The Century Magazine. 
 
 Vol. XXIV. 
 
 MAY, 1882. 
 
 No. I. 
 
 THE ^\NADIAN MECCA. 
 
 Had you '^zen a pagan Iroquois on the 
 war-path frouj Onondaga* in the summer of 
 1 66 1, standing on the Isle of Orleans, below 
 Quebec, with the scalps of your Huron and 
 French foes at your belt, you would have seen 
 the remnant of the hated Christian Indians 
 paddling in their bark canoes across the St. 
 Lawrence to the northern shore. From the 
 bluff of land where the picturesque church of 
 St. Francois has stood for over a century and 
 a half, you would have seen your enemies who 
 had sold their ancient birthright for a mess of 
 French rum and trinkets, steering for havens 
 of refuge amid a rich panorama of forest and 
 mountain — some of them up stream, where 
 they found shelter under the guns of Quebec; 
 most of them toward a great peak of the 
 Laurentian chain of hills, where, close to the 
 shore, a small stone chapel and a few houses 
 marked the site of Petit Cap, — one of the old- 
 est settlements on one of the oldest roads in 
 Canada. Had you stolen before day-break at 
 low tide across the water, and paddled through 
 the marsh, you might have listened until you 
 heard the bell for morning vespers, and then 
 gliding ashore, you might have crept behind 
 the brush and watched a procession of French 
 and their Huron allies, headed by the priests, 
 slowly marching to the chapel, and repeat- 
 ing the invocation : "Jesus, Marie, Joseph, 
 Joachim, et Anne, ^ecourez-nous," while your 
 blood boiled with hate, and your fingers 
 tingled to get at their hair. About a century 
 later, had you been a loyal English colonist 
 of New York, you might have followed the 
 Highlanders in their attack on the French 
 and Hurons along this same road, and in this 
 same little village, then named Sainte Anne. 
 And if tradition be true, — and a possible fable 
 
 *As New York was then called. 
 Vol. XXIV.— I. 
 
 is as good for a gobemouche as a positive fact, 
 — you might have seen the same little chapel 
 delivered by the mysterious interposition of 
 the saint herself, when the troops tried three 
 times in succession to set it on fire, after the 
 rest of the village had been burned. And 
 now, one hundred and twenty-two years 
 later, you may quietly run down on a holiday 
 trip from Donnacona's ancient throne, the 
 peaceful citadel of Quebec, to this same little 
 village, now called " Ste. Anne de Beaupre," 
 or more affectionately, " La Bonne Ste. Anne," 
 and known as the most venerated shrine of 
 the Roman Catholic Church in Canada — the 
 soul and center of reputed miracles as won- 
 derful as any that stirred the heart of mediaeval 
 Europe. Though not accepted without re- 
 serve by the more educated classes, they are 
 as sacred to the superstitious habitant along 
 the St. Lawrence as is the mother-shrine of 
 Ste. Anne d'Auray, in Brittany, to the credu- 
 lous sailors in the Morbihan. 
 
 The heathen red-skin of Onondaga has long 
 since been Christianized, and is passing away. 
 The English colonies, which had a sworn foe 
 in the New France at the north, have become 
 a great and independent nation. The old 
 French colony, with its brilliant story, has 
 disappeared in the Dominion of Canada, and 
 Richelieu's grand scheme of a French trans- 
 atlantic cn.pire has its mockery in the small 
 fishing-islands of Miquelon and St. Pierre, 
 off the south coast of Newfoundland. Little 
 did Richelieu imagine, when he excluded the 
 Huguenots from France and her colonies, that 
 he was doing as much as possible to add to 
 the wealth of the Protestants of Europe and 
 to the prosperity of the Puritans of New 
 England, and that one of the results of his 
 policy was to be the perpetuation of the very 
 heresy he hated. Persecution often makes a 
 
 [Copyright, 1882, by The Century Co. All rights reserved.] 
 
 \ 
 
THE CANADIAN MECCA. 
 
 
 A PILGRIMAGE TWO HUNDRED YEARS AGa 
 
 barren cause prolific. It has been the mother 
 of great men and great nations. Little did 
 Champlain imagine, when he prohibited the 
 psalms of the Huguenots on the St. Law- 
 rence, that a few more years would see the 
 Jkur-de-lis lowered forever from the city he 
 founded; and France, once the mistress of 
 the whole American continent north of Mex- 
 ico, reduced to a few fishing-islands, equal to a 
 
 square of fifteen miles ! There that little rem- 
 nant of French- American territory lies, as if to 
 remind us of the past glory of a noble nation. 
 Amid all these vicissitudes, our little Canadian 
 shrine has slept its Rip van Winkle sleep; until 
 to-day, with the revival in Europe of the medi- 
 aeval trust in miracles, and in the efficacy of pil- 
 grimages, an effort is here being made to waken 
 the Canadian mind to the belief that La Bonne 
 
 / 
 
THE CANADIAN MECCA. 
 
 Ste. Anne is as advantageous to faith as 
 Michael Angelo believed the climate of 
 Arezzo was favors, ble to genius. There was 
 no obstacle at anj time in Canada to the 
 full development of the (iallican church of 
 France ; and it is no wonder that pilgrimages 
 should become an institution of the old French 
 province, and that it should 
 \ #^ be claimed that more miracles 
 have been wrought through 
 the relics of a dead saint than 
 are known to have been per- 
 
 -■Xc^:^^' 
 
 £.0!" 
 
 PILGRIMS ON THE c6tE DE BEAUPRA. 
 
 formed by Christ. Though Quebec city, with 
 its sixty dioceses, is mentioned in a bull of 
 Pius IX. as the metropolis of the church in 
 America, you will need to rub your eyes to 
 make sure that you are not in Belgium. Un- 
 der the French regime it was the heart of the 
 colony, and was a spiritual as well as a mate- 
 rial fortress. Ste. Anne de Beaupre was one 
 of its outposts. 
 
 But who was this saint so revered long ago 
 by the Canadian voyageiir and habitant, and 
 whose intercession, all the world over, now 
 seems to be supplanting that of all other 
 saints ? It might be enough to know that, in 
 1876, the Pope declared Ste. Anne to be 
 patroness of the Province of Quebec, though 
 it is not stated how this aifl-cts the claim of 
 St. Joseph, who has lor.j "i the pacron 
 
 of all Canada. But who Ste. Anne ? ■ 
 
 Tradition says she was tl /ther of the 
 
 Virgin Mary, bom of one v. le family of 
 David, and that her mother haci predicted the 
 birth through her of the Saviour. Having 
 died at Jerusalem, she was buried in the 
 family vault. When you are at our Canadian 
 shrine you may see, in a little glass case, 
 a confused mass of dried, broken bones, which 
 you are told are those of the saint. You will 
 naturally be curious to know how they got 
 out of the family vault in Jerusalem into a 
 little hamlet in Canada, In the time of Mar- 
 cus Aurelius, the infidels destroyed all the 
 monuments in the Holy Land, but, " ac- 
 cording to tradition," one coffin could be 
 
THE CANADIAN MECCA. 
 
 neither burned nor opened, and being thrown 
 into the sea, floated off to the town of Apt, in 
 Provence, where it lay for a long time buried 
 in the sand. One tlay some fishermen caught 
 in their net an enormous fish, which clearly 
 by its actions showed that fishes have in- 
 stinct and reason, and that St. Anthony knew 
 more than we give him credit for, when he 
 preached to them. This fish struggled so hard 
 that it made a deep hole in the sand on the 
 shore, and when the fishermen dragged it 
 out, the coffin of Ste. Anne appeared in the 
 hole. No one in Apt could open the coffin. 
 The bishop Aurelius placed it in a crypt, put 
 
 its as.sociaiions with our Canadian shrine 
 made the visit one of much interest. I must 
 say, however, that the Canadian pilgrimages 
 are never the scene of such debauchery as 
 those in Brittany, for the devil seemed to 
 have made it his holiday at the tv/o Old- 
 World pilgrimages witnessed by me. Relig- 
 ious ceremonies clashed with vulgar open-air 
 dancing, and peasants who had just kissed 
 the saindy relics, came out of church and 
 boastingly swallowed brandy, glass after glass, 
 in a deliberate effort to make themselves 
 drunk. 
 
 Our Canadian Mecca has an authentic date 
 
 A YOUNG 1-ILGRI.M IN AN OLD CKADLE. 
 
 a burning lamp before it, and had it hermetic- 
 ally walled up. Seven hundred years later, 
 Charlemagne, moved by the appeal of a deaf 
 and dumb boy, caused a certain wall to be 
 destroyed, in which the coffin was found. 
 
 I remember visiting a beautiful cathedral 
 in Apt, on the bank of the Calavon, said to 
 have been erected on the exact spot where 
 the fish leaped and the coffin was found. A 
 short journey from the Celtic monuments of 
 Carnac, in Brittany, is the little hamlet of 
 Ste. Anne d'Auray, the most famous shrine 
 of the saint in the world. On a fete-day, a few 
 years ago, I saw the special pilgrimage, and 
 
 back to 1658. A habitant of Petit Cap gave 
 the parish priest of Quebec a portion of land, 
 upon condition that in that year a church 
 should be begun on the spot. The site was 
 accepted, duly consecrated, and dedicated to 
 Ste. Anne, the patroness of sailors. The foun- 
 dation-stone was laid by the French governor. 
 It is said that a peasant of Beaupre, who had 
 " pains in his loins," went, out of devotion, to 
 lay three stones of the foundation, and was 
 suddenly cured ; and that a woman who had 
 been bent double for eight months by some 
 affliction began to invoke the saint as soon as 
 she heard of the miracle, and was " instandy 
 
THE CANADIAN MECCA. 
 
 PILGRIMS AND STRANGERS. 
 
THE CANADIAN MFXCA. 
 
 able to stand on her feet, and as well able to 
 move all her limbs as she had ever been." 
 Miracle after miracle follovveil, until the sleepy 
 little hollow was the talk of all New France. 
 Soldiers, as they paced their beat on the fort, 
 looked down the river as if they expei ted t(j 
 see a vi.sion. The peasantry grouped together 
 in large family circles, just as they love to dc 
 to-day, and as the big logs cra<kled in the 
 great fire-place, some one who had been to 
 the shrine recounted his experience and gave 
 reins to his imagination, and all |/iously crossed 
 themselves when he hail concluded. Tilgrims 
 flocked to the New-\v'orld wonder on the St. 
 Lawrence, and during the seventeenth cent- 
 ury there were never less than a thousand on 
 
 imagine the thrill of wonder which would run 
 through the minils of the simple peasantry, 
 and the superstitious voya);eiirs, when the 
 miracles were told. 
 
 It was not with the touching and simple 
 spirit which led many to flock to the holy 
 ])lace in Jerusalem, in the time of the old 
 Jewish law, that I went to La Bonne Ste. 
 Anne. Nor was it with the unciuestioning de- 
 votion of the Canadian peasant. I was simply 
 a holiday lounger in search of the picturesque, 
 with no more faith in La Bonne Ste. Anne 
 than in tlie dozens of other shrines I had 
 seen in Europe, and with a strong belief in 
 the statements that, after the Crusades, innu- 
 merable relics were sola to the Latins by the 
 
 A CANADIAN INTERIOR. 
 
 the feast-day of Ste. Anne. At all seasons of 
 the year, individual pilgrims were seen going 
 afoot along the Cote de Beaupre, and in win- 
 ter in their sleighs on the frozen river. The 
 Micmac Indians came regularly from New 
 Brunswick for trade, and before feast-days 
 their canoes were seen coming up stream to 
 the shrine, where they built birch-bark huts to 
 shelter the pilgrims. In fact, the whole coun- 
 try was excited by the mystery, and many 
 churches were built in honor of the saint. It 
 was a regular custom of vessels ascending 
 the St. Lawrence to fire a broadside salute 
 when passing the place. We who live in this 
 age of electricity, and who atfect to be beyond 
 astonishment, but gape at every new sensa- 
 tion as if the world was yet in its teens, may 
 
 cunning Greeks and Syrians, and that several 
 skulls of the same saint were found within a 
 hundred miles of each other. What I had 
 seen of the pilgrimages in Brittany and Bel- 
 gium did not raise them in my estimation. 
 The picturesque in Brittany could not conceal 
 the dirt and mental degradation. I remem- 
 bered, too, an incident upon the arrival of our 
 train, when little Breton boys and girls met 
 us with offers, for a sou, to say prayers for 
 us. One who is familiar with the many genial 
 and admirable traits of the French-Canadian 
 peasantry, the superior moral and spiritual 
 tone, and the respectability, cleanliness, and 
 sobriety which put them above the same class 
 of Continental people, would have no thought 
 of seeing here the vice and licentiousness 
 
THE CANADIAN MECCA. 
 
 common to the Breton gatherings. The 
 French-Canadian peasant may not know how 
 to read ; he may fear the spiritual threats of 
 his priest more than the punishment of the 
 civil law ; hut as a rule he is a peaceful Chris- 
 tian according to his light. Ste. Anne, to many 
 of them, is as sacred as was Jerusalem to the 
 Jews, and no doubt our good countryman pities 
 and prays for me and my heresy; and, had he 
 been born a Mohammedan, would no doubt 
 have believed that he who died without mak- 
 ing a pilgrimnorp to Mecca might as well die 
 a Jew or a Christian. 
 
 Almost any morning in summer you may 
 get the early boat just below Dufferin Terrace, 
 and see dozens of quiet peop'e muttering 
 their devotions to themselves, each carrying 
 his or her burden of trouble to Ste. Anne. 
 The crowded pilgrimages which are under- 
 taken by whole parishes en masse have mych 
 the appearance of an ordinary picnic, and 
 most of the pilgrims suggest the idea that 
 they come " more for the green way than for 
 devotion." But you cannot mistake ihe sin- 
 cerity and superstition of those individual 
 pilgrims who go down to the shrine without 
 ostentation. They are mostly women, many 
 widows, and nearly all dressed in the con- 
 ventional black dress, with black bonnet and 
 long crape veil. You may go down by steamer 
 or by road. If you go by water you can study 
 these people better; but when you see the rich 
 landscape you will wish you had taken the 
 road ; from the C6te de Beaupre you see the 
 lovely water-scape, and then you will wish you 
 had gone by steamer; so I will indulge you in 
 both. We need no scrip, staff, or scallop-shell ; 
 no unshod feet — though once I saw a bare- 
 footed pilgrimage below Cacouna; no gray 
 gabardine girt with cincture; no asceticism, 
 but a comfortable steamer or a double car- 
 riage, with every modern comfort cheek-by- 
 jowl with much mediaeval usage. 
 
 The river was alive with boats, steamers, 
 barges. Half a dozen steam-yachts, used as 
 tugs, were puffing consequentially, and scud- 
 ding between Quebec and Pointe Levi. One 
 little David had steamed up to a Goliath of a 
 ship which had just crossed the Atlantic, and 
 had taken the conceit out of the monster by 
 lashing itself in some way to its side and puff- 
 ing up the river with it, like a dwarf arresting 
 a giant. After the usual jargon we were off, 
 and had time to look about among our pas- 
 sengers. They were mostly pilgrims, and all 
 French of the poorer class. But, no matter 
 how poor, the French-Canadian is a model 
 of tidiness. Like a sunflower amid ivy, there 
 was the traditional young man from the 
 country, arrayed, on a hot day, in black kid 
 gloves, a flower in his coat, and a feather in 
 
 his cap. Beside him — very much beside him 
 — his "own sweet Clenevieve," blushing in 
 colors enough to make the rainbow pale, and 
 every part of her jacket and the white veil 
 over her face covered with little bits of red 
 glass balls ; a poor mother, holding a sick 
 child in her arms, walking up and down the 
 deck in a sort of penitential agony, and refus- 
 ing any help, though many of the kind- 
 hearted women proffered their aid ; several 
 very desolate-looking widows. I had been 
 tokl that few, if any, ever went to Ste. Anne's 
 to return thanks for blessings received, but the 
 uncharitable statement was here refuted, for 
 several poor women were en route especially 
 to express gratitude for the recovery of per- 
 sonal health. One dear old lady, rheumatic 
 and almost blind, was led about tenderly uy her 
 son. As I saw her thin gray hair and bended 
 frame, and watched the affection of her boy, 
 my heretical spirit found a feeling that made 
 us kin, and, while refusing to believe in Ste. 
 Anne, I prayed inwardly for her recovery. I 
 would ha\e sung my paeans of praise hail 
 the dear old soul found the fountain of 
 youth in the waters of Ste. Anne, and had she 
 been able to leave her crutch among those on 
 the pyramid in the church. Alas I I saw her 
 returning in the afternoon more feeble than 
 when she came. One pale, thin girl had 
 fasted for five days, having read that, like 
 Moses and Elias, Ste. Anne and her husband 
 fasted entirely for forty days, " and wept per- 
 petually." A girl with inflamed and bandaged 
 eyes v,'as going with her father to perform a 
 fim'enii, or nine days' religious exercise. 
 Two nuns were chatting together ; a solemn 
 servant cf some convent held in one hand a 
 five-miiiute sand-glass, which she turned as 
 the sand ran out, saying her prayers at the 
 same time. Two rubicund priests promenaded 
 the ileck. The rest of the pilgrims were fair 
 types of the ordinary peasant, and were either 
 ignorant or weak-minded. 
 
 Look at the splendid scenery before, be- 
 hind, on either side. The Isle of Orleans, 
 with its broad brow, is in front. The ships 
 for England sail off to the southern channel. 
 One fancies he can smell the sea here, and 
 it may not be mere fancy, for the tide rises 
 ninety miles above Quebec, and the water 
 is brackish. It is out this morning, and there 
 along the shore and up among the shiny 
 rocks, the bateaux and wood-boats lie waiting 
 for the flow. Just below us, as we keep to 
 the left of Orleans, we meet two steamers 
 tugging two great rafts, and the hardy Indian 
 and French voyageurs wave their hats to us. 
 There lies the Church of St. Pierre, upon 
 the hill of Minigo, as the Indians called 
 Orleans, built one hundred and twelve years 
 
THE CANADIAN MECCA. 
 
 
 MOUNT STE. ANNE. 
 
 ago, on the site of a chapel erected \\\ 1651. 
 Looking to the left now, we see Montmo- 
 renci Falls, shining in the morning sun like 
 a broad ribbon of molten silver, the dark 
 shadows of the right bank casting long lines 
 of gloom into the glen. As we pass the falls, 
 we are wedging in between Orleans on the 
 right, and gaps and grooves on the main-land 
 to the left, eaten by ice and rains. Zigzag foot- 
 paths run up to the hill-tops from the river 
 and road-side ; narrow strips of land, fenced 
 into all sorts of geometrical figures, straggle 
 up over the hills into the horizon ; clumps 
 of pines are seen along the shore ; and above 
 and about the trees are the picturesque white 
 farm-houses, with their gray, brown, and red 
 
 roofs — a perfect chain, long drawn out, of 
 quaint hamlets set in frames of mountain 
 and river; peeps of the blue Laurentian 
 Mountains far behind; the w^hite houses of 
 Chateau Richer hugging the shore ; and be- 
 hind them the hills rolling up into waves 
 of land, until they run to a peak of two thou- 
 sand six hundred and eighty-seven feet to 
 form Mount Ste. Anne, then droop into the 
 valley.,, and again run up against the blue 
 sky to fonn the home of the bear and 
 the blue-berry — Cape Tourmente. Here and 
 there you see the stone churches and bright 
 spires, both on the main-land and on the 
 island. Look back now from the stem. I 
 once heard a world-wide traveler say he had 
 
THE CANADIAN MECCA. 
 
 never anywhere seen such a picture as this 
 view back at the city. Quebec and i'ointe Levi 
 seem to be blended in one semicircular bay 
 of bright waterjapping a da/zHng array of ght- 
 tering gems. The citadel looks clear c ut, as if 
 its masonry had been run into a mold. We see 
 barges, with loads of hay or wootl, and with 
 only two hands on board, trusting to a rough 
 sail and a stout oar to get to their destina- 
 tion ; fresh-water sailors in heavy boats, push- 
 ing their oars before them as they face the 
 bow, as one sees so often on Continental rivers 
 and as often elsewhere on the St. Lawrence, 
 about Quebec. The Isle of Orleans reposes 
 like an emerald in the water at the point 
 where the fate of a continent was decided. 
 There on its bosom St. Fran{,ois sleeps, as if 
 the dread Irocpaois had never yelled their war- 
 whoop on its hills ; and if history has no echoes 
 to stir you, come with me from that quiet 
 little hamlet some autumn, with gun and rr/d, 
 on the broad meadows of Argentenay, or 
 among the marshes of the Chateau Richer, 
 and I will promise you as fine a bag of snipe 
 and duck as you can get anywhere within 
 sight of civilization on this side of New 
 Brunswick. What feasts of wild fowl, what 
 epicurean relishes with Parisian cookery, they 
 must have had in the way of game when 
 peace reigned in the old chateau of St. Louis 
 on the rock, the castle of the French gov- 
 ernor, and life in this part of New France, 
 brilliant with the wit and song of the nobility 
 of Louis XIV., was more feasting than fast- 
 ing ; when Orleans was called the Isle of 
 Bacchus, because of its great grape-vines, and 
 of the fish, honey, and melons with which the 
 red-skins regaled Jacques Cartier. I wonder 
 Parisian wit did not try upon the Indian 
 the civilizing influence of Parisian cookery; 
 for it is related of a convert who lay at the 
 point of death that he anxiously inquired 
 if, in the pale-face heaven to which he was 
 going, he would get pies to equal those 
 which the French had given him. All about 
 here — on mountain, in valley, on island, on 
 river — you can trace the richest pages of Ca- 
 nadian and much of American history. Mem- 
 ories of Jacques Cartier, Sir Wilham Phipps, 
 Champlain, Frontenac, Wolfe, Montcalm, 
 Carleton, Arnold, Montgomery, Murray, rise 
 from the surroundings. And then you may 
 come down from your imagining and see 
 Huron and Iroquois merging into French 
 and English, and the queer jumble of Indian, 
 Norman, Breton, English, in name, in face, 
 in speech, in religion, slowly but surely blend- 
 ing, as the centuries roll away, to form one 
 people. Is it not a bit of early British his- 
 tory — the story of the Norman, Dane, and 
 Saxon — ^being repeated in the New World ? 
 Vol. XXIV.— 2. 
 
 But now we see the sun playing on the 
 convent-spire of Ste. .\nne; Cape Tourmente 
 an(,l Orleans seem to meet, and the ri\er has 
 the appearance of a great bay. Long ribbons 
 of the characteristic Canadian fence run 
 crookedly up to the crest of j)ines; a fringe 
 of houses lies along the shore. And now the 
 main-land and the island divide; the open 
 river shows the line of the hazy shore down- 
 stream, anrl we ar,- approaching the long 
 wharf and the toll-gatherer of our Mecca. 
 But come back with me to (Quebec, and drive 
 through the romantic hamlets of the Cote de 
 Beaupre, with its endless interest in life, char- 
 
 ay THE ROAD-SIDE. 
 
lO 
 
 THE CANADIAN MECCA. 
 
 acter, and scenery. This is by far the most 
 charming way to visit Ste. Anne's, especially 
 if you have good company, if you like walking, 
 and can talk i\\c paiois. If, too, you ever have 
 walked through Normandy and Brittany, you 
 can find no more fascinating trip for its asso- 
 ciations than this Cote de Beaupre. If you are 
 fresh from the story of " Evangeline," you will 
 enjoy it doubly, for though the people are 
 losing a good deal of their picturescjue char- 
 acter, and you will rarely see the toijue bleu of 
 the habitant, yet in the same room you may 
 often see grandmother at her spinning-wheel 
 and granddaughter at her sewing-machine ; 
 you may cut into by-ways, and even get peeps 
 into the low-roofed and high-peaked houses 
 as you pass, that will bring back the poet's 
 words and carry you into the eighteenth cent- 
 ury. There are old men and old women, old 
 houses and old habits, old agricultural aiid 
 domestic implements and furniture, and old 
 china enough to gladden the heart of any 
 antujuarian. I fear, though, that the i)rovince 
 is being stripped of its old clocks. 
 
 This trip l)y land is delightful. Early one 
 morning we left the St. Louis Hotel in Quebec. 
 If you are going ten miles into the country 
 here, you are sure to receive " bon voyage ! " 
 as often as if you were going to Hong-Kong. 
 Passing through St. Roche's and crossing the 
 bridge over the St. Charles River, we were 
 soon out in the open country. We were at 
 once iruck with the fondness of the people 
 for f owers. Little squares and bits of land are 
 de' ed to their culture. They hang from 
 gallery and window, around wall and well, 
 and grow in wooden boxes, old jars, and 
 miniature birch-bark canoes. Big and beauti- 
 ful dahlias of aii colors nod their full heads 
 to us; the marigold, whose seeds were brought 
 from f>ance by the early explorers; the holly- 
 hock, fox-glove, China-aster, and Normandy's 
 flaming favorite, the sunflower, and other old- 
 fashioned flowers of old-fashioned people, 
 beautify and brighten the surroundings. Little 
 houses, like stables, often just big enough to 
 shelter a cow or a horse, and little gardens, 
 are characteristic of this truly Canadian road. 
 Springs of crystal water run down the hill 
 into troughs for the horses, as in Swiss vil- 
 lages. All along for miles from Beaupre, the 
 hill-side is luxuriant with wild plums, which 
 are gathered and sent to the city market. 
 
 Along this road you will see some of the 
 choicest specimens of the early French farm- 
 houses, built of rough stone and mortar, with 
 high-peaked roof and big chimney, often built 
 out beyond the level of the gable, and with 
 projecting eaves and dormer-windows. Some 
 of these old houses are contemporaneous with 
 the conquest of Canada. Most of them are 
 
 close to the road, and the fences on each side 
 are as a rule very ragged, except among the 
 best farmers. Little picket-fences, some of them 
 over a century old, are characteristic — many 
 of them so tattered that they remind you of 
 the broken hedges of Tipperary, where, when 
 a pig goes through a hole, he finds he is still 
 on the same side of the hedge. The tall 
 Lombardy poplar is an old-time favorite of 
 the Canadian farmer. Some of the stables 
 and barns have thatched roofs and a peculiar 
 projection, at the gable or at the sides, sev- 
 eral feet beyond the line of th'^ foundation. 
 At the same time you can see here as fine 
 modern farm-houses and bams as in any 
 other part of the province. 
 
 Montmorenci Falls is the first rest. Then 
 you have a charming drive over the hills until 
 you come to the quaint hamlet of Ange Gar- 
 (lien, where there is a small oratory at the 
 entrance and another at the exit, and in the 
 middle of the village the old church. As our 
 carriage rolls on, little boys and girls with bare 
 head and feet chase beside us, holding out 
 bouquets in the hope that we will buy. They 
 do not turn hand-springs like the waifs who 
 follow the traveler's carriage in England. 
 Sometimes children offer you a glass of spring- 
 water, or raspberries or strawberries in cones 
 of birch-bark. They are an improvement 
 upon the way-side beggars of Savoi in Switz- 
 erland; for our Canadians have not arrived 
 at the high art of mendicancy — singing songs 
 in groups, chanting ballads in honor of Ste. 
 Anne, or blowing Laurentian horns in lieu of 
 Alpine. The children one meets on this road 
 are most interesting. The Cote de Beaupr6 
 is historically prolific in babies, and you may 
 see many charming children, such as one 
 diminutive artist in mud-pies, or the little 
 vagabond who roosts on the fence and sings 
 out his " Bon jour. Monsieur" as you pass; 
 or the three little graces whom we meet com- 
 ing out of school, in their pretty Canadian 
 hats and aprons. And here are two genuine 
 rustic boys from the hill-tops, going to Ste. 
 Anne's to sell bottles at the holy fountain. 
 You will never forget the native courtesy of 
 these little men and women, as they doff their 
 hats or courtesy to you. The grace, the look 
 of the eye, and the movement of the body — 
 surely it is nature's own, and la belle France 
 can show none lovelier. 
 
 One of the institutions of this road is the 
 healthy beggar, who is usually a good pedes- 
 trian, and with no such show of feigned afflic- 
 tion as the fraternity of the south and west 
 of Ireland. Generally they are masterpieces 
 of patchwork. Invariably they are as dirty as 
 Bretons. Every village has its tolerated staff 
 of these creatures, who go about as if they 
 
 ( 
 
THE CANADIAN MECCA. 
 
 XI 
 
 had some sort of succession from the beggars 
 of scriptural times. If the apostles had lived 
 in our day and traveled on the road to Ste. 
 Anne, they would not have had to go out 
 into the lanes to bring in the beggars. The 
 beggars would have swarmed on the road to 
 welcome the apostles. 
 
 If you have seen the dogs used in small 
 carts in Belgium by the market-peddlers, either 
 tandem or abreast, you will recognize their 
 neal descendants along the Cote de Beau- 
 pr6. Even the women who drive them will 
 remind you cf Ghent and Bruges. These 
 dogs are to the peasant here what the pig is 
 to the peasant of Munster. They lie on the 
 galleries or sun themselves undisturbed at the 
 door, and are allowed the run of the house. 
 They are large black mastiffs, patient beasts 
 of burden, without enterprise enough to bark. 
 They do a great deal of hard work, are more 
 domesticated than the coolie, and a sort of 
 aid-de-camp to the horse at whose heels, or 
 under whose cart, they trot. Near them sits 
 an old lady on a bench knitting socks, wear- 
 ing a cap the fashion of which her great-grand- 
 mother brought from St. Malo. 
 
 In a few moments we trot into the heart of 
 our Mecca and pull up at " The Retreat," a 
 cozy and clean hotel, kept by an English fam- 
 ily who are as intelligent as they are hospita- 
 ble. Mine host has a telegraphic instrument in 
 the house. It was regarded with superstition 
 by the habitant, whereas it is one of supersti- 
 tion's worst foes. We had arrived several 
 hours before an expected grand pilgrimage 
 coming down the river in chartered steamers, 
 like the traines de piete at Lourdes. The vil • 
 lage consists of one long street, and, were it 
 paved with stone, would bear a strong resem- 
 blance to village streets in Switzerland, with 
 the projecting signs, gables, and galleries of 
 the many little aiiberi::;es. Every house is an 
 improvised inn, and all the fishemien are am- 
 ateur inn-keepers. The street lies at the foot 
 of the hill, and, as you go through it, you 
 will see faces and figures that constantly re- 
 mind you of the coarse women seen in similar 
 streets in Swiss villages. Most French-Cana- 
 dian country-women become stout and wrin- 
 kled in middle life, owing to the excessive 
 heat of the houses in winter, badly cooked 
 food, and hard work ; but those who have to 
 go up and down these steep hills become 
 especially clumsy. It is wonderful to see 
 these heavy women going up the zigzag hill- 
 roads, swinging their arms at right angles 
 from their shoulders, and climbing fences 
 like a man. 
 
 One of the characters of Ste. Anne is our 
 jolly harness and shoe maker — a woman on 
 the shady side of sixty. If her deportment has 
 
 been neglected, she is thoroughly honest and 
 happy, as she smokes her clay pipe and 
 shoves her spectacles up on her forehead to 
 take a better look at her visitors. You may 
 laugh at her ancient cap, but if you could 
 find out why she laughs at you, you would 
 learn that she laughs at your modern bonnet. 
 Just over the way we saw, through an open 
 window, a real live Evangeline, in her jiretty 
 Norman cap, at a spinning-wheel. 
 
 Let us walk down to the other end of the 
 village: what has become of the ancient church 
 built in 1660 ? To the right of the road 
 stands a large structure a few years old, disa- 
 greeable in its ostentatious modernness. What 
 right had they ruthlessly to destroy the old 
 one ? We are told that the walls were crack- 
 ing. So much the better. To the left stands 
 a small chapel, also modern, yet wearing a 
 genial aged look. This was built out of the 
 stones c^'" the ancient chapel. The pictur- 
 esque double bell-tower of the old building 
 surmounts this chapel, and a part of the old 
 interior was utilized, but one misses the plain 
 fa(;ade, with its rose-window and its Norman 
 doors; gone altogether is the atmosphere of 
 antiquity which hovered about the old in- 
 terior. 
 
 Look down the road toward " The Re- 
 treat." Is it not as if you were transported to 
 a Swiss village ? Painted on the gable-end of 
 one house, you read : " Ici Bonne Maison 
 DE Pension." And there, fastened to a stable, 
 is the sign : " Bureu de Poste Ofcie," in 
 very unclassical French. And what is this 
 huge sign projecting out into the street ? 
 " E. Lachance, Epcjx de Dlle. Mercier. 
 Maison de Pension" (E. Lachance, hus- 
 band of Miss Mercier. Boarding-house). And 
 next door has another, surmounted by a fish : 
 " Maison de Pension. Dlle. Mercier." 
 Thereby hangs a tale : The house of Mercier 
 had two daughters, one of them " fair, fat, 
 and forty," who was the belle of the parish. 
 Many a pilgrim from Quebec went to 
 Ste. Anne more to see this maiden than to 
 pray. An enterprising rival, who kept the 
 hotel next door, cast sheep's-eyes upon the 
 goddess ; she succumbed, and became his 
 wife, and transferred her interest in the hotel 
 business to her liege lord. The old house still 
 kept up the old sign of " Miss Mercier," and 
 the ingenious benedict took down his old one 
 and had it repainted, so as to announce to the 
 world that he had married, and was in posses- 
 sion of the great attraction of the rival house. 
 
 But there the steamers come, and soon two 
 thousand pilgrims land on the wharf. A brass 
 band leads the way, and the people file up in 
 long procession, dusty but devoted, many, no 
 doubt, with mingled hopes and fears. Over 
 
12 
 
 THE CANADIAN MECCA. 
 
 THE OLD CHURCH. 
 
 forty cripples limp along on crutches, or sup- 
 ported by friends, and a pitiable sight it is. The 
 procession enters the new church, where, at 
 the high altar and at the sides, a number of 
 priests preside. As you enter, you see a large 
 money-box, of ancient date and curious con- 
 struction, fastened to a pillar by iron stan- 
 chions. The quaint padlock is opened by an 
 old-fashioned bed-key. Over the side doors 
 are rude ex voto paintings, representing won- 
 derful rescues from peril by water through 
 intercession to Ste. Anne. Over the altar is a 
 picture of the saint by Le Brun, the eminent 
 French artist, and the side altars contain 
 
 paintings by the Franciscan monk Lefrangois, 
 who died in 1685. Hung upon a decorated 
 pedestal is a handsome oval frame or reli- 
 quary like a large locket, sunounded with 
 garnets, and having in its center a rich cross 
 of pearls. Besides this, you see the collection 
 of bones said to be the relics of the saint, 
 consisting of a piece of one finger-bone, ob- 
 tained in 1663, by Bishop Laval, from the 
 chapter of Carcassonne, and which was first 
 exposed to view on the 12th of March, 1670. 
 In another case there is a piece of bone of 
 the saint, obtained in 1877, but the Redemp- 
 torist Fathers, who have charge of the mission, 
 
THE CANADIAN MECCA. 
 
 13 
 
 IN THE NEW CHURCH, ON THE SITE OF THE OLD. 
 
 do not know to what part of the body it be- 
 longs. The dry bones of the saint do not 
 appear to differ in glory from those of a sin- 
 ner. The church also claims to own a piece 
 of the true cross upon which our Saviour died, 
 and a piece of stone from the foundation of the 
 house in which Ste. Anne lived, brought from 
 France in 1879. Also there may be seenasuperb 
 chasuble, given by Anne of Austria, mother of 
 Louis XIV., and some silver crucifixes. 
 
 Nothing, however, will excite more curiosity 
 than the great pyramid of crutches, and aids to 
 the sick and the crippled, twenty-two feet high, 
 divided into six tiers, and crowned by a very 
 old gilt statue of the saint. The collection is 
 very curious and principally home-made, com- 
 prising plain walking-sticks, odd knobbed 
 fancies of sexagenarians, queer handles, and 
 padded arm and shoulder rests, made of pine, 
 oak, birch, ash, hickory, rock-elm — of all 
 common and many novel designs. A half- 
 leg support testifies to a reputed removal of 
 anchylosis of the knee-joint by intercession to 
 the saint. I have no desire to sneer, but that 
 there is some imposition and much imagina- 
 tion about these " miracles " no impartial mind 
 can doubt. One may carry his charity to the 
 verge of believing that implicit faith in inter- 
 cession to a saint, with mingled hope and fear 
 and a strong determination to force a cure, 
 may in some cases really throw off disease; but 
 the power of mind and will over the body with- 
 
 out any such intercession is familiar to every 
 student, and is no doubt an undeveloped 
 branch of medical science. A coincidence is 
 not a miracle, neither is this power of the will 
 over the body a miracle. Among the long list 
 of reputed miracles, the following from a man- 
 ual of devotion will be sufficiently suggestive* 
 "In the year 1664, a woman broke her leg. 
 As the bone was fractured in four places, it 
 was impossible to set it. For eight months she 
 was unable to walk, and the doctors gave up 
 all hope of a cure. She made a novena, in 
 honor of the saint, and vowed that if she was 
 cured she would visit the shrine every year. 
 She was carried to the church, and during the 
 communion she put aside her crutches and 
 was cured at once." Sworn testimony is given 
 as to instant recovery in diseases said by phy- 
 sicians to be incurable by ordinary means, and 
 among the particular favors accorded to the 
 parish, the temporal as well as spiritual is not 
 forgotten. The Bishop of Montreal says that 
 it is Ste. Anne who obtains for it "rain in 
 the time of drought." " For it is a pious tradi- 
 tion among you," says he, " that a little pict- 
 ure representing Ste. Anne, with her august 
 
 HOLY-WATER FOUNT AND POOR-BOX. 
 
 \ 
 
14 
 
 THE CANADIAN MECCA. 
 
 daughter, is the instrument of God's mercy 
 towards you." 
 
 During the service in the church, the pil- 
 grims crowd up to the altar and kneel in long 
 rows in front of the balustrade. The officiating 
 l)riests cairy the relics in one hand and a 
 handkerchief in the other, and touch the glass 
 cover to the lips of the worshipers, wiping it 
 after each kiss. 
 
 As you come out, you see pilgrims around 
 the fountain, drinking its water and filling 
 bottles to carry home. It is not the original 
 well, which is said to have been the scene of 
 cures as miraculous as those performed at 
 Lourdes; but if it was justifiable to move the 
 church, why not the well ? As you turn to the 
 left, you see a picturesque way-side oratory, 
 built of rough stones and mortar, from which 
 
 which the pilgrims pin on their coats and 
 dresses, like the shells worn by the pilgrims 
 who have visited the shrine of Ste. Anne in 
 Brittany. Heaps of litUe brass and plaster 
 statues, photographs, beads, and other trink- 
 ets, attract the visitor. The air is full of 
 babble from the crowds of tired yet talkative 
 people sitting on the grass or the benches, 
 eating their luncheon out of huge carpet- 
 bags. Two girls, who had heard from me 
 of the wonderful well in Brittany, were 
 throwing pins into the fountain to find out 
 their matrimonial prospects, and laughing 
 heartily over their efforts. When the pins fell 
 head foremost, hope grew sick ; when the 
 points first touched the water, the prospect 
 of marriage within a year was certain. I 
 noticed that, like the Chinese praying to his 
 
 .jBT,AucIer: Louis 
 |pu^/ici? M'«LrtrieT7 
 
 raie dea.o.Aij^wa^ouT^'Cgaj 
 tous <raan5 ceCriile eCa 
 
 ■\eureus5 
 
 A>re 
 
 EX VOTO PAINTING, 1754. 
 
 a stream of water comes from the hill. A walk 
 along this road is very interesting. You may 
 see the black cross against the wall of every 
 house. The heraldic emblem of Berne is not 
 more revered in that city than the statue of 
 Ste. Anne here, and in every house you see it 
 in plaster, brass, or picture. An old cemetery 
 here has been used so much that the beadle 
 told me he hadsjbimself laid three long rows of 
 people, burying fh^m indiscriminately side by 
 side, and on top of each oth' — "first come, 
 first served." Those who pa) from twenty- 
 five to a hundred dollars may be buried 
 under the new church, the vaults of which are 
 specially reserved for this purjiose. 
 
 Little rustic booths do an active business in 
 memorials of the saint, in the shape of medals, 
 
 favorite idol for "more money," they both 
 persisted until the test turned tlie right way. 
 
 Coming back to our hospitable " Retreat," 
 we saw a fascinating study of life and charac- 
 ter. A tidy, handsome village girl had a boy 
 seated on a stool on the sidewalk in front of 
 her house, and was vigorously clipping his 
 shaggy locks, catching the debris in her apron, 
 which she had tucked around the lad's neck. 
 " Surely some pilgrim to Ste. Anne will lose 
 his heart if he risk his hair to the pretty bar- 
 ber," thought I. It turned out that some pil- 
 grim had, and that she was a fisherman's wife. 
 
 Every house seems to share in the profits 
 of the pilgrimages, for though the older habi- 
 tants hardly ever spend a sou, youth and beauty 
 must have its fling. You see barrels of root 
 
THE CANADIAN MECCA. 
 
 '5 
 
 t 
 
 THE COLLECTION OF CRUTCHES. 
 
 or spruce beer, huge slices of brown bread and 
 butter, berries, gingerbread, boiled corn on 
 the cob, and other Canadian luxuries, on the 
 sills of the windows, or on rough deal tables 
 at the doors. Inside you see long rows of 
 solemn white cups and saucers, and piles of 
 plates. In one little auberge there is a queer 
 
 character, with a monstrous hump on her 
 back and another on her nose. She has been 
 living at Ste. Anne's for seven years, inter- 
 ceding every day for the reduction of her de- 
 formity, but it increases with her age. 
 
 But what song is that stealing over the 
 water, like a Canadian voyageur's refrain ? 
 
i6 
 
 ESTRANGEAfENT. 
 
 Al THE lOlNTAlN OF BLESSED WATER. 
 
 Refbain. 
 
 A boat laden with pilgrims from the Isle p ^^ l^ <~c^— g_*^priiri_-rg: 
 
 of Orleans is making for our shore, and the EEl>E^E^tbzibE^ir^^Ett:iE^=c2S_ 
 
 voices rise and fall with the dip of the oars ,,. , „s , .^ r , ^ > c •, 
 
 ., ,, r- , i^tv-v^ Vicrsc h 8a Me - re con duit ess en-fantB. Dai -gr.ez, Saintc 
 
 m the true rhythm of the cariotier : 
 
 :^^T^ 
 
 
 t-— h;— • 
 
 V — ¥ — 
 
 0—0— • 
 
 ■I — H 1 — 
 
 vii p=p=p: 
 
 P-V 
 
 0- . ^ 
 
 ^^^m^m 
 
 Vers son Banctu - ai - re, de-puis deux cents ans, La Anne, en un si beau jour, de vos enfants a - gre-er I'a-mour ! 
 
 W. George Beers.