STATUE OF MAISONNEUVE IN PLACE D'ARMES
(By Philippe Hébert)
On his return to France, he led a simple Christian life. His heart was in Montreal, and in his modest home at the Fossé St. Victor, his greatest delight was sometimes to receive a Canadian visitor, for whom he felt a fatherly affection.
His retreat was visited in 1670 by Marguerite Bourgeoys, who thus describes it in the account of her journey to obtain the letters patent for her new institution: "The morning of my arrival I went to the Seminary of St. Sulpice to learn where I could find M. de Maisonneuve. He was lodged at the Fossé St. Victor, near the church of the Fathers of Christian Doctrine, and I arrived at his house rather late. Only a few days before he had constructed a cabin and furnished a little room after the Canadian manner so as to entertain any persons who should come from Canada. I knocked at the door and he himself came down to open it, for he lived on the second floor with his servant, Louis Frins, and he opened the door for me with very great joy." Many other kindnesses did this simple gentleman do for her and for other Canadians, for whom he acted as the kindly agent while they were in Paris.
A true Canadian! May his memory remain forever green at Montreal! He died on September 9, 1676, and his funeral obsequies were carried out in the church hard by his home, above mentioned. Dollier de Casson, in his history of the city, treats the painful incident of the governor's departure thus:
"Speaking of the arrival of the ships and of the 'grand monde' which came to Montreal this year, and of the extreme joy because of the king's goodness in making his victorious arms glare and glitter, all the same these joys were diluted for the more intelligent with much bitterness when they saw M. Maisonneuve, their father and very dear governor, depart this time for good, leaving them in the hands of others, from whom they could not expect the same freedom, the same love, and the same fidelity in putting down the vices, which have since taken effect with those other disgraces and miseries, which had never up to then appeared to the point at which they have since been seen."
It is commonly thought that Maisonneuve arrived at Montreal in his fortieth year. He lived there twenty-three years. After that he spent eleven in France, thus dying at the age of seventy-four years.