Picturesque Quebec : a sequel to Quebec past and present

Sir Le Moine James MacPherson

Description

This volume, purporting to be a sequel to QUEBEC PAST AND PRESENT, published in 1876, is intended to complete the history of the city. New and interesting details will be found in these pages, about the locality, where Samuel de Champlain located his settlement in 1608, together with a rapid glance at incidents, sights, objects, edifices, city gates and other improvements, both ancient and modern, which an antiquarian's ramble round the streets, squares, promenades, monuments, public and private edifices, &c., may disclose. It will, it is hoped, be found a copious repository of historical, topographical, legendary, industrial and antiquarian lore - garnered not without some trouble from authorities difficult of access to the general reader. May it prove not merely a faithful mirror of the past, but also an authentic record of the present!

Sujets

• Canadá
• Canada

Informations

• Publié par: Pub One Info
• Date de parution: 23 octobre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9782819909118
• Langue: English

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PREFACE
This volume, purporting to be a sequel to "QUEBECPAST AND PRESENT," published in 1876, is intended to complete thehistory of the city. New and interesting details will be found inthese pages, about the locality, where Samuel de Champlain locatedhis settlement in 1608, together with a rapid glance at incidents,sights, objects, edifices, city gates and other improvements, bothancient and modern, which an antiquarian's ramble round thestreets, squares, promenades, monuments, public and privateedifices, and c., may disclose. It will, it is hoped, be found acopious repository of historical, topographical, legendary,industrial and antiquarian lore – garnered not without some troublefrom authorities difficult of access to the general reader. May itprove not merely a faithful mirror of the past, but also anauthentic record of the present!
THE SKETCH OF THE ENVIRONS OF QUEBEC will take thetourist or student of history beyond the ramparts of Old Stadacona,to the memorable area – the Plains of Abraham – where, one centuryback and more, took place the hard- fought duel which caused thecollapse of French power in the New World, established British ruleon our shores, and hastened the birth of the great Commonwealthfounded by George Washington, by removing from the BritishProvinces, south of us, the counterpoise of French dominion. Morethan once French Canada had threatened the New England Settlements;more than once it had acted like a barrier to the expansion andconsolidation of the conquering Anglo-Saxon race.
THE ENVIRONS OF QUEBEC are, indeed, classic soil,trodden by the footsteps of many of the most remarkable men inAmerican History: Cartier, Champlain, Phipps, d'Iberville, Laval,Frontenac, La Galissonnère, Wolfe, Montcalm, Levis, Amherst,Murray, Guy Carleton, Nelson, Cook, Bougainville, Jervis,Montgomery, Arnold, DeSalaberry, Brock and others. Here, in earlytimes, on the shore of the majestic St. Lawrence, stood the wigwamand canoe of the marauding savage; here, was heard the clang ofFrench sabre and Scotch claymore in deadly encounter – the din ofbattle on the tented field; here, – but no further – had surged thewave of American invasion; here, have bivouaced on more than onegory battle- field, the gay warrior from the banks of the Seine,the staunch musketeers of Old England, the unerring riflemen of NewYork, Massachusetts and Rhode Island. Another spot calculated tointerest us is the vast expanse from the Plains to Cap Rouge, roundby Ste. Foye to the city, for which I intend to use its former moregeneral name, Sillery: the ground is not new for us, as its annalsand country seats furnished, in 1865, materials for sketches,published that year under the title of Maple Leaves . Thesesketches having long since disappeared from book-stores, at therequest of several enlightened patrons, I re-publish from them someselections, with anecdotes and annotations. Several other sitesround Quebec – Beauport, Charlesbourg, the Falls of Montmorency andof the Chaudière, Château Bigot, Lorette and its Hurons – will, ofnecessity, find a resting place in this repertory of Quebechistory, which closes a labour of love, the series of works onCanada, commenced by me in 1861.
In order to enhance the usefulness of this work,extensive and varied historical matter has been included in theappendix for reference.
To my many friends, whose notes and advice have beenso freely placed at my disposal, I return my grateful thanks.
J. M. LEMOINE. SPENCER GRANGE, December, 1881.
CHAPTER 1.
FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF QUEBEC.
Quebec, founded by Samuel de Champlain, in 1608, hascertainly much to recommend her, by her monuments, her historicalmemories and her scenery, to the traveller – the scholar – thehistorian. The wintering of the venturesome Jacques Cartier on thebanks of the St. Charles in 1535-6, by its remoteness, is anincident of interest, not only to Canadians, but also to everydenizen of America. It takes one back to an era nearly coeval withthe discovery of the continent by Columbus – much anterior to thefoundation of Jamestown, in 1607 – anterior to that of StAugustine, in Florida. Quebec, has, then, a right to call herselfan old, a very old, city of the west.
The colonization of Canada, or, as it was formerlycalled, New France, was undertaken by French merchants engaged inthe fur trade, close on whose steps followed a host of devotedmissionaries who found, in the forests of this new and attractivecountry, ample scope for the exercise of their religiousenthusiasm. It was at Quebec that these Christian heroes landed,from hence they started for the forest primeval, the bearers of theolive branch of Christianity, an unfailing token ofcivilization.
A fatal mistake committed at the outset by theFrench commanders, in taking sides in the Indian wars, more thanonce brought the incipient colony to the verge of ruin. Duringthese periods, scores of devoted missionaries fell under thescalping knife or suffered incredible tortures amongst themerciless savages whom they had come to reclaim. Indian massacresbecame so frequent, so appalling, that on several occasions theFrench thought seriously of giving up the colony forever. Therivalry between France and England, added to the hardships anddangers of the few hardy colonists established at Quebec. Itsenvirons, the shores of its noble river, more than once became thebattle-field of European armies. These are periods of strife,happily gone by, we hope, forever.
In his " Pioneers of France in the New World ,"the gifted Francis Parkman mournfully reviews the vanished gloriesof old France in her former vast dominions in America: – "TheFrench dominion is a memory of the past; and when we evoke itsdeparted shades, they rise upon us from their graves in strangeromantic guise. Again their ghostly camp-fires seem to burn, andthe fitful light is cast around on lord and vassal and black robedpriest, mingled with wild forms of savage warriors, knit in closefellowship on the same stern errand. A boundless vision grows uponus: an untamed continent, vast wastes of forest verdure, mountainssilent in primeval sleep; river, lake, and glimmering pool;wilderness oceans mingling with the sky. Such was the domain whichFrance conquered for civilization. Plumed helmets gleamed in theshade of its forests; priestly vestments in its dens and fastnessesof ancient barbarism. Men steeped in antique learning, pale withthe close breath of the cloister, here spent the noon and eveningof their lives, ruled savage hordes with a mild, parental sway, andstood serene before the direst shapes of death. Men of a courtlynurture, heirs to the polish of a far-reaching ancestry, here, withtheir dauntless hardihood, put to shame the boldest sons oftoil."
Of all this mighty empire of the past, Quebec wasthe undisputed capital, the fortress, the keystone.
It would be a curious study to place injuxtaposition the impressions produced on Tourists by the view ofQuebec and its environs – from the era of Jacques Cartier, thediscoverer of Canada, down to that of the Earl of Dufferin, one ofits truest friends.
Champlain, La Potherie, La Houtan, Le Beau, Du Creux(Creuxius), Peter Kalm, Knox, Silliman, Ampère, Mrs. Moodie,Dickens, Lever, Anthony Trollope, Sala, Thoreau, Warburton,Marmier, Capt. Butler, Sir Charles Dilke, Henry Ward Beecher, haveall left their impressions of the rocky citadel: let us gaze on afew of their vivid pictures. "The scenic beauty of Quebec has beenthe theme of general eulogy. The majestic appearance of CapeDiamond and the fortifications, the cupolas and minarets, likethose of an eastern city, blazing and sparkling in the sun, theloveliness of the panorama, the noble basin, like a sheet of purestsilver, in which might ride with safety a hundred sail of the line,the graceful meandering of the river St. Charles, the numerousvillage spires on either side of the St. Lawrence, the fertilefields dotted with innumerable cottages, the abode of a rich andmoral peasantry, – the distant falls of Montmorency, – the parklike scenery of Point Levis, – the beauteous Isle of Orleans, – andmore distant still, the frowning Cape Tourmente, and the loftyrange of purple mountains of the most picturesque form, which,without exaggeration, is scarcely to be surpassed in any part ofthe world." (Hawkins' Picture of Quebec .) "Quebec recallsAngoulême to my mind: in the upper city, stairways, narrow streets,ancient houses on the verge of the cliff; in the lower city, thenew fortunes, commerce, workmen; – in both, many shops and muchactivity." (M. Sand.) "Take mountain and plain, sinuous river, andbroad, tranquil waters, stately ship and tiny boat, gentle hill andshady valley, bold headland and rich, fruitful fields, frowningbattlement and cheerful villa, glittering dome and rural spire,flowery garden and sombre forest, – group them all into thechoicest picture of ideal beauty your fancy can create; arch itover with a cloudless sky, light it up with a radiant sun, and lestthe sheen should be too dazzling, hang a veil of lighted haze overall, to soften the lines and perfect the repose, – you will thenhave seen Quebec on this September morning." (Eliot Warburton.) "Irubbed my eyes to be sure I was in the nineteenth century, and notentering one of those portals which sometimes adorn thefrontispiece of old black-letter volumes. I though it would be agood place to read Froissart's Chronicles. It was such areminiscence of the Middle Ages as Scott's Novels. "Too much hasnot been said about the scenery of Quebec. The fortifications ofCape Diamond are omnipresent. You travel ten, twenty, thirty milesup or down the river's banks, you ramble fifteen miles among thehills on either side, and then, when you have long since forgottenthem, perchance slept on them by the way, at a turn of the road orof your body, there they are still with their geometry against thesky.... "No wonder if Jacques Cartier's pilot exclaimed inNorman-French Que bec! ("What a peak!")