If boasts of Canadians are well founded, the two wealthiest institutions in America are the Bank of Montreal and the Seminary of St. Sulpice. They both stand upon the little square known as Place d’Armes, where Maisonneuve, the founder of the city, had a hand-to-hand fight with the savages and which for nearly two centuries was the common burial place of the pioneers. The Bank of Montreal dates from 1817 and has ever been the first financial institution of the country. It has branches all over the world.
The Seminary of St. Sulpice is much older, and was founded in 1641 by Jean Jacques Ollier. The venerable structure at present occupied dates from 1657, and is as quaint an example of monastic architecture as can be found in America, north of Peru. Beside it stands the church of Notre Dame, which is under the charge of Sulpician monks, the most elaborate and perhaps the largest ecclesiastical structure in North America. It will seat 10,000 persons without crowding and can accommodate 6,000 more. It has the finest chimes of bells in America, the largest known as Le Gros Bourbon, weighing 26,000 pounds. I believe there are only two larger in use in the world. The exterior of Notre Dame is plain and severe, but the interior is excessively ornate.
The wealth of the Sulpician monks is variously estimated from $20,000,000 to $50,000,000, but it is impossible for any one outside the order to obtain any accurate knowledge on that subject. They employ a man of business to look after their financial affairs and collect their rents, and he requires the assistance of twelve clerks and bookkeepers. There are only sixty corporate members of the order, and that number is never exceeded. If one of the brothers dies the vacancy is filled from among the ordinary brethren by some proceeding known only to themselves. It is a very close corporation, and the Canadians regard it with mysterious awe. In addition to the seminary for the education of priests, the Sulpicians have several other schools, a hospital, and an asylum in Montreal, and they have colleges in Baltimore and Ellicott Mills, Md. They own one of the biggest banks in Canada, the finest business property in the city of Montreal belongs to them, and they are said to have very large investments in the United States, besides a vast amount of well-paying securities stacked away in their vaults. They are certainly the richest religious order in the world.