later years to the
island of Montreal, of which the Sulpicians had become the seigniorial
proprietors, when the original company were too weak to carry out the
objects of their formation. The same order remains in possession of
their most valuable lands in the city and island, where their seminary
for the education of priests and youth generally occupies a high
position among the educational institutions of the province.

Bishop Laval was endowed with an inflexible will, and eminently fitted
to assert those ultramontane principles which would make all temporal
power subordinate to the Pope and his vicegerents on earth. His claim
to take precedence even of the governor on certain public occasions
indicates the extremes to which this resolute dignitary of the Church
was prepared to go on behalf of its supremacy.

[Illustration: Portrait of Laval, first Canadian bishop.]

No question can be raised as to Bishop Laval's charity and generosity.
He accumulated no riches for himself--he spent nothing on the luxuries,
hardly anything on the conveniences of life, but gave freely to the
establishment of those famous seminaries at Quebec, which have been
ever since identified with the religious and secular instruction of the
French Canadians, and now form part of the noble university which bears
his name.

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With a man like Laval at the head of the Church in Canada at this early
period, it necessarily exercised a powerful influence at the council
board, and in the affairs of the country generally. If he was
sometimes too arbitrary, too arrogant in the assertion of his
ecclesiastical dignity, yet he was also {160} animated by very
conscientious motives with respect to temporal questions. In the
quarrel he had with the governor, Baron Dubois d'Avaugour, an old
soldier, as to the sale of brandy to the Indians, he showed that his
zeal in the discharge of what he believed to be a Christian and
patriotic duty predominated above all such mercenary and commercial
considerations as animated the governor and officials, who believed
that the trading interests of the country were injured by prohibition.
Laval saw that the very life-blood of the Indians was being poisoned by
this traffic, and succeeded in obtaining the removal of D'Avaugour.
But all the efforts of himself and his successor, Saint-Vallier, could
not practically restrain the sale of spirituous liquors, as long as the
fur-trade so largely depended on their consumpt