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The next morning I was alone with Monseigneur Bourget,
who received me very kindly. He seemed at first to have entirely
banished the bad feelings he had shown in our last interview
at Quebec. After making some friendly remarks on my
continual labors and success in the cause of temperance, he
stopped for a moment, and seemed embarrassed how to resume
the conversation. At last he said:

"Are you not the father confessor of Mrs. Chenier?"

"Yes! my lord. I have been her confessor since I lived in
Longueuil."

"Very well, very well," he rejoined, "I suppose that you
know that her only child is a nun, in the Congregation Convent."

"Yes! my lord, I know it," I replied.

"Could you not induce Mrs Chenier to become a nun also?"
asked the bishop.

"I never thought of that, my lord," I answered, "and I do
not see why I should advise her to exchange her beautiful cottage,
washed by the fresh and pure waters of the St. Lawrence,
where she looks so happy and cheerful, for the gloomy walls of
the nunnery."

"But she is still young and beautiful; she may be deceived
by temptation when she is there, in that beautiful house, surrounded
by all the enjoyments of her fortune," replied the
bishop.

"I understand your lordship. Yes, Mrs Chenier has the
reputation of being rich; though I know nothing of her fortune,
she has kept well the charms and freshness of her youth. However,
I think that the best remedy against the temptations you
seem to dread so much for her, is to advise her to marry. A
good Christian husband seems to me a much better remedy
against the dangers, to which your lordship alludes, than the
cheerless walls of a nunnery."

"You speak just as a Protestant," rejoined the bishop, with
an evident nervous irritation. "We remark that, though you
hear the confessions of a great number of young ladies, there is
not a single one of them who has ever become a nun. You
seem to ignore, that the vow of chastity is the shortest way to a
life of holiness in this world and happiness in the next."

"I am sorry to differ from your lordship, in that matter,"
I replied. "But I cannot help it, the remedy you have found
against sin is quite modern. The old remedy offered by our
God Himself, is very different and much better, I think."

" `It is not good that man shall remain alone, I will make a
help-mate for him,' said our Creator in the earthly paradise.
`And to avoid fornication, let every man have his wife, and let
every woman have have her husband,' said the same God,
through His apostle Paul.

"I know too well how the great majority of nuns keep their
vows of chastity, to believe that the modern remedy against the
temptations you mention, is an improvement on the old one
found and given by our God!" I answered.

With an angry look, the bishop replied:

"This is Protestantism, Mr. Chiniquy. This is sheer Protestantism."

"I respectfully ask your pardon for differing from your
lordship. This is not Protestantism. It is simply and absolutely
the `pure word of God.' But, my lord, God knows that it is

my sincere desire, as it is my interest and my duty, to do all in
my power to deserve your esteem. I do not want to vex nor
disobey you. Please give me a good reason why I should advise
Mrs. Chenier to enter a monastery, and I will comply with
your request the very first time she comes to confess."

Resuming his most amiable manner, the bishop answered me:

"My first reason is, the spiritual good which she would receive
from her vows of perpetual chastity and poverty in nunnery.
The second reason is, that the lady is rich; and we are in need
of money. We would soon possess her whole fortune; for her
only child is already in the Congregation Convent."

"My dear bishop," I replied, "you already know what I
think of your first reason. After having investigated that fact,
not in the Protestant books, but from the lips of the nuns themselves,
as well as from their father confessors, I am fully convinced
that the real virtue of purity is much better kept in the
homes of our Christian mothers, married sisters, and female
friends, than in the secret rooms, not to say prisons, where the
poor nuns are enchained by the heavy fetters assumed by their
vows, which the great majority curse when they cannot break
them.

"And for the second reason, your lordship gives me to
induce Mrs. Chenier becoming a nun, I am again sorry to say,
that I cannot conscientiously accept it. I have not consecrated
myself to the priesthood to deprive respectable families of their
legal inheritance in order to enrich myself, or anybody else. I
know she has poor relations who need her fortune after her
death."

"Do you pretend to say that your bishop is a thief?" angrily
rejoined the bishop.

"No, my lord! By no means. No doubt, from your high
standpoint of view, your lordship may see things in a very different
aspect, from what I see them, in the low position I occupy
in the church. But, as your lordship is bound to follow the dictates
of your conscience in everything, I also feel obliged to give
heed to the voice of mine."

This painful conversation had already lasted too long. I was

anxious to see the end of it; for I could easily read in the face
of my superior that every word I uttered was sealing my doom.
I rose up to take leave of him, and said: "My lord, I beg your
pardon for disappointing your lordship."

He coldly answered me:

"It is not the first time, though I would it were the last, that
you show such a want of respect and submission to the will of
your superiors. But, as I feel it is a conscientious affair on your
part, I have no ill-will against you, and I am happy to tell you
that I entertain for you all my past esteem. The only favor I ask
from you, just now, is that this conversation may be kept secret."

I answered: "It is still more to my interest than yours to
keep this unfortunate affair a secret between us. I hope that
neither your lordship, nor the Great God, who alone has heard
us, will ever make it an imperious duty for me to mention it."

"What good news do you bring me from the bishop's palace?"
asked my venerable friend, Mr. Brassard, when I returned, late
in the afternoon.

"I would have very spicy, though unpalatable news to give
you, had not the bishop asked me to keep what has been said
between us a secret."

Mr. Brassard laughed outright, at my answer, and replied:

"A secret! a secret! Ah! but it is a gazette secret; for the
bishop has bothered me, as well as many others, with that matter,
frequently, since your return from Illinois. Several times he
has asked us to persuade you to advise your devoted penitent,
Mrs. Chenier, to become a nun. I knew he invited you to his
palace, yesterday, for that object."

"The eyes and the heart of our poor bishop," continued Mr.
Brassard, "are too firmly fixed on the fortune of that lady.
Hence, his zeal about the salvation of her soul, through the monastic
life. In vain I tried to dissuade the bishop from speaking
to you on that subject, on account of your prejudices against our
good nuns. He would not listen to me. No doubt you have
realized my worst anticipations; you have, with your usual stubbornness,
refused to yield to his demands. I fear you have added
to his bad feelings, and consummated your disgrace."

"What a deceitful man that bishop is," I answered indignantly.
"He has given me to understand that this was a most
sacred secret between him and me; when I see, by what you say,
that it is nothing else than a farcical secret, known by the hundreds
who have heard of it.

"But please, my dear Mr. Brassard, tell me, is it not a burning
shame that our nunneries are changed into real traps, to steal,
cheat and ruin so many unsuspecting families? I have no words
to express my disgust and indignation, when I see that all those
great demonstrations and eloquent tirades about the perfection
and holiness of the nuns, on the part of our spiritual rulers, are
nothing else, in reality, than a veil to conceal their stealing
operations. Do you not feel that those poor nuns are the victims
of the most stupendous system of swindling the world has ever
seen?

"I know that there are some honorable exceptions. For
instance, the nunnery you have founded here, is an exception.
You have not built it to enrich yourself, as you have spent your
last cent in its erection. But you and I are only simpletons, who
have, till now, ignored the terrible secrets which put that
machine of the nunneries and monkeries in motion. I am more
than ever disgusted and terrified, not only by the unspeakable
corruptions, but also by the stupendous system of swindling
which is their foundation stone. If the cities of Quebec and
Montreal could know what I know of the incalculable sums of
money secretly stolen through the confessional to aid our bishops
in building the famous cathedrals and splendid palaces, or to
cover themselves with robes of silk, satin, silver and gold; to live
more luxurious than the Pashas of Turkey, they would set fire to
all those palatial buildings; they would hang the confessors who
have thrown the poor nuns into these dungeons, under the pretext
of saving their souls, when the real motive was to lay hands
on their inheritance and raise their colossal fortunes. The
bishop has opened before me a most deplorable and shameful
page of the history of our church. It makes me understand
many facts which were a mystery to me till to-day. Now I
understand the terrible wrath of the English people in the days

of old, and of the French people more recently, when they so
violently wrenched from the hands of the clergy the enormous
wealth they had accumulated during the dark ages. I have condemned
those great nations till now. But, to-day, I absolve
them. I am sure that those men, though blind and cruel in their
vengeance, were the ministers of the justice of God. The God
of heaven could not, forever, tolerate a sacrilegious system of
swindling, as I know, now, to be in operation from one end to
the other, not only of Canada, but of the whole world, under
the mask of religion. I know that the bishop and his flatterers
will hate and persecute me for my stern opposition to his rapacity.
But I do feel happy and proud of his hatred. The God of truth
and justice, the God of the gospel, will be on my side, when
they attack me. I do not fear them; let them come. That
bishop surely did not know me, when he thought that I would
consent to be the instrument of his hypocrisy, and that, under
the false pretext of a delusive perfection, I would throw that
lady into a dungeon for her life, that he might become rich with
her inheritance."

Mr. Brassard answered me: "I cannot blame you for your
disobeying the bishop, in this instance. I foretold him what has
occurred; for I knew what you think of the nuns. Though I
do not go as far as you in that, I cannot absolutely shut my eyes
to the facts which stare us in the face. Those monkish communities
have, in every age, been the principal cause of the calamities
which have befallen the church. For their love of riches, their
pride and laziness, with their other scandals, have always been
the same.

"Had I been able to foresee what has occurred inside the
walls of the nunnery I built up here, I never would have erected
it. However, now that I have built it, it is the child of my
old age; I feel bound to support it to the end. This does not
prevent me from being afflicted when I see the facility with
which our poor nuns yield to the criminal desires of their too
weak confessors. Who could have thought, for instance, that
that lean and ugly superior of the oblates, Father Allard,
could have fallen in love with his young nuns, and that so many

would have lost their hearts on his account. Have you heard
how the young men of our village, indignant at his spending
the greater part of the night with the nuns, have whipped him,
when he was crossing the bridge, not long before his leaving
Longueuil for Africa? It is evident that our bishop multiplies
too fast those religious houses.

"My fear is that they will, sooner than we expect, bring
upon our Church of Canada the same cataclysms which have so
often desolated her in England, France, Germany and even in
Italy."

The clock struck twelve just when this last sentence fell
from the lips of Mr. Brassard. It was quite time to take some
rest. When leaving me for his sleeping room, he said:

`My dear Chiniquy, gird your loins well, sharpen your sword
for the impending conflict. My fear is that the bishop and his
advisers will never forget your wrenching from their hands the
booty they were coveting so long.

"They will never forgive the spirit of independence with
which you have rebuked them.

"In fact, the conflict is already begun; may God protect you
against the open blows, and the secret machinations they have
in store for you."

I answered him: "I do not fear them. I put my trust in
God. It is for His honor I am fighting and suffering. He will
surely protect me from those sacrilegious traders in souls."