Note 105 — Chapter III

Seven or eight years before the arrival of the PP. Recollets at Quebec, Roman Catholic missionaries had found their way to Nova Scotia. They were Jesuits. It was remarkable that Henry IV., whose life had been twice attempted by the Jesuits,[106] should have earnestly urged their establishment in America. When Port Royal was ceded to Poutrincourt by De Monts, the king intimated to him that it was time to think of the conversion of the savages, and that it was his desire that the Jesuits should be employed in this work. Charlevoix acknowledges that De Poutrincourt was "un fort honnête homme, et sincèrement attaché à la religion Catholique"—nevertheless, his prejudices against Jesuits were so strong, that "il étoit bien résolu de ne les point mene au Port Royal." On various pretexts he evaded obeying the royal commands, and when, the year after, the Jesuits were sent out to him, at the expense of Madame de Gruercheville, and by the orders of the queen's mother, he rendered their stay at Port Royal as uncomfortable as was consistent with his noble and generous character, vigilantly guarding against their acquiring any dangerous influence. His former prejudices could not have been lessened by the assassination of Henry IV.[107] The two Jesuits selected by P. Cotton, Henry IV.'s confessor, for missionary labors in Acadia, were P. Pierre Biast and P. Enemond Masse. They were taken prisoners at the time of Argall's descent on Acadia, 1614, and conveyed to England.—Charlevoix, tom. i., p. 189, 216.