Gabriel Lalemant — nephew of Charles Lalemant (one of the first three Jesuits at Quebec in 1625) and of Jérôme Lalemant (the long-serving superior of the Huron mission) — entered the Society of Jesus in 1630 at twenty, was ordained in 1638, and after a long period of poor health was finally sent to New France in 1646. He was assigned to the Huron mission of Sainte-Marie in 1648 as Brébeuf's assistant.
When the Iroquois invasion crashed into Huronia in the spring of 1649, Lalemant and Brébeuf were at the mission of Saint-Ignace south of Sainte-Marie. The mission was overrun on the morning of March 16, 1649. The two Jesuits were taken with the surviving Huron warriors. Brébeuf died after about four hours of torture; Lalemant — physically frailer and a target of particular cruelty — survived seventeen hours of torments, finally killed by a tomahawk at noon on March 17. Canonized 1930.