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le of the Saviour, who, before the temptation and before the transfiguration, withdrew from the world in order to contemplate, and who prayed in Gethsemane before His death on the cross, and who often led His disciples into solitude to rest, and to listen to His most precious communications." In this little town of Caen, in a house called the Hermitage, lived Jean de Bernieres of Louvigny, together with some of his friends. They had gathered together for the purpose of aiding each other in mutual sanctification; they practised prayer, and lived in the exercise of the highest piety and charity. Francois de Laval passed three years in this Hermitage, and his wisdom was already so highly appreciated, that during the period of his stay he was entrusted with two important missions, whose successful issue attracted attention to him and led naturally to his appointment to the bishopric of Canada. As early as 1647 the king foresaw the coming creation of a bishopric in New France, for he constituted the Upper Council "of the Governor of Quebec, the Governor of Montreal and the Superior of the Jesuits, _until there should be a bishop_." A few years later, in 1656, the Company of Montreal obtained from M. Olier, the pious founder of the Seminary of St. Sulpice, the services of four of his priests for the colony, under the direction of one of them, M. de Queylus, Abbe de Loc-Dieu, whose brilliant qualities, as well as the noble use which he made of his great fortune, marked him out naturally as the probable choice of his associates for the episcopacy. But the Jesuits, in possession of all the missions of New France, had their word to say, especially since the mitre had been offered by the queen regent, Anne of Austria, to one of their number, Father Lejeune, who had not, however, been able to accept, their rules forbidding it. They had then proposed to the court of France and the court of Rome the name of Francois de Laval; but believing that the colony was not ready for the erection of a see, they expressed the opinion that the sending of an apostolic vicar with the functions and powers of a bishop _in partibus_ would suffice. Moreover, if the person sent should not succeed, he could at any time be recalled, which could not be done in the case of a bishop. Alexander VII had given his consent to this new plan, and Mgr. de Laval was consecrated by the nuncio of the Pope at Paris, on Sunday, December 8th, 1658, in the church of St.
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