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Of Queens University ILLUSTRATED UNDKR TME SUPERVISION OF L. R. O'BRIEN. Pres. R.C.A. TORONTO, CANADA BELDEN BROTHERS L -e F V o s ^ , G "L P\ / p ^ t Copyrighted BELDKN BkOTIIEKS 1888 2- ~ o ■12-T II 5f if t \ PRKFACB. By Julian Hawthorne. > -3 I HAVE in my possession a little, mean-looicing book, about six inches long by three and a half broad, bound in parchment yellowed by age and wrinkled by damp. It is written in the Latin of the Elizabethan period, with curious contractions and solecisms, and contains upward of two hundred pages. The title has a design of symbolic figures engraved on copper, amidst which appears a scroll bearing the words, " Alundus Alter et Idem. Auth. Alercurio Brittannico. Hannovice, A° 1607." If you care to brave the difficulties of the contracted and bastard Latin, you will find that the volume consists of an account of the author's travels in a region which he calls " Terra Australis, ante hac semper incognita" and that his adventures in this hitherto unexplored continent are of so strange and romantic a character, that it does not surprise you to learn, on reference to the proper authorities — vide " Bibliographical and Retrospective Miscellany" for 1830, p. 56 — that Dean Swift is understood to have taken the idea of his "Gulliver's Travels" from this work; which is, in fact, the pro- duction of one Bishop Hall, of famous and satirical memory, who adopted that method of exercising his imagination, and ventilating his notions regarding social phenomena and the vagaries of human nature. Not the least entertaining feature of the book is the series of maps which are fastened in at the end of it. The number of fanciful representations of this planet of ours which were devised during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, passes mention ; but these designs yield to none of them in eccentric interest. The earth, to begin with, is treated as a flat surface. Indeed, though Magellan had circumnavigated the globe nearly a century before the date of Bishop Hall's book, the fact of its rotundity had not then been, and was not until long afterward, generally acceptc ' ; nay, it is not twenty years since an ingenious monomaniac, by the name of " Parallax," published a volume restating the venerable dogma of flatness, with copious demonstrations. The accuracy of the good bishop's designs suffers from his rejection of the Magellian and Copernican ideas ; and his North and South America, and Europe, Asia, and Africa appear strangely dis- torted. The river Amazon is a prolonged strait, dividing the South American continent vi PREFACE. into two imeq.ial parts. Cape St. Roque, of the latter country, approaches within some five hundred miles of Cape V'erd, in Africa. The Pacific Ocean contains but a single island, named St. Pedro, and North America shows a blank, uneventfid surface extend- ing no higher, apparently, than about the fortieth parallel, and totally destitute of rivers. On the other hand, the Straits of Maj^ellan separate Patagonia, not from the unimpor- tant " Tierra del F'uego " of our geographies, but from a gigantic continent, wi' a coastline extending east and west fully twenty-five thousand miles, and exhibiting in area at least four times as great as that of all the rest of the world put together. This last purports to have been the field ' the author's explorations ; and an extraor- dinary piece of ground it is. And yet, there seems to have been no good reason why the readers of A" 1607 should not have accepted it in good faith; and I dare say many of them did. For nobody really knew, in those days, what the earth really was like. Drake and Raleigh had made their voyages ; but they had made them with their imaginations so inflamed with anticipations of mystery and splendor, and with eyes so determined to behold marvels and magnificence, that their travellers' tales well-nigh corresponded, not with their experience, but with their prepossessions. The people at home were ready to believe anything, provided it were dazzling and miraculous. No one knew — no one could even conjecture -what secrets the mighty Western Continent might yet reveal. Surely, it must been delightful antl stimulating to ])ossess so vast a field for speculation and wonder. Nothing of the sort is leit fi>r us of to-day, except a few hundred square miles in the depths of Africa, and some frigid possibilities at the Pole. If we want miracles, we must turn our thoughts to the moon, or to Mercury, and ask whether they are inhabited, and, if so, by what manner of beings. The earth — tlie surface of it at any rate — is a twice- told tale. Bishop Hall's map, so far as the North American aspect of it is concerned, gives no hint of the great river hereafter to be called the St. Lawrence, nor, a fortiori, of such a place as Quebec; though a French navigator, by the n^'ne of Jacques Cartier, had visited the locality as much as seventy years previous, and had anchored his ships below the Indian village under the cliff, known as Stadacona. But Jacques Cartier, so far as we know, took no surveying instruments with him, and the strongest impression he brought home with him probably was of the scenery. He doubtless gave Francis I. an account of the country he had visited ; but Francis was astute and selfish, and the more he believed Cartier's story, the less likely would he be to desire its general publi- cation. The monarchs of Europe were, at that period. Jealously watching one another's movements westward, each fearing lest onc' of the others should succeed in fastening his clutches on something of incalculable value — such as a range of mountains of solid gold, or a Sindbad's valley full of diamonds. Spain, France, and England, not to mention the undemonstrative but intrepid Dutch, all wanted everything, and were resolved to assert I > I PREFACE. Vli V\ ^ I h and maintain tiicir prior claim thereto ; but while the other nations had prosecuted their researches for the most part on or below the: thirtieth parallel, France, either by accident o« desijrn, directed her course toward the north. If the French had been as good col- onists as the Spaniards, or even as the Enj^lish, North American history would undoubt* edly have had a coinplexioi; very different from that which it possesses. For seventy years, then, alter the e.\pedition of Jacques Cartier, the j,freat northern river i*emained undisturbed, and probaoly unthouji^ht of; and the men wiio had been living at that earlier epoch had loni,' been in their graves, when tlie second adventurer set forth. Samuel de Champlain started on his voyage early in the summer of 1608 — ^only a few months after my copv of Mishop I hill's story of adventure was delivered to the public. Very likely ('hamplain had seen it, though, as has been intimated, it could have furnished him with but scanty enlightenment as to the region he was about to visit. Re that as it may, he might reasonably have thought that the northern part of the world offered as promising a theatre for strange discoveries as the southern ; and that he might bring back with him a narrative as sensational as that of the imaginative ecclesiastic, and more trust- worthy. It was, at all events, with brilliant hopes and prospects that he weighed anchor, and — -which was more to the point -with personal capacities and jjowers which, humanly speaking, insured his success. Flie main immediate object-, of his expedition were two-- to found a trading station for a great fur-trading company : and lo plant in the New World the authority and religion of l-'rancc In tin: sequel, it was discovered, as mif»h» have been expected, that these aims liiil not harmonize cordially ; hut fortunately for civil- ization, Champlain sympathized more with ti\e latter aim th;>n with the former; he cared more to educate the natives, and to give colonists the means of supporting themselves by agriculture, tiian to fill the selfish pockets of a corporation. And during the succeeding twenty-eight years of his life, he gave the settlement an inpetus in the right direction which it never lost, and left l)ehin(i liim tlie name and fame of tiie creator of Canada. The " Stadacona " which Jacques Cartier had told of had disappeared from remem- brance during the intervening seventy years (though it still survives under the guise of the St. Roche suburb, and in the patriotic recollection of the present inhabitants), and Cham- plain's station was known l)y the name it has ever since borne, of Quebec. The name, like all of Indian origin, has a significance based upon a striking physical feature of the place which bears it. " Quebec" means the sudden narrowing of the waters of the river, which takes place between the heights on the northern side and the point on the southern, just above the Isle of Orleans. Eastward, the stream widens rapidly to a breadth of twenty, forty, and a hundred miles. The Laurentian Mountains loom in the distance on the north ot the city, and the loftier Notre Dame range uplift themselves on the south ; the height on and around which the city itself is built is abrupt and striking — a vast, aggressive shoulder of rock, advanced defiantly against invasion. Whether to impress the imagination, or to answer practical needs, no fitter place than this couM have been found on which to set the viii PRE FA CE. pioneer colony of a new nation. The lines which Scott wrote of his native country apply with no less precision to this superb region : " Land of wild hcatli and sliaggy wood ; Land of the mountain and the liood!" The scale is grander, but the features arc the same. It is no wonder, tlierefore, that Cape Diamond has been a jewel for which the French and the English have struggled from the first. The very impossibility (as it might appear) of capturing so redoubtable a stronghold, would act as a stimulus to the warriors who attempted it, even were it not also the key to the great dominion beyond. Sir David Kirke's capture of it took place nearly a humlred years before the existence of the fortifications designed by the Frenchman De Levy ; I)ut it resisted the attack of Sir William Phipps in 1690; and Ad- miral Warren, early in the ne,\t century, was prevented by fogs and storms from so much as getting within gunshot of the fortress. Wolfe, as the world will long remember, was suc- cessful in 1 759 ; the next year the French under D<: Levis failed in a similar enterprise, and the ownership of the stronghold was finally decided in favor of England by the disastrous campaign of Arnold and Montgomery. If the time ever comes when it shall pass into the possession of the United States, the consideration will doubtless be, not blood and powder, but parchment and ink. There are no present signs, however, that either party desires such an arrangement. I'ldeed, not to speak of other reasons, a regard for the picturesque in scenery and his- tory should be enough to discourage an American proprietorship of this venerable coign of vantage. The present inhabitants are a full century behind the times as legards progress and business energy ; and their innate inertia (to call it by no more graphic name) assures the preservation of the place in its present condition for the longest possible time. The French occupants of the Province of Quebec to-day outnumber those of English descent in the proportion of more than fifteen to one , and their aim, reinforced by their religion, is to enjoy life, and to make no alterations in their old way of living it. The old houses, the old streets, the old agricultural processes, the old manners and customs, survive to-day almost untouched by time. Their one staple; industry is the hewing of timber in their inexhaustible forests ; and during a winter which lasts from November to May even this is impracticable and the population willingly surrenders itself to the delights of the toboggan, the sleigh, and all the sports of snow and ice. Thanks to the politically unwise, but otherwise commendable decice of the British Government, the English language is not taught in the schools, and the French tongue is everywhere heard. The Roman Catholic priest treads these narrow streets with the air of a master, as well he may ; since, for more than two hundred and fifty continuous years, the subtle decay that characterizes that sensuous and alluring religion has fed upon the very tap-root of the Quebec community. Li short, the atmosphere of the PR F. FACE. Ix II Ki ' i; place is not merely European, but ine(Jia;val ; it is older, in appearance and condition, than settlements of far greater antiquity on the other side of the Atlantic. With St. Augustine at one extremity of the continent, and Quebec at the other, we do not need to seek abroad for the charms that belong to what is ancient. They arc here, and are likely to remain here quite as long as anywhere else. Of the changes that would come over the Canadian citadel under an ;\merican adminis- tration, it is unnecessary to speak. Very probably Cape Diamond would be levelled to the ground with dynamite cartridges, after the fashion of our own Hell-Gale, and a prosperous city of broad streets and square " blocks " would arise upon its ruins. The smoke of count- less factories would pollute the crystalline atmosphere ; the river would be bridged above and tunnelled beneath ; the virgin forests would melt away, and their place would be occupied by a vast agricultural community, which would pour into the region under the stimulus of Government land-grants and new facilities of transport. A way would be made for European steamers up the St. Lawrence and vid the Lakes to Chicago, and, in a word, Canada would become one the wealthiest countries in the world ; and ' one of the least attractive — even to bank-cashiers and boodle-aldermen. Let us trust that such a cons'mimation may not be in our day. Where, meanwhile, could be found a field more available for the novelist and romancer, whether realistic, ideal, or historical ? The latter's chief embarrassment would be to decide whether the religious, the warlike, or the pioneering features of the chronicle would suit his purpose best, or whether to make a pot-pourri of all three. The Jesuits arrived, much to the discontent of the I'^ir-trading Company, in 1625, and approved themselves, tlien as at other times, models of self-sacrifice ami ilevotion ; they showed what can be done by men who have surrendered conscience and private judg- ment to human masters, and are prepared to give up life, liberty, and the pursuit of hnppiness to furthei the material aggrandizement and spiritual tyranny of their Church. But whatever may be thought of their ultimate designs, their incidental measures were beneficent. They lived with the Indians, travelled with them, mastered their language, taught them the rudiments of learning, nursed them in sickness, built hospitals for their accommodation, and, in so far as was humanly possible, led them to believe that the great white race had established themselves on their shores for other purposes than to cheat them out of their birthright and woodland wealth. The spirit of Christ was in these early missionaries — with only one difference, that they labored, not for God, but for the Society of Jesus. And at that very moment, in Italy, the same Society was compelling Galileo, under pain of torture, to deny the work of his life, to .'■•■"»nr to a lie, and to undo, so far as might be, the priceless benefits which his intellect and energy had conferred upon mankind. But time proves all things. To-day the Indians, for whom the Jesuits forsook all that makes life tolerable, have vanished from the face of the earth, Indians and heathen still ; and the work of the Italian astronomer is 1 PREFACE. recognized as the basis of all our subsequent knowledge, and has shed imperishable glory upon his name. Truly, "by their works shall you know them." It was not the Jesuit Fathers alone who abandoned all for the Church. Even more memorable is the career of such a woman as Madame de la Peltrie, rich, noble, ^nd beautiful, who, in 1639, left the pleasures and splendors of the Parisian Court and, with- out one backward glance or thouyht, plunged into the northwestern wilderness, and buried herself there. And there, for more than twenty years, she lived and worked, and died at last — if such i being can be said to die. We are wont to talk of the frivolity, the thoughtlessness, the mora! corruption and degradation of those times ; and the court of France is cited as the culmination of vice and debauchery. Yet, out of that foul swamp of evil sprang this pure and gracious flower, whose golden heart was rich with love for those whom she deemed most forlorn and outcast. Are there souls of women more de- voted and constant now ? We have women novelists, women doctors, women agitators, women Presidential candidates ; but the race of Madame de la Peltrie does not seem to have greatly multiplied in the earth. And yet, perhaps, the career she missed was nobler and more arduous than the one she followed. When she set her fair face across the desolate Atlantic and sought the wilderness of heathendom ami ignorance, she left a more hopeless heathendom, a more terrible wilderness behind her. Not the sachems of the Hurons and Algonquins, but the king and courtiers of her native country, stood most in peril of death and judgment. Might not the influence of women like her, exerted in the midst o*" that great hot-bed of iniquity, have operated to save some of those lofty heads destined to fall thereafter on the guillotine of 1 793 ? Well, the Hotel Dieu and the Convent of the Ursulines still stand as the monuments of this illustrious lady and of those who accompanied her. Their work was beneficent and honorable ; and wlien they had passed away, champions of another sort were found to achieve other deeds. Louis XIV. seems to have felt a cordial interest in the colony; and, in 1663, he sent to Quebec the man to whom, after Champlain, the city and the province are most indebted. Talon, the first Intendant, combined in himself many of the rarest elements of greatness. His energy, wisdom, and integrity effected marvels tow- ard conquering the wilderness and rendering it prosperous and populous. He cleared the forest, he built houses and founded industries, he encouraged immigration, and prosecuted exploration and discovery in all directions. Enemies on the spot and foes abroad he fout^rht and overcame ; his will and his policy were supreme, and, so far as history re- veals, they were in all respects good. But against the brightness of this famous name is set, in darkness and ignominy, that of his successor nearly a century later — Bigot, the wicked. He was one of those titled scoundrels whom Providence occasionally sees fit to put in high places, as if to show mankind by example what sorry pranks unbridled vice and power combined can play. The tale of his crimes, debaucheries, and follies still sur- vives like the memory of an ugly nightmare, though the gorgeous palace in which his PREFACE. XI sinister revels were held is now but a fragment of grass-grown ruin, and the evil he did, lii'Brien L. K O'Brien L. R. O'Brien L. R. O'Brien L. R. O'Brien F. B Scliell T. Moran B. .Schell . R. O'Brien J. Weston L. R. O'Brien L. R. O'Brien L. R. O'Brien L. R. O'Brien W. R.ipliael . H. A. Ogden L. R. O'Brien L. R. O'Brien L. R. O'Brien L. R. O'Brien L. R. O'Brien L. R. O'Brien L. R. O'Brien F. B. Scliell F. B. Schell . F. B. .Schell F. B. Schell F. B. Schell . Schell & Hogan W. T. Smedley T. Moran F. B. Schell Schell & Hogan F. B. Schell . F. B. Schell L. R. O'Brien F. B. Schell F. n. Schell . F. B, Schell . W. T. Smedley W. T. Smedley W. T. Smedley W. T. Smedley F. B. Schell F. B. Schell F B. Schell F. B. Schell . Schell & Hogan Schell & Hogan F. B. Schell F. B. Schell . Schell & Hogan Schell & Hogan F. B. Schell Schell & Hogan Engraver. P»g*. E. C. Held ... 69 H. E. Schultz . . 71 F. Brigden ... 74 J. Clement ... 76 Smithwick & French 78 J. Karst ... 79 H. (Jray . . Facing 81 C. J. Warden . . 81 J. Hellawell ... 83 A. Lockhardt ... 86 J. E. Sharp ... 8; T. Johnson ... 9(1 Juengling & Miller 9 C. Schwarzburger . 91 R. Varley ... 93 George A. Bogert . . 93 O. C. Wigand . . 55 A. Hayman . , , c6 E. Heinemann . . t.7 E. Heinemann . . ih)t ami eaptain- jf( nera'. Hctween tlie siiininil and the river f.ir helow Ik; may iiave seen amid (lie slate the flitter of \.\\v (jiiartz crystals from which the rock afterwards rectMved its name of Cape Diamond. Certainly, on his next voya>f<; he jrathered s|K:cimens from Cap Koiijfc. Hut the j^reat attraction must have been the river itself, llowin^f jiast with the trihntc of an unknown continent. Its jjreen wat«;rs swept round the feet of the mii^hty Cape. lU- could cast a stoni' into the current, for at hi;rh tiile it rolled rij^ht up lo liu' hase of the rock. The n.irrow strip of Lind that now e.xtentls between rock and river, crowded with tiu- houses of Champlain .Street, was not liiere tlu-n. The street lias been won from tiie waters and ilie rock by man, whose j^ri'cd for land even the boundless spaces of the New ' ranee i('\ ini( .i5 111" pious struct- ilil he as a mil to 'jours the saint iiiles ff of cans iieet the the on lies. the t in s^^L-d diy. s of uilt hcd if '% ■A I r — "■03r.c„ ^^^^''^^■z.U .\KU1\ \[. ul JAC l.il I, AUrn.K AT SIADACONA. i World cannot satisfy. The ground that sloped down to the Ste. Croix, at the mouth of which his \i'sseis ia\' at .inchor, was coverciil with the Imest hard-wood trees— walnuts, oaks, elms, ashes, and maples — and amonjr these the bark-cabins of Uonnacona's tribe could be seen. Thc) called their town Stadacona. To this day no name is more popular with the people of Quebec. Any new enterprise that may be projected, from a skatins^-rink to a bank or steamship company, prefers Stadacona to any other name All the way down to Cap Tourmente and round the horizon formed b\- liie fir-clothed .summits of the Laurentides that enclosed the wide-extended-landscape, an unbroken forest ranjrcd. The picture, seen from the Citadel on Cape Diamond to-day, is as fair as tin- eye can desire to see. The sun shines on the glitterinij roofs of Quebec, and the continuous village of clean white houses extending miles down to the white riband of 4 QUEBEC. Montmorency, and on cultivated fields runnino^ up into still unbroken wilderness, and on the broad river basin enclosing the island, in the forest glades of which wild grapes grew so luxuriantly that Cartier enthusiastically called it Isle of Bacchus. Hut then it was in all it: virgin glory, and Cartier's soul swelled with the emotions of a discoverer, with exultation and boundless hope. Did it not belong to him, did it not almost owe its existence to him ? And he was giving it all to God and to France, Donnacona told the strangers of a far greater town than his, many days' journey \\\^ the. river. .So Cartier placed his two largest vessels within the mouth of the Ste. Croix, or the .St. Charles, as the Recollets called it in the next century, and pursued his way, overcoming the obstacles of St. Peter's Lake, to Hochelaga. The natives there received him as if he were a god, bringing fish and corn-cakes, and throwing them into the boats in such profusion that they .seemed to fall through the air like rain or snow. Cartier could not help falling in love with the country. The palisadeil town nestling under the shadow of Mount Royal was surrounded by fertile fields. Autumn showered its crimson and gold on the forests, turning the mountain into an immense picture suspendeil high in air, glowing with a wealth of colour that no luiropean painter would dare to put on canvas. The river swept on, two miles wide, with a conquering force that indicated vast distances beyond, new realms waiting to be discovered. .'\11 the way back to Quebec the marvellous tints of tlie forest, and the sweet air and rich sunsets of a Canatlian autumn accompanied the happy Frenchmen. Had they now turned their prows homeward, what pictures of the new country would tht;y have held up to wondering listeners ! Nothing could have prevented France from precipitating itself at once upon Canada. lUit the natives, accustomed to the winters, uttered no note of warning to the strangers, and therefore, although Cartier rejoined his comrades at Quebec on the iith of October, he delayed till the ice-king issued his " iic exeat!' Then he and they soon learned that the golden shield had another side. To Canadians, winter is simply one of the four seasons. The summer and autumn suns ripen all the crops that grow in England or the north of France, and in no tem- perate climate is more than one crop a year expected. The frost and snow of winter are hailed in their turn, not only as useful friends but as ministers to almost all the amuse- ments of the year — the sleighing, skating, snow-shoeing, ice-boating, tobogganning — that both sexes and all classes delight in. The frost does much of our subsoil ploughing. Snow is not only the best possible mulch, shading and protecting the soil at no cost, init its manuriai value gives it the name of "the poor man's manure." The ice bridges our lakes and rivers. A good snow-fall means roads without the trouble of road-making, not only to kirk and market, but through thick woods, over cradle-hills, and away into the lumber regions. An insufficient supply of snow and ice is a national calamity ; and excess can never be so bad as the pall that covers England and Scotland half the year and makes the people " take their pleasures sadly." QUEBEC. % Im li Hut, we are prepared for winter. Jacques Cartier was not, and very heavily its hand fell upon him, as it did subsequently on Champlain when he first wintered at Quebec. How heavily, we are in a position to estimate from readinj; the harrowing descriptions of the sufferings endured by the people of London in January i8Si. in consequence of a snow-fall of some twelve inches. One periodical describes the scene under the title of " Moscow in London," and soberly asserts that " to have lived in London on Tuesday, the i.Sth January, 1881, and to have survived the experience, is son. -thing which any man is justified in remembering, and which ought to justify occasional boasting of the fact." Another declares that a few more such snow-storms would " render our life and civilization impossible;" that in such a case there could be only "an Ksquimaux life, not an English life ; " that " a transformation of the rain into these soft white crystals which at first liight seem so much less aggressive than rain is all that is needed to destroy tlu; whole struc- ture of our communications, whether in the way of railway, telegraph, or literature;" and sadly moralises over the fact that this is sure to come about in time from the pre- cession of the equinoxes. Bathos such as this indicates fairly enough the; wonderful ignorance of the facts and conditions of Canadian life that reigns supreme in educated English circles. Canadians fancy that their civilization is English. Those of us who are practically acquainted with the conditions of life in England are pretty w(;ll agreeil that where there are points of difference the advantage is on our side. Not one man in a thousantl in Canada wears a fur coat, or an overcoat of any kind heavier tiian he would have; to wear in the mother country. We have ice-houses, but do not live in them. Society shows no signs of approximating to the Esquimaux type. We .skim over the snow more rapidly than a four-in-hand can travel in l-'ngland when the best highway is at its best. A simple contrivance called a snow-plough clears the railway track for the trains, tossing the snow to the right and left as triumphantly as a ship tosses the spray from its bows. We telegraph and telephone, use cabs and busses, and get our mails — from Halifax to Sarnia — with " proofs" and parcels about as regularly in winter as in summer. Incredible as all this must sound to those who have shivered under the power of one snow-storm and a few degrees of frost, there is a certain humiliation to a Canadian in describing what is so entirely a matter of course. He is kept from overmuch wonder by remembering that the people of Western Canada, in spite of practical acquaintance with snow-ploughs, opposed for years the construction of the Intercolonial Railway because they strenuously maintained that it would be blocked up all the winter with ice and snow. We are accustomed to our environment. Cartier's men were not ; and reference has been made to recent experiences in England to help us to understand what horrors those poor fellows from sunny I'rance endured throughout an apparently endless winter, cooped up in the coldest spot in all Canada. " I'Vom the middle of November to the 18th of April the ice and snow shut us in," says their captain. Ice increased upon ice. Snow fell u|)on snow. The t;reat river that no power known to man could fetter, was bound fast. 6 QUEBEC. Everything froze. The breath that came from their mouths, the very blood in their veins, seemed to freeze. Night and day their limbs were benumbed. Thick ice formed on the sides of their ships, on decks, masts, cordage, on everything to which moisture attached itself. Snow wreathed and curleil in at every crevice. Every tree had its load. A walk in the woods was an impossibility, and there was nowhere else to walk. Confined within their narrow domain, and living on salted food, scurvy seized upon the helpless TRIUMPH OF THli SNOW-PLOUC.K. prisoners. What was to be done ? Cartier had recourse to heaven, receiving, however, the same minimum of practical answer that was given by Hercules to /Esop's waggoner. A modern writer of scrupulous accuracy describes naltvely the appeal and its bootlessness : " When eight were dead and more than fifty in a helpless state, Cartier ordered a solemn religious act which was, as it were, the first public exercise of the Catholic religion in Can- ada, and the origin of those processions and pilgrimages which have since been made in honour of Mary, to claim her intercession with God in great calamities. Seeing Jiat the disease had made such frightful ravages he set his crew to prayer, and made them carry an image or statue of the Virgin Mary over the snow and ice, and caused it to be placed against a tree about an arrow's flight away from the fort. He also commanded th''^ on the following Sunday mass should be sung in that place and before that image, and that all those who were able to walk, whether well or ill, should go in the procession— ' singing the seven penitential Psalms of David, with the Litany, praying the Virgin to entreat her dear Son to have pity upon us.' " On that day mass was celebrated QUEBEC. Ion lat to led before the image of Mary, even chanted, Cartier tells us ; apparently the first occasion of a iiij^di mass in Canada. At the sanie time Cartier gave another special proof of his vivid and tender trust in Mary — promising to make a pilgrimage in her honour to Roque- madour, should he be spared to return to France. " Nevertheless, that very day, Philip Rougemont, a native of Amboise, twenty years old, died ; and the tlisease became so general that of all who were in the three ships there were not three untouched, and in one of the ships there was not one man who could go into the hold to draw water for himself or the others." Despair fell upon the poor wretches. They gave up hope of ever seeing France again. Cartier alone did not despair, and the dawn followed the darkest hour. One of the Indians told him of "the most exquisite remedy that ever was," a decoction composed of the leaves and bark of the white spruce. He administered the medicine without stint, and in eight days the sick were restored to health. And now the long cruel winter wore away. The icy fetters relaxed their grip of land and river. Under warm April suns the sap rose, thrilling the dead trees into life. Amid the melting snow, green grasses and dainty star-like (lowers sprang up as freely as in a hot-house. Cartier prepared to depart, first taking possession of Canada, however, by planting in the fort "a lieautiful cross" thirty-five feet high, with the arms of France embossed on the cross-piece, and this inscription, " Erana'scns Primus, Dei gratia, FrancoriDii rex, rcgiiat." Then, treacherously luring Donnacona on board ship, that he might present the King of Stadacona to the King of France, he set sail for St. Malo. Nothing came of this, the second voyage of Cartier, and little wonder. What advantages did Canada offer to induce men to leave home ! What tales could the travellers tell save of black forests, deep snow, thick ice, starving Indians, and all-devouring scurvy! Hut Cartier was not discouraged, and six years afterwards Francis resolved to try again. Roberval was commissioned to found a permanent settlement. He sent Cartier ahead and Cartier tried at Cap Rouge, above Quebec, the Indians of Stadacona naturally enough not making him welcome. But the experiment did not succeed. The time had not come. Nearly a century was to pass away before the true father of New France — the founder of Quebec — would appear. On the 3d of July, 1608, Samuel de Champlain planted the white flag of France on the site of Quebec. The old village of Stadacona had disappeared, and there was no one to dispute possession with the new comers. With characteristic promptitude Cham- plain set his men to work to cut down trees and saw them into lumber for building, to dig drains and ditches, to pull up the wild grape-vines which abounded, to prepare the ground for garden seeds, or to attend to the commissariat. Every one had his work to do. The winter tried him as it had tried Cartier. The dreaded scurvy attacked his followers. Out of twenty-eight only eight survived, and these were disfigured with its fell marks. The next year he decided to ally himself with the Algonquins and Hurons against the I'ive Nations. It may have been impossible for him to have remained neu- I 8 QUEBEC. tral, though the example of the Dutch at Albany indicates that it was possible. Certainly the step plunged the infant colony into a sea of troubles for a century. It took the sword and was again and again on the point of perishing by the tomahawk. This man Champlain, soldier, sailor, engineer, geographer, naturalist, statesman, with the heart and soul of a hero, was the founder of New France. He had gained distinc- tion in the wars of the League ; in the West Indies he first proposed that ship canal across the Isthmus of I' nama which another Frenchman — as unconquerable as he — is probably destined to construct ; and sub- sequently he had spent yi_ s exploring and attempting settlements around the rugged Atlantic shores of Acadie and New England. From the day that he planted the lilies of France at the foot of Cape Diamond to the day of his death, on Christmas, 1635, he devoted himself to the infant colony, lived fo"* it and kept it alive, in spite of enemies at home and abroad, and dis- couragements enough to have shaken any resolve but that of courage founded upon faith. Right under the beetling cliff, be- tween the present Champlain Markc^t and the quaint old church of Notre Dame des Victoires, Champlain determined to build his city. His first work was to prepare the ground for garden seeds, and wheat and rye. He saw from the first, what he never could get any one else in authority to see, that the existence of the colony, as anything more than a temporary fur-trading post, depended on its being able to raise its own food. The Company with which he was associated could not see this, because they had gone into the enterprise with very different motives from those that animated Champlain. When we have no desire to see, we put the telescope to our blind eye and declare that there is nothing to be seen. Every creature acts according to its instincts, and to the rule fur-trading companies are no exception. Give them a monopoly and instinct becomes consecrated by laws human and Divine. The welfare of the Company becomes the supreme law. At the beginning of this century the North-West Company thought it right to stamp out in j'.^y^yt^t.'.^t CHAMPLAIN. S % OVF.nFC. >; NOTRl. DAMK DI.S VR;r01Ki;S. Site of Original City. blood and fire the patriotic efforts to colonize Assiniboia made by a Scottish nobleman, who '^ lived half a century before his time. Subse- quently the two hundred and sixty-eijrht share- holders of ilie Hudson's Bay Company felt justified in keeping half a continent as a preserve for buffalo and beaver. How could better thinjjs be expected in tiic seven- teenth century from the monopolies of De Chastes or De Monts, the merchants of .St. Malo, Rouen, Dieppe, La Rochelle ; or even from the Company of the One Hundred Associates orsj^anized by Riche'ieu ? Tradinj.^ interests were supreme with one and all. Those who clamoured for fn e trade clamoured only for a share of the monopoly. The empire is perpetually at war, and the soldier t,rets the blame, perhaps the aristocracy, shouki Mr. Bright be the speaker; but the real culprit is the trader. Our jealousy of Russia and our little wars all the world over have trade interests as their source if I 10 QUEBEC. and inspiration. In the seventeenth century, Canadian trade meant supplies to the Indians in exchange for peltries, and money spent on anythins; else seemed to the One Hundred Associates and their servants money thrown awaj-. Not so thought Champlain. I'ortunately, he was too indispensable a man to be recalled, though it was legitimate to opi)ose, to check, to thwart his projects whenever they did not jjromise direct returns to the Company. Champlain aimed at founding an empire, and every great empire must be based on farming. Therefore when, in 1617, he brougiu the erstwhile apothecary, Loui ; llebert, to Quebec, he did more for the colony than when he brought the Recollets and Jesuits to it. And let this be said with no depreciation of the labours of the gray robes and black robes. Hebert was the first who gave himself up to the task of cultivating the soil in New France, and the first head of a family resident in the country who lived on what he cultivated. His son-in-law Couillard walked in the same good path, tiie path first trodden by " the grand old gardener and his wife." No matter how soldiers, sailors, fur-traders and priests mitrht come and tro, the farmer's children held on to the land, ami their descendants hold it still. They increased and multiplied so mightily that there are few French families of any antiquity in Canada who cannot trace their genealogy by some link back to that of Louis Hebert. Hebert and Couillard Streets, streets (piainter and more expressive of the seventeenth century than any to be seen now in St. Malo, commemorate their names. One of their descendants informed the writer that those streets run where the first furrows were ploughed in Canada, prob- ably in the same way that some of the streets in Boston are said to meander along the paths made by the cows of the first inhabitants. Had others followed Hebert's example the colony would not have been so long suspended between life and death, and Cham- plain could have held out against the Huguenot Kerkts in 1629. But the Company, far from doing anything to encourage the few tillers of the ground, did everything to dis- courage them. All grain raised had to be sold at a price fixed by the Company, and the Company alone had the power of buying. Of course the Heberts and Couillards ought to have been grateful that there was a Company to buy, for what could farmers do without a market ? ^ , Of Champlain's labours it is unnecessary to speak at length. Twenty times he crossed the Atlantic to fight for his colony, though it was a greater undertaking to cross the Atlantic then than to go round the world now. He may be called the founder of Mon- treal as well as of Quebec. P'irst of Europeans he sailed up the Richelieu, giving to the beautiful river the name of the Company's great patron. He discovered Lake Cham- plain. He first ascended the Ottawa, crossed to Lake Nipissing, and came down by the valley of the Trent to what he called "the fresh water sea" of Ontario. He secured the alliance of all the Indian tribes — the confederacy of the Five Nations excepted — by treaties which lasted as long as the white flag floated over the castle of St. Louis, and QUE n EC. Il 3ssed the vlon- the lliam- the lured -by and which laid tJK; fouiuialion of tiie frieiidsliip that has existed between every Canadian jfovernment ami tiie old sons ami lords of the soil. D'Arcy Mc(iee, in one of those addresses that made learned and unlearned feel what is the potency and omnipotency of man's word on the souls of men, thus sketched his moral qualities and amazing versatility : — " He was brave almost to rashness. He would cast himself with a sini^le luiropean follower in the midst of savai^^c enemies, and more than once his life was endan- gered by the excess of his confidence and his courage. I le was eminently social in his habits — witness his or- der of /(• boH temps, in which ever)- man of his associates was for one day host to all his comrades. He was sanguine, as became an adven- turer ; and self-denying, as became a MOUNT.MN ini.L, I-'iuin tup nf Hreak-nei'k Stairs. licro. . . lie touciicd the extremes of human cxpi'ri- ence among diverse characters and nations. At oni' time he sketched ]>lans of cixilizeil aggrandizement for llcnr\ !\'. ami Kidiclieu; at another, h(! planned schemes of wild war- fare with Huron chiefs and .\lgon(|uin braves. He united in a most rare degree the faculties of action and rellcction. ami like all highly- reflecti\e minds, his thoughts, long cherisiied in secret, ran often into the mould of max- ims, some of which would form the fittest possible inscriptions to be engraven upon his monument. When the merchants of 13 QUEBEC. •\ '. ih:^ Quebec gnimblcd at the cost of fortifyinjj that place, he said, ' It is best not to obey the passions of men ; thcj an; but for a season ; it is our iliit) to regard the future.' With all his love of good-fellowship, he was, what seems to some inconsistent with it, sin- cerely and enthusiastically religious. Among his ma.xims are these two — that 'the salvation of one soul is of more value than the conquest of an empire;' and that 'kings ought not to think of extending their authority over idolatrous nations, except for the purpose of subjecting them to Jesus Christ.'" The one mistake made by Champlain has already been referred to. He attacked the Irotjuois, whereas he should have conciliateil tliem at any cost or remained neutral in all Indian wars. His mistake was not so much intellectual as moral. It was a crime ^nA—pacc Talleyrand — worse than a l)hmder. Hut it is not pleasant to refer to the errors of such a man. Well may Quebec commemorate his name and virtues. Let us not forget, when we walk along the quaint, narrow, crowded street that still bears his name, or clamber "Break-neck Stairs" from Little Champlain Street to reach Durham Terrace, where he built the Chateau of St. Louis and doubtless often gazed, with hope and pride in his eyes, on a scene like to which there are few on this earth, how much Canada owes to him ! Well for those who follow him where all may follow — in un- selfishness of purpose, in unflinching valour, and in continence of life. No monument points out his last resting-place, for, strange to say, " of all French governors interred within the enceinte, he is the only one of whose place of sepulture we are ignorant."* The registers of Quebec were destroyed in the great conflagration of 1640. Thus it happens that we have not the account of his burial. M. Dionne shows that in all probability the remains were first deposited in the chapel of Notre Dame de la Recouvrance ; then in a vault of masonry in the chapel built by his successor in the Governorship, whence they were removed by the authorities to the Basilica. Champlain needs no monument, least of all in Quebec. The city is his monument. Most religious Quebec was from the first under the influence of Champlain ; most religious is it in appearance to this day. There are churches enough for a city with five times the present population. Ecclesiastical establishments of one kind or another occupy the lion's share of the space within the walls. At every corner the soutaned ecclesiastic meets you, moving along quietly, with the confidence of one who knows that his foot is * " Etudes Historiques," par M. Ulo.VNE. PRESCOTT GATE. Now removed, piiarded the a|)[)ro;ich to the Upper Town by Mouiu.iin Hill, QUHliliC. n Inost five pupy istic )t is on his nativ(! lu-atli. It was tiic same with tlu- ritirs of France in the seventeenth cen- tury : but it is not so now. Things have changed there. The Revohition made the Old World New. In (Juel)ec the New World clings to the jrarments of the Old. Champlain first induced tlu' Recollet friars to come to his aid. The Jesuits, then at the heiifht of tiieir power in I'ranct;, followed. The Company disliked missionaries almost as much as it disliked farmers. "They tolerated the poor Riicollets," says I'erland, "hut they dreaded the cominj,r of the Jesuits, who hatl powerful protectors at Court and who could through them carry their complaints to the foot of the throne." Consecpiently, when the first detachment of J(,'suits arrived tiu;y found every door shut at^ainst them, ami if the Re- collets had not offered them hospitality they would have been obliged to return to France. Magnificent missionaries those first Jesuits were ; more devoted men never Lived. The names especially of Charhis Lallemanl and Jean de Brebeuf are still sacred to thousands of French-Canadian Roman Catholics. Two things the Jesuits felt the colony must have — a school for the instruction of girls, and a hospital for the sick. These institutions they desired for the saki: of the colonists, most of whom were poor, i)ut still more for the sake of the Indians. The h'athers hail left FVance to convert the Imlians; on that work their liearts were set, anil thi^y gave themselves to it with a wistlom as great as their self-sacrifice. Protestant missionaries, as a class, are only now learning to imitate tiieir methods of procedure, especially with regard to the establishment of hosi)itals and the acquisition of a p(;rfect knowleilge of the language and modes of thought of the people whose conversion they seek. What Livingstone did in South .\frica when he cur. him.self loose from all the; oilier missionaries who kept within reach of the comforts of the colony, and plunged into the thick of the native tribes beyond ; what the Canadian missionary iMackay tlid eight ) ears ago in I'Ormosa with such brilliant success, the Jesuits always did. Their lu'st task was to master the language. Crammatical knowledge, they knew, was not (Miough. They lived in the wigwams of the wretched, filthy no- mads, travelled with them, carrying the heaviest loads, ami submitted to cold and heat, to privations, ami the thousand al)()miiiations of savage life, without a murmur. They cared for the sick, and, (;.\p(xting little aid from the old, sought to educate the young. Charlevoix tells us how they succeeded in establishing in Quebec both the Hotel Dieu and the I'rsuline Con\ent. Madame la Duchesse D'Aiguillon, the niece of Richelieu, undertook to found the first. To carry out her pious project she applied to the hospital nuns of Dieppe. " These hol\- women accepted with joy the opportunity of sacrificing all that they counted dear in the world for the service of the sick poor of Canada ; all offered themselves, all asked with tears to be admitted to share in tlu' work." About the .same lime Madame de la Peltrie, a widow of a good family, resolved to found the Convent of the Ursu- lines. She devoted all her fortune to give a Christian education to the girls of the colonists and of the Indians, and followed up these sacrifices by devoting herself to the i4 ouiint^C. IN IHE tiAKUENS OF Tllh UKSULINE CONVENT. work. Younjj, rich, beauti- ful, siu; rcnounci'il all acl- vantagfs and prospects for what then must havt; Ixcn a worse than Siberian exile. At Tours, ainonij the Ursu- lini! nuns, she found Marie de r Incarnation, Xvho be- came the first Moth(;r Su- perior of the new convent, ;ind "Marie de St. Joseph, whom New France regards as one of its tutelary '.ngels." On the fourth of May, 1639, she embarked with three hospital nuns, three Ursulines, and Ptre X'imond, and on the first of July th(;y arrived at Quebec. The ien<,rth of the voyage, not to refer to its discomforts, r(,'minils us of the difference between cross- ing the Atlantic then and now. All Quebec rejoiced on their arrival. Work ceased, the shops were shut, and the town was cii fete. "The ("lovernor received the heroines on the river's bank at the head of his troops with a discharge of cannon, and after the first compliments he led them, amid the acclamations of the people, to church, where Te Deums were chanted as a thanksgiving." From that day till her death, IlL. QUIilUiC. n thirty-two years after, Madame de la I'eltric pave herself up to the work she had undertaken. Mere Marie de I' Incarnation, wiiose fervent piety and spirituality of character jjained her the name of the Ste. 'I'he'resa of New I'rancc, died a year after her. These two women lived in an atmosphere so diffcri'iu from ours, liiat it is extremely difficult for us to judge them. Both have been condemned, the one as an unnatural mother, the other as a disobedient daughter. They l)elieved they were sacrificing the claims of nature to the superior claim of tluir .Saviour. Certainly, their works have followed them. Thi; great Ursuline Convent of Quebec, to which hundreds of girls are sent to he educated from all i)arts of the continent, is their monument. The buildings have been repeatedly destroyed by fire, but have always been replaced by others more expensive and substantial, the community apparently delighting to testify its sense of the value of the work done by the devoted Sisters. Within their spacious grounds, in the heart of the city, are various buildings, one for boarders, among whom to lliis day are daughters of Indian chiefs; another for day scholars; a normal school; a school for the poor; a chapel and choir, and nuns' quarters; with gardens, play ami pleasure grounds for the youthful inmates, and summer and winter promenades — all eloquent with the memories of the pious founder, who had not disdained to toil in tlic garden with her own hand. To each generation of susceptible minds th(; lives of Mme cU- la Peltrie and Mere Marie are held up for imitation, and no honour is grudged to their memories. Not only religious, but charitable and moral, was Quebec untler the administration of Champlain and his successors. Ferland cites the registers of Notre Dame of Quebec to show that out of 664 children baptised between 1621 and 1661, only one was illegiti- mate. Still, the colony did not prosper; again and again it was on the point of extinc- tion at the hands of the Iroquois. The Company sat upon its agricultural and indus- trial development like the old man of the sea. In 1663 the population of New France consisted of only two thousand souls, scattered along a thin broken line from Tadoussac to Montreal. Of this small total Quebec claimed 800. .\t any moment a rude breath would have killed the colony, but now favouring gales came from Old France. Louis XIV. determined to suppress the Company, and bring Canada under his own direct authority. He constituted by direct appointment a Sovereign Council to sit in Quebec, immediately responsible to himself, the principal functionaries to be the Governor-Gene- ral, the Royal Intendant, and the Bishop, each to be a spy on the other two. The Governor-General believed himself to be the head of the colony ; he formed the apex of the governmental pyramid. But the Intendant, who was Chief A Justice, Police, Finance, and Marine, understood that the King looked to him, and that the colony was in his hands, to be made or marred. The Bishop, again, knew that both Governor- General and Intendant would have to dance according as he pulled the wires at Court. Talon, the first Intendant who arrived in Quebec, was the ablest who ever held the position. Talon was a statesman, a pupil of Colbert, and in some respects in advance i6 (juimnc. of his jfrcat master, lie iiij^jcd iinmij,rrati()H as a means of <'nsurin;j to France tin; |)os- session of the New World. Colbert, with the wisdom nf tlie seventeenth century, replitJil that it wouhl not he i)riKliiU to dt|)oi)iihite tin; kin^^iom. " S(!cure New York," 'rah)n urjfed, "and tiu; j^reat jjjame will he gained h)i I'rance." When that step was not taken he |)rojected a road to Acadie, — which it was left to our day, hy the construction of tlie Intercolonial Railway, to carry out, and thus lo j^ive to Canada indispensahle winter l)orts. lie i)ushed discovery in every direction, selectinjf his nun with marvellous saj,'acity. Under his direction, St. Simon and La Couture reached Hudson's Hay liy tlu; valley of the Saj^uienay ; I'ere Druilletes, the Atlantic seaboanl h)- the Chaudiere and the Ken- nebec; Perrot, the end of Lake Michij^an ami the entrance of .Superior; Joliet and Pere Marcpiette, the father of waters down to the Arkansas. In Talon's day Ouehec rose from bcin^r a fur-trading post into commercial importance. I le believed in the country he had been sent to j^'overn, and was of opinion that a wise national policy demanded the encourajjement in it of every possible variety of industrial development. 1 1 is mantle fell on none of his successors. Instead of fosterinj^ the industries Talon had inauj^nirated and ilefendin^ the commercial liberty which he had obtaiiUHl, ihey stilled industry and trade under restrictions and monopolies. Not that tin- Intendants were wholly to blame ; they were sent out on |)urpose to {govern tlu' colon)', not with a view to its own benelit, but with a view to the bciielit of Old France. Neither tlu; Kini,MU)r his minister could conceive that Canada wi\ys. is the most conspicuous building in Quebec. The .American tourist takes it for the chief hotel of the place, and congratulates himself that a child of the monster hotels he loves has found its way north of the line. When ht; finds that it is only a University, he visits it as a matter of course, looks at the library and museum, remarking casually on their inferiority to those in any ont; of the four hundred and odil Universities in the United States, and comes out in a few minutes, likely enough without having gone to th(,' roof to see one of the most glorious panoramas in the New World. Here lU- QUEBEC. 19 lost It he UL'f [he ty. Illy in [re Ar riii r.ATi; v,\< \.\\ \\. inivkksun he is, at Mio .i:[ate. Hlessinsj^s 011 his serene, kindly sense of superiority to all men or thintjs in heaven or on earth! lie has seen nothing that can compare for a moment with Slickville. iMi^lishincn, Frenchmen, Sisters, students, Canadian soldiers, civilians, are round about, l)ut he alone is r.ionarch of all he surveys. A strange sight arrests his attention. Young Canada, cap in hand, cap actually off his heatl, and 30 QUEBEC head reverently bowed while a priest speaks a kind word or perhaps gives his blessing ! This is something new, and he is too good an observer not to make a note of it, congratulating himself at the same time that he is willing to make allowances. Is it not his " specialty," as John Ruskin hath it, "his one gift to the race — to show men how 7iot to worship?" A Canadian may be pardoned for calling attention to the significance of the grant, by the British Government, of a Royal Charter to Laval University. The trust in an hierarchy that the people trust, illustrates the fundamental principle of its policy in Canada. No matter what the question, so long as it is not inconsistent with the Queen's supremacy, Canada is governed in accordance with the constitutionally expressed wishes of the people of each Province. The success which has attended the frank acceptance of this principle suggests the only possible solution of that Irish Question which still bafifles statesmen. What has worked like a charm here ought to work in another part of the Empire. Here, we have a million of people opposed in race, religion, character and historical associations to the majority of Canadians, a people whose forefathers fought England for a century and a half on the soil on which the children are now living ; — a Celtic people, massed together in one Province, a people proud, sensitive, submissive to their priests, and not very well educated ; — this people half a century ago badgered every Governor that Britain sent out, stopped the supplies, embarrassed authority, and at last broke out into open rebellion. Now, they are peaceable, contented, prosperous. They co-operate for all purposes of good govern- ment with the other Provinces, do no intentional injustice to the Protestant minority of their own Province, and are so heartily loyal to the central authority that it has become almost an unwritten law to select the Minister of War from their representatives in Parliament. Let him who runs read, and re^d, too, the answer of D'Arcy McGee to those who wondered that the young rebel in Ireland should be the mature ardent admirer of British government in Canada : "If in my day Ireland had been governed as Canada is now governed, I would have been as sound a constitutionalist as is to be found in Ireland." The best thing Louis XIV. did for Quebec was the sending to it of the regi- ment of Carignan-Salieres. A few companies of veterans, led by Canadian Llue-coats, penetrated by the Richelieu to the lairs of the Iroquois, and struck such terror into them that the colony was thenceforth allowed to breathe and to grow. Still better, when the regiment was disbanded, most of the soldiers remained, and many of the picturesque towns and villages that have grown up along the Richelieu and St. Lawrence owe their names to the officers, to whom large seignorial rights were given by the King on condition of their settling in the colony. From these veterans sprang a race as adventurous and intrepid as ever lived. Their exploits as salt-water and fresh-water sailors, as cotiretirs dc hois, discoverers, soldiers regular and QUElUiC. 21 I'll >■■ )r IS Is irregular, fill many a page of old Canadian history. Whether with the gallant brothers Le Moyne, defending Quebec against Sir William Phipps, or striking terror into New York and New England by swift forays such as Hertel dc Rouville led ; or with Du Lhut and Durantaye, breaking loose from the strait -jacket in which Royal In- tendants imprisoned the colony, and abandoning themselves to the savage freedom of western fort and forest life ; or under D'Iberville, most celebrated of the seven sons of Charles Le Moyne, sweeping the English flag from Newfoundland and Hudson's Bay or colonizing Louisiana ; or with Jumonville and his brother on the Ohio, de- feating Washington and Braddock ; or vainly conquering at l-'ort William Henry and Carillon and Montmorency and Ste. Foye, — the picture is always full of life and colour. VVniatever else may fail, valour and devotion to the King never fail. We find the dare-devil courage joined with the gaiety of heart and ready accommodation to cir- cumstances that make the Frenchman popular, alike with friendly savages and civil- ized foemen, in all parts of the world. Canadian e.xperiences developed in the old French stock new (jualitics, good and bad, the good predominating. Versed in all kinds of woodcraft, handling an axe as a modern tourist handles a tooth-pick, managing a canoe like Indians, inured to the climate, supplying themselves on the march with food from forest or river and cooking it in the most approved style, fearing neither frost nor ice, depth of snow nor depth of muskeg, independent of roads, — such men needed only a leader who understood them to go anywhere into the untrodden depths of the New World, and to do anything that man could do. Such a leader they found in Louis de Buade, Compte de Palleau et de I-'rontenac. Buade Street recalls his name, and there is little else in the old city that does, though Quebec iuved him well in iiis day. Talon had done all that man could do to develop the inf \t colony by means of a national policy that stimulated industry, and an immi- gration policy, wise and vigorous enough, as far as his appeals to the King and Colbert went, for the nineteenth century. Another man was needed to enable the thin line of colonists to make head against the formidable Irocpiois, backed as they were by th(; Dutch and Ivnglish of New York, and against the citizen sailors and soldiers of New England; to direct their energies to the Great West; to make them feel that the power of I'rance was with them, no matter how far they wandered from Quebec; and to inspire them with the thought that the whole unbounded con- tinent was theirs by right. Such a man was I-'rontenac. Of his quarrels with intendants and clergy it would be a waste of time to speak. To defend him from the accusations made against his honour is unnecessary. How could quarrels be avoided where three ofificials lived, each having some reason to believe, in accordance with the profound state-craft of the Old Regime, that he was the supreme ruler! Frontenac was titular head, ami he would l)e the real head. Neither bishops nor intendants should rule in his day, and they ditl not, and could not. They could worry him and even secure 2i QUEBEC. I ' I his recall, but they could not (govern the colony when they got the chance. Frontenac had to Ik; sent back to his post, and the universal joy with which the people re- ceived him showed that, as usual, the people overlook irritabilities and shortcom- ings, and discern the man. " He would have been a great prince if heaven had placed him on a throne," says Charlevoix. The good Jesuit forgets that Fron- tenac was the only man who sought to ascertain by ancient legitimate methods the views of all classes of the people, and that as Quebec was shut out from communication with the throne for half the year, the Governor had to act as a king or to see the country without a head. Tronte- nac understood --^^ the great game tliat was being phiyed for the sovereignty of this continent. He had almost boundless inllu- ence ovtr the Indians, because he appreciated them, and in his RUA[>K STRFiET. Named a^'or i'"rontenac. heart of hearts was one of themselves. No one understood so well ^\' what Indians were fitted to do in the wild warfare that the situation demanded. At the time of his death all signs betokened that France was to dominate the New World. The treaties Champlain had made with the Indians held good. The tribes farther west had allied our.nRC. n themselves with the French. At every stratcLjic point the white ila^ with the Jlcurs dc lis lloated over a rude fort. The St. Lawrence was linked by lines of military communi- cation with the Gulf of Mexico. Quebec had i)rouil- ly built the church of Notre IXamc di; la \'ictoire to commemorate the defeat of New lingland, antl the power of the terrible Iroquois hail been so broken that they could no Ioniser threaten the existence of the colony. In spite of Frontenac, it was not to be as the signs indicated. In spite of Montcalm's victories it was not to be. History was again to prove that in a contest between peace and war, between steady industry and dashing forays, between the farmer and the "^ , soldier, the former is sure to win in the long run. The HEIGHTS OK ABRAHAM corruptions of the Court of F-ance had to do with the issue remotely. Bigot and his vile cittouras^c had to do with it immediately. But by no possibility could sixty thousand poor, uneducated Canadians continue to resist the ever-increasing weight of twenty or thirfv times their number of thrifty, intelligent neighbours. Wolfe might have been defeated on the Plains of Abraham. When we think of Mont- calm's military genius, the victories gained by him against heavy odds in previous campaigns, and his defeat of Wolfe's grenadiers a few weeks ^^ before the final struggle, our wonder indeed is that the British were not hurled over those steep clifTs they had so painfully clambered up on that memorable 24 QUEJiEC. I! li early Septernber mornin^^. Scotchmen attributed the result to those men " in the garb of old Gaul, with the tire of old Rome," whom the British Government had been wise enough to organize into regiments out of the clans who a few years befort; had marched victoriously from their own northern glens into the heart of ling- land. And Wolfe, had he lived, woukl probably have agreed with them. I'Or, when he told the grenadiers, after their defeat, that, if they had supposed that they alone could beat the French army, he hoped they had found out their mistake, his tone indicated a boundless confidence in his Highlanders more flattering than any eulogy. Hut the most crowning victory for Montcalm would only have delayed the inevitable. Other armies were converging towards Quebec. Ami beiiind the armies was a population, already counting it.self by millions, determined on the destruction of that nest on the northern rock whence hornets were ever issuing to sting and madden. No one understood the actual state of affairs better than Montcalm. lie knew that France had practically abandoned Canada, and left him to make the best fight he could for his own honour against hopeless odds. Hence that precipitate attack on Wolfe, for which he has been censured. He knew that every hour's delay would increase Wolfe's relative strength. Hence, too, that abandonment of the whole cause, after the battle, for which he has been censured still more severely. " I will neither give orders nor interfere an)' fiu'ther," he exclaimed with emotion, when urged to issue instructions about the defence of the city. He had done all that man could do. He had sealed his loyalt\ with his blood. And now, seeing that the stars in their courses were fighting against the cause he had so gallantly upheld, and that the issue was pre-determined, he would take no more responsibility. He knew, too, that iiis best avengers would be found in the ranks of his enemies ; that Britain in crushing French power in its seat of strength in America, was overreaching herself, and pre- paring a loss out of all proportion to the present gain. He appreciated the " Bostonnais ;" predicting that they would never submit to an island thousanils of miles away when they controlled the continent, whereas they would have remained loyal if a hostile power held the St. Lawrence and the Lakes. Was he not right ? And had not Pitt and Wolfe, then, as much to do with bringing about the separation of the Thirteen States from the mother country, as I'ranklin and Washington ? The story of the campaigns of 1 759-60 need not be told here. FLvery incident is familiar to the traditional school-boy. Every tourist is sure to visit Wolfe's Cove for himself, and to ascend the heights called after the old .Scottish pilot " Abraham" Martin. No sign of war now. Rafts of timJjer in the Cove, and ships from all waters to carry it away, instead of boats crowded with rugged Highlanders silent as the grave. No trouble apprehended by any one, except from stevedores whose right it is to dictate terms to commerce and occasionally to throw the city into a state of siege. No precipice now, the face of which must be scaled on hands and knees. A pleasant I i QUKIiHC. 25 road leads to the Plains, and you and your party can drive leisurely up. There, before you, across the common, is the modest column that tells where Wolfe- "died victorious." Between it and the Citadel are Martcllo towers, dij^j^in*.; near one of which some years ago, skeletons were found, and military buttons and buckles, the dreary pledges, held by battle-tiekls, of human valour and tk;votion and all the jjomp and circumstance of war. Vou must drive into the city to see the monument that commemorates the joint glory of Montcalm and Wolfe ; and out again, to see the third monument, sacred to the memory of the braves who, under the skilful De Levis, uselessly avenged at Ste. Foye the defeat of Montcalm. The red cros^ tlag floated over the Chateau of St. Louis, and New England gave i)\KKI.()UKl.N(i SI. CUAKI.KS VAl.l.l.V. thanks. I-'ifteen )ears passed away, and Montcalm's prediction was fulfilled. The "Bostonnais" were in revolt. Wise with the teaching of more than a century, they at the outset determined to secure the St. Lawrence; and they would have succeeded, iiad it not Iieen for the same strong rock of Quebec wiiich had foiled them so often in thi' old colonial days. yXrnold advanced through the roadless wilderness of Maine, defying swamps, forests, and innumerable i)rivations as hardily as ever did the old Canadian noblesse when they raided the villages and forts of Maine. Montgomery swept tile liritish garrisons from the Richelieu and Montreal, and joined Arnold at the appointed rendezvous. Their success must have astonished themselves. The explanation is that the colony had no garrisons to speak of, and that the I'Vench Canadians felt that the quarrel was none of their making. In a month all Canada — Quebec excepted — had bec-n gained for Congress ; and there was no garrison in Quebec capable of resisting the combined forces that Arnold and Montgomery led. But Guy Carleton reached Quebec, and another proof was given to the woritl that one man may be equal to a garrison. In a few days he had breathed his own spirit into the militia, 1 I 26 QUE/i/-C » OVKKI.OOKING NOKril tllANNI.I., Kroni ("iranci Battery ami I,a\al University. native Canadians as well a.. British born. The invaders established themselves in the Intendant's Palace and other houses '— near the walls, and after a month's siege made a resolute attempt to take the city by storm. Whatever may have been the re?.ult of a more precipitate attack, the delay unquestionably afforded greater advantages QUEliliC. i-j i to ihe busicMcd lli;in to the besiegers. MoiU- jfomcry set out from Wolfe's Cove aiul crept alonj^f tile narrow pathway now known as Cham- plain Street. Arnold advanced from the oppo- site direction. llis inteiuicjn was to force his way round hy what is now .St. Roch's suburbs, below the ram[)arts, and untler the cliff at present crowncil by Laval University and the Grand Battery, and to meet Montgomery at the foot of Mountain Hill, when their united forces would endeavour to gain the upper town. Not the first fraction of the plan, on the one side or the other, succeeded. Arnokl's men were surrounded and captureil. Montgomery, marching in tiu; gray dawn through a heavy snow - storm, came upon a battery .^%'y" that blocked up the :'-^''!ij|t| narrow pathway. He rushed fonvard, iioping to take it i)y surprise ; but the gunners were on the alert, antl the first discharge swept him and the head of his column, maimed or deati, into tiie deep white snow or over the bank. The snow continued to fall, fUiietly effacing al WOI.IKS MO.M'.MK.VT. M.VKIKI.I.U lOWKR. On the Plains of Abraham. signs of the conflict. A few hours after, Montgomery's body was found lying in the snow, stark and stifT, and was carried to a small log-house in .St. Louis Street. No more gallant soldier fell in the Revolutionary War. Nothing now could be done even by the daring Arnold, though he lingered till spring. One whiff of grape-shot had decided that Congress must needs leave its ancient foe to itself, I 28 QUF.imC. to work out its destinies in connection with that Uritish Empire which it had so long defied. That decision has ruled events ever since. From that day to this, constitutional (juestions have occupied the attention of the Canadian peoph;, instead of military ambition and the game of war. No such questions could emerge under the Old Regime. Consti- tutional development was then impossible. The fundamental principle of the Old Regime was that the spiritual and the civil powers ruled all subjects by Divine right, and therefore that the first and last duty of govern- ment was to train the people under a long line of absolute functionaries, re- ligious and civil, to obey the powers tiiat be. A demand for representative institutions could hardly be e.xpected to come in those circumstances from the French Canadians. Their ambition e.xtended no further than the hope that they might be governed economically, on a hard-money basis, and according to their own traditions. Their relation to the land, their disposition, habits and training, their unquenchable Celtic love for their language, laws and re- ligion, made them eminently conserva- tive. From the day the British flag floated over their heads, they came into the possession of rights and privileges of which their . fathers had never dreamed. The contrast between their condition under Great Britain with what it had been under France, could not be described more forcibly than it was by Papineau in the year 1820 on the hustings of Montreal: — "Then — under France — trade was monopolised by privileged Companies, public and private property often pillaged, and the inhabitants dragged year after year from their homes and families to shed their blood, from the shores of the Great Lakes, from the banks of the Mississippi and the Ohio, to Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, and Hudson's Bay. Now, religious toleration, trial by jury, the act of Habeas Corpus, afford legal and equal security to all, and we need submit to no other laws but those of our own making. All these advantages have become our birthright, and shall, I hope, be the lasting inheritance of our posterity." But a disturbing element had gradually worked its way among the habitans, in the form of merchants, officials, and other British residents in the cities, and United Empire Loyalists from the States, and disbanded soldiers, to whom grants of land had been made in various parts of the Province, and especially in the eastern townships. From this minority HOUSE TU WHICH M0.MG0M1:KV'S HOI3V WAS CARRIKU. QUHIiHC. «d came the first cit id for k liberty. Thes )f British anteccilenls filt that lemaiK they coultl not and would not tolerate military sway or civii aosoiimsm. i ney nemanaea, and they taiij^ht the (lallo-Canatlians to demand, ihc rij^dils of frt;(; men. At the same time, immijrration hej^aii to llow into that western jnirt of Canada, now called the I'rovince of Ontario. It could easily be foreseen that this western part would continue to receive a population essentially different from that of Eastern or Lower Canada, A wise statesmanship resolved to allow the Eastern and Western sections to develop accordin^r to their own sentiments, and to j^ive to all Canada a constitution modelled, as far as the circumstances of the age and country permitted, on the British Constitution. To s(!cure these objects, Mr. Pitt passed the Act of 1791 — an Act that well deserves the name, subsequently given to it, of the first " Magna Charta of Canadian freedom." The bill divided the ancient " Province of Quebec" into two distinct colonies, under th(! names of Upper and Lower Canada, each section to have a separate elective Assembly. I'ox strenuously opposed the division of Canada. "It would be wiser," he said, "to unite still more closely the two races than separate them." Burke lent the weight of political philosophy to the practical statesmanship of Pitt. " Lor us to attempt to amalgamate two populations composed of races of men diverse in language, laws and habitudes, is a complete absurdity," he warmly argued. Pitt's policy combined all that was valuable in the arguments of both I'ox and Burke. It was designed to accomplisli all that is now accomplished, according to the spirit as well as the forms of the British Constitution, by that federal system under wiiich we are happily living. In order to make the Act of 1 791 successful, only fair play was required, or a disposition on tin; part of the leaders of the people to accept it loyally. All constitutions require that as the condition of success. Under Pitt's Act the bounds of freedom could have been widened gradually and peacefully. But it did not get fair play in Lower Canada, from either tlie repre- sentatives of the minority or of the majority of the people. The minority had clamoured for representative institutions. They got them, and then made the discovery that the gift implied the government of the country, not according to their wishes, but according TO the wishes of the great body of the people. Naturally enough, they then fell back on the Legislative Council, holding that it should be composed of men of British race only or their sympathisers, and that the Executive should be guided not by the representative Chamber, but by the Divinely-appointed Council. On the other hand, the representatives of the majority soon awoke to understand the power of the weapon that had been put into their hands. When they did understand, there was no end to their delight in the use of the weapon. A boy is ready to use his first jack-knife or hatchet on anything and everything. So they acted, as If their new weapon could not be used too much. As with their countrymen in Old France, their logical powers interfered with their success in the practical work of government. They were slow to learn that life is broader than logic, and that, free institutions are possible only by the ! .^o Quniiiic. practice of mutual forbcaranci' towards each other of tlic (lirfcrciu hothes amonj,' whom the supreme power is tlistributed. Still, tin- measure of constitutional freedom that IkuI been ji^enerously bestowed had its lejritimate effect on the l'"ri;nch-Canadians. They learneil to appeal ti> British precedents, and a love of British institutions be^an to take possession of their minds. Nothinjj demonstrates this more satisfactorily than the con- trast between their inaction durinj^ 1775-6, and their united anil hearty action ilurinj; the war of 1S12-15. That war, which may be regarded as an episode in the constitu history we are sketchinjj, teaches to all wi^o are willing,' to be tauj^ht several impo nt lessons. It showed that French-Canadians had not forj^otten how to fi^jht, and that ac- cording as they were trusted so would they fight. No better illustration can be given than Ch;lteauguay, where Colonel de Salab'-rry with 300 Canadian militiamen and a few Highland s victoriously drove back an army 700c: strong. The Canadians everywhere Hew to arms, in a (piarrel, too, with the bringing on of which they had nothing to do. The Governor sent the regular troops to the frontiers, ami confided the guardianship of Quebec to the city militia, while men like Bedard who iiad been accused of "treason," because they understood the spirit of the Constitution better than their accusers, were appointed olihcers. Successive campaigns proved, not only that Canada was unconquer- able — even against a people then forty tinus as numerous — becau.se of the spirit of '•'s people, its glorious winters, and northern fastnesses, but also because an uiij)ro\ war upon Canatla will never command the united support of tlu- people of the .Slui. . When the war was declared in 1812, several of the New England States refused their quotas of militi.'i. The Legislature of Maryland declared that they had acted constitutionally in refusing. .And all over New England secession was seriously threatened. What happened then would occur again, under other forms, if an effort were made to conquer four or five millions of Canadians, in order to make them citizens of free States. Should either political party propose it, that party would seal its own ruin. A great Christian people will struggle unitedly and religiously to free millions, never to subdue millions. Should momentary madness drive them to attempt the commission of the crime, the consequence would more likely be the disruption of the Republic than the concjuest of Canada. So much the episode of 181 2-1 5 teaches, read in the light of the present day. When the war was over, the struggles for constitutional development were resumed. Complicated in Lower Canada by misunderstandings of race, they broke out in "the troubles" or sputterings of rebellion of 1837-38. The forcible reunion of the two Canadas in 1840 was a temporary measure, necessitated probably by those troubles. It led to friction, irritations, a necessity for double majorities, and perpetual deadlocks. Did not Pitt in 1791 foresee these as the sure results in the long run of any such union, beautiful in its simplicity though it appears to doctrinaires? The confederation of British- America in 1867 put an end to the paralysis, by the adoption of the federal principle, qui: n EC. 31 ami tin- ordaiiud extension ol Canatia lu its natural Ijomularies ol three oceans on tliree sides and the watershed of tl)c American continent on the fourth. I'ull self-government having now Ij0»;n attained, our position is no longer colonial. What, then, is our destiny to be? What :ver God wills. Ihe only points dear as sunlight to us as a people are, that Canada is free, and that we dare not hriiak up the unity of the grandest i^mpire the world has ever known. Annexation has been advocated, but no one has proved that such a change would be, even commercially, to our advantage. We would get closer to lilty and be removed farther from two himdrcd millions. Politically, Canada would cease to exist. She wouKl starve merely as a make-weight to the Republican or Democratic party. The b'rench-Canatlian element, so great a factor actually and potentially in our national life, would beconn: a nullity. We would surrender all hopes of a distinctive future. Strangers would rule over us; for we are too weak to resist the alien forces, and too strong to Ix; readily assimilated. Our neighbours are a great people. .So are tin- b'rench and the (iermans. Hal llciginm dois not pray to be absorbed into !•" ranee, and Holland would not consent to be annexed lo (lermany. Looking at the (juestion in the light of the past and with foresight of the future, and from the point of view of all the higher considerations that sway uicn, we say, in the emphatic language of .Scripture, " It is a shame even to speak " of such a thing. Wv. would repent It only once, and that would be forever. Their ways are not our ways ; their thoughts 'raditions, history, are not our thoughts, traditions, history. The occa- sional cry for Iinlcpendence is more honourable; but, to break our national continuity in cold blood, to cut ourselves loose from the capital and centre of our strength ! to gain — what? A thousand [jossibilities of danger, and not an atom of adde'd strength. What, then, are we to do? "Things cannot remain as they are," we are told. Who says that they can? They have been changing every decade. The future will bring changes with it, and wisdom too, let us hope, such as our fathers had, to enable us to do our duty in the premises, in the meantime, we have enough to do. We have to simplify the machinery of our government, to make it less absurdly expensive, and to disembarrass it of patronage. We have to init an emphatic stop to the increase of the public debt. We have to reclaim half a continent, and throw doors wide open that millions may enter in. We have to grow wi.ser and better. We have to guard our own heads while we seek to do our duty to our day and generation. Is not that work enough for the next half century? No one is likely to interferi- with us, but we are not thereby absolved from the responsibility of keeijing up the defences of Halifax and Ouebec, and fortifying Montreal by a cincture of detached forts. These cities safe, Canada might be invaded, but could not be held. But what neetl of defence, when we are assured that "our best defence is no defence." Go to the mayors of our cities and bid them dismiss the police. Tell l)ankers not to keep revolvers, and householders to poison their watch -dogs. At one stroke we save what we are expending on all the old- I ; 32 QUEBEC. fashioned arrangements of the Dark Ages. It has been discovered that the "best defence is no defence ! " It does not become grown men to dream dreams in broati daylight. Wise men regard facts. Here is the Admiral's shi|), tiie shapely "Northampton," in the harbour of THK CITAUKI,. I-"r{iin n. M. S. "Northampton." Quebec. Come on board, d from the quarter-deck take a view of the grand old storied rock. Whose money built that vast Citaelel that crowns its strength ? Who gave us those mighty batteries on the Levis heights opposite? What enemy on this planet could take Quebec as long as the "Northampton" pledges to us the command of the sea? And for 'answer, a charmer says, you would be far stronger, without the forts and without the " Northampton !" f=» Quebec: PICTURESUUE AND DESCRIPTIVE. VIEW I'RdM TKi: OI.I) MANOR HOUSE Al' Hi;ALl'OKr. QUEBEC — the spot where the most n'fiiied ci\ ihzation of the Old World first touched the hartiaric wildness of the New — is also the spot where the largest share of the pictures(jiic and romantic element has ^fathered round the outlines of a j^rrand though rugged nature. It would seem as if those early heroes, the flower of I'Vance's chivalry, 34 QUEBEC. who conquered a new country from a savage climate and a savage race, had impressed the features of their nationaHty on this rock fortress forever. May Quebec always retain its French idiosyncrasy ! The shades of its brave founders claim this as their right. From Champlain and Laval down to I)e L^vis and Montcalm, they deserve this monument to their elYorts to build up and preserve a "New France" in this western world ; and Wolfe for one would not have grudged that the memory of his gallant foe should here be closely entwined with his own. All who know the value of the mingling of diverse elements in enriching national life, will rejoice in the preservation among us of a distinctly French element, blending harmoniously in our Canadian nationality. "Saxon and Celt and Norman are we;" and we may well be proud of having within our borders a " New France " as well as a " Greater Britain." Imagination could hardly have devised a nobler portal to the Dominion than the mile-wide strait, on one side of which rise the green heights of L^vis, and on the other the bold, abrupt outlines of Cape Diamond. To the traveller from the Old World who first drops anchor under those dark rocks and frowning ramparts, the coup d'asil must pre- sent an impressive frontispiece to the unread volume. The outlines of the rocky rampart and its crowning fortress, as seen from a distance, recall both Stirling and Ehrenbreitstein, while its aspect as viewed from the foot of the time-worn, steep-roofed old houses that skirt the height, carries at least a suggestion of Edinburgh Castle from the Grassmarket. To the home-bred Canadian, coming from the flat regions of Central Canada by the train that skirts the southern shore and suddenly finds its way along the abrupt, wooded heights that end in Point L^vis, with quaint steep-gabled and balconied French houses climbing the rocky ledges to the right, and affording to curious passengers, through open doors and windows, many a naive glimpse of the simple domestic life of the /lahihnis, the first sight of Quebec from the terminus or the ferry station is a revelation. It is the realization of dim, hovering visions conjured up by the literature of other lands more rich in the picturesque element born of antiquity and historical association. On our Republican neighbours, the effect produced is the same. Quebec has no more enthusiastic admirers than its hosts of American visitors ; and no writers have more vividly and appreciatively described its peculiar charm than Parkman and Howells. Looking at Quebec first from the opposite heights of Levis, and then ])assing slowly across from shore to shore, the striking features of the city and its sur- roundings come gradually into view, in a manner doubly enchanting if it hapjjcns to be a soft, misty summer morning. At first, the dim, huge mass of the rock and Citadel, — seemingly one grand fortification, — absorbs the attention. Then the details come out, one after another. The firm lines of rampart and bastion, the r i » / QUEBEC: PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE. 35 r shelvincf outlines of the rock, Dufferin Terrace with its hght pavihons, the slope of Mountain Hill, the Grand Battery, the con- spicuous pile of Laval University, the dark serried mass of houses clustering along the foot of the rocks and rising gradually up the gentler incline into which these fall awa\-, the busy quays, the large passenger boats steaming in and out from their wharves, all impress the stranger with the most distinctive aspects of Quebec before he lands. As soon as he has landed, he is impressed by other features of its ancient and foreign aspect. The narrow, crooked lanes that do duty for streets, the grimy, weather- beaten walls and narrow windows on either side, the steep-roofed antique French houses, the cork-screw ascent towards I 36 QUEBEC. the upper town, the rugged pavement over which the wheels of the caUchc noisily rattle, recall the peculiarities of an old French town. And before Prescott Gate was sacrificed to modern utilitarian demands, the effect was intensified by the novel sen- sation — in America — of entering a walled town through a real gate, frowning down as from a fnediseval story. The short, crooked streets of Quebec, diverging at all kinds of angles, make it as difficult to find one's way as in Venice or old Boston. It has grown, like old towns, instead of being laid out like new ones, and its peculiarities of growth have been differentiated to a remarkable degree by the exigencies of its site and fortifications. The "lie" of the place can be best explained by saying that the walls embrace a rudely-drawn section of an ellipse, the straight side of which divides the city from the comparatively level ground of the country in rear (towards the north-west), while the Citadel occupies the western corner of the curve which follows the edge of the precipice abutting on the St. Lawrence, turning an abrupt corner round the Seminary Gardens, and following the line of the high ground till it descends to the valley of the St. Charles. It was on tliis side of the natural fortress, to which Quebec owes its antiquity and its pre-eminence as a capital, that the life of the Old World left its first trace on the history of the Canadian wilderness. For here, a little way up the river, Jacques Cartier anchored his ships, which had so astounded the unsophisticated savages as they came, like things of life, sailing up the river. Here, too, he and his men spent the long, bitter winter, waiting wearily for the slowly -coming spring which so many of them never .saw. But there are pleasanter associations with the side of Quebec which the visitor usually sees first. As we walk or drive up Mountain Hill by the winding ascent which originally existed as a rough gully, the associations are all of Champlain, the Chevalier Bayard of the French regime and the founder of Quebec. One cannot but wonder whether there rose before his inner vision a picture of the city which he may have hoped would grow from the oak and walnut-shaded plateau by the river, and up the sides of the rugged hill that now bears its mass of ancient buildings, climbing to the zig-zagged walls and bastions that crown the highest point of what was then a bare beetling rock. As he watched the stately trees falling under the strokes of his sturdy axe-men — where dingy warehouses and high tenements are now densely massed together under the cliff — he may have dreamed of a second Rouen, the queenly capital of a " New I-Vance," giving laws to a territory as illimitable as the wilderness of hill and forest that stretched away on every side beyond the range of eye and imagination. But before ascending Mountain Hill, let us turn aside into the little Notre Dame Place, where stands a small quaint church with high-peaked roof and antique belfry, one of the oldest buildings in Quebec, for its walls date i)ack at least before 1690 when the f6te of Notre Dame des Victoires was established to commemorate the defeat of Sir William I i QUEBEC: PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE. %1 Phipps. It was close to this spot that Champlain built his first fort and warehouse for stores and peltries. A little farther to the left — where the Champlain Market, built out of the stones of the old Parliament buildings, presents on market days a busy and picturesque tableau — stood the first " Abitation de Quebecq," perpetuated for us by Champlain's inartistic pencil, with its three tall, narrow wooden houses set close together, its store-house and dove-cote, its loop-holed gallery running round the second storey, its moat and surrounding wall. Just above frowned the dark-brown rock; the blue waters of the St. Lawrence almost washed its outer wall ; while the gardens which Champlain delighted to lay out and plant with roses, lay on three sides, to grace the wilderness abode. Now there are no gardens and no roses, — only a busy market-place that blooms out periodically, to be sure, with flowers and fruit ; masses of buildings, narrow streets and crowded docks, where the tides of the St. Lawrence washed the shingly beach ; huge piles of wharv "s driving the river still farther to bay ; loaded wains carrying the produce of the Old World from the great ocean vessels or the produce of the New World to them ; light French cah'c/ics dashing by the primitive carts of the market-folk, their drivers exchanging gay badinage as they pass ; grave, long-robed priests, or jaunty French clerks or lads in the Seminary uniform hurrying to and fro and replying in French if you ask them a question in English ; — all the busy life of a complex civilization, combined with an air of anticjuity which makes it difficult to realize that even three centuries ago the scene was one unbroken wilderness. Pursuing Champlain Street a liitle farther, the lower town presents not a few characteristic studies. A quaint old street — " Sous Le Cap " — lies so close under the precipice surmounted by the Grand Battery and Laval University that no casual passer- by would think of penetrating its obscurity. Its dilapidated old houses, with their backs to the cliff, are braced against their opposite neighbours by cross-beams of timber to keep them upright, and even the narrow French carts can with difficulty pass through what looks more like a Scottish wynd than a Canadian street; while the old red- capped liahitant who sits calmly smoking at his door might have stepped out of a French picture. If we pass down to the docks, we may see ocean vessels preparing for departure, perhaps, out in the stream, a timber ship loading her cargo, — the piles of fragrant wood suggesting the distant forests where, in the clear, sharp winter days the men from the lumber camp were busy hewing down and squaring the giant pines, the growth of cen- turies of summers. But it is time for us to retrace our steps from this region of shipping and docks and piers, of warehouses and offices, stretching along the ledge underneath the Citadel. We may follow back Champlain Street into Little Champlain Street, and pass on to the foot of Break-neck Steps, a shorter and more direct route than the circui- tous one of Mountain Hill, though' there . is a still easier mode of ascent provided 38 QUEBEC. in the new elevator, which transports you to the te race above without any exertion. On a market day, the steps are alive with the ji^ood folks of the upper town going down to market or to business ; and the busy scene below — the crowd of people sous LE CAP, and conveyances in the market- _"5"!?: - -L—---^ — -s""^ place, with the old houses built -«t^ close against the cliff, the background of steamboats and shipping, and the terrace with its light, graceful pagodas against the sky above — affords one of the many bits of contrast in which Quebec abounds. A few minutes bring us to the top of the stairs and out on what was old Durham Terrace, which, extended at the suggestion of Lord Dufferin to the foot of the QUEBEC : PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE. 39 glacis of the Citadel, has ap- propriately taken its present name and, supplied with light pavilions at the points commanding the most strik- ing views, now bears the name of the popular Gov- ernor who so warmly ap- preciated the old city. It affords one of the noblest promenades that a city could possess, from the mag- nificent view it commands ; while the old portion which, as Durham Terrace, perpetu- ated tiic name of one of the ablest British Governors of Canada, is also the centre of the most romantic and heroic memories that cluster round Quebec. For, close by, in the time of Chaniplain, was built the rude stockaded fort, within which he and his men were fain to take refuge from th i incur- sions of the fierce Iroquois; while here, also, rose the old Chateau St. Louis which, for two centuries, under the Flcur dc Lis or the Union Jack, was the centre of Canadian govern- ment and the heart and core of Canadian defence against Iroquois, British or .American assailants. The Chateau of .St. Louis — burned down at last, its stones helping to build this broad terrace — might fur- nish material for half a dozen LOOKING LI' 1 RDM I ill:; WIlAKVliS. 40 QUEnEC. QUEBEC. riCTURESQUH AND DESCRirTllE. 4» H 12 D D romances. Lonkinj^ across from the busy mass of swarming life below, and the Hitting steamers and stately ships with which the river is studded, you see, first, the picturesque heights of Levis, on which rise, tier after tier — from the busy town of South Quebec and the Grand Trunk buildings, a town in themselves, — village after village, glittering church spires, massive conventual buildings gleaming out of embosoming foliage, till the eye follows the curve of the height down again to the river. Thence it follows still the line of the lower hills that bound the receding shores of the widening expanse — the bold outline, looming perhaps, through one of the frequent sea- mists, of the richly-wooded, hamlet -sprinkled Isle of / CUSTOM HOUSE Orleans, — the old He de Bacchus, — then northward, across the soft gray expanse of river, with its white sails or dark steam-craft, to the hither shore, with the light mist of Montmorency on the distant woods, and the grand outlines of the Laurcntian Hills that here first meet the river whose name they bear ; while nearer still, the Grecian front and dome of the Custom House, the mass of Laval University and the towers and steeples of the upper town fill in a varied foreground. To the right, the terrace stretches away in a promenade, till it is cut short by the steep slope of the Citadel crowned by rampart and bastion, while behind lie the shady walks of the Governor's Garden, surrounding the pillar dedicated to the joint memory of Wolfe and Montcalm. It is a view to which no artist's ])encil could do justice, since no picture could give it in its completeness, and it would take many to 4a QUEBEC. fully illustrate its ever-varyinjj aspect from sunrise to sunset, or when the moonlij;ht enfolds it in a serener and more solemn beauty. One mijfht dream away a summer day or a summer night on Dufferin Terrace; but the present claims attention as well as the past. I'assinj; to the rear, you can wander through the shady walks of the Governor's (iarden or sit on the iron seats near the " King," and call up before the imagination the stirring, martial scenes so often enacted on tiie (iraudc Place before the chateau. There the rem- nant of the unfortunate Hurons pitched their tents after the butchery of thousands of their number by the Iroquois on the Isle of Orleans, and there they were allowed to build a small fort. Thither, too, came a deputation of forty Iroquois, tattooed and naked, vociferating an appeal for peace to the Onontliio or Governor, in the summer of 1666, when the gallant regiment of Carignan-Salieres had at last succeeded in instilling fear into their savage breasts. Here, also, many a French Governor, as the represent- ative of I lis Most Catholic Majesty, surrounded by a bewigged and plumed retinue, received with due circumstance the keys of the Castle of St. Louis. Hut it is time that we ascended to the Citadel, at which we have been so long looking from below. A flight of steps takes us up from the western end of Dufferin Terrace to the glacis. Here we again stop to look down. It is the view from the terrace, expanded in every direction. At our feet lies the busy panorama of river and docks ; the Grand Trunk ferry-boat, like a tiny battcaii, is stealing across the river in a wide curve, to avoid the pressure of the tide. On the other side we see trains arriving and departing, nteaming along the rocky ledge of the opposite height upward towards Montreal or downward on the way to the sea. Just below the Citadel stretches the long massive dock of the Allan Steamship Company, at which, if it is Saturday morning, the Liverpool steamer is lying, getting ready for departure. Vans loaded with freight or luggage are discharging their contents into the hold. Passengers are stepping on board to take possession of their cabins, accompanied by friends reluctant to say the final adieu. One looks with a strange interest, never dulled by repetition, at the black hull about to bear its precious freight across the wide ocean to " the under world," unwitting of the peril it is going to brave. F"rom the terrace we climb by a flight of some two hundred and fifty steps to the top of the glacis. A path round its grassy slope leads to the entrance of the Citadel itself — ascending from St. Louis Street, built up on each side by solid stone walls. Passing through the celebrated chain gates, we find ourselves in the spacious area made by the widened ditch and retiring bastion, the level sward being used for a parade-ground. On the green sides of the earthwork above the ditch goats are peacefully grazing, giving an aspect of rural tranquillity that presents a pic- turesque contrast to the massive portals of Dalhousie Gate, with its guard-rooms built into the thickness of the arch on either side. Entering through it, we are at last QUIiniiC : P/C '/ Y RESQUE AM) PliSL RIP 1 1 1 7:. 43 within the Citadel itself, which, spreading over forty acres its labyrinth of ditch and earthwork and ramjiart and bastion, impresses us at once with the appro|)riateness of its proud title of the Canadian Gibraltar. Ascendinjr to the broad gravel walk on the top of the bastion, we retrace our steps toward the river by the parallel line of wall on the inner side of the ditch, pierced with embrasures for the cannon that command every avenue of approach. Passing on, we take in glimpses of the ever-glorious view which bursts upon us at last in all its magnificence, as we stand on the King's Bastion beside the llag-staff, — a view which, take it all in all, it is not too much to say is unsurpassed in North America. Quebec — with its quaint contrasts of old and new — lies at our feet, the fringe of buildings and wharves at the foot of Cape Diamond literally so, the remainder of the city clustering about anil up th(! hc^ight, like Athens about her Acropolis. Across the river, studded with craft of all imaginable variety — from the huge primitive raft that hardly seems to move, to the swift, arrowy steam-tug or the stately ocean-ship that spreads her sails to catch the breeze — the eye ascends the heights of Levis, beyond the masses of railway buildings to the undulating curves in which nestle the clusters of tiny I'Vench houses, with their great protecting churches ; then it follows the widening river, studded with sails, to t\u: dim blue woods and distant hamlets of Orleans ; on, still, to the bold mountains that form so grand a background to the cultivated slopes which descend to the long village street of the Heauport road, with its church towers guiding the eye to the Mont- morency cleft or embouchure, in which, on a very clear day, you can just discern the faint white spray ascending from the I'all , and farther on, to Cap Tourmente and the blue mountain of St. Anne. Nearer, the glance returning takes in the winding St. Charles, the outlying suburbs of St. John and St. Roch and St. .Sauveur, the crooked line of the city wall, the green turf and poplars of the Esplanade, the shady grounds and Officers' Quarters of the Artillery Uarracks, the Hotel Dieu, Laval University with its belfry, the towers of the Basilica, the tioil.'c turrets of the English Cathedral , while, just below, we have a bird's-eye view of Dufferin Terrace and its pavilions ; of the Governor's Garden, with the top of Montcalm's monument rising above the trees; of the line of Champlain Street and Champlain Market, and the rows of tall French houses that rise up against the dark, slaty cliff, with its fringe and tufts of scanty vegetation ; of the line of wharves and docks, steamboats and steamships, till the field of view is suddenly curtailed by the abutments of the cliff on which we stand. But there are other points of view, so we pass on along the entrance front of the Officers' Quarters, a portion of which is set apart for the summer residence of the Governor-General. It is not a very imposing vice-regal abod'.t , but the simplicity of the accommodation and the restricted space are more than atoned for by the noble vistas of river and height and mountain commanded by the deeply-embrasured windows. f I I I 44 QUFnEC. Ill a line with the Officers' Quarters arc the hospital, the iiuijrnzines ami the Observ- atory, where the fallinj^ l)lack ball jj[ives the time daily, at one o'clock, to the shippinj^ below. Outside the Governor-rieneral's (Quarters, and exterulinj; towards the Kind's Bastion, a platform has been erected which, on summer fOtc-nij^hts, serves as a prome- nade uni(pi(! and wonderful, from which " fair women anii brave men " look down tivi; hundred feet into the dark abyss below, sparkling; with myriads of lij,dus j,deamin^ from city, height and river. At th(' Prince's hastion, on the western anj;le of the fortress, wlu're the " I'rince's I'^-ather," carveil in stone, "ommt'inoratcs the visit of the Prince of Wales, the view is still more extensive. West- ward, we look up the river, to the green bluff curving into Wolfe's Cove and Sillery, while across wc still have before us the varied line of the opposite heights, with their long street of old I'rench houses creeping just under its wooded sides, and a little farther to the right you catch the gleam of the steeples of New Liverpool. After the eye has been partially satisfied with gazing on this grand panorama, we may stroll leisurely along the wall, taking in the ever -shifting views from the vari(jus ,-i iJ Wgg! QUEIiEC. PICTURESQUE AiS'D DESCRIPTIVE. 45 VIICW lUOM TIIK CITADEU points, and observinjr the massiveness of the bastions and earthworks, that with many a iiewildering zigzag, encompass the central forti- fication. As we pass back through the chain gates, let us stop to look into the casemates, or rooms built in the interior of the m.assive earthwork. One catches a glimpse, through the intervening darkness, of a lighted in- terior, reminding us of a Dutch picture, throwing a bit of domestic life into strong light and shade. Here are rooms where the soldiers and their families reside, the solid earthwork above and around them, deep windows letting in the light and air. Before leaving the precincts of the Citadel, take a look at the rock on wiiich it is built — an uneven, circular surface of light gray rock bearing the soubriquet of " Hog's Hack." No French or ancient associations attach to the Citadel, except to one magazine near the Prince's Bastion, the inner [portion of which seems to belong to the b'rench regime, being built of rubble, the outer casing only being modern. The plans for the present Citadel were supervised by the Iron Duke, though he never saw the place. The chain gates let us out into a sort of extension of the ditch, from which we emerge by the 46 QUEBEC. sally-port. From thence, a path leads over tlie broke of the "Plains" to the ball-cartridge field. As we shall not fail to note the broken grassy curves and mr preserve the outlines of the old French earthworks — t cessors of the present fortifications, — a prom- inent and interesting object. Approach- ing the Maric'llo tower wc are obliged to go out on the St. Louis road, or the Cliciiiiii dc la (iraiidc .llh'c, as it was- called in tile old I'rench period. Following this still westward, a turn to the left, between the turnpike and the race-course, takes us down to some barren and neglected-looking grountl on which stands Wolfe's monument, and a little fartlier on, a road leads down- wards to llie Cove where Wolfe landed iiis troops the night before the battle, when even Montcalm at first refused to attach import an'-e to what he thought was "only Mr. Wolfe, with a small party, come to burn a few houses, and return." A road now winds down the face MONUMKNT ro WOl.l E A.NU iMONTC.ALM. strag- Tl.\U:.-t).\Ll., 1 KU.\1 IIU: l'KINCl:.S HASTIO.S. of the cliff among the gling pines where, in Wolfe's time, there was only a rough gully up wliicli he and his sol- diers scrambled, dragging with them a six -pounder — their only gun — which playetl no mean part in gaining the \ ictory. Now tiu' (i\ii<'t ba\', with its rafts and lumber-piles and pass- ing craft, is peaceful enough, and in the soft purple light of a summer evening, seems to hanuonize less with martial memories than with the asso- ciation wilii CJray's Elegy be- ([ueathed to it by Wolfe, wlio, on the night before the decisive !| QUEBJ-IC: PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIl'E 47 WOLFE'S COVt. 48 QUEBEC. action, repeated here, with perhaps some sad presentiment of impending fate, the stanza — "The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power, Aiul all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave, Await alike the inevitable hour — The paths of jjlory lead but to the grave ! " Retracing our steps to the St. Louis road, we follow it straight back to the city, noting the tine new pile of buildings erected for the Houses of Parliament, just beyond which we pass through one of the old gates of Quebec, the St. Louis Gate, now massively rebuilt with embrasures and Norman towers — one of the three still to be preserved to the city. But it is not the old St. Louis Gate, with itj weather- beaten superstructure and zigzag approach. When the excessive newness has somewhat worn off, it will doubtless be much more imposing than its predecessor, and more fitted, like its neighbour, Kent Gate, built at her Majesty's expense, to hold up its head in a progressive age, which does not appreciate dilapidation, however picturesque. Passing through St. Louis Gate, with its new Norman turrets, we have to our right the winding ascent to the Citadel and to our left the Esplanade ; while at the corner of the St. Louis Hotel we are again in the business centre of the upper town, and soon come to the open area of the Place d'Armes, whence we pass into Buade Street, on which sta hIs the new Post-Office, a handsome building of gray cut-stone, plain but in good taste, wi . two short Ionic pillars at the entrance. The old Post-Office which preceded it had a history, symbolized by a I'Vench inscription under the sign of the Chien d'Or, or Golden Dog, which legendary animal still retains his post o\er the entrance of the present building. This inscription was the expression of the wrongs suffiMttl by the original owner — a merchant named Philibert — at the hands of the Inlendant Bigot of unsavoury memor\-. It ran, in old French — "Je suis vn chien qvi ronoe 1,'OS, En I,E RONGl^.ANT JK I'RKNDS MON KKPOS, Vn Tf.MS Vll.NliRA (JVI N'l.sr PAS VKNV QVE JE MDRDKAV IJVI MAVRA MIIKDV." The legend may In; freely translated, "/ bide my time" Poor Philibert was never able to put his threat into execution, his life and his plans for revt^nge being suddenly brought to an end one day on Mountain Mill, by ^. jrd-thrust from a French officer, no doubt at the Intendant's instigation. The story had a sequel, however. Philibert's brother, who came all the way from liordeaux as his executor and blood-avenger, tracked the assassin to his refuge in the Fast Indies, and slew him there. Champlain's bust, and the symbolic dog over the entrance, with the sign of "The Golden Hog" on an inn close b), connect the new P'.>st-Office with the memories of old Otiebec, while QUEBEC: PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIVE. 49 the name of one of the streets at the corner of which it stands — Biiade Street — recalls the palmiest dajs of the French rdgimc, under Louis Buade, Count de Frontenac. From here Mountain Hill begins its circuitous descent, and on the opposite side is the old- fashioned-building, originally the Archbishop's Palace, which has been used for many years as the Parliament Buildings. Going down Mountain Hill from hence, we come to the dilapidated stairway, the antique, gambrel-roofed buildings beside it being very characteristic of the old city. But we will not descend to the lower town, but walk back up Buade Street till we come to what, until re- cently, was the market-place of the upper town, now trans- ferred, however, to the open space in front of St. John's Gate. On one side of the wide, open square. stands the Basilica, as the Prench Cathedral is called, linked with some of the oldest memories of the settlement of Quebec. It hardly looks its age, and is not by any means so imposing as Notre Dame, of Montreal. It was begun by Bishop Laval in 1647, and was consecrated in 1666, under the name of the Church of the Im- maculate Conception. Its massive facade, with its tower on one side and its tall spire on the other, gives an impression of a rare solidity within, and the lofty arches of the nave would have a fine effect, if it were not finished in a cokl and dead llorid Renais- sance style, which looks quite out of kee[)ing with the homely anti(|uity of the " gray lady of the North." But the main charm of the building lies in its long association with the religious life of P'rench-Canada, from the ila\s of Lc Jeune and De Jogues, bl. JUil.N.-^ UAII,. 50 QUEBEC. Madame de la Peltrie and Marie de I'lncarnation. Within these walls many an ago- nized vow and prayer has gone up from the early martyrs and heroes of the Canadian Mission for the conversion of Huron and Iroquois, and for safety from the murderous attacks of their savage foes. Here, too, have echoed the Te Deums of a grateful colony, in the joy of some signal deliverance or decisive victory. The somewhat gaudy decoration of the present interior seems to fade away as we go back, in thought, to the days when the bare rafters over-arched the self-exiled worshippers whose needs and enthusiasm mingled in prayers of pathetic earnest- ness to Him in whose cross and sufferings they deemed themselves sharers. It is a natural transition from the Basilica to the Semi- nary, and a few steps lead through the massive open iron gates of Laval University, along the narrow passage that brings us to the door of the Seminary chapel. This chapel is only a hundred years old, Mr. Le Moine tells us, and its chief historic association is that of having served as a military ST. LOUIS (JATK i O UHBEC : PIC TURESQ UE A ND D ESC RIP TI J 'E. 5* so- lan )ll.S ny, l)n.son for American officers taken prisoners of war in the attack by Arnold and Monttjomery. Hut tiie Seminary was founded by Bishop Laval in 1663, about the time that the Basilica was completed. Laval University is a secular off-shoot of the Seminary proper, which was founded for theological education only, — this being still the object of the Grand Scmitiairc. The buildings of the Semi- nary enclose the site of the first house built by the first French settler Hebert, and its garden, with the neighbouring streets, occupies the land first cleared for agricultural pur- poses. The University building, with its spacious new wings, extends to the very edge of tlu' promontory, and from its tower another vi«w can be obtained of the city and its surroundings. There is not much to see in the University itself, so we pass out again and retrace our steps to the Little Market Square in front of the Basilica, where stands the long 52 QUEBEC. row of caUches whose drivers, French and Irish, have a keen eye for any passer-by who seems to wear the tourist's air of observation. Just opposite the Cathedral stood until recently the large pile of the Jesuit Barracks — originally the Jesuit College — with its yellow, stuccoed front and grated windows, and a high portal with the time- worn letters " I. M. S." still visible as the mark of its early owners. Turning back we pass down St. Famille Street, which ex- tends along the eastern side of the Seminary Gardens and leads to the opening in the wall where but recently stood Hope Gate. From this point there used to be a continuous promenade round the ramparts, which, when the present work of pulling down and rebuilding is com- pleted, will again exist in a greatly improved state, in fulfilment of one of Lord Dufferin's plans for the adornment of Quebec. But now we will retrace our steps to the Cathedral Square, and crossing it at its upper end, pass in front of the English Cathedral, a sombre-looking building, with a substantial turret, standing within an old-fash- ioned, shady enclosure. A little farther on we come to a gray, ecclesiastical-looking cluster of buildings around a small green " close," consisting of the old Scottish church, dating from 1810, with its substantial manse and school-house. The group seems to belong to a Scottish landscape as naturally as the greater part of Quebec does to a French one. Just opposite the church stands what was the old gaol, associated with some grim memories of the days of political imprisonments, now, through the generosity of Dr. LOOKING ACROSS THE KSPLANADE TO BEAUFORT. ' Q UnniiC : PICTURESQ UE A ND DESL RIP Tl I 'E. 53 Morrin, one of Quebec's old citizens, converted into a Presbyterian College, a part of it being devoted to the rooms of the Literary and Historical Society. Passing along St. Ursule Street, we come back to St. Louis Street, and, turning the corner of the long range of massive gray stone convent buildings, we reach the entrance to the chapel, at the end of Parloir Street. The Ursuline Convent and gardens occupy no small portion of t'^e space; within the walls, and they deserve it by a well-earned right. The chapel of t le convent has various interesting reminiscences and associations, religious and artistic, and martial as well. One interesting and suggestive object is a votive lamp, lighted a hundred and fifty years ago by two French officers, on tiieir sisters taking the veil, and kept burning ever since, e.xcept for a short time during the sieTC of 1759. There are paintings sent from France at the Revolution — one said to be by Vandyke and one by Champagna — and wood carvings, the work of the first Canadian School of Art, at St. Ann's, early in the eighteenth century. Montcalm, taken thither to die, was buried within the convent precincts in a grave dug for him l)y a bursting shell ; and his skull, carefully preserved, is still shown to visitors to the chapel. From the Ursuline Convent a short walk brings us back to the FIsplanade, between the St. Louis and Kent Gates. Turning into its quiet area, faced by a row of rather sombre-looking private residences, we ascend the sloi)e to the walk that runs along the line of wall. Looking city-ward, from one point in our promenade we take in tiic idyllic view of tiie tranquil Esplanade, with its poplars and disused guns, tiie ancient little Jesuit church and the old National school immediately in front ; while across the ramparts and the abrupt descent beyond, we catch the blue strip of river between us and Beauport, with white sails skimming across, and the white houses scattered along the green slopes opposite, that eml again in a grand mountain wall. Proceeding on from the Esplanade, we walk across the top of Kent Gate and then follow the line of the ramparts to the massive arched portal of St. John's Gate, whence we look down on the busy Montcalm Market immediately below, with its primitive French market- carts and good-humoured Prench market-women, who will sell )ou a whole handful of bouquets for a few cents. We have to leave the ramparts soon after passing St. John's Gate, the promenade, which will be continuous, not being yet finished. Taking our way back, we return to the square, and engage one of the eager callchc- drivers to take us out to Montmorency Falls, a nine-mile drive. Ascending to the high-perched seat in the little two-wheeled vehicle, we are soon rattling over the not very smooth thoroughfare of the St. John suburbs, among modern and uninteresting streets — for these suburbs have been again and again laid waste by fire. We pass near the ruins of the old Intendant's Palace, and are soon on Dorchester Bridge, the gray rock of the city rising behind us, the valley of the St. Charles winding away to the north-west. " There," our driver will say, looking up at the river where the tide is rising among some ship-yards, " is where Jacques Cartier laid up his ships." Near 54 QUEBEC. that point, also, Montcalm's hridj^e of boats crossed the river, in 1 759, and in a large entrenchment, where once stood the Jesuit Mission House, the remnants of his scattered army rallied after the battle of the " Plains." Ev(!n the cal^chc-^x'wa.x'n are anticjiiarian and historical in Quebec, and take pride in acting; the part of cicerone to the venerable associations of the place. The memory of Montcalm is associated with many points alonjj the pleasant road that leads throuj;[h long-stretching French villages, between the green meadows that slope up to the hills on the one side and down to the St. Lawrence on the other. The burning sun of our Canadian summer, softened here by the frequent mists and fogs from the sea, does not parch the verdure, as it too often does in regions farther in- land. The velvety green of the low-lying meadows, d^tttul and fringed with graceful elms and beech and maple, wouKl do no discredit to tin? Emerald Isle ; and if the villas and fields were surrounded by hedges instead of fences, the landscape might easily be taken for an English one. About three miles below Quebec we pass the Beauport Asylum, a fine, substantial building, with a good deal of ornamental statuary and other decoration in front, in which a large number of lunatics are cared for under Govern- ment supervision. Here and there other residences and grounds attract the eye. The most notable in bye-gone times was the manor-house of old Heauport, recently destroyed by fire, and occupied in 1759 by Montcalm as his head-quarters. An old leaden plate was lately found in the ruins, bearing an inscription, interesting to antiquarians. The date of its first erection, as given in the plate, proves the ruined mansion to have been older than any existing in Canada to-day, since it preceded by three years that of the Jesuits' residence at Sillery. Robert Giffart, physician and founder of the Seigniory, figures in a curious old story told by the Abbe Ferland, of the enforced penitence and submission of a rebellious vassal — Jean Guion, or Dion — a lettered stone- mason, who thought fit to refuse the homage he owed to Giffart, his feudal lf)rd. The vicinity of the ruined chateau bearing such interesting associations, is called La Canardilrc, preserving, in this cognomen, a reminiscence of the time when this Giffart, a keen sportsman, was wont to bag wild duck in large numbers along tlie marshy bank of the stream, the "Ruisscau dc /'Ours" on wliich he erected his rude stockaded mansion. One or two other chateaux are still inhabited b)- the representatives of the French families of the Old Regime. Hy degrees the scattered mansions, in their settings of green turf and foliage, merge into the long lines of Heauport village, its neat, quaint houses, generally of substantial stone, steep - roofed and dormer-windowed, and often completed with the little balcony ; some of them old and weather-worn, others spick and span in gay new paint, and most of them bright with a profusion of flowers in a little plot before the door or in the windows. Behind each little house is its riband-like strip of ground, seemingly narrowed down to the smallest space within which a horse could turn ; and here and there may be seen a man at work with the primitive cart QUEBEC: PICTURESQUE AND DliSCRlPTIVE. 55 and single horse — all his litt'e farm will support — which carries to market the vegetables that an; iiis cliief de- pendence. Altogether, the light-hearted, open-air life of the simple folk carries a pleasant suggestion of that so vividly sketched in "Evangeline" and of " / . . .»^. QUEBEC: PICTURESQUE AND DESCRIPTIl'E. 59 back aloii},^ tlic road to Quebec. The city, as we draw near it, in the evening light, appears to blaze out in a glittering sheen, every tin roof giving back the afternoon sunshine; till the whole rock seems irradiated with a golden glory, in strong contrast to the deep tones of the hills beyond. Gradually the glory resolves itself into roofs and houses, and soon we cross Dorchester Bridge again, when, turning by a side street to the right, we pass through the deserted market-place outside St. John's Gate, and are once more within the city, driving along St. John Street, the chief thoroughfare. One of the points of interest in the immediate vicinity of Quebec, is the site of the old hunting-lodge of the Intend? nt Bigot beyond the village of Charlesbourg. Leaving the main road, we penetrate through a tangled thicket and reach an open glade beside a stream wiiere some weather-worn walls, the remains of what is popularly called the Chateau Bigot, stand amid lilac and syringa bushes which still show traces of an old garden. There the wicked Intendant was went to hold his carousals with liis l)oon com- panions of the iiunt, after the fashion described in the " Cliicii d'O)-." It has its legend of a buried hoard of silver and of a beautiful Huron girl who loved Bigot antl died a violent death. But apart from legend, it has a wild grace of its own, with its hoary vestiges of a long-past habitation, and the pine-crowned mountain rising as a noble back- grounil behind the surrounding trees. Sillery is among the sacred places of Quebec, and a pilgrimage thither is one of the pleasantest little excursions one can make from the old city, l-'roin the deck of the "James," which plies on the ri\i;r between Quebec and Sille>-y, we c\n look up, first to the old, steep houses masse, under the scarped rock that shoots aloft on to ')uff» w .~S^ ■^^ liArHI:;KlNG MAKSII HAY. iiK^lis on the ilistant horizon into the hardly pnrer azure of the sky. with swelHn^- canvas, make tlicir slow way. or lyinjr hitjh on the Hals await tlieir carno. .Stately ships .<,'Hde down with the faxourini; tide, or an- noi.nce the near (i\\C\ of the voyaLi^e In- sI't. nals to the: shore and <;uns that roll loud thunder through the hills. The marshes, Ouaint battcaux. k-A I-OAPING A llATIliAU AT LOW TIDE. ^.•: 64 QUEBEC. •A tfi' CAH roUKMKNTK AND HKl IT CAH. covered with rich orrass, are stucKlcd with haymakers (gathering the abundant yield, or are dotted with cattle. Inland, stiff poplars antl l)Osky elms trace out the long brown ribands of the roads. Here and there the white cottages group closer together, and the- spire of the overshadowing church tr pping the trees, marks the centre of a [)arish. Red roofs and glistening domes llash out in i>rilliant points of colour against the tleecy clouds that 'leek the summer sky. Rich pastures, waving grain, orchards and maple groves, lead the eye back among their softly-blending tints to the dark masses of purple and green with which the forests clothe the mountains. Huge rifts, in which sunlight and shadow work rare effects, reveal where imprisoned streams burst their way through the Laurentian rocks in successions of magnificent cascades. A glimpse of white far up the moiuitain side shows one of these, while its placid course through the lowland is marked in silver sheen. As the sun gets lo\v, one perchance catches the tlash reflected from some of the lovely lakes that lie among the hills. The Cote de Beaupre is the oldest as well as the fairest part of the Province. It was settled soon after Champlain landed, the rich marsh hay !)cing utilized at once for the wants of Quebec. In i6j;3 a fort was built at i'etit Cap, the summit of the pro- monotory that juts out into the river under the overshadowing height of Cap Tourmente. The fort was destroyed by .Sir David Kirk — Admiral, the chroniclers call him — in these days he wouKl probably be hanged as a buccaneer — who harried the cattle and then sailed on to summon Quebec to surn-nder for the first time. In 1670 Laval established here a school for training boys as well in f,u-ming and mechanics, as in doctrine and discipline. Among other industries, wood-carving for church decoration was taught, FRENCH-CANADIAN LIFE AND CHARACTER. 65 so that the C6te de Bcaupre can lay claim to the first Art School and the first model-farm in America. The Quebec Seminary still keeps up this state of things — at least as far as agriculture is concerned. The place is known as " The Priests' Farm," and supplies the Seminary, being thoroughly worked and havin^,'^ much attention given to it. It is also a summer resort for the professors and pupils of the Seminary. After the restoration of Canada to France by the Treaty of St. Germain-en-Laye, in 1632, this part of the little colony grew apace, so that by the time the seigniory passed into Laval's hands, from whom it came to its present owners — the Seminary — its population, notwithstanding its exposure to attack by the Iroquois, was greater than that of Quebec itself. From its situation it has been less vulnerable than many other districts to outside influences. The face of the country and the character of the people have yielded less to modern ideas, which, working quietly and imperceptibly, have left intact many of the antiquities, traditions and customs that have disappeared elsewhere within the last generation. Here you may find families liv- int s.*^ As one of their most celebrated I'rench orators pointed out at the jjreat national ffite of St. Jean Baptiste at Quebec in 1880, that was the secret of it all; while the Thirteen Colonies, which fought for material interests, are American, not Enj,disii. Whatever the cause, there is no tloubt as to the fact of I'rench nationality. The north shore of the St. Lawrence is more I">ench than is the south, where the proximity of the United States and the inlluence of the I'^nglish- settled eastern townships are sensible. In the western part of the Province, the numerical proportion of French is smaller and their char- acteristics are less marked ; l)ut from Montreal downwards — the towns of course excepted — you are to all intents in a land where I-lnj^lish is not spoken. Below Quebec, far down to the Labrador coast, is the most purely French por- tion of all. You may find jijreater simplicity of life, and more of the old customs, in such a primaeval parish as Isle au\ Coudres, farther down the river ; the people on the coast where the St. Lawrence becomes the gulf, are sailors and fishermen rather than farmers; those along the Ottawa are lumberers and raftsmen ; but the Cote de Beaupre is fairly typical of the whole of French-Canada. The names of its five parishes, L'Ange Gardien, Chateau Richer, Sainte Anne de Beaupre, St. Joachim, and .St. Fereol, tell you at once you are in a land with a religion and a history. Nothing, ]jer- haps, strikes a stranger more than the significant nomencla- ture of the Province. Every village speaks the faith ol the people. He Jesus, Sainte Foye, L'Assomption, L'Epiphanie, St. Joseph, Ste. Croix, Ste. Anne, St. Barthelemi, St. Eustache, Notre Dame des Anges, are l-ange gakdien. HAHirANT AND SNOW-SHOES. Ik ^ . i = — I* I '' 68 QUEBEC. not mere designations. The pious commemorations and joyful celebrations of the patron saint or particular festival show it. Hills, rivers and lakes tell of military achievements, of missionary voyages, of dangers encountered, of rest after peril past, of the hopes that animated the voyagcurs pushing through the maze of forest and stream in scarcii of the golden West, of grand prospects and lovely landscapes, of quaint seniblanees and fond reminiscence of home. Take just a few of these names : Calumet, Sault au Riicollet, Helange, Carillon, Chaudiere, Pointe aux Trembles, Hout de L'lle, Lachine, I'ortage du l""ort, Heaupre, Helceii, La Lievre, La Rose, Chute au Hiondeau, Riviere Quelle, Riviere au Chicn, Montreal, Quebec, Joliette, Beauport. Each suggests a story of its own ; most of them have their associations of history and tradition, and there are thousands like them. The Trench knew how to name a country. In point of beauty and significance, their names are unequalled; and they not only described ihe land as do the Indians — they literally christened it. V.\t.\\\ where it i,r>mes to p(;rpetuating tiu; memories of men, what a sonorous ring there is about Cham- plain, Richelieu, .Sore!, Chambly, Varennes, Contrecccur, Longueuil and Reauharnois, unapproachable by English analogues. Point Ldvis is, in truth, not a whit more ;Lsthe- tic than Smith's Falls, nor more useful, but there is no denying its superiority of sound. When you know the grotesque and haughty legend that represents the Virgin Mary in heaven telling a Chevalier de Levis, " Cousin, keep on Nour hat," you can no longer compare the two names, for you cpiite understand why the Levis family .should have a Point as well as an Ark of its own. L'Ange Gardien lies just beyond the famous Falls of Montmorency. .Set in trees on the slope of the hills, which here grow close on the river, and standing high over the nortii channel, tue village commands an exquisite view, the placid beauty of which makes "The Guardian Angel" a most appropriate name. The spot has not always had such peaceful associations. Wolfe's troops, those " Fraser's Highlanders" who afterwards turned their swords into ploughshares so effectually that their descendants at Murny Bay and Kamouraska are I'rench even to having forgotten their fathers' language, ravaged this parish and Chateau Richer from one end to the other, destroyed all the crops, and burned almost every house. There is little trace of the devastation now, ex- cept in the stories that old Jiabitans have heard their elders tell. Two quaint little chapels stantl one on each side, a few arpcns from the pari.sh church. They were originally intended for mortuary chapels during the winter, when the frost prevents graves being dug, and for use at the celebration of the "Fete Dieu"or "Corpus Christ! " in June, the procession going to one or the rMi^r in alternate years. On these occasions, they would be gay with flowers, flags, :rgreens. Beside one of them is tiie little plot used for the burial of heretics, c unicated persons, and unbaptized infants. There is always such a corner in every village cemetery, never a large one, for the people are too good Catholics not to have an intense dread of lying in unconsecrated FR/u\'i IlL AN A J)/ AN LI in . I X/) ( II A RA (. ThlR. 69 ground, and too charital)lc' to consijjn stranjrcrs to the fate they fear for themselves. The chapel farthest down the river is now a consecrated shrine of Notre Uame de Lourdes. Before the statiu; of our Lady burns a perpetual lij^ht, and she divides with La Bonne Ste. Anne tie Beaupre the devotions of thousands of pilj^rims annually. The course of settlement alonj; the St. I^awrence is well defined. Close to the river, in a belt from two to ten milt;s wide, on the north shore, lie the old I'rench farms. Back of these, among the foot-hills, is a second range of settlements, for the most part Irish anil .Scotch. L'arther in are the colons or pioneers, who, no longer able to live upon the subilivision of their patrimoinc or family inlieritance, commence again, as their anteslors diil, in the backwoods. Parallel roads, painfully straight for miles, mark out iiUILi'/' the ranges into which the seigniories and parishes are divided. These ranges or concessions are sometimes numbered, sometimes named, almost universally after a .saint. On the south shore, the belt of settlement is much wider. At the westward of the Province it extends to the United States boundary line, but narrows as it approaches Quebec, so that below the city the arrangement is much the same as on the north side. In fact, French-Canada is very truly described as two continuous villages along the St. Lawrence. The succession of white cottages, each on its own little parallelogram of land, has struck every traveller from La Hontan to the present day. The narrow farms, or tcrres, as they are called, catch the eye at once. Originally three arpcns wide by tliirt)- deep (the arpcut as a lineal measure equals 180 French or 191 I IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) 1.0 I.I m 1IIIZ8 112.5 IM 1112,2 ^ m us 1^ 2.0 1.8 1.25 1.4 1.6 ^ 6" — ^ I ^ w o f A> e] 'W 0%, -^>'- # (?^ w Photographic Sciences Corporation 23 WEST MAIN STREET WEBSTER, N.Y. MS80 (716) 872-4503 70 QUEBEC. kr* \\ I ' English feet), or about 200 yards by a little over a mile, they have been subdivided according to the system of intestate succession under the Coutume de Paris, which gives property in equal shares to all the children, until the fences seem to cover more ground than the crops. The division is longitudinal, so that each heir gets an equal strip of beech, marsh, plough land, pasture, and forest. The houses line the road that runs along the top of the river bank, or marks the front of the concession 'f it lies back any distance. This arrangement is but a carrying out of the principle upon which the original settle- ment was formed, to gain all the advantages of the river frontage. The entire organi- zation of French-Canada depended on it. The system was well adapted for easy com- munication in the early days of the colony ; the river was the highway — in summer, for canoes — in winter, for sleighs ; so that the want of good roads was not a serious disad- vantage. It was also well suited for defence against the Iroquois, who in their bloody raids had to follow the course of the streams. The settlers could fall back upon each other, gradually gaining strength until the seigneur s block-house was reached and a stand made while the news went on from farm to farm, and the whole colony stood to arms. In the district of Quebec you may often hear a habitant speak of going " au fort," meaning thereby " au village," — a curious survival of those fighting days. In winter the ice is still the best of all roads. Long lanes of bushes and small spruces, dwindling away in distant perspective, mark out the track, to keep which would otherwise be no easy matter at night or in a snowstorm, and point out the " i ir holes " caused by the "shoving" or moving en masse of the ice that usually follows an) change in the level of the river. This universal parallelogramic shape is, however, very disadvantageous to the development of a country, being to no small extent anti-social and particularly unfavour- able to a general school system. The geographical, not the mental condition of the liabi- tant has militated most against intellectual and social improvement. There were no points of concentration for the interchange of ideas, save the gathering at the parish church on Sundays and f6te-days when, after High Mass, the crowd lingers to hear the kuissicrs pub'ications of official notices at the church door ; or, once in a while, to listen to electioneering addresses. The villages are, as before noted, for the most part long, straggling lines of houses, with hardly any sign where one begins and the other ends, save the spire of another church, with the neighbouring cottages a little closer together. There are no country gentry. The seigneur rarely resides upon his estate, and when he does, his preatige is no longer what it was ; he is often merely a habitant himself, one of the people, as are the curd, the couple of shopkeepers, the village notary, and the doctor, who compose the notables. The judicial terms every month at the Chef Lieu, which in a way corresponds to the County Town, by no means compare with the bustle of the Assizes in an English or Ontarian County. For the habitans not close to one of the large cities there is no going to market, as nearly everything they raise FRENCH-CANADIAN LIFE AND CHARACTER. 71 is consumed by themselves at home. The isolation of the curds, their zeal for their pastoral work and the incessant demands upon their time, used to prevent much study and practice of agriculture as a science, or much attention to the education of their flocks in anything but religious duties. In the old days, when scigtieur and curd both derived their income from imposts on produce, the degree of consideration in which a liahitant was held by his superiors, and consequently his respectability, was settled prin- cipally by the amount of wheat he sowed. With the energetic development of colonization on the Crown lands, the establish- ment of agricultural societies, the opening of roads, the construction of the Provincial railway, the liberal aid given by the Government to private railway enterprise, and. m^i CHATEAU RICHER. above all, the excellent school system, this state of things is fast disappearing. Though it may require another generation or two to overcome the influence of habits centuries old, originally founded in reason, and still rooted in popular affection by custom and tradition, there is every indication that before long Lower Canada and its habitaus may become in effect what by nature they are meant to be, one of the most prosperous of countries and intelligent of peoples. Chateau Richer, which, in natural beauty, equals L'Ange Gardien, is the next parish to the eastward. It gets its name from an old Indian trader, whose chateau near the J; Ill 72 QUEBEC. « river is now biu a small heap of ruins almost lost in the undergrowth. The* hill here advances abruptly towards the river, forming, where the main road crosses its projecting spur, a commanding elevation for the handsome stone church that towers over A\c cottages which line the gracefully receding curve beyond. Not many years ago the blackened walls of a convent lay at the foot of this same hill, witne; es of the ruin worked at the time of the Conquest. Knox says in his journal, that the priest, at the head of his parishioners, fortified the building and held it against an English detachment and two pieces of artillery, but it was reduced to ashes ; the remnant of its brave garrison were scalped by the Iroquois allies of the Englisn. It is far more likely that the brave cur^ stayed with his flock, to comfort them to the last, than that he led them on. However that may be, the convent has been rebuilt, and is now the parish school. The seigniories or large tracts in which the land was originally granted, varied much in size, but usually corresponded with the ecclesiastical division into parishes. As territorial divisions, they have been supplanted by the modern municipal system. Many of them are still held by the descendants of the grantees ; others have passed into the hands of strangers. Some are own^d by religious corporations, the principal of these being the Island of Montreal, St. Sulpice and the Lake of Two Mountains — all of which belong to the Seminary of St. Sulpice at Montreal — and that of the Cote de Beaupre, owned by the Quebec Seminary. Since the abolition of feudal tenure by the Act of 1854, which placed a large sum in the hands of the Government, to be paid to the seigneurs in extinction of their rights, their former dignity has sadly dwindled. The title is, in most cases, but a barren honour, though in one instance — that of the Barony of Longueuil — it has recently been recognized as carrying with it a patent of nobility. It had been the intention of Louis XIV., in founding a feudal system in Canada, to create a territorial aristocracy, but in avoiding the danger of sowing the teeth of the dragon it had cost the Bourbons so much to kill, he bestowed his favours upon a class unable to support their honours. The consequence was that, in most cases, the seigneur made the complaint of the unjust steward, that " to dig he knew not and to beg he was ashamed," and prayed to be allowed to drop his nobility and earn his living the best way he could. The titles had, therefore, nearly quite disappeared before the Conquest. The seig- niorial rights were never very extensive. They consisted principally in the Ccns et Rentes, or annual ground-rent paid by the censitaire for his holding, and in the Lods et Ventes, or fine collected on each transfer of a property from one tenant to another. The former were very trifling, something like two sous per acre being the usual amount in hard cash, with a bushel of wheat, a fowl, a pigeon, or a sucking-pig, as payment in kind. On rent-day, in the month of November, the farm-yard of the ntanoir would present a lively scene, in droll contrast to the solemn dignity with which the seigneur, seated in his large chair before a table covered with his huge account-books, and in the old days ' 1 f FALLS OF STE. ANNE. FRENCH-CANADIAN LIFE AND CHARACTER. n with his sword laid in front of him, received the sahitations and compliments, and weighed the excuses of his censitaircs, who rivalled the Irish peasant in chronic impecuniosity and ingenious devices. The Lods ct Vcntcs were a more serious imposition, amounting to one-twelfth of the price of sale. They were a hindrance to the progress of the country, for they discouraged improvements by the tenant, and prevented the infusion of new blood and the spread of new ideas. They seem, however, not to have been considered so by the censitaircs themselves. In reality, they were an expression of the domesticity of French-Canadians, who dread the breaking up of families, and live for generation after generation upon the same land, with a tenacity and affection equalled only by their industry and endurance, when at length home and kindred have been left. In connection with the motives for the imposition of this fine, one of which, no doubt, was the desire to keep the people bound to the land, and another the wish to profit by the rare chance of a ccnsitaire having ready money — though the origin of the Lods et Ventcs in reality leads back to the earliest feudalism — it is curious to note such conflicting traits in the same people. The contrast is historical. It was hard to persuade the home-loving peasantry of France to emigrate when, in 1663, the King took up so vigorously his dream of an Empire in the We''. Once in La Nouvelle France, however, such was the spirit of adventure, that it almost immediately became necessary to issue an edict forbidding their wanderings, and compelling them to make tiieir clearings con- tiguous and their parishes as much as possible in the form of those in b'rance. Within a hundred years a penalty liad to be imposed upon too close settlement and small farms, in order to bring the seigneurs estates all under cultivation. At tht? present time a great aim of the Government is to discourage emigration, and to aid Ijy every means the repatriation of French-Canadians and colonization in the back country. One of the most potent means of effecting this is found to be their strong family affection. There was another right incidental to the Lods ct J'ciitcs — the Droit dc Rctrait, or privilege of pre-emption at tiie highest price bidden for land within forty days after its sale ; this, however, was not much used. The only other right of real consequence was the Droit dc Bana/itc', by which the ccnsitaire was bound to grind his corn at the seig- neurs mill, paying one bushel out of every fourteen for toll. This arrangement suited the habitant very well. He is saving enough, and manages to accumulate a little capital sometimes, but it goes into the savings bank, not unfrequently into an old stocking. The risk of an investment is too nuicii for him, and he used to prefer that the seigneur should make the necessary outlays, while all that he was called upon for would be a sacrifice of part of his crop. In this way, however, all industrial enterprise was ham- pered and discouraged by the monopoly of the water power. Under the French n'gimc, a civil and criminal jurisdiction over his vassals, varying in extent according to the dignity of the fief, was theoretically vested in the seigneur ; and all the three grades known to feudal law — the basse, moycnnc and Jiaute justice — theoreticall)' existed in 4 1 11 ! I 74 QUEBEC, Canada, but its exercise was rare, o\vin}f to the expense of keeping up the machinery of a court and the petty amount of its coj^nizance. These relics of feudalism have a curious interest to the antiquarian and also a very practical one as regards the progress of the country, existing as they did in the New World and under the protection of the Hritish Constitution, and still living in the memories and language of the presi-nt generation. One of the most interesting aspects of the feudal tenure was the social relation between seigneur and censilairc. This was nearly always a paternal one, so much so, indeed, that it was quite as much a duty as a right by courtesy of the seigneur to stand godfather for the eldest children of his WAVSIUE WATERING TROUGH. censitaires. Among his many graphic descriptions of life under the Old Regime, M. de Gaspe gives an amusing account of a friend receiving a New Year's visit from a hundred godsons. The manoir was all that "the Great House" of an Knglish squire is and more, for the intercourse between seigneur and censitaire was freer and more intimate than that between squire and tenant. In spite of the nominal sub- jection, the censitaire was less dependent and subservient than the English peasant. It is impracticable here to go into any detailed description of the seigniorial tenure, its influences and the mode of its abolition ; but without some knowledge of it, the actual as well as the past condition of Lower Canada would be impossible to understand. The whole system ot colonization originally rested upon two men, the seig- FRnWH-CANAPlAN LIFE AA'P CHARACTER. 75 neur and the ctir^. Thtoii^h tlu-ni the Government worked its military and religious organizations, while their interests in the soil, from wiiicli both derived their income, were identical. " The Sword, the Cross, and the Plough " have been said to explain the secret of French-Canadian nationality. These three came together in their hands. Of course, all around the old French settlements the system of freehold upon which the Crown lands are granted has produced great changes in manners, ci;stoms, and ideas, but the influence of the old state of things is still strongly marked. In th<_ face of all the improvements effected and progress made since its abolition, it served its |)urpose well, and, as the Abbe Casgrain remarks, " The democratic and secularizing spirit of our age is op[)Osed to these feudal and ecclesiastical institutions, but we may be per- mitted to doubt whether it could have invented a system better adapted to the genius of our race and to the needs of the situation." There are few drives in the Province prettier than that from Quebec to St. Joachim, as it \.'inds along between the hills and the river through Beauport, past L'Ange Gar- dien, Chateau Richer, and Ste. Anne, crossing on the way the Montmorency, Sauit a la Puce, Riviere au.\ Chiens, and Ste. Anne, besides a host of smaller streams. Once out- side the toll-gates, the rugged streets of Quebec give place to an excellent macada- mized road kept in capital order. In summer, wizened old compircs, too bent and worn out for any other work, salute you from the tops of the piles of stones they lazily hammer between the complacent puffs of their pipes and their comments on passers-by. There is a great deal of work in these old fellows, and their cheerfulness lasts to the end. The French-Canadian is a capital labourer, slow periiaps, but sure. He is docile and willing, and his light-heartedness gets over all difficulties. " Your merry heart goes all the day, your sad one tires in a mile-o," is his motto. In winter you have to turn out to let the snow-plough with its great wings and its long team of six or eight horses go past amid cheery shouts from its guides, whose rosy faces and icicled beards topping the clouds of snow that cover their blanket coats make them look like so many Father Christmases. There is a great deal to see along the road besides the beautiful scenery that meets the eye everywhere. Springs are abundant in the gravelly soil. They trickle down the bank under the trees, making delicious nooks by the paths where wooden spouts con- centrate their flow. Wells, of course, are not much needed along the hillside. If you stop to drink you will probably have an opportunity to appreciate French-Canadian civility. The odds are greatly in favour of some of the host of brown-skinned, black- eyed, merry-looking children that play about the neighbouring house being sent over to ask if " Monsieur will not by preference have some milk ?" You like the clear ice-cold water. " Bien, ccst bonne I'cau frcttc qitand on a soif" but " Monsieur will come in, perhaps, and rest, for sacrc il fait cliaiid cct apris-midi." Monsieur, however, goes on amid all sorts of good wishes and polite farewells. II >i. -'I 76 QUEBEC. iH It seems strange to see the women at work in ilic fields. Their hUie skirts and enormous hats, however, are fine bits of detail for a picture, and they havinjj been used to such labours all their lives, do not mind it. Young girls of the poorer class hire out for the harvest, together with their brothers. At times you may meet troops of them on their way to church, their bottcs Franfaises — as store-made boots are still called, in contradistinction to bottcs fndiennes — sluiig roinul their necks. This heavy ST. JOACHIM. labour, however, has told upon the class, if no" upon the individual, and, no doubt, accounts for the ill-favouredness and thick, scjuat figures of the lower order of liabitans. Even the children take a good share of hard work, and none of tlie potential energy of the family is neglected that can possibly be turned to account. One of the most striking sights by the roadside of a night towards the end of autumn are the family groups "breaking" flax. After the stalks have been steeped they are dried over fires built in pits on the hillsides, then stripped of the outer bark by a rude home-made machine constructed entirely of wood, but as effective as it is simple. The dull gleam of the sunken fires and the fantastic shadows of the workers make up a strange scene. Not the least curious features of the drive are the odd vehicles one meets. Oxen do much of the heavier hauling, their pace being quite fast enough for the easy, patient temperament of the habitant, to whom distance is a inere abstraction — time and tobacco take a man anywhere, seems to be his rule. It is impossible to find out the rual length of a journey. Ask the first habitant you meet, " How far is it to Saint Quelquechose?" "Deux ou trois lieues, je pense. Monsieur," will be the answer, given so thoughtfully and politely that you cannot doubt its correctness. Bui after you have covered the somewhat wide margin thus indicated, you need not be astonished to find FRENCH-CANADIAN LIFE AND CHARACTER. 11 you have to go still " une lieue et encore," or, as the Scotch i)iit it, " three miles and a bittock," nor still, again, to find the "encore" much the best part of tiic way. Another characteristic mode of measuring distance is by the number of pipes to be smoked in traversing it. "Deux pipes" is a very variable quantity, aiul more satisfactory to an indeterminate equation than to a hungry traveller. The " buckboard " is a contrivance originally peculiar to Lowtir Canada. It has thence found its way, with the French half-breeds, to the North-west, where its simplicity and adaptability to rough roads are much appreciated. It is certainly unique in con- struction. Put a pair of wheels at each end of a long plank and a movable seat between them • a large load can be stowed away upon it, and you are independent of springs, for when one plank breaks another is easily got. The wayside fori^croii, or blacksmith, need not be a very cunning craftsman to do all other repairs. The cltarctlc, or m;r. ket- cart, is another curiosity on wheels, a cross between a Ijoat and a gig, apparently. The caUclic is a vehicle of greater dignity, but sorely trying to lliat of tlic stranger, as, perched high up in a sort of cabriolet hunj^ by leathern straps between two huge wheels, he Hies up and down the most break-neck liilis. Tlu; driver has a seat in front, almost over the back of the horse, who, if it were not for iiis gait, woukl seem (piite an unimportant part of the affair. It is not very long since dog-carts were regularly used in the cities as well as in the country, for all kinds of draught purposes, but tliis has now been h. "uiely stopped. Along the roads they are a common sight, and notwiti. standing the great strength of the dogs used, it is not pleasant to see one of these black, smooth-haiicd, stoutly- built little fellows panting along, half hidden under a load of wrod l)ig enough for a horse, or dragging a milk-cart with a fat old woman on top of the cans. They are generally well-used, however, if one may judge by their gr jd-nature. Out of harness they lie about the doors of the houses very contentedly, and, like their masters, are \ery civil to strangers. The signs over the Utile shops that you meet with at rare intervals in the villages, are touchingly simple in design and execution. An unpainted board, with lettering accommodated to emergencies in the most ludicrous way, sets forth \\\ii " hon ]iiarcli