Letter 185

My very dear son,

I got your letter on 26 March without having seen the others of which you speak. They say they were mislaid and then brought to Acadia. If that is so we will get them next year. Those of the Governor, the priests and all the others met with the same fate. It is enough for me, my dear son that I bear from yourself and of your good dispositions and I thank Him who gives them to you. I wrote you a long letter by the first ship that left in July, a shorter one by Fr. Le Jeune and a third by another ship, to quell any fears you might have about us if you heard of the Iroquois incursions. Our Good God has saved us in His great Mercy: they returned to their country. Negotiations about the exchange of prisoners are going on, so people seize the opportunity to secure the harvest. It is well on and ours is finished. They don’t reap the grain till September, sometimes they leave it until October so that the laggards are caught in the snow. A few months ago the Ottawas came with a great number of canoes laden with beaver skins. They will compensate the merchants for their recent losses and benefit the greater number of the colonists for without trade the colony is worth nothing, humanly speaking. It could do without France for provisions but is entirely dependant for clothing, utensils, wine and spirits and an infinity of small goods and all these are brought to us by the trading vessels. Having said this little word about the state of the country, I will answer your letter.

First I will tell you that God in His Mercy has preserved my health and that the community enjoys a peace and union as perfect as could be wished. Revd. Mother St. Athansius was continued in office at the elections last June. I still have the business of the house on my shoulders. I accept it with submission to the orders of God because all my life I had an aversion to temporal matters especially in this country where they are more thorny than I can say. Yet my heart and mind are at peace amid the turmoil of this life so full of thorns and I find God there and he sustains me in his Goodness and Mercy and doesn’t allow me to wish for anything but what He wills in time and eternity. From these few words you see my present dispositions and that I belong to Divine Bounty by abandonment and a continual spirit of sacrifice. I don’t know, having passed sixty if I will live much longer. The fact that the end of life is approaching gives me joy. But when I become conscious of this I mortify myself and remain in the spirit of sacrifice awaiting the final stroke of God’s design for me, not in jubilation at being freed from the bonds of this life, so low and earthly and so full of snares, but because of the eternal which are infinite. Who would not escape those of nature that become more subtle and more to be feared the older we grow. Ask God since he wants me to live that he will deliver me from their malignity.

Our Bishop is just as I told you in my former letters, very zealous and inflexible. Zealous about the observance of everything that he thinks to the Glory of God and inflexible not to yield to anything that he considers contrary. I have never yet seen anybody to hold so firmly to these points. He is another St. Thomas of Villanova in his charity and humility and he gives his life for that. He keeps only the worst for his own needs, is indefatigable in work and is the most austere in the world and most detached from this world’s goods. He gives all and lives like a poor man. He can be said in all truth to possess the spirit of poverty. He is not the one to make friends who could be of benefit to himself or to increase his revenue. He is dead to all that. Perhaps without finding fault with his conduct, if he weren’t quite so detached things might be better because nothing can be done here without financial help, but I may be mistaken. Everyone goes to God in his own way. He practises this poverty in his house, his life-style, in his furniture, in his servants. He has only a gardener whom he lends to the poor people around when they are in need and a valet who has been in the service of M. de Bernieres. He will take only a rented house saying that if it took only five sous to build he wouldn’t spend it. In what concerns the dignity and authority of his office he omits no detail. He wants everything done with all the pomp that the Church and the country permit. The Fathers give him all the assistance possible but he is constantly asking for priests from France so as to give himself more assiduously to his Office and to Church ceremonies.

The Governor on his side shows from day to day his concern for the protection of the Colony and for its growth. He sees that everybody gets justice. He is a man of great and irreproachable conduct. I told you in former letters of his care for our safety, coming several times to our Monastery to see the place and have it fortified, ordering a garrison so that we would not be in danger from the Iroquois when they were on the move. On your account he has visited me several times apart from those paid to Revd Mother. There is always something to be gained from his conversation because he speaks only of God and of virtue, apart from our affairs that we discuss with him as with a trusted friend full of charity. He is present at all the public Devotions being the first there and so giving example to the French and to the new Christians. We gave thanks to God on hearing he was re-appointed for three years. There was universal public joy and we hope the King will leave him in charge for life, if the gentlemen of the Company knew his worth they would take means to procure such a benefit for themselves and for the whole country.

The good Hospital Sisters who came last year to make a foundation in Montreal were on the point of returning to France. The money intended for the project was in the hands of Monsieur N. the receiver of taxes who has died in financial difficulties. His Office and his goods were seized, the money for the nuns was swallowed up and thought to be lost but our Bishop has kept them owing to a request presented to him by the settlers in Montreal because they are sisters of great virtue and edification. They are asking for us to go there too but the Bishop has answered for us: we could not go unless sufficient money for the Foundation was assured. You wouldn’t believe how human appearances in this country are so unsure and with such little security, people go to incredible expense for necessities. It is a common unnecessary evil.

We feel at times that everything is lost and indeed we would have been done for the time the Iroquois army was on the warpath and we were undefended. Seventeen French men and a few Indian Christians met them. They were taken prisoners and led off to the Iroquois Country. I told you the story at length in another letter. At present we are waiting their return and have the time to erect fortifications so there is no reason for fear especially in our stone built houses which they say the Iroquois will not attack because they think they are fortresses. Besides we are well provided with powder and lead and have borrowed firearms that are always on hand in case of alarm. It is wonderful to see the Providence and the ways of God in this country; they are so far above human reasoning. When we should have been destroyed sixty men who had set out to catch the Iroquois were taken themselves and sacrificed for the whole country. Besides the French here and the Algonquins take nearly all the Iroquois scouts who being tortured by fire, tell all the state secrets. So God turns aside the storms that are ready to burst and we are so accustomed to His Providence that one of our employees that I was sending to work on our fortifications said to me fervently and with such confidence: “Mother, don’t imagine that God will permit the enemy to take us by surprise. He will send some Huron through the prayers of the Blessed Virgin who will give us all the information needed to save us. The Blessed Virgin always does this for us. She will do so also in the future”. Such talk touched me deeply and we saw the result that day or the next when two Huron who had been taken and escaped miraculously through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin arrived bringing the news of the capture of the French men and that the enemy had retired to their own country. This news caused the garrisons to be withdrawn except for the fortresses. Everybody breathed freely. For five weeks there had been no sleep day or night. They were working on the fortifications or standing on guard. I was extremely tired. We had twenty-four men over whom I had to watch continually to give them what they needed whether food or powder. They were divided into three groups and did the rounds all night by communication bridges that went everywhere. They kept a very exact guard. I supervised all that. Though I was locked in the dormitory my ear was on the alert for fear of an alarm and to be ready to give the soldiers the necessary ammunitions in case of attack. We were glad to be rid of this burden and sang the Te Deum in all the Churches. For nearly five months now the Blessed Sacrament is exposed and there is a Solemn Benediction that God may protect the Country.

My paper is finished so I have to stop, begging you to join your prayers to ours and to ask those of the others, your good Religious.

From Quebec. 17 September 1660.
Kelly, Sr M. St. Dominic, O.S.U. Marie of the Incarnation 1599 - 1672 Correspondence, (translated from the French edition by Dom Guy Oury Monk of Solesmes), Irish Ursuline Union, 2000, p. 240 - 242.