For more than two decades after the death of Champlain in 1635, the tide of immigration was very feeble; but it bore on its bosom two notable women in the annals of Canada Madame de la Peltrie, the founder of the first girls' school ever opened in the province, and Mother Marie Guyard, the honored head of that school. In 1659 these two and five other women, three calling themselves Hospitalières, arrived at the little settlement of Quebec, consisting of scarcely two hundred and fifty souls. They came for the glory of God, to work His work among the Indians; and they were received with all the honors the little colony could compass. Madame de la Peltrie, the head of the peaceful expedition, found the state of affairs worse than she had been told by the missionaries who had urged her coming; but she faced the difficulties and discouragements of the situation with a heart as gallant as that of those of her sex who dared "battle, murder, and sudden death" at the hands of the Indians in their search for a home, and the Ursuline Convent at Quebec is an enduring monument to the memory of the women who did so much for the uplifting of the Indians of Canada.
Her coadjutor, Mother Marie Guyard, left behind her a name no less honored than that of Madame de la Peltrie a name unexcelled for the virtues of piety, constancy, self-sacrifice, and devotion to the cause of degraded humanity. Her work among the Indians bore noble fruit, even if hardly to the extent of her wishes. She had many discouragements to face and obstacles to overcome; among them, not a few at the hands of those who should have been her allies. In 1661 the new governor, Baron Dubois d'Avaugour, moved thereto by an ill-advised plea on the part of a missionary for the commutation of the sentence passed upon a woman for violating the law that no brandy should be sold to the Indians, gave free license to the sale of spirituous liquors throughout the dominion. The result was deplorable and almost nullified the work of a score of weary years; and Mother Marie, sick at heart, wrote thus to her son:
"I have told you in another letter about a cross that is far harder to bear than the incursions of the Iroquois. There are in this country certain Frenchmen so despicable and so little touched by the fear of God that they are ruining all our new Christians by giving them strong drink, such as wine and brandy, to get their beaver-skins from them."