and the seizure of their remaining cattle.

Roots and other esculents of field and garden were more plentiful in the
market, among which might have been seen the newly introduced potato,--a
vegetable long despised in New France, then endured, and now beginning
to be liked and widely cultivated as a prime article of sustenance.

At the upper angle of the square stood a lofty cross or Holy Rood,
overtopping the low roofs of the shops and booths in its neighborhood.
About the foot of the cross was a platform of timber raised a few feet
from the ground, giving a commanding view of the whole market-place.

A crowd of habitans were gathered round this platform listening, some
with exclamations of approval, not unmingled on the part of others with
sounds of dissent, to the fervent address of one of the Jesuit Fathers
from the College, who with crucifix in hand was preaching to the people
upon the vices and backslidings of the times.

Father Glapion, the Superior of the order in New France, a grave,
saturnine man, and several other fathers in close black cassocks and
square caps, stood behind the preacher, watching with keen eyes the
faces of the auditory as if to discover who were for and who were
against the sentiments and opinions promulgated by the preacher.

The storm of the great Jansenist controversy, which rent the Church of
France from top to bottom, had not spared the Colony, where it had early
caused trouble; for that controversy grew out of the Gallican liberties
of the national Church and the right of national participation in its
administrations and appointments. The Jesuits ever fiercely contested
these liberties; they boldly set the tiara above the crown, and
strove to subordinate all opinions of faith, morals, education, and
ecclesiastical government to the infallible judgment of the Pope alone.

The Bishop and clergy of New France had labored hard to prevent the
introduction of that mischievous controversy into the Colony, and
had for the most part succeeded in reserving their flocks, if not
themselves, from its malign influence. The growing agitation in France,
however, made it more difficult to keep down troublesome spirits in the
Colony, and the idea got abroad, not without some foundation, that the
Society of Jesus had secret commercial relations with the Friponne. This
report fanned the smouldering fires of Jansenism into a flame visible
enough and threatening enough to the peace of the Church.

The