fluctuations before all the wheels of government move smoothly, and Mgr.
de Laval, obliged to face ever renewed conflicts of authority, had
necessarily either to abandon what he considered it his duty to
support, or create malcontents. If sometimes he carried persistence to
the verge of obstinacy, he must be judged in relation to the period in
which he lived: governors like Frontenac were only too anxious to
imitate their absolute master, whose guiding maxim was, "I am the
state!" Moreover, where are the men of true worth who have not found
upon their path the poisoned fruits of hatred? The so-called praise that
is sometimes applied to a man, when we say of him, "he has not a single
enemy," seems to us, on the contrary, a certificate of insignificance
and obscurity. The figure of this great servant of God is one of those
which shed the most glory on the history of Canada; the age of Louis
XIV, so marvellous in the number of great men which it gave to France,
lavished them also upon her daughter of the new continent--Brébeuf and
Lalemant, de Maisonneuve, Dollard, Laval, Talon, de la Salle, Frontenac,
d'Iberville, de Maricourt, de Sainte-Hélène, and many others.

"Noble as a Montmorency" says a well-known adage. The founder of that
illustrious line, Bouchard, Lord of Montmorency, figures as early as 950
A.D. among the great vassals of the kingdom of France. The
heads of this house bore formerly the titles of First Christian Barons
and of First Barons of France; it became allied to several royal houses,
and gave to the elder daughter of the Church several cardinals, six
constables, twelve marshals, four admirals, and a great number of
distinguished generals and statesmen. Sprung from this family, whose
origin is lost in the night of time, François de Laval-Montmorency was
born at Montigny-sur-Avre, in the department of Eure-et-Loir, on April
30th, 1623. This charming village, which still exists, was part of the
important diocese of Chartres. Through his father, Hugues de Laval,