Her missionary zeal never flagged, and the great consolation of these years was to instruct in the Algonquin and Huron languages the younger members of the community, to enable them to continue after her death the instructions which she had been in the habit of giving. It would seem as if her wish had been gratified, for two centuries after her death Huron girls were among the pupils in the convent she founded, playing beneath the very tree where she and Mme. de la Peltrie had washed, dressed, and instructed the Indian children.
Her works compiled for the use of the sisters, had they escaped the conflagrations of the monastery, would give her a high rank among the authors in Indian languages, for they comprised two extended Algonquin dictionaries, an Iroquois catechism, and a huge volume of Bible stories in Algonquin.
She could now walk only when supported. Mother Mary of St. Joseph went to receive her reward. Mme. de la Peltrie was also taken from her.
On the night of the 15th of January, 1672, an oppression of the chest seized Mother Mary of the Incarnation, attended with incessant vomiting and fever. The end had come, but amid the most exquisite suffering not a sigh, not a complaint, scarcely the quivering of a muscle, betrayed what she was undergoing. She seemed absorbed in an ecstasy. She received the last sacraments with unspeakable joy, and asked pardon of her director, her superior, and the community for all the trouble she had given them. She spoke to the younger sisters in the most touching and eloquent terms to excite them to esteem their vocation and to encourage them to care for the Indian children.
But the community could not part with its founder. They offered up earnest prayers in her behalf, and her director, Father Lalemant, commanded her to join her prayers with them. Though anxious to be united to God, she obeyed. An immediate improvement ensued. She rallied so as to join the community in the devotions of Holy Week.
On the evening of Good Friday the pain of two tumors that had formed became intense. An operation was performed, but she sank gradually, and on the 30th of April entered into her agony. It was long; but the strength of purpose evinced in life enabled her even then to raise the crucifix repeatedly to her lips when speech and hearing were gone. At six o’clock in the afternoon, after looking around on her sisters, as if to take a last farewell, she gave two sighs and expired.
The news of her death spread rapidly. She had been regarded as a saint, and all flocked to the convent. Every pious person in Quebec desired some relic; so that everything belonging to her was carried away, and the Ursulines had great difficulty in retaining her large rosary, which has been preserved to this day as their chief relic. Her funeral service was attended by all the dignitaries in church and state, and a sermon by Father Jerome Lalemant, her chief director during her long mission in Canada, depicted her labors and her sublime virtues.
Her body was interred in the chapel vault, and amid all the vicissitudes of war, conflagration, and change of nationality the Ursulines have continued guardians of the precious remains of their foundress.
She had in life impressed all as one elevated above the common order, one who received extraordinary graces from God, and who corresponded with them. The missionaries, men versed in the direction of souls and the paths by which divine grace leads them, all entertained the highest esteem for her virtues. Her fellow-Ursulines living with her, watching her minutely from day to day and from year to year, could aver that they had never seen her commit a fault against meekness, patience, humility, charity, modesty, poverty, or obedience, and that she never let an occasion pass unheeded of practising those virtues.
When, therefore, all could piously believe that she was reigning with Christ, the confidence of the afflicted led them to seek her intercession, and the consolation derived has kept alive devotion to her to this time; while her letters, published by her son, revealed to the masters of spiritual life the wonderful interior and mystic life led by this nun in a rude convent amid the handful of log-houses which constituted the capital of New France.