A Little Girl in Old Quebec Part 43

Eustache Boulle was to go with the Sieur, but he never returned. He took a rather fond farewell of Rose. "If you would go, we might find something of your family," he said. "I once had a slight clew."

"Is it not worth looking after?" asked Destournier, as he and Rose were walking the plateau, since known as the Plains of Abraham. "If you were proved of some notable family--there have been so many over-turns."

"Would you feel prouder of me?"

"No. Do you not know that you are dearer to me as the foundling of Quebec, and the little girl I knew and loved?"

She raised luminous eyes and smiled.

"Then I do not care. No place will seem like home but this."

He would not go to France, but busied himself with his fields and his tenants. He came back to the old house, altered a little, the room where miladi had spent her fretful invalid years was quite remodelled. Vines grew up about it. The narrow steps were widened.

Autumn came, and winter. The cold and somewhat careless living carried off many of the English. But Madame Hebert had married again, and Therese had found a husband. There was Nicolas Revert, with some growing children. d.u.c.h.esne, a surgeon, they had been glad to welcome. Thomas G.o.defroy, Pierre Raye, and the Couillards formed quite a French colony.

They met now and then, and kept the old spirit alive with their songs and stories.

June had come again, and the town had begun to bloom. There were still parties searching for the north sea, for the route to India, for the great river that was said to lie beyond the lakes. The priests, too, were stretching out their lines, especially the Jesuits, about whom still lingers the flavor of heroic martyrdom. Father Breibouf coming back for a short stay, to get some new word from France, told the fate of one unfortunate party. Among them he said "was that fine Indian interpreter, Savignon, who you must remember went to the rescue of a party the last time he was in Quebec. He was a brave man, and a great loss to us. He had come to an excellent state of mind, and was one of the few Indians that give me faith in the salvation of the race."

Rose's eyes were l.u.s.trous with tears as she listened to this eulogy. He had proved n.o.bler than his first pa.s.sion of love. She had some Ma.s.ses said for his soul, but it pleased her better to give thanks to G.o.d for his redemption.

"Now you belong to no one but me," Destournier said to her some weeks later, when she had recovered from her sorrow. "Yet I feel that it is selfish to take your sweet youth. I am no longer young. I shall always be a little lame, and never perhaps realize my dream of prosperity. But I love you. I loved you as a little girl, you have always, in some fashion, belonged to me."

"I am glad to belong to you, to take your name. Do you remember that I have no other name but Rose? You are very good to shelter me thus. I think I could never have gone gladly to any one else. We are a part of old Quebec, we are still French," and there was a little triumph in her tone.

It was true the English had taken possession after peace had been declared, and had not the right to hold the country. When France demanded the recession King Charles held off, and the Kirkes were unwilling to yield up the government, as they found great profit in the fur trade. But needing money sorely, and as the Queen's dowry as a French princess had only been half paid, he made this a condition, and Richelieu accepted it.

So in 1632 Acadia, and all the important points in Canada, were ceded back to France.

In the spring of the next year Champlain was again commissioned Governor, and he set sail from Dieppe, with three vessels freighted with goods, provisions, and the farming implements of that day, clothing and some of the new hand-looms, beside seeds of all kinds. Two hundred persons, many of them married couples, and farmers were to found a new Quebec.

One May morning, just at sunrise, there was a great firing of bombards, and for a brief while all was consternation and fear. But persons sent out to explore, brought the welcome news of Champlain's return. Then went up a mighty shout of joy, and the lilies of France were once more unfurled to the breeze. There stood the stalwart old commander, whose life work was crowned with success. All was gratulation. He must have been touched by the ovation.

M. and Madame Destournier were among the throng, while Wanamee carried the little son, who stared about with wondering eyes, and smiled as if he enjoyed the glad confusion.

Even the Indians vied with the French, as he was triumphantly escorted up the cliff, with colors flying and drums beating, and once more received the keys of the fort. The spontaneous welcome showed how deep he was in the affections of the people. He had been thwarted in many of his plans, neglected, traduced, but this hour made amends.

"Little Rose," he said, "thou art a part of old Quebec, but thy son begins with the new regime. Heaven bless and prosper thee and thy husband. I should have missed thee sorely had any untoward event happened."

The settlement at the foot of the cliff had been burned, but the upper town, as it came to be called, had stretched out. The Heberts were on the summit of the cliff, that part of the town where the ancient bishops' palace stood for so long. Many of the former settlers had come up here.

"I had hoped Madame de Champlain would return with him," Rose said. "I wonder if any time will ever come when I shall love myself better than you."

He bent over and kissed her. He had never quite understood love or known what happiness was until now.

When the Indians learned of the return of their beloved white chief, they planned to come in a body, and salute him. Algonquins, Ottawas, Montagnais, and the more friendly Hurons, came with their gifts, and smoked the pipe of peace.

In the autumn Champlain commenced the first parochial church, called, appropriately, Notre Dame de Recouvrance. The Angelus was rung three times a day. For now the brave old soldier had grown more religious, there were no more exploring journeys, no more voyages across the stormy ocean. He had said good-bye to his wife for the last time, though now, perhaps, he understood her mystical devotion better.

It was indeed a new Quebec. There was no more starvation, no more digging of roots, and searches for edible food products. Their anxious faces gave way to French gayety. Up and down the steep road-way, leading from the warehouses to the rough, tumble-down tenements by the river, men pa.s.sed and repa.s.sed with jests and jollity, s.n.a.t.c.hes of song or a merry good-day, for it was indeed good. There were children of mixed parentage, playing about, for Indian mothers were no uncommon thing. The fort, the church, and the dwellings high up above, gave it a picturesque aspect. You heard the boatmen singing their songs of old France as they went up and down the beautiful river. Stone houses began to appear, though wigwams still remained. New streets were opened, but they were loth to level the hills, and some of them remain to this day.

Ralph and Rose Destournier had a happy life. Children grew up around them. A large, new house received them presently, but they kept a fond remembrance for the old one that seemed somehow to belong exclusively to Miladi and a dreamy sort of old life.

A mixed population it was, shaped by the sincerity of their religion.

There were priests in their gray and black ca.s.socks, officers in brave trappings, traders, Indians, farmers, stout and strong, and the picturesque _coureurs de bois_, that came to be a great feature, and added not a little to the romance of the place. They were not all mere adventurers, but they loved a roving life. Settlements were made here and there, an important one at Three Rivers, where the Recollets established a mission. The summers were given over to work and business, thronged with traders and trappers, but they found time in the winters for much social life.

If the Sieur missed his old friend Hebert, there were others to take an active interest in horticulture. Pontgrave was no more, but his grandson kept up the name. A few years later the earnest young Rene de Robault gave his fortune for the building of a college, and this kept the young men from returning to old France for an education. Convent schools were established, and Indian girls were trained in the amenities and industries of social life. Montreal spread out her borders as well, the Beauport road came to be a place of fine estates. All the way to the mouth of the great river there were trading stations. The fur company's business was good, there were new explorations to Lake Huron, Georgian Bay, Lake Michigan, up to the Fox river.

Of the sons and daughters growing up in the Destournier household, Helene, who should have been a devotee, was a merry madcap, who exceeded her mother in daring feats, a dark-eyed, laughing maid the Indian girls adored. She could manage a canoe, she could fly, they said, she took such wonderful leaps. Rose could sing like a bird and had a fondness for all animals. Little Barbe was a dainty, loving being, always clinging to her mother, and three sons were devoted to their father whose snowy white hair was like a crown of silver. They loved to hear the old tales, and fired with resentment when the lilies of France had to give way to the flag of England.

"But they will never do it again," Robert Destournier would exclaim, with flashing eyes.

But they did almost a century later. Robert was not there to strike a useless blow for his beloved land. That belongs to the story of a newer Quebec, and now all the romances are gathered up into history.

In the autumn of 1635 the brave, beloved Champlain pa.s.sed away in the heart of the city that had been his love, his ambition, his life-dream.

The explorer, the crusader, the sharer of toils and battles, his story is one of the knightly romances of that period, and his name is enshrined with that of old Quebec. Other heroes were to come, other battles to be fought, much work for priest and civilian, but this is the simplest, the bravest of them all, for its mighty work was done at great odds.

To-day you find the Citadel, the old French fort, but the wharves and docks run out in the river, and there are steamboats, instead of canoes.

There is the Market Place and the City Hall, the Grande Allee St. Louis Place and Gate, the crowded business-point, with its ferries, the great Louise basin and embankment. The city runs out to St. Charles river, and stretches on and on until you reach the Convent of the Sacred Heart.

There are still the upper and the lower town, and the steep ways, the heights that Wolfe climbed, the world-famed Plains of Abraham.

Everywhere is historic ground, monuments of courage, zeal, and religion.

The streets have old names. Here on a height so steep you wonder how they are content to climb it, juts out a little stone eyrie, just as it stood a hundred years ago. Three or four generations have lived within its walls, and they are as French to-day as they were then. They want nothing of the modern gauds of the present. Grandmothers used the clumsy furniture, and it is almost worth a king's ransom, it has so many legends woven around it.

There is the Chateau Frontenac, that recalls romance and bravery. There are churches, with their stories. There are the old Jesuit barracks, out of which went many a heroic soul to face martyrdom, there is the Chien d'Or, with its stone dog gnawing a bone, and the romance of Nicolas Jaquin Philibert, the brave Huguenot.

There are old graveyards, where rest the pioneers who prayed, and hoped, and starved with Champlain. All the stories can never be written, all the monuments that speak of glory do not tell of the sufferings. Yet there were happy lives, and happy loves, as well. The storms die out, the light and sunshine dry up the tears, and courage is given to go on.

The old French days have left their impress. Champlain will always be a living memory, as the founder of one of the marvellous cities of the world. Gay little girls run about and climb the heights, they dance and sing, and have their festivals, and are happy in the thrice-renewed Quebec. Many a Rose has blossomed and faded since the days of Destournier.

THE END

The "Little Girl" Series

By AMANDA M. DOUGLAS

A Little Girl in Old New York

A Little Girl of Long Ago A sequel to "A Little Girl in Old New York"

A Little Girl in Old Boston

A Little Girl in Old Philadelphia

A Little Girl in Old Washington