* Lalemant, in Journal des Jesuites, Sept., 1659.
** Ibid., Dec., 1659.
received it. Argenson resisted, and a bitter quarrel ensued. *
The late governor, Aillebout, had been churchwarden ex officio; ** and in this pious community the office was esteemed as an addition to his honors. Argenson had thus far held the same position; but Laval declared that he should hold it no longer. Argenson, to whom the bishop had not spoken on the subject, came soon after to a meeting of the wardens, and, being challenged, denied Laval’s right to dismiss him. A dispute ensued, in which the bishop, according to his Jesuit friends, used language not very respectful to the representative of royalty. ***
On occasion of the “solemn catechism,” the bishop insisted that the children should salute him before saluting the governor. Argenson hearing of this, declined to come. A compromise was contrived. It was agreed that when the rival dignitaries entered, the children should be busied in some manual exercise which should prevent their saluting either. Nevertheless, two boys, “enticed and set on by their parents,” saluted the governor first, to the great indignation of Laval. They were whipped on the next day for breach of orders. ****
Next there was a sharp quarrel about a sentence pronounced by Laval against a heretic, to which the governor, good Catholic as he was, took
* Lalemant, in Journal des Jésuites, Dec., 1659; Lettre
d’Argenson MM. de la Compagnie de St. Sulpice.
** Livre des Délibérations de la Fabrique de Québec.
*** Journal des Jésuites, Nov., 1660
**** Ibid., Feb., 1661.
exception. * Palm Sunday came, and there could be no procession and no distribution of branches, because the governor and the bishop could not agree on points of precedence. ** On the day of the Fête Dieu, however, there was a grand procession, which stopped from time to time at temporary altars, or reposoirs, placed at intervals along its course. One of these was in the fort, where the soldiers were drawn, up, waiting the arrival of the procession. Laval demanded that they should take off their hats. Argenson assented, and the soldiers stood uncovered. Laval now insisted that they should kneel. The governor replied that it was their duty as soldiers to stand; whereupon the bishop refused to stop at the altar, and ordered the procession to move on. ***
The above incidents are set down in the private journal of the superior of the Jesuits, which was not meant for the public eye. The bishop, it will be seen, was, by the showing of his friends, in most cases the aggressor. The disputes in question, though of a nature to provoke a smile on irreverent lips, were by no means so puerile as they appear. It is difficult in a modern democratic society to conceive the substantial importance of the signs and symbols of dignity and authority, at a time and among a people where they were adjusted with the most scrupulous precision, and accepted by all classes as exponents of relative degrees in the social and political scale. Whether
* Journal des Jésuites, Feb., 1661.
** Ibid., Avril, 1661.
*** Ibid., Juin, 1661.
the bishop or the governor should sit in the higher seat at table thus became a political question, for it defined to the popular understanding the position of church and state in their relations to government