Famous Firesides of French Canada Part 3

In the Eastern part of the city, commonly called the French quarter, so purely French are the people, with temperaments as gay and volatile as in _Le Beau Paris_ itself, is a gem of architecture in the church of "Our Lady of Lourdes." This chapel, reared as a visible expression of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, is of the Byzantine and Renaissance type, a style frequently to be seen reflected from the lagoons of Venice.

"The choir and transepts terminate in a circular domed apsis, and a large central dome rises at the intersection of the latter. The statue over the altar, and which immediately strikes the eye, is symbolic of the doctrine ill.u.s.trated. The Virgin is represented in the att.i.tude usually shown in the Spanish School of Painters, with hands crossed upon the breast, standing on a cloud with the words: 'A woman clothed with the sun and the moon under her feet.'" A singularly beautiful light, thrown down from an unseen source, casts a kind of heavenly radiance around the figure with fine effect.

"Some of the painting is exceedingly good. The decoration of the church, in gold and colours, arabesque and fifteenth century ornament, is very beautiful and harmonious. This building is interesting as being the only one of the kind in America."

By descending a narrow stairway, which winds beneath the floor, is found a shrine fitted up in imitation of the grotto near Lourdes, in France, in which it is said the Virgin appeared to a young girl, Bernadette Souberous, at which time a miracle-working fountain is said to have gushed out of the rock, and still continues its wonderful cures. A goblet of the water stands on the altar, and is said to have powers of healing. This underground shrine, lighted only by dim, coloured lamps, gives a sensation of peculiar weirdness after the light and beauty of the structure above.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Perhaps there is no church of French Canada of deeper interest than "_Notre Dame de Bonsecours_." On its site stood the first place of worship built, for which Maisonneuve himself a.s.sisted to cut and draw the timbers, some of which are still in existence. The name _Bonsecours_, signifying succour, was given on account of a narrow escape of the infant colony from the Iroquois. The present building, erected in 1771 on the old foundations, was, until a few years ago, remarkable for its graceful tin roof and finely-pointed spire. The rear having since been altered in a manner entirely out of keeping with the original, which time had "painted that sober hue which makes the antiquity of churches their greatest beauty," much of the charm which made it unique has been destroyed. If it is true that it was an act of piety on the part of a devoted priest, it is another proof that zeal at times outruns correct taste.

The statue of heroic size on the new portion of the edifice, with arms uplifted as if in blessing, was the gift of a n.o.ble of Brittany. It was brought over in the Seventeenth Century, and for two hundred years has been the patron saint of sailors, who ascribe to it miraculous powers.

Its ancient pews, the crutches on the walls, and pictures which are among the first works of art brought to the country, suggest the varied scenes which have taken place around the old sanctuary since its doors were first opened for worship.

The ascent of a hundred steps reveals the daintiest and most aerial of chapels above the roof of the church. Tiny coloured windows, designed in lilies and pierced hearts, a microscopic organ, brought from France, no one knows when, and a few rows of seats are the furnishing. The altar, instead of the usual appearance, is a miniature house. Its history is as follows:--"One of the most remarkable events in the history of the Church was the sudden disappearance of the house which had been inhabited by the Holy Family at Nazareth in Galilee. This took place in 1291. As this sacred relic was about to be exposed to the danger of being destroyed by the Saracen infidels, it was miraculously raised from its foundations and transported by angels to Dalmatia, where, early in the morning, some peasants discovered on a small hill, a house without foundations, half converted into a shrine, and with a steeple like a chapel.

The next day their venerable bishop informed them that Our Lady had appeared to him and said that this house had been carried by angels from Nazareth, and was the same in which she had lived; that the altar had been erected by the apostles, and the statue sculptured in cedar wood had been made by St. Luke. Three years afterwards it again disappeared, its luminous journey being witnessed by some Italian shepherds.

Its present position is about a mile from the Adriatic, at Loretto, just as the angels placed it six hundred years ago. Millions of pilgrims visit it from all parts of the world."

For the aerial chapel of _Bonsecours_, a fac-simile has been obtained.

To render it more sacred it was placed for a period within the holy house, it touched its walls, and was blessed with holy water in the vessel from which our Lord drank. Such is the alleged history of this shrine, and the peculiar sanct.i.ty attached to it.

The extensive convent buildings of the Grey Nuns and other sisterhoods are as numerous as the churches. As the _matin_ bell falls on the ear in the early morning hours, calling to prayers those who have chosen the austerities and serenities of convent life, it recalls to memory the n.o.ble band of ladies of the old aristocracy who left chateaux h.o.a.ry with the traditions of a chivalrous ancestry, and dear with the memories of home, in the company of rough seamen to brave the untried perils of the ocean, a hostile country, homesickness and death, to carry spiritual and bodily healing to the savages. Their followers keep the same vigils now among the sins and sorrows of the bustling city. They glide through the streets with downcast eyes, in sombre robes, wimple and linen coif, bent on missions of church service and errands of mercy, tending the sick and suffering, and striving to win back human wrecks to a better life.

The various sisterhoods differ in degrees of austerity, the Grey Nuns being one of the least exacting. Their Foundling Hospital, it is said, had its origin in a most touching circ.u.mstance. One of the original members of the Order, Madame d'Youville, on leaving the convent gates in the middle of winter, found frozen in the ice of a little stream that then flowed near what is called Foundling street, an infant with a poignard in its heart. Since then tens of thousands of these small outcasts have found sanctuary and tender care within the cloister walls.

The daughter of Ethan Allan, the founder of Vermont, died a member of this Order.

The Carmelites are the most rigid in their requirements of service. They are small numerically and live behind high walls, and renounce forever the sight of the outside world, never leaving their cloister, and being practically dead to home and friends, sleeping, it is said, in their own coffins.

Instances have been known of a sister's a.s.suming vows of special severity, as in the case of Jean Le Ber, of the _Congregation de Notre Dame_, a daughter of a merchant in the town, who voluntarily lived in solitary confinement from the year 1695 to 1714--nineteen years of self-immolation, when her couch was a pallet of straw, and her prayers and fastings unceasing. She denied herself everything that to us would make life desirable or even endurable--sacrificed the dearest ties of kindred, and pursued with intense fervour the self-imposed rigours of her vocation. Yet, it was not that in her nature she had no love for beauty nor craving for pleasure, for in the sacristy of the Cathedral, carefully preserved in a receptacle in which are kept the vestments of the clergy, are robes ornamented by her needle that are simply marvels of colour, design and exquisite finish. The modern robes, though gorgeous in richly-piled velvet from the looms of Lyons, heavy with gold work and embroidered with angels and figures so exquisitely wrought as to look as if painted on ivory, yet do not compare with that done by the fingers that were worn by asceticism within the walls of her cell.

In the spare form, clad in thread-bare garments, there must have been crushed down a gorgeously artistic nature which found visible expression in the beautifully adorned _chasubles_ of the priests and altar cloths, which are solid ma.s.ses of delicate silken work on a ground of fine silver threads, the colours and l.u.s.tre of which seem unimpaired by time.

Six generations of priests have performed the sacrifice of the ma.s.s in these marvellously beautiful robes, the incense from the swaying censors of two hundred years have floated around them in waves of perfume. The taste and skill with which high-born ladies of that time wrought tapestries to hang on their castle walls were consecrated by her to religion, in devoting to the Church, work which was fit to adorn the royal drapings of a Zen.o.bia.

Without the magnificence which distinguishes the cathedrals, some of the rural shrines are full of interest. The church of _Ste. Anne's_, an old building near the western end of the island, and one of the oldest sacerdotal edifices in America, has around it a halo of romance and piety since the fur-trading days, being the last church visited by the _voyageurs_ and their last glimpse of civilization before facing the dangers of the pathless wilderness of the West. At its altar these rough, half-wild men knelt to pray and put themselves under the protection of their t.i.tular _Sainte Anne_.

The Trappists, though rarely seen outside the walls of their retreat, look precisely as did mediaeval monks of centuries ago, with whose appearance we are familiar in pictures of Peter the Hermit and other zealots, who with their fiery eloquence sent the Armies of Christendom to fight for the Holy Sepulchre. They dress in a coa.r.s.e brown gown and cowl, with a girdle of rope, and are under vows of perpetual silence.

They live on frugal meals of vegetables and fruit twice a day, have the head tonsured, and feet bare in sandals. The continued fasts, severe flagellations, labours and meditations of those anchorites make the regulations governing this order exceedingly strict, and recall the times when kings and emperors, in the same monkish garb, walked barefoot to knock humbly in penance at monastery gates.

Perhaps the most unique shrine in the province is that of Mount Rigaud, on the banks of the Ottawa, not far from the spot where Dollard and his band of Christian knights lay down their lives. The mountain is regarded with much superst.i.tion by the ignorant, on account of its peculiar and unaccountable natural phenomena, whose origin has puzzled the most learned scientists to account for. The wooded mountain is crowned by what is called "The Field of Stones," or "The Devil's Garden," from a deposit of almost spherical boulders, of so far unmeasured depth, which cover its surface. Encircled by trees and verdure, this strange formation of several acres in extent is composed mainly of rock different from the ma.s.s of the mountain, which belongs to the same family as the igneous mountains of the neighbouring region. What were the causes and conditions which carried this strange material to the top of this elevation will, when they are explained, be of intense interest.

It is said that the only other deposit similar, though smaller in extent, is in Switzerland. Perhaps some ancient glacier, through eons of time, gradually melted here, and slowly deposited the drift it had borne from regions far away.

A bold spur of the hill has been converted into a shrine, adorned with images, while on the bare rough sides of the lichen-covered rocks have been inscribed in large white letters the words "Penitence--Penitence."

At regular intervals on the stony road approaching it are what are called the "Stations of the Cross." They are fourteen in number, being little chapels made from the uncut stones of the "Devil's Garden." The floors of these, on which the penitents kneel before pictures of the "Pa.s.sion," are covered with sand and coa.r.s.e gravel.

The conquest of Canada in 1759 by the English differed from that of Britain by the Norman French in 1066, in that here the vanquished were allowed to retain their language, customs and full religious liberties, so that, after a lapse of one hundred and fifty years, the Papal service is solemnized with all the pomp and ceremonial of the Vatican, and in the courts, the Quebec Legislature and in Society is heard the euphonic French speech, and, outside of Rome, Canada is considered the chief bulwark of Papacy.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

THE Ma.s.sACRE OF LACHINE.

The conquest and settlement of all new regions are necessarily more or less written in blood, and the natural characteristics of the North American Indian have caused much of the early history of Canada to be traced in deeds of horror and agony lighted by the torture fire, with sufferings the most exquisite of which the human mind can conceive. When these were inflicted on individuals, it was sufficiently heartrending, but when a whole community fell a victim to their ferocity, as was the case in what is called "The Ma.s.sacre of Lachine," the details are too horrible for even the imagination to dwell upon. Standing on the river bank, or "shooting" the rapids in the steamer, with the green sh.o.r.es as far as the eye can reach dotted with villages and villas, the wonderful bridges spanning the stream, and beyond, the great city with its domes and spires, it can scarcely be realized that for two days and two nights the spot was a scene of the most revolting carnage. It was an evening in the summer of 1689. In spite of a storm of wind and rain which broke over the young settlement, the fields of grain and meadows looked cheerful and thrifty. In each cabin home the father had returned from the day's toil in the harvest field and was sitting by the fireside, where the kettle sang contentedly. The mother sat spinning or knitting, and perhaps singing a lullaby, as she rocked the cradle, little recking that ere the morning dawned the hamlet would lie in ashes, and the tomahawk of the Indian be buried in her babies' hearts; but such was the case, for after forty-eight hours of fiendish cruelty, death and desolation reigned for miles along the sh.o.r.es. Where the blue smoke had curled up among the trees were only the smoking ruins of hearths and homes, surrounded with sights and suggestions of different forms of death, which even the chronicler, two hundred years after, is fain to pa.s.s by in shuddering silence.

The crumbling remains of a fortified seigniorial chateau, within sight of the Rapids of Lachine, a tradition a.s.serts, was in the year 1668 the home of La Salle, who was one of the most excellent men of his day.

Leaving his fair demesne, which the Sulpicians had conferred upon him, and the home which to-day is slowly falling to decay among the apple-orchards along the river side, he too followed his thirst for adventure into untrodden fields.

There is a well-founded legend that the old chimney attached thereto was built by Champlain in his trading post of logs. It is of solid masonry, and is sixty years older than the walls which surround it. The wide fireplace has a surface of fifty square feet, and is the most interesting piece of architecture in all Canada. The snowflakes of almost three hundred winters have fallen into its cavernous depths since these stones and mortar were laid. When Champlain stood by its hearth, as its first blaze, lighted by tinder and flint, roared up to the sky--William Shakespeare was still writing his sublime lines, Queen Elizabeth had lain but twelve years in her marble tomb, and the Chateau de Ramezay was not to be built for a hundred years to come. Often in the two years during which it had for La Salle the sacredness of the home fireside, its light must have fallen on his handsome young face, and flowing curls, as he laid out plans for his palisaded village, and dreamt of the golden lands towards the setting sun. He was a true patriot, and literally gave his life for the advancement of his country, being murdered in the Lower Mississippi by one of his own men while endeavouring to extend its territory.

[Ill.u.s.tration: HOME OF LA SALLE.

COPYRIGHT.]

Posterity is not true to the memory of these great pioneers, for the elements beat upon the roofless timbers, the north wind sweeps the hearth that is mouldering under the rains and sunshine of the skies they loved. In another generation all that can be said will be--here once stood the historic stones of the ancient fireside of the heroes who won the wilderness for those who have allowed this monument of their fort.i.tude and self-sacrifice to crumble into dust.

[Ill.u.s.tration: La Salle]

La Salle had heard from some stray bands of Seneca Indians, who had visited his post at Lachine, of a great river that flowed from their hunting grounds to the sea. Imagining it would open his way to find the route to the golden Ind, he sold his grant at Lachine, and in company with two priests from the Seminary at Montreal, and some Senecas as guides, started on July 6th, 1669. With visions of finding for France a clime of warmer suns and more rich in silver and gold than Canada, he pushed on. The priests on their return brought back nothing of any value except the first map procured of the upper lake region.

One of the most enthusiastic fellow travelers of La Salle was a Franciscan, Father Hennepin. They crossed the ocean from France together, and probably beguiled many an hour of the long voyage in relating their dreams of finding the treasures hidden in the land to which the prow of the vessel pointed.

Hennepin also penetrated to the Mississippi, reaching in his wanderings a beautiful fall foaming between its green bluffs which he named St.

Anthony, on which spot now stands the "Flour City," Minneapolis, in the county of Hennepin, Minnesota. He probably heard of the other falls, five miles away, which we know as Minnehaha, and around which the sweetest of American poets has woven the witchery of Indian legend in the wooing of "Hiawatha." It seems almost incredible that where are now the largest flour mills in the world, turning out daily about 40,000 barrels, there was, scarcely fifty years ago, only the cedar strewn wigwam and smoke of the camp fire, the tread of moccasined feet and the dip of the paddles by the bark canoe.

Near by _Place d'Armes_ Square may be seen a grey stone house on which is written "Here lived Sieur DuLuth." He was a leading spirit among the young men of the town, who gathered around his fireside to listen to his thrilling tales of adventure, and of his early life when he was a _gendarme_ in the King's Guard. Coming to Canada in the year 1668, he explored among the Sioux tribes of the Western plains. He was one of the first Frenchmen to approach the sources of the Mississippi. The city of Duluth in Minnesota received its name from him. A tablet on a modern building in the same locality informs the pa.s.ser-by that _Cadillac_, who founded the City of Detroit about the same time as the Chateau de Ramezay was built, spent the last years of his wandering life on this spot.

The town of Varennes, down the river, is called from the owner of a Seigniory in the forest, le Chevalier Gauthier de la Verandrye, a soldier and a trader, who was the first to explore the great Canadian North-West, and to discover the "Rockies." He was an undaunted and fearless traveler, establishing post after post, as far as the wild banks of the Saskatchewan and even further north, which, in giving to France, he ultimately gave to Canada.

"Honour to those who fought the trees, And won the land for us."

The traditions connected with the Chateau de Ramezay are scarcely more interesting than those surrounding many spots in the vicinity.

Incorporated in this prosaic, business part of the city are many an old gable or window, which were once part of some mediaeval chapel or home of these early times. On the other side of Notre Dame street, where now stands the cla.s.sic and beautiful pile called the City Hall, were to be seen in those days the church and "_Habitation_," as it was called, of the Jesuit Fathers, within whose walls lived many learned sons of Loyola, Charlevoix among others. They were burnt down in 1803, at the same time as the Chateau de Vaudreuil was destroyed, by one of the disastrous fires which have so frequently swept the cities of Montreal and Quebec, and in which many quaint historical structures disappeared.

About a mile to the west is still standing the family residence of Daniel Hyacinthe, Marie Lienard de Beaujeu, the hero of the Monongahela, at which battle George Washington was an officer.

[Ill.u.s.tration: De Beaujeu]

It was a lamentable event, the indiscriminate slaughter of three thousand men through the stupidity and incredible obstancy of General Braddock, who, like Dieskau at a subsequent time, despising the counsel of those familiar with Indian methods of warfare, determinedly followed his own plans.

Washington in this engagement held the rank of Adjutant-General of Virginia. "His business was to inform the French that they were building forts on English soil, and that they would do well to depart peaceably."

Beaujeu was sent at the head of a force composed of French soldiers and Indian allies to answer the Briton with the powerful argument of force of arms.

As Braddock reached the ford over the river which was to put him on the same side as the fort, Colonel Thomas Gage crossed in advance, without opposition. Beaujeu had intended to contest the pa.s.sage, but his Indians being refractory, his march was delayed. Gage with the advance was pushing on when his engineer saw a man, apparently an officer, wave his cap to his followers, who were unseen in the woods. From every vantage ground of knoll and bole, and on three sides of the column, the concealed muskets were levelled upon the English, who returned the fire.

As Beaujeu fell, Dumas, who succeeded him, thought that the steady front of the red-skins was going to carry the day, until he saw his Canadians fly, followed by the Indians, after Gage had wheeled his cannon on the woods. A little time, however, changed all this. The Indians rallied and poured their bullets into the ma.s.sed and very soon confused British troops. Braddock, when he spurred forward, found everybody demoralized except the Virginians, who were firing from the tree trunks, as the enemy did. The British General was shocked at such an unmilitary habit, and ordered them back into line. No one under such orders could find cover, and every puff from a concealed Indian was followed by a soldier's fall. No exertion of Braddock, nor of Washington, nor of anyone prevailed. The General had four horses shot under him and Washington had two. Still the hillsides and the depths of the wood were spotted by puffs of smoke, and the slaughter-pen was in a turmoil--scarce one Englishman in three escaped bullets. The commander then gave the sign to retreat, and was endeavouring to restore order when a ball struck him from his horse. The British Army had become bewildered fugitives, and a guard could hardly be kept for the wounded General, as he was borne along on a horse as a litter.