He commenced a letter to Babad the other day but he was so badly occupied that several days before he could answer. Yesterday evening he received some letters from Bishop Bendict Joseph Flaget and without noting he completed that answer on the letter he had begun to Babad. He discovered this at the end but sent the letter just as it was. The news the bishop gave of his health worries David. He did not hear from him for six weeks and then he wrote that he had a fever at the treaty camp and that he had been sick 8 days and Mr. Bertrand three weeks. On his return to Detroit he had it a second time for 4 days and had not left him. Oct. 23 when he wrote. The letter he received yesterday was dated Nov. 6 and he felt well enough to undertake a mission of 5 days at the beginning of which the fever returned. He assures David that it is not serious but as such a distance David is very uneasy, since he would succeed in case the Bishop dies. With the letter he received from Babad was a letter of Archbishop Ambrose Marechal enclosing one from the Cardinal Litta. The Cardinal has communicated David's objections and the Pope has said that they would pray that Flaget outlive David. He added that the work of training priests is properly the work of Bishops. Their seminary now numbers 20 counting Miretti who does not study. At Christmas they will receive a man who has been there twice before but who is so fervent that he will give him a third chance. They are embarassed about the cathedral. They have stopped work on it for want of money. They owe 5 or 6 thousand of which one thousand is urgent. They need the presence of the bishop but he is thinking of visiting some of the scattered missions of Michigan and along the Mississippi. If he does that he will have to remain there until April because the ice will not permit him to travel before that and they would not see him before August or September. David thinks that Flaget should send in the Bishop's place Father Janvier or Father Gabriel Richard. Otherwise they should establish a Bishop at Detroit, choosing the bishop from one of the orders. David hopes the Bishop will be consecrated in January the month best for travel over the frozen snow. As to the two girls recommended for the Sisters of Nazareth, the Mother to whom he sent Babad's letter has no doubt about the first since he has the consent of her parents but the second seems to be dependent on the consent of her father and if he persists she cannot be received. The school at Nazareth which was so full at times that it refused students is reduced now to 2 or 3 boarders. The mother has not lost courage and hopes for new applications after Christmas. She has plenty of poor girls who are willing to work for part of their teaching, they have taken 5 or 6 of that description, but their work does not cover their expense. The Sisters number 20 and they have 2 or 3 postulants whom the Mother would like to refuse because of their poverty. David expects in the spring Miss Souzac whose passage the Bishop has agreed to pay. They cannot double that expense so that if Babad proposes to send Josephine and her Father refuses to pay her passage it will be necessary to get some friends to pay. The Sisters are building school and are in debt. If Miss Souzac does not come as she has failed twice already he will take care of Josephine. He has asked Father Jean Tessier to tell Miss Souzac that since she consented to live with Madame Bawnais that he hopes that the latter will agree to give the sisters the globes and maps which they will find very useful. Tessier did not answer and has probably forgotten. David asks that Babad remind Tessier or speak to Madame Bawnais among the papers of Father Simon Gabriel Brute :: II-3-o - A.L.S. - French - 4pp. 4to. 6