Sister Maillet, who had charge of the meagre treasury of the community, thought that something more than a blessing was due from him; and asked where she should apply for payment of the interest of the twenty thousand livres which Mademoiselle Mance had placed in his hands for investment. Dauversière changed countenance, and replied, with a troubled voice: “My daughter, God will provide for you. Place your trust in
Him.” * He was bankrupt, and had used the money of the sisterhood to pay a debt of his own, leaving the nuns penniless.
I have related in another place ** how an association of devotees, inspired, as they supposed, from heaven, had undertaken to found a religious colony at Montreal in honor of the Holy Family. The essentials of the proposed establishment were to be a seminary of priests dedicated to the Virgin, a hospital to Saint Joseph, and a school to the Infant Jesus; while a settlement was to be formed around them simply for their defence and maintenance. This pious purpose had in part been accomplished.
It was seventeen years since Mademoiselle Mance had begun her labors in honor of Saint Joseph. Marguerite Bourgeoys had entered upon hers more recently; yet even then the attempt was premature, for she found no white children to teach. In time, however, this want was supplied, and she opened her school in a stable, which answered to the stable of Bethlehem, lodging with her pupils in the loft, and instructing them in Roman Catholic Christianity, with such rudiments of mundane knowledge as she and her advisers thought fit to impart.
Mademoiselle Mance found no lack of hospital work, for blood and blows were rife at Montreal, where the woods were full of Iroquois, and not a moment was without its peril. Though years
* Faillon, Vie de M’lle Mance, I. 172. This volume is
illustrated with a portrait of Dauversière.
** The Jesuits in North America.
began to tell upon her, she toiled patiently at her dreary task, till, in the winter of 1657, she fell on the ice of the St. Lawrence, broke her right arm, and dislocated the wrist. Bouchard, the surgeon of Montreal, set the broken bones, but did not discover the dislocation. The arm in consequence became totally useless, and her health wasted away under incessant and violent pain. Maisonneuve, the civil and military chief of the settlement, advised her to go to France for assistance in the work to which she was no longer equal; and Marguerite Bourgeoys, whose pupils, white and red, had greatly multiplied, resolved to go with her for a similar object. They set out in September, 1658, landed at Rochelle, and went thence to Paris. Here they repaired to the seminary of St. Sulpice; for the priests of this community were joined with them in the work at Montreal, of which they were afterwards to become the feudal proprietors.
Now ensued a wonderful event, if we may trust the evidence of sundry devout persons. Olier, the founder of St. Sulpice, had lately died, and the two pilgrims would fain pay their homage to his heart, which the priests of his community kept as a precious relic, enclosed in a leaden box. The box was brought, when the thought inspired Mademoiselle Mance to try its miraculous efficacy and invoke the intercession of the departed founder. She did so, touching her disabled arm gently with the leaden casket. Instantly a grateful warmth pervaded the shrivelled limb, and from that hour its use was restored. It is true that the Jesuits ventured to doubt the Sulpitian miracle, and even to ridicule it; but the Sulpitians will show to this day the attestation of Mademoiselle Mance herself, written with the fingers once paralyzed and powerless. * Nevertheless, the cure was not so thorough as to permit her again to take charge of her patients.
Her next care was to visit Madame de Bullion, a devout lady of great wealth, who was usually designated at Montreal as “the unknown benefactress,” because, though her charities were the mainstay of the feeble colony, and though the source from which they proceeded was well known, she affected, in the interest of humility, the greatest secrecy, and required those who profited by her gifts to pretend ignorance whence they came. Overflowing with zeal for the pious enterprise, she received her visitor with enthusiasm, lent an open ear to her recital, responded graciously to her appeal for aid, and paid over to her the sum, munificent at that day, of twenty-two thousand francs. Thus far successful, Mademoiselle Mance repaired to the town of La Flèche to visit Le Royer de la Dauversière.
