Picturesque Quebec : a sequel to Quebec past and present Part 1

Picturesque Quebec.

by James MacPherson Le Moine.

PREFACE

This volume, purporting to be a sequel to "QUEBEC PAST AND PRESENT,"

published in 1876, is intended to complete the history of the city. New and interesting details will be found in these pages, about the locality, where Samuel de Champlain located his settlement in 1608, together with a rapid glance at incidents, sights, objects, edifices, city gates and other improvements, both ancient and modern, which an antiquarian's ramble round the streets, squares, promenades, monuments, public and private edifices, &c., may disclose. It will, it is hoped, be found a copious repository of historical, topographical, legendary, industrial and antiquarian lore-- garnered not without some trouble from authorities difficult of access to the general reader. May it prove not merely a faithful mirror of the past, but also an authentic record of the present!

THE SKETCH OF THE ENVIRONS OF QUEBEC will take the tourist or student of history beyond the ramparts of Old Stadacona, to the memorable area--the Plains of Abraham--where, one century back and more, took place the hard- fought duel which caused the collapse of French power in the New World, established British rule on our sh.o.r.es, and hastened the birth of the great Commonwealth founded by George Washington, by removing from the British Provinces, south of us, the counterpoise of French dominion. More than once French Canada had threatened the New England Settlements; more than once it had acted like a barrier to the expansion and consolidation of the conquering Anglo-Saxon race.

THE ENVIRONS OF QUEBEC are, indeed, cla.s.sic soil, trodden by the footsteps of many of the most remarkable men in American History: Cartier, Champlain, Phipps, d'Iberville, Laval, Frontenac, La Galissonnere, Wolfe, Montcalm, Levis, Amherst, Murray, Guy Carleton, Nelson, Cook, Bougainville, Jervis, Montgomery, Arnold, DeSalaberry, Brock and others.

Here, in early times, on the sh.o.r.e of the majestic St. Lawrence, stood the wigwam and canoe of the marauding savage; here, was heard the clang of French sabre and Scotch claymore in deadly encounter--the din of battle on the tented field; here,--but no further--had surged the wave of American invasion; here, have bivouaced on more than one gory battle- field, the gay warrior from the banks of the Seine, the staunch musketeers of Old England, the unerring riflemen of New York, Ma.s.sachusetts and Rhode Island. Another spot calculated to interest us is the vast expanse from the Plains to Cap Rouge, round by Ste. Foye to the city, for which I intend to use its former more general name, Sillery: the ground is not new for us, as its annals and country seats furnished, in 1865, materials for sketches, published that year under the t.i.tle of _Maple Leaves_. These sketches having long since disappeared from book-stores, at the request of several enlightened patrons, I re-publish from them some selections, with anecdotes and annotations. Several other sites round Quebec--Beauport, Charlesbourg, the Falls of Montmorency and of the Chaudiere, Chateau Bigot, Lorette and its Hurons--will, of necessity, find a resting place in this repertory of Quebec history, which closes a labour of love, the series of works on Canada, commenced by me in 1861.

In order to enhance the usefulness of this work, extensive and varied historical matter has been included in the appendix for reference.

To my many friends, whose notes and advice have been so freely placed at my disposal, I return my grateful thanks.

J. M. LEMOINE.

SPENCER GRANGE, December, 1881.

PICTURESQUE QUEBEC

CHAPTER 1.

FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF QUEBEC.

Quebec, founded by Samuel de Champlain, in 1608, has certainly much to recommend her, by her monuments, her historical memories and her scenery, to the traveller--the scholar--the historian. The wintering of the venturesome Jacques Cartier on the banks of the St. Charles in 1535-6, by its remoteness, is an incident of interest, not only to Canadians, but also to every denizen of America. It takes one back to an era nearly coeval with the discovery of the continent by Columbus--much anterior to the foundation of Jamestown, in 1607--anterior to that of St Augustine, in Florida. Quebec, has, then, a right to call herself an old, a very old, city of the west.

The colonization of Canada, or, as it was formerly called, New France, was undertaken by French merchants engaged in the fur trade, close on whose steps followed a host of devoted missionaries who found, in the forests of this new and attractive country, ample scope for the exercise of their religious enthusiasm. It was at Quebec that these Christian heroes landed, from hence they started for the forest primeval, the bearers of the olive branch of Christianity, an unfailing token of civilization.

A fatal mistake committed at the outset by the French commanders, in taking sides in the Indian wars, more than once brought the incipient colony to the verge of ruin. During these periods, scores of devoted missionaries fell under the scalping knife or suffered incredible tortures amongst the merciless savages whom they had come to reclaim. Indian ma.s.sacres became so frequent, so appalling, that on several occasions the French thought seriously of giving up the colony forever. The rivalry between France and England, added to the hardships and dangers of the few hardy colonists established at Quebec. Its environs, the sh.o.r.es of its n.o.ble river, more than once became the battle-field of European armies.

These are periods of strife, happily gone by, we hope, forever.

In his "_Pioneers of France in the New World_," the gifted Francis Parkman mournfully reviews the vanished glories of old France in her former vast dominions in America:--

"The French dominion is a memory of the past; and when we evoke its departed shades, they rise upon us from their graves in strange romantic guise. Again their ghostly camp-fires seem to burn, and the fitful light is cast around on lord and va.s.sal and black robed priest, mingled with wild forms of savage warriors, knit in close fellowship on the same stern errand. A boundless vision grows upon us: an untamed continent, vast wastes of forest verdure, mountains silent in primeval sleep; river, lake, and glimmering pool; wilderness oceans mingling with the sky. Such was the domain which France conquered for civilization. Plumed helmets gleamed in the shade of its forests; priestly vestments in its dens and fastnesses of ancient barbarism.

Men steeped in antique learning, pale with the close breath of the cloister, here spent the noon and evening of their lives, ruled savage hordes with a mild, parental sway, and stood serene before the direst shapes of death. Men of a courtly nurture, heirs to the polish of a far-reaching ancestry, here, with their dauntless hardihood, put to shame the boldest sons of toil."

Of all this mighty empire of the past, Quebec was the undisputed capital, the fortress, the keystone.

It would be a curious study to place in juxtaposition the impressions produced on Tourists by the view of Quebec and its environs--from the era of Jacques Cartier, the discoverer of Canada, down to that of the Earl of Dufferin, one of its truest friends.

Champlain, La Potherie, La Houtan, Le Beau, Du Creux (Creuxius), Peter Kalm, Knox, Silliman, Ampere, Mrs. Moodie, d.i.c.kens, Lever, Anthony Trollope, Sala, Th.o.r.eau, Warburton, Marmier, Capt. Butler, Sir Charles Dilke, Henry Ward Beecher, have all left their impressions of the rocky citadel: let us gaze on a few of their vivid pictures.

"The scenic beauty of Quebec has been the theme of general eulogy. The majestic appearance of Cape Diamond and the fortifications, the cupolas and minarets, like those of an eastern city, blazing and sparkling in the sun, the loveliness of the panorama, the n.o.ble basin, like a sheet of purest silver, in which might ride with safety a hundred sail of the line, the graceful meandering of the river St.

Charles, the numerous village spires on either side of the St.

Lawrence, the fertile fields dotted with innumerable cottages, the abode of a rich and moral peasantry,--the distant falls of Montmorency,--the park like scenery of Point Levis,--the beauteous Isle of Orleans,--and more distant still, the frowning Cape Tourmente, and the lofty range of purple mountains of the most picturesque form, which, without exaggeration, is scarcely to be surpa.s.sed in any part of the world." (Hawkins' _Picture of Quebec_.)

"Quebec recalls Angouleme to my mind: in the upper city, stairways, narrow streets, ancient houses on the verge of the cliff; in the lower city, the new fortunes, commerce, workmen;--in both, many shops and much activity." (M. Sand.)

"Take mountain and plain, sinuous river, and broad, tranquil waters, stately ship and tiny boat, gentle hill and shady valley, bold headland and rich, fruitful fields, frowning battlement and cheerful villa, glittering dome and rural spire, flowery garden and sombre forest,--group them all into the choicest picture of ideal beauty your fancy can create; arch it over with a cloudless sky, light it up with a radiant sun, and lest the sheen should be too dazzling, hang a veil of lighted haze over all, to soften the lines and perfect the repose, --you will then have seen Quebec on this September morning." (Eliot Warburton.)

"I rubbed my eyes to be sure I was in the nineteenth century, and not entering one of those portals which sometimes adorn the frontispiece of old black-letter volumes. I though it would be a good place to read Froissart's Chronicles. It was such a reminiscence of the Middle Ages as Scott's Novels.

"Too much has not been said about the scenery of Quebec. The fortifications of Cape Diamond are omnipresent. You travel ten, twenty, thirty miles up or down the river's banks, you ramble fifteen miles among the hills on either side, and then, when you have long since forgotten them, perchance slept on them by the way, at a turn of the road or of your body, there they are still with their geometry against the sky....

"No wonder if Jacques Cartier's pilot exclaimed in Norman-French _Que bec!_ ("What a peak!") when he saw this cape, as some suppose.

Every modern traveller uses a similar expression....

"The view from Cape Diamond has been compared by European travellers with the most remarkable views of a similar kind in Europe, such as those from Edinburgh Castle, Gibraltar, Cintra, and others, and preferred by many. A main peculiarity in this, compared with other views which I have beheld, is that it is from the ramparts of a fortified city, and not from a solitary and majestic river cape alone that this view is obtained.... I still remember the harbour far beneath me, sparkling like silver in the sun,--the answering headlands of Point Levis on the south-east,--the frowning Cape Tourmente abruptly bounding the seaward view in the north-east,--the villages of Lorette and Charlesbourg on the north,--and farther west, the distant Val Cartier, sparkling with white cottages, hardly removed by distance through the clear air,--not to mention a few blue mountains along the horizon in that direction. You look out from the ramparts of the citadel beyond the frontiers of civilization. Yonder small group of hills, according to the guide-book, forms the portals of the wilds which are trodden only by the feet of the Indian hunters as far as Hudson's Bay." (Th.o.r.eau).

Mrs. Moodie (Susannah Strickland), in her sketches of Canadian life, graphically delineates her trip from Grosse Isle to Quebec, and the appearance of the city itself from the river:--

"On the 22nd of September (1832), the anchor was weighed, and we bade a long farewell to Grosse Isle. As our vessel struck into mid-channel, I cast a last lingering look at the beautiful sh.o.r.e we were leaving.

Cradled in the arms of the St. Lawrence, and basking in the bright rays of the morning sun, the island and its sister group looked like a second Eden just emerged from the waters of chaos. The day was warm, and the cloudless heavens of that peculiar azure tint which gives to the Canadian skies and waters a brilliancy unknown in more northern lat.i.tudes. The air was pure and elastic; the sun shone out with uncommon splendour, lighting up the changing woods with a rich mellow colouring, composed of a thousand brilliant and vivid dyes. The mighty river rolled flashing and sparkling onward, impelled by a strong breeze that tipped its short rolling surges with a crest of snowy foam.

"Never shall I forget that short voyage from Grosse Isle to Quebec.

What wonderful combinations of beauty and grandeur and power, at every winding of that n.o.ble river!

"Every perception of my mind became absorbed into the one sense of seeing, when, upon rounding Point Levis, we cast anchor before Quebec.

What a scene! Can the world produce another? Edinburgh had been the _beau ideal_ to me of all that was beautiful in nature--a vision of the Northern Highlands had haunted my dreams across the Atlantic; but all these past recollections faded before the _present_ of Quebec. Nature has ransacked all our grandest elements to form this astonishing panorama. There, frowns the cloud-capped mountain, and below, the cataract foams and thunders; woods and rock and river combine to lend their aid in making the picture perfect, and worthy of its Divine originator. The precipitous bank upon which the city lies piled, reflected in the still, deep waters at its base, greatly enhances the romantic beauty of the situation. The mellow and serene glow of the autumn day harmonized so perfectly with the solemn grandeur of the scene around me, and sank so silently and deeply into my soul, that my spirit fell prostrate before it, and I melted involuntarily into tears."

Such the poetic visions which were awakened in the poetic mind of the brilliant author of "_Roughing it, in the Bush._" Charles d.i.c.kens also had his say in this matter, on his visit to Quebec, in May 1842, where he was the guest of the President of the _Literary and Historical Society_, Dr.

John Charlton Fisher:--

"The impression made upon the visitor by this Gibraltar of America, its giddy heights, its citadel suspended, as it were, in the air; its picturesque steep streets and frowning gateways; and the splendid views which burst upon the eye at every turn, is at once unique and lasting. It is a place not to be forgotten or mixed up in the mind with other places, or altered for a moment in the crowd of scenes a traveller can recall. Apart from the realities of this most picturesque city, there are a.s.sociations cl.u.s.tering about it which would make a desert rich in interest. The dangerous precipice along whose rocky front Wolfe and his brave companions climbed to glory; the Plains of Abraham, where he received his mortal wound; the fortress so chivalrously defended by Montcalm; and his soldier's grave, dug for him when yet alive, by the bursting of a sh.e.l.l, are not the least among them, or among the gallant incidents of history. That is a n.o.ble monument too, and worthy of two great nations, which perpetuates the memory of both brave Generals, and on which their names are jointly written.

"The city is rich in public inst.i.tutions and in Catholic churches and charities, but it is mainly in the prospect from the site of the Old Government House and from the Citadel, that its surpa.s.sing beauty lies. The exquisite expanse of country, rich in field and forest, mountain-heights and water, which lies stretched out before the view, with miles of Canadian villages, glancing in long white streaks, like veins along the landscape; the motley crowd of gables, roofs and chimney tops in the old hilly town immediately at hand; the beautiful St. Lawrence sparkling and flashing in the sunlight; and the tiny ships below the rock from which you gaze, whose distant rigging looks like spiders' webs against the light, while casks and barrels on their decks dwindle into toys, and busy mariners become so many puppets; all this framed by a sunken window [1] in the fortress and looked at from the shadowed room within, forms one of the brightest and most enchanting pictures that the eye can rest upon." (d.i.c.kens' _American Notes_.)

A distinguished French _litterateur_, fresh from the sunny banks of the Seine, thus discourses anent the Ancient capital; we translate:--

"Few cities," says M. Marmier, [2] "offer as many striking contrasts as Quebec, a fortress and a commercial city together, built upon the summit of a rock as the nest of an eagle, while her vessels are everywhere wrinkling the face of the ocean; an American city inhabited by French colonists, governed by England, and garrisoned with Scotch regiments; [3] a city of the middle ages by most of its ancient inst.i.tutions, while it is submitted to all the combinations of modern const.i.tutional government; an European city by its civilization and its habits of refinement, and still close by, the remnants of the Indian tribes and the barren mountains of the north, a city of about the same lat.i.tude as Paris, while successively combining the torrid climate of southern regions with the severities of an hyperborean winter; a city at the same time Catholic and Protestant, where the labours of our (French) missions are still uninterrupted alongside of the undertakings of the Bible Society, and where the Jesuits driven out of our own country (France) find a place of refuge under the aegis of British Puritanism!"

An American tourist thus epitomises the sights:--

"As the seat of French power in America until 1759, the great fortress of English rule in British America, and the key of the St. Lawrence, Quebec must possess interest of no ordinary character for well- informed tourists. To the traveller, there are innumerable points and items vastly interesting and curious--the citadel and forts of Cape Diamond, with their impregnable ramparts that rival Gibraltar in strength and endurance against siege, the old walls of the city and their gates each of which has its legend of war and b.l.o.o.d.y a.s.sault and repulse, the plains of Abraham, every foot of which is commemorated with blood and battle; Wolfe's monument, where the gallant and brave soldier died with a shout of victory on his lips, the Martello towers, with their subterranean communications with the citadel; the antique churches, paintings, and all their paraphernalia, treasures, and curiosities that are religiously preserved therein, the falls of Montmorency, the natural steps. Montcalm's house, and a thousand other relics of the mysterious past that has hallowed these with all the mystic interest that attaches to antiquity, great deeds, and beautiful memories. To see all these, a tourist requires at least two days'

time, and surely no one who pretends to be a traveller, in these days of rapid transit will fail to visit Quebec, the best city, the most hospitable place, and richer in its wealth of rare sights and grand old memorials. French peculiarities and English oddities, than any other city on this broad continent."

"Leaving the citadel, we are once more in the European Middle ages.

Gates and posterns, cranky steps that lead up to lofty, gabled houses, with sharp French roofs of burnished tin, like those of Liege; processions of the Host; altars decked with flowers; statues of the Virgin; sabots, blouses, and the scarlet of the British lines-man,-- all these are seen in narrow streets and markets that are graced with many a Cotentin lace cap, and all within forty miles of the down-east, Yankee state of Maine. It is not far from New England to Old France.... There has been no dying out of the race among the French Canadians. They number twenty times the thousand that they did 100 years ago. The American soil has left physical type, religion, language, and laws absolutely untouched. They herd together in their rambling villages, dance to the fiddle after Ma.s.s on Sundays,--as gayly as once did their Norman sires,--and keep up the _fleur-de- lys_ and the memory of Montcalm. More French than the French are the Lower Canada _habitans_. The pulse-beat of the continent finds no echo here."--(Sir Charles Dilke.)

In the rosy days of his budding fame, the gifted Henry Ward Beecher discoursed as follows of the Rock City [4]:--