says the Abbé Ferland, "it is impossible not to admire the energy
displayed by the noble bishop, imploring the pity of the monarch for the
savages of New France with all the courage shown by Las Casas, when he
pleaded the cause of the aborigines of Spanish America. Disdaining the
hypocritical outcries of those men who prostituted the name of commerce
to cover their speculations and their rapine, he exposed himself to
scorn and persecution in order to save the remnant of those indigenous
American tribes, to protect his flock from the moral contagion which
threatened to weigh upon it, and to lead into the right path the young
men who were going to ruin among the savage tribes."

The worthy bishop desired to prevent the laxity of the sale of brandy
that might result from the declaration of the Committee of Twenty-four,
and in the autumn of 1678 he set out again for France. To avoid a
journey so fatiguing, he might easily have found excuses in the rest
needed after a difficult pastoral expedition which he had just
concluded, in the labours of his seminary which demanded his presence,
and especially in the bad state of his health; but is not the first
duty of a leader always to stand in the breach, and to give to all the
example of self-sacrifice? A report from his hand on the disorders
caused by the traffic in strong liquors would perhaps have obtained a
fortunate result, but thinking that his presence at the court would be
still more efficacious, he set out. He managed to find in his charity
and the goodness of his heart such eloquent words to depict the evils
wrought upon the Church in Canada by the scourge of intoxication, that
Louis XIV was moved, and commissioned his confessor, Father La Chaise,
to examine the question conjointly with the Archbishop of Paris.
According to their advice, the king expressly forbade the French to
carry intoxicating liquors to the savages in their dwellings or in the
woods, and he wrote to Frontenac to charge him to see that the edict was