In 1654 there were naturally more marriages, and thirteen are therefore registered. Of these early marriages, especially of this year, there are many descendants still living.
Thus for some time Marguerite Bourgeoys, with the exception of Jeanne Loisel, would have to exercise her care with Jeanne Mance in assisting the newly-born children, visiting the sick, consoling the afflicted, washing the linen or mending the clothing of the poor and the soldiers, burying the dead and following the call of self-sacrifice everywhere. Otherwise she dwelt within the fort with M. de Maisonneuve, looking after his domestic arrangements, in a position of friendship and trust but not of domestic service. Indeed, with Jeanne Mance she became his wise adviser, for both seemed to have been largely consulted in the affairs of the settlement.
It will be remembered that Marguerite Bourgeoys, who had taken a vow of perpetual chastity in France, had been heard to place herself in the hands of M. de Maisonneuve as in those of "one of the first Chevaliers of the Angels."
Scrutiny into the life of de Maisonneuve, a "chevalier sans reproche," reveals us a singularly pure character. About this time the governor had doubts whether he should take a wife, but, not feeling himself called to the married state, he took, according to custom of the time, a vow of virginity, so that his biographers speak of him as being a religious without the habit. He was a man of prayer and devoted to duty, sincere, unaffected and unostentatious, seeking neither praise nor flattery, and undepressed by slights and contradictions. His life ideals were high and saintly, and his whole conduct was that of a Christian knight, a model to all under him. His household was simply furnished; his table was frugal; he had only one servant, and this man was the cook and general servant. In his dress ordinarily he followed the habits of the people, wearing the _tuque_, or _capot_, and grey tunic which have come down to us in some of the costumes of the snowshoe clubs of Montreal of today. Yet, not unmindful of his dignity as governor, on important occasions he would be habited as fitting his rank as a soldier and a gentleman.
He never strove to make his post serve to increase his fortune, although, like his lieutenants, he could have legitimately traded in peltry, then beginning to be very profitable. He seems rather to have embraced the "Lady Poverty" and to have been singularly unselfish and altruistic. Dollier de Casson tells us, as an example of his magnanimity and generosity, how, ever ready to recompense the good actions of his soldiers, he would deprive himself of his provisions, even those on his own table, to give them away. "On one occasion," says this historian, "when the savages came to trade at this place, noticing that one of his soldiers who had often given proofs of courage against the enemy was in extreme depression, and having found out on enquiry that it was caused by having nothing to trade with the Indians who were then here, he thereupon led him into his own room, and, since the man was a tailor, gave him all the cloth stuffs he could find, even to the curtains of his bed, to make into wearing apparel which he might sell to the Indians." Thus he sent the young soldier away happy. Such generosity endeared him to his men.