Jesuit Martyrs and Missionaries

C.W. Jefferys' notes about this picture from The Picture Gallery of Canadian History Volume 1

About the middle of the seventeenth century the Roman Catholic clergy were clean shaven. Earlier portraits, as those of Olier and Richelieu (q.v.), show them wearing moustaches and chin whiskers. Missionary priests, however, were allowed to let their beards grow. But, they were ordered to be careful to clip the hair around their lips, so that in partaking of the sacred elements in the ceremony of the Mass, no fragments of the bread and wine should be lost. This feature is observable especially in the accompanying portraits of Jogues and Lalemant.