* Lettre du Roi à d’Argenson, 14 Mai, 1659.
** Belmont, Histoire du Canada, a.d. 1659. Memoir by Abbé
d’Allet, in Morale Pratique des Jésuites, XXXIV. 725.
*** Lettre du Roi a Queylus, 27 Feb., 1660.
against this movement provision had been made: accusations of Jansenism had gone before him, and he met a cold welcome. Nevertheless, as he had powerful friends near the Pope, he succeeded in removing these adverse impressions, and even in obtaining certain bulls relating to the establishment, of the parish of Montreal, and favorable to the Sulpitians.
Provided with these, he set at nought the king’s letter, embarked under an assumed name, and sailed to Quebec, where he made his appearance on the 3d of August, 1661, * to the extreme wrath of Laval.
A ferment ensued. Laval’s partisans charged the Sulpitians with Jansenism and opposition to the will of the Pope. A preacher more zealous than the rest denounced them as priests of Antichrist; and as to the bulls in their favor, it was affirmed that Queylus had obtained them by fraud from the Holy Father. Laval at once issued a mandate forbidding him to proceed to Montreal till ships should arrive with instructions from the King. ** At the same time he demanded of the governor that he should interpose the civil power to prevent Queylus from leaving Quebec. *** As Argenson, who wished to act as peacemaker between the belligerent fathers, did not at once take the sharp measures required of him, Laval renewed his demand on the next day, calling on him, in the name of God and the king, to compel Queylus to yield the obedience
* Journal des Jésuites, Août, 1661.
** Lettre de Laval à Queylus, 4 Août, 1661.
***Lettre de Laval a d’Argenson, Ibid.
due to him, the vicar apostolic. * At the same time he sent another to the offending abbé, threatening to suspend him from priestly functions if he persisted in his rebellion. **
The incorrigible Queylus, who seems to have lived for some months in a simmer of continual indignation, set at nought the vicar apostolic as he had set at nought the king, took a boat that very night, and set out for Montreal under cover of darkness. Great was the ire of Laval when he heard the news in the morning. He despatched a letter after him, declaring him suspended ipso facto, if he did not instantly return and make his submission. *** This letter, like the rest, failed of the desired effect; but the governor, who had received a second mandate from the king to support Laval and prevent a schism, **** now reluctantly interposed the secular arm, and Queylus was again compelled to return to France. (v)
His expulsion was a Sulpitian defeat. Laval, always zealous for unity and centralization, had some time before taken steps to repress what he regarded as a tendency to independence at Montreal. In the preceding year he had written to the Pope: “There are some secular priests (Sulpitians) at Montreal, whom the Abbé de Queylus brought out with him in 1657, and I have named for the
* Lettre de Laval a d’Argenson, 5 Août, 1661.
** Lettre de Laval a Queylus, Ibid.
**** Ibid, 6 Août, 1661.
**** Lettre du Roi à d’Argenson, 13 Mai, 1660.
(v) For the governor’s attitude in this affair, consult the
Papiers d'Argentan, containing his despatches.
functions of curé the one among them whom I thought the least disobedient.” The bulls which Queylus had obtained from Rome related to this very curacy, and greatly disturbed the mind of the vicar apostolic. He accordingly wrote again to the Pope: “I pray your Holiness to let me know your will concerning the jurisdiction of the Archbishop of Rouen. M. l’Abbé de Queylus, who has come out this year as vicar of this archbishop, has tried to deceive us by surreptitious letters, and has obeyed neither our prayers nor our repeated commands to desist. But he has received orders from the king to return immediately to France, to render an account of his disobedience, and he has been compelled by the governor to conform to the will of his Majesty. What I now fear is that, on his return to France, by using every kind of means, employing new artifices, and falsely representing our affairs, he may obtain from the court of Rome powers which may disturb the peace of our church; for the priests whom he brought with him from France, and who five at Montreal, are animated with the same spirit of disobedience and division; and I fear, with good reason, that all belonging to the seminary of St. Sulpice, who may come hereafter to join them, will be of the same disposition. If what is said is true, that by means of fraudulent letters the right of patronage of the pretended parish of Montreal has been granted to the superior of this seminary, and the right of appointment to the Archbishop of Rouen, then is altar reared against altar in our church of Canada; for the clergy of Montreal will always stand in opposition to me, the vicar apostolic, and to my successors.” *