Letter 246

My very dear son,

So M. Talon is leaving and returning to France to everybody’s regret and to the great loss of Canada. Since he came here as Intendant the country has made more progress and it’s economy more advanced than in all the years the French were here. The King is sending, in his place, M. Bouteroue whose quality and merit I don’t know yet. The ships brought no sick people this year. They came loaded with mixed goods. There were Portuguese, Germans, Dutch and others of I don’t know what, nations. There were also women, Portuguese, French and others. A big number of girls has come and more are expected. The first to be married was a Moorish woman and she married a Frenchman. As for the men they were discharged from the Royal service and the King sent them to this country. All have gone to Bourg Talon, two leagues from here to live there and populate it. When they have eaten the barrel of flour and bacon the King has given them, they will suffer greatly until they have cleared the land. It has been decided that only country girls should be sent here. They can work like men and experience shows that those not brought up on the land do not fit in as they don’t know how to cope with poverty and hardship.

The way I praised the Iroquois pumpkins has made you want them! I am sending you some seeds that the Hurons brought us from their country but your land may change their taste. They are prepared in different ways, in a soup with milk, fried, cooked in the oven like apples, braised like pears they taste like rennet apples cooked. Melons come from Montreal, as good as those in France. They are rarely seen here, we are not so far South. There is also a certain fruit that they call watermelon, looks like pumpkin and is eaten like melon, some add salt, other sugar and they find it excellent and certainly they do no harm. Other produce of the kitchen garden as well as peas and beans are like those in France. They are harvested like the corn and used throughout the winter to the end of May as the gardens are covered in snow. As for trees; we have plum trees, well fertilised and cultivated, they give us an abundance of fruit for three weeks. Plums are not baked, they would be reduced to the nut and skin but are made into excellent jam with sugar. We make ours with honey and this provides a treat for us and our children. We also make gooseberry jam as well as pimento, a wild fruit that is pleasant with sugar. People are beginning to grow apples, rennet and calville. They come here very beautiful and very good from a French variety. That’s about our housekeeping and our delicacies which account for nothing in France but here they are very much sought after. The bearer of this letter is M. de Bourdon who is going to France to accompany Madame Bourdon, his mother. I beg you to welcome them with demonstrations of friendship because they are a family I love and cherish more than anyone in this country. They wouldn’t leave without bringing you a word from me to have the consolation of seeing and talking to you. M. Bourdon was Royal procurator, an office given to him because of his probity and merit. He had a very particular and very spiritual bond with me. Though a secular he led a most regular life, had a continual sense of the presence of God and Union with His Divine Majesty. At one time he risked his life to make an agreement with the Dutch when our French men were in captivity, because this charitable man gave himself entirely to the public good. He was the Father of the poor, the consoler of widows and orphans, an example to everybody. Since he settled in this country he has worn himself out with all sorts of good works. He had four daughters all of whom he gave to the service of God and generously did this with pleasure and geniality. Two were hospital sisters, one is dead, the two elder girls are Ursulines in our Monastery and are very good religious. There remain two sons, the younger is studying in Quebec and the elder will present you with this letter. I consider them as nephews and that is why I recommend them to you so specially. As for Madame Bourdon, she is very anxious to see you; she is an example of piety and charity for the whole country. She and Madame Dailleboust go together to visit the prisoners, assist the criminals and even carry them to the grave on a stretcher. Madame Bourdon is more active and able to carry loads and is continually occupied with good works and questing for the poor which she does successfully. She is the mother of the miserable and exemplary in all sorts of good works. Before coming to Canada, which she did through piety and devotion, she was the widow of M. de Monceaux, a gentleman of quality. Some time after her arrival M. Bourbon was widowed with seven children, not one of them capable of looking after their father or themselves. She was powerfully moved to help that family and decided to marry M. Bourdon whose virtue was well known, but on condition they should live as brother and sister. So it was done and the condition exactly observed. She stepped down socially to make this act of charity, which was regarded in France where she was well known both in Paris and in the country as light-headedness. But people have changed their mind when they learned all the good that came from this generous action. She reared M. Bourbon’s children as a very happy family and placed them where they are at present. I have told you all this at length to honour the virtues of this lady and her pious family and to let you see there are good and honest people in this country. Show them friendship. They deserve it.

From Quebec. Oct. 1668.
p. 314-315.