of it with justice as one of the brightest
ornaments of New France.

"Jusqu' en l'annee 1692, la justice particuliere de Montreal appartenoit
a Messieurs du Seminaire de St. Sulpice, en qualite de seigneurs. Ils en
donnerent alors leur demission au roi, a condition que l'exercice leur
en resteroit dans l'enclos de leur seminaire, et dans leur ferme de St.
Gabriel, avec la propriete perpetuelle et incommutable du Greffe de la
justice royale, qui seroit etablie dans l'isle, et la nomination du
premier juge."--Charlevoix, tom. ii., p. 140.]

[Footnote 376: The kindness of the missionaries has been one of the
causes that has perpetuated a kindly feeling toward the French. Among
the American Indians, "a person, even in times of hostility, speaking
French will find security from the attachment of the people to every
thing that is French."--Imlay, p. 8.

"To do justice to truth, the French missionaries in general have
invariably distinguished themselves every where by an exemplary life,
befitting their profession. Their religious sincerity, their apostolic
charity, their insinuating kindness, their heroic patience, their
remoteness from austerity and fanaticism, fix in these countries
memorable epochs in the annals of Christianity; and while the memory of
a Del Vilde, a Vodilla, &c., will be held in everlasting execration by
all truly Christian hearts, that of a Daniel, a Brebeuf, &c., will never
lose any of that veneration which the history of discoveries and
missions has so justly conferred upon them. Hence that predilection
which the savages manifest for the French, a predilection which they
naturally find in the recesses of their souls, cherished by the
traditions which their fathers have left in favor of the first apostles
of Canada, then called New France."--Beltrami's _Travels_, 1823. The
authority of this passage, Chateaubriand observes, is the stronger, as
the writer is severe in his condemnation of the modern Jesuit.]

[Footnote 377: "Ce n'etoit pas la faute de leurs missionnaires, s'ils
s'endormaient de la sorte; mais ces religieux ne pouvant gagner sur
leurs neophytes qu'ils prissent pour leur surete les precautions que la
prudence exigeoit, redoublerent leurs soins pour achever de les
sanctifier, et pour les preparer a tout ce qui pourroit arriver. Ils les
trouverent sur cet article d'une docilite parfaite; ils n'eurent aucune
peine a les faire entrer dans les sentimens les plus convenables a la
triste situati