“The only condition of that peace is that you will spend fifteen days in retreat and meditation in one of the religious houses you will choose yourself. I think that, after so much noise and exciting controversies, it will do you good to pass those days in meditation and prayer, in some of our beautiful and peaceful solitudes.
I answered him: “If your lordship had not offered me the favor of those days of perfect and Christian rest, I would have asked you to grant it. I consider it as a crowning of all your acts of kindness to offer me those few days of calm and meditation, after the terrible storms of those last three years. If your lordship has no objection to my choice, I will go to the beautiful solitude where M. Saurin has built the celebrated Monastery, College and University of St. Joseph, Indiana. I hope that nothing will prevent my being there next Monday. After going, next Sabbath, in the company of Grand Vicar Dunn, to proclaim the restoration of the blessed peace to my people of St. Anne.”
“You cannot make a better choice,” answered the bishop.
“But, my lord,” I rejoined, “I hope your lordship will have no objection to give me a written assurance of the perfect restoration of that long-sought peace. There are people who, I know, will not believe me, when I tell them how quickly and nobly your lordship has put an end to all those deplorable difficulties. I want to show them that I stand, to-day, in the same relation with my superiors and the church in which I stood previous to these unfortunate strifes.”
“Certainly,” said the bishop, “you are in need of such a document from your bishop, and you shall have it. I will write it at once.”
But, he had not yet written two lines, when Mr. Dunn looked at his watch and said: “We have not a minute to lose, if we want to be in time for the Chicago train.”
I then said to the bishop: “Please, my lord, address me that important document to Chicago, where I will get it at the postoffice, on my way to the University of St. Joseph, next Monday; your lordship will have plenty of time to write it, this afternoon.”
The bishop, having consented, I hastily took leave of him, with Mr. Dunn, after having received his benediction.
On our way back to St. Anne, the next day, we stopped at Bourbonnaise to see the grand vicar Mailloux, one of the priests who had been sent by the bishops of Canada to help my lord O’Regan to crush me. We found him as he was going to his dining room to take his dinner. He was visibly humiliated by the complete defeat of Bishop O’Regan, at Rome.
After Mr, Dunn told him that he was sent to proclaim peace to the people of St. Anne, he coldly asked the written proof of such strange news.