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Updated: June 12, 2025
They were brought in by the hunters and trappers over the boundless domains of the fur companies, and by the Indian tribes friendly to the peltrie trade.
Since their arrival in Canada in 1639 it had been for them a labour of love. In the convent and school founded by Mother Marie de l'Incarnation and Madame de la Peltrie, both French and Indian girls received instruction in various subjects. Seven nuns attended daily to the classes. The Indian girls had special classes and teachers, but they were lodged and boarded along with the French children.
Madame de la Peltrie and her companions, the Jesuit historian tells us naïvely, embraced the little Indian girls "without taking heed whether they were clean or not." It was during Montmagny's term of office that the city of Montreal was founded by a number of religious enthusiasts.
The virtue of obedience, for which she is extolled by her clerical biographers, however abundantly exhibited in respect to those who held charge of her conscience, was singularly wanting towards the parent who, in the way of Nature, had the best claim to its exercise; and Madame de la Peltrie was more than ever resolved to go to Canada.
And so she was inconceivably happy to die in the house of Jesus and Mary, and in the arms of Madame de la Peltrie, who watched her with a mother's love, and charged her with many a message for the angels, those especially of the Mothers and the Indians. Her sufferings were very great, but her patience was equal to them.
To Dom Claude Martin, Madame de la Peltrie wrote after her return from her expedition to Montreal, "I esteem myself happy and honoured in the privilege of living under the roof with the Mother of the Incarnation. If I survive her, I shall give you many particulars of her life which will call forth your gratitude to God. She is truly a chosen soul, precious in the eyes of the Lord.
"And tell him furthermore, that Governor Carver, the chief man of our settlement, is desirous of seeing him, and of arranging with him terms of alliance and of trade. Our desire is to purchase peltrie of every sort, and we are ready to pay for all that we receive, but it is best that the governor and the king should arrange these matters together.
Thinking herself called on to second this manifest intervention of Providence, the Mother resolved to communicate personally to Madame de la Peltrie her wishes and sentiments on the subject of the mission. This letter gives so beautiful an insight to her mind that a few sentences from it will probably be read with interest and pleasure:
But the thought of Canada continued to be as usual ever present to her heart, and although there seemed no human likelihood of her going there, she could not divest herself of a strong presentiment that the time of departure was approaching. We left Madame de la Peltrie in Paris, preparing for her departure. All her arrangements were made at last, except one, but that was all- important.
In the spring of 1641 the foundation stone of the monastery was laid by Madame de la Peltrie in the present Upper Town of Quebec, and there, at the close of nearly two centuries and a half, the Ursuline Convent still stands.
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