When Nehemiah returned to Jerusalem to raise it from its ruins, a great grief seized upon him at the sight of the roofs destroyed, the broken doors, the shattered ramparts of the city of David.  In the middle of the night he made the circuit of these ruins, and on the morrow he sought the magistrates and said to them:  “You see the distress that we are in?  Come, and let us build up the wall of Jerusalem.”  The same feelings no doubt oppressed the soul of the octogenarian prelate when he saw the walls cracked and blackened, the heaps of ruins, sole remnants of his beloved house.  But like Nehemiah he had the support of a great King, and the confidence of succeeding.  He set to work at once, and found in the generosity of his flock the means to raise the seminary from its ruins.  While he found provisional lodgings for his seminarists, he himself took up quarters in a part of the seminary which had been spared by the flames; he arranged, adjoining his room, a little oratory where he kept the Holy Sacrament, and celebrated mass.  There he passed his last days and gave up his fair soul to God.

Mgr. de Saint-Vallier had not like his predecessor the sorrow of seeing fire consume his seminary; he had set out in 1700 for France, and the differences which existed between the two prelates led the monarch to retain Mgr. de Saint-Vallier near him.  In 1705 the Bishop of Quebec obtained permission to return to his diocese.  But for three years hostilities had already existed between France and England.  The bishop embarked with several monks on the Seine, a vessel of the Royal Navy.  This ship carried a rich cargo valued at nearly a million francs, and was to escort several merchant ships to their destination at Quebec.  The convoy fell in, on July 26th, with an English fleet which gave chase to it; the merchant ships fled at full sail, abandoning the Seine to its fate.  The commander, M. de Meaupou, displayed the greatest valour, but his vessel, having a leeward position, was at a disadvantage; besides, he had committed the imprudence of so loading the deck with merchandise that several cannon could not be used.  In spite of her heroic defence, the Seine was captured by boarding, the commander and the officers were taken prisoners, and Mgr. de Saint-Vallier remained in captivity in England till 1710.

The purpose of Mgr. de Saint-Vallier’s journey to Europe in 1700 had been his desire to have ratified at Rome by the Holy See the canonical union of his abbeys, and the union of the parish of Quebec with the seminary.  On setting out he had entrusted the administration of the diocese to MM.  Maizerets and Glandelet; as to ordinations, to the administration of the sacrament of confirmation, and to the consecration of the holy oils, Mgr. de Laval would be always there, ready to lavish his zeal and the treasures of his charity.  This long absence of the chief of the diocese could not but impose new labours on Mgr. de