Again for a moment Acadia echoes of the Sorbonne and of Arcadian
poesy. Again the unblenching "preux chevalier" Champlain stands with his
back against the gray cliff of Quebec fighting red and white foe alike,
famine and disease, to keep a foothold in the wilderness, with the sublime
faith of a crusader and the patient endurance of a Prometheus. Again the
zealous but narrow rigor of Richelieu, flowering in his native land in the
learning of the Sorbonne and preparing for him in the new world, as Le
Jeune wrote, a "dazzling crown in heaven," builds by the St. Charles and
the wreckage of Cartier's _Petite Hermine_, the house of Notre Dame des
Anges, the "cradle of the great mission of New France." Again the
fireflies light the meadow altar of Maisonneuve at Montreal on its birth-
night. Again the gray gowns and the black, Le Caron, Brebeuf, Jogues, and
Gamier, enter upon their glorious toils, their bare and sandalled feet,
accustomed to the smooth walks of the convents of Brouage and Rheims and
Paris, begin to climb the rough paths to the west, _ad majorem Dei
gloriam.
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