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Bégin, Rev. Louis Nazaire, D.D., Principal of the Laval Normal School, Quebec, member of the Academy of the Arcades of Rome, and of the Royal Society of Canada, was born at Levis, on the 10th January, 1840. His father, Charles Bégin, farmer, died in August last, 1887, in his ninety-first year; his mother, Luce Paradis, died about eighteen months ago, in her eighty-second year. After attending the Levis Model School, then under the direction of M. N. Lacasse, at present a professor at the Laval Normal School, Rev. Abbé Bégin followed, for one year, the mathematical course of the Commercial College of St. Michel (Bellechasse). That course was ably given by Professor F. X. Toussaint. His parents sent him, in 1857, to the Little Seminary of Quebec, to follow the classical course of that institution. As he had already commenced to study Latin with M. Lacasse, he was enabled to terminate his course in five years, in 1862. He then obtained the degree of Bachelor of Arts at Laval University, and was the first to carry off the Prince of Wales prize. He resolved to adopt a religious life, and entered the Grand Seminary of Quebec, in September, 1862, where he studied theology, while teaching the class of syntax at the Little Seminary. The Seminary of Quebec was at that time thinking seriously about organizing a faculty of theology in connection with Laval University, and it was the earnest desire of the authorities that all the professors of that faculty should be educated in Rome itself. In May, 1863, his Eminence Cardinal Taschereau, then superior of the Seminary of Quebec, and rector of Laval University, proposed to Abbé Bégin to go and pass a few years in Rome, in order to study theology, take his degree, and then return to Quebec as professor of its university. This proposition was accepted, and on the 4th September of the same year, Abbé Bégin left Quebec to take his passage at Boston. He had as travelling companions Abbés Louis Pâquet and Benjamin Pâquet (now Domestic Prelate to his Holiness Leo XIII.), who were also sent to Rome to study the sacred science. Abbé Bégin was absent five years and returned to Quebec only in July, 1868. He followed the course of the Gregorian University of the Roman College, including dogmatic and moral theology, sacred scriptures, history of the church, canonic law, sacred oratory, and the Hebraic language. His professors were the Rev. Fathers Ballerini, Cardella, Sanguinetti, Patrizi, Angellini, Armellini, Tarquini and Franzelin; the two last named became, a short time afterwards, cardinals of the holy Roman Church, and died a short time ago. He received all the minor and major orders in Rome, and was ordained a priest in the Major Basilica of St. John de Latran on the 10th of June, 1865, by His Eminence Cardinal Vicar Patrizi. In the following year (1866), he succeeded in obtaining the degree of Doctor in Theology at the Gregorian University. The Seminary of Quebec granted the request of Abbé Bégin, and gave him permission to remain some time longer in Rome to make a special study of ecclesiastical history and Oriental languages: the Hebrew, the Chaldean, the Syriac, and the Arabic. The scholastic year 1866-67 was given to these interesting occupations. While at Rome he resided at the French Seminary, via Santa Chiara. After the great Roman festival in connection with the centenary of the death of St. Peter and the canonization of the saints, in 1867, he went to Innsbruck, in the Austrian Tyrol. During the summer holidays of the preceding years he had visited Italy, Savoy, Switzerland, Prussia, Belgium, and chiefly France, but he spent the summer of 1867 in studying the German language, so rich in scientific works on history and holy scripture. On the 30th September of the same year he started for Palestine, in order to get thoroughly acquainted,—as he had long desired,—with certain biblical and historical facts. He spent more than five months in this trip through Austria, Hungary, Roumania, Servia, Bulgaria, the two Turkeys, the islands of Tenedos, Lesbos, Rhodes and Cyprus, Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon, Phœnicia, Palestine, Egypt, and Sicily. He then returned to Innsbruck to continue his studies in history and languages at the Catholic University, under the celebrated Professors Wenig, Jungmann, Hurter, Kobler, Nilles. He left Tyrol on the 2nd July, 1868, crossed France and England, and arrived at Quebec on the 27th of the same month, by the steamer Moravian, of the Allan line. He brought with him several Egyptian mummies and archæological curiosities he had acquired for the museum of the Catholic University of Quebec. In September he commenced to teach a portion of dogmatic theology and ecclesiastical history, as professor of the Faculty of Theology of Laval University. He taught from 1868 until 1884, having also, during the last seven or eight years, charge of the pupils of the University, or of those of the Little or Grand Seminary; he was also prefect of studies of the Little Seminary. During four or five winters he gave numerous public lectures at Laval University on the most controverted and interesting questions of the history of the Church. A select gathering filled the hall to hear these lectures given every week from the Christmas vacation till Easter. The first year (1870) he spoke about the prerogatives of Papacy, and refuted the objections raised, at the time of the Council of the Vatican, against the infallibility of the Pope, considered from an historical standpoint. These lectures were published in a volume of over 400 pages, entitled, “La Primauté et l’Infaillibilité des Souverains Pontifes.” In 1874 he published a second work entitled “La Sainte Ecriture et la Règle de Foi.” This work was translated into English: “The Bible and the Rule of Faith,” in 1875, and printed in London by Burns & Oates. In the same year (1874) an eulogy of Saint Thomas Aquinas was published. Abbé Bégin had delivered it at Saint Hyacinthe, in the church of the Rev. Dominican fathers, on the occasion of the sixth centennial anniversary of the death of Dr. Angélique. In 1875 he published another work entitled “Le Culte Catholique.” After passing six months (October, 1883, to April, 1884) at Pont Rouge, Portneuf county, to recruit his health, Abbé Bégin accompanied to Rome the Archbishop of Quebec, who was going to sustain the rights of Laval University and the division of the diocese of Three Rivers, before the Holy See. The voyage was prosperous, and lasted over seven months. On his return from Rome, on the first of Dec., 1884, he found his friend, Abbé Lagacé, dangerously ill. Death carried away, five days later, this distinguished priest, who had consecrated the best part of his sacerdotal career to the education of youth. Abbé Bégin was chosen by the Catholic Committee of the Council of Public Instruction to occupy the important post of principal of the Normal School, hitherto filled by Abbé Lagacé, and this choice was ratified by an order-in-council on the 22nd January, 1885. Since that time Abbé Bégin has fulfilled the functions of principal of the Normal School, comprising the department of male and female pupil teachers. Last year (1886) he published a small “Aide-Mémoire,” or “Chronologie de l’Histoire du Canada,” designed, as indicated by its name, to help the memory of pupils and facilitate their preparations to the examinations on the history of our country.