Wily Jesuit tamed sinners while Laval was gaining powers
Before leaving France in 1659 to head the Catholic Church in New France, the young François de Montigny de Laval asked the retired superior of the Jesuits of Canada, Jérôme Lalemant, to join him in his mission. Lalemant had helped found the Huron mission destroyed by the Iroquois in 1649 and had been an intimate of Jean de Brébeuf and the other Jesuit missionaries who had been tortured and murdered that year. Lalemant was 66 years old and deserved his retirement in France. But duty called in the voice of Laval and he returned to Canada.
Montagnais, Algonquin and Huron peoples were often casualties of the Iroquois Nations that were being armed and pushed north by the Dutch and the English. The colony itself numbered fewer than 2,000 Frenchmen, most settled around the fort at Quebec, with only a few hundred in Trois Rivières and an even smaller illegal and undefended settlement in Montreal.
Most of the colonials were adventurous young men who had come over from France on one pretext or another. Those who settled on farms were often on seigneuries founded by the Jesuits. The Company of 100 Associates was bent on exploiting whatever wealth it could and had done very little else. Even Governor Pierre de Voyer d’argenson, responsible for defending the colony against the constant attacks from the Iroquois, could not correct the cutthroat competition that left everyone poor. He received a letter from the Queen Mother, giving instruction that Laval be recognized as Vicar Apostolic with ecclesiastical authority.
Laval, who had renounced his family wealth and status for the life of a hermit, had not planned to head the church in a colony over-run with ambitious, immoral young men and almost no women. While his intentions were good, he had no sense of the need for status and lacked the diplomacy necessary to deal with the governor. The ensuing years became a com- edy of one-upmanship as the governor jockeyed for proper recognition of his status in the face of an impetuous young cleric. Laval’s attempts to institute any changes, including his efforts to stop the liquor trade with the Indians, were rebuffed. In spite of the letter from the Queen Mother and a subsequent one from the king, which Laval had posted throughout the colony, his authority was ignored and ridiculed. He felt his only recourse was to petition the king directly, and so, leaving Father Lalemant in charge of their French and Indian missions, he returned to France in 1662.
King Louis XIV received the vicar with courtesy. He recognized Laval as the future bishop of the new colony, which would henceforth be known as the Royal Province of Quebec.
In the meantime, life in the colony was being changed by the arrival of young women, pulled from orphanages and poor families and sent to become wives. The ratio was six bachelors for every girl.
In early 1663, the colony was filled with stories of three suns appearing in the sky on two different occasions in January, and an ominous mood hung over it. With the approach of the Mardi Gras, the beginning of the 40 days of Lent with its deprivations, these young people had turned the place into a large party. There were carnivals, drinking bouts, dancing and even rumours of orgies, and the Indians were becoming acquainted with Catholicism and liquor simultaneously. Lalement bided his time, waiting for an opportunity to establish sober control. It arrived on Saturday, Feb. 5, 1663.
What would become known as the Great Earthquake, with its epicentre near the mouth of Rivière La Malbaie, arrived at 5:30 p.m., three days before Mardi Gras. It lasted half an hour and was felt from west of Montreal all the way to Acadia, cracking chimney tops as far away as New England. The Indians thought the trees themselves had become drunk and the colonists were convinced the world was ending. In the aftermath, the shores of the river were strewn with trees, and the seismic disturbances would continue until the middle of the summer. Lalemant recorded that “mountains were swallowed up, forests were changed into great lakes, rivers disappeared, thunder rumbled beneath our feet, which belched forth flames.”
He also took full advantage of the event, calling upon the sinners to repent, and the effect was so strong that even the civil authorities accepted to pass a law against the trade in alcohol. By the time Laval returned with his new powers, Lalement, the experienced old Jesuit, had everything under control.