Whether the Marquis and Marchioness Denonville profited by so apt and terrible a warning, or whether their patience and good-nature survived the episcopal onslaught, does not appear on record. The subject of feminine apparel received great attention, both from Saint-Vallier and his
* “Témoin entr’autres l’exemple de la malheureuse
Prétextate, dame de grande condition, laquelle au rapport de
S. Jérôme, dont elle étoit connue, eut les mains desséchées
et cinq mois après mourut subitement et fut précipitée en
enfer, ainsi que Dieu l’en avoit menacée par un Ange pour
avoir par le commandement de son mari frisé et habillé
mondainement sa nièce.” Divers points a représenter a Mr. le
Gouverneur et à Madame la Gouvernante, signé Jean, évesque
de Québec. (Registre de l’Evêché de Québec.) The bishop on
another occasion holds up the sad fate of Pretextata as a
warning to Canadian mothers; but in the present case he
slightly changes the incidents to make the story more
applicable to the governor and his wife.
predecessor, each of whom issued a number of pastoral mandates concerning it. Their severest denunciations were aimed at low-necked dresses, which they regarded as favorite devices of the enemy for the snaring of souls; and they also used strong language against certain knots of ribbons called fontanges, with which the belles of Quebec adorned them heads. Laval launches strenuous invectives against “the luxury and vanity of women and girls, who, forgetting the promises of their baptism, decorate themselves with the pomp of Satan, whom they have so solemnly renounced; and, in their wish to please the eyes of men, make themselves the instruments and the captives of the fiend.” *
In the journal of the superior of the Jesuits we find, under date of February 4, 1667, a record of the first ball in Canada, along with the pious wish, “God grant that nothing further come of it.” Nevertheless more balls were not long in following; and, worse yet, sundry comedies were enacted under no less distinguished patronage than that of Frontenac, the governor. Laval denounced them vigorously, the Jesuit Dablon attacked them in a violent sermon; and such excitement followed that the affair was brought before the royal council, which declined to interfere. ** This flurry,
* Mandement contre le luxe et la vanité des femmes et des
filles, 1682. (Registres de l'Evêché de Québec.) A still
more vigorous denunciation is contained in Ordonnance contre
les vices de luxe et d’impureté, 1690. This was followed in
the next year by a stringent list of rules called Réglement
pour la conduite des fidèles de ce diocèse.
** Arrêts du 24 et 28 juin par lesquels cette affaire (des
comédies) est renvoyésn& Sa Majesté, 1681. (?) (Registre du
Conseil Souverain.)
however, was nothing to the storm raised ten or twelve years later by other dramatic aggressions, an account of which will appear in the sequel of this volume.
The morals of families were watched with unrelenting vigilance. Frontenac writes in a mood unusually temperate, “they (the priests) are full of virtue and piety, and if their zeal were less vehement and more moderate they would perhaps succeed better in their efforts for the conversion of souls; but they often use means so extraordinary, and in France so unusual, that they repel most people instead of persuading them. I sometimes tell them my views frankly and as gently as I can, as I know the murmurs that their conduct excites, and often receive complaints of the constraint under which they place consciences. This is above all the case with the ecclesiastics at Montreal, where there is a curé from Franche Comté who wants to establish a sort of inquisition worse than that of Spain, and all out of an excess of zeal.” *
It was this curé, no doubt, of whom La Hontan complains. That unsanctified young officer was quartered at Montreal, in the house of one of the inhabitants. “During a part of the winter I was hunting with the Algonquins; the rest of it I spent here very disagreeably. One can neither go on a pleasure party, nor play a game of cards, nor visit the ladies, without the curé knowing it and preaching about it publicly from his pulpit. The priests excommunicate
* Frontenac au Ministre, 20 Oct., 1691.
masqueraders, and even go in search of them to pull off their masks and overwhelm them with abuse. They watch more closely over the women and girls than their husbands and fathers. They prohibit and burn all books but books of devotion. I cannot think of this tyranny without cursing the indiscreet zeal of the curé of this town. He came to the house where I lived, and, finding some books on my table, presently pounced on the romance of Petronius, which I valued more than my life because it was not mutilated. He tore out almost all the leaves, so that if my host had not restrained me when I came in and saw the miserable wreck, I should have run after this rampant shepherd and torn out every hair of his beard.” *