“I will still love and bless you; for I know the hand which forced yours to do so. I will always know that your own heart was first struck and wounded by the blow they commanded you to give to your friend and son in Jesus Christ.
“C. Chiniquy.”
The effect of that letter upon Mr. Brassard was still more powerful than I had expected. It forced him to blush at his own cowardice, and to ask me pardon for the unjust sentence he had passed upon me to obey the bishop. Here are the parts of the letter bearing upon that subject:
St. Roch, 29 Mai, 1857.
Moncher Chiniquy:—“Je suis plus convainen que jamais que tu n’as jamais ete interdit legalement, depuis que j’ai appris par Monseigneur de Montreal, que l’eveque de Chicago t’a interdit de vive voix, dans sa chambre; ce que Ligoury dit etre nul te de nul effet.”
I am more than ever convinced that you have never been legally interdicted, since Bishop Bourget told me that Bishop O’Regan had interdicted you privately, “viva voce” in his private room. Ligoury says that it is a nullity and that it can have no effect. I beg your pardon for what I wrote against you. I have been forced to do it. Because I had not yet sufficiently condemned you, and that my name, which you were citing in your writings, was giving you too much power, and a too clear condemnation of Bishop O’Regan, the Bishop of Montreal, abusing his authority over me, forced me to sign that document against you. I would not do it to-day if it were to be done again. Keep silence on what I tell you in this letter. It is all confidential. You understand it.
Your devoted friend,
L. M. Brassard.
No priest in Canada had more deservedly enjoyed the reputation of a man of honor, than Mr. Brassard. Not one had ever stood so high in my esteem and respect. His sudden and unexpected fall, filled my heart with an unspeakable sadness. I may say that it snapped the last thread which held me to the church of Rome. Till then, it was not only my hope, but my firm conviction, that there were many honest, upright priests in that church, and Mr. Brassard was, to me, the very personification of honesty.
How can I describe the shock I felt when I saw him, there, in the mud, a monument of the unspeakable corruption of my church!