Engineers and others will note the reply of the king on March 22, 1714, concerning the proposition of M. de Breslay, who had sent the king a specimen of a marble taken from a mountain situated twenty-one leagues from Montreal and at a league and a half from Long Sault, and who recommended the completion of the Lachine Canal. The king replied that the canal was not practicable by reason of the expense and the marble did not appear excellent enough to warrant it either.
In the course of this history we have given indications of the lives of some of the outstanding characters of Montreal whom the genius of the place fostered. It is fitting that we should take notice of the last days of the recluse, Jeanne LeBer, whose extraordinary career was one of the products of the age now being treated. She died on October 3, 1714, in her fifty-third year, after having lived fifteen years as a recluse in her parents' house and twenty more in the retreat made by herself in the Convent of the Congregation. The manner of her life was thus described as early as 1702 by M. Bacqueville de la Potherie in his "Histoire de l'Amérique Septentrionale." "I can not pass by in silence," he says, "an extraordinary trait of virtue of a young lady, making her abode in the Community of the Sisters of the Congregation, Miss LeBer, the only daughter of the richest merchant in Canada. She has an apartment in which she is enclosed, having no outside communication than that offered by a window looking out into the chapel. Her food is brought her, through a little opening in the door of her chamber. She sleeps on the hard floor. Her spiritual director is M. Leguenot, an ecclesiastic of St. Sulpice, and she sees her father, M. LeBer, only once or twice a year. In this solitude in which she has been for eight or nine years, she has formed a new temperament so that she could, with difficulty, now embrace any other manner of life. She has, however, a peaceful and docile disposition: the kind of life she lives does not consist in the abstract speculations of mental prayer, though she employs two hours daily in its practice. All the rest of the time she gives herself to good works of which she makes a present to the community."
Her benefactions were very great. By a contract of October 10, 1696, she gave the sum of 3,000 livres for the maintenance of a sister to worship day and night before the Blessed Sacrament in the Community Chapel. On the 25th of October, 1708, she gave another foundation of 8,000 livres for a daily mass, 2,000 of which was to be expended in the upkeep of the lights and sacred vessels. She also was desirous of adding to the convent suitable buildings for the boarding house of the pensionnaires and for the schools and of founding a number of burses for the education of poor girls who could not afford the pension. The foundation stone was placed on May 13, 1713, and on September 9, 1714, she disposed of the sum of 13,000 livres for the burses mentioned. After this act she did not live more than twenty-four days, having contracted an affection of the chest through rising during the night, as was her wont, to worship the Blessed Sacrament. Her death was the signal of an outburst of reverence. In the "History of the Hôtel-Dieu of Quebec," Mother Jucherau chronicles the event thus: "Her body was exposed for two days for the consolation and devotion of the whole of Montreal and the neighbourhood, whence crowds came to look upon and wonder at the holy body of this virgin. Her intercession was invoked with confidence. Her poor tattered garments and even her straw slippers were seized, as well as anything belonging to her, as revered relics. Several persons, afflicted with diverse maladies, approached her coffin and touched her with much reverence and faith, and we are assured that they have been cured. After this great gathering her body was carried to the door of the parish church, where a most solemn burial service was held; the greatest marks of veneration were paid her; and M. de Belmont, superior of the seminary, pronounced a very beautiful funeral oration." The text chosen was from the book of Judith, Chapter XV, v. 10, "Tu honorificentia populi nostri." "It is thou who art the glory of our people," indicated the degree of veneration and sanctity in which the deceased recluse was held by the people, most of whom had only heard of her by repute, never having seen her.
Her body was then taken to the Chapel of the Congregation and buried by the side of her father. The following inscription was placed above her resting place:
CI-GIST VENERABLE SŒUR JEANNE LEBER, BIENFAITRICE DE CETTE MAISON, QUI,
AYANT ETE RECLUSE QUINZE ANS DANS LA MAISON DE SES PIEUX PARENTS,
EN A PASSE VINGT DANS LA RETRAITE QU'ELLE A FAITE ICI. ELLE
EST DECEDEE LE 3 OCTOBRE 1714, AGEE DE 52 ANS.
In 1715 there occurred a charge of murder against Jean d'Ailleboust d'Argenteuil. The major of the town and of the government of Montreal was then Jean Bouillet, Sieur de la Chassaigne. Acting as procureur of the king, he demanded that d'Argenteuil should be declared guilty of the crime and condemned to have his head cut off, and, as he was absent, this should be done in effigy. The court martial came to the same conclusions, the judges being Captains Le Verrier and d'Esgly, the Count de Vaudreuil, de Beaujeu, Du Vivier and de Buisson. As M. de Vaudreuil was a relative of the accused, the place of president was taken by the Baron de Longueuil, who held the trial in his own house.
Bankers and numismatists will learn that in the process of withdrawing the "card" money and putting an end to its circulation, the minister in a letter, dated February 17, 1715, to M. de Norisbel says, that out of 230,000 livres, so withdrawn by M. Bégon, the intendant, there has thus accrued to the profit of the king a benefit of 160,000 livres, which private persons lose. It was precisely this kind of impoverishment suffered by the people which eventually reconciled them to the English rule later.
In 1717, by a decree of May 11th, the merchants of Montreal were given the same privileges of the merchants in France of meeting in a convenient place to transact business in an exchange or bourse with the instruction to name one of their number to make representations in the name of all for the good of commerce to the governor general and the intendant of New France.
Genealogical students of the origins of Montreal families will learn from an edict of March 9, 1717, that it was decreed to maintain the children and grandchildren of Jacques LeBer, the Montreal merchant. This was in consequence of a request presented by his son, Jacques LeBer de Senneville, and the children of another son, Jacques LeBer de St. Paul. It is alleged in this report that the letters patent of nobility were promised to Jacques LeBer by M. de Frontenac, but that subsequently by an edict of March, 1696, it was settled that letters of nobility should not be forthcoming except for a financial consideration. As Jacques LeBer conformed to this condition he received his letters of nobility in November, 1696. But by another edict of August, 1715, all the titles of nobility accorded since 1689 for a financial consideration, were suppressed and revoked. Hence the present request relies on the representation of the services rendered by Jacques LeBer and his sons during all the wars; that one of them was slain in 1691, when he was commanding a party of eighty men, in a fight against the English, at La Prairie de la Madeleine.
In the same year letters patent of April 20, 1717, were issued giving permission to the Le Moynes to register at the Parliament Court of Paris and the Cour des Aydes, the letters of nobility accorded in the month of March, 1668, to Charles le Moyne de Longueuil and en-registered at the Chambre des Comptes on February 21, 1680. This document cites the service of the founder of the family, Charles le Moyne de Longueuil, and of his sons: Charles (baron de Longueuil), Pierre (d'Iberville), Joseph (de Sérigny), Jean Baptiste (de Bienville), and Antoine (de Chateauguay). There is also a notice of Francis, son of Pierre d'Iberville. This document states, that the founder, Charles, had eleven sons, six of whom had died in the king's service after distinguished careers. The survivors at this date were Charles, Baron de Longueuil, de Sérigny, de Bienville and de Chateauguay. Of these, at this period de Bienville and de Chateauguay were in Louisiana. Charles was in Canada and an active member of the Montreal district, holding important appointments. De Sérigny was probably in France, for he was then the seigneur of the Château de Loire in Aunis. The bones of the brave d'Iberville were resting in a cemetery of Havana.