prie-dieu_ dead.

The next day, Sunday, a south-east wind blew with violence. Huge
white-capped waves made the great river so dangerous that the employes
of the post refused to undertake the journey to Isle aux Coudres of
forty or fifty miles in a canoe over a raging sea. But the chief clerk
at the post said to them: "You know well that the Father never deceived
you. You ought to have confidence in his word. Is there no one among you
who will carry out his last wish?"

Then three or four men agreed to go. When they put their canoe in the
water, behold a wonder! To the great surprise of every one the sea
subsided so that before them lay a pathway of calm water. To their
further amazement, they made the journey to Isle aux Coudres with
incredible rapidity. As they neared the shore they could see M. Compain
walking up and down, a book in his hand. When they were within hearing
distance he called out "Pere de La Brosse is dead. You come to get me to
bury him. I have been waiting an hour for you." When the canoe touched
the shore M. Compain embarked and they carried him to Tadousac. At Isle
aux Coudres the bell of the chapel had distinctly sounded three times
at midnight as at Tadousac. M. Compain knew what it meant for Pere de La
Brosse had told him what he told his friends at Tadousac. Other church
bells in the neighbourhood also rang miraculously on that night. Pere de
La Brosse had said while cure at Isle Verte, "If I die elsewhere than
here, you will have certain knowledge of the fact at the moment of my
death."

The legend, the rather obscure motive of which is to emphasize the
saintly virtues of Pere de La Brosse, is believed even to this day by
many simple people, hundreds of whom know it by heart. But some are
skeptical. "I should have been able to give more certainty to this
tradition," says M. Mailloux, the historian of Isle aux Coudres and also
its cure, "had I been able to make more extended investigation.
Meanwhile," he adds naively, "my investigations suffice to give a high
idea of the virtues of this admirable missionary."

There is little to record of the careers of cures at Malbaie subsequent
to M. Compain. Often the annals of the good are not exciting and this is
eminently true of these virtuous teachers. M. Charles Duchouquet was
cure of Isle aux Coudres and served Malbaie in 1790. In 1791 he was
succeeded by M. Raphael Paquet who lived at Les Eboulements. The first
cure resident at Malbaie was M. Kel