Rome objected to the concession granted in the clause "without prejudice to the rights of the jurisdiction of the Ordinary" because it could not admit the pretensions of the archbishop of Rouen. However, M. de Harlay, supported by Mazarin, maintained his position and Laval left La Flèche on Easter Sunday, April 13, 1659, for Canada, accompanied by the new superior of the Jesuit missions, Father Jérome Lalemant, who had formerly worked in the missions and now came, sent by the general of the Jesuits, Goswin Nickel, at the special request of Laval.
He arrived unannounced at Quebec, on June 16th, as a simple vicar apostolic, a bishop indeed, but with his see in far-off Arabia, and shorn of the dignity of canons and a chapter, and the external emblems of a bishop in his own see. The colony could not support, with its scanty revenues, such a position. Still he was the first ecclesiastical superior, and thus he brought unity to the church government, then split between the superior of the Jesuits at Quebec and the Abbé de Queylus, at Montreal.
On arriving Laval found the colony in two divisions: on the one side, the majority, composed of the missionaries, the communities of religious women, and those colonists most sincerely devoted to the church; on the other the governor, the partisans of the Abbé de Queylus and a group of traders who scented trouble on the appearance of a man whose unflinching character would not allow him to truckle his duty or his conscience.
The situation was greatly cleared when, seven weeks after the arrival of Laval, de Queylus went down from Montreal, reaching Quebec on September 7th, and gave his submission and ceased to be grand vicaire. At first he was uncertain whether his own powers as independent head of the church in Montreal still held good, but the letters patent of the king, dated March 27, 1659, received by d'Argenson, left no doubt on the point.
Thus submission was made all the easier because de Queylus did not know of the determination of the archbishop of Rouen to maintain him in his function in Montreal. Indeed new letters patent, with a letter from the king, dated May 11, 1659, were now on the way, confirming him in his position without prejudice to the jurisdiction of the vicar apostolic.