IT WAS A RARE BOOK

Reasons Why Copies of the Original Jesuits' Relations Are Few and Far Between

When the Législature of Québec published (1858) three bulky volumes of the Jesuits' Relations, the large number of that class of documents exhibited created much surprise. But few copies of the original print had ever been known in Canada, although the main object of thèse publications was, during the seventeenth century, to acquaint the world with what was going on in New France. This circumstance puzzled our people for a long time, but finally an explanation came to hand when we found why the Relations had ceased to be issued regularly to the public (1672). This is a case of a séries of books made inaccessible to those whom they specially concern — from the outset. The révélation of their value and importance had been concealed to the Canadians for more than two centuries. Every one amongst us was satisfied that the rare copies existing in some libraries of Québec and Montréal, with perhaps a few others in Europe, comprised the whole catalogue of them, and of course we knew that Charlevoix, a Jesuit himself, had had access to some reports of that kind supposed to be kept secret by the Society. The plain facts are as follows :

First. — The Jesuits' Relations were calculated to circulate in Europe, and to produce their eflfect on persons or communities inclined to support the Jesuits' missions ;

128 IT VVAS A RARE ËOOK

therefore, they were not written with a view to "advertise" Canada, the settlers, the resources of the country or the formation of an earnest colony, and no copy of the pamphlets in qiiestipn were " needed " in Canada.

Second. — The Recollets, having been removed from Québec soon after the arrivai of the Jesuits (1632), had kept watch over the latter ever since, and they niust hâve contributed their share in criticising the annual publications referred to.

Third. — The Sulpicians confined to the Island of Montréal were ignored by the writers of the Relations, and they even complained that those writers were unfair to them and other parties in the colony.

Fourth. — Any individual who was not body and soûl with the Jesuits, from Gaspé to Lake Huron, found that he belonged to a category of men not désirable in the country — according to the Relations.

From that state of things sprang the design of the inhabitants to remonstrate at the Court against such "black books," and also to call the attention of the Pope to their defects.

In 1661 Pierre Boucher went to France as a delegate of the colony. In 1663 the Sulpicians raised a complaint. In 1664 Boucher, at that time governor of Three Rivers, published his Histoire Naturelle de la Nouvelle-France, showing what the country could be if light was thrown upon it. From that moment the approval of the Jesuits authorities ceased to appear on the usual pamphlets, but the same printer pui)lished them, and in the same manner. The King had forbidden the Fathers to issue their Relations — happily, the printer, Cramoisy, was not a Jesuit en soutane, and he continued the good old