François de Salignac de la Mothe Fénelon (1641–1679) was a

Sulpician The Society of Priests of Saint-Sulpice (; PSS), also known as the Sulpicians, is a society of apostolic life of Pontifical Right for men, named after the Church of Saint-Sulpice, Paris, where it was founded. The members of the Society add the ...

missionary A missionary is a member of a Religious denomination, religious group who is sent into an area in order to promote its faith or provide services to people, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care, and economic development.Thoma ...

New France New France (, ) was the territory colonized by Kingdom of France, France in North America, beginning with the exploration of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence by Jacques Cartier in 1534 and ending with the cession of New France to Kingdom of Great Br ...

. He was ten years older than his half-brother,

François Fénelon François de Salignac de la Mothe-Fénelon, PSS (), more commonly known as François Fénelon (6 August 1651 – 7 January 1715), was a French Catholic archbishop, theologian, poet and writer. Today, he is remembered mostly as the author of ' ...

Archbishop of Cambrai This is a List of bishops and archbishops of Cambrai, that is, of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Cambrai. Bishops For the first bishops of Arras and Cambrai, who resided at the former place, see Roman Catholic Diocese of Arras. On the death ...

. Little is known of François in his early years beyond his birth in

Château de Fénelon The Château de Fénelon is a château in Dordogne, Nouvelle-Aquitaine, France. History The site has been inhabited since at least the 11th century, with the oldest surviving parts of the building dating from the 12th century. It is probably mos ...

Périgord Périgord ( , ; ; or ) is a natural region and former province of France, which corresponds roughly to the current Dordogne department, now forming the northern part of the administrative region of Nouvelle-Aquitaine. It is divided into f ...

until he left for the missions of

in 1667 as yet not an ordained priest. Bishop Laval took care of this matter, ordaining him in June, 1668. He and M. Claude Trouvé left almost immediately to establish a mission for the

Iroquois The Iroquois ( ), also known as the Five Nations, and later as the Six Nations from 1722 onwards; alternatively referred to by the Endonym and exonym, endonym Haudenosaunee ( ; ) are an Iroquoian languages, Iroquoian-speaking Confederation#Ind ...

, at their request, near the

Bay of Quinte The Bay of Quinte () is a long, narrow bay shaped like the letter "Z" on the northern shore of Lake Ontario in the province of Ontario, Canada. It is just west of the head of the Saint Lawrence River that drains the Great Lakes into the Gulf of ...

on Lake Ontario. (A letter by Trouvé is appended to

François Dollier de Casson François Dollier de Casson (1636 – 27 September 1701) was born in Vitré, France, into a wealthy bourgeois and military family. He began his adult life in the army which he left after three years to continue his studies and become a priest. A ...

's ''Histoire du Montréal'' and gives a good summary of the Kenté (Quinté) mission). Fénelon spent the winter of 1669–1670 at

Ganatsekwyagon Bead Hill is an archaeological site comprising the only known remaining and intact 17th-century Seneca site in Canada. It is located on the banks of the Rouge River in Rouge Park, a national park in Toronto, Ontario. Because of its sensitive a ...

, an

Iroquoian The Iroquoian languages () are a language family of indigenous peoples of North America. They are known for their general lack of labial consonants. The Iroquoian languages are polysynthetic and head-marking. As of 2020, almost all surviving I ...

village at the mouth of the Rouge River and resulted in the nearby Frenchman's Bay being named for him. In 1672 he was recalled from Kenté to establish an Algonquin mission on the outskirts of Ville-Marie at a place called Gentilly. Disputes with Governor Frontenac led to his returning to France in 1675, where he resigned from the Sulpicians. Fénelon died in 1679 at the age of thirty-eight.Lozier, Jean-François. ''Flesh Reborn: The Saint Lawrence Valley Mission Settlements through the Seventeenth Century'', McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP, 2018

Fenelon Falls Fenelon Falls is a village in Ontario, Canada, part of the city of Kawartha Lakes. Nicknamed the "Jewel of the Kawarthas," it has a population of 2,500 permanent inhabitants, which swells in the summer due to tourism and holiday cottages. Fenelon ...

is named after his half-brother of the same name.

References

1641 births Roman Catholic missionaries in New France French Roman Catholic missionaries Roman Catholic missionaries in Canada 1679 deaths Sulpician missionaries {{Canada-clergy-stub