sailed for Canada, to seek his fortune, in the spring of 1666. [Footnote:
It does not appear what vows La Salle had taken. By a recent ordinance,
1666, persons entering religious orders could not take the final vows
before the age of twenty-five. By the family papers above mentioned, it
appears, however, that he had brought himself under the operation of the
law, which debarred those who, having entered religious orders, afterwards
withdrew, from claiming the inheritance of relatives who had died after
their entrance.]

Next, we find him at Montreal. In another volume, we have seen how an
association of enthusiastic devotees had made a settlement at this place.
[Footnote: "The Jesuits in North America," c. xv.] Having in some measure
accomplished its work, it was now dissolved; and the corporation of
priests, styled the Seminary of St. Sulpice, which had taken a prominent
part in the enterprise, and, indeed, had been created with a view to it,
was now the proprietor and the feudal lord of Montreal. It was destined to
retain its seignorial rights until the abolition of the feudal tenures of
Canada in our own day, and it still holds vast possessions in the city and
island. These worthy ecclesiastics, models of a discreet and sober
conservatism, were holding a post with which a band of veteran soldiers or
warlike frontiersmen would have been better matched. Montreal was perhaps
the most dangerous place in Canada. In time of war, which might have been
called the normal condition of the colony, it was exposed by its position
to incessant inroads of the Iroquois, or Five Nations, of New York; and no
man could venture into the forests or the fields without bearing his life
in his hand. The savage confederates had just received a sharp
chastisement at the hands of Courcelles, the governor; and the result was
a treaty of peace, which might at any moment be broken, but which was an
inexpressible relief while it lasted.