Picturesque Quebec : a sequel to Quebec past and present Part 19

"'Ah! you're Joe Monfaron!" said the bully, a little staggered at the sort of customer he saw before him. 'I said I'd like to see you, for sure, but how am I to know you're the right man?'

"'Shake hands first,' replied Joe, 'and then you will find out, may be.'

"They shook hands--rather warmly, perhaps, for the timber-tower, whose features wore an uncertain expression during the operation, and who at last broke out into a yell of pain, as Joe cast him off with a defiant laugh. Nor did the bully wait for any further explanations, for, whether the man who had just brought the blood spouting out at the tops of his fingers was Joe Monfaron or not, he was clearly an ugly customer, and had better be left alone.

The St. Lawrence, its rafts of timber, raftsmen, _voyageurs_ and their songs, are pleasantly alluded to by a sympathetic French writer of note, X. Marmier, [105] who visited Canada some thirty years ago:

"On the St. Lawrence, traversed by steamboats, by vessels heavily laden, and by light bark canoes, we may see early in the season immense rafts of timber that are brought down from the dense northern forests, hewn where they are felled, drawn to the rivers upon the snow, and made up into rafts. The Canadian crews erect masts and spread their sails, and by the aid of wind and current, and sometimes by rowing, they boldly guide these acres of fir down the rapids to Quebec, while they animate their labours with the melody of their popular songs. A part would intone the Canadian song

"A la Claire Fontaine,"

while the others, repeating the last two lines, would at the same time let drop their oars as those of the former arose.

"There is probably no river on earth that has heard so many vows of love as the St. Lawrence; for there is not a Canadian boatman that has ever pa.s.sed up or down the river without repeating, as the blade of his oar dropped into the stream, and as it arose, the national refrain.

"Il y a longtemps que je t'aime, Jamais je ne t'oublierai!"

"Long time have I loved thee, Never will I forget thee!"

"And I will here say that there is a harmonious sweetness in these simple words, that well accords with the simple yet imposing character of the scenery of this charming region.

"Upon our coquettish rivers in Europe they may whisper of loves along their flowery banks and under the vine-clad terraces that overhang them, like the curtains of a saloon; but here, in this grand severity of nature, upon these immense, half desert plains, in the silence of these gloomy forests, on the banks of this majestic river that is ever speeding onward to the eternal ocean, we may feel emotions that are truly sublime. If, in this quiet solitude, should we open the soul to a dream of love, it takes the serious tone; it needs must be a pure being that dares to breathe to the heavens and to the waves these sacred words, 'I love thee,' and that can add the promise and the pledge of the Canadian song:

"Jamais je ne t'oublierai."

"Ne'er will I forget thee!" [106]

Among the streets of Quebec, most celebrated in our annals by reason of the incidents which attach thereto, one may name the frowsy and tortuous highway which circulates from the foot of Mountain Hill, running for a distance of two hundred feet below the Cape, up to the still narrower pathway which commences west of St. James street and leads to the foot of the hill "_de la canoterie_;" [107] all will understand we mean the leading commercial thoroughfare of olden time, [108] Sault-au-Matelot street. Is it because a sailor, no doubt only partially relieved from the horrors of sobriety, there made a wild leap? or are we to attribute the name to the circ.u.mstance of a dog named "Matelot" ("Sailor") there taking a leap? [109] Consult _Du Creux_. Our friend, Joseph Marmette, appropriated it for the reception of his hero, "Dent de Loup," who escaped without broken bones after his leap. [110]

The western portion of the still narrower pathway of which we have just spoken, rejoices in the name of "Ruelle des Chiens," (Dog Lane); [111] the directories name it Sous-le-Cap street. It is so narrow that, at certain angles, two carts pa.s.sing in opposite directions, would be blocked. Just picture to yourself that up to the period of 1816, our worthy ancestors had no other outlet in this direction at high water to reach St. Roch, (for St. Paul street was constructed subsequently to 1816, as M. de Gaspe has informed us.) Is it not incredible? As, in certain pa.s.ses of the Alps, a watchman no doubt stood at either extremity of this lane, provided with a speaking trumpet to give notice of any obstruction and thus prevent collisions. This odoriferous locality, especially during the dog-days, is rather densely populated. The babes of Green Erin, with a sprinkling of young Jean Baptistes, here flourish like rabbits in a warren. Miss Kitty Ellison and her friend. Mr. Arbuton, in their romantic wanderings, were struck with the _mise en scene_ of Dog Lane:--

"Now that Prescott Gate, by which so many thousands of Americans have entered Quebec since Arnold's excursionists failed to do so, is demolished, there is nothing left so picturesque and characteristic as Hope Gate (alas! since razed), and I doubt if anywhere in Europe there is a more mediaeval-looking bit of military architecture. The heavy stone gateway is black with age, and the gate, which has probably never been closed in our century, is of ma.s.sive frame, set thick with mighty bolts and spikes. The wall here sweeps along the brow of the crag on which the city is built, and a steep street drops down, by stone-parapeted curves and angles, from the Upper to the Lower Town, when, in 1775, nothing but a narrow lane bordered the St. Lawrence. A considerable breadth of land has since been won from the river, and several streets and many piers now stretch between this alley and the water, but the old Sault-au-Matelot still crouches and creeps along under the shelter of the city wall and the overhanging rock, which is thickly bearded with weeds and gra.s.s, and trickles with abundant moisture. It must be an ice pit in winter, and I should think it the last spot on the continent for the summer to find; but when the summer has at last found it, the old Sault-au-Matelot puts on a vagabond air of southern leisure and abandon, not to be matched anywhere out of Italy. Looking from that jutting rock near Hope Gate, behind which the defeated Americans took refuge from the fire of their enemies, the vista is almost unique for a certain scenic squalor and gypsy luxury of colour--sag-roofed barns and stables, and weak-backed, sunken- chested workshops of every sort, lounge along in tumble-down succession, and lean up against the cliff in every imaginable posture of worthlessness and decrepitude, light wooden galleries cross to them from the second stories of the houses which back upon the alley, and over these galleries flutters from a labyrinth of clothes-lines a variety of bright-coloured garments of all ages, s.e.xes and conditions, while the footway underneath abounds in gossiping women, smoking men, idle poultry, cats, children, and large, indolent Newfoundland dogs."

--(_A Chance Acquaintance_, p, 175.)

Adventurous tourists who have risked themselves there in the sultry days of July, have found themselves dazed at the sight of the wonders of the place. Among other indigenous curiosities, they have there noticed what might be taken for any number of aerial tents, improvised no doubt as protection from the scorching rays of a meridian sun. Attached to ropes stretched from one side of the public way to the other, was the family linen, hung out to dry. When shaken by the wind over the heads of the pa.s.sers-by, these articles of white under-clothing (_chemisettes_), flanked by sundry masculine nether-garments, presented a _tableau_, it is said, in the highest degree picturesque. As regards ourselves, desirous from our earliest days to search into the most recondite _arcana_ of the history of our city and to portray them in all their suggestive reality, for the edification of distinguished tourists from England, France and the United States, it has been to us a source of infinite mortification to realize that the only visit which we ever made to Dog Lane was subsequent to the publication of the _Alb.u.m du Touriste_; a circ.u.mstance which explains the omission of it from that repository of Canadian lore. Our most ill.u.s.trious tourists, [112] the eldest son of the Queen, the Prince of Wales, his brothers, the Princes Alfred and Arthur, the Dukes of Newcastle, of Athol, of Manchester, of Beaufort, of Argyle, of Sutherland, Generals Grant and Sherman, and Prince Napoleon Bonaparte, it is said, took their leave of Quebec without having visited that interesting locality, "_la Ruelle des Chiens_," Sous-le-Cap street, probably unconscious of its very existence! Nevertheless, this street possesses great historical interest. It has re-echoed the trumpet sounds of war, the thundering of cannon, the briskest musketry; there fell Brigadier-General Arnold, wounded in the knee: carried off amid the despairing cries of his soldiers, under the swords of Dambourges, of the fierce and stalwart Charland, of the brave Caldwell, followed by his friend Nairn and their chivalrous militiamen. Our friends, the annexationists of that period, were so determined to annex Quebec, that they threw themselves as if possessed by the evil one upon the barriers (there were two of them) in Sous-le-Cap street and in Sault-au-Matelot street; each man, says Sanguinet, wearing a slip of paper on his cap on which was written "_Mors aut Victoria_," "Death or Victory!" One hundred years and more have elapsed since this fierce struggle, and we are not yet under Republican rule!

A number of dead bodies lay in the vicinity, on the 31st December, 1775; they were carried to the Seminary. Ample details of the incidents of this glorious day will be found in "QUEBEC PAST AND PRESENT." It is believed that the first barrier was placed at the foot of the stone _demi-lune_, where, at present, a cannon rests on the ramparts; the second was constructed in rear of the present offices of Mr. W. D. Campbell, N.P., in Sault-au-Matelot street.

Sault-au-Matelot street has lost the military renown which it then possessed; besides the offices of M. Ledroit, of the _Morning Chronicle_, and of the timber cullers, it now is a stand for the carters, and a numerous tribe of pork merchants, salmon preservers and coopers, whose casks on certain days enc.u.mber the sidewalks.

St. Paul street does not appear on the plan of the city of Quebec of 1660, reproduced by the Abbe Faillon. This quarter of the Lower Town, so populous under the French _regime, and where, according to Monseigneur de Laval, there was, in 1661, "_magnus numerus civium_" continued, until about 1832, to represent the hurry-scurry of affairs and the residences of the princ.i.p.al merchants, one of the wealthiest portions of the city.

There, in 1793, the father of our Queen, Colonel of the 7th Fusiliers, then in garrison at Quebec, partook of the hospitality of M. Lymburner, one of the merchant princes of that period. Was the _chere amie_, the elegant _Baronne de St. Laurent_, of the party? We found it impossible to ascertain this from our old friend, Hon. William Sheppard, of Woodfield, near Quebec (who died in 1867), from whom we obtained this incident. Mr.

Sheppard, who had frequently been a guest at the most select drawing-rooms of the ancient capital, was himself a contemporary of the generous and jovial Prince Edward.

The Sault-au-Matelot quarter, St. Peter street, and St. James street, down to the year 1832, contained the habitations of a great number of persons in easy circ.u.mstances; many of our families of note had their residences there: John Wm. Woolsey, Esq., in 1808, and later on first President of the Quebec Bank; the millionaire auctioneer, Wm. Burns, the G.o.d-father to the late George Burns Symes, Esq.; Archbishop Signai--this worthy prelate was born in this street, in a house opposite to La Banque Nationale.

Evidences of the luxuriousness of their dwelling rooms are visible to this day, in the panelling of some doors and in decorated ceilings.

Drainage, according to the modern system, was, at that period, almost unknown to our good city. The Asiatic cholera, in 1832, decimated the population: 3,500 corpses, in the course of a few weeks, had gone to their last resting place. This terrible epidemic was the occasion, so to speak, of a social revolution at Quebec; the land on the St. Louis and Ste. Foye roads became much enhanced in value; the wealthy quitted the Lower Town.

Commercial affairs, however, still continued to be transacted there, but the residences of merchants were selected in the Upper Town or in the country parts adjacent.

The _Fief Sault-au-Matelot_, which at present belongs to the Seminary, was granted to Guillaume Hebert on the 4th February, 1623, the t.i.tle of which was ratified by the Due de Ventadour on the last day of February, 1632. On the ground reclaimed from the river, about 1815, Messrs. Munro and Bell, eminent merchants, built wharves and some large warehouses, to which lead "Bell's lane," (so named after the Honorable Matthew Bell) [113] the streets St. James, Arthur, Dalhousie and others. Mr. Bell, at a later period, one of the lessees of the St. Maurice Forges, resided in the house--now St. Lawrence Chambers--situate at the corner of St. James and St. Peter streets, now belonging to Mr. John Greaves Clapham, N. P. Hon.

Matthew Bell commanded a troop of cavalry, which was much admired by those warlike gentlemen of 1812--our respected fathers. He left a numerous family, and was related by marriage to the families Montizambert, Bowen, &c. Dalhousie street, in the Lower Town, probably dates from the time of the Earl of Dalhousie (1827), when the "Quebec Exchange" was built by a company of merchants. The extreme point of the Lower Town, towards the northeast, const.i.tutes "La Pointe a Carcy," named after Carcy Pages, who succeeded to the office of "Guardian of the Harbor," held in 1713 by Louis Pratt. In the offing is situated the wharf, alongside of which the stately frigate _Aurora_, Captain De Horsey, pa.s.sed the winter of 1866-7. The wharves of the Quebec docks now mark the spot.

The expansion of commerce at the commencement of the present century and increase of population rendered it very desirable that means of communication should be established between the Lower Town and St. Roch, less rugged and inconvenient than the tunnel--Sous-le-Cap lane--and the sandy beach of the river St. Charles at low water. Towards 1816 the northern extremity of St. Peter street was finished, it was previously bounded by a red bridge, well remembered by our very old citizens. The Apostle St. Paul was honoured with a street, as was his colleague, St.

Peter. Messrs. Benj. Tremaine, Budden, Morrisson, Parent, Allard and others acquired portions of ground on the north side of this (St. Paul) street, upon which they have erected wharves, offices and large warehouses. Renaud's new block now occupies a portion of the site.

The construction of the North Sh.o.r.e Railway will have the effect, at an early date, of augmenting, in a marked degree, the value of these properties, the greater portion of which now belong to our fellow citizen, M. J. Bte Renaud, who has adorned this portion of the Lower Town with first cla.s.s buildings. Let us hope that this quarter may flourish, and that our enterprising fellow citizen may prosper in consequence.

Let us join a party of distinguished strangers wending their way through our muddy streets, following a t.i.tled tourist, His Highness the Duke of Saxe-Weimar. This n.o.ble visitor's rank seems to have been fully recognized, since he was escorted by a guard of honour furnished by the Lt.-Governor, and saluted on his departure by 21 guns. After fifty-five years, the Duke's utterances have yet interest for us, though he seems to have judged harshly the absent Governor-General, the Earl of Dalhousie.

[114]

"About eight o'clock in the evening of the 3rd of September, 1825, we embarked at Montreal on board the steamer _Lady Sherbrooke_ for Quebec. The banks, which as far as Trois Rivieres are pretty low, become higher and more rocky, particularly on the left side. The neighborhood is remarkably handsome and picturesque. The majestic stream with its pleasant banks, and the view of the distant blue mountains near Quebec, produce an indescribable effect. The weather was favourable,--a clear, sunny sky and not very warm; in this northern lat.i.tude you can perceive the approaching autumn by the coolness of the nights and mornings. We reached Quebec at 10 o'clock in the evening. This city consists of two parts, the Upper Town, which is built on a rock, and the Lower, which is pressed in between the river and the rock. The lights in the Lower Town and the fortifications had an elegant appearance, when contrasted with the dark rock. The first _coup d'oeil_, which was by night, reminded me of Namur, as it is seen from the right bank of the Maas. In the river were many vessels; mostly used for carrying wood. It was already late, and we should have found difficulty in transporting our baggage by night, besides other inconveniences in finding lodgings for the ladies, so we spent the second night also on board the steamboat, where we were very comfortable and found it cleanly.

"The next morning, after dismissing the guard which the Governor appointed to escort us, we went to our lodgings in the upper part of the town. The lower town is very narrow, and has a filthy appearance.

The streets are not paved, and badly provided with sidewalks. The road which leads to the upper part of the town is very steep. It stands on a rocky ground, and its fortifications are elevated 300 feet from the level of the ocean. The upper is separated from the lower town by a stone wall, which has the form of a horn-work. Through this wall is a gate, [115] which has a guard; the guard-room is opposite the gate, and by means of a portcullis defends the entrance. For the convenience of foot-pa.s.sengers there is a door [116] near the gate, with wooden stairs, by ascending which you reach the upper town. On the right of the gate is a building which resembles a chapel, [117] and serves for the House of Commons of Canada. In order to get home we were obliged to go round part of the walls of the town. Even here you have an indescribably beautiful view of the Bay of Quebec and the right bank of the river, which has the appearance of a cape, called Point Levi.

"Shortly after our arrival, I received a visit from Colonel d.u.c.h.esnay, First Adjutant of the Governor-General, and from [118] Colonel Durnford, Director of Engineers. The first gentleman came to bid me welcome in the name of the Governor, and the latter begged to show me the fortifications. Lord Dalhousie, Governor General of all British possessions in North America, was at that time in England, but was expected daily. During his absence, the Government was under the direction of the Lt.-Governor, Sir Francis Barton, brother of Lord Conyngham. He is a civilian, but is said to fill his high post with credit. The good spirit the inhabitants are in, and the harmony that exists in the colony, are mostly owing to his good management and his humane and friendly deportment towards them. It is said of Lord Dalhousie that he has estranged the hearts of the people from himself and the Government, through his haughty and absolute deportment, and the Opposition party in the Canadian Parliament has thereby been strengthened.

"The upper part of the town is very old and angular, the streets are muddy, and many not paved. Both towns contain about 25,000 inhabitants. The Catholic Cathedral is quite a handsome building, it has three altars, and paintings of but little value. It is near the Seminary, an old French building, with ma.s.sive walls, having four corners like a bastion. In this Seminary resides the Bishop of Quebec.

We had already been introduced to Bishop Plessis, in the house of Sir Francis Burton, and found him a very agreeable and well-informed man.

He is the son of a butcher of Montreal, and has elevated himself by his own merit.

"On the second and last day of my sojourn in Quebec I went to the parade, escorted by Colonels Durnford and d.u.c.h.esnay. I was pleasantly taken by surprise when I found the whole garrison under arms. The commanding officers wished to show me their corps. On the right wing stood two companies of artillery, then a company of sappers and miners, after this, the Sixty-Eighth, and lastly, the Seventy-First Regiment of Infantry. The last is a light regiment, and consists of Scotch Highlanders; it appeared to be in particularly good condition.

This regiment is not dressed in the Highland uniform, which was only worn by some of the buglemen. It has a very good band of buglemen, who wear curious caps, made of blue woollen, bordered below with red and white stripes. The troops defiled twice before me.

"On the 6th of September we set out in the steamboat for Montreal. Sir Francis sent us his carriage, which was very useful to the ladies. On the dock stood a company of the Sixty-Fifth Regiment, with their flags displayed as a guard of honour, which I immediately dismissed. The fortifications saluted us with 21 guns; this caused a very fine echo from the mountains. Night soon set in, but we had sufficient light to take leave of the magnificent vicinity of Quebec."

St. Vallier street is sacred to Monseigneur de St. Vallier; his name is identified with the street which he so often perambulated in his visits to the General Hospital, where he terminated his useful career in 1729. His Lordship seems to have entertained a particular attachment for the locality where he had founded this hospital, where he resided, in order to rent his Mountain Hill Palace to Intendant Talon, and thus save the expense of a chaplain. The General Hospital was the third asylum for the infirm which the Bishop had founded. Subsequently, came the Intendant de Meules, who, toward 1684, endowed the eastern portion of the quarter with an edifice (the Intendant's Palace) remarkable for its dimensions, its magnificence and its ornate gardens.

Where Talon (a former Intendant) had left a brewery in a state of ruin and about seventeen acres of land unoccupied, Louis XIV., by the advice of his Intendant de Meules, lavished vast sums of money in the erection of a sumptuous palace, in which French justice was administered, and in which, at a later period, under Bigot, it was _purchasable_. Our ill.u.s.trious ancestors, for that matter, were not the kind of men to weep over such trifles, imbued as they were from infancy with the feudal system and all its irksome duties, without forgetting the forced labour (_corvees_) and those admirable "Royal secret warrants," (_lettres de cachet_). What did the inst.i.tutions of a free people, or the text of Magna Charta signify to them?

On this spot stood the notorious warehouse, where Bigot, Cadet and their confederates retailed, at enormous profits, the provisions and supplies which King Louis XV. doled out in 1758 to the starving inhabitants of Quebec. The people christened the house "_La Friponne_," (_The Cheat_!!) Near the sight of Talon's old brewery which had been converted into a prison by Frontenac, and which held fast, until his trial in 1674, the Abbe de Fenelon [119] now stands the Anchor Brewery (Boswell's).

We clip the following from an able review in the Toronto _Mail_, Dec., 1880, of M. Marmette's most dramatic novel, "_l'Intendant Bigot_":

"In the year 1775 a grievous famine raged, sweeping off large numbers of the poor, while the unscrupulous Bigot and his satellites were revelling in shameless profligacy. It is midnight of Christmas, when an old officer, M. de Rochebrune, pressed with cold and hunger to the last point, resolved to p.a.w.n his St. Louis Cross of gold at the Intendant's Palace stores. On the way thither the officer and his young daughter, a young girl of fourteen, are startled at the blaze of light illuminating the Palace windows, during one of the Intendant's festivals. The pleasures of the evening are suddenly interrupted and shaded by the entry of the aged, suffering M. de Rochebrune and his wan-visaged but beautiful daughter. Words of galling truth are addressed to Bigot before his painted courtezans and his other depraved attendants, whose hearts are too hard and whose consciences are too seared to be tortured by either misery or reproof, and the ruffian varlets eject both father and daughter to the furies of the midnight blast. The ball ended, Bigot leads Madame de Pean to her vehicle, when she tumbles over an object which, when torches are brought, was found to be the corpse of the suppliant rebuker of a few hours previous, alongside of which lay the unconscious form of his daughter, half buried in the drifting snow. '_Mon Dieu_,' exclaimed Madame de Pean, '_Il ne dormira pas de la nuit, c'est bien sur._' This tragic event is narrated with thrilling effect, in the author's best style." P. B.

In a paper read by us before the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec, 3rd December, 1879, we alluded in the following terms to the history of the "Friponne" and the infamous entourage of Intendant Bigot in the second part of our lecture: the first part related to Kalm's ramble round the city in 1749.

Prepare, now for other--dark--far less pleasant scenes. The bright sky of old Stadacona will rapidly lower; leaden clouds, pregnant with storms are hovering over head. The simplicity of early days is getting obsolete. Vice, gilded vice, flaunts in the palace. Gaunt famine is preying on the vitals of the people. 'Tis so at Versailles; 'tis so at Quebec. l.u.s.t--selfishness--rapine--public plunder everywhere--except among the small party of the _Honnetes Gens_: [120] a carnival of pleasure, to be followed by the voice of wailing and by the roll of the m.u.f.fled drum.

In 1748, the evil genius of New France, "La Pompadour's _protege_" Francois Bigot, thirteenth and last Intendant, had landed at Quebec.

Born in Guienne, of a family distinguished at the bar, Bigot, prior to coming to Canada had occupied the high post of Intendant in Louisiana.

In stature, he was small--but well formed;--active--full of pluck-- fond of display and pleasure--an inveterate gambler. Had he confined his operations merely to trading, his commercial ventures would have excited little blame, trading having been a practice indulged in by several other high colonial officials. His salary was totally inadequate to the importance of his office, and quite insufficient to meet the expenditure his exalted position led him into. His speculations, his venality, the extortions practised on the community by his heartless minions: this is what has surrounded his memory with eternal infamy and made his name a by-word for scorn.

There existed, at Quebec, a _ring_ composed of the Intendant's secretary, Deschenaux, of the Commissary General of Supplies, Cadet, of the Town-Major, Hugues Pean; of the Treasurer-General, Imbert. Pean was the Chief and Bigot the Great Chief of this nefarious a.s.sociation.

Between Bigot and Pean, another link existed. Pean's favour at Court lay in the charms of his wife. Madame Pean, _nee_ Angelique De Meloises, was young, pretty, witty and charming; a fluent and agreeable speaker--in fact so captivating that Francois Bigot was entirely ruled by her during all his stay at Quebec. At her house in St. Louis street he spent his evenings; there, he was sought and found in May, 1759, by Col. de Bougainville returning from Paris, the bearer of the dispatches, announcing the coming struggle.

Would you like some of the pen-photographs which a clever French contemporary [121] has left of the corrupt entourage of the magnificent intendant, here are a few: