It was because of this and kindred causes that Mother Marie deemed her life-work a failure at last; but the thought was erroneous. She left her influence in the hearts of many of her Indian pupils, and she gave to Canada by her efforts the school which is one of the noblest monuments of the past of Quebec.
The Hospitalières, who had come over in the same ship with the founders of the girls' school, founded the hospital that is now known as Quebec's Hotel-Dieu; at first, their philanthropic efforts on behalf of the Indians found nothing but failure as reward, for an unfortunate epidemic that broke out soon after the establishment of the hospital in an old storeroom, and the death of most of the patients there treated, persuaded the red men that the hospital was a scheme devised for their extinction rather than for their good. But here, too, perseverance in good works overcame stupendous difficulties, though here again, as well, the result did not take the form which was at first intended. Yet none the lighter is the praise to be awarded to the noble women who undertook the work and who carried it on in the face of danger and failure, and the names of such women as Marie Irwin, Catherine Chevalier, and Madame d'Ailleboust, the wife of the third governor of Quebec, are still deservedly held in honor by the dwellers in New France.
In the younger sister colony to Quebec, that of Montreal, Jeanne Mance founded a hospital with the money supplied her by Madame Bullion, a rich and pious widow living in Old France but interested in all projects for the amelioration of existent conditions in the new land. The hospital was of excellent service in caring for the wounded who had done battle with the fierce Iroquois, and many a stricken soldier blessed the name of its founder. Marguerite de Bourgeoys, of whom Parkman writes as the "fair ideal of Christian womanhood, a flower of earth expanding in the rays of heaven," on her part founded in Montreal a girls' school, and her work so prospered that she actually built by her own efforts a church, now known, though in its second building, as "Notre Dame de Bonsecours." She and Jeanne Mance were known as "the two mothers of Montreal," and well did they deserve the honorable title.