Guide to Documents Relating to French and British North America in ...

Jouve's article can therefore serve as a useful complement to Candide's Pages glorieuses, of which
Jouve in fact made abundant use.
On the subject of the Capuchins we should also remember Pacifique de Provins (Rene de
L'Escale, 1588-1648), who, even though he never set foot in North America, was for many years
prefect of the Capuchin missions in Canada (Le., Acadia), and continued to consider himself as such
even when he was in the West Indies. The continual relationship between Pacifique and Propaganda
is already well known, although the relative documents preserved in the archives of Propaganda were
used by Candide only. Partially, this documentation was also ,used by Godefroy de Paris/0 1 for whom,
however, Pacifique's American life represented merely the end of his missionary career.
By contrast, on the Franciscan Recollets and their relationship with Propaganda we have almost
nothing. Besides Jouve's opera omnia (drawn almost exclusively from the Vatican Secret Archives),
we can only mention Lenhart's article on the reasons for keeping the Recollets out of Canada in 1632.
The Capuchin historian laid the blame on Fran~ois-Joseph Du Tremblay.lOz With regard to the Jesuits,
we have already mentioned Rochemonteix, Hughes and Campeau. Campeau wrote of his Order with
particular competence and unusual depth. 103 We shall deal later with Jean Delanglez and his book on
the Jesuits in Louisiana. 104
The Discalced Carmelites did not have a mission in North America in the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries, but it was a member of their order, the Englishman Simon Stock (Thomas
Doughty, 1574-1652), who provided Propaganda with the earliest information on the colonization of
Newfoundland, the Northwest passage and the Puritan exodus to New England. Hughes and Lenhart
mentioned Stock and some of his letters. In 1925, August Schmidlin, in a very short and vague article,
examined a project for missionary expansion in Asia using the hypothetical Northwest passage. lOS
Recently Raymond J. Lahey, using some of the more interesting letters that Stock has sent to
Propaganda, dealt very competently with the relations between Stock and George Calvert, Baron
Baltimore, regarding the Avalon settlement in Newfoundland. H )6 Some of that material was also used
by John D. Krugler. 107 The whole story of Stock's friendship with Lord Baltimore and the Avalon
colony was recently dealt with by this writer. 108
Louisiana formally depended for a long time on the religious authorities of Quebec. O'Neill dealt
in detail with its history and its relations with Propaganda both in the two above-mentioned essays and
in a book covering the history of Louisiana from its beginnings until 1732. 109 His book shows that the
interests of the French government did not always coincide with those of Catholic expansion in the
New World. Capuchins and Jesuits have been studied by Oaude Vogel llO and Delanglez. l1l Unlike
O'Neill, neither of these personally consulted the archives of Propaganda, but both had copies of
Propaganda documents made. llz Incidentally, Vogel was the first historian to use the modem numbering
system of the folios of the documents of Propaganda, later adopted by the vast majority of scholars.
The writings on the period 1754-1784 deserve special attention owing to the importance of these
years for the history of the United States and Canada, as well as for the early history of the American
Catholic church. This writer has used material from Propaganda for an essay covering the period from
the English conquest of Canada to the War of American Independence. ll3 It deals as much with
Canadian political transformations as with those in the former British continental colonies. Isabella
Bandini and Isabella Santini completed two dissertations in 1984 that examine in depth the role of two
vicars general of the bishop of Quebec in Paris, Pierre de la Rue, Abbe de L'Isle-Dieu, and Fran~ois
Sorbier de Villars. 1l4 Both had a long and very interesting correspondence with Propaganda.
What have most interested American historians are the facts relating to the birth (or rebirth,
according to Lenhart) of the American Catholic hierarchy. Fish was the first scholar to make available
the documents preserved in Propaganda relating to Carroll's appointment as superior of the missions
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