WAYSIDE CROSSES AND GARDEN SHRINES.
_Vanishing roads...._
“Vanishing roads,” no less than “the broad highway” of rural Quebec, are
all more or less edged by wayside crosses and tiny garden shrines. From
east to west and north to south the Quebecquois travels _a la rue
Calvaire_.
But this via crucis is by no means a via dolorosa. Far from it! For the
habitant does not set up his handmade, roadside cross, abounding with
symbols of the crucifixion, in a spirit of sadness, but rather as the
expression of a happy life full of rich traditions of such crosses in
Old France, brought over by his forefathers, and reproduced here in old
Quebec since Cartier’s time.
The wayside cross is now part of the landscape, in the habitant’s eye,
and to his mind, a happy calendar by which to notch events. It is in
this spirit that the habitant landholders and heads of families in old
Quebec set out to carve “the cross” that is the age-old milestone of the
roads--the cross by which they will be remembered long ages after they
have taken the hill-road to the _cimetiere_.
The carving is a winter-evening task, begun after the day’s work is
over, when the grande famille have all had _super_. _C’est bon._ All the
family is interested in _le pere’s_ intention to make a new cross. The
wood in hand is carefully gone over and the best pieces selected.
Measurements are made “according to the cloth” and the sawing and
planing begun. _Mon Pere’s_ ideas are rounded out by suggestions from
_le mere et les enfants_. Not one evening but many are consumed, till
the winter runs away. And when in the spring all is ready and the new
cross is set up, what wonder if it has an individuality all its own?
This being the way these roadside crosses grow, there is good reason why
not any two are alike.
One sometimes notes these crosses, shrines and chapels in the heart of
towns but usually they stand beside country roads in coastal,
agricultural and mountain sections. It is country-folk who set up these
rich milestones of the highway, in old Quebec. And whenever they appear
in the heart of town or village it means either that some old-timer
caused them to be so placed or that they were before the town, and that
the latter encroached.
Such a case as this is to be seen in two little wayside chapels to bonne
Saint Anne in Levis. Modern town life has encroached upon them to such
an extent it is extremely difficult to get even a picture of them clear
of telegraph poles, wires, etc., yet these little chapels, built one in
1789, the other in 1822, before electricity was heard of for power and
light, are still in use for the feast of good Sainte Anne.
What a cyclorama of Canadian history these little chapels could sketch
for the pilgrims of to-day, looking out from their doorways upon the
bosom of the Saint Lawrence. How many a vivid chapter of the olden days
was read by these little wayside shrines before it happened. Through
what stirring times has the little red light before the altar not
pointed the way of hope to men along the road of life? We hope that
Levis will never grow so big but she will have a place for these wayside
chapels that belong by right of the years and the things they have seen,
to all Canada.
But to the highway voyager of to-day it is their size that points a
revelation. How few, he thinks, must have been the people of this parish
at the time these chapels were built, if all went to mass at the same
hour. It is a tradition in Quebec that “at first wayside crosses were
set up at points where mass was said in the open air and later these
little chapels were built.” If this be so, here on this spot missionary
priests of pioneer times caused “a wayside cross” to be set up long
years before the foundation stone of these chapels was laid or Levis as
a town thought of--another reason why the sacred land should never be
absorbed by the town.
One reads much and hears much in Quebec of the landing of the great
sea-adventurers of the French discovery, who invariably brought with
them missionary priests. No tale in history appeals more to the
imagination than the landing of the Recollet Fathers at Percé and the
setting up of the cross on the bluff headland opposite Percé Rock. If
you go to Percé to-day--like “the weathered skeleton of time”, the cross
with its extended arms silhouetted against the sky, still stands on the
same spot chosen in 1535. A similar wealth of tradition gathers about
the head of the little wayside chapel at Tadousac. To the visitor, much
of the charm of Tadousac centres in this chapel dedicated to “_la
patronice du Canada_”--bonne Sainte Anne--and out of use these fifty
years except on special occasions, chief of which is naturally the fete
day of good
[Illustration:
LA CROIX, THE AGE-OLD MILESTONE
OF THE QUEBEC HIGHWAY.]
[Illustration:
LA CALVAIRE.]
Saint Anne. By the way, Saint Anne holds not only an esteemed but an
adventurous enshrinement in the heart of French Canada. It was she who
protected the early navigators, she who encouraged, sheltered, finally
havened the Breton sea-adventurers in the bays and coves of the Lower
St. Lawrence. And the farther seaward reach the highways of this part of
Canada to-day, the more popular appears Saint Anne for wayside shrines.
She is a personality with a very human and approachable heart to all
fishermen; and every little boat dancing in and out of Baie de Chaleur
feels the eye of Ste. Anne upon her. _La Protectrice de Pecheurs!_ Every
fisherman carries a little figure of the saintly woman whose specialty
is navigation, fishing, storms, boats, la morue, and a thousand-and-one
angles of his life; and then, as if fearing something might be
overlooked, clinches all with _du Canada_.
Therefore, where the abrupt Laurentians fling their beetling brows to
the wild gales and dun sea-fog, there on _la montagne_ at Percé, at the
very top, as if to see well the little boats balanced in calm majesty on
the quarter-deck of the continent, is a life-size figure of the Saint.
Many a time, lingering after the long steep climb, under the shadow of
this figure-of-the-ages looking down upon the weathered arms of the
cross upon the headland, I have been struck by the force of allegory
brought into being by these two figures in juxtaposition. Out of the
heart of the one, protective, evolve the protecting arms of the other.
Yet there was no motif or thought of this behind the erection of these
two figures. The cross is simply the cross of the Recollet Fathers and
pioneer missionaries, renewed continually through the centuries whenever
age and decay or some sudden storm made a new one necessary. _Bonne
Sainte Anne sur la Montagne_ was set up by the local fishermen of a
generation ago.
All these things are written on the south side of the St. Lawrence, and
as we take the shore-road west many a shrine and highway cross continue
the tale of rural piety and peace. But it is possibly the north shore of
the St. Lawrence including Ile d’Orleans where the shrine takes on
clear-cut historic importance.
The most famous shrine in all America is situated at Saint Anne de
Beaupré. Here Ste. Anne comes in close touch, laying her healing power
yearly upon the spirits and ill-bodies of thousands of pilgrims hailing
from widely separated regions of Canada and the United States, with a
sprinkling from every other quarter of the globe.
One would think that a region overshadowed, as it were, by so dominant a
force as Ste. Anne de Beaupré might easily show poverty in the matter of
the simple farmers’ crosses and wayside and garden shrines of which we
write, but along the Montmorenci and the Beaupré road quite the contrary
is to be observed.
Remarking on this and the surprising frequency of the wayside crosses in
this region, to a prominent Quebecquois, he assured us, to his thinking,
there were not so many now as of old. “Why,” said he, “when I was a boy
every house had one.” However their popularity may have decreased in the
eye of the old-timer, backed by a memory reaching back more than three
score years, they still recur frequently enough to-day to notch every
mile of the twenty-one between Quebec City and Sainte Anne de Beaupré
village. So that to the visitor, without such perspective, it is evident
that the habitant of these parts had no intention of relinquishing his
personal and intimate belief in the mascot of the Cross, Sacre Coeur,
and bonne Ste. Anne for his farm, garden, mill, meadows or bit of
roadway, because the world has a shrine at Beaupré that rivals Lourdes.
Nor do these milestones cease at the church. Rather they are to be
happened on all along the road east to Saint Joachim, and peep out at
intervals along the Cap Tourment road into the heart of the Laurentides
at ’tite de Cap, St. Feréol, St. Tetes, etc., as far as the road and the
habitant home pushes back into the heart of Northeastern Quebec.
In the wayside crosses of this north shore, however, we have fancied
finer work in execution, though perhaps not so strong and bold a
concept, as a rule, as in the sea-coast cross. This finer handiwork is
no doubt traceable to the influence of the art in the basilica of Saint
Anne with which the people hereabouts are in almost constant contact. At
least the church gets the credit till one remembers that these wayside
crosses are the handiwork of a long line of carvers dating back into
Normandy and Brittany, and that to the Tremblays, Gigueres, Couchons,
Desbarats, Gagnons, as well as other families, the Beaupré wood-carving
of sacred figures and symbols “runs in the blood” and is an inherited
talent handed down from generation to generation.
Whether the inspiration comes from within or at the suggestion of the
beauty in The Great Shrine, it is certain these wayside crosses,
crucifixes, chapels and shrines of this Laurentian highway stand out
among Canada’s finest landmarks. Seldom one of the crosses but has
simple wood-carved symbols of the Crucifixion attached--cup, ladder,
hammer, hands, nails, the crown of thorns. Not all are present on the
very old-timers, but an absent cup, a wind-blown hammer, a broken nail
gives them a greater grip, especially when about the weather-worn “foot”
a wild rose has sprung up and been spared by the scythe of the mower.
This same St. Lawrence section is also the rambling playground of the
tiny garden shrine. It is as if the hand of an aviator had scattered
from the clouds these miniature niches of the saints; so that one or
more dropped into every garden far and near.
These little garden shrines, many no larger than the breadbox, are the
pride of every habitant home-gardener. The entire household takes an
interest--especially _grandmere et grandpere_. It is the old man’s fancy
that every spring mixes the paint and guides the brush that freshens
into new life the old colours.
And are they dun colours that he mixes? Most assuredly not!--White and
light blue--the colours of the heavens.
The touches of life--the blood, the flesh, the hope--are given with real
flowers, picked fresh every morning from the surrounding garden and
set--a tiny bouquet votive-offering before the holy figure of “Mary”,
“The Son of Mary” or maybe “Bonne Ste. Anne”.
The private gardens fringing the main street of Ste. Anne de Beaupré
rival each other in these happy little shrines. All stand on elevations
of stone or willow-wood post; and a clinging vine or tall peonies or
ambitious poppies or nestling mignonette tone down the newness of the
sky-colours and touch with effective life the tiny figure in plaster or
bisque that symbolizes the faith of M’sieu and Madame.
In the garden of the summer home of two American ladies, adjoining the
highway of Beaupré toward St. Joachim, is a specially attractive little
shrine with a collaret of St. Joseph lilies--lilies which, appropriately
enough, are always in full bloom, for the fete day of bonne Sainte Anne.
Some of the Quebec cross-makers often cut a niche in the cross in which
is set the Christ-figure, the statue being protected from the weather by
glass as in the case of the garden shrines. A good example of this is
seen in the cross from the Indian village of Caughnawaga across the
river from Montreal. This particular cross is further distinguished by
the figure of a cock surmounting it.
On the highways of Quebec one likes the way trade salutes the cross. Men
and boys passing in their two-wheeled carts find time to lift their hats
and busy pedestrians often stop to murmur a prayer at the foot of the
cross by the edge of the road. These things are a matter of course in
picturesque, thrifty Quebec. They belong as naturally as the St.
Lawrence or the Laurentians, but one is surprised on running into
Sudbury in Ontario to see there, on the bare rocks high above the
tracks, a large grotto, found on closer investigation to contain a
life-size figure of “the virgin” as Regina Galloram.
Local men say it was erected by an old French Count, who had been coming
to Sudbury for many years prior to 1914, but who failed to come over
during the war. They say the Count sat daily in the grotto at the feet
of Mary.
Then came the war. And the only word of him since has been the receipt
by a townsman of a paper edged in black, as big as the page of a ledger
covered with the names of relatives killed in action. Ontario may be
proud of its wayside shrine.
At least two other widely separated wayside crosses are to be seen in
Western Canada, one, a large crucifix in the Roman Catholic Hospital at
The Pas; the other, a crucifix with figures on a platform in the
cemetery at St. Norbert, near Winnipeg. There is also a shrine in a
little wood at St. Norbert to which it is said small pilgrimages are
made. However, it is undoubtedly rural Quebec which carries off the palm
for wayside shrines and crosses. Somehow her “milestones” are an
historic “part of the landscape”, belonging both to yesterday and
to-day.
It is worthy of note, too, that the Quebec farm which has set up a
shrine or cross somewhere along the road, invariably appears prosperous.
And those localities most particular in the observance of this old
custom brought from France by the first settlers are never
down-at-heels. It is evident it is the industrious, thrifty landowners
who have inherited their demesnes from industrious, thrifty and
religious forefathers who look most carefully to the old cross, the
milestone of the years as well as of the road.
Straight back without a break these old weather-beaten shrines of the
seacoast and the narrow farms trace their lineage to that first Cross,
where all roads meet.