COMTE ROLAND-MICHEL BARRIN DE LA GALISSONNIERE
New schemes were soon on foot, one of which was to unite the General Hospital to the Hôtel Dieu of Quebec or of Montreal, or to General Hospital of Quebec, which latter was approved of by M. de la Jonquière, recently arrived in the colony, and M. Bigot, in a letter to the minister on October 1, 1749. The object was to lessen expenses by curtailing the number of public institutions. But its justice did not appeal to the Montrealers, who were asked to transfer their aged and sick to Quebec, when the Hôpital Général had been founded by Montreal charity for the infirm of their own town. Accordingly, Madame d'Youville and her companions, backed up by M. Normant, petitioned the governor general, the intendant and the bishop, but with little success, owing to the predilection of M. Bigot for the general hospital at Quebec.
On November 23, 1750, an ordinance secretly prepared at Quebec on October 15th, was suddenly proclaimed in Montreal announcing by the sound of the drum that the transfer of the hospital to Quebec was to take place and that the nuns of Quebec could at once sell all the buildings, together with furniture, not easily removable to Quebec, and that those who were opposed to the sale could make their protests to M. Bigot with three months! A curious derangement of the usual practice. It is related that Madame d'Youville was out marketing for her poor when she heard the announcement, for the first time, of her downfall. The people, who by this had changed in their opinions toward the "Sœur Grises" murmured long and loud against this injustice to Montreal in favour of Quebec. A petition was drawn up by M. Normant addressed to the minister and a copy was made to be sent by way of a request to the bishop, the governor general and the intendant, both being signed by the ecclesiastics of the seminary and by more than eighty notables of the town, as the head of whom were the governor, then M. de Longueuil, the lieutenant of the king, the town major, the officers and the magistrates. This petition showed that the union of the hospitals of Montreal and Quebec was null, being contrary to the express word of Louis XIV, given to the citizens in 1692, two years before the foundation of this establishment, namely, that the hospital should subsist in perpetuity at Montreal without being able to change its place or the nature of its pious work, and concluded that as the private charity of many had founded this hospital the ordinance of October 15th could not be legitimate. This petition Madame d'Youville took to Quebec. But while being kindly received by the governor she received scant courtesy from M. Bigot. Meanwhile the case had gone to France, the Quebec religious had begun to take legal possession of the hospital lands and to remove the furniture to Quebec, and July, the time for the evacuation of the hospital by Madame d'Youville, was approaching. At last M. Bigot received the letter of July 2, 1751, of the minister to the governor general and the intendant, ordering the suspension of the execution of the ordinance of October 15, 1750.
Finally on June 3, 1753, letters patent were signed by the king at Versailles, handing over the privileges granted in 1694 to Madame d'Youville and her companions to the number of twelve administratrices. The community received their habit, which was approved by a mandement, of Mgr. de Pontbriant on June 15, 1755. The sisters chose the grey costume, now so familiar, and which was then known in France as "café au lait." They wished to preserve the name of "Grey Sisters" or Sœur Grises given them first in derision. They received their formal investiture of their habits on August 25th at the hands of their patron, M. Normant. Their formal name was, however, "Sisters of Charity."