Jean-Charles Prince was born 13 February 1804 at Saint-Grégoire, Lower Canada to Jean and Rosalie Bourg Prince. His father was a farmer. He attended the minor Séminaire de Nicolet from 1813 to 1822, when he began his studies for the priesthood. He taught rhetoric and the humanities while still a seminarian. On 23 September 1826 he was ordained. Prince then became secretary to Jean-Jacques Lartigue, an auxiliary bishop of the Diocese of Quebec and vicar general for Montreal. Father Prince was also appointed chaplain of Saint-Jacques Cathedral, Bishop Lartigue's cathedral seat. In 1831, Prince was made director of the major seminary, the Collège de Saint-Hyacinthe, a position he held until 1840. In addition to his regular duties, Prince also taught theology and served as prefect of studies. Attempting to maintain neutrality during the political unrest at the time was challenging. Following the battles of Saint-Denis and Saint-Charles-sur-Richelieu in 1837, the Séminaire de Saint-Hyacinthe sheltered for a few days 200 soldiers and six officers, while also hiding two Patriote leaders on the run. Prince was obliged to assert on more than one occasion that the institution was entirely neutral. In April 1840 Bishop Lartigue died and was succeeded by his coadjutor Ignace Bourget as Bishop of Montreal. Bishop Bourget brought Prince to Montreal to establish the Mélanges religieux, a Catholic newspaper. Prince remained in charge of the newspaper until November 1843. His other duties included serving as a canon at the cathedral, and as chaplain to the Montreal Asylum for Aged and Infirm Women. He helped to train the novices who were to form the Daughters of Charity, Servants of the Poor, and was chief chaplain to the Congregation of Notre-Dame and the Religious Hospitallers of St Joseph of the Hôtel-Dieu in Montreal. He accompanied a group of Hospitallers to Kingston, Upper Canada, at the request of the bishop there, Rémi Gaulin. Prince left for Kingston on19 November and stayed a year. As well as helping the sisters get settled, he ministered to the French Canadians of the region and studied English. On July 5, 1844, Pope Gregory XVI appointed him titular bishop of Martyropolis and coadjutor of Montreal. During a pastoral visit to Bytown in 1846, the bishop blessed the chapel of Notre-Dame de Bon Secours, which had been built in Hull for the purpose of ministering to the woodcutters. On June 29, 1851, he laid the first stone of the church of Saint-Pierre-Apôtre. In 1851 he was sent to Rome to deliver to Pope Pius IX the acts of the first provincial council of Montreal.
