Antoine Daniel was a young Norman lawyer who entered the Society of Jesus in 1621, was ordained priest in 1630, and sailed for New France in 1632. He served briefly at the Cape Breton mission, founded the first formal school for Huron boys at Quebec in 1636, and from 1637 worked in the great Huron mission across the Lake Simcoe country alongside Brébeuf and Lalemant.
In summer 1648, Iroquois war parties — beginning the great campaign that would destroy the Huron Confederacy within nine months — attacked the mission of Saint-Joseph at the Huron village of Teanaustaye on July 4 while Daniel was celebrating Mass. He completed the Communion, baptized as many of the kneeling community as he could, then went out to confront the attackers — drawing their fire to give time for the rest to escape. He was killed instantly by arquebus and arrow at the door of the chapel. His body was burned in the burning chapel along with the village. The remains of the mission survived in fragmentary form — a few sacred vessels recovered weeks later by Jesuits passing through. Canonized 1930.