SAINT ANNE L’EGLISE.
_Saint Anne de Beaupré...._
“Saint Anne de Beaupré, Saint Anne l’eglise!” Thus, the car conductor on
the “Electric” between Quebec and Saint Anne de Beaupré on the arrival
of the car at the station-gate to the great Shrine.
He pronounces the name of this station with an air not expended on any
of the other stopping-places along the line. The people in the car
receive it in a different manner, as if with the baited breath of
assurance that now “something is going to happen”, something they have
long waited for, a miracle perhaps.
And so, daily, come and go the thousands of Pilgrims who have come and
gone since those early years running back to 1658 when occurred here at
this spot in the meadows “The First Miracle”. It was out there on the
river, the Saint Lawrence, north of Ile d’ Orleans, on a small bateau,
ancestress of the wood-boats that now go upward with the daily tide with
their cargoes of firewood to Quebec, that Saint Anne first discovered
herself to the crew of hard-pressed mariners, as habitant of this
particular bit of shore. It was Saint Anne who snatched them from a
watery grave in the treacherous river. And what a sea that bit of the
river can make up! Only navigators in these parts can have any idea of
the way that river, out there beyond the pier, can make up a sea!
Old-timers and scientists say “There’s something about the gaps in the
mountains back yonder,” pointing beyond the Côté, “that does it. They’ve
got an awful spite in ’em when they brew a storm in their old cauldron.”
So, watching one of these storms and seeing the old-timers alongshore,
from Visitation to Cap Tourment, shaking their heads, one is impressed
by the fact, that nothing Sainte Anne could have done would have so
firmly established her authority and power in the popular mind as the
fact that she was not afraid of the river; that, never mind how hard a
cross-sea were lifted up to the tide and the wind crossing swords for
supremacy out here in this narrow passage beset with mud-banks and
rocks, residue of the ice-age, she could, and did, guide that little
boat to a safe landing here, and the sailors to the terra firma they had
never expected to feel underfoot again.
Sailors are grateful. They belong to the Big-hearted. They promised
Saint Anne an A.B.’s share of the voyage. And they kept their promise.
They built her first church in these parts--a seamen’s church be it
remembered.
And from that day to this Saint Anne l’Eglise has held true to her
course. Every church that has been here erected has suffered the fortune
of a ship at sea. The foundations of that first church were, as it were,
laid in a gale. But staunchly it weathered the same and came to port all
spars standing.
The little old Church still stands against the hillside, sheltered in an
honoured old age in the arms of the Côté, anchored in its own little
haven under the hill.
Soon the old church became too small, and the foundations of a new
church were laid and, in time, the beautiful Basilica reared its two
spires tall against the sky with the statue of Ste. Anne high between
them, still in the “Crow’s Nest,” _en garde_. The Basilica became
enshrined in the hearts of people far and near. Yearly its hold on
public affection broadened until Saint Anne de Beaupré became a “Shrine”
to a continent.
Five, six, seven thousand pilgrims in a day became the order and still
they came, overflowing the pensions, spreading out on the benches in the
yard, eating lunches under the maples in the garden and washing down the
big slice with copious draughts of water from the big Fountain--Saint
Anne’s fountain.
“Saint Anne’s” became as well known in the land as Ottawa, Quebec or
Montreal, more popular than Halifax, Saint John or Vancouver. Why? It is
the Capital of Faith, the Place of the Miracle. And faith lies very
close to the human heart. Hence the Pilgrims by the thousands.
And each of these Pilgrims goes away to talk about and tell to others
what he has seen and heard at this Canadian Lourdes. And the following
year sees a wide increase in the number of people coming here and a
greater geographical range of the pilgrimages, like spokes in a wheel
narrowing to the hub. In the foundation stones of the Basilica were set
forth in letters, deep-cut in the granite on the outside so that all the
world might read, the characteristics of Saint Anne and the departments
of life entrusted to her protection. They read like a splendid chapter
out of some epic--_La Protectrice de Pecheurs_--_de Navigateurs_--_du
Canada_.
[Illustration:
IN A CONVENT GARDEN.]
[Illustration:
SAINT ANNE DE BEAUPRE! SAINT ANN L’EGLISE!
THE CAPITAL OF FAITH--THE PLACE OF THE MIRACLE.]
Inside La Basilica, the same air of bigness; people coming and going;
benediction in French or in English; the great altar at Mass, a
concentration of flowers and--light; the sun itself throwing through the
beautiful stained-glass windows a rich amethystine ray on the priestly
robes, on the altar linen, on the purple and white Campanulas.
A thousand votive candles burn in the side chapels. Processions of the
lame, the halt, the blind, creep faltering in step though bold in spirit
to kiss the relic. Till ten o’clock at night the great doors stand open.
In the Sacristy are the gifts that came dripping like dewdrops from the
hands and hearts of the Pilgrims of the Ages and of the day. Things of
inestimable intrinsic value rub edges with the intrinsically
valueless--the gift of a poor servant girl with the handiwork of Anne of
Austria. La Basilica! La Basilica!
Habitants of the Côté looked down upon it with the utmost satisfaction.
If La Basilica were the Shrine of all America, to them it was
intimate--their dear Parish-Church, the Church where Mass for the Parish
was said every Sunday morning. When any of them were sick, out of its
great doors came the Blessed Sacrament in the hand of their Priest,
heralded through the streets of the village by one of their boys, an
acolyte with the bell. When any of them were to be married so early in
the morning almost before the sun was up, was it not to La Basilica
Cecile or Angelique, Henri or François repaired with their families for
the ceremony? And when the Angel of Death flew low over the Côté was it
not to La Basilica that all that was mortal of Madame or M’sieu went out
to the last Mass?
Built in 1876 it was woven deep into the hearts of people widely
scattered in habitat, widely removed from each other in wealth and
social standing, antipodal in learning. It was the Mecca of the
faithful, the objective of many an idle sightseer.
Built in 1876, for forty-six years it had been a landmark of the Beaupré
countryside. Its tall shining towers were as channel-marks to the
wood-boats a-wash on their way to Quebec. _Chevals_ of distant farms
knew the road to its door almost by heart. Old women from ’tite de Cap
and Saint Feréol coming in to sell their quarts of wild _framboise_ or
the new _pommes des terres_ crossed themselves, passing hurriedly to
supply the hungry tables of _les Pensions_.
The blind beggar who lost his sight in its building gathered his pennies
in his little tin cup at the gate. The old fellow with the row of empty
bottles by the Steps of Scala Sancta eked out a living and sent a wave
of cheer to many a poor sufferer in remote villages who wiping his face
with a dash of water from Saint Anne’s well felt in body and soul a
little--refreshment.
Then one morning a short while ago, a little tongue of fire,
out-of-bounds, caught up in the palm of one of those gales brewed in the
cauldron of the mountains to the north and northeast, as it played with
wild fierceness down over the Côté and licked up the Saint Lawrence from
the east, threw its lurid veil through the sacristy. Inch by inch, then
suddenly, foot by foot, the servant, that was Light, became a master of
destruction. The Brothers did their best from the first. But the fire
driven by the gale was soon out of hand.
It swept into the church carrying all the great building before it. The
fire department came with apparatus from Quebec. But in a few hours the
Basilica was but a heap of smouldering ruins.
* * * * *
All that was fundamental, of course, remains. Saint Anne is still “Saint
Anne de Beaupré”, the Saint of the beautiful Meadow.
Her first miracle was wrought here long before there was any church. She
saved the storm-tossed sailors of the Seventeenth Century on just such a
night, from just such a gale.
Saint Anne is a character and must ever remain so, one of the very real
personalities of Canadian life. An image of her rides in every
fisherman’s pocket out of Percé, Baie de Chaleur outports, and in the
mackerel-boats of Les Madeleines. A bisque or plaster figure of her
stands above every habitant mantelpiece from Montreal to Tadousac.
But La Basilica belongs to a page of Canadian history, too. It was a
part of a Canadian landscape for nigh on half a century, in which time
it was the scene of many a miracle. Optimists encouragingly say “But it
will be restored, or a better and larger church built. Anyway, that was
even now almost too small for convenience. So many thousands of
Pilgrims! Oh yes, a bigger church was needed.”
Thus the young folk look forward and plan. But the old, what of the
old?
Aged men of the Côté feel that with the destruction of la Basilica
something spiritual passed out of their lives. They felt it a gallery
wherein were stored the life-pictures that they treasured. Memories of
mothers and fathers in the old pews, themselves as boys by their side;
memories of their own wedding, memories of first masses and of
christenings ... of requiem masses.
What of the people who have received spiritual and physical aid here?
Did not Saint Anne’s l’eglise fill a page in their life, a page licked
up in the flames, and not to be re-written, as when an Hour-Book, finely
illuminated, was lost in Time?
Who can restore the mazarene blue to the tablet of Labradorite that
stood by the door? Who can bring back the voice of the great organ? Or
who restore the exquisite lines of the old pulpit?
But the fundamental remains--the great out-doors, _le jardin_. Still the
Pilgrims come. Still on calm evenings there will be the long processions
through the dusk winding up the hill, faces aglow from the lighted
candles in their paper ’sconces.
Still five thousand voices will sing “Magnificat, Magnificat!” Still, on
midsummer mornings, the old Brother will go round, watering-pot in hand,
among the flowers.