The Makers of Canada: Bishop Laval | Page 6

Marignan, or after Pavia during the captivity of the _roi-gentilhomme_; everywhere where country and religion appealed to their defenders one was sure of hearing shouted in the foremost ranks the motto of the Montmorencys: _"Dieu ayde au premier baron chrétien!"_
Young Laval received at the baptismal font the name of the heroic missionary to the Indies, Fran?ois-Xavier. To this saint and to the founder of the Franciscans, Fran?ois d'Assise, he devoted throughout his life an ardent worship. Of his youth we hardly know anything except the misfortunes which happened to his family. He was only fourteen years old when, in 1636, he suffered the loss of his father, and one of his near kinsmen, Henri de Montmorency, grand marshal of France, and governor of Languedoc, beheaded by the order of Richelieu. The bravery displayed by this valiant warrior in battle unfortunately did not redeem the fault which he had committed in rebelling against the established power, against his lawful master, Louis XIII, and in neglecting thus the traditions handed down to him by his family through more than seven centuries of glory.
Some historians reproach Richelieu with cruelty, but in that troublous age when, hardly free from the wars of religion, men rushed carelessly on into the rebellions of the duc d'Orléans and the duc de Soissons, into the conspiracies of Chalais, of Cinq-Mars and de Thou, soon followed by the war of La Fronde, it was not by an indulgence synonymous with weakness that it was possible to strengthen the royal power. Who knows if it was not this energy of the great cardinal which inspired the young Fran?ois, at an age when sentiment is so deeply impressed upon the soul, with those ideas of firmness which distinguished him later on?
The future Bishop of Quebec was then a scholar in the college of La Flèche, directed by the Jesuits, for his pious parents held nothing dearer than the education of their children in the fear of God and love of the good. They had had six children; the two first had perished in the flower of their youth on fields of battle; Fran?ois, who was now the eldest, inherited the name and patrimony of Montigny, which he gave up later on to his brother Jean-Louis, which explains why he was called for some time Abbé de Montigny, and resumed later the generic name of the family of Laval; the fifth son, Henri de Laval, joined the Benedictine monks and became prior of La Croix-Saint-Leuffroy. Finally the only sister of Mgr. Laval, Anne Charlotte, became Mother Superior of the religious community of the Daughters of the Holy Sacrament.
Fran?ois edified the comrades of his early youth by his ardent piety, and his tender respect for the house of God; his masters, too, clever as they were in the art of guiding young men and of distinguishing those who were to shine later on, were not slow in recognizing his splendid qualities, the clear-sightedness and breadth of his intelligence, and his wonderful memory. As a reward for his good conduct he was admitted to the privileged ranks of those who comprised the Congregation of the Holy Virgin. We know what good these admirable societies, founded by the sons of Loyola, have accomplished and still accomplish daily in Catholic schools the world over. Societies which vie with each other in piety and encouragement of virtue, they inspire young people with the love of prayer, the habits of regularity and of holy practices.
The congregation of the college of La Flèche had then the good fortune of being directed by Father Bagot, one of those superior priests always so numerous in the Company of Jesus. At one time confessor to King Louis XIII, Father Bagot was a profound philosopher and an eminent theologian. It was under his clever direction that the mind of Fran?ois de Laval was formed, and we shall witness later the germination of the seed which the learned Jesuit sowed in the soul of his beloved scholar.
At this period great families devoted to God from early youth the younger members who showed inclination for the religious life. Fran?ois was only nine years old when he received the tonsure, and fifteen when he was appointed canon of the cathedral of Evreux. Without the revenues which he drew from his prebend, he would not have been able to continue his literary studies; the death of his father, in fact, had left his family in a rather precarious condition of fortune. He was to remain to the end of his career the pupil of his preferred masters, for it was under them that, having at the age of nineteen left the institution where he had brilliantly completed his classical education, he studied philosophy and theology at the Collège de Clermont at Paris.
He was plunged in these noble