D'Argenson realized the situation which the independent Maisonneuve had created, and doubtless it is in consequence of these painful impressions that he penned the following pessimistic description of the settlement.
After complaining of his reception he adds: "I must talk with you about Montreal, a place which makes a deal of noise and is of little consequence. I speak from knowledge; I have been there this spring, and I can assure you that if I were a painter I should soon finish my picture of it.
"Montreal is an island, difficult enough to land at, even in a chaloupe, by reason of the great currents of the St. Lawrence river. These meet each other at its landing place, and particularly at a half league below. There is a fort where the chaloupes lay by, and which is falling into ruins. A redoubt has been commenced and a mill has been erected on a little eminence very advantageously situated for the defence of the settlement. There are about forty houses, nearly all facing one another, and in this they are well placed, since they in part defend one another. There are fifty heads of families and one hundred and sixty men in all. Finally, there are only two hundred arpents of land tilled, belonging to the Gentlemen of the Company, of which a half is appropriated to the hospital, so that no more than a hundred remains to them; and the enjoyment of these is not entirely theirs, these arpents having been cultivated by private individuals, to whom have been given the fruits of their labour until these Gentlemen of the Company of Montreal shall have furnished the equivalent of their work on the concessions belonging to the habitants."
Governor d'Argenson's short stay in Montreal makes his account slightly inaccurate for, besides the portion of the hundred acres already cultivated, which were only lent temporarily, the habitants were allowed, at a convenient time, to break land on the rest of the Domain of the Seigneurs, in quantity they required according to their concessions, whether it was land on which timber was still standing or where it was simply felled and not cut.
If d'Argenson had arrived later, when the reinforcement of 109 men sent out by the Sulpicians in the fall had built the fortified houses of St. Gabriel and Ste. Marie, his picture would have taken longer to paint; but he arrived at a time when the labourers had to abandon their fields for fear of Iroquois ambuscades. Still the long stretch of land, dotted with charred and blackened stumps, between which the few tilled arpents could be seen sparse and thin in the early spring, would have looked a barren and a gloomy sight to a jaundiced critic had he been able to be unimpressed by the beauty of Mount Royal dignifying the landscape. Moreover, the little progress made after seventeen years must have surprised him. We must not, therefore, be too hard on the young governor-general, then thirty-three years old. For his government was one of the best of those yet sent to represent France, and his bravery and good judgment did much to restrain the Iroquois; but he was abandoned by the company he represented as well as by the French government. He could not depend on the help of Montreal to share his expenses, nor upon the poverty-stricken habitants of Quebec. The main support of the colony, trade in peltry, was bad at Quebec. Living was very expensive and no laughing matter. His own salary of 2,000 écus and the grant of 2,000 others for the upkeep of the garrison were not enough to sustain the situation. It is no wonder that we find him writing, in August, that he did not see the advantage of continuing in his office, especially as he urged the plea of bad health. Still he was not recalled from his arduous and unremunerative position, but continued to give fresh proof of his zeal for the good of the colony.
Meanwhile in France, steps were being taken which would bring M. de Laval to the ecclesiastical rule of Canada, thus unifying the ecclesiastical system, at present endangered by the presence of two vicar generals of the diocese of Rouen.
We have related the early events of the Montreal Company to secure a bishop for Canada as far back as 1645. But the contention of the Jesuits that the time was not ripe in the then unprogressive state of the colony, together with the unsettled times, with war nearly always impending, had delayed such an appointment. We have seen the agitation renewed by the Company on de Maisonneuve's late visit when their candidate was M. de Queylus; while that of the Jesuits, who were now more ready to admit the advisability of a bishop, was one of their former students at the Collège Royal of La Flèche and now a secular priest, François de Laval de Montmorency. They had not desired one of themselves to be appointed, since it was not in accordance with their constitution to seek dignities, and consequently in 1650 the names of the Canadian Jesuits, Charles Lalemant, Ragueneau and Le Jeune, submitted by the Company of the Hundred Associates, were withdrawn as candidates by Goswin Nickel, the vicar general of the order.
We have seen sufficient of the ecclesiastical troubles between Père de Quen, the ecclesiastical superior of Quebec, and M. de Queylus, that of Montreal, both "grands vicaires" of the archbishop of Rouen, to see that a bishop was necessary to restore the unity of government. The experience that the Jesuits had had of M. de Queylus made them more anxious than ever to push their candidate.
François de Laval was born on April 30, 1622, in the Château de Montigny-sur-Aure in the diocese of Chartres, of the illustrious house of Montmorency. At the age of nine years he was sent to the Royal College of La Flèche, taught by the Jesuits, to commence his literary studies. He finished his philosophy course in 1641, and during that time he had made the acquaintance of many Jesuit priests who afterwards joined the Canadian mission. The next four years he studied theology at Paris, till 1645. It was thought that he would take priest's orders, but on the death of his two brothers in 1644 and 1645 he was persuaded by his cousin, the bishop of Evreux, to renounce his canonship in the cathedral of Evreux and take his brother's place in the family in caring for his mother, Madame de Montigny. The bishop died on July 22, 1646, not before repenting of his advice to François, whom he exhorted to go back to the priesthood, and he named him archdeacon of the church of Evreux. Laval now renounced his right of primogeniture and his title to the Seigneury of Montigny in favor of his brother, Jean Louis de Laval, and taking his degree in canon law, received priesthood orders on September 22, 1647.