Picturesque Quebec : a sequel to Quebec past and present Part 49

_Vide--Le Roy a Denonville, 7 juin 1689 le Ministre a Denonville, meme date, le Ministre a Frontenac, meme date ordre du Roy a Vaudreuil, meme date le Roy au Sieur de la Coffinere; meme date, Champagny au Ministre, 16 Nov. 1689_

_COPY OF THE EPITAPH PREPARED BY THE ACADeMIE DES INSCRIPTIONS AT PARIS FOR THE MARQUIS OF MONTCALM'S TOMB._

Leave was asked by the French Government to have the marble tablet, on which this epitaph was inscribed, sent out to Quebec, and granted by the English Government (_Vide_ William Pitt's Letter, 10th April, 1761).

This inscription, from some cause or other, never reached Quebec.

EPITAPH

Hic jacet Utroque in orbe aeternum victurus, LUDOVICUS JOSEPHUS DE MONTCALM GOZON Marchio Sancti Verani, Baro Gabriaci, Ordinis Sancti Ludovici Commendator, Legatus Generalis Exercituum Gallicorum Egregius et Civis et Miles, Nullius rei appetens praeterquam verae laudis Ingenio felici et literis exculto Omnes Militiae gradus per continua decora emensus, Omnium Belli Artium, temporum, discriminum gnarus, In Italia, in Bohemia, in Germania Dux industrius Mandata sibi ita semper gerens ut majoribus par haberetur, Jam clarus periculis Ad tutandam Canadensem Provinciam missu Parva militum manu Hostium copias non semel repulit, Propugnacula cepit viris armisque instructissima Algoris, mediae, vigiliarum, laboris patiens, Suis ucice prospiciens immemor sui, Hostis acer, victor mansuetus Fortunam virtute, virium inopiam peritia et celeritate compensavit, Imminens Coloniae fatum et consilio et manu per quadriennium sustinuit Tandem ingentem Exercitum Duce strenuo et audaci, Cla.s.semque omni bellorum mole gravem, Mulitiplici prudentia diu ludificatus Vi pertractus ad dimicandum, In prima acie, in primo conflictu vulneratus, Religioni quam semper coluerat innitens, Magno suoram desiderio, nec sine hostium moerore, Extinctus est Die XIV. Sept, A. D. MDCCLIX. aetat. XLVIII.

Mortales optimi ducis exuvias in excavata humo, Quam globus bellicus decidens dissiliensque defoderat, Galli lugentes deposuerunt, Et generosae hostium fidei commendarunt _The Annual Register for 1762._

_THE FRENCH REFUGEES OF OXFORD, Ma.s.s._

An elegantly printed volume has just issued from the press of Noyes, Snow and Co., Worcester, Ma.s.s, from the pen of George F. Daniels, containing a succinct history of one of the earliest Ma.s.sachusetts towns--the town of Oxford; we think we cannot introduce it to the reader more appropriately, than in the words of Oliver Wendell Holmes, whose graceful introduction prefaces the volume.

Oliver Wendell Holmes to George F. Daniels:--"Of all my father's historical studies," says the Autocrat of the Breakfast-table, "none ever interested me so much as his 'Memoir of the French Protestants who settled at Oxford, in 1686,'--all the circ.u.mstances connected with that second Colony of Pilgrim-Fathers, are such as to invest it with singular attraction for the student of history, the antiquary, the genealogist. It carries us back to the memories of the ma.s.sacre of Saint Bartholomew, to the generous Edict of Nantes, and the gallant soldier-king, who issued it; to the days of the Grand Monarque, and the cruel act of revocation which drove into exile hundreds of thousands of the best subjects of France-- among them the little band which was planted in our Ma.s.sachusetts half- tamed wilderness. It leads the explorer who loves to linger around the places consecrated by human enterprise, efforts, trials, triumphs, sufferings, to localities still marked with the fading traces of the strangers who, there found a refuge for a few brief years, and then wandered forth to know their homes no more. It tells the lovers of family history where the un-English names which he is constantly meeting with-- Bowdoin, Faneuil, Sigourney--found their origin, and under what skies were moulded the type of lineaments, unlike those of Anglo-Saxon parentage, which he finds among certain of his acquaintance, and it may be in his own family or himself. And what romance can be fuller of interest than the story of this hunted handful of Protestants leaving, some of them at an hour's warning, all that was dear to them, and voluntarily wrecking themselves, as it were, on this sh.o.r.e, where the savage and the wolf were waiting ready to dispute possession with the feeble intruders. They came with their untrained skill to a region where trees were to be felled, wild beasts to be slain, the soil to be subdued to furnish them bread, the whole fabric of social order to be established under new conditions. They came from the sunny skies of France to the capricious climate where the summers were fierce and the winters terrible with winds and snows. They left the polished amenities of an old civilization, for the homely ways of rude settlers of another race and language. Their lips, which had shaped themselves to the harmonies of a refined language, which had been used to speaking such names as Rochefort and Beauvoir and Angouleme, had to distort themselves into the utterances of words like Manchaug and Wabqua.s.set and Chaubunagungamang. The short and simple annals of this heroic and gentle company of emigrants are full of trials and troubles, and ended with a b.l.o.o.d.y catastrophe.

'After Plymouth, I do not think there is any locality in New England more interesting. This little band of French families, [343 ] transported from the sh.o.r.e of the Bay of Biscay to the wilds of our New England interior, reminds me of the isolated group of Magnolias which we find surrounded by the ordinary forest trees of our Ma.s.sachusetts town of Manchester. It is a surprise to meet with them, and we wonder how they came there, but they glorify the scenery with their tropical flowers, and sweeten it with their fragrance. Such a pleasing surprise is the effect of coming upon this small and transitory abiding-place of the men and women who left their beloved and beautiful land for the sake of their religion. The lines of their fort may become obliterated, 'the perfume of the shrubbery may no longer be perceived but the ground they hallowed by their footsteps is sacred and the air around their old Oxford home is sweet with their memory.'

This exclusiveness in the selection of settlers for Canada, ever since the days of the DeCaens, to render the population h.o.m.ogeneous and prevent religious discord, was extended to Frenchmen, whose only disability, was their faith, and who did not belong to the national Church, and though the colony, more than once was at its last gasp, for want of soldiers and colonists to defend it, it was forbidden ground to the 500,000 industrious Frenchman, whom the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1682, drove to England, Holland and Germany, and the English and Dutch colonies in America. This policy of exclusiveness, was vigorously denounced by the leading historian of Canada, F. X. Garneau, in 1845.

"The poorly expressed request, for fifteen hundred colonists to take the place of those who had joined the army, remained unanswered--unattended to. Though at the very time the Huguenots solicited as a favour permission to settle in the New World, where they promised to live peaceably under the shadow of their country's flag--which they could not cease to love--it was just when they were denied a request, which had it been granted would have saved Canada and permanently secured it to France. But Colbert's influence," says Garneau, "at Court had fallen away; he was on his death- bed. So long as he was in power he had protected the Calvinists, who had ceased to disturb France and who then were enriching it. His death which took place in 1684, handed them over to the tender mercy of the Chancellor Le Tellier and of the fierce Louvois. The _dragonnades_ swept over the protestant strongholds, awful heralds of the revocation of the edict of Nantes. The king, said a celebrated writer, exhibited his power by humbling the Pope and by crushing the Huguenots. He wished the unification of the Church and of France--the hobby of the great men of the day, presided over by Bossuet. Madame de Maintenon, a converted Calvinist, and who had secretly become his wife (1685) encouraged him in this design and suggested to him the cruel scheme of tearing away children from their parents, to bring them up in the Roman Catholic faith. The vexatious confiscations, the galleys, the torture of the wheel, the gibbet,--all were successively but unsuccessfully resorted to as a means to convert them. The unhappy Protestants' sole aim was to escape from the band which tortured them, in vain were they prohibited from quitting the kingdom, and those who aided them in their flight sent to the galleys--five hundred thousand escaped to Holland, to Germany, to England, and to the English colonies in America. They carried thither their wealth, their industry, and after such a separation--ill blood and thirst for revenge, which subsequently cost their native country very dear. William III, who more than once charged the French troops at the heads of French regiments, and Roman Catholic and Huguenot regiments, were seen, when recognising one another on the battle-field, to rush on one another with their bayonets, with an onslaught more ferocious than soldiers of different nationalities exhibit to one another. How advantageous would not have been an emigration, strong in numbers and composed of men, wealthy, enlightened, peaceful, laborious, such as the Huguenots were--to people the sh.o.r.es of the St. Lawrence, or the fertile plains of the West? At least, they would not have borne to foreign lands the secret of French manufactures, and taught other nations to produce goods which they were in the habit of going and procuring in the ports of France. A fatal policy sacrificed these advantages to the selfish views of a party--armed by the alliance of the spiritual and temporal power with an authority, which denied the breath of life to conscience as well as to intellect. 'If you and yours are not converted, before such a day, the king's authority will ensure your conversion,' thus wrote Bossuet to the dissenters. We repeat it, had this policy not been resorted to, we should not be reduced, we Canadians, to defend every foot of ground, our language, our laws, and our nationality, against an invading hostile sea. How will pardon be granted to fanaticism, for the anguish and suffering inflicted on a whole people, whose fate has been rendered so painful, so arduous--whose future has been so grievously jeopardized.

"Louis XIV, who had myriads of dragoons to butcher the Protestants, and who by his own fault was losing half a million of his subjects--the monarch who dictated to Europe, could only spare two hundred soldiers to send to Quebec, to protect a country four times larger than France, a country which embraced Hudson's Bay, Acadia, Canada, a large portion of Maine, of Vermont, New York, and the whole Mississippi valley"-- _Garneau's History of Canada_, (Vol. I. p. 492-96--1st edition.)

[See page 107.]

_VENERABLE MOTHER OF THE INCARNATION._

"In one of the many works which the philosopher of Chelsea has given to the world, we find the a.s.sertion of a great truth that history is but the biography of leading men. The poet of Cambridge also tells us that the lives of the great are so many models, and that as they have left their footprints on the sands of time, so may we by following their n.o.ble example render our lives ill.u.s.trious. These reflections of the philosopher and poet extend no doubt to those of the fairer s.e.x, in whom exalted virtue was manifested, and whose devotion in the pursuit of n.o.ble deeds awakens the spirit of emulation in all hearts. From the earliest period of time heroic women have appeared. The mother of the Maccabees, the mother of the Gracchi, the grand prophetesses whose actions are recorded in that sublimest of books, the Bible--these and many others adorn the pages of history, whether sacred or profane, and afford living, ever-present proofs, that the pathway of glory and honour may be pursued by even the weaker members of the human race.

In Canada, youthful though her record may be, there have appeared actresses on the great stage of humanity, whose virtues appeal for admiration, whose n.o.bility of soul provokes general reverence, and whose impress upon the future destinies of the country is of a more profound nature than may be imagined at first sight.

Foremost among such heroic women, may be regarded the foundress of the Ursuline Convent in Quebec, the Venerable Mother Mary of the Incarnation.

Gifted by nature, burning with zeal for the welfare of souls, imbued with the greatest confidence in the mercies of a bountiful Creator, she fully realized the great idea of Blessed Angela de Merici, that the preservation of the world from innumerable evils, largely depended upon the correct training of youth. Born in sunny France, she braved the dangers of the deep, so that on our virgin soil she might plant the pure, untainted flag of Christian education; and, now that the Province of Quebec has emerged from the lowliness of its early condition--now that the settlers by the banks of the St. Lawrence have become a great people, with a literature all their own, rich in its very youthful exuberance, with their language preserved, and the free exercise of their religion guaranteed no less by the faithful adherence to treaty obligations, than by their own hardy devotion, we can calmly review the past, and gratefully acknowledge the blessings bestowed on the country through the instrumentality of that lady who founded that holy sisterhood in our midst, which daily labours to honour the Intelligence of G.o.d, by the cultivation of intellectual graces.

Few, indeed, are the families in Quebec which have not experienced the value of the Ursuline community in our city. One of the crowns of womanhood is gained in Christian education--an education which falls upon the soil of the soul, like freshening dew, and adorns the heart and mind with the flowers of virtue. Hence the life of the Venerable Mother Mary should be carefully studied and pondered over; hence her deeds should be proclaimed and her saintly legacies preserved, and therefore, it is, that the writer humbly calls attention to a new work, written by a daughter of Erin, written lovingly and sweetly in the quiet precincts of the Ursuline Convent, Blackrock, Cork, and in which may be found the story of the devoted French woman, whose name is now inseparably linked with that of Canada, told in chaste language worthy alike of the virtuous theme, and of the ability which marks the narration. The earlier days of the French Colony are depicted therein; and with an accuracy no less commendable than useful. In fact the book is eminently a readable one, the object of the publication being to extend the knowledge which all of us ought to possess of one whose life glorified G.o.d, and whose advent to our sh.o.r.es was a very benediction."

JAMES JOSEPH GAHAN.

Quebec, 27th January, 1881.

We copy the following from the _Quebec Gazette_, 10th October, 1793:--

THE VARIATION OF THE NEEDLE AT QUEBEC.

"For the information of the curious, the particular benefit of Land Surveyors, and safety of seafaring people, please to insert in your _Gazette_, that from critical observation on the variation of the needle at Quebec, it is found to be on the decrease, or in other words to be again returning to the Eastward,--a proof of which is, that in 1785, when the Meridian line on Abraham's Plains was ascertained by me, the variation was found to be 12 degrees, 35 minutes West; whereas at present the variation is no more than 12 degrees, 5 minutes West, having in the s.p.a.ce of eight years diminished half a degree.

I am sir,

Your most obedient humble servant.

(Signed,) SAMUEL HOLLAND.

Quebec, 8th October, 1793.

How do matters now stand, Commander Ashe?

"VARIATION OF THE NEEDLE AT QUEBEC."

(_To the Editor of the Morning Chronicle._)

DEAR SIR,--"For the information of the curious, the particular benefit of Land Surveyors, and safety of sea-faring people," I will endeavor to explain how our compa.s.s variation stands.

With regard to the reprint from the _Quebec Gazette_ of 1793, in the Chronicle of the 23rd instant, in which Major Samuel Holland observes that he had pa.s.sed our Maximum Westerly Variation, it is very likely that such was the case, as I find that Major Sabine in 1818, found the Variation for London to be 24 30' West, and in 1822 to have retrograded to 24 12': this was not only the case in England, but all over Europe where observations were taken, so that there is no doubt that the same disturbing influence was affecting the needle here in 1793. Whatever that influence is, it must shortly alter. Major Samuel Holland's observations have affected us in the opposite direction, for in 1860 Captain Bayfield found the variation for Quebec to be 15 45' West, with an annual increase of 5', which would give the present variation as about 17 0' West. This agrees very closely with observations taken here last November for deviation, which with range of only 7 30', gave a mean result of 17 3'

9" West. I am, &c,

E. D. ASHE, Commander R. N.

Observatory, Quebec, Feb. 23rd, 1876.

_OUR CITY BELLS--THEIR NAMES._

1st. Bell, Louise; 2nd, Olivier Genevieve; 3rd, Pierre Marie; 4th, Marie- Joseph-Louise-Marguerite; 5th, Jean-Olivier, &c.

"Now, on the gentle breath of morn, Once more I hear that _chiming_ bell, As onward, slow, each note is borne, Like echo's lingering, last farewell."

(_The Evening Bells_, of the General Hospitals: by ADAM KIDD.--1829.)

"Quebec Bells are an inst.i.tution of the present and of the past:" so says every Tourist. To the weary and drowsy traveller, steeped at dawn in that "sweet restorer, balmy sleep," under the silent eaves of the St. Louis or Stadacona hotel, this is one of the features of our city life, at times unwelcome. We once heard a hardened old tourist savagely exclaim, "Preserve me against the silvery voice of Quebec Evening _Belles_, I rather like your early Morning Bells." Another tourist, however, in one of our periodicals closes a lament over Quebec "Bell Ringing," with the caustic enquiry "Should not Bell Bingers be punished?"

Being more cosmopolitan in our tastes, we like the music of our City Bells in the dewy morn, without fearing the merry tones of our City _Belles_, when the silent shades of evening lends them its witchery. There is certainly as much variety in the names as there is in the chimes of our Quebec Bells.

Though the Bells of the "ancient capital" are famous in history and song, Quebec cannot boast of any such monsters of sound as the "Gros Bourdon" of Montreal--weighing 29,400 lbs., dating from 1847, "the largest bell in America." The R. C. Cathedral in the upper town, raised in 1874, by His Holiness, Pius IX to the high position of _Basilica Minor_, the only one on the continent--owns two bells of antique origin; the Parish Register traces as follows, their birth and christening. "1774--9th October. The Churchwardens return thanks to His Lordship Jean 0. Briand, Bishop, for the present he made of the big bell, which, exclusive of its clapper, weighs 3,255 lbs. Name, LOUISE, by Messieur Montgolfier, _Grand Vicaire_, and Mdlle de Lery, representing its Matron. Blessed by Monsigneur Louis Masriacheau D'Esgley, coadjutor."

"1778. 28th July. Christening of the bells by M. Noel Voyer, on the 22nd July. Blessed by _Sa Grandeur_, Monseigneur Briand; the first weigh 1,625 lbs.--named OLIVIER GENEVIeVE--G.o.dfather, _Sa Grandeur_, with Madame Chanazard wife of M Berthelot 7 yards of white damask given as a (christening) dress. The second, was called PIERRE MARIE, by M. Panet, Judge of the Court, and his wife Marie Anne Rottot; said bell weighing 1,268 lbs."

A halo of poetry hovers over some of our bells. About 1829, Adam Kidd, a son of song, hailing from Spencer Wood,--a friend of the Laird of the Manor--Hon. H M Percival, wrote some graceful lines on the _Church Bells_ of the General Hospital Convent. This poem was published at the _Herald_ and _New Gazette_ office, in Montreal. In 1830, with the _Huron Chief_, and other poems by Kidd, and by him inscribed to Tom Moore, "the most popular, most powerful and most patriotic poet of the nineteenth century, whose magic numbers have vibrated to the heart of nations," says the Dedication.

A delightful volume has recently been put forth by a Ursuline Nun, ent.i.tled "GLIMPSES OF THE MONASTERY," in which the holy memories of the cloister blend with exquisite bits of word painting; we find in it a glowing sketch of the Convent Bells, and of the objects and scenery, surrounding the "Little World" of the Ursulines. "Marriage Bells" are of course left out.

The writer therein alludes to that short-lived bell of Madame de la Peltrie, melted in the memorable fire of the 31st December, 1650, which the pious lady used to toll, to call "the Neophytes to the waters of baptism, or the newly made Christians to Holy Ma.s.s."

(_See page 113._)