His zeal, though but moderately tempered with knowledge, sometimes proved more useful than on this occasion. The Jacobin convent at Caen was divided against itself. Some of the monks had embraced the doctrines taught by Bernières, while the rest held dogmas which he declared to be contrary to those of the Jesuits, and therefore heterodox. A prior was to be elected, and, with the help of Bernières, his partisans gained the victory, choosing one Father Louis, through whom the Hermitage gained a complete control in the convent. But the adverse party presently resisted, and complained to the provincial of their order, who came to Caen to close the dispute by deposing Father Louis. Hearing of his approach, Bernières asked
* Nicole, Mémoire pour faire connoistre l’espnt et la
conduite de la Compagnie appellée l'Hermitage.
aid from his military disciple, and De Mézy sent him a squad of soldiers, who guarded the convent doors and barred out the provincial. *
Among the merits of Mézy, his humility and charity were especially admired; and the people of Caen had more than once seen the town major staggering across the street with a beggar mounted on his back, whom he was bearing dry-shod through the mud in the exercise of those virtues. ** In this he imitated his master Bernières, of whom similar acts are recorded. *** However dramatic in manifestation, his devotion was not only sincere but intense. Laval imagined that he knew him well. Above all others, Mézy was the man of his choice; and so eagerly did he plead for him, that the king himself paid certain debts which the pious major had contracted, and thus left him free to sail for Canada.
His deportment on the voyage was edifying, and the first days of his accession were passed in harmony. He permitted Laval to form the new council, and supplied the soldiers for the seizure of Dumesnil’s papers. A question arose concerning Montreal, a subject on which the governors and the bishop rarely differed in opinion. The present instance was no exception to the rule. Mézy removed Maisonneuve, the local governor, and immediately replaced him; the effect being, that whereas
* ibid.
** Juchereau, Histoire de l'Hôtel-Dieu, 149.
*** See the laudatory notice of Bernières de Louvigny in
the Nouvelle Biographie Universelle.
he had before derived his authority from the seigniors of the island, he now derived it from the governor-general. It was a movement in the interest, of centralized power, and as such was cordially approved by Laval
The first indication to the bishop and the Jesuits that the new governor was not likely to prove in their hands as clay in the hands of the potter, is said to have been given on occasion of an interview with an embassy of Iroquois chiefs, to whom Mézy, aware of their duplicity, spoke with a decision and haughtiness that awed the savages and astonished the ecclesiastics.
He seems to have been one of those natures that run with an engrossing vehemence along any channel into which they may have been turned. At the Hermitage he was all devotee; but climate and conditions had changed, and he or his symptoms changed with them. He found himself raised suddenly to a post of command, or one which was meant to be such. The town major of Caen was set to rule over a region far larger than France. The royal authority was trusted to his keeping, and his honor and duty forbade him to break the trust. But when he found that those who had procured for him his new dignities had done so that he might be an instrument of their will, his ancient pride started again into life, and his headstrong temper broke out like a long-smothered fire. Laval stood aghast at the transformation. His lamb had turned wolf.
What especially stirred the governor’s dudgeon was the conduct of Bourdon, Villeray, and Auteuil, those faithful allies whom Laval had placed on the council, and who, as Mézy soon found, were wholly in the bishop’s interest. On the 13th of February he sent his friend Angoville, major of the fort, to Laval, with a written declaration to the effect that he had ordered them to absent themselves from the council, because, having been appointed “on the persuasion of the aforesaid Bishop of Petræa, who knew them to be wholly his creatures, they wish to make themselves masters in the aforesaid council, and have acted in divers ways against the interests of the king and the public for the promotion of personal and private ends, and have formed and fomented cabals, contrary to their duty and their oath of fidelity to his aforesaid Majesty.” * He further declares that advantage had been taken of the facility of his disposition and his ignorance of the country to surprise him into assenting to their nomination; and he asks the bishop to acquiesce in their expulsion, and join him in calling an assembly of the people to choose others in their place. Laval refused; on which Mézy caused his declaration to be placarded about Quebec and proclaimed by sound of drum.