LALEMANT, CHARLES. — Jesuit, missionary, born in Paris on 17 November 1587, died there on 18 November 1674.
He departed for Québec in 1625 as superior of the first group of Jesuits assigned to the missions among the Native Americans; two years later, he was already in France, personally pleading their interests. Having set out again for Canada (1628), he fell prisoner to the English; after being released, he attempted the journey a third time (1629), but was rescued shipwrecked at San Sebastián; on the fourth attempt (1634), he succeeded in setting foot in Québec.
In 1635 he was one of the first professors of the new college founded there, and received the final breath of Champlain, the founder of the Canadian colony, of whom he was a friend and spiritual director. In 1638 he was once again in France, where he remained as procurator of the mission, overseeing new foundations and the publication of the Relations des Jésuites. He was also rector of various colleges, of the professed house in Paris, and vice-provincial.
There survive from him a lengthy report, which is a letter to his brother Girolamo, dated 1 August 1626, and which begins the series of the Relations des Jésuites: Lettre... ou sont contenus les moeurs et façons de vivre des sauvages habitans de ce pays là [Canada], et comme il se comportent avec les chrétiens françois qui y demeurent (Paris 1627), as well as the ascetical work: Diverses entretiens sur la vie cachée de Jésus-Christ en l’Eucharistie (ibid. 1657), which went through several editions.