to give account of his efforts to his bishop, Mgr. de Laval begged the
missionary to write a short abstract of his labours for the memoirs.
"Monseigneur," replied humbly the modest Sulpician, "the greatest favour
that you can do us is not to allow us to be mentioned." Will he, at
least, like the traveller who, exhausted by fatigue and privation,
reaches finally the promised land, repose in Capuan delights? Mother
Mary of the Incarnation informs us on this point: "M. l'abbé de
Fénelon," says she, "having wintered with the Iroquois, has paid us a
visit. I asked him how he had been able to subsist, having had only
sagamite[5] as sole provision, and pure water to drink. He replied that
he was so accustomed to it that he made no distinction between this food
and any other, and that he was about to set out on his return to pass
the winter again there with M. de Trouvé, having left him only to go and
get the wherewithal to pay the Indians who feed them. The zeal of these
great servants of God is admirable."

The activity and the devotion of the Jesuits and of the Sulpicians might
thus make up for lack of numbers, and Mgr. de Laval judged that they
were amply sufficient for the task of the holy ministry. But the
intendant, Talon, feared lest the Society of Jesus should become
omnipotent in the colony; adopting from policy the famous device of
Catherine de Medici, _divide to rule_, he hoped that an order of
mendicant friars would counterbalance the influence of the sons of
Loyola, and he brought with him from France, in 1670, Father Allard,
Superior of the Récollets in the Province of St. Denis, and four other
brothers of the same order. We must confess that, if a new order of
monks was to be established in Canada, it was preferable in all justice
to apply to that of St. Francis rather than to any others, for had it
not traced the first evangelical furrows in the new field and left
glorious memories in the colony?