Pierre Bailloquet

Pierre Bailloquet

Missionary among the Indians of Canada, b. 1612, at Saintes, France; d. in the Ottawa missions, 7 June, 1692. He entered the Society of Jesus at Bordeaux, 20 November, 1631, and after ordination was sent as a missionary to Canada. He arrived at Quebec in the summer of 1647, and for forty-five years labored and suffered among the savage tribes that roamed the vast territory extending from Acadia in the east to the lands of the Illinois in the far west. The hardships and privations he endured are well-nigh incredible. According to the "Relations", he frequently had "the earth for bed and mattress, and strips of bark for a palace, which was filled less with air than with smoke"; and owing to his zeal he was often in danger of being tomahawked or burned at the stake by the savages. When almost eighty years of age and stricken with grievous infirmity, he dragged himself across the snow for leagues to go to the huts of those who were unable to come to him. He died in his eightieth year, having been sixty-one years in the religious life.

De Guilhermy, Menologe de la c. de J., Assistance de France, I, 711; Thwaites, Jesuit Relations, LXXII, 70.

E.P. SPILLANE