These dismal forebodings were never realized The Holy See annulled the obnoxious bulls; the Archbishop of Rouen renounced his claims, and Queylus found his position untenable. Seven years later, when Laval was on a visit to France, a reconciliation was brought about between them. The former vicar of the Archbishop of Rouen made his submission to the vicar of the Pope, and returned to Canada as a missionary. Laval’s triumph was complete, to the joy of the Jesuits, silent, if not idle, spectators of the tedious and complex quarrel.
* Lettre de Laval au Pape, 22 Oct., 1661. Printed by
Faillon, from the original in the archives of the
Propaganda.
CHAPTER V. 1659, 1660. LAVAL AND ARGENSON.
François de Laval.—His Position and Character.—Arrival of Argenson.—The Quarrel.
We are touching delicate ground. To many excellent Catholics of our own day Laval is an object of veneration. The Catholic university of Quebec glories in bearing his name, and certain modern ecclesiastical writers rarely mention him in terms less reverent than “the virtuous prelate,” or “the holy prelate.” Nor are some of his contemporaries less emphatic in eulogy. Mother Juchereau de Saint-Denis, Superior of the Hôtel Dieu, wrote immediately after his death: “He began in his tenderest years the study of perfection, and we have reason to think that he reached it, since every virtue which Saint Paul demands in a bishop was seen and admired in him;” and on his first arrival in Canada, Mother Marie de l’Incarnation, Superior of the Ursulines, wrote to her son that the choice of such a prelate was not of man, but of God. “will not,” she adds, “say that he is a saint, but I may say with truth that he lives like a saint and an apostle.” And she describes his austerity of life; how he had but two servants, a gardener—whom he lent on occasion to his needy neighbors—and a valet; how he lived in a small hired house, saying that he would not have one of his own if he could build it for only five sous; and how, in his table, furniture, and bed, he showed the spirit of poverty, even, as she thinks, to excess. His servant, a lay brother named Houssart, testified, after his death, that he slept on a hard bed, and would not suffer it to be changed even when it became full of fleas; and, what is more to the purpose, that he gave fifteen hundred or two thousand francs to the poor every year. * Houssart also gives the following specimen of his austerities: “I have seen him keep cooked meat five, six, seven, or eight days in the heat of summer, and when it was all mouldy and wormy he washed it in warm water and ate it, and told me that it was very good.” The old servant was so impressed by these and other proofs of his master’s sanctity, that “I determined,” he says, “to keep every thing I could that had belonged to his holy person, and after his death to soak bits of linen in his blood when his body was opened, and take a few bones and cartilages from his breast, cut off his hair, and keep his clothes, and such things, to serve as most precious relics.” These pious cares were not in vain, for the relics proved greatly in demand.
* Lettre du Frère Houssart, ancien serviteur de Mg'r de
Laval a M. Tremblay, 1 Sept., 1708. This letter is printed,
though with one or two important omissions, in the Abeille,
Vol. I. (Quebec, 1848.)
Several portraits of Laval are extant. A drooping nose of portentous size; a well-formed forehead; a brow strongly arched; a bright, clear eye; scanty hair, half hidden by a black skullcap; thin lips, compressed and rigid, betraying a spirit not easy to move or convince; features of that indescribable cast which marks the priestly type: such is Laval, as he looks grimly down on us from the dingy canvas of two centuries ago.