The explanation of the letter brought by d'Argenson is as follows: Shortly after the surprise received by the appearance of the Sulpician vicar general the superior of the Jesuits, Père de Quen wrote to Father Brisacier, the Jesuit rector of the college at Rouen, to ask him to enquire of his Grace the Archbishop of Rouen if he had withdrawn his faculties as vicar general or not.
He also wrote at the same time to the general of the order, Goswin Nickel, acquainting him of the new situation in Canada. On December 17, 1657, the general himself also wrote to Father Brisacier in Latin as follows: "Father J. de Quen, superior of the Canadian missions, has written to me on September 20th of this year, that he and his subjects are being harassed by the Abbé de Queylus, sent out there last summer by his Eminence the Archbishop of Rouen, to act as his vicar general, asserting that the marriages celebrated by fathers acting as parish priests are null; that they are abusing the power and jurisdiction of the vicar general which they had obtained; that he could dispose of our men 'ad libitum,' and other things which have no little disturbed the nascent church. The evil might increase from day to day unless his Grace the Archbishop, through his zeal and piety, will early look into the matter. Your Reverence will see whether you can obtain from him either that the power of this abbé may be revoked or that he shall so treat with ours that he shall have come to New France not for its destruction but for its upbuilding." (Arch. Gen., 89.)
The final response to the difficulty came to Quebec on July 11, 1658, when the letter of Mgr. de Harlay, the archbishop of Rouen, arrived.
"To put an end to the differences," he says, "which have intervened between the Sieur Abbé de Queylus and the venerable superior of the Jesuits of the house of Quebec, both our _grands vicaires_ in the part of our diocese called La Nouvelle France, until it may be more amply provided for by your authority, we have ordered that Sieur Abbé de Queylus shall exercise hereafter and from the day of the present ordinance, the vicariate which we have given him, according to the powers we have given him, in the extent of the Island of Montreal; as also the superior of the Jesuits of the house of Quebec shall exercise _the same powers_ that we have accorded him, without either one or the other of the two grands vicaires being able to undertake anything in their different territories without the consent of the one and the other." This act was made and signed at Paris on March 30, 1658.