Rouen and to depend upon it? It was better to establish at once
immediate relations between the Bishop of Quebec and the supreme head of
the Catholic Church; it was better to establish bonds which could be
broken neither by time nor force, and Quebec might thus become one day
the metropolis of the dioceses which should spring from its bosom."

The opposition to the views of Mgr. de Laval did not come, however, so
much from the king as from Mgr. de Harlay, Archbishop of Rouen, who had
never consented to the detachment of Canada from his jurisdiction.
Events turned out fortunately for the apostolic vicar, since the
Archbishop of Rouen was called to the important see of Paris on the
death of the Archbishop of Paris, Hardouin de Péréfixe de Beaumont, in
the very year in which Mgr. de Laval embarked for France, accompanied by
his grand vicar, M. de Lauson-Charny. The task now became much easier,
and Laval had no difficulty in inducing the king to urge the erection of
the diocese at Quebec, and to abandon his claims to making the new
diocese dependent on the archbishopric of Rouen.

Before leaving Canada the Bishop of Quebec had entrusted the
administration of the apostolic vicariate to M. de Bernières, and, in
case of the latter's death, to M. Dudouyt. He embarked in the autumn of
1671.

To the keen regret of the population of Ville-Marie, which owed him so
much, M. de Queylus, Abbé de Loc-Dieu and superior of the Seminary of
Montreal for the last three years, went to France at the same time as
his ecclesiastical superior. "M. l'abbé de Queylus," wrote Commissioner
Talon to the Minister Colbert, "is making an urgent application for the
settlement and increase of the colony of Montreal. He carries his zeal
farther, for he is going to take charge of the Indian children who fall