Filling the earth and sky below,
Over the house-tops, over the street,
Over the heads of the people you meet,
Dancing,
Flirting,
Skimming along,
Beautiful snow, it can do no wrong,
Flying to kiss a lady's cheek,
Clinging to lips in a frolicsome freak,
Beautiful snow from the heaven above,
Pure as an angel, gentle as love!
Oh! the snow, the beautiful snow
How the flakes gather and laugh as they go,
Whirling about in the maddening fun,
It plays in its glee with every one,
Chasing,
Laughing,
Hurrying by,
It lights on the face and sparkles the eye!
And even the dogs, with a bark and a bound,
Snap at the crystals that eddy around,
The town is alive, and its heart is aglow!
To welcome the coming of the beautiful snow
How the wild crowds go swaying along,
Hailing each other with humour and song,
How the gay sledges, like meteors, pass by,
Bright for the moment, then lost to the eye,
Ringing,
Swinging,
Dashing they go,
Over the crust of this beautiful snow,
Snow so pure when it falls from the sky,
To he trampled and tracked by the crowd rushing by,
To be trampled and tracked by the thousands of feet,
Till it blends with the filth in the horrible street."
Has it ever been your fortune, kind reader, to enjoy, in the depth of
winter, a ramble in a Canadian forest, at the mystic hour when the Queen
of Night asserts her silent sway? Have you ever revelled in this feast of
soul, fresh from the busy hum of city life--perchance strolling up a
mountain path with undulating plains of spotless whiteness behind you, or
else canopied by the leafy dome of odorous pines or green hemlock, with no
other companion but your trusty rifle, nor other sound but the hoot of the
Great Horned Owl, disturbed by the glare of your camp fire--or the rustle
of the passing hare, skulking fox, or browsing cariboo? Have you ever been
compelled, venturesome hunter as you are, with the lengthening shades of
evening, after a twenty miles' run, to abandon the blood-stained trail,
reserving for the morrow the slaying of the stricken cariboo? Can you
recall the sense of weariness, with which you retraced your heavy steps to
the camp--perspiring at every pore,--panting with thirst--famished--
perhaps bewildered with the flakes of the gathering storm--yea, so
exhausted, that the crackling of the pine faggots of your mountain hut--
watched over in your absence by your faithful Indian "Gabriel" [294]--
struck on your quickened senses amidst the winter gloom like heavenly
music--sounds as soft, as welcome as the first April sunbeam? Have you
ever had the hardiness to venture with an Indian guide and toboggin on an
angling tour far north in the Laurentian chain, to that _Ultima Thule_
sacred to the disciples of old Isaac. Snow Lake, over chasm, dale,
mountain, pending that month dear above all others to King Hiems--
inexorable January? If so, you can indeed boast of having held communion
with the grim God of Winter in some of his stern, though captivating,
moods. Nor are these the only charms which the capricious monarch has in
store.
Never shall I forget, one balmy March morning, sauntering along the green
uplands of Sillery, towards the city, while the "sun god" was pouring
overhead, waves of soft, purple light. The day previous, one of our
annual, equinoctial storms had careered over the country; first, wind and
snow; then wind and sleet, the latter dissolving into icy tears,
encircling captive Nature in thousands of weird, glossy crystals; every
tree of the forest, according to its instinct, its nature, writhing in the
conqueror's cold embrace--rigid, creaking, ready to snap in twain rather
than bend, as the red oak or sugar maple, or else meekly, submissively
curving to the earth its tapering, frosted limbs, like the silver birch--
elegant, though fragile, ornament of the Canadian park, or else, rearing
amid air a graceful net-work--waving, transparent sapphire-tinted
arabesques, stretched on amber pillars; witness the Golden Willow. Each
gleam of sunshine investing this gorgeous tapestry with all the glories of
Iris; here, rising above his compeers, a stately lord of the grove, hoary
with frost and years, whose outspreading boughs are burnished, as if every
twig had been touched by the hand of an enchanter, whilst there, under his
shade, bends a mountain ash, smeared with the crimsoned berries of the
preceding summer, now ice-coated _bon-bons_ eagerly plucked by troops
of roseate grosbeaks resting on the whitened branches. How lovely the
contrasts!
Such, the scene in the winsome light of day. But of those objects, viewed
by moonlight, who would have dared becomingly depict the wild beauty? The
same incomparable landscape, with Diana's silver rays softly sleeping on
the virgin snow; on each side, an avenue of oak, spruce and fir trees, the
latter with their emerald boughs wreathed in solid ice, and to the earth
gracefully bending in festoons--now and again kissed by the night wind; at
each wavy motion disclosing their dark trunks, under the frozen foliage,
like old Ocean's billows breaking on dark rocks; the burnished gold of the
morn changed into silver floss, twinkling with a mild radiance, under the
eye of night, like diamond tiaras--a vista fit for Queen Mab! Of such,
mayhap dreamed Moorish maid, under the portals of the Alhambra. Were
Armida's enchanted forests brighter?
Who can describe all thy witchery? Thy nameless graces, who can compass,
serene majesty of Winter in the North? And yet all these glories of frost
and moon-lit snows we once did see round our Canadian Home.
Wouldst thou fancy another view of winter less serene; a contrast such as
glorious old KIT NORTH would have revelled in? Step forward, my witty, my
sarcastic friend of the _Evènement_ newspaper--by name Henri Fabre!
"The true season of Canada is winter; winter with its bright skies by day
and its brighter stars by night. Of spring we have none. April is nothing
better than a protracted thaw, with scenes of mud and melting snow. May,
the month dear to poets, is frequently but an uninterrupted succession of
showers to fecundate the earth; its symbol, an array of outspread
umbrellas in our streets. As to our summer, it is but the epitome of the
lovely summer of France and Italy for the use of new countries. Autumn is
a shade better; but anon, the first frost hurries on to blanch and
disperse the leaves and dim the hues of mellowed nature. When the fields
slumber under ten feet of snow; when human noses freeze before their
sneezing owners have time to utter a cry for help, then is the _beau
ideal_ of our climate. He who on such an occasion dares to sigh for the
boasted shade of trees and the murmur of gushing waters, that man is no
true Canadian. The searching wind, the cold, the northern blast, [295] are
part and parcel of our country; one is bound to love them. Should they
increase in intensity, rub your hands, first to keep yourself warm, nest
to denote your patriotic joy!"
But all this won't prevent us from exclaiming with a Canadian son of song:
"Oh! dear is the Northern forest home,
Where the great pine shoots on high;
And the maple spreads its soft, green leaves
In the clear, blue, taintless sky;
Though the summer mantle paleth fast
Into winter's virgin veil
There is health in the fierce, quick lightning blast,
And strength in the icy gale;
And life glides on in a quiet calm,
Like our own great river's flow;
And dear to the hearts of her children all
Is our own FAIR LAND OF SNOW!"
SILLERY, near Quebec, 1881.
_THE MANOR HOUSE, BEAUPORT_.
Let us view a remnant of feudal times.
On the Beauport road, four miles from the city and about forty feet from
the late Colonel B. C. A. Gugy's habitation, stood until 1879 an
antiquated high-gabled French stone dwelling, very substantially put
together. About thirty years back there was still existing close to and
connected with it, a pavilion or tower, used in early days as a fort to
protect the inmates against Indian raids. It contained the boudoir and
sleeping apartments of some of the fair _seignieuresses_ [296] of Beauport
in the house which Robert Giffard, the first seignor built there more than
two centuries ago; it is the oldest seignorial manor in Canada. Robert
Giffard's house--or, more properly, his shooting box--is thought to have
stood closer to the little stream to the west. The first seignior of
Beauport had two daughters who married two brothers, Juchereau, the
ancestors of the Duchesnays; and the manor has been in the possession of,
and occupied by, the Duchesnays for more than two hundred years.
Robert Giffard had visited Canada, for the first time, in 1627, in the
capacity of a surgeon; and being a great sportsman, he built himself a
small house on the banks of the Beauport stream, to enjoy to perfection,
his favorite amusements--shooting and fishing. No authentic data exist of
the capacity of Beauport for game in former days; we merely read in the
_Relations des Jésuites_ that in the year 1648. 1200 ptarmigan were
shot there, we also know that the quantities of ducks congregating on the
adjoining _flats_ caused the place to be called _La Canardière_. There is
a curious old record in connection with this manor, exhumed by the Abbé
Ferland; it is the exact formula used by one of the tenants or
_censitaires_ in rendering _foi et hommage_ to the Lord of the Manor.
Guion (Dion?), a tenant, had by sentence of the Governor, Montmagny, been
condemned on the 30th July, 1640, to fulfil this feudal custom. The
document recites that, after knocking at the door of the chief manorial
entrance, and in the absence of the master, addressing the farmer, one
Boulle, the said Guion, having knelt down bare headed without his sword or
spurs, repeated three times the words,--"_Monsieur de Beauport, Monsieur
de Beauport, Monsieur de Beauport, je vous fais et porte la foy et hommage
que je suis tenu de vous porter, a cause de mon fief du Buisson,_ [297]
_duquel je suis homme de foy relevant de votre seigneurie de Beauport,
lequel m'appartient au moyen du contrat que nous avons passe ensemble par
devant Roussel à Mortagne, le_ 14 _Mars_, 1634, _vous déclarant que je
vous offre payer les droits seigneuriaux et féodaux quand dûs seront, vous
réquerant me recevoir à la dite foy et homage._" "Lord of Beauport, Lord
of Beauport, Lord of Beauport, I render you the fealty and homage due to
you on account of my land du Buisson ... which belongs to me by virtue of
the title-deed executed between us in presence of Roussel at Mortagne, the
14th March, 1634, avowing my readiness to acquit the seignorial and feudal
rents whenever they shall be due, beseeching you to admit me to the said
and homage." This Guion, a mason by trade, observes the Abbé Ferland, was
the man of letters and scribe of the parish. There is still extant a
marriage contract, drafted by him, for two parishioners; it is one of the
earliest on record in Canada, bearing date the 16th July, 1636. It is
signed by the worthy Robert Giffard, the seignior, and by Francois
Bellanger and Noël Langlois; the other parties affixed their mark. It
possesses interest as serving to illustrate the status and education of
the early French settlers. In 1628, Robert Giffard had been taken a
prisoner of war by the English, on board of Rocmont's fleet. On his
return, and in acknowledgement of the services rendered by him to the
colonial authorities, he obtained a grant of the seigniory of Beauport,
together with a large tract of land, on the River St. Charles. For many
long years the ancestral halls of the Duchesnays, at Beauport, rang with
the achievements of their warlike seigneurs. One of them, Nicholas
Juchereau de St. Denys, so distinguished himself at the siege of Quebec in
1690, that his sovereign granted him "a patent of nobility." ("_Le sieur
de St. Denys, seigneur de Beauport, _" says Charlevoix, "_commandait ses
habitants, il avait plus de soixante ans et combattait avec beaucoup de
valeur, jusqu'a ce qu'il eut un bras casse d'un coup de feu. Le Roi
récompensa peu de temps après son zèle en lui accordant des lettres de
noblesse._") His son distinguished himself in Louisiana. Two other
members of the family won laurels at Châteaugay. A descendant, Lieut.-Col.
Théodore Duchesnay, is Deputy Adjutant General of Militia.
The late Col. Gugy, built himself, in 1865, close to the manor, a
comfortable dwelling, wherein, amidst rural retirement, he divided his
existence between literature, briefs and his stud, noted all over Canada.
He had recently added to his domain, by purchase, a large tract of land
from the adjoining property, the De Salaberry homestead, where H.R.H.
the Duke of Kent, the father of our beloved Queen, in 1791 enjoyed more
than one _petit souper_. The broad acres which in 1759 resounded to
the tread of Montcalm's heavy squadrons, for years the quiet home of a
barrister of note, now bear the name of Darnoc. _Cedant arma togae._
Darnoc, since the death of Col. Gugy, in 1878, is occupied by Mrs. Gugy
and Herman Ryland, Esq., who married a daughter of the late proprietor.
The ruins of the Duchesnay Manor, more than once have been disturbed by
the pick and shovel of the midnight seeker for hidden French piastres:
though religiously protected against outrage by Mrs. Gugy's family, and
more especially watched over by the _Genius Loci_, the divining rod
and a _Petit Albert_ have recently found their way there; however
successfully poised and backed by the most orthodox incantations and
fumigations, the magic rod has failed so far to bring to the surface
either gold or silver coin. This was probably owing to the omission of a
very important ceremony: the production on the spot of "a candle [298]
made out of the fat of an executed murderer, as the clock strikes twelve
at midnight," under suitable planetary influence.
The recent discovery of the corner stone of the old manor, and of an
inscription dating back to 1634, have given rise to a spicy newspaper
discussion among our antiquarians.
_THE SEIGNIORIAL MANOR OF THE FIRST SEIGNEUR OF BEAUPORT, 1614._
I.H.S. M.I.A.
LAN 1634 LE
NTE
25 IVILET.IE.ETE-PLA
PREMIERE.P.C.GIFART
SEIGNEVR.DE CE.LIEV
In March 1881, the _Literary and Historical Society_ of Quebec, received
from the widow of the late Col. B. C. A. Gugy, of Darnoc, Beauport, a lead
plate, with the above quoted inscription, and a note, stating under what
circumstances Col. Gugy's family became possessed of it. This lead plate,
affords a written record of the laying of the foundation stone, on the
25th July, 1634, of the historical homestead of the fighting _Seigneurs_
of Beauport: the Gifart, the Juchereau, the Duchesnay.
The massive old pile alleged to have been the headquarters of the Marquis
de Montcalm, during the siege of Quebec, in 1759, and in which many
generations of Duchesnays and some of Col. Gugy's children were born,
became the prey of flames in 1879, 'tis said, by the act of a Vandal. Thus
perished the most ancient stronghold of the proud feudal Lairds of
Beauport, of the stone manor of Surgeon Robert Giffard; the safe retreat
against the Iroquois of the warlike Juchereau Duchesnays, one of whose
ancestors, in 1645, had married Marie Gifart, or Giffard, a daughter of
the bellicose Esculapius from Perche, France,--Surgeon Robert Gifart.
Grim and defiant the antique manor, with its high-peaked gables, stood in
front of the dwelling Col. Gugy had erected, at Darnoc, in 1865: it rather
intercepted the view to be had from this spot, of Quebec. One of the
memorable landmarks of the past, it has furnished a subject for the pencil
of Col. Benson J. Lossing, author of the "American Revolution," and "Life
of Washington," who, during his visit to Quebec, in July, 1858, sketched
it with others, for _Harper's Magazine_, where it appeared, over the
heading "Montcalm's Headquarters, Beauport," in the January number, 1859,
page 180, from which drawing it was transferred to the columns of the
Canadian _Illustrated News_, for May, 1881.
Whilst the deciphering of some of the letters I.H.S.--M.I.A. at the top of
the inscription has exercised the ingenuity of our Oldbucks and Monkbarns,
the plate itself and its inscription will furnish to the student of
history an indefeasible proof of the exact spot, and of the date, when and
where stood the oldest of our seigniorial manors,--that of Robert Gifart,
on the margin of the _ruisseau de l'ours_, at Beauport, in 1634.
_J. M. LeMoine Esquire, President Literary and Historical Society,
Quebec:_
BEAUPORT, 26th March, 1881
"SIR.--The tablet found in the Manor House of Beauport by some
workmen, last summer, and only recently restored to the proprietors,
is a circular plate of lead or pewter much injured by the fire which
consumed the building.
Owing to the unwillingness of the men concerned to give any
information, it is difficult to learn much about whereabouts in the
building it was found, nor what other articles may have accompanied
it, but as far as can be ascertained, this oval plate (about 1/4 of an
inch in thickness) was rolled up and contained a few coins and some
documents; the first cannot be traced and are spoken of as "quelques
sous;" the latter, they say, crumbled into dust at once.
The inscription, as well as can be deciphered, is as follows:--
I.H.S. M.I.A.
LAN 1634 LE
NTE
25 IVILET.IE.ETE-PLA
PREMIERE.P.C.GIFART
SEIGNEVR.DE CE.LIEV
This is rudely but deeply cut into the plate, and underneath may be
seen in patches, traces of a fainter etching, part of which may be a
coat of arms, but this is uncertain; underneath can be seen a heart
reversed, with flames springing from it upwards. All these are
enclosed in a larger heart, point downwards.
The enclosed rough simile may give an idea of the lettering at the top
of the circle, the plate itself being about nine inches in diameter."
(With Mrs. Gugy's compliments.)
Darnoc, 26th March, 1881.
_THE BEAUPORT MANOR INSCRIPTION._
(To the Editor of the Morning Chronicle.)
"Whilst regretting the loss of the coins and document accompanying the
inscription of the Beauport Manor, on account of the light it might
have thrown on this remote incident of Canadian history, let us
examine the case as it stands.
This rude inscription of 25th July, 1634, gives priority as to date to
the Beauport Manor over any ancient structure extant in Canada this
day. The erection of the manor would seem to have preceded by three
years the foundation of the Jesuits' Sillery residence, now owned by
Messrs. Dobell and Beckett, which dates of July, 1637. Who prepared
the inscription? Who engraved the letters? Who cut on the lead the
figure of the "flaming heart?" The stars? Are they heraldic? What did
they typify? Did the plate come out, ready prepared from France? Had
the _Académie des Inscriptions, etc._, or any other _académie_, any
hand in the business? No, for obvious reasons.
The lead-plate was imbedded in solid masonry. It is too rude to be the
work of an engraver. Could it have been designed by Surgeon Gifart,
the Laird of Beauport and cut on the lead-plate by the scribe and
_savant_ of the settlement, Jean Guion (Dion?) whose penmanship
in the wording of two marriage contracts, dating from 1636, has been
brought to light by an indefatigable searcher of the past--the Abbé
Ferland? probably.
But if the lettered Beauport stone mason, who never rose to be a Hugh
Miller, whatever were his abilities, did utilize his talents in 1634,
to produce a durable record in order to perpetuate the date of
foundation of this manor, he subsequently got at loggerheads with his
worth _seignieur_, probably owing to the litigious tastes which
his native Perche had instilled in him. Perche, we all know, is not
very distant from Normandy, the hot-bed of feuds and litigation, and
might have caught the infection from this neighborhood:
Governor Montmagny, in the space of eight short years, had been called
on to adjudicate on six controversies which had arisen between Gifart
and his vassals, touching boundaries and seigniorial rights, though
the learned historian Ferland, has failed to particularize, whether
among those controverted rights, was included the _Droit de Chapons_
and _Droit de Seigneur_; could the latter unchaste, but cherished
right of some Scotch and German feudal lords, by a misapprehension of
our law, in the dark days of the colony, have been claimed by such an
exacting seignior as M. de Gifart? One hopes not.
Be that as it may, the stone mason and _savant_ Jean Guion had refused
to do feudal homage to "Monsieur de Beauport," and on the 30th July,
1640, six years after the date of the inscription, under sentence
rendered by Governor de Montmagny, he was made to do so.
Who will decipher the I.H.S.--M.I.A. the letters at the top of the
plate? Is there no defendant of the haughty Seignior of Beauport, Rob.
Gifart, to give us his biography, and tell us of his sporting days; of
the black and grey ducks, brant, widgeon, teal, snipe, and curlew,
etc., which infested the marshy banks of the stream--the _Ruisseau de
l'Ours_, on which he had located, first his shooting box, and
afterwards his little fort or block-house, against Iroquois
aggression? Dr. Gifart was a keen sportsman, tradition repeats. Did
the locality get the name of _Canardière_ on account of the _Canards_,
the ducks, he had bagged in his time? Who will enlighten us on all
these points?
ENQUIRER.
Quebec, 8th April, 1881.
QUERY.--Would I. H. S. stand for _Jesus Hominum Salvator_? and M.I.A.
for _Maria-Josephus-Anna_?--the Holy Family--asks Dr W. Marsden.
_COUNT D'ORSONNENS LETTER_
_A monsieur J. M. LeMoine, président de la Société Littéraire et
Historique de Québec, etc., etc, etc._
CHER MONSIEUR,.--Votre lettre du 1er avril, publiée dans le _Morning
Chronicle_, en groupant, autour du premier Manoir canadien, des
grands noms canadiens, des faits historiques et des traditions, semble
vouloir nous faire regretter encore plus la perte d'un monument dont
il ne reste plus qu'une plaque de plomb gravée sans art, avec une
inscription sans orthographe. Je suis allé, comme bien d'autres, voir
ce morceau de plomb, qui contient, autant que l'imprimerie peut le
représenter, l'inscription suivante:
I.H.S. M.I.A.
LAN 1634 LE
NTE
25 IVILET.IE.ETE-PLA
PREMIERE.P.C.GIFART
SEIGNEVR.DE CE.LIEV
La première ligne a été, sans doute, gravée avec une pointe,
l'incision plus indécise est aussi moins profonde, de même que les
lettres NTE ajoutées au-dessus de PLA, pour faire le mot planté, que
l'art du graveur ou la largeur du ciseau n'avait pas su contenir dans
la troisième ligne.
Les lettres des trois dernières lignes ont été coupées avec un ciseau
de un demi-pouce de large, l'incision est nette et bien dessinée; on
voit encore les lignes qui ont été tracées dans toute la largeur de la
plaque, an moyen d'une pointe pour guider le ciseau du graveur.
Dans le centre de la plaque, on distingue avec peine un écusson.
portant un coeur renversé et fiammé; au centre de l'écu, trois
étoiles. Impossible de dire si elles sont posées en face ou sur un
champ quelconque. Le tout a du être surmonté d'un heaume, car on voit
encore de chaque coté de l'écu des lignes courbes multiples, qui
doivent nécessairement représenter les lambrequins; sur le côte
gauche, un bout de banderolle, mais l'_artiste_ a dû abandonner
sa première idée, car le haut de la banderolle se perd dans les lignes
du lambrequin.
J'ai lu dans la lettre qui accompagnait l'envoi de Madame Gugy, que
les ouvriers, qui avaient travaille aux ruines, disaient avoir trouve
la plaque de plomb, _roulée_ avec certains documents qui seraient
tombés en poussière au toucher. La chose me paraît impossible. Le
dessous de la plaque indique qu'elle a été posée à plat sur un lit de
mortier, et la partie gravée, du moins celle où sont gravées les
armoiries qu'une pierre pesante a été placée dessus, et c'est par
l'enfoncement de sa surface inégale que la plupart des lignes gravées
ont été détruites. On voit encore dans le plomb oxidé l'empreinte
d'une coquille pétrifiée qui se trouvait agrégée au calcaire.
En roulant le bloc supérieur, les ouvriers ont pu plier le métal; de
là l'erreur de croire que la plaque était roulée, elle a dû, comme
toutes choses de ce genre, être placée dans une cavité comme fond, où
on avait deposé le document tombé en poussière et les "quelques sous"
que ces honnêtes ouvriers ont gardés pour eux, sans doute, sans en
connaître la valeur.
Peu habitué à lire de telles inscriptions, mais connaissant la piété
des premiers colons du Canada, j'essayai de donner un sens courant à
l'inscription et je trouvai qu'on pouvait lire ici:
_Iesu Hominum Salvatore, Mariâ Immaculatâ Auspice_
(Sous les auspices ou la protection de Jesus sauveur des hommes et de
Marie-Immaculée)
L'an 1634,
le 25 juillet--je--été plantée
première par (ou pour) C. (chirur.) Gifart, Seigneur de ce lieu.
Jusqu'à présent la chose se lit bien, le sens en est raisonnable et
positif. Supposant le chirurgien un homme instruit et lettré,
l'inscription latine se complète d'elle-même. Mais, hélas! il y un
mais,--la lettre C avant Gifart me trouble un peu. Comme je n'ai sous
la main aucun volume, aucune tradition du temps à consulter, je suis
obligé de m'en tenir aux correspondances de journaux, et je trouve
dans toutes le prénom de _Robert_--ce qui ne commence pas du tout
par un C! [299] Mais le C, le malheureux C, ne serait-il pas
l'initiale de Cloutier, le charpentier ou l'entrepreneur avec lequel
Gifart avait fait un contrat à Mortaigne, le 14 mars 1634, quatre mois
à peu près avant la pose de la première pierre? Alors il faudrait lire
j'ai été plantée par Cloutier, Gifart étant seigneur de ce lieu.
Je m'arrête, le souvenir de _certaine_ inscription sur certain
_pont_ vient troubler toutes ces belles spéculations. A force de
vouloir être _savant_, on pourrait faire dire à Robert Gifart des
choses qu'il n'a jamais pensées.
Si, après tout, ce Gifart n'était pas _savant_, et qu'il eut voulu
dire par I. H. S., Jésus-Christ, et M. I. A., Maria, ce serait trop
fort--J'aimerais mieux la théorie de M. le Dr. Marsden, et de M.
Bédard, _Maria, Joachim, Anna_. Le 25 juillet étant la fête de
saint Jacques, et la vigile de saint Joachim, il serait plus
raisonnable de penser qu'on aurait mis la construction du premier
Manoir canadien sous la protection et les auspices du saint du jour
Reste a savoir si la Saint Jacques se fêtait le 25 juillet, la Saint
Joachim le 26, en l'an de notre Seigneur 1634.
Je laisse à d'autres de mieux trouver.
Quoiqu'il en soit, cette date 1634, est un centenaire mémorable, car
c'est en 1534 que Jacques Cartier, visita le golfe Saint-Laurent et
c'est en 1535, qu'il remonta notre beau fleuve jusqu'à Hochelaga, cent
ans avant la première concession seigneuriale de Beauport.
J'ai l'honneur d'être, Monsieur,
votre humble servt.,
Cte. d'ORSONNENS
L'INSCRIPTION DU MANOIR DE BEAUPORT.
Parmi une masse de vieux documents que je possède, concernant la
seigneurie de Beauport et ses seigneurs, j'ai trouve le reçu suivant:
"Je, soussigné, confesse avoir reçu un billet de cent cinquante livres
de monsieur de Beauport, pour ce qu'il m'avait promis pour faire sa
bâtisse de logis de Beauport.
"faict ce 27ième juillet 1642.
"P. CLUST."
Cela donnerait peut-être une explication des abréviations "P. C." de
l'inscription trouvée dans les ruines du vieux manoir.
En effet, il est loisible de supposer que cet architecte a fait ce que
ses confrères modernes font encore, et qu'il a gravé ses initiales sur
l'inscription commémorative de la pose de la première pierre
_plantée dans la bâtisse de Beauport_.
H. J. J. DUCHESNAY.
La Beauce, 14 avril, 1881.
_H. V'S LETTER._
(ABBÉ H. VERREAU?)
_Une relique historique_.
La _Minerve_ a publié l'inscription de la plaque trouvée à Beauport.
Le _Journal de Québec_ l'a reproduite aussi; mais avec une certaine
différence. Pour l'étude des personnes éloignées et pour l'utilité de
la science, il est bien désirable qu'on en prenne de nombreuses
impressions sur plâtre. Si madame Gugy accorde la permission
nécessaire, elle méritera certainement la reconnaissance de ceux qui
étudient notre histoire.
Il paraît que le dernier chiffre de la date se lit avec difficulté. Il
est toutefois très important de le déterminer avec toute la précision
possible.
A mes yeux, la date du 25 juillet entraîne plusieurs conséquences qui
disparaissent avec un autre chiffre.
I. Le 25 juillet est consacré à l'apôtre saint Jacques-le-Majeur. Ne
peut-on pas traduire le second groupe trilittère M. J. A. par
_Majori Jacobo Apostolo_, Le premier groupe, si connu d'ailleurs,
étant latin, il est naturel de supposer que le second l'est aussi.
II. La fête de saint Jacques-le-Majeur, qui tombait un mardi en 1634,
était chômée; par conséquent les travaux serviles ont dû être suspendu
ce jour-là.
III. Le même jour, 25 juillet 1634, Robert Gifart assistait à un
mariage à Québec, ce qui peut expliquer pourquoi il était remplacé à
Beauport par son fils Charles.
Mais la pose de la pierre angulaire d'une simple maison, un jour de
grande fête, me semble difficile à expliquer, qu'on veuille ou non y
faire intervenir les cérémonies de la Religion.
L'expression _Je été plantée_ offre aussi une difficulté. A cette
époque on faisait de nombreuses fautes d'orthographe, mais on avait
presque toujours le mot propre.
Il est bien vrai qu'en terme d'architecture, on disait _planter un
édifice_ pour l'_asseoir sur la maçonnerie de ses fondements_, mais je
ne sache pas qu'on ait dit _planter_ les pierres des fondements.
Cette plaque n'aurait-elle pas été destinée à une croix plantée à
l'endroit que Giffard voulait défricher?
Il est d'autant plus naturel qu'il ait commencé ses travaux par cet
acte de foi qu'il devait songer à faire bâtir une église près de sa
demeure. Dans cette supposition, on s'explique facilement que la croix
ait été plantée un jour de fête solennelle où tout le monde surtout à
cette époque, devait vaquer à ses devoirs religieux. Je vois dans les
_Archives_ de Beauport par Mgr. Langevin que la maison de Giffard,
d'après M. Ferland, devait être plus près de la petite rivière que le
manoir actuel.
C. Giffard, qui est désigné comme seigneur de Beauport, est le fils de
Robert. Il était né en France et devait être encore assez jeune. C'est
de lui que parle le _Journal_ des Jésuites en disant que le fils
de M. Giffard passa en France en 1646, avec d'autres jeunes gens 'tous
fripons pour la plupart qui avait fait mille pièces à l'autre voyage
et on donnait à tous de grands appointements.'
Ce 28 octobre il était parrain, et il s'embarquait le 31.
Il n'est plus question de lui après cette date, soit qu'il ait renoncé
au Canada, soit qu'il ait péri prématurément. Le père repris sa
seigneurie de Beauport qu'il fit agrandir le mieux put.
P. S.--En écrivant ce qui précède, j'étais un peu pressé; j'aurais dû
remarquer cependant que sous la lettre C, les lecteurs ne pouvaient
deviner le prénom du jeune seigneur de Beauport. Il s'appelait
_Charles_, et devait être né en France comme sa soeur _Marie_, qui
devint Madame de la Ferté.
Dans l'intérêt de vos lecteurs je ferai remarquer que le _Dictionnaire
Généalogique_ renferme, à l'article Giffard, certaines erreurs. Ainsi,
_Françoise_ qui commence l'article est la même que _Marie Françoise_
qui le termine; elle se fit religieuse à l'Hôtel-Dieu. L'épouse de
_Jean Juchereau de la Ferté_ fut _Marie_ née en France, puisque son
contrat de mariage en 1645 la dite "âgée de 17 ans environ" ce qui
reporte sa naissance vers 1628. Charles assiste et signe un contrat.
Ce n'est pas _Robert Giffard_, mais son fils _Joseph_, dont le corps
fut transporté à la cathédrale, le 31 décembre 1705.
_MOUNT LILAC, BEAUPORT._
Some thirty years ago, I saw, for the first time, the picturesque old
manor of the Rylands at Beauport, this was in its classic days. Later on,
I viewed it, mossy and forlorn, in what some might style its "non age". Of
this, hereafter.
The _Château_ stood embowered amidst lilac groves and other ornamental
shrubs, so far as I can recollect, with a background of elms, white birch,
spruce, &c. Its vaulted, lofty and well-proportioned dining-room, with
antique, morocco-covered chairs, and carved _buffets_ to store massive
plate, its spacious hall and graceful winding staircase, its commanding
position on the crest of the Beauport ridge, affording a striking view of
Quebec, its well-stocked orchard, umbrageous plantations, and ample
stables, from which issued, among other choice bits of blood, in 1842, the
celebrated racer "Emigrant": several circumstances, in fact, conspired to
impress it favorably on my youthful mind. On that occasion, I found _le
milord anglais_ (as a waggish Canadian peasant called him) under his
ancestral roof.
Recalling our parish annals of early times, I used then to think that
should England ever (which God forbid) hand back to its ancient masters
"these fifteen thousand acres of snow," satirized by Voltaire, ridiculed
by Madame de Pompadour, cruelly and basely deserted by Louis XV, in their
hour of trial, here existed a ready-made manor for the Giffards and
Duchesnays of the future, where their descendants could becomingly receive
fealty and homage. (_foi et homage_) from their feudal retainers. There
was, however, nothing here to remind one of the lordly pageantry of other
times--the days of absolutism--of the dark era, the age of _lettres de
cachet_, _corvées_, _lods et ventes_, and other feudal burthens, when the
flag of the Bourbons floated over the fortress of New France. In 1846, at
the time of my visit, in vain would you have sought in the farm yard for a
live seigniorial capon (_un chapon vif et en plumes_) though possibly in
the larder, at Christmas, you might have discovered some fat, tender
turkeys, or a juicy haunch of venison. Of _vin ordinaire_ ne'er a trace,
but judging from the samples on the table, perhaps much mellow Madeira,
and "London Stout" might have been stored in the cellars. Everywhere, in
fact, was apparent English comfort, English cheer. On the walls of the
banqueting apartment, or within the antique red-leathered portfolios
strewn round, you would have run a greater chance of meeting face to face
with the portraits of Lord Dorchester, Genl. Prescott, Sir Robert Shore
Milnes, Sir James Craig, the Duke of Richmond, and other English
Governors, the cherished friends of the Rylands than with the powdered
head of his most sacred Majesty, the Great Louis, or the ruffled bust and
sensual countenance of the voluptuous Louis XV.... But let us see more of
Mount Lilac and its present belongings.
Facing the glittering cupolas of Quebec, there is a fertile area of meadow
and cornfield stretching from Dorchester bridge to the deep ravine and
Falls over which the Montmorency, _La Vache_, hangs its milk-white
curtain of spray. On the river shore, in 1759, stood Montcalm's earth and
field works of defence. Parallel to them and distant about half a mile,
the highway, over which H.R.H. Prince Edward's equipage pranced daily,
during the summers of 1791-3, now a macadamized road, ascends by a gentle
rise, through a double row of whitewashed cottages, about seven miles, to
the brow of the roaring cataract spanned over by a substantial bridge,
half way, looms out the Roman Catholic temple of worship--a stately
edifice, filled to overflowing on Sundays, the parochial charge in 1841 of
the Rev. Charles Chiniquy, under whose auspices was built the Temperance
Monument on the main road, a little past the Beauport Asylum. This
constitutes the parish of Beauport, one of the first settled in the
Province. It was conceded by the Company of New France, on the 31st
December, 1635, to a French surgeon of some note, "le sieur Robert
Giffard." Surgeon Giffard had not only skill as a chirurgeon to recommend
him, he could plead services, nay captivity undergone in the colonial
cause. An important man in his day was this feudal magnate Giffard, to
whom fealty and homage were rendered with becoming pomp, by his
_consitaires_, the Bellangers--Guions--Langlois--Parents--Marcoux, of
1635, whose descendents, still bearing the old Perche or Norman name,
occupy to this day the white cottages to be seen on all sides.
On the highest site of this limestone ridge, a clever, influential,
refined, and wealthy Briton, the Hon. Henry Wistius Ryland, for years
Civil Secretary, Clerk of the Executive Council, a member of the
Legislative Council, with other appointments, purchased from Col.
Johnston, a lot, then a wilderness, for a country seat in 1805. Mr. Ryland
had come out to Canada with Lord Dorchester in 1795, as his secretary, at
the instance, we believe, of Lord Liverpool, his protector, at the age of
21 he was acting as Paymaster of two army corps, during the War of
Independence in America.
For more than thirty years, Mr. Ryland enjoyed the favour, nay the
intimacy of every ruler (except Sir George Prevost) which this then mis-
ruled colony owed to Downing Street.
Antipathies of race had been on the increase at Quebec, ever since the
parliamentary era of 1791; there was the French party, [300] led by fiery
and able politicians, and the English oligarchy occupying nearly all the
offices, and avenues to power. French armies under Napoleon I. swayed the
destinies of continental Europe, their victories occasionally must have
awakened here a responsive echo among their down-trodden fellow-countrymen
cowardly deserted by France in 1759, whilst Nelson's victories of the
Nile, of Trafalgar, of Copenhagen, and finally the field of Waterloo, had
buoyed up to an extravagant pitch the spirits of the English minority of
Quebec, which a French parliamentary majority had so often trammelled. It
was during the major part of that stormy period that Hon. Herman Wistius
Ryland, advised by the able Chief Justice Jonathan Sewell,--was in reality
entrusted with the helm of state. He was, as Christie the historian
observes, considered the "Fountain head of power." This subtle _diplomat_
(for such will be his title in history), however hostile in his attitude
he might have appeared towards the French Canadian nationality, succeeded
in retaining to the last the respect of the French Canadian peasantry who
surrounded him.
Probably never at any time did he wield more power than under the
administration of Sir James H. Craig. His views were so much in unison
with those of Sir James, that His Excellency deputed him to England with a
public mission threefold in its scope, the ostensible object of which was
first "to endeavor to get the Imperial Government to amend or suspend the
Constitution; secondly, to render the Government independent of the
people, by appropriating towards it the revenues accruing from the estates
of the Sulpicians [301] of Montreal, and of the Order of the Jesuits;
thirdly to seize the patronage exercised by the Roman Catholic Bishop of
Quebec,--the _cures_ or church livings in his diocese; contending that no
Roman Catholic Bishop really existed in Canada, (but merely a
superintendent of _curés_), none having been recognized by the Crown.
It has been stated that he had a fair chance of succeeding on two points,
had not the great Lord Chancellor, Eldon, intervened to thwart his scheme.
The correspondence exchanged between Mr. Ryland and His Excellency, Sir
James H. Craig, preserved in the sixth volume of Christie's _History of
Canada_, exhibits Mr. Ryland at his best, and has led some to infer
that, had he been cast in a different sphere, where his talents and
attainments would have been more properly appreciated and directed, he
would have played a very conspicuous part. "We find the Beauport statesman
in 1810, in London, [302] consulted on Canadian affairs by the leading
English politicians and some of the proudest peers. The honored guest of
English noblemen, [303] he appears at no disadvantage, sips their old port
unawed, cosily seated at their mahogany. It must be borne in mind that, in
1810, Lord Castlereagh and Lord Liverpool had their hands pretty full with
continental politics, perhaps too much so, to heed poor distant Canada.
Shortly after the arrival, at Quebec, of the Earl of Durham, viz., on the
29th July, 1838, the Hon. H. W. Ryland expired at his country seat at
Beauport, aged 78 years. He was born in 1760 at Northampton in England, of
a very ancient Saxon family, dating back to Edward the Confessor. Wm.
Ryland his great grandfather having successfully defended Oxford against
Oliver Cromwell, while his sons fought on the other side.
Mount Lilac then reverted to his son, George Herman Ryland, Esq., now
Registrar at Montreal, who added much to the charms of the spot. It was
offered to Lord Metcalfe subsequently as a country seat, but for reasons
which it is unnecessary to enter into, the negotiations fell through. Mr.
Ryland occupied it till his removal from the Quebec to the Montreal
Registry, Office. Some years back the property was purchased by Mr. James
Dinning, Quebec, who reserved for himself the farm, one hundred and five
acres in extent, and sold in 1856, the house and twenty-three acres
thereunto attached to a wealthy and whimsical old ironfounder of Quebec,
Mr. John H. Galbraith. This thrifty tradesman, in order to keep his hand
in order, like Thackeray's hero, continued the pursuit of his former
occupation, the smelting of ore, even under the perfumed groves of Mount
Lilac, and erected there an extensive grapery and conservatory, and a
foundry as well; the same furnace blast thus served to produce, under
glass, fragrant flowers--exquisite grapes--melting peaches, as well as
solid pig iron and first class stove plates.
Mount Lilac owed a divided allegiance to Vulcan and Flora. Which of the
home products pleased, the most the worthy Mr. Galbraith? is still an open
question. [304]
_A VISIT TO THE INDIAN LORETTE._
Of the many attractive sites in the environs of the city, few contain in a
greater degree than the Huron village of Lorette during the leafy months
of June, July and September, picturesque scenery, combined with a wealth
of historical associations. The nine miles intervening between Quebec and
the rustic _auberge_ of the village, thanks to an excellent turnpike,
can be spanned in little more than an hour. I shall now attempt to
recapitulate some of the sights and incidents of travel which recently
befell me, whilst escorting to Lorette an Old World tourist, of very high
literary estate.
With a mellow autumnal sun, just sufficient to bronze the sombre tints,
lingering at the close of the Indian summer, we left the St. Louis Hotel,
the headquarters of tourists, and rapidly drove through _Fabrique_ and
Palace streets, towards the unsightly gap in our city walls, of yore
yclept Palace Gate, which all Lord Dufferin's _prestige_ failed to protect
against vandalism, but which, thanks to his initiative, we expect yet to
see _bridged over_ with, graceful turrets and Norman towers.
A turn to the west brought us opposite to the scarcely perceptible ruins
of the Palace [305] of the French Intendants, destroyed by the English
shells in 1775, to dislodge Arnold and Montgomery's New England soldiery.
The park which intervened formerly between it and the St. Charles was many
years back converted into a wood yard to store the fuel for the garrison,
a portion now is used as a cattle market, opposite, stands the station and
freight sheds of the Q. M. O. & O. Railway, the road skirts the park
towards the populous St. Roch suburbs, rebuilt and transformed since the
great fire of the 28th May, 1845, which destroyed 1,600 houses, occupying
the site of former spacious pasture grounds for the city cows, styled by
the early French _La Vacherie_. In a trice we reach Dorchester bridge, the
second one, built there in 1822, the first, opened with great pomp by His
Excellency Lord Dorchester in 1789, having been constructed a few acres to
the west, and called after him. The bridge, as a means of crossing from
one shore to the other, is an undoubted improvement on the scow used up to
1789.
One of the first objects on quitting the bridge and diverging westward to
the Charlesbourg road, on the river bank, is the stately, solid, antique
mansion of the late C. Smith, Esq, who at one time owned nearly all the
broad acres intervening between the house and _Gros Pin_. It took for
a time the name of Smithville and was inherited by several members of his
family, who built cosy houses round it. These green fields, fringed with
white birch and spruce plantations, are watered by the St. Charles, the
_Kahir-Koubat_ [306] of ancient days. In rear of one of the first villas
_Ringfield_, owned by Geo. Holmes Parke, Esq., runs the diminutive stream,
the _Lairet_, at the confluence of which Jacques Cartier wintered in 1535-
6, leaving, there one of his ships, the _Petite-Hermine_, of 60 tons,
whose decayed oak timbers were exhumed in 1843, by Jos. Hamel, City
Surveyor of Quebec. A very remarkable vestige of French domination exists
behind the villa of Mr. Parke--a circular field (hence the name Ring-
field) covering about twelve acres, surrounded by a ditch, with an earth
work about twenty feet high, to the east, to shield its inmates from the
shot of Wolfe's fleet lying at the entrance of the St. Charles, before
Quebec. A minute description has been given by General Levi's aide-de-
camp, the _Chevalier_ Johnstone, [307] of what was going on in this
earthwork, where at noon, on the 13th Sept., 1759, were mustered the
disorganized French squadrons in full retreat from the Plains of Abraham
toward their camp at Beauport. Here, on that fatal day, was debated the
surrender of the colony--the close of French rule: here also, close by, in
1535-6, was the cradle of French power, the first settlement and winter
quarters of the French pioneers--Jacques Cartier's hardy little band.
From this spot, at eight o'clock that night (13th Sept.), began the French
retreat towards the Charlesbourg church; at 4 a.m. next day the army was
at Cap Rouge, disordered, panic-stricken! Oh! where was the heroic Levi!
On ascending a hill (Clearihue's) to the north, the eye gathers in the
contour of a dense grove, hiding in its drooping folds "Auvergne," the
former secluded country seat of Chief Justice Jonathan Sewell, now owned
by George Alford, Esq.
A mile to the north, in the deep recesses of Bourg-Royal, rest the fast
crumbling and now insignificant ruins of the only rural _Château_ of
French origin round Quebec. Was it built by Talon, or by Bigot? an
unfathomable mystery. Silence and desertion reign supreme, where of yore
Bigot's heartless wassailers used to meet and gamble away King Louis's
card money and _piastres_.
"And sunk are the voices that sounded in mirth.
And empty the goblets and dreary the hearth!"
The tower or boudoir, where was immured the Algonquin maid Caroline, the
beautiful, that too has crumbled to dust.
We are now at Lorette.
_TAHOURENCHE._
"I'm the chieftain of this mountain,
Times and seasons found me here,
My drink has been the crystal fountain,
My fare the wild moose or the deer."
(_The_ HURON CHIEF, _by Adam Kidd_).
There exists a faithful portrait of this noble savage, such as drawn by
himself and presented, we believe, to the Laval University at Quebec; for
glimpses of his origin, home and surroundings, we are indebted to an
honorary chief of the tribe, Ahatsistari. [308]
Paul _Tahourenché_ (François Xavier Picard), Great Chief of the Lorette
Hurons, was born at Indian Lorette in 1810; he is consequently at present
71 years of age. He is tall, erect, well proportioned, dignified in face
and deportment; when habited in his Indian regalia: blue frock coat, with
bright buttons and medals, plumed fur cap, leggings of colored cloth,
bright sash and armlets, with war axe, he looks the _beau ideal_ of a
respectable Huron warrior, shorn of the ferocity of other days. Of the
line of Huron chiefs which proceeded him we can furnish but a very meagre
history. Adam Kidd, who wrote a poem entitled the _Huron Chief_ in 1829,
and who paid that year a visit to the Lorette Indians and saw their oldest
chief, _Oui-a-ra-lih-to_, having unfortunately failed to fulfil the
promise he then made of publishing the traditions and legends of the tribe
furnished him on that occasion, an omission which, we hope, will yet be
supplied by an educated Huron; the Revd. Mr. Vincent. Of _Oui-a-ra-lih-
to_, we learn from Mr. Kidd: "This venerable patriarch, who is now (in
1829) approaching the precincts of a century, is the grandson of _Tsa-a-
ra-lih-to_, head chief of the Hurons during the war of 1759. _Oui-a-ra-
lih-to_, with about thirty-five warriors of the Indian village of Lorette
in conjunction with the Iroquois and Algonquins, was actually engaged in
the army of Burgoyne, a name unworthy to be associated with the noble
spirit of Indian heroism. During my visit to this old chief--May, 1829--he
willingly furnished me with an account of the distinguished warriors, and
the traditions of different tribes, which are still fresh in his memory,
and are handed from father to son, with the precision, interest and
admiration that the tales and exploits of Ossian and his heroes are
circulated in their original purity to this day among the Irish." Mr. Kidd
alludes also to another great chief, _Atsistari_, who flourished in 1637,
and who may have been the same as the Huron Saul _Ahatsistari_, who lived
in 1642.
Of the powerful tribes of the aborigines who, in remote periods, infested
the forests, lakes and streams of Canada, none by their prowess in war,
wisdom in council, success as tillers of the soil, intelligent and lofty
bearing, surpassed the Wyandats, or Hurons. [309] They numbered 15,000
souls, according to the historian Ferland, 40,000 according to Bouchette,
and chiefly inhabited the country bordering on Lake Huron and Simcoe; they
might, says Sagard, have been styled the "nobles" among savages in
contradistinction to that other powerful confederacy, more democratic in
their ways, also speaking the Huron language, and known as the Five
Nations (Mohawks,[310] Oneydoes, Onondagas, Cayugas and Senecas), styled
by the French the Iroquois, or Hiroquois, from the habit of their orators
of closing their orations with the word "Hiro"--_I have said_.
'Tis a curious fact that the aborigines whom Jacques Cartier had found
masters of the soil, at Hochelaga (Montreal,) and Stadacona (Quebec,) in
1535, sixty-eight years later on, in 1603, when Champlain visited these
Indian towns, had disappeared: a different race had succeeded them. Though
it opens a wide field to conjecture, recent investigations seem to
indicate that it was the Huron-Iroquois nation who, in 1535, were the
_enfants du sol_ at both places, and that in the interim the Algonquins
had, after bloody wars, dispersed and expelled the Huron-Iroquois. The
savages with whom the early French settlers held intercourse can be
comprised under two specific heads--the Algonquins and the Huron-Iroquois
--the language of each differing as much, observes the learned Abbé
Faillon, as French does from Chinese.
It would take us beyond the limit of this sketch to recapitulate the
series of massacres which reduced these warlike savages, the Hurons, from
their high estate to that of a dispersed, nomadic tribe, and placed the
Iroquois or Mohawks, at one time nearly destroyed by the Hurons, in the
ascendant.
Their final overthrow may be said to date back to the great Indian
massacres of 1648-9, at their towns, or missions, on the shores of Lakes
Simcoe, the first mission being founded in 1615 by the Friar LeCaron,
accompanied by twelve soldiers sent by Champlain in advance of his own
party. The Jesuit mission was attacked by the Iroquois in 1648; St. Louis,
St. Joseph [311], St. Ignace [312], Ste. Marie [313], St. Jean [314],
successively fell, or were threatened; all the inmates who escaped sought
safety in flight; the protracted sufferings of the missionaries Bréboeuf
and Gabriel Lallemant have furnished one of the brightest pages of
Christian heroism in New France. Bréboeuf expired on the 16th March and
Lallemant on 17th March, 1649. A party of Hurons sought Manitoulin Island,
then called Ekaentoton, a few fled to Virginia; others succeeded in
obtaining protection on the south shore of Lake Erie, from the Erie tribe,
only to share, later on, the dire fate of the nation who had dared to
incorporate them in its sparse ranks.
Father P. Ragueneau (the first writer, by the by, who makes mention of
Niagara Falls--_Relations de_ 1648,) escorted three or four hundred
of these terror-stricken people to Quebec on the 26th July, 1650, and
lodged them in the Island of Orleans, at a spot since called _L'Anse du
Fort_, where they were joined, in 1651, by a party of Hurons, who in
1649, on hearing of the massacre of their western brethren, had asked to
winter at Quebec. For ten years past a group of Algonquins, Montagnais and
Hurons, amidst incessant alarms, had been located in the picturesque
parish of Sillery; they, too, were in quest of a more secure asylum.
Negotiations were soon entered into between them and their persecuted
friends of the West; a plan was put forth to combine. On the 29th March,
1651, the Sillery Indians, many of whom were Hurons united with the
western brethren, sought a shelter, though a very insecure one, in a
fortified nook, adjoining their missionary's house, on the land of
Eléonore de Grandmaison, purchased for them at _l'Anse du Fort_, in
the Island of Orleans, on the south side of the point opposite Quebec.
Here they set to tilling the soil with some success, cultivating chiefly
Indian corn, their numbers being occasionally increased during the year
1650, by their fugitive brethren of the West, until they counted above 600
souls. Even under the guns of the picket Fort of Orleans, which had
changed its name to Ile St. Marie, in remembrance of their former
residency, the tomahawk and scalping-knife reached them; on the 20th May,
1656, eighty-six of their number were carried away captives, and six
killed, by the ferocious Iroquois; and on the 4th June, 1656, again they
had to fly before their merciless tormentors. The big guns of Fort St.
Louis, which then stood at the north-west extremity of the spot on which
the Dufferin Terrace has lately been erected, seemed to the Hurons a more
effectual protection than the howitzers of _Anse du Fort_, so they
begged from Governor d'Aillebout for leave to nestle under them in 1658.
'Twas granted. When the Marquis de Tracy had arranged a truce with the
Iroquois in 1665, the Huron refugees prepared to bid adieu to city life
and to city dust. Two years later we find them ensconced at Beauport,
where others had squatted on land belonging to the Jesuits; they stopped
there one year, and suddenly left, in 1669, to pitch their wigwams for a
few years at Côte St. Michel, four and a half miles from Quebec, at the
Mission of Notre Dame de Foye, now called St. Foye. On the 29th December,
1673, restless and alarmed, the helpless sons of the forest sought the
seclusion, leafy shades and green fields _Ancienne Lorette_. [315]
Here they dwelled nearly twenty-five years. The youths had grown up to
manhood, with the terrible memories of the past still fresh on their
minds. One fine day, allured by hopes of more abundant game, they packed
up their household gods, and finally, in 1697, they went and settled on
the elevated _plateau_, close to the foaming rapids of St. Ambroise,
now known as Indian, or _Jeune_, Lorette.
"Tis here we shall now find them, 336 souls all told, [316] living in
comparative ease, successful traders, exemplary Christians, but fast
decaying Hurons.
"The Hurons," says Ahatsistari, [317] "are divided into four families:
that of the _Deer_; of the _Tortoise_; of the _Bear_; of the _Wolf_. Thus,
the great Chief François Xavier Picard--Tahourenché--is a _Deer_, and his
son Paul is a _Tortoise_, because (Her Highness) Madame _Tahourenché_ is a
_Tortoise_; a lithe, handsome woman for all that.
"Each family has its chief, or war captain; he is elected by choice. The
four war captains chose two council chiefs, the six united select a grand
chief, either from among themselves or from among the honorary chiefs, if
they think proper."
We append a letter, from Sister Ste. Helene, descriptive of Indian
customs, in 1730. Civilization and Christianity have sensibly modified,
some will say, improved the Red Skins since then.
_INDIAN DRESS--LOVE MAKING-FEASTSBURIALS._
From a MS. Letter of _Soeur Ste. Hélène_, published by Abbé Verrault.
"Would you like to learn how they dress--how they marry--how they are
buried? First, you must know that several tribes go completely naked,
and wear but the fig-leaf. In Montreal, you meet many stately and
well-proportioned savages, walking about in this state of nudity, as
proud in their bearing, as if they wore good clothes. Some have on a
shirt only; others have a covering negligently thrown over one
shoulder. Christianized Indians are differently habited. The Iroquois
put their shirt over their wearing apparel, and over the shirt another
raiment, which encloses a portion of the head, which is always bare.
The men generally wear garments over their shirts; the latter, when
new, is generally very white, but is used until it gets perfectly dark
and disgustingly greasy. They sometimes shave a portion of their head,
or else they comb one half of their hair back, the other half front.
They occasionally tie up a tuft of hair very tight on the top of the
head, rising towards the skies. At other times some allow a long tress
of hair to fall over their face: it interferes with their eating, but
it has to be put up with. They smear their ears with a white
substance, or their face with blue, vermillion and black. They are
more elaborate in their war-toilette than a coquette would be in
dressing--in order to conceal the paleness which fear might engender.
They are profuse of gold and silver brocade, porcelain necklaces,
bracelets of beads--the women, especially in their youth. This is
their jewellery, their diamonds, the value whereof sometimes reaches
1,000 francs. The Abenaqis enclose their heads in a small cap
embroidered with beads or ornamented with brocade. They wrap their
legs in leggings with a fringe three or four inches long. Their shoes
consist of socks, with plaits round the toe, covering the foot. All
this has its charm in their eyes; they are as vain of dress as any
Frenchman. The pagan tribes, whenever love is felt, marry without any
ceremonial. The pair will discover whether they love one another in
silence, Indian-like. One of the caresses consists in throwing to the
loved one a small pebble, or grains of Indian corn, or else some other
object which cannot hurt. The swain, on throwing the pebble, is bound
to look in the opposite direction, to make believe he did not do it.
Should the adored one return it, matters look well, else, the game is
up.
"The Christianized Indians are married in face of the church, without
any contract of marriage and without stipulations, because an Indian
cannot own real estate and cannot bequeath to his children. The
wealthiest is the mightiest hunter. This favored individual, in his
village, passes for a grand match. Bravery and great warriors they
think much of--they constitute the latter their chiefs. Poverty is no
disgrace at the council board, and an orator in rags will speak out as
boldly, as successfully, as if he were decked out in gold cloth. They
come thus poorly habited in the presence of the Governor, indulge in
long harangues, and touch his hand fearlessly. When ladies are present
at these interviews, they honor them thus--seize their hand and shake
it in token of friendship. Before I became a nun I was present at some
of these ceremonies, and having won their good opinion, they would
extend to me a hand which was disgusting in the extreme, but which I
had cheerfully to accept for fear of offending them. They are
sometimes asked to dine at the Governor's table. Unlucky are their
neighbors, especially when they happen to be ladies, they are so
filthy in their persons.--1730."--_Revue Canadienne_, page 108-9.
Such the Montreal Indians in 1730.
The Lorette Chapel dates back, as well as the _Old Mill_, to 1731. In
1862 the Chapel suffered much by fire. The tribe occupies land reserved by
Government, under the regulations of the Indian Bureau of Ottawa. "Indian
Lorette comprises from forty to fifty cottages, on the _plateau_ of
the falls--spread out, without design, over an area of about twenty square
acres. In the centre runs the kings highway, the outer half sloping down,
towards the St. Charles. The most prominent objects are the church, a
grist mill and Mr. Reid's paper mill; close by a wooden fence encloses
'God's acre,' in the centre of which a cross marks the tomb of Chief
Nicholas." [318] It is indeed, "a wild spot, covered with the primitive
forest and seamed by a deep and tortuous ravine, where the St. Charles
foams, white as a snow drift, over the black ledges, and where the
sunshine struggles through matted boughs of the pine and the fir, to bask
for brief moments on the mossy rocks, or flash on the hurrying waters....
Here, to this day, the tourist finds the remnants of a lost people,
harmless weavers of baskets and sewers of mocassins, the Huron blood fast
bleaching out of them."
Of "free and independent electors" none here exist, the little Lorette
world goes on smoothly without them. "No Huron on the Reserve can vote. No
white man is allowed to settle within the sacred precincts of the Huron
kingdom, composed, 1st, of the lofty _Plateau_ of the village of
Indian Lorette, which the tribe occupy. 2nd. Of the forty square acres,
about a mile and a half to the north-west of the village. 3rd. Of the
Rocmont settlement, in the adjoining County of Portneuf, in the very heart
of the Laurentine Mountains, ceded to the Hurons by Government, as a
compensation for the Seigniory of St. Gabriel, of which Government took
possession, and to which the Hurons set up a claim.
"In all that which pertains to the occupation, the possession and the
administration of these fragments of its ancient extensive territory, the
usages and customs of the tribe have force of law. The village is governed
by a Council of Sachems; in cases of misunderstandings an appeal lies to
the Ottawa Bureau, under the control of the Minister of the Interior (our
"Downing street" wisely abstaining from interference except on very urgent
occasions). Lands descend by right of inheritance; the Huron Council alone
being authorized to issue location tickets; none are granted but to Huron
boys, strangers being excluded. Of course, these disabilities affect the
denizens of the reserve only; a Huron (and there are some,
_Tahourenche_, Vincent and others) owning lands in his own right
elsewhere, and paying taxes and tithes, enjoys the rights and immunities
of any other British subject."
From the date of the Lorette Indian settlement in 1697, down to the year
of the capitulation of Quebec--1759--the annals of the tribe afford but
few stirring incidents: an annual bear, beaver, or cariboo hunt; the
return of a war party, with its scalps--English, probably--as the tribe
had a wholesome terror of the Iroquois; an occasional _pow wow_ as to
how many warriors could be spared to assist their trusted and brave
allies, the French of Quebec, against the heretical soldiers of Old or New
England.
We are in possession of no facts to show that these Christianised Hurons
differed much from other Christianised Indians; church services, war
councils, feasting, smoking, dancing, scalping, fishing and hunting,
filling in, agreeably, socially, or usefully, the daily routine of their
existence. Civilization, as understood by christianised or by pagan
savages, has never inspired us with unqualified admiration. The various
siege narratives we have perused, whilst they bring in the Indian allies,
at the close of the battle, to "finish off" the wounded at Montmorency, in
July, 1759; at the plains of Abraham, in September 1759; at St. Foye, in
April, 1760, generally mention the Abenaquis for this delicate office of
_friseurs_. The terror, nay, the horror, which the use of the tomahawk and
scalping knife inspired to the British soldiery, was often greater than
their fear of the French sabres and French musquetoons.
British rule, in 1759, if it did bring the Hurons less of campaigning and
fewer scalps, was the harbinger of domestic peace and stable homes, with
very remunerative contracts each fall for several thousands of pairs of
snow-shoes, cariboo mocassins and mittens for the English regiments
tenanting the Citadel of Quebec, whose wealthy officers every winter
scoured the Laurentine range, north of the city, in quest of deer, bear
and cariboo, under the experienced guidance of Gros Louis, Sioui, Vincent,
and other famous Huron Nimrods.
The chronicles of the settlement proclaim the valour and wisdom of some of
their early chiefs, conspicuous appears the renowned Ahatsistari, surnamed
the Huron Saul, from his early hostility to missionaries; death closed his
career, on the verdant banks of Lake Huron, in 1642, a convert to
missionary teachings.
At the departure of the French, in 1759, a new allegiance was forced on
the sons of the forest, St. George and his dragon for them took the place
of St. Louis and his lilies. The _Deer_, the _Bear_, the _Tortoise_ and
the _Wolf_ tribe, however, have managed to live on most friendly terms
with the _Dragon_. In 1776, Lorette sent its contingent of painted and
plumed warriors to fight General Burgoyne's inglorious campaigns. The
services rendered to England by her swarthy allies in the war of 1812-14
were marked, for years a distribution of presents took place from the
Quebec Commissariat and Indian Department. Proudly did the Hurons, as well
as the Abenaquis, Montagnais, Micmac and Malicite Indians bear the snow-
white blankets, scarlet cloth and hunting-knives awarded them by George
the King, and by the victors of Waterloo. Each year, at midsummer, the
Indians in their canoes, with their live freight of hunters, their copper-
coloured squaws and black-eyed papooses, rushed from Labrador, Gaspé,
Restigouche, Baie des Chaleurs, and pitched their tents on a strip of land
at Lévi, hence called Indian Cove, the city itself being closed to the
grim monarchs of the woods, reputed ugly customers when in their cups. A
special envoy, however, was sent to the Lorette Indians on similar
occasions. The Indians settled on Canadian soil were distinguished for
their loyalty to England, who has ever treated them more mercifully than
did "Uncle Sam."
The war between England and the United States in 1812 brought the Lorette
braves again to the front, and the future hero of Châteauguay, Col. De
Salaberry, was sent to enlist them. Col. De Salaberry attended in person
on the tribe, at Indian Lorette. A grand pow-wow had been convoked. The
sons of the forest eagerly sent in their names and got in readiness when
the Colonel returned a few days later to inform them that the Government
had decided to retain them as a reserve in the event of Quebec being
attacked from the Kennebec.
Notwithstanding this announcement, six Hurons (among whom were Joseph and
Stanislas Vincent) claimed with loud cries the right to accompany the
Canadian _Voltigeurs_, commanded by the Colonel.
At Châteauguay, where 300 Canadians so gloriously repelled 7,000 invaders,
the brothers Vincent swam across the river to capture and make prisoners,
the flying Yankees.
These swarthy warriors had but a faint idea of what military discipline
meant, and thinking that, the battle being over, they could return to
Lorette, left accordingly. This was a flagrant case of desertion. Nothing
short of the brave Colonel's earnest entreaties, sufficed to procure a
pardon for the redskins. A letter was written to Col. De Salaberry by his
father, late M.P. for the county, on this subject; it has been preserved.
The Hurons attended at Beauport at the unveiling of the monument of De
Salaberry on the 27th of June, 1880, and subscribed bountifully to the
building fund.
What with war medals, clothing, ammunition, fertile lands specially
reserved at Lorette, on the Restigouche, at Nouvelle, Isle Verte,
Caughnawaga, St. Regis, &c., the "untutored savage," shielded by a
beneficent legislation, watched over by zealous missionaries, was at times
an object of envy to his white brethren. Age or infirmity, seldom war,
tore him away from this vale of sorrow, to join the great Indian
"majority" in those happy hunting grounds promised to him by his Sachems.
The Hurons were ever ready to parade their paint, feathers, and tomahawks,
at the arrival of every new Governor at Quebec, and to assure Ononthio,
[319] of their undying attachment and unswerving loyalty to their great
father or august mother "who dwells on the other side of the Great Lake."
These traditions have descended even to the time when _Ononthio_ was
merely a Lieutenant-Governor under Confederation. We recollect meeting, in
31st March, 1873, a stately deputation, composed of twenty-three Hurons
from Lorette, returning from Clermont, the country seat of Lieutenant-
Governor Caron, where they had danced the war-dance for the ladies, and
harangued, as follows, the respected Laird of Clermont, just then
appointed Lieutenant-Governor:--
ONONTHIO:--
Aisten tiothi non8a [320] tisohon dekha hiatanonstati deson8a8en-dio
daskemion tesontamai denon8a ation datito8anens tesanonron-h8a nionde,
aon8a deson8a8endio de8a desakatade; a8eti desanon-ronk8anion datito8anens
chia ta skenrale the kiolaoutou8ison tothi chia hiaha a8eti dechienha
totinahiontati desten de sendete ataki atichiai a8eti alatonthara
deskemion ichionthe desten tiodeti aisten orachichiai.
Rev. Prosper _Sa8atonen_. The Memory Man. (Rev. Mr. Vincent, a chief's
son, then _Vicaire_ at Sillery.)
Paul _Tahourenché_, 1st Chief. The Dawn of Day.
Maurice _Agnolin_, 2nd Chief. The Bear.
Francis _Sassennio_. The Victor of Fire.
Gaspard _Ondiaralethe_. The Canoe Bearer.
Philippe _Theon8atlasta_. He stands upright.
Joseph Gonzague _Odt'o rohann_. He who does not forget.
Paul Jr. _Theianontakhen_. Two United Mountains.
Honoré _Telanontouohe_. The Sentry.
A. N. Montpetit _Ahatsistari_. The Fearless Man.--And others, in
all 23 warriors.
[_Translation._]
"The chiefs, the warriors, the women and children of our tribe, greet you.
The man of the woods also likes to render homage to merit: he loves to see
in his chiefs those precious qualities which constitute the statesman.
"All these gifts of the Great Spirit, wisdom in council, prudence in
execution, and that sagacity we exact in the Captains of our nation, you
possess them all in an eminent degree.
"We warmly applaud your appointment to the exalted post of Lieutenant-
Governor of the Province of Quebec, and feel happy in taking advantage of
the occasion to present our congratulations.
"May we also be allowed to renew the assurance of our devotion towards our
august Mother, who dwells on the other side of the Great Lake, as well as
to the land of our forefathers.
"Accept for you, for Mrs. Caron and your family, our best wishes."
_CHÂTEAU BIGOT._
ITS HISTORY AND ROMANCE.
"Ensconced 'mid trees this château stood
'Mid flowers each aisle and porch;
At eve soft music charmed the ear
High blazed the festive torch.
But, ah! a sad and mournful tale
Was hers who so enjoyed
The transient bliss of these fair shades
By youth and love decoyed,
Her lord was true--yet he was false,
False--false--as sin and hell
To former plights and vows he gave
To one that loved him well."
_The Hermitage._
From time immemorial an antique and crumbling ruin, standing in solitary
loneliness, in the centre of a clearing at the foot of the Charlesbourg
mountain, some five miles from Quebec, has been visited by the young and
the curious. It was once a two story stone building, with ponderous walls.
In length it is fifty-five feet by thirty-five feet broad--pierced for six
windows in each story, with a well-proportioned door, in the centre. In
1843, at the date of my first visit, the floor of the second story was yet
tolerably strong: I ascended to it by a rickety, old staircase. The ruin
was sketched in 1858, by Col. Benj. Lossing, and reproduced in _Harper's
Magazine_ for January, 1859. The lofty mountain to the north-west of it
is called _La Montagne des Ormes_; for more than a century, the
Charlesbourg peasantry designate the ruin as _La Maison de la Montagne_.
The English have christened it the _Hermitage_, whilst to the French
portion of the population, it is known as Château-Bigot, or Beaumanoir;
and truly, were it not on account of the associations which surround the
time-worn pile, few would take the trouble to go and look at the dreary
object.
The land on which it stands was formerly included in the _Fief de la
Trinité_ granted between 1640 and 1650 to Monsieur Denis, a gentleman
from La Rochelle, in France, the ancestor of the numerous clans of Denis,
Denis de la Ronde, Denis de Vitré, &c. The seigniory was subsequently sold
to Monseigneur de Laval, a descendant of the Montmorency's, who founded in
1663 the Seminary of Quebec, and one of the most illustrious prelates in
New France, the portion towards the Mountain was dismembered. When the
Intendant Talon formed his Baronie Des Islets [321] he annexed to it
certain lands of the _Fief de la Trinité_, amongst others that part
on which now stands the remains of the old château, of which he seems to
have been the builder, but which he subsequently sold. Bigot having
acquired it long after, enlarged and improved it very much. He was a
luxurious French gentleman, who, more than one hundred years ago, held the
exalted post of Intendant or Administrator under the French Crown, in
Canada. [322] In those days the forests which skirted the city were
abundantly stocked with game: deer, of several varieties, bears, foxes,
perhaps even that noble and lordly animal, now extinct in eastern Canada,
the Canadian stag, or Wapiti, roamed in herds over the Laurentian chain of
mountains, and were shot within a few miles of the Château St. Louis. This
may have been one of the chief reasons why the French Lucullus erected the
little _château_, which to this day bears his name--a resting place for
himself and friends after the chase. The profound seclusion of the spot,
combined with its beautiful scenery, would have rendered it attractive
during the summer months, even without the sweet repose it had in store
for a tired hunter. Tradition ascribes to it other purposes, and
amusements less permissible than those of the chase. A tragical occurrence
enshrines the old building with a tinge of mystery which the pen of the
novelist has woven into a thrilling romance.
François Bigot, thirteenth and last Intendant of the Kings of France in
Canada, was born in the Province of Guienne, and descended of a family
distinguished by professional eminence at the French bar. His commission
bears date "10th June, 1747." The Intendant had the charge of four
departments: Justice, Police, Finance and Marine. He had previously filled
the post of Intendant in Louisiana, and also at Louisburg. The
disaffection and revolt caused by his rapacity in that city, were mainly
instrumental in producing its downfall and surrender to the English
commander, Pepperell, in 1745. Living at a time when tainted morals and
official corruption ruled at court, he seems to have taken his standard of
morality from the mother country; his malversations in office, his
extensive frauds on the treasury, more than £400,000; his colossal
speculations in provisions and commissariat supplies furnished by the
French government to the colonists during a famine; his dissolute conduct
and final downfall, are fruitful themes wherefrom the historian can draw
wholesome lessons for all generations. Whether his Charlesbourg (then
called Bourg Royal) castle was used as the receptacle of some of his most
valuable booty, or whether it was merely a kind of Lilliputian _Parc au
Cerfs_, such as his royal master had, tradition does not say. It would
appear, however, that it was kept up by the plunder wrung from sorrowing
colonists, and that the large profits he made by paring from the scanty
pittance the French government allowed the starving residents, were here
lavished in gambling, riot and luxury.
In May, 1757, the population of Quebec was reduced to subsist on four
ounces of bread per diem, one lb. of beef, HORSE-FLESH or CODFISH; and in
April of the following year, the miserable allowance was reduced to one
half. "At this time," remarks our historian, Garneau, "famished men were
seen sinking to the earth in the street from exhaustion."
Such were the times during which Louis XV.'s minion would retire to his
Sardanapalian retreat, to gorge himself at leisure on the life blood of
the Canadian people, whose welfare he had sworn to watch over! Such, the
doings in the colony in the days of La Pompadour. The results of this
misrule were soon apparent: _the British lion placed his paw on the
coveted morsel_. The loss of Canada was viewed, if not by the nation,
at least by the French Court, with indifference, to use the terms of one
of Her Britannic Majesty's ministers, when its fate and possible loss were
canvassed one century later in the British Parliament, "without
apprehension or regret." Voltaire gave his friends a banquet at Ferney, in
commemoration of the event; the court favourite congratulated His Majesty,
that since he had got rid of these "fifteen hundred leagues of frozen
country," he had now a chance of sleeping in peace; the minister Choiseul
urged Louis XV. to sign the final treaty of 1763, saying that Canada would
be _un embarras_ to the English, and that if they were wise they
would have nothing to do with it. In the meantime the red cross of St.
George was waving over the battlements on which the lily-spangled banner
of the Bourbons had proudly sat with but one interruption for one hundred
and fifty years, the infamous Bigot was provisionally consigned to a
dungeon in the Bastille--subsequently tried and exiled to Bordeaux; his
property was confiscated, whilst his confederates and abettors, such as
Varin, Bréard, Maurin, Corpron, Martel, Estèbe and others, were also tried
and punished by fine, imprisonment and confiscation: one Penisseault, a
government clerk (a butcher's son by birth), who had married in the
colony, but whose pretty wife accompanied the Chevalier de Lévis on his
return to France, seems to have fared better than the rest.
But to revert to the château walls as I saw them on the 4th of June, 1863.
During a ramble with an English friend through the woods, which gave us an
opportunity of providing ourselves with wild flowers to strew over the
tomb of its fair "Rosamond," [323] such as the marsh marigold, clintonia,
uvularia, the star flower, veronica, kalmia, trillium, and Canadian
violets, we unexpectedly struck on the old ruin. One of the first things
that attracted our notice was the singularly corroding effect the easterly
wind has on stone and mortar in Canada; the east gable being indented and
much more eaten away than that exposed to the western blast. Of the
original structure nothing is left now standing but the two gables and the
division walls; they are all three of great thickness; certainly no modern
house is built in the manner this seems to have been. It had two stories,
with rooms in the attic, and deep cellars; a communication existed from
one cellar to the other through the division wall. There is also visible a
very small door cut through the cellar wall of the west gable; it leads to
a vaulted apartment of some eight feet square; the small mound of masonry
which covered it might originally have been effectually hidden from view
by a plantation of trees over it. What could this have been built for,
asked my romantic friend? Was it intended to secure some of the
Intendant's plate or other portion of his ill-gotten treasure? Or else as
the Abbé Ferland suggests: [324] "Was it to store the fruity old Port and
sparkling Moselle of the club of the Barons, who held their jovial
meetings there about the beginning of this century?" Was it his
mistresses' secret _boudoir_ when the Intendant's lady visited the
château, like the Woodstock tower to which Royal Henry picked his way
through "Love's Ladder?" _Quien sabe?_ Who can unravel the mystery?
It may have served for the foundation of the tower which existed when Mr.
Papineau visited and described the place fifty years ago. The heavy cedar
rafters, more than one hundred years old, are to this day sound: one has
been broken by the fall, probably of some heavy stones. There are several
indentures in the walls for fire-places, which are built of cut masonry;
from the angle of one a song sparrow flew out uttering an anxious note. We
searched and discovered the bird's nest, with five spotted, dusky eggs in
it. How strange! in the midst of ruin and decay, the sweet tokens of hope,
love and harmony! What cared the child of song if her innocent offspring
were reared amidst these mouldering relics of the past, mayhap a guilty
past? Could she not teach them to warble sweetly, even from the roof which
echoed the dying sighs of the Algonquin maid? Red alder trees grew rank
and vigorous amongst the disjointed masonry, which had crumbled from the
walls into the cellar; no trace existed of the wooden staircase mentioned
by Mr. Papineau; the timber of the roof had rotted away or been used for
camp fires by those who frequent and fish the elfish stream which winds
its way over a pebbly ledge towards Beauport. It is well stocked with
small trout, which seem to breed in great numbers in the dam near the
Château--a stream, did we say?
"A hidden brook,
In the leafy mouth of June,
That to the sleeping woods all night
Singeth a quiet tune"
"Enough! enough! cried my poetic companion. The fate of the fair maid, the
song of birds, the rustling of groves, the murmur of yonder brook,--does
not all this remind you of the accents of our laurel-crowned poet, he who
sang of Claribel?"
Those who wish to visit the Hermitage, are strongly advised to take the
cart-road which leads easterly from the Charlesbourg church, turning up.
Pedestrians prefer the route through the fields; they may, in this case,
leave their vehicle at Gaspard Huot's boarding-house--a little higher than
the church at Charlesbourg,--and then walk through the fields, skirting,
during the greater part of the road, the trout stream I have previously
mentioned; but by all means _let them take a guide_ with them.
Let us now translate and condense, from the interesting narrative of a
visit paid to the Hermitage in 1831, by Mr. Amédée Papineau and his
talented father, the Hon. Louis Joseph Papineau, the legend which attaches
to it:
CAROLINE, OR THE ALGONQUIN MAID.
(BY AMÉDÉE PAPINEAU.)
"We drove, my father and I, with our vehicle to the foot of the
mountain, and there, took a foot-path which led us through a dense
wood. We encountered and crossed a rivulet, and then ascended a
plateau cleared of wood, a most enchanting place; behind us and on our
right was a thick forest: on our left the eye rested on boundless
green fields, diversified [325] with golden harvests and with the neat
white cottages of the peasantry. In the distance was visible the broad
and placid waters of the St. Lawrence, at the foot of the citadel of
Quebec, and also the shining cupolas and tin roofs of the city houses;
in front of us, a confused mass of ruins, crenelated walls embedded in
moss and rank grass, together with a tower half destroyed, beams, and
the mouldering remains of a roof. After viewing the _tout ensemble_,
we attentively examined each portion in detail--every fragment was
interesting to us; we with difficulty made our way over the wall,
ascending the upper stories by a staircase which creaked and trembled
under our weight. With the assistance of a lighted candle we
penetrated into the damp and cavernous cellars, carefully exploring
every nook and corner, listening to the sound of our own footsteps,
and occasionally startled by the rustling of bats which we disturbed
in their dismal retreat. I was young, and consequently very
impressionable. I had just left college; these extraordinary sounds
and objects would at times make me feel very uneasy. I pressed close
to my father and dared scarcely breathe; the remembrance of this
subterranean exploration will not easily be forgotten. What were my
sensations when I saw a tombstone, the reader can imagine? 'Here we
are at last,' exclaimed my father and echo repeated his words.
Carefully did we view this monument; presently we detected the letter
'C,' nearly obliterated by the action of time; after remaining there a
few moments, to my unspeakable delight we made our exit from the
chamber of death, and stepping over the ruins, we again alighted on
the green sward. Evidently where we stood had formerly been a garden;
we could still make out the avenues, the walks and plots, over which
plum, lilac and apple trees grew wild.
"I had not yet uttered a word, but my curiosity getting the better of
my fear, I demanded an explanation of this mysterious tombstone. My
father beckoned me towards a shady old maple; we both sat on the turf,
and he then told me as follows:--You have, no doubt, my son, heard of
a French Intendant, of the name of Bigot, who had charge of the public
funds in Canada somewhere about the year 1757; you have also read how
he squandered these moneys and how his Christian Majesty had him sent
to the Bastille when he returned to France, and had his property
confiscated. All this you know. I shall now tell you what, probably,
you do not know. This Intendant attempted to lead in Canada the same
dissolute life which the old _noblesse_ led in France before the
Revolution had _levelled_ all classes. He it was who built this
country seat, of which you now contemplate the ruins. Here he came to
seek relaxation from the cares of office; here he prepared
entertainments to which the rank and fashion of Quebec, including the
Governor General, eagerly flocked; nothing was wanting to complete the
_éclat_ of this _little_ Versailles. Hunting was a favorite pastime of
our ancestors, and Bigot was a mighty hunter. As active as a chamois,
as daring as a lion was this indefatigable Nimrod, in the pursuit of
bears and moose.
"On one occasion, when tracking with some sporting friends an old bear
whom he had wounded, he was led over mountainous ridges and ravines
very far from the castle. Nothing could restrain him; on he went in
advance of every one, until the bloody trail brought him on the
wounded animal, which he soon dispatched.
"During the chase the sun had gradually sunk over the western hills;
the shades of evening were fast descending; how was the lord of the
manor to find his way back? he was alone in a thick forest; in this
emergency his heart did not fail him,--he hoped by the light of the
moon to be able to return to his stray companions. Wearily he walked
on, ascending once or twice a lofty tree, in order to see further, but
all in vain; soon the unpleasant conviction dawned on him that like
others in similar cases, he had been walking round a circle. Worn out
and exhausted with fatigue and hunger, he sat down to ponder on what
course he should adopt. The Queen of night, at that moment shedding
her silvery rays around, only helped to show the hunter how hopeless
was his present position. Amidst these mournful reflections, his ear
was startled by the sound of footsteps close by; his spirits rose at
the prospect of help being at hand; soon he perceived the outlines of
a moving white object. Was it a phantom which his disordered
imagination had conjured up; terrified he seized his trusty gun and
was in the act of firing, when the apparition, rapidly advancing
toward him, assumed quite a human form; a little figure stood before
him with eyes as black as night, and raven tresses flowing to the
night wind; a spotless garment enveloped in its ample folds this airy
and graceful spectre. Was it a sylph, the spirit of the wilderness?
Was it Diana, the goddess of the chase, favoring one of her most
ardent votaries with a glimpse of her form divine? It was neither. It
was an Algonquin beauty, one of those ideal types whose white skin
betray their hybrid origin--a mixture of European blood with that of
the aboriginal races. It was Caroline, a child of love, born on the
shores of the great Ottawa river; a French officer was her sire, and
the powerful Algonquin tribe of the Beaver claimed her mother.
"The Canadian Nimrod, struck at the sight of such extraordinary
beauty, asked her name, and after relating his adventure, he begged of
her to shew him the way to the castle in the neighborhood, as she must
be familiar with every path in the forest. Such is the story told of
the first meeting between the Indian beauty and the Canadian Minister
of Finance and Feudal Judge in the year 175--.
"The Intendant was a married man; [326] his lady resided in the
capital of Canada. She seldom accompanied her husband on his hunting
excursions, but soon it was whispered that something more than the
pursuit of wild animals attracted him to his country seat; an intrigue
with an Indian beauty was hinted at. These discreditable rumors came
to the ears of her ladyship; she made several visits to the castle in
hopes of verifying her worst fears; jealousy is a watchful sentinel.
"The Intendant's dormitory was on the ground floor of the building; it
is supposed the Indian girl occupied a secret apartment on the flat
above; that her boudoir was reached through a long narrow passage,
ending with a hidden staircase opening on the large room which
overlooked the garden.
"The King, therefore, for his defence
Against the furious Queen,
At Woodstock builded such a bower,
As never yet was seen.
Most curiously that bower was built,
Of stone and timber strong."
(Ballad of Fair Rosamond.)
"Let us now see what took place on this identical spot on the 2nd
July, 176--. It is night; the hall clock has just struck eleven; the
murmur of the neighboring brook, gently wafted on the night wind, is
scarcely audible; the Song Sparrow [327] has nearly finished his
evening hymn, while the _Sweet Canada_ [328] bird, from the top
of an old pine, merrily peals forth his shrill clarion. Silence the
most profound pervades the whole castle; every light is extinguished;
the pale rays of the moon slumber softly on the oak floor, reflected
as they are through the gothic windows; every inmate is wrapped in
sleep, even fair Rosamond who has just retired. Suddenly her door is
violently thrust open; a masked person, with one bound rushes to her
bed-side, and without saying a word, plunges a dagger to the hilt in
her breast. Uttering a piercing shriek, the victim springs in the air
and falls heavily on the floor. The Intendant, hearing the noise,
hurries up stairs, raises the unhappy girl who has just time to point
to the fatal weapon, still in the wound, and then falls back in his
arms a lifeless corpse. The whole household are soon on foot; search
is made for the murderer, but no clue is discovered. Some of the
inmates fancied they had seen the figure of a woman rush down the
secret stair and disappear in the woods about the time the murder took
place. A variety of stories were circulated, some pretended to trace
the crime to the Intendant's wife, whilst others alleged that the
avenging mother of the creole was the assassin; some again urged that
Caroline's father had attempted to wipe off the stain on the honour of
his tribe, by himself despatching his erring child. A profound mystery
to this day surrounds the whole transaction. Caroline was buried in
the cellar of the castle, and the letter 'C' engraved on her
tombstone, which, my son, you have just seen."
Half a century has now elapsed since the period mentioned in this
narrative. In vain do we search for several of the leading characteristics
on which Mr. Papineau descants so eloquently; time, the great destroyer,
has obliterated many traces. Nothing meets one's view but mouldering
walls, over which green moss and rank weeds cluster profusely.
Unmistakable indications of a former garden there certainly are, such as
the outlines of walks over which French cherry, apple and gooseberry trees
grow in wild luxuriance. I took home from the ruins a piece of bone; this
decayed piece of mortality may have formed part of Caroline's big toe, for
aught I can establish to the contrary; Château-Bigot brought back to my
mind other remembrances of the past. I recollected reading that pending
the panic consequent on the surrender of Quebec in 1759, the non-
combatants of the city crowded within its walls; this time not to
realized, but to seek concealment until Mars had inscribed another victory
on the British flag. Who would be prepared to swear that later, when
Arnold and Montgomery had possession of the environs of Quebec, during the
greater portion of the winter, of 1775-6, some of those prudent English
merchants, (Adam Lymburner at their head), who awaited at Charlesbourg and
Beauport the issue of the contest, did not take a quiet drive, to Château-
Bigot, were it only to indulge in a philosophical disquisition on the
mutability of human events?
We are indebted to Mr. John D. Stewart of Quebec for a copy of the
following letter from his grandfather, written in 1776, from the Château.
(Mr. Charles Stewart, father of the late Mr. Charles Grey Stewart,
Comptroller of Customs, to his father.)
"HERMITAGE, June 25th, 1776.
"MY DEAR FATHER,--I was overjoyed to hear by a letter from Mr. Gray,
that you and my dear mother were in good health. Nothing can give me
greater pleasure than to hear so. I was very sorry to hear that my
sister had been ill. I hope she is now getting better.
We have been here for this winter in a very dismal situation. The
rebels came here and blocked up the town of Quebec, at the end of
November. I had been not at all well for two months previous, and at
that time had not got better with a pain which obliged me to stay in
the country, where I had been all the summer, although greatly against
my inclination. I was allowed to remain peaceably by the rebels, until
the middle of January, when I was taken and carried with sword and
(fixed) bayonets before their general; the reason why, was, that after
their attack upon the town on the 31st December, the Yankees were
obliged to demand assistance of the country people to join them. I had
spoken and done what I could to hinder the people of the village where
I resided from going and taking arms with them. This came to light,
and I was told at their head-quarters their general, one Arnold, a
horse jockey or shipmaster, who then had the command, threatened to
send me over to the (New England) colonies. After being detained a ...
and two days, Arnold asked me, if he had not seen me before in Quebec.
I said he had, and put him in remembrance of having once dined with
him; upon which he said, on condition that I gave my word of honour
not to meddle in the matter, he would allow me to go away. I told him
the inhabitants were a parcel of scoundrels, and beyond a gentleman's
notice; upon this I got off, and remained for upwards of two months
without molestation, till the tracks of persons going to town from
Beauport had been observed; the country people immediately suspected
me, and came with drawn cutlasses to take me; luckily I was from home,
having gone two days before about fifteen miles to see an
acquaintance, and when I got back they had found out who had gone in
(to town). The ill-nature of the peasants to me made me very uneasy on
account of all the papers I had of Mr. Gray's, and dreading their
malice much, I determined to go from them. I found out a place about
five miles up amongst the woods, the Hermitage which being vacant I
immediately retired to it, and carried all my papers with me. Mr.
Peter Stewart had gone from his house in Beauport, down with his
family to the Posts, and gave me the charge of it, and having heard
that they (the Yankees) were going to put 150 men in it, I sent all
his furniture, &c., to the house I had taken, so that I had my house
all furnished; this was in the beginning of March; since which I have
remained there. The people who left the town in the fall have not been
allowed to go back. A Mr. Vi... one of the most considerable
merchants, went in immediately after the 6th of May, (the day when the
town people made a sally with about 900 men in all, who drove nigh
3000 of the Yankees from their camp, and relieved the town) and was
sent to prison and kept several days. Major John Nairn was so obliging
as to come out 8 or 9 days after that affair to see me; he asked me
why I had not been in town. I told him the reason; I had got no pass.
The next day he sent me one; except another, this is the only one
which had been granted by the Governor as yet, and it is thought some
won't be allowed to go in this summer, why, I cannot say. Every person
had liberty to leave or stay by a proclamation for that purpose, but
as it is military law, no person dare say it is wrong
I am going now again to remain in town, having now learned a little of
the French. I understand every word almost that is said, although I
cannot speak it as well; however I could wish that my brother John
knew as much of it. I three days ago wrote him they were gone to
Halifax, but am told they are to go from there to New York soon....
I am at present studying a little of the French law. If I do not make
use it, it will do me no harm. I expect you have had letters from my
brother Andrew....
I wish you would send me your vouchers of all your Jamaica debts I
could go easily from here to there. If I cannot get money I can get
rum, which sells and will sell, at a great price in this place. I can
only stay there a few months."
Nor must we forget the jolly pic-nics the barons held there some eighty
years ago. [329]
On quitting these silent halls, from which the light of other days had
departed, and from whence the voice of revelry seems to have fled forever,
I re-crossed the little brook, already mentioned, musing on the past. The
solitude which surrounds the dwelling and the tomb of the dark-haired
child of the wilderness, involuntarily brought to mind that beautiful
passage of Ossian, [330] relating to the daughter of Reuthamir, the
"white-bosomed" Moina:--"I have seen the walls of Balclutha, but they
were desolate. The fire had resounded in the halls, and the voice of the
people is heard no more. The thistle shook there its lonely head; the moss
whistled to the wind. The fox looked out of the windows, the rank grass of
the wall waved round its head. Desolate is the dwelling of Moina, silence
is in the house.... Raise the, song of mourning, O bards! over the land of
strangers. They have but fallen before us: for one day, we must fall."
L'INTENDANT BIGOT--ROMANCE CANADIENNE.
PAR JOS. MARMETTE.
After perusing the Legend of _Caroline, the Algonquin Maid_, the lover of
Canadian story, can find a more artistically woven plot in one of Mr.
Marmette's historical novels L'Intendant Bigot. The following passage
is from a short critique we recently published thereon:
"It is within the portals of Beaumanoir (Château-Bigot) that several
of the most thrilling scenes in Mr. Marmette's novel are supposed to
have taken place. A worthy veteran of noble birth, M. de Rochebrune,
had died in Quebec through neglect and hunger, on the very steps of
Bigot's luxurious palace, then facing the St Charles, leaving an only
daughter, as virtuous as she was beautiful. One day, whilst returning
through the fields (where St. Rochs has since been built) from
visiting a nun in the General Hospital, she was unexpectedly seized by
a strong arm and thrown on a swift horse, whose rider never stopped
until he had deposited his victim at Bigot's country seat,
Charlesbourg. The name of this cold-blooded villain was Soumois. He
was a minion of the mighty and unscrupulous Bigot. Mdlle. de
Rochebrune had a lover. A dashing young French officer was Raoul de
Beaulac. Maddened with love and rage he closely watched Bigot's
movements in the city, and determined to repossess his treasure, it
mattered not, at what sacrifice. Bigot's was a difficult game to play.
He had a _liaison_ with one of the most fascinating and fashionable
married ladies of Quebec, and was thus prevented from hastening to see
the fair prey awaiting him at Beaumanoir. Raoul played a bold game,
and calling jealousy to his help, he went and confided the deed to
Madame Pean, Bigot's fair charmer, entreating her immediate
interference, and after some hairbreadth escapes, arrived at the
Château with her just in time to save Mdlle de Rochebrune from
dishonor.
Madame Pean was returning to the city with Mdlle de Rochebrune and
Raoul, when on driving past the walls of the Intendant's palace, close
to the spot where Desfosses street now begins, her carriage was
attacked by a band of armed men--a reconnoitering party from Wolfe's
fleet, anchored at Montmorency. A scuffle ensued, shots were fired,
and some of the assailants killed; but in the _mêlée_ Mdlle. de
Rochebrune was seized and hurried into the English boat commanded by
one Capt. Brown. During the remainder of the summer the Canadian maid,
treated with every species of respect, remained a prisoner on board
the admiral's ship. (It is singular that Admiral Durell, whose beloved
young son was at the time a prisoner of war at Three Rivers, did not
propose an exchange of prisoners.) In the darkness and confusion which
attended the disembarking of Wolfe's army on the night of the 12th of
September, 1759, at Sillery, Mdlle. de Rochebrune slipped down the
side of the vessel, and getting into one of the smaller boats, drifted
ashore with the tide, and landed at Cap Rouge, just as her lover
Raoul, who was a Lieutenant in La Roche-Beaucour's Cavalry was
patrolling the heights of Sillery. Overpowered with joy, she rode
behind him back to the city, and left him on nearing her home; but, to
her horror, she spied dodging her footsteps her arch enemy the
Intendant, and fell down in a species of fit, which turned out to be
catalepsy. This furnishes, of course, a very moving _tableau_. The
fair girl---supposed to be dead---was laid out in her shroud, when
Raoul, during the confusion of that terrible day for French Rule, the
13th September, calling to see her, finds her a corpse just ready for
interment. Fortunately for the heroine, a bombshell forgotten in the
yard, all at once and in the nick of time igniting, explodes,
shattering the tenement in fragments. The concussion recalls Mdlle. de
Rochebrune to life; a happy marriage soon after ensues. The chief
character in the novel, the Intendant sails shortly after for France,
where he was imprisoned, as history states, in the Bastile, during
fifteen months, and his ill-gotten gains confiscated. All this, with
the exception of Mdlle. de Rochebrune's career, is strictly
historical."
_THE FALLS OF THE CHAUDIÈRE_.
A tourist of a cultured mind and familiar with classic lore, standing on
the lofty brow of the _Chaudière_, might, without any peculiar flights of
imagination, fancy he beholds around him a solitary dell of that lovely
TEMPE immortalized in song:
"Est nemos Haemoniae, praerupta quod undique claudit
Silva; vocant Tempe; per quae Peneus ab imo
Effusus Pindo, spumosis volvitur undis,
Dejectuque gravi tenues agitantia fumos
Nubila conducit, sommasque aspergine silvas
Impluit, et sonitu plus quam vicina fatigat."
_Ovid Met_. I--568.
The Falls of the _Chaudière_, in their chief features, differ entirely
from the majestic cascade of Montmorency.
"To a person who desires nothing more than the primary and sudden electric
feeling of an overpowering and rapturous surprise, the cascade of
Montmorency would certainly be preferable, but to the visitor, whose
understanding and sensibilities are animated by an infusion of antiquated
romance, the Falls of the _Chaudière_ would be more attractive." [331]
This favourite resort of tourists is accessible by two modes of travel. We
would assuredly advise visitors, both on account of the striking objects
to be met with, to select the water route, going the land route on their
return; a small steamer plies daily, for a 10 cent fare, at stated hours,
from the Lower Town market place, touching at Sillery and skirting the
dark frowning cliffs of Cape Diamond, amidst the shipping, affording a
unique view of the mural-crowned city. After stopping five minutes at the
Sillery wharf, the steamer crosses over and lands its passengers nearly
opposite the R. C. Church of St. Romuald, which, with its frescoed ceiling
and ornate interior is one of the handsomest temples of worship round
Quebec. Vehicles are abundant at Levi and at St. Romuald; an hour's drive
will land the tourist on the weird and romantic brink of the
_Chaudière_, either by following the lower road on the beach, skirting the
adjoining highland, or taking the road on the heights.
"Although yielding in grandeur to Niagara and Montmorency, it possesses
features more interesting than either. The river, in its course of one
hundred miles over a rugged bed, full of rapids and falls, is here
narrowed to a width of between three hundred and four hundred feet, and is
precipitated over a height of about one hundred and thirty feet,
preserving the characteristic features of its _boiling_ waters, till
it mingles with the St. Lawrence. Hence it has received the appropriate
name of _Chaudière_ or _Caldron_. Instead of descending in one continuous
sheet, it is divided by large projecting rocks into three channels or
cataracts, which, however, unite before reaching the basin below. A
globular figure is imparted to the descending volumes of brilliant white
foam, in consequence of the deep excavations of the rocks, and the clouds
of spray produce in the sunshine a brilliant variety of prismatic colours.
The dark-green foliage of the dense forests that overhang the torrent on
both sides, forms a striking contrast with its snow-white foam.
"The wild diversity of rocks, the foliage of the overhanging woods, the
rapid motion, the effulgent brightness and the--deeply solemn sound of the
cataracts, all combine to present a rich assemblage of objects highly
attractive, especially when the visitor, emerging from the wood, is
instantaneously surprised by the delightful scene. Below, the view is
greatly changed, and the falls produce an additionally strong and vivid
impression.
"If strangers view the Falls from one side of the river only, the prospect
from the eastern shore is recommended as preferable.
"The Falls of Montmorency are not immediately surrounded by any rugged
scenery, calculated to strengthen and perpetuate the peculiar emotion
which is excited by the first glimpse of the cascade, but the dreary
wildness in the foliage of the encircling forest, the total absence of
every vestige of human improvement, and the tumultuous waves and commotion
and effulgence that incessantly occupy the mind and rivet the senses of
the beholder in the survey of the _Chaudière_, conjoined with the wider
expansion and larger quantity of water in the stream, in the opinion
of many visitors more than compensate for the greater elevation from which
the waters of the Montmorency are precipitated."
On returning to the town of Levi, the tourist, taking the upper road, may
visit the Falls of Etchemin, where have existed for close on a century,
the extensive saw mills of Sir John Caldwell. They are now owned by Henry
Atkinson, Esq.
APPENDIX
[See p. 4.]
_JACQUES CARTIER'S OFFICERS AND CREW._
_Liste de l'Équipage_ de Jacques Cartier, conservée dans les archives
de St. Malo, France--revue avec soin sur le _fac-similé_ par C. H.
Laverdière, Ptre., Bibliothécaire de l'Université Laval, 22 novembre,
1859.
Jacques Cartier, capne.
Thomas Fourmont, Me. de la nef.
Guille. Le breton Bastille, capne. et pilote du Galion.
Jacq. Maingar, me. du Galion.
Marc Jalobert, capne. et pilote du Courlieu.
Guille. de Marié, me. de Courlieu.
Laurent Boulain.
Estienne Nouel.
Pierre Esmery dict Talbot.
Michel Herué.
Estienne Reumevel.
Michel Audiepore.
Bertrande Samboste.
Richard Lebay, Faucamps.
Lucas père Sr., ou Lucas Jacq, Sr., Fammys.
François Guiteault, Apoticaire.
Georges Mabille.
Guillme. Sequart, charpentier.
Robin Le Fort.
Samson Ripault, barbier.
Françoys Guillet.
Guillme. Esnault, charpentier.
Jehan Dabin, charpentier.
Jehan Duuert.
Julien Golet.
Thomas Boulain.
Michel Philipot.
Jehan Hamel.
Jehan Fleury.
Guille. Guilbert.
Colas Barbe.
Laurens Gaillot.
Guille. Bochier.
Michel Eon.
Jean Anthoine.
Michel Maingard.
Jehan Margen.
Bertrand Apuril.
Giles Staffin.
Geoffrey Olliuier.
Guille. de Guernezé
Eustache Grossin.
Guillme. Allierte.
Jehan Ravy.
Pierres Marquier, trompet.
Guille. Legentilhomme.
Raoullet Maingard.
Françoys Duault.
Herué Henry.
Yvon Legal.
Anthoine Alierte.
Jehan Colas.
Jacq Poinsault.
Dom Guille. Le Breton.
Dom Antoine.
Philipe Thomas, charpentier.
Jacq. Duboys.
Julien Plantiruet.
Jehan Go.
Jehan Legentilhomme.
Michel Douquais, charpentier.
Jehan Aismery, charpentier.
Pierre Maingart.
Lucas Clauier.
Goulset Riou.
Jehan Jacq. de Morbihan.
Pierre Nyel.
Legendre Estienne Leblanc.
Jehan Pierres.
Jehan Commuyres.
Anthoine Desgranches.
Louys Donayrer.
Pierre Coupeaulx.
Pierres Jonchée.
_74 signatures; the subsequent seven signatures were added in the answer
to the Quebec Prize Historical Questions, submitted in_ 1879.
Jean Gouyon.
Charles Gaillot.
Claude de Pontbrians.
Charles de la Pommeraye.
Jean Poullet.
Philippe Rougemont.
De Goyelle.
"_JACQUES QUARTIER, THE PILOT._"
"Gerald, eleventh Earl of Kildare, was born on the 26th of February, 1525.
He was ten years of age at the time of his brother's arrest, and then
lying ill with the small-pox at Donore in the County Kildare. He was
committed to the care of his tutor, Thomas Leverous, who conveyed him in a
large basket into Offaly to his sister, Lady Mary O'Connor. There he
remained until he perfectly recovered. The misfortunes of his family had
excited great sympathy for the boy over the whole of Ireland. This made
the government anxious to have him in their power; and they endeavored
accordingly to induce O'Brien to surrender him to them. About the 5th of
March, 1540, Lady Eleanor O'Donnel, suspecting that it was the intention
of her husband to surrender Gerald to the English Government, resolved to
send him away. She engaged a merchant vessel of St. Malo which happened to
be in Donegal Bay, to convey a small party to the coast of Brittany.
"Bartholomew Warner, an agent of the English Government, sends the
following account of this transaction to Sir John Wallop, the English
Ambassador in France:
"'After ther departing from Yrlande they arryved at Murles (Morlaix) wher,
as he was well receyvyd of the Captayne, whiche leadde him throughe the
towne by the hande, wher he tarryed 3 or 4 days, and strayghtwayes, the
captayne sent word to Monsieur de Chattebriande off ther arrivying ther.
* * * * And from thens they came in the sayde shippe to Saynt Malo, where
he was also well receyvyd of them of the Town, and specially of Jacques
Quartier, the pilot, which your Lordship spake off at my being at
Rouene.'"--_The Earls of Kildare and their Ancestors, from_ 1057 _to_
1773, by the Marquis of Kildare. 3rd edition, pp. 179, 196.
_DISCOVERY OF THE REMAINS OF JACQUES CARTIER'S VESSEL, THE "PETITE
HERMINE."_
(_Note for pages 429-431-455._)
On the 25th of August, 1843, there was much commotion among the
antiquarians of our old city. Mr. Jos. Hamel, the city surveyor, had
thought it proper to call the attention of the Literary and Historical
Society to the remains of a vessel lying at the brook St. Michel, which
falls into the River St. Charles on the north bank about half way between
the General Hospital and old Dorchester Bridge. This vessel was supposed
to be the _Petite Hermine_, one of Jacques Cartier's vessels left by
him at the place where he wintered in 1535-6.
"The existence of this vessel had been known to persons frequenting the
place for a great many years. Part of it, the farthest out in the stream,
had been carried away for firewood or otherwise, and the forepart of the
vessel was covered with clay and earth from the adjoining bank to the
depth of six or seven feet. This was in great part removed, leaving the
keel and part of the planking and ribs visible. The vessel had been built
of large-grained oak, which was mostly in a good state of preservation,
although discolored, and the iron spikes and bolts were still strong. The
bolts in the keel, contrary to the usual practice, had been placed in from
below. This is the spot where Jacques Cartier, is supposed to have
wintered. The tide rises in the entrance of the brook, where the vessel
lies, about six or seven feet. This entrance forms a semi-circular cove,
on each side of which towards the St. Charles, the earth is elevated so as
to have the appearance of a breastwork; the bank to the west of the cove
is about eighteen feet high, and it was then covered with thick brush
which prevented its being fully examined. The distance of the place from
town is about one mile; the road is over the Dorchester Bridge and along
the north bank of the St. Charles."--(_Quebec Gazette_, August 30, 1843).
(_From the Quebec Gazette, 30th August_, 1843.)
"In the last number (August 25th, inst.,) of _Le Canadien_ there is
an article of deep interest to the Canadian antiquarian: The long agitated
question as to the _where_ or _whereabouts_ Jacques Cartier, on his second
voyage from France to this continent spent the winter of 1535-6; whether
at the embouchure of the river bearing his name emptying into the St.
Lawrence some ten or eleven leagues above Quebec, or in the little river
St. Charles to the north of and at the foot of the promontory on which
Quebec is built, is now, it would seem, about to be solved and
satisfactorily set at rest by the recent discovery of the remains of a
vessel, doubtless of European construction, supposed to be those of _La
Petite Hermine_, of about 60 tons burthen, one of the three (_La Grande
Hermine_, _La Petite Hermine_, and _L'Emerillon_), with which on the 19th
of May, 1535, that intrepid navigator left St. Malo.
The article alluded to, which we believe to be the work of the editor
himself (Mr. McDonald) of _Le Canadien_, logically establishes from
Jacques Cartier's narrative that the place of his wintering, or Sainte
Croix, as he named it, can be none other than the little river St.
Charles, as we now call it. "Coasting," says he, "the said island
(Orleans) we found at the upper end of it an expanse of water very
beautiful and pleasant, at which place there is a little river and bar
harbor with two or three fathoms of water, which we found to be a place
suitable for putting our vessels in safety. We called it _Ste. Croix_,
because on that day, (14th September) we arrived there. Near this place
there are natives, whose chief is Donnacona and who lives there, which
place is called Stadaconé," (now Quebec). Cartier observes in another part
of his narrative that _Sainte Croix_ was situate half a league from _and
to the north_ of Quebec. Again, speaking of the residence (Stadacone) of
Donnacona, he says, "_under which high land towards the north_ is the
river and harbour Sainte Croix, at which place we remained from the 15th
of September, to the 16th of May, 1536, where the vessels remained dry."
* * * * *
"We now translate from _Le Canadien_:--'At the invitation of Mr. Jos.
Hamel, City Surveyor, Hon. Wm. Sheppard, the President, and (G. B.)
Faribault, Vice-President of the Literary and Historical Society of
Quebec, went with him on Saturday, the 19th instant, (1843) to visit the
place, and according to the position of the _debris_ of the vessel,
the nature of the wood it is composed of, and the character of the stones
(ballast) they found at the bottom, they were satisfied that all the
probabilities are in favor of Mr. Hamel's hypothesis.
"'On a report of this visit, the Council of the Literary and Historical
Society assembled on Monday last, and resolved on laying open the
_debris_, leaving it to Mr. Faribault, the Vice-President, to make,
with Mr. Hamel, the necessary arrangements for the execution. The members
of the Council having no funds at their disposal, that they can legally
apply to this purpose, have so far carried it on at their own expense.
"'Some valuable evidences of the ancient existence of this vessel have
been gathered. We shall speak of them in giving an account of the
exhumation in progress, under the direction of Messrs. Faribault and
Hamel. All those who can throw any light on the subject, either of their
own knowledge or by what they may have learnt by tradition, are earnestly
solicited to impart the same at the Office of _Le Canadien_.'
"Those gentlemen ought not to be allowed to carry on this work at their
sole expense. The country, the world, are interested in it. This continent
in 1535, from end to end one vast wilderness, the imagination can scarcely
figure to itself a more awful solitude than that in which, during the
winter of 1535-6 Cartier and his faithful followers, amidst savages in an
unknown country, during a Canadian winter, at a thousand leagues from
their native land, were buried in the dreary swamp (for it then must have
been little better) of _Sainte Croix_ now the beautiful valley of the
St. Charles, covered with cheerful cottages and a redundant population.
Look to-day from the Citadel of _Stadaconé_ in all directions north,
south, east, west, than which under heaven, there is not a more splendid
panorama, and think of what it was when Cartier and his comrades first
looked upon it. Contrast his landing on the flinty rock at the base of
Cape Diamond, the 14th September, 1535, and reception by a few gaping
savages, with that of the present Governor-General, Sir Charles Metcalfe;
amidst acclaiming thousands, on the 25th (Aug. 1843)--the manner of
passing a winter at Stadaconé in 1535-6 and at the same place in 1842-3.
What changes have the three centuries wrought! What recollections have
they left! And what changes will not the next three hundred years bring
about? More wonderful probably than those we admire to-day. But come what
may of that which men sometimes call great and glorious, nothing can
obliterate or eclipse the honors justly due to the memory of the
celebrated navigator and his comrades, who first "coasting the said island
(now Orleans) found at the end of it an expanse of water very beautiful
and pleasant, and a little bar harbour," ('hable,' as he calls it,) and
wintered there at about half a league northward of and under the highland
of Stadaconé."
"During the dismal winter Jacques Cartier must have passed in his new
quarters at _Ste. Croix_, he lost, by sickness contracted, it is said,
from the natives, but more probably from scurvy, twenty-five of his
men. This obliged him to abandon one of his three vessels (_La Petite
Hermine_ it is believed) which he left in her winter quarters, returning
with the two others to France. The _locale_ of the _débris_ or remains,
not only corresponds with the description given by Jacques Cartier of Ste.
Croix, but also with the attention and particular care that might be
expected from a skilful commander, in the selection of a safe spot in an
unknown region where never an European had been before him, for wintering
his vessels. They lie in the bottom of a small creek or gulley, known as
the _ruisseau St. Michel_, into which the tides regularly flow, on the
property of Charles Smith, Esq., on the north side of the St. Charles and
at about half a mile following the bends of the river above the site of
the old Dorchester Bridge.--They are a little up the creek at about an
acre from its mouth, and their position (where a sudden or short turn of
the creek renders it next to impossible that she should be forced out of
it by any rush of water in the spring or efforts of the ice,) evinces at
once the precaution and the judgment of the commander in his choice of the
spot. But small portions of her remaining timber (oak) are visible through
the mud, but they are bitumanised and black as ebony, and after reposing
in that spot 307 years, seem, as far as by chopping them with axes or
spades, and probing by iron rods or picks, can be ascertained, sound as
the day they were brought thither. The merit of the discovery belongs to
our fellow townsman, Mr. Joseph Hamel, the City Surveyor."
Quebec, 28th August, 1843.
_"LE CANON DE BRONZE."--THE BRONZE CANNON._
"A few years ago an ancient cannon of peculiar make, and supposed to have
been of Spanish construction, was found in the river St. Lawrence,
opposite the Parish of Champlain, in the District of Three Rivers. It is
now in the Museum of Mr. Chasseur, and will repay the visit of the curious
stranger. The ingenious writer of the Treatise upon this piece of
ordnance, published in the second volume of the TRANSACTIONS of the
Literary and Historical Society of Quebec, has endeavoured to show that it
belonged to Verazzani,--that the latter perished before the second voyage
of Jacques Cartier, either by scurvy or shipwreck, on his way up the river
towards Hochelaga. He also endeavors, with great stretch of fancy, to
explain and account for the pantomime enacted by the Indians in the
presence of Jacques Cartier, in order to dissuade him from proceeding to
Hochelaga so late in the season, by their recollection and allusion to the
death of Verazzani, some nine or ten years before. But if they had really
known anything respecting the fate of this navigator--and it must have
been fresh in their memory, if we recall to mind how comparatively short a
period had elapsed--is it not most likely that they would have found
means, through the two interpreters to communicate it to Cartier? Yet it
appears that the latter never so much as heard of it, either at Hochelai,
now the Richelieu, where he was on friendly terms with the chief of the
village--or at Hochelaga, where it must have been known--or when he
wintered at Ste. Croix, in the little river St. Charles--nor yet when he
passed a second winter at Carouge! The best evidence, however, that the
Indian pantomime had no reference to Verazzani, and to disprove at once
the truth of the tradition respecting his death in any part of the St.
Lawrence, is to show, which we shall do on good authority, that at the
very time when Cartier was passing the winter at Ste. Croix, Verazzani was
actually alive in Italy. From a letter of Annibal Caro, quoted by
Tiraboschi, an author of undoubted reputation, in the Storie della
Literature Italiana, Vol. VII. part I. pp. 261, 462, it is proved that
Verazzani was living in 1537, a year after the pantomime at Ste. Croix!
While on the subject of the Canon de Bronze it may be noted that
Charlevoix mentions also a tradition, that Jacques Cartier himself was
shipwrecked at the mouth of the river called by his name, with the loss of
one of his vessels. From this it has been supposed that the Canon de
Bronze was lost on that occasion; and an erroneous inscription to that
effect has been engraved upon it. In the first place the cannon was not
found at the mouth of the River Jacques Cartier, but opposite the Parish
of Champlain; in the next, no shipwreck was ever suffered by Jacques
Cartier, who wintered in fact at the mouth of the little river St.
Charles. The tradition as to his shipwreck, and to the loss of one of his
vessels, most probably arose from the well known circumstance of his
having returned to France with two ships, instead of three, with which he
left St. Malo. Having lost so many men by scurvy during his first winter
in Canada, he was under the necessity of abandoning one of them, which lay
in the harbour of Ste. Croix. The people of Champlain having possessed
themselves of the old iron to be found on the vessel, it of course soon
fell to pieces, and in process of time arose the tradition that Jacques
Cartier had been shipwrecked. The removal of the scene of his supposed
disaster from the St. Charles to the River Jacques Cartier. was an error
of Charlevoix.
Before we conclude this notice of Verazzani: it may be mentioned, that in
the Strozzi Library at Florence, is preserved a manuscript, in which he is
said to have given with great minuteness, a description of all the
countries which he had visited during his voyage, and from which, says
Tiraboschi, we derive the intelligence, that he had formed the design, in
common with the other navigators of that era, of attempting a passage
through those seas to the East Indies. It is much to be desired, that some
Italian Scholar would favor the world with the publication of this
manuscript of Verazzani."
[_See pages_ 71-72.]
_THE FRENCH WHO REMAINED IN QUEBEC AFTER ITS CAPITULATION TO THE BRITISH
IN 1629._
(_From the Canadian Antiquarian_)
In Canadian annals there is no period veiled deeper in Cimmerian darkness,
than the short era of the occupation of Quebec by the English under Louis
Kirke, extending from the 14th July 1629, to 13th July, 1632. The absence
of diaries, of regular histories, no doubt makes it difficult to
reconstruct, in minute details, the nascent city of 1629. Deep researches,
however, in the English and French archives have recently brought to the
surface many curious incidents. To the Abbé Faillon, who, in addition to
the usual sources of information had access to the archives of the
Propaganda at Rome, the cause of history is deeply indebted, though one
must occasionally regret his partiality towards Montreal which so often
obscures his judgment. Another useful source to draw from for our
historians, will be found in a very recent work on the conquest of Canada
in 1629 by a descendant of Louis Kirke, an Oxford graduate, it is
published in England.