MESSRS. DAUVERSIERE AND DE MAISONNEUVE VISIT MONTREAL.


It has been stated that Cardinal Richelieu at first opposed the building
of Ville-Marie, but this he did, not through apathy for anything
relating to the spread of religion, but lest the work was a human
impossibility, as indeed it then appeared to be. However, his
opposition, from whatever cause it had arisen, disappeared before the
reasoning of M. de Lanzon, for whom the Cardinal entertained the most
sincere respect. He now gave the project his unqualified approbation,
and obtained from the King a renewed confirmation of all the privileges
conferred on the preceding associations, with undisturbed possession of
the land. Being thus furnished with the best means of procuring funds,
and being under the protection of His Eminence the Cardinal, Messrs. de
Faucamp and Dauversiere, with a great number of other influential
persons, who were pledged to support them, no longer hesitated to
announce themselves as "The Company of Montreal," bound to uphold the
Catholic Faith in Canada, and more especially to convert the savages,
which was the real end they proposed to themselves. But it was not only
the associates themselves who provided the necessary funds. Other
persons also contributed, and none more generously than M. Alexander
Bretonvilliers, a priest of the community of St. Sulpice, and afterwards
its second Superior. Being son of the minister of state, he was the
wealthiest eccelesiastic in France, and bestowed the greater part of his
patrimony on this undertaking. The Duchess de Bullion also, who
preserved an incognita for a long time, gave large sums of money to M.
Dauversiere to assist the Montreal Association in the propagation of the
Faith, as she had hitherto provided the principal funds for the
establishment of the Hotel-Dieu, as shall be noticed again.