Share on Facebook
Share on X
Share by Email
Share on Google Classroom
Jean-Baptiste de La Brosse (born at Magnac, France 1724; died at Qué 1782). Jean-Baptiste de La Brosse was a Jesuit missionary in the Saguenay-St Lawrence Gulf region. La Brosse is also a hero of folklore, remembered for having predicted his own death on 11 April 1782.
La Brosse worked with the Montagnais people, translating and printing a book of prayers and catechism in the Montagnais dialect in 1767, one of the first books printed by a Canadian press. He is also believed to have miraculously stopped a forest fire, thereby earning the respect of the hitherto hostile Naskapi Indians. Upon Jean-Baptiste de La Brosse's death, darkness is said to have covered the Saguenay River, and in all the parishes where he had preached the bells began ringing without anyone going near them.
See also Folklore.
