Marguerite Bourgeoys and Montreal, 1640-1665

Barbara Robertson is the author of Wilfrid Laurier: The Great
Conciliator and the co-author of The Well-Filled Cupboard.

Patricia Simpson emphasizes the practical side of her subject in her
carefully written and scholarly account of Marguerite Bourgeoys’s life
(1620–1700). In 1658, Bourgeoys opened the first school in Montreal,
but her activities in those turbulent early days of settlement were far
more general, and she made herself useful in any way that promoted the
social welfare of the tiny colony. The Congrégation de Notre-Dame de
Montréal, which she founded, was an uncloistered order, open to the
poor as well as the rich; cloistered orders, by contrast, required a
dowry, which narrowed the range of applicants to the well-to-do.

This is no drum-and-trumpet history of early Montreal, or even its
spiritual equivalent, and yet external factors do affect social
development. The Iroquois raids nearly obliterated Montreal, but anyone
who argues that an external enemy tends to unite society would be
hard-pressed to explain why the meagre settlements of New France had
such an extraordinary capacity for quarreling among themselves. Simpson
works her way carefully along the well-trodden ground, allowing herself
the occasional tart comment. Of Bishop Laval, she writes, “[l]ike many
men of his type, the bishop may sometimes have had difficulty
distinguishing the will of God from the will of Franзois de Montmorency
Laval and the glory of God from the glory of the hierarchy of the
church.”

The main emphasis, of course, is on Marguerite Bourgeoys, who
endeavored to model her life, and that of the Congrégation, on the
approach adopted by the Virgin Mary, who worked in the community rather
than living apart from it. What Simpson does extremely well is sift
through the meagre documentary evidence, making as much as (but not more
than) can be made of it. As well, she provides an enlightening account
of Marguerite’s birthplace, Troyes, whose traditions and character
also contributed to the making of early Montreal.