The above money was not to be paid, however, till ten years after, when Mademoiselle Mance gave them a deed of acquittance in 1669, made out by Maître Basset, the town clerk.
At last the recruit force for Montreal was ready and it embarked on the St. André (Captain Poulet) on June 29th. Besides the ladies with the two foundresses, there were two Sulpicians, MM. de Vignal and Le Maître, and a body of sixty-two men, and forty-seven women, or marriageable girls honest families, most of whom were from Marans in Saintonge and more or less interrelated, who were sent out at the expense of the company and of the Hôtel-Dieu, the third of the trilogy of religious institutions to minister at Montreal in this early period. There were other settlers who paid their own expenses. In addition there were sixteen or seventeen young women for Quebec.
The St. André, containing about two hundred souls, set sail for Rochelle on July 2d. It was a veritable pesthouse of infection, having been used as a hospital troop-ship two years ago, and it had never been quarantined, so that hardly were they on their way when the contagion declared itself. The food of the emigrants was the poorest; the accommodations of the barest and most primitive description; the supply of fresh water very limited. For two months sickness and furious tempests and contrary winds afflicted the wretched vessel. Eight or ten died, but most were sick, among them Marguerite Bourgeoys but principally Jeanne Mance, who was reduced to the last extremity. The ship became a hospital and among the devoted nurses none were more so than the women for the Hôtel-Dieu of Montreal.
At last Quebec harbour was reached on September 7th but disembarkation took place next day. Here the sick were landed, a work in which Mgr. de Laval gave his personal service, "tending the sick and making their beds," as the Annales of the Hôtel-Dieu relate. The hospital was filled with the convalescents but the rest of the Montreal party put up at the storehouse sheds of the "Magasin de Montréal."
Marguerite Bourgeoys was the first to be able to lead her party from Quebec and she arrived at Montreal just a year after her departure, on September 29th, carrying the little Thibaudeau baby (the three other Thibaudeau children had died on the ocean) that she had tended on the voyage and which she had allowed the father to nurse at Quebec, but he, unlucky wight, having let it get burned, she had again taken care of the poor sufferer on the journey up the river.