DCB/DBC Mobile beta  HÉBERT, NICOLAS-TOLENTIN, priest and
colonizer; b. 10 Sept. 1810 at Saint-Grégoire (now part of
Bécancour), Lower Canada, son of notary Jean-Baptiste Hébert and
Judith Lemire; d. 17 Jan. 1888 at Kamouraska, Que.  Nicolas-
Tolentin Hébert received a classical and theological education
at the Séminaire de Nicolet and was ordained priest on
13 Oct. 1833 at Quebec City. A curate there until 1840, he
became parish priest first of Saint-Pascal, Lower Canada, and
then of Saint-Louis in Kamouraska; the latter post he held from
1852 until his death.  It is as a colonizer that Nicolas-
Tolentin Hébert deserves attention. In the late 1840s the clergy
was endeavouring to stimulate large-scale colonization in Canada
East in order to slow down the exodus of its Catholic population
to the United States. In support of this effort, the priests of
the constituencies of L’Islet and Kamouraska met at Sainte-Anne-
de-la-Pocatière (La Pocatière) at the end of 1848 and decided to
set up the Association des Comtés