"Eight days of varied horror pa.s.sed; what boots it now to tell How the pale tenants of the fort heroically fell?

Hunger and thirst and sleeplessness, Death's ghastly aids, at length, Marred and defaced their comely forms, and quelled their giant strength.

The end draws nigh--they yearn to die--one glorious rally more, For the dear sake of Ville Marie and all will soon be o'er; Sure of the martyr's golden Crown, they shrink not from the Cross, Life yielded for the land they loved, they scorn to reckon loss."

Some distance above, at the Chateau Montebello, lived in the early nineteenth century Louis Joseph Papineau, the "French-Canadian O'Connell," the seigneur of the district, who was the local leader in resistance to English aggressions, of whom the French are very proud, and his portrait hangs in the Parliament House at Ottawa. He was defeated, banished and then pardoned, and lived here to a ripe old age to see many of the reforms and privileges for which he had contended fully realized under subsequent administrations. The Riviere aux Lievres rushes into the Ottawa down a turbulent cascade, through which logs dash until caught in the booms at the sawmills below, where are vast lumber piles. This river is two hundred and eighty miles long, and just above its mouth has a fall at Buckingham of seventy feet, giving an enormous water-power. The whole region hereabout is devoted to lumbering. The French _habitan_ from Lower Quebec comes up into this wilderness of woods with scarcely any capital but his axe, in the use of which he is expert. These Canadians do not like leaving their homes, but are compelled by sheer necessity. When the old Quebec farm has been subdivided among the children, under the French system, until the long, ribbon-like strips of land become so narrow between the fences that there is no opportunity for further sub-division, the young men must seek a livelihood elsewhere. The old man gives them a blessing, with a good axe and two or three dollars, and they start for the lumber camps. They catch abundant fish, can live on almost nothing, and need only buy their flour and salt, with some pork for a luxury. These lumbermen often wear picturesque costumes like the old voyageurs, and they like flaming red scarfs. They are as polite as the most courtly French gentleman, and pa.s.s their evenings in dancing, with music and singing the ancient songs of their forefathers, scorning anything modern. Many of them are Metis, or half-breeds, the descendants of French and Indians. These are more heavy featured and not so sprightly as the pure French, but they are equally skillful woodmen, and have inherited many good traits from both races, though they rather regard with pity their full-blooded Indian half-brothers, whose lot is scarcely as favorable. All these people are devout Catholics, and going up into the woods in the late autumn and remaining until after Easter, the priests always visit their camps to attend to their spiritual wants. An impressive scene in these vast forests in the dawn of a cold winter morning is to see the priest standing with outstretched arms at the rude altar, the light of the candles revealing the earnest faces of his flock as they reverentially attend the ma.s.s. These woodmen are firm believers in the supernatural, convinced that the spirits of the dead come back in various shapes. If a single crow is seen they are sure a calamity has occurred; if two crows fly before them it means a wedding. An owl hooting indicates impending danger. They are always hearing strange voices at night, or seeing ominous shapes in the twilight wood shadows. The Metis are good hunters, and great is their joy when a belated bear is found near the camp, or a deer or moose is tracked in the snow. Their lumbering is done near the streams, so the logs may be thrown in and floated down by the spring freshets. They make a vast product of timber, sold throughout the lakes and St. Lawrence region, much going across the Atlantic.

THE DOMINION CAPITAL.

The earliest settler at the portage around the Chaudiere Falls of the Ottawa was Philemon Wright, of Woburn, Ma.s.sachusetts, who came along in 1800, and not getting on successfully, sold out about twenty years later to cancel a debt of $200. Subsequently there was established at the confluence of the three rivers, Ottawa, Rideau and Gatineau, by Colonel By, a British military post and Indian trading-station, around which in time a settlement grew which was called Bytown, distant about a hundred miles from the St. Lawrence River. It was incorporated a city in 1854 by the name of Ottawa; and when the Dominion Confederation was formed in 1858 there was so much contention about the claims of rival cities to be the capital--Montreal, Toronto, Kingston and Quebec all being urged--that Queen Victoria, to finally settle the matter, selected Ottawa. There is a population of about sixty thousand, but excepting from the n.o.ble location of the magnificent public buildings, the political importance of the city does not attract the visitor so much as the business development. The lumber trade makes the first and greatest impression; landing among boards and sawdust, walking amid timber piles and over wooden sidewalks, with slabs, blocks and planks everywhere in endless profusion, the rushing waters filled with floating logs and sawdust, busy saws running, planing-machines screeching, the ca.n.a.ls carrying lumber cargoes, the rivers lined with acres of board piles--an idea is got of what the lumber trade of the Ottawa valley is. The timber is almost all white and yellow pine. Alongside the Chaudiere Falls at the western verge of the town are cl.u.s.tered the great sawmills, while capacious slides shoot the logs down, which are to be floated farther along to the St. Lawrence. There are also large flour-mills and other factories getting power from this cataract.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Chaudiere Falls, St. Lawrence_]

The Chaudiere, or the "Cauldron," is a remarkable cataract, and the Indians were so terrified by it, that to propitiate its evil genius we are told they usually threw in a little tobacco before traversing the portage around it. The rapids begin about six miles above, terminating in this great boiling cauldron with a sheer descent of forty feet, which is as curious as it is grand. Owing to the peculiar formation of the enclosing rocks, all the waters of the broad river are converged into a sort of basin about two hundred feet wide, plunging in with vast commotion and showers of spray. Efforts have been made to sound this strange cauldron, but the lead has not found bottom at three hundred feet depth. The narrowness of the pa.s.sage between the enclosing rocky walls, just below the falls, has enabled a bridge to be built across, connecting Ottawa with the suburb of Hull.

Here is given an admirable view of the foaming, descending waters, clouds of spray, and at times gorgeous rainbows, flanked by timber piles and sawmills, sending out rushing streams of water and sawdust into the river below. Near by a chain of eight ma.s.sive locks brings the Rideau Ca.n.a.l down through a fissure in the high bank to the level of the lower Ottawa, its sides being almost perpendicularly cut by the action of water in past ages. The locks are a Government work, of solid masonry, well built, and the fissure divides Ottawa into the Upper and the Lower Town, pretty bridges being thrown across it on the lines of the princ.i.p.al streets. The Rideau Ca.n.a.l follows the Rideau River upwards southwest to the Lake Ontario level, and in the whole distance of one hundred and twenty-six miles to Kingston, overcomes four hundred and forty-six feet by forty-seven locks. Much of the suburb of Hull and a considerable part of Ottawa, with enormous amounts of lumber, were destroyed by a great fire in April, 1900, a high wind fanning the flames that were spread by the inflammable materials.

Upon Barrack Hill, at an elevation of one hundred and fifty feet, surrounded by ornamental grounds, and having the Ottawa River flowing at the western base, stand the Government buildings. They are magnificent structures, costing nearly $4,000,000, the Prince of Wales having laid the corner-stone on his visit in 1860. They are built of cream-colored sandstone, with red sandstone and Ohio stone tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs, the architecture being Italian Gothic, and they stand upon three sides of a gra.s.s-covered quadrangle, and occupy an area of four acres. They include the Parliament House, the chief building, and all the Dominion Government offices. The former is four hundred and seventy-two feet long, the other buildings on the east and west sides of the quadrangle being somewhat smaller. All are impressive, their great elevation enabling their towers and spires to be seen for many miles. The legislative chambers are richly furnished, and Queen Victoria's portrait is on the walls of one House, and those of King George III.

and Queen Charlotte upon the other. The Parliamentary Library, a handsome polygonal structure of sixteen angles, adjoins. The Governor-General resides in Rideau Hall, across the Rideau River.

From a little pavilion out upon the western edge of Barrack Hill, high above the Ottawa, there is a long view over the western and northern country, whence that river comes. To the left is the rolling land of Ontario province, and to the right the distant hills and looming blue mountains of Quebec, the river dividing them. Behind the pavilion is the stately Parliament House, its n.o.ble Victoria Tower, seen from afar, rising two hundred and twenty feet.

MONTREAL TO QUEBEC.

The broad St. Lawrence River flows one hundred and eighty miles from Montreal to Quebec. A succession of parishes is pa.s.sed, each with its lofty church and presbytere, reproducing the picturesque buildings of old Normandy and Brittany, with narrow windows and steep roofs, all covered with shining white tin which the dry air preserves. Little villages cl.u.s.ter around the churches, with long stretches of arable lands between. Among a ma.s.s of wooded islands on the northern bank, the turbid waters of the lower Ottawa outlet flow in, the edge of the clearer blue of the St. Lawrence being seen for some distance below.

The delta makes green alluvial islands and shoals. Thus we sail down the great river, past sh.o.r.es that were long ago very well settled.

"Past little villages we go, With quaint old gable ends that glow Bright in the sunset's fire; And, gliding through the shadows still, Oft notice, with a lover's thrill, The peeping of a spire."

In the eighteenth century, Kalm, a Swedish tourist in America, said it could be really called a village, beginning at Montreal and ending at Quebec, "for the farmhouses are never more than five arpents apart, and sometimes but three asunder, a few places excepted;" and two centuries ago a traveller on the river wrote that the houses "were never more than a gunshot apart." All the people are French, retaining the language and old customs, simple-minded and primitive, the same as under the ancient French regime, and excepting that one village, Varennes, has put two towers upon its stately church, all of them are exactly alike. It is recorded that in Champlain's time some Huguenot sailors came up the river piously singing psalm tunes. This did not please the officials, and soon a boat with soldiers put off from one of these villages, and the officer in charge told them that "Monseigneur, the Viceroy, did not wish that they should sing psalms on the great river." The first steamer that came along the St.

Lawrence created unlimited dread, horrifying the villagers. Solemnly crossing himself, an old voyageur, who probably thought his trade on the waters endangered, exclaimed, in his astonishment, "But can you believe that the good G.o.d will permit all that?"

The Richelieu River, the outlet of Lake Champlain, comes in at Sorel, the chief affluent on the southern bank, its ca.n.a.l system making a navigable connection with the Hudson River. Cardinal Richelieu took great interest in early Canadian colonization, and Fort Richelieu was built at the mouth of this river, being afterwards enlarged to prevent Iroquois forays, by Captain Sorel, whose name is preserved in the town. Below, there is an archipelago of low alluvial islands, and the St. Lawrence broadens out into Lake St. Peter, nine or ten miles wide, and generally shallow, this being the head of the tidal influence. On its southern side flows in the St. Francis River, the outlet of Lake Memphremagog and of many streams and lakes in the vast wilderness along the boundary north of Vermont and east of Lake Champlain. At its mouth is the little village of St. Francois du Lac. As the sh.o.r.es contract below Lake St. Peter, the town of Three Rivers is pa.s.sed midway between Montreal and Quebec. Here the fine river St. Maurice, another great lumber-producing stream, flows in upon the northern bank, two little islands dividing its mouth into a delta of three channels, thus naming the town. The St. Maurice is full of rapids and cataracts, the chief being Shawanagan Fall, about twenty miles inland, noted for its grandeur and remarkable character. The river, suddenly bending and divided into two streams by a pile of rocks, falls nearly one hundred and fifty feet and dashes against an opposing wall, where the reunited stream forces its way through a narrow pa.s.sage scarcely a hundred feet wide. The two lofty rocks bounding this abyss are called La Grande Mere and Le Bon Homme. The headwaters of St. Maurice interlock with some of those of the gloomy Saguenay north of Quebec.

An enormous output of lumber comes down to Three Rivers, and the district also produces much bog iron ore. Here are extensive sawmills, iron-works, and one of the largest paper-pulp establishments in America, the unrivalled water-power being thus utilized. Below the St.

Maurice, as the outcropping foothills from the Laurentian Mountains approach the river, the scenery becomes more picturesque. The Richelieu rapids are here, requiring careful navigation among the rocks, and Jacques Cartier River comes in from the north. In front of St. Augustin village, years ago, the steamer "Montreal" was burnt with a loss of two hundred lives, and on the outskirts is an ancient ruined church, which is said to have fallen in decay because the devil a.s.sisted at its building. This was in 1720, and the tradition is that His Satanic Majesty appeared in the form of a powerful black stallion, who hauled the blocks of stone, until his driver, halting at a watering-trough, where there was also a small receptacle of holy water for the faithful, unbridled the horse, who became suddenly restive and vanished in a cloud of sulphurous smoke. Many pious pilgrimages are made to the present fine church of the village, having a statue of the guardian angel standing out in front, commemorating the Vatican Council of 1870. As Quebec is approached, the "coves" are seen on the northern sh.o.r.e, arranged with booms for the timber ships, for easier transfer of lumber from the rafts floated down the river, and the steep bluffs behind run off into Cape Diamond, projecting far across the stream. Old Sillery Church stands up with its tall spire atop of the bold bluff, with a monastery behind it. Here Noel Brulart de Sillery, Knight of Malta, in 1637, established one of the early Jesuit missions. Point Levis stretches from the southern bank to narrow the river channel. The low gray walls of the citadel surmount the highest point of the extremity of Cape Diamond, and rounding it, we are at Quebec.

ORIGIN OF QUEBEC.

Whence comes the name of Quebec? "Quel bec! Quel bec!"--(What a beak!)--shouted Jacques Cartier's astonished sailors, when, sailing up the St. Lawrence, they first beheld the startling promontory of Cape Diamond, thrust in towering majesty almost across the river. Thus, says one tradition, by a natural elision, was named Quebec, when the Europeans first saw the rock in 1535. Another derivation comes from Candebec on the Seine, which it much resembles. The Indian word "Kebic," meaning "the fearful rocky cliff," may have been its origin.

The Indian village of Stadacona was here when Cartier found it, a cl.u.s.ter of wigwams fringing the sh.o.r.e in front of the bold cliff, its people bearing allegiance to the Montaignais chief, Donnacona. Here the ancient chronicle records that Cartier saw a "mighty promontory, rugged and bare, thrust its scarped front into the raging current,"

and he planted the cross and lilies of France and took possession for his king. Returning to Europe, he took back as prisoners the chief, Donnacona, and several of his warriors, their arrival making a great sensation. They were feted and prayed for, and becoming converted, were baptised with pomp in the presence of a vast a.s.semblage in the magnificent Cathedral of Rouen. But the round of pleasure and feasting, with the excess of excitement, overcame these children of the forest, and they all died within a year. Colonization on the St.

Lawrence, after Cartier's voyages, languished for seventy years, various ill-starred expeditions failing, and it was not until 1608 that the city of Quebec was really founded by Samuel de Champlain, who was sent out by a company of a.s.sociated n.o.blemen of France to establish a fur trade with the Indians and open a new field for the Church, the Roman Catholic religion being then in the full tide of enthusiasm which in the seventeenth century made what was known as the "counter reformation." Champlain built a fort and established the province of New France, but his colony was of slow growth. There subsequently came out the military and commercial adventurers and religious enthusiasts, who were the first settlers of the new empire.

The Recollet Fathers came in 1615, and the Jesuit missionary priests in 1625 and subsequently. The famous Canadian bishop, Laval de Montmorency, Father Hennepin, and the Sieur de la Salle, all came out in the same ship at a later period. Thus was founded the great French Catholic power in North America.

The Church thoroughly ruled the infant colony of Quebec. In the fort, black-garbed Jesuits and scarfed officers mingled at Champlain's table. Parkman says, "There was little conversation, but in its place, histories and the lives of saints were read aloud, as in a monastic refectory; prayers, ma.s.ses and confessions followed each other with an edifying regularity, and the bell of the adjacent chapel, built by Champlain, rang morning, noon, and night; G.o.dless soldiers caught the infection, and whipped themselves in penance for their sins; debauched artisans outdid each other in the fury of their contrition; Quebec was become a mission." Champlain died at Christmas, 1635, after a long illness, at the age of sixty-eight, the "Father of Canada," and Quebec was without a Governor for a half-year. Finally, the next summer, the Father Superior, Le Jeune, who had been directing affairs, espied a ship, and going down to the landing, was met by the new Governor, de Montmagny, a Knight of Malta, with a long train of officers and gentlemen. We are told that "as they all climbed the rock together, Montmagny saw a crucifix planted by the path. He instantly fell on his knees before it; and n.o.bles, soldiers, sailors and priests imitated his example. The Jesuits sang Te Deum at the church, and the cannon roared from the adjacent fort. Here the new Governor was scarcely installed, when a Jesuit came in to ask if he would be G.o.dfather to an Indian about to be baptized. 'Most gladly,' replied the pious Montmagny. He repaired on the instant to the convert's hut, with a company of gaily-apparelled gentlemen; and while the inmates stared in amazement at the scarlet and embroidery, he bestowed on the dying savage the name of Joseph, in honor of the spouse of the Virgin and the patron of New France. Three days after, he was told that a dead proselyte was to be buried, on which, leaving the lines of the new fortification he was tracing, he took in hand a torch, De Lisle, his lieutenant, took another, Repentigny and St. Jean, gentlemen of his suite, with a band of soldiers, followed, two priests bore the corpse, and thus all moved together in procession to the place of burial. The Jesuits were comforted. Champlain himself had not displayed a zeal so edifying." The spiritual power thus so zealously exerted thoroughly controlled Quebec, and its masterful force always continued.

THE FRENCH-CANADIAN MISSIONARIES.

Boundless was the power exerted when the religious envoys of this wonderful colony spread over the interior of America. When the heroic bishop Laval de Montmorency stood on the altar-steps of his Basilica at Quebec, he could wave his crozier over half a continent, from the island of St. Pierre Miquelon to the source of the Mississippi, and from the St. Lawrence to the Gulf of Mexico. The Jesuits' College at Quebec was started in a small way as early as 1637, and from it, year after year, issued forth the dauntless missionaries, carrying the gospel out among the Indians for over three thousand miles into the interior, preaching the faith beyond the Mississippi, and down its valley, throughout Louisiana, many suffering death and martyrdom in its most cruel forms. Nowhere in the church annals exists a grander chapter than the record of these missionaries. Unarmed and alone, they travelled the unexplored continent, bravely meeting every horrible torture and lingering death inflicted by the vindictive savages, whom they went out to bless. The world was amazed at their sufferings and achievements. Even Puritan New England, we are told, received their envoy with honors, the apostle Eliot entertaining him at Roxbury parsonage, while Boston, Salem and Plymouth became his gracious hosts.

These devoted men loved the new country. "To the Jesuits," we are told in their annals, "the atmosphere of Quebec was well-nigh celestial. In the climate of New France one learns perfectly to seek only one G.o.d; to have no desire but G.o.d; no purpose but for G.o.d. To live in New France is in truth to live in the bosom of G.o.d. If anyone of those who die in this country goes to perdition," writes Le Jeune, "I think he will be doubly guilty." For years old France sent over a mult.i.tude to reinforce these missions. They were urged on by rank, wealth and power in the great work of converting the heathen, and the n.o.blest motives gave these missions life. Solitude, toil, privation, hardship and death were the early French missionary's portion, yet nothing made his zeal or courage flag. The saints and angels of their faith hovered around these Jesuit martyrs with crowns of glory and garlands of immortal bliss. It was no wonder that the French and Jesuit influence soon extended far beyond the mere circle of converts.

It modified and softened the rude manners of many unconverted tribes.

Parkman, from whom I have already quoted, records that "in the wars of the next century we do not often find those examples of diabolic atrocity with which the earlier annals are crowded. The savage burned his enemies alive, it is true, but he seldom ate them; neither did he torment them with the same deliberation and persistency. He was a savage still, but not so often a devil."

The French missionary priests survived the period of torture and trial, and became, in fact, the revered rulers of many of the Indian tribes. They thoroughly a.s.similated and learned the languages. The priest, regarded with awe and affection, knew so much, and was so skillful as counsellor and physician, that the untutored savage came to look upon him almost as a supernatural being. The biographer of the venerable Father Davion, who governed the Yazoos in Louisiana, tells how the Indians regarded him as more than human. "Had they not, they said, frequently seen him at night, with his dark solemn gown, not walking, but gliding through the woods like something spiritual? How could one so weak in frame, and using so little food, stand so many fatigues? How was it that whenever one of them fell sick, however distant it might be, Father Davion knew it instantly and was sure to be there before sought for? Did any of his prophecies ever prove false? What was it he was in the habit of muttering so long, when counting the beads of that mysterious chain that hung round his neck?

Was he not then telling the Great Spirit every wrong they had done? So they both loved and feared Father Davion. One day they found him dead at the foot of the altar; he was leaning against it with his head cast back, with his hands clasped, and still retaining his kneeling position. There was an expression of rapture in his face, as if to his sight the gates of Paradise had suddenly unfolded themselves to give him admittance; it was evident that his soul had exhaled into a prayer, the last on this earth, but terminating no doubt in a hymn of rejoicing above." But great as may be the spectacle of triumphant martyrdom, there are yet men unwilling to change places with the missionary priest. Ralph Waldo Emerson writes in _The Problem_:

"I like a church; I like a cowl; I love a prophet of the soul; And on my heart monastic aisles Fall like sweet strains, or pensive smiles: Yet not for all his faith can see Would I that cowled churchman be."

But others also came to New France besides priests and martyrs; the adventurers and beggared n.o.blemen--poor, uneducated, yet bold and courageous. The historian tells us of "the beggared n.o.ble of the early time" who came over, "never forgetting his quality of _gentilhomme_; scrupulously wearing its badge the sword, and copying, as well as he could, the fashions of the court which glowed on his vision across the sea with all the effulgence of Versailles and beamed with reflected ray from the Chateau of Quebec. He was at home among his tenants, at home among the Indians, and never more at home than when, a gun in his hand and a crucifix on his breast, he took the warpath with a crew of painted savages and Frenchmen almost as wild, and pounced like a lynx from the forest on some lonely farm or outlying hamlet of New England. How New England hated him, let her records tell. The reddest blood-streaks on her old annals mark the track of the Canadian _gentilhomme_."

QUAINT OLD QUEBEC.

Thus created a thoroughly French region, Lower Canada still maintains the religious character of the original colony. The geographical names are mostly those of the saints and fathers of the Church, and much of the land is owned by religious bodies. The population is four-fifths French, and nowhere does the Church to-day show more vitality or command more thorough devotion. The city of Quebec almost stands still in population, having about seventy thousand, of whom five-sixths are French. It is now just as Champlain made it, though larger, a fortress, trading-station and church combined, and quaintly attractive in all three phases. No finer location could have been selected for a town and seaport, and no more impregnable position found to guard the St. Lawrence pa.s.sage than its junction with the river St. Charles. An elevated tongue of land stretches along the northwestern bank of the St. Lawrence for several miles, and from behind it comes out the St.

Charles. Below their junction the broad Isle of Orleans blocks the way, dividing the St. Lawrence into two channels, while above, the n.o.ble river contracts to the "Narrows," less than a mile in width, making a strait guarded all along by bold sh.o.r.es. At the northern extremity of this tongue of land, and opposite the "Narrows" of the river, rises the lofty cliff of Cape Diamond, three hundred and fifty feet above the water, the citadel crowning the hill and overlooking the town nestling at its foot. The fortifications spread all around the cliff and its approaches, completely guarding the rivers and the means of access by land; but it is now all peaceful, being only a show-place for sight-seers. As may be imagined, this grand fortress is magnificent to look at from the water approach, while the outlook from the ramparts and terraces on top of the cliff is one of the finest sights over town and rivers, hills and woods, in the world.

Quebec is quaint, ancient and picturesque, presenting strange contrasts. A fortress and commercial mart have been built together on the summit of a rock, like an eagle's nest. It is a French city in America, ruled by the English, and was held mainly by Scotch and Irish troops; a town with the inst.i.tutions of the middle ages under modern const.i.tutional government, having torrid summers and polar winters, and a range of the thermometer from thirty degrees below zero to one hundred degrees above. When Charles Dilke came here he thought he was back in the European Middle Ages. He found "gates and posterns, cranky steps that lead up to lofty gabled houses with steep French roofs of burnished tin like those of Liege; processions of the Host; altars decked with flowers; statues of the Virgin; sabots and blouses; and the scarlet of the British linesmen. 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. The American soil has left their 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 gaily 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." Henry Ward Beecher thought Quebec the most curious city he had ever seen, saying, "It is a peak thickly populated, a gigantic rock, escarped, echeloned, and at the same time smoothed off to hold firmly on its summit the houses and castles, although, according to the ordinary laws of nature, they ought to fall off, like a burden placed on a camel's back without a fastening. Yet the houses and castles hold there as if they were nailed down. At the foot of the rock some feet of land have been reclaimed from the river, and that is for the streets of the Lower Town. Quebec is a dried shred of the Middle Ages hung high up near the North Pole, far from the beaten paths of the European tourists--a curiosity without parallel on this side of the ocean. The locality ought to be scrupulously preserved antique. Let modern progress be carried elsewhere. When Quebec has taken the pains to go and perch herself away up near Hudson's Bay, it would be cruel and unfitting to dare to hara.s.s her with new ideas, and to speak of doing away with the narrow and tortuous streets that charm all travellers in order to seek conformity with the fantastic ideas of comfort in vogue in the nineteenth century."

THE FORTRESS OF QUEBEC.

Up on the cliff, in 1620, Champlain built the ancient castle of St.

Louis, which stood on the verge of the rock, where now is the eastern end of the Dufferin Terrace, at an elevation of about one hundred and eighty feet above the river. This was of timber, afterwards replaced by a stone structure used for fort and prison, and burnt in the early part of the nineteenth century, the site being now an open square, with some relics, on the verge of the cliff. The great Quebec Citadel upon the summit of the promontory, three hundred and fifty feet above the river, is one of the most formidable of the former systems of stone fortifications. It covers forty acres, and has outlying walls, batteries and defensive works enclosing the entire ancient city, the circuit being nearly three miles. There are batteries guarding the water approach, gates on the landward side (some now dismantled), and four ma.s.sive martello towers on the edge of the Plains of Abraham above the city, with long subterranean pa.s.sages leading to them and other outlying works. The Quebec rock is a dark slate, with an almost perpendicular stratification, and shining quartz crystals found in it gave it the name of Cape Diamond. The portion of the works overlooking the St. Lawrence is called the Grand Battery, while the surmounting pinnacle of the Citadel, containing a huge Armstrong gun, is the King's Bastion. While Quebec's magnificent scenery and its tremendous rock-crowned fortress remain as they were during the great colonial wars, yet the military glory is gone. England long ago withdrew the regular garrison, and only a handful of Canadian militia now hold the place, and the guns are harmless from age and rust, only two or three smaller ones doing the present ceremonious duties. In fact the old rock is so given to sliding, that salutes are forbidden, excepting on rare occasions, lest the concussion may bring some of the fatal rock-slides down upon the people of the Lower Town. There is a little bronze gun preserved as a trophy in the centre of the Parade, which the British captured at Bunker Hill. Grand as this Citadel is, it no longer protects Quebec, for in fact the defense against an enemy is provided by the newer modern forts across the river behind Point Levis, which command the river approach and cost some $15,000,000 to construct.

Yet great has been the conflict around this noted rock fortress in the past. The earliest battles were at the old Castle of St. Louis, and after the repulse of the New England colonial expeditions sent against Quebec in 1711 it was determined to fortify the whole of Cape Diamond, and then the Citadel and chief works were built. Two monuments, however, record the greatest events in its history. The Wolfe-Montcalm monument is the chief, erected just behind the Dufferin Terrace, in a little green enclosure known as the "Governor's Garden," recording the result of the greatest battle fought in Colonial America, the fateful contest in 1759, on the Plains of Abraham, where both commanders fell, which changed the sovereignty of Canada from France to England, and the crowning victory of the "Seven Years' War," which Parkman says "began the history of the United States." This is a plain shaft, almost without ornamentation, and bears the names of both Generals.

The other monument is the little stone set up in the face of the cliff on the river-front below the citadel, marking where the American General Montgomery fell, in the winter of 1775. He had crossed the St.

Lawrence on the ice, and in imitation of Wolfe's previous exploit, rashly tried to scale the almost perpendicular cliff with a handful of troops, but was defeated and slain. Wolfe's successful ascent of the bluff in 1759 had been made from the river three miles above Quebec, at what is now known as Wolfe's Cove, where the timber ships load. A little stream makes a ravine in the bank, and Wolfe and his intrepid followers, having floated down from above with the tide, landed and climbed through this gorge, the route they took being at present a steep road ascending the face of the bluff among the trees, a small flag-staff being planted at the top. The Plains of Abraham--so called from Abraham Martin, a pilot living there--are now occupied by the modern residences of the city and the ma.s.sive buildings of the Quebec Provincial Parliament. There is also a prison, and near it a monument marking where Wolfe fell, being the second column erected, the first having been carried away piecemeal by relic-hunters. Upon it is the inscription: "Here died Wolfe victorious, Sept. 13, 1759." This marks the most famous event in the history of the great fortress. Wolfe had evidently a premonition. A young midshipman who was in the boat with him, as they floated on the river at midnight to the ravine, told afterwards how Wolfe, in a low voice, repeated Gray's _Elegy in a Country Churchyard_ to the officers about him, including the line his own fate was soon to ill.u.s.trate, "The paths of glory lead but to the grave," saying, as the recital ended, "Gentlemen, I would rather have written those lines than take Quebec." William Pitt, describing the great result of the battle, said, "The horror of the night, the precipice scaled by Wolfe, the empire he, with a handful of men, added to England, and the glorious catastrophe of contentedly terminating life where his fame began--ancient story may be ransacked and ostentatious philosophy thrown into the account, before an episode can be found to rank with Wolfe's."

QUEBEC RELIGIOUS HOUSES.

Various streets and stairways mount the great Quebec rock in zigzags, and there is also an inclined-plane pa.s.senger elevator. In the Lower Town, the narrow streets display quaint old French houses with queer-looking porches and oddly-built steps, high steep roofs, tall dormer windows and capacious stone chimneys. The French population cl.u.s.ter in the Lower Town and along St. Charles River. Churches and religious houses seem distributed everywhere. The great Catholic establishments are prominent in the Upper Town, nearly all founded in the seventeenth century. The Holy Father at Rome, recognizing the exalted position Quebec occupies in the Church, has made its Cathedral, like the patriarchal churches of Rome, a Basilica, its Archbishop being a Cardinal. It occupies the place of the first church built by Champlain, is not very large, but is magnificently decorated and contains fine paintings. Within are buried Champlain and Frontenac, and the great Bishop Laval de Montmorency. Adjoining is the palace of the Cardinal Archbishop, who is the Canadian Primate. Also adjoining are the s.p.a.cious buildings of the Seminary, founded and richly endowed by Laval,--one of the wealthiest inst.i.tutions and most extensive landowners of Quebec Province. This is still regarded as the controlling power of the Church in Lower Canada, as it has been for two centuries. There is also a Cathedral of the Church of England, a smaller and plain building, where the war-worn battle-flags of the British troops, carried in the Crimea, hang in the chancel, and the fine communion service was presented by King George III. Here is also the memorial of the early Anglican bishop of Quebec, Jacob Mountain, of whom it was said he happened to be in the presence of that king when the king expressed doubt as to who should be appointed bishop of the new See of Quebec, then just created. Said Dr. Mountain, "If your Majesty had faith there would be no difficulty." "How so?" asked the king; whereupon Mountain answered, "If you had faith you would say to this Mountain, be thou removed into that See, and it would be done."

It was; Quebec getting a most excellent bishop, who labored over thirty years there, dying in 1825. There are also the splendid building of Laval University, one of the first educational inst.i.tutions of the Dominion; the Hotel Dieu, and Ursuline Convent originally started by Madame de la Peltrie, in the Upper Town.

These establishments all had their origin in the religious enthusiasm attending the settlement of Canada, in which France took great pride, although Voltaire afterwards derided it as "Fifteen hundred leagues of frozen country." From Sillery, where the first Jesuit Mission was founded, went out the zealous missionaries and martyrs, who followed the Hurons into the depths of the forest, and sought to reclaim the Iroquois, as has been well said, "with toil too great to buy the kingdoms of this world, but very small as a price for the Kingdom of Heaven." From Sillery went the Jesuit Fathers, who explored all America, and also Jogues, Brebeuf, Lalemont, and others, to martyrdom in founding the primitive Canadian mission church. It was also the religious French women as well as the devoted men, who laid so deep and strong the pious foundation of Canada. Little do we really know of the nun, who in her religious devotion practically buries herself alive. Down in the Lower Town, near the Champlain Market, originally lived the first colony of Ursuline nuns, who came out with Madame de la Peltrie to teach and nurse the Indians. She afterwards left them, as already stated, and went to help settle Montreal. Later their establishment was removed to the Upper Town, where it now has an impressive array of buildings, with about fifty nuns, who educate most of the leading Quebec young ladies. The great success of this Order was due to its Superioress, Marie Gruyart, known as Mother Marie de l'Incarnation, a remarkable woman, who mastered the Huron and Algonquin languages, and devoted herself and her nuns to the special work of educating Indian girls, being called by Bossuet the "St. Theresa of the New World." In the shrines of this convent are relics of St. Clement Martyr, and other saints, brought from the Roman Catacombs. Its most famous possession is the remains of Montcalm, who was carried mortally wounded from the battlefield into the convent to die. His skull is preserved in a casket covered with gla.s.s, and is regarded with the greatest veneration. His body is buried in the chapel, and his grave is said to have been dug by a sh.e.l.l which burst there during the fierce bombardment preceding his death. This convent has had a chequered history, being repeatedly bombarded, and twice burnt during attacks on the city, and at times occupied as barracks by the troops of both friend and foe. Of late, however, the lives of these sisters of St. Ursula have been more tranquil.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Montcalm's Headquarters, Quebec_]

The most extensive collection of religious buildings is the Convent and Hospital of the Hotel Dieu, in the Upper Town. There are some sixty cloistered nuns of this Order, founded in 1639 by Cardinal Richelieu's niece, the d.u.c.h.ess d'Aguillon. They care for the sick and infirm poor, their hospital accommodating over six hundred. The oldest structure dates from 1654, and much of the collection is over two centuries old. The most precious relics in their convent are the remains of two of the Jesuit martyrs who went out from Sillery, Fathers Brebeuf and Lalemont. There is a silver bust of the former, and his skull is carefully preserved. Jean de Brebeuf was a Norman of n.o.ble birth, who came out with Champlain, and he and Lalemont were sent on a mission beyond Ontario to the Huron country, establishing the mission town of St. Ignace, near Niagara River. They lived sixteen years with these Indians, learning their language, and gaining great influence over them. The Iroquois from New York attacked and captured the town in 1649, taking the missionaries captive and putting them to death with frightful tortures. Brebeuf, who frequently had celestial visions, always announced his belief that he would die a martyr for Christ. The story of his torture is one of the most horrible in the colonial wars. He was bound to a stake and scorched from head to foot; his lower lip was cut away, and a red-hot iron thrust down his throat.

They hung a necklace of glowing coals around his neck, which the indomitable priest stood heroically; they poured boiling water over his head and face in mockery of baptism; cut strips of flesh from his limbs, eating them before his eyes, scalped him, cut open his breast and drank his blood, then filled his eyes with live coals, and after four hours of torture, finally killed him by tearing out his heart, which the Indian chief at once devoured. The writer recording this terrible ordeal says, "Thus died Jean de Brebeuf, the founder of the Huron mission, its truest hero, and its greatest martyr. He came of a n.o.ble race,--the same, it is said, from which sprang the English Earls of Arundel, but never had the mailed barons of his line confronted a fate so appalling, with so prodigious a constancy. To the last he refused to flinch, and his death was the astonishment of his murderers." Gabriel Lalemont, his colleague, was a delicate young man, and was tortured seventeen hours, bearing the torments n.o.bly, and though at times faltering, yet he would rally, and with uplifted hands offer his sufferings to heaven as a sacrifice. His bones are preserved in the Hotel Dieu. The burning of St. Ignace village dispersed the Hurons, but years afterwards a remnant was gathered by the Jesuit Fathers, and their descendants are at Lorette, up St. Charles River.

From the Ursuline Convent the Champlain Steps lead down the cliff to the Champlain Market, having alongside it the ancient little church of Notre Dame des Victoires. This is a plain stone church of moderate size, built in 1688 as the church of Notre Dame, on the site of Champlain's house. The interior, which has had modern renovation, displays rich gilding, and the church's interesting history is told by two angels hovering over the chancel, each bearing a banner, one inscribed "1690" and the other "1711." The fiery Count de Frontenac, who was Louis XIV.'s Governor of Quebec, had ravaged the New England colonies, and in 1690, shortly after the church was built, Sir William Phips, from Ma.s.sachusetts, retaliated. The Iroquois, who were English allies, menaced Montreal, and all the French troops were sent thither.

Suddenly, in October, Phips and his fleet appeared in the St. Lawrence below Quebec. Urgent messages were sent the troops to return, and the devout Ursuline nuns prayed for deliverance with such fervor in the little church, that Phips was struck with a phase of indecision, wasted his time, summoned the town to surrender, a message which the bold Frontenac spurned, and then, without making an attack, Phips wasted more time, until the French troops did return, so that when the demonstration was made it was successfully repulsed, and after repeated disasters Phips and his fleet sailed back to New England.

Great was the rejoicing in Quebec, a thanksgiving procession singing Te Deums marched to the little church, and then the Bishop, with an elaborate ceremonial, changed its name to Notre Dame de la Victoire.

Twenty-one years afterwards, in 1711, another British invading force came up the river under Sir Hovenden Walker, and again the intercession of Notre Dame was implored. The rea.s.suring answer quickly came by fog and storm, producing dire disaster to the fleet, eight ships being wrecked and many hundreds drowned. Quebec again was saved; there was the wildest rejoicing, and in honor of the double triumph the church was re-named as Notre Dame des Victoires. An annual religious festival is held on the fourth Sunday in October to commemorate these miraculous deliverances. But the famous little church was not always to escape unscathed. One of the Ursuline nuns prophesied that it would ultimately be destroyed by the British, who would finally conquer, and when Wolfe's batteries bombarded Quebec in 1759 it severely suffered. It was repaired, and exists to-day as one of the most precious relics in the ancient city, in its oldest quarter, adjoining the market-place, and revered with all the unquestioning devotion of the _habitan_.

THE DUFFERIN TERRACE.