Up on the cliff, in 1620, Champlain built the ancient castle of St.
Louis, which stood on the verge of the rock, where now is the eastern
end of the Dufferin Terrace, at an elevation of about one hundred and
eighty feet above the river. This was of timber, afterwards replaced
by a stone structure used for fort and prison, and burnt in the early
part of the nineteenth century, the site being now an open square,
with some relics, on the verge of the cliff. The great Quebec Citadel
upon the summit of the promontory, three hundred and fifty feet above
the river, is one of the most formidable of the former systems of
stone fortifications. It covers forty acres, and has outlying walls,
batteries and defensive works enclosing the entire ancient city, the
circuit being nearly three miles. There are batteries guarding the
water approach, gates on the landward side (some now dismantled), and
four massive martello towers on the edge of the Plains of Abraham
above the city, with long subterranean passages leading to them and
other outlying works. The Quebec rock is a dark slate, with an almost
perpendicular stratification, and shining quartz crystals found in it
gave it the name of Cape Diamond. The portion of the works overlooking
the St. Lawrence is called the Grand Battery, while the surmounting
pinnacle of the Citadel, containing a huge Armstrong gun, is the
King's Bastion. While Quebec's magnificent scenery and its tremendous
rock-crowned fortress remain as they were during the great colonial
wars, yet the military glory is gone. England long ago withdrew the
regular garrison, and only a handful of Canadian militia now hold the
place, and the guns are harmless from age and rust, only two or three
smaller ones doing the present ceremonious duties. In fact the old
rock is so given to sliding, that salutes are forbidden, excepting on
rare occasions, lest the concussion may bring some of the fatal
rock-slides down upon the people of the Lower Town. There is a little
bronze gun preserved as a trophy in the centre of the Parade, which
the British captured at Bunker Hill. Grand as this Citadel is, it no
longer protects Quebec, for in fact the defense against an enemy is
provided by the newer modern forts across the river behind Point
Levis, which command the river approach and cost some $15,000,000 to
construct.
Yet great has been the conflict around this noted rock fortress in the
past. The earliest battles were at the old Castle of St. Louis, and
after the repulse of the New England colonial expeditions sent against
Quebec in 1711 it was determined to fortify the whole of Cape Diamond,
and then the Citadel and chief works were built. Two monuments,
however, record the greatest events in its history. The Wolfe-Montcalm
monument is the chief, erected just behind the Dufferin Terrace, in a
little green enclosure known as the "Governor's Garden," recording the
result of the greatest battle fought in Colonial America, the fateful
contest in 1759, on the Plains of Abraham, where both commanders fell,
which changed the sovereignty of Canada from France to England, and
the crowning victory of the "Seven Years' War," which Parkman says
"began the history of the United States." This is a plain shaft,
almost without ornamentation, and bears the names of both Generals.
The other monument is the little stone set up in the face of the cliff
on the river-front below the citadel, marking where the American
General Montgomery fell, in the winter of 1775. He had crossed the St.
Lawrence on the ice, and in imitation of Wolfe's previous exploit,
rashly tried to scale the almost perpendicular cliff with a handful of
troops, but was defeated and slain. Wolfe's successful ascent of the
bluff in 1759 had been made from the river three miles above Quebec,
at what is now known as Wolfe's Cove, where the timber ships load. A
little stream makes a ravine in the bank, and Wolfe and his intrepid
followers, having floated down from above with the tide, landed and
climbed through this gorge, the route they took being at present a
steep road ascending the face of the bluff among the trees, a small
flag-staff being planted at the top. The Plains of Abraham--so called
from Abraham Martin, a pilot living there--are now occupied by the
modern residences of the city and the massive buildings of the Quebec
Provincial Parliament. There is also a prison, and near it a monument
marking where Wolfe fell, being the second column erected, the first
having been carried away piecemeal by relic-hunters. Upon it is the
inscription: "Here died Wolfe victorious, Sept. 13, 1759." This marks
the most famous event in the history of the great fortress. Wolfe had
evidently a premonition. A young midshipman who was in the boat with
him, as they floated on the river at midnight to the ravine, told
afterwards how Wolfe, in a low voice, repeated Gray's _Elegy in a
Country Churchyard_ to the officers about him, including the line his
own fate was soon to illustrate, "The paths of glory lead but to the
grave," saying, as the recital ended, "Gentlemen, I would rather have
written those lines than take Quebec." William Pitt, describing the
great result of the battle, said, "The horror of the night, the
precipice scaled by Wolfe, the empire he, with a handful of men,
added to England, and the glorious catastrophe of contentedly
terminating life where his fame began--ancient story may be ransacked
and ostentatious philosophy thrown into the account, before an episode
can be found to rank with Wolfe's."