Date Published:
January 2005

L’Encyclopédie de l’histoire du Québec / The Quebec History Encyclopedia

François de Salignac de Fénelon

Fénelon, François de Salignac de (1641-1679), missionary, was born in 1641, and was the half-brother of the Archbishop Fénelon. At the age of twenty-four he entered the Seminary of Saint-Sulpice in Paris, France ; and in the spring of 1667 he sailed for New France. He arrived at Quebec on June 21. On October 2, 1668, he set out from Lachine with the Abbé Trouve on a mission to lake Ontario, and established himself among the Cayuga at Kenté bay. This was the first Sulpician mission among the Iroquois, and was maintained until 1673, when Fénelon founded a school for Indian children at Gentilly. In 1674 he incurred Frontenac's displeasure by his opposition to the arrest of Perrot, and was summoned to Quebec to appear before the Council. Here he was severely censured, and sent back to France, where he went into retirement and died in 1679. See H.-A. Verreau, Les deux Abbés de Fénelon (Lévis, 1898).

Source : W. Stewart WALLACE, ed., The Encyclopedia of Canada, Vol. II, Toronto, University Associates of Canada, 1948, 411p., p. 327.