Picturesque Quebec : a sequel to Quebec past and present Part 40

The neighborhood of running water; the warbling of the birds; the distant lowing of kine in the green meadows; the variety and beauty of the landscape, especially when the descending orb of day gilds the dark woods to the west, furnish a strikingly rural spectacle at Coucy-le-Castel, thus named from a French estate in Picardy, owned by the Badelarts, ancestors, on the maternal side, of the Panets.

In 1861 Coucy-le-Castel was purchased by Judge Jean Thomas Taschereau, of Quebec, under whose care it is acquiring each year new charms. A plantation of deciduous trees and evergreens has taken the place of the row of poplars which formerly lined the avenue. The Judge's _Chateau_ stands conspicuous amongst the pretty but less extensive surrounding country seats, such as the old mansion of Fred. Andrews, Esq., Q. C., the neat cottage of Fred. W. Andrews, Esq., Barrister, festooned with wild vines.

_RINGFIELD._

FRANCISCUS PRIMUS, DEI GRATIA, FRANCORUM REX REGNAT.

Inscription on cross erected 3d May, 1536, by Jacques Cartier.

We will be pardoned for devoting a larger s.p.a.ce than for other country seats, in describing Ringfield, on account of the important events of which it was the theatre.

Close to the Dorchester Bridge to the west, on the Charlesbourg road, there was once an extensive estate known as Smithville--five or six hundred acres of table land owned by the late Charles Smith, Esq., who for many years resided in the substantial large stone dwelling subsequently occupied by A. Laurie, Esq., at present by Owen Murphy, Esq., opposite the Marine Hospital. Some hundred acres, comprising the land on the west of the _ruisseau_ Lairet, known as _Ferme des Anges_, [282] were detached from it and now form Ringfield, whose handsome villa is scarcely visible from the Charlesbourg road in summer on account of the plantation of evergreens and other forest trees which, with white-thorn hedge, line its semicircular avenue on both sides. One might be inclined to regret that this plantation has grown up so luxuriantly, as it interferes with the striking view to be had here of the Island of Orleans, St. Lawrence, and surrounding parishes. Before the trees a.s.sume their vernal honours there can be counted, irrespective of the city spires, no less than thirteen steeples of churches in so many parishes. Ringfield takes its name from its circular meadow (Montcalm's hornwork). In rear it is bounded to the west by the little stream called Lairet, with the _ruisseau_ St.

Michel in view; to the south, its natural boundary is the meandering Cahire-Coubat. [283]

Ringfield has even more to recommend it than the rural beauty common to the majority of our country seats; here were enacted scenes calculated to awaken the deepest interest in every student of Canadian history. On the banks of the River St. Charles, 1535-36, during his second voyage of discovery, Jacques Cartier, the intrepid navigator of St. Malo, more than three centuries back, it is now generally supposed, wintered. We have Champlain's [284] authority for this historical fact, though, Charlevoix erroneously a.s.serts that the great discoverer wintered on the banks of the River Jacques Cartier, twenty-seven miles higher up than Quebec. A careful examination of _Lescarbot's Journal of Cartier's Second Voyage_, and the investigations of subsequent historians leave little room to doubt Champlain's statement. [285] Jacques Cartier in his journal, written in the quaint old style of that day, furnishes us curious descriptions of the locality where he wintered, and of the adjoining Indian town, _Stadacone_, the residence of the Chief Donacona. The Abbe Ferland and other contemporary writers have a.s.signed as the probable site of Stadacona that part of Quebec which is now covered by a portion of the suburbs of St. John, and by that part of St. Roch looking towards the St.

Charles. How graphically Jacques Cartier writes of that portion of the River St. Lawrence opposite the Lower Town, less than a mile in width, "deep and swift running," and also of the "goodly, fair and delectable bay or creek convenient and fit to harbour ships," the St. Charles (St. Croix or Holy Cross) river! and again of the spot wherein, he says, "we stayed from the 15th of September, 1535, to the 6th May, 1536, and there our ships remained dry." Cartier mentions the area of ground adjoining to where he wintered "as goodly a plot of ground as possible may be seen, and, wherewithal, very fruitful, full of goodly trees even as in France, such as oak, elm, ash, walnut trees, white-thorns and vines that bring forth fruit as big as any damsons, and many other sort of trees; tall hemp as any in France, without any seed or any man's work or labor at all."

There are yet some n.o.ble specimens of elm, the survivors of a thick clump, that once stood on the edge of the hornwork. The precise spot in the St.

Charles where Cartier moored his vessels and where his people built the fort [286] in which they wintered may have been, for aught that could be advanced to the contrary, where the French government in 1759 built the hornwork or earth redoubt, so plainly visible to this day, near the Lairet stream. It may also have been at the mouth of the St. Michel stream which here empties itself into the St. Charles, on the Jesuits' farm. The hornwork or circular meadow, as the peasantry call it, is in a line with the General Hospital, Mount Pleasant, St. Bridget's Asylum and the corporation lots recently acquired by the Quebec Seminary for a botanical garden and seminary, adjoining Abraham's Plains. Jacques Cartier's fort, we know to a certainty, must have been on the north bank of the river, [287] from the fact that the natives coming from Stadacona to visit their French guests had to cross the river, and did so frequently. It does seem strange that Champlain does not appear to have known the exact locality where, seventy years previously, Stadacona had stood; the cause may lie in the exterminating wars carried on between the several savage tribes, leaving, occasionally, no vestige of once powerful nations and villages.

Have we not seen in our day a once warlike and princely race--the Hurons-- dwindle down, through successive decay, to what _now_ remains of them?

A drawing exists, copied from an engraving executed at Paris, the subject of which, furnished by G. B. Faribault, Esquire, retraced the departure of the St. Malo mariner for France on the 6th of May, 1536. To the right may be seen, Jacques Cartier's fort, [288] built with stockades, mounted with artillery, and subsequently made stronger still, we are told, with ditches and solid timber, with drawbridge, and fifty men to watch night and day.

Next comes the _Grande Hermine_, his largest vessel, of about one hundred and twenty tons, in which Donacona, the interpreter, and two other Indians of note, treacherously seized, are to be conveyed to France, to be presented to the French monarch, Francis I. Close by, the reader will observe _l'Emerillon_, of about forty tons in size, the third of his ships; and higher up, the hull of a stranded and dismantled vessel, the _Pet.i.te Hermine_, of about sixty tons, intended to represent the one whose timbers were dug up at the mouth of the St. Michel in 1843, and created such excitement amongst the antiquaries of that day. On the opposite side of the river, at Hare Point, the reader will notice on the plate, a cross, intended to represent the one erected by Cartier's party on the 3rd May, 1536, in honour of the festival of the Holy Cross; at the foot a number of Indians and some French in the old costume of the time of Francis I. So much for Jacques Cartier and his winter quarters, in 1535- 36.

Two hundred and twenty-three years after this date we find this locality again the arena of memorable events. In the disorderly retreat of the French army on the 13th of September, 1759, from the heights of Abraham, the panic-stricken squadrons came pouring down Cote d'Abraham and Cote a Cotton, hotly pursued by the Highlanders and the 58th Regiment, hurrying towards the bridge of boats and following the sh.o.r.es of the River St.

Charles until the fire of the hulks anch.o.r.ed in the river stopped the pursuit. On the north side of the bridge of boats was a _tete de pont_, redoubt or hornwork, a strong work of pentagonal shape, well portrayed in Tiffeny's plan of the Siege Operations before Quebec. This hornwork was-partly wood, defended by palisades, and towards Beauport, an earthwork--covering about twelve acres, the remains (the round or ring field), standing more than fifteen feet above the ground, may be seen to this day surrounded by a ditch, three thousand [289] men at least must have been required to construct, in a few weeks, this extensive entrenchment. In the centre stood a house, visible on a plan of Mr.

Parke's, in which, about noon on that memorable day, a pretty lively debate was taking place. Vaudreuil and some of the French officers were at that moment and in this spot debating the surrender of the whole colony.

Let us hear an eye-witness, Chevalier Johnstone, General de Levis' aide- de-camp, one of the Scotchmen fighting in Canada for the French king, against some of his own countrymen under Wolfe, after the disaster of Culloden. It was our good fortune to publish the recently-discovered journal of this Scotch officer for the first time in 1864. Chevalier Johnstone's description will strike every one from its singular accuracy:--

"The French army in flight, scattered and entirely dispersed, rushed towards the town. Few of them entered Quebec; they went down the heights of Abraham opposite the Intendant's Palace (past St. John's gate) directing their course to the hornwork, and following the borders of the River St. Charles. Seeing the impossibility of rallying our troops I determined myself to go down the hill at the windmill near the bake house [290] and from thence across over the meadows to the hornwork resolved not to approach Quebec from my apprehension of being shut up there with a part of our army which might have been the case if the victors had drawn all the advantage they could have reaped from our defeat. It is true the death of the General-in-chief--an event which never fails to create the greatest disorder and confusion in an army--may plead as an excuse for the English neglecting so easy an operation as to take all our army prisoners.

The hornwork had the River St. Charles before it about seventy paces broad which served it better than an artificial ditch; its front facing the river and the heights was composed of strong thick and high palisades planted perpendicularly with gunholes pierced for several pieces of large cannon in it, the river is deep and only fordable at low water at a musket shot before the fort: this made it more difficult to be forced on that side than on its other side of earthworks facing Beauport which had a more formidable appearance and the hornwork certainly on that side was not in the least danger of being taken by the English by an a.s.sault from the other side of the river. On the appearance of the English troops on the plain of the lake house Montguet and La Motte, two old captains in the Regiment of Bearn, cried out with vehemence to M. de Vaudreuil, that the hornwork would be taken in an instant, by an a.s.sault sword in hand, that we would all be cut to pieces without quarter and nothing else would save us but an immediate and general capitulation of Canada giving it up to the English.

Montreul told them that a fortification such as the hornwork was not to be taken so easily. In short there arose a general cry in the hornwork to cut the bridge of boats. [291] It is worth of remark that not a fourth part of our army had yet arrived at it and the remainder by cutting the bridge would have been left on the other side of the river as victims to the victors. The regiment Royal Roussillon was at that moment at the distance of a musket shot from the hornwork approaching to pa.s.s the bridge. As I had already been in such adventures, I did not lose my presence of mind, and having still a shadow remaining of that regard which the army accorded me on account of the esteem and confidence which M. de Levis and M. de Montcalm had always shewn me publicly, I called to M. Hugon, who commanded, for a pa.s.s in the hornwork and begged of him to accompany me to the bridge.

We ran there and without asking who had given the order to cut it, we chased away the soldiers with their uplifted axes ready to execute that extravagant and wicked operation.

"M. Vaudreuil was closeted in a house in the inside of the hornwork with the Intendant and some other persons. I suspected they were busy drafting the articles for a general capitulation and I entered the house, where I had only time to see the Intendant with a pen in his hand writing on a sheet of paper, when M. Vaudreuil told me I had no business there. Having answered him that what he said was true, I retired immediately, in wrath to see them intent on giving up so scandalously a dependancy for the preservation of which so much blood and treasure had been expended. On leaving the house, I met M.

Dalquier, an old, brave, downright honest man, commander of the regiment of Bearn, with the true character of a good officer--the marks of Mars all over his body. I told him it was being debated within the house to give up Canada to the English by a capitulation, and I hurried him in, to stand up for the King's cause, and advocate the welfare of his country. I then quitted the hornwork to join Poulanes at the Ravine [292] of Beauport, but having met him about three or four hundred paces from the hornwork, on his way to it, I told him what was being discussed there. He answered me, that sooner than consent to a capitulation, he would shed the last drop of his blood. He told me to look on his table and house as my own, advised me to go there directly to repose myself, and clapping spurs to his horse, he flew like lightning to the hornwork."

Want of s.p.a.ce precludes us from adding more from this very interesting journal of the Chevalier Johnstone, replete with curious particulars of the disorderly retreat of the French regiments from their Beauport camp, after dark, on that eventful 13th September, how they a.s.sembled first at the hornwork, and then filed off by detachments on the Charlesbourg road, then to Ancient Lorette, until they arrived, worn out and disheartened without commanders, at day break at Cap Rouge.

On viewing the memorable scenes witnessed at Ringfield,--the spot where the French discoverer wintered in 1535-36, and also the locality, where it was decided to surrender the colony to England in 1759--are we not justified in considering it as both the _cradle_ and the _tomb_ of French Dominion in the new world?

Ringfield has, for many years, been the family mansion of George Holmes Parke, Esquire.

CASTOR VILLE

"In woods or glens I love to roam, * * * *

Or by the woodland pool to rest."

In the deepest recesses of the Lorette woods, amongst the most shady meanders of the sinuous Cahire Coubat, some five miles due north from Castel-Coucy, we know a bank, not precisely where

"The wild thyme grows,"

but where you are sure, in spring and summer, to pluck handfuls of trilliums, wild violets, ferns of rare beauty, columbines, kalmias, ladies' slippers, ladies' tresses (we mean of course the floral subjects).

In this beauteous region, sacred to Pan, the Naiades, Dryades, and the daughters of Mnemosyne, you might possibly, dear reader, were you privileged with a pa.s.s from one of our most respected friends, be allowed to wander; or perchance in your downward voyage from Lake Charles to the Lorette Falls, in that _vade mec.u.m_ of a forester's existence--a birch canoe--you might, we repeat, possibly be allowed to pitch your camp on one of the mossy headlands of Castor Ville, and enjoy your luncheon, in this sylvan spot, that is, always presuming you were deemed competent to fully appreciate nature's wildest charms, and rejoice, like a true lover, in her coyest and most furtive glances.

Castor Ville, a forest wild, where many generations of beavers, otters, caribou, boars, foxes and hares once roamed, loved and died, covers an area of more than one hundred acres. Through it glides the placid course of the St. Charles--overhung by h.o.a.ry fir trees--from the parent lake to the pretty Indian Lorette Falls, a distance of about eight miles of fairy scenery, which every man of taste, visiting Lake St. Charles, ought to enjoy at least once in his life. It is all through mantled over by a dense second growth of spruce and fir trees, intersected by a maze of avenues.

The lodge sits gracefully, with its verandah and artillery, on a peninsula formed by the _Grand Desert_ and St. Charles streams. You can cross over in a canoe to that portion of the domain beyond the river: along the banks, a number of resting places--tiny bowers of birch bark--dingies and canoes anch.o.r.ed all round--here and there a _portage_--close by, a veritable Indian wigwam--_Oda Sio_ [293] by name. On a bright morning in early spring, you may chance to meet, in one of the paths, or in his canoe, a white-haired hunter, the Master of Castor Ville, returning home after visiting his hare, fox, or otter traps, proudly bearing _Lepus_ in his game bag, next to which you may discover a volume of _Moliere_, _Montaigne_ or _Montesquieu_. On selling Castle-Coucy, its loyal-hearted old proprietor, taking with him the guns of the fort, retired to the present wild demesne, in which occasionally he pa.s.ses, with his family, many pleasant hours, amidst books, friends and rural amus.e.m.e.nts, far from city noises and city excitement.

Castor Ville belongs to the Hon. Louis Panet, member of the Legislative Council of Canada." (Written in 1865.)

Since this little sketch was penned, sixteen years ago, the unwelcome shadow of years has crept over our old friend, eighty-six winters and then frost has cooled the ardor of the _Cha.s.seur_, Castor Ville for Mr. Panet has lost much of its sunshine.

_THE JOYS OF WINTER._

"Oh! the snow, the beautiful snow, Filling the earth and sky below, Over the house-tops, over the street, Over the heads of the people you meet, Dancing, Flirting, Skimming along, Beautiful snow, it can do no wrong, Flying to kiss a lady's cheek, Clinging to lips in a frolicsome freak, Beautiful snow from the heaven above, Pure as an angel, gentle as love!

Oh! the snow, the beautiful snow How the flakes gather and laugh as they go, Whirling about in the maddening fun, It plays in its glee with every one, Chasing, Laughing, Hurrying by, It lights on the face and sparkles the eye!

And even the dogs, with a bark and a bound, Snap at the crystals that eddy around, The town is alive, and its heart is aglow!

To welcome the coming of the beautiful snow

How the wild crowds go swaying along, Hailing each other with humour and song, How the gay sledges, like meteors, pa.s.s by, Bright for the moment, then lost to the eye, Ringing, Swinging, Dashing they go, Over the crust of this beautiful snow, Snow so pure when it falls from the sky, To he trampled and tracked by the crowd rushing by, To be trampled and tracked by the thousands of feet, Till it blends with the filth in the horrible street."

Has it ever been your fortune, kind reader, to enjoy, in the depth of winter, a ramble in a Canadian forest, at the mystic hour when the Queen of Night a.s.serts her silent sway? Have you ever revelled in this feast of soul, fresh from the busy hum of city life--perchance strolling up a mountain path with undulating plains of spotless whiteness behind you, or else canopied by the leafy dome of odorous pines or green hemlock, with no other companion but your trusty rifle, nor other sound but the hoot of the Great Horned Owl, disturbed by the glare of your camp fire--or the rustle of the pa.s.sing hare, skulking fox, or browsing cariboo? Have you ever been compelled, venturesome hunter as you are, with the lengthening shades of evening, after a twenty miles' run, to abandon the blood-stained trail, reserving for the morrow the slaying of the stricken cariboo? Can you recall the sense of weariness, with which you retraced your heavy steps to the camp--perspiring at every pore,--panting with thirst--famished-- perhaps bewildered with the flakes of the gathering storm--yea, so exhausted, that the crackling of the pine f.a.ggots of your mountain hut-- watched over in your absence by your faithful Indian "Gabriel" [294]-- struck on your quickened senses amidst the winter gloom like heavenly music--sounds as soft, as welcome as the first April sunbeam? Have you ever had the hardiness to venture with an Indian guide and toboggin on an angling tour far north in the Laurentian chain, to that _Ultima Thule_ sacred to the disciples of old Isaac. Snow Lake, over chasm, dale, mountain, pending that month dear above all others to King Hiems-- inexorable January? If so, you can indeed boast of having held communion with the grim G.o.d of Winter in some of his stern, though captivating, moods. Nor are these the only charms which the capricious monarch has in store.

Never shall I forget, one balmy March morning, sauntering along the green uplands of Sillery, towards the city, while the "sun G.o.d" was pouring overhead, waves of soft, purple light. The day previous, one of our annual, equinoctial storms had careered over the country; first, wind and snow; then wind and sleet, the latter dissolving into icy tears, encircling captive Nature in thousands of weird, glossy crystals; every tree of the forest, according to its instinct, its nature, writhing in the conqueror's cold embrace--rigid, creaking, ready to snap in twain rather than bend, as the red oak or sugar maple, or else meekly, submissively curving to the earth its tapering, frosted limbs, like the silver birch-- elegant, though fragile, ornament of the Canadian park, or else, rearing amid air a graceful net-work--waving, transparent sapphire-tinted arabesques, stretched on amber pillars; witness the Golden Willow. Each gleam of sunshine investing this gorgeous tapestry with all the glories of Iris; here, rising above his compeers, a stately lord of the grove, h.o.a.ry with frost and years, whose outspreading boughs are burnished, as if every twig had been touched by the hand of an enchanter, whilst there, under his shade, bends a mountain ash, smeared with the crimsoned berries of the preceding summer, now ice-coated _bon-bons_ eagerly plucked by troops of roseate grosbeaks resting on the whitened branches. How lovely the contrasts!

Such, the scene in the winsome light of day. But of those objects, viewed by moonlight, who would have dared becomingly depict the wild beauty? The same incomparable landscape, with Diana's silver rays softly sleeping on the virgin snow; on each side, an avenue of oak, spruce and fir trees, the latter with their emerald boughs wreathed in solid ice, and to the earth gracefully bending in festoons--now and again kissed by the night wind; at each wavy motion disclosing their dark trunks, under the frozen foliage, like old Ocean's billows breaking on dark rocks; the burnished gold of the morn changed into silver floss, twinkling with a mild radiance, under the eye of night, like diamond tiaras--a vista fit for Queen Mab! Of such, mayhap dreamed Moorish maid, under the portals of the Alhambra. Were Armida's enchanted forests brighter?

Who can describe all thy witchery? Thy nameless graces, who can compa.s.s, serene majesty of Winter in the North? And yet all these glories of frost and moon-lit snows we once did see round our Canadian Home.

Wouldst thou fancy another view of winter less serene; a contrast such as glorious old KIT NORTH would have revelled in? Step forward, my witty, my sarcastic friend of the _Evenement_ newspaper--by name Henri Fabre!

"The true season of Canada is winter; winter with its bright skies by day and its brighter stars by night. Of spring we have none. April is nothing better than a protracted thaw, with scenes of mud and melting snow. May, the month dear to poets, is frequently but an uninterrupted succession of showers to fecundate the earth; its symbol, an array of outspread umbrellas in our streets. As to our summer, it is but the epitome of the lovely summer of France and Italy for the use of new countries. Autumn is a shade better; but anon, the first frost hurries on to blanch and disperse the leaves and dim the hues of mellowed nature. When the fields slumber under ten feet of snow; when human noses freeze before their sneezing owners have time to utter a cry for help, then is the _beau ideal_ of our climate. He who on such an occasion dares to sigh for the boasted shade of trees and the murmur of gushing waters, that man is no true Canadian. The searching wind, the cold, the northern blast, [295] are part and parcel of our country; one is bound to love them. Should they increase in intensity, rub your hands, first to keep yourself warm, nest to denote your patriotic joy!"

But all this won't prevent us from exclaiming with a Canadian son of song:

"Oh! dear is the Northern forest home, Where the great pine shoots on high; And the maple spreads its soft, green leaves In the clear, blue, taintless sky; Though the summer mantle paleth fast Into winter's virgin veil?

There is health in the fierce, quick lightning blast, And strength in the icy gale; And life glides on in a quiet calm, Like our own great river's flow; And dear to the hearts of her children all Is our own FAIR LAND OF SNOW!"

SILLERY, near Quebec, 1881.

_THE MANOR HOUSE, BEAUPORT_.

Let us view a remnant of feudal times.