de Laval took pleasure in visiting all the cabins of the savages, one
after another, spreading the good Word, consoling the afflicted, and
himself administering the sacraments of the Church to those who wished
to receive them.

Father Dablon gives us in these terms the narrative of the visit of the
bishop to the Prairie de la Madeleine in 1676. "This man," says he,
speaking of the prelate, "this man, great by birth and still greater by
his virtues, which have been quite recently the admiration of all
France, and which on his last voyage to Europe justly acquired for him
the esteem and the approval of the king; this great man, making the
rounds of his diocese, was conveyed in a little bark canoe by two
peasants, exposed to all the inclemencies of the climate, without other
retinue than a single ecclesiastic, and without carrying anything but a
wooden cross and the ornaments absolutely necessary to a _bishop of
gold_, according to the expression of authors in speaking of the first
prelates of Christianity."

[The expedition of Dollard is related in detail by Dollier de
Casson, and by Mother Mary of the Incarnation in her letters. The
Abbé de Belmont gives a further account of the episode in his
history. The _Jesuit Relations_ place the scene of the affair at
the Chaudière Falls. The sceptically-minded are referred to
Kingsford's _History of Canada_, vol. I., p. 261, where a less
romantic view of the affair is taken.]--Editors' Note on the
Dollard Episode.