"Each had at dinner a bowl of soup and a small portion of butcher's
meat, without dessert, and in the evening likewise a little roast
mutton"?

Mortification diminished in no wise the activity of the prelate;
learning that the Seminary of Foreign Missions at Paris, that nursery of
apostles, had just been definitely established (1663), he considered it
his duty to establish his own more firmly by affiliating it with that of
the French capital. "I have learned with joy," wrote he, "of the
establishment of your Seminary of Foreign Missions, and that the gales
and tempests by which it has been tossed since the beginning have but
served to render it firmer and more unassailable. I cannot sufficiently
praise your zeal, which, unable to confine itself to the limits and
frontiers of France, seeks to spread throughout the world, and to pass
beyond the seas into the most remote regions; considering which, I have
thought I could not compass a greater good for our young Church, nor one
more to the glory of God and the welfare of the peoples whom God has
entrusted to our guidance, than by contributing to the establishment of
one of your branches in Quebec, the place of our residence, where you
will be like the light set upon the candlestick, to illumine all these
regions by your holy doctrine and the example of your virtue. Since you
are the torch of foreign countries, it is only reasonable that there
should be no quarter of the globe uninfluenced by your charity and
zeal. I hope that our Church will be one of the first to possess this
good fortune, the more since it has already a part of what you hold most
dear. Come then, and be welcome; we shall receive you with joy. You will
find a lodging prepared and a fund sufficient to set up a small
establishment, which I hope will continue to grow...." The act of union
was signed in 1665, and was renewed ten years later with the royal
assent.