with more cheerful hearts than the people of St. Anne, on that morning of the 25th of November, 1856.
At six o’clock A. M., Mr. Desaulnier was on his way back to Chicago, to present my conditional act of submission to the bishop, and press him, in the name of the Bishop of Canada, and in the name of all the most sacred interests of the church, to accept the sacrifice and the submission of the people of St. Anne, and to give them the peace they wanted and were purchasing at such a price. The Rev. Mr. Brassard had remained with me, waiting for a letter from the bishop to accompany me and put the last seal to our reconciliation.
The next day he received the following note from Mr. Desaulnier:
Bishopric of Chicago, Nov. 26th, 1856.
The Rev. Mr. Brassard, Monsieur:—
It is advisable and indispensable that you should come here, with Mr. Chiniquy, as soon as possible. In consequence, I expect you both day after to-morrow, in order to settle that matter definitely.
Respectfully yours. ISAAC DESAULNIER.
After reading that letter with Mr. Brassard, I said:
“Do you not feel that these cold words mean nothing good? I regret that you have not gone with Desaulnier to the bishop. You know the levity and weakness of his character, always bold with his words, but soft as wax at the least pressure which he feels. My fear is that the bulldog tenacity of my lord O’Regan has frightened him, and all his courage and bravados have melted away before the fierce temper of the Bishop of Chicago. But let us go. Be sure, however, my dear Mr. Brassard, that if the Bishop does not accept you to remain at the head of this colony, to protect and guide it, no consideration whatever will induce me to betray my people and let them become the prey of the wolves which want to devour them.”