Picturesque Quebec : a sequel to Quebec past and present - Part 67
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Part 67

Voltaire, his remark upon the loss of Canada.

_Voltigeurs Canadiens_, formation of.

Voyageurs.

Walkem, Charles, history of Intendant's palace.

Walker, Admiral, squadron dispersed by storm.

Wapiti, extinct in Eastern Canada.

War Department property.

Warburton, Eliot, description of Quebec.

Wards, boundaries of.

Weld, Isaac, description of Haldimand Castle.

Wild flowers of Sillery.

Wilkie, Dr. Daniel, notice of.

Winter, the Joys of; in Canada.

Witchcraft, executions at Boston for.

Wolfe, General, monument to; statue of; his landing place; monument where he fell; repulsed at Montmorency; proposes wintering at Ile aux Coudres; scales the Heights of Abraham; served at Fontenoy; pistols and sash of.

Wooden railway, Gosford.

Woods of Sillery.

Writers, names of Canadian.

Wyandots. See Hurons.

Young Men's Christian a.s.sociation, building; history of, in Quebec.

FOOTNOTES

CHAPTER I.

[1] Mr. and Mrs. d.i.c.kens had lunched in the Citadel on that May 27th, 1842, the admired guests of the officers of the Grenadier Guards stationed there.

[2] _Lettres sur l'Amerique_: X. Marmier. Paris, 1869.

[3] The Highlanders--78th, 79th, and 93rd.

[4] _The New York Ledger._

[5] Before the era of the Allan line, sailing vessels used to land their living cargoes of forlorn emigrants in the Lower Town, sometimes after a pa.s.sage of fourteen weeks.

CHAPTER II.

[6] Parkman thus heralds the advent of this foreign arrival from sea:--"A lonely ship sailed up the St. Lawrence. The white whales floundering in the Bay of Tadousac, and the wild duck diving as the foaming prow drew near,--there was no life but these in all that watery solitude, twenty miles from sh.o.r.e to sh.o.r.e. The ship was from Honfleur, and was commanded by Samuel de Champlain. He was the Aeneas of a destined people, and in her womb lay the embryo life of Canada." (_Pioneers of France in the New World_, p. 296.)

[7] Champlain calls Cape Diamond, Mont du Gas (Guast), from the family name of De Monts. He gives the name of Cape Diamond to Pointe a Puiseaux.

See map of Quebec (1613.)

CHAPTER III.

[8] Six French Governors died and were buried in Quebec--Samuel de Champlain, Count de Frontenac, M. de Mesy, De Callieres, Marquis de la Jonquiere, and Marquis de Vaudreuil. Two English Governors--Lieut. Gen.

Hope and the Duke of Richmond.

[9] Up to 1617, and later, Cbamplain's residence was in the Lower Town, and stood nearly on the site of the Church _of Notre-Dames des Victoires_.

[10] John London MacAdam, the inventor of macadamized roads, was born in Ayr, Scotland, on the 21st September, 1756, and died at Moffat on the 26th November, 1836. The Parliament of Great Britain voted 2,000 to this benefactor of the human race. Macadamized roads, like several other useful inventions, met with many obstacles in Quebec. Some of the loudest to denounce this innovation were the carriage builders, who augured that good roads, by decreasing the bills for repairs to carriages, would ruin their industry, that their "usefulness would be gone."

[11] _Jesuit's Journal_, page 89. _Vide_ Appendix--Verbo, Horses.

[12] The _Journal des Jesuites_, published by Geo. Desbarats in 1874, under the supervision of the learned Abbes Laverdiere and Casgrain, from the copy in the Archives of the Quebec Seminary, though fragmentary, throws valuable light on many points in Canadian History. We clip the entry for 1st January, 1646, as summarized in the _Glimpses of the (Ursuline) Monastery_, respecting the custom of New Year's visits and presents; this entry will further introduce us to some of the denizens of note in Quebec in 1646:--We meet with the first _seigneur_ of Beauport, Surgeon Robert Giffard, who had settled there in 1634; the Royal Engineer and Surveyor, Jean Bourdon; J. Bpte. Couillard, the ancestor of the Quebec Couillards, of late years connected by marriage with the Quebec DeLerys; Mdlle. de Repentigny, a high-born French lady; the founder of the Ursuline Monastery, the benevolent Madame de la Peltrie; the devoted Sillery missionary, Father de Quen; without forgetting our old Scotch friend, Pilot Abraham Martin, who, from the nature of the gift bestowed, it seems, could relish his gla.s.s, and evidently was not then what we now call a "Neal Dow man."

January, 1st, 1646.--The soldiers went to salute the Governor with their guns; the inhabitants presented their compliments in a body. He was beforehand with us, and came here at seven o'clock to wish us a 'Happy New Year,' addressing each of the Fathers one after another. I returned his visit after Ma.s.s. (Another time we must be beforehand with him.) M.

Giffard also came to see us. The hospital nuns sent us a letter of compliment early in the morning; the Ursulines also, with beautiful presents, wax candles, rosaries, a crucifix, and, at dinner, two excellent pigeon-pies. I sent them two images, in enamel, of St. Ignatius and St Francois Xavier. We gave to M. Giffard the 'Life of Our Lord,' by F.

Bonnet; to M. des Chatelets, a little volume of Drexellius on Eternity; to M. Bourdon, a telescope and compa.s.s, and to others, reliquaries, rosaries, medals, images, etc. We gave a crucifix to the woman who washes the Church linen, a bottle of rum to Abraham, and four handkerchiefs to his wife; some books of devotion to others, and two handkerchiefs to Robert Hache; he asked for more and we gave them to him. I went to see M. Giffard, M.

Couillard and Mademoiselle de Repentigny. The Ursulines sent to beg I would come and see them before the end of the day. I went; and paid my compliments also to Madame de la Peltrie, who had sent us presents. I was near leaving this out, which would have been a great oversight. At home, I gave to our Fathers and Brothers what I thought they would like best. I had given beforehand to F. De Quen, for Sillery, all he chose to take from my room, and a choice present for Father Ma.s.se."--_Journal_, p. 24.

[13] Histoire de la Colonie Francaise en Canada, Vol. III., p. 384.

[14] History of Emily Montague, 4 Vols., 1767--London.

[15] The "dear man," in a concluding paragraph, dated 1st July, 1766, to John Temple, Esq., Pall-Mall, London, says: "Adieu! I am going to attend a very handsome French lady, who allows me the honour to drive her _en calashe_ to our Canadian Hyde Park, the road to St. Foix, where you will see forty or fifty calashes, with pretty women in them, parading every evening."--(_History of Emily Montague, Vol. I., p. 25._) The handsome Colonel Rivers, who so fancied his drives on the Foye road in 1766, the writer was told by Hon. W. Sheppard, was no other than the gallant Colonel Henry Caldwell, Wolfe's a.s.sistant Quartermaster-General at the battle of the Plains, in 1759--the "Laird of Belmont"--who died at Quebec in 1810, a friend, no doubt, of the clever Mrs. Brookes who wrote this novel.

[16] Histoire de l'Hotel-Dieu de Quebec (Mere Juchereau, 511.)

[17] Histoire de l'Hotel-Dieu, Casgrain, p. 81.

[18] To Let.--That elegant house, No. 6 Port Louis Street, lately occupied by H.R.H. Prince Edward, and at present by the Lord Bishop of Quebec. For particulars, apply to Miss Mabane, or to Munro & Bell, Quebec.--4th March, 1794 (_Quebec Gazette_, 1794.)