Chronicles of Notre Dame du Lac
Edward Sorin, CSC -- Translated by John M. Toohey, CSC, 1895

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1858

pg 320       enemies profited of this to spread the rumor that the house would 
             soon fall like so many others.  Those that held mortgages against 
             the college property, hearing it rumored that F. Sorin's titles 
             were defective, were seized with panic and rushed to examine the 
             records.  This is was found, not that F. Sorin had willfully 
             decieved anyone, but that being himself deceived, all his 
             creditors were involved with him in the same deception.
                  Two links were missing in the chain of titles which Mgr. Dela 
             Hailandiere had never registered, and in the very title deed of 
             Notre Dame given to F. Sorin by Mgr. Bazin, of happy memory, the 
             word West had been repeated instead of East.  This was confirming 
             a second time the possession of seventy-five acres of land of 
             little value, and leaving F. Sorin without a title to the location 
             on which buildings had now stood for fifteen years.  The error was 
             palpable.  The lawyer that made the mistake saw it at once, and 
             advised that its correction be demanded of Mgr. de St. Palais.  
             That the matter was pressing and admitted no delay was quite 
             evident.  Providence allowed that it should be otherwise.