Various streets and stairways mount the great Quebec rock in zigzags,
and there is also an inclined-plane passenger elevator. In the Lower
Town, the narrow streets display quaint old French houses with
queer-looking porches and oddly-built steps, high steep roofs, tall
dormer windows and capacious stone chimneys. The French population
cluster in the Lower Town and along St. Charles River. Churches and
religious houses seem distributed everywhere. The great Catholic
establishments are prominent in the Upper Town, nearly all founded in
the seventeenth century. The Holy Father at Rome, recognizing the
exalted position Quebec occupies in the Church, has made its
Cathedral, like the patriarchal churches of Rome, a Basilica, its
Archbishop being a Cardinal. It occupies the place of the first church
built by Champlain, is not very large, but is magnificently decorated
and contains fine paintings. Within are buried Champlain and
Frontenac, and the great Bishop Laval de Montmorency. Adjoining is the
palace of the Cardinal Archbishop, who is the Canadian Primate. Also
adjoining are the spacious buildings of the Seminary, founded and
richly endowed by Laval,--one of the wealthiest institutions and most
extensive landowners of Quebec Province. This is still regarded as the
controlling power of the Church in Lower Canada, as it has been for
two centuries. There is also a Cathedral of the Church of England, a
smaller and plain building, where the war-worn battle-flags of the
British troops, carried in the Crimea, hang in the chancel, and the
fine communion service was presented by King George III. Here is also
the memorial of the early Anglican bishop of Quebec, Jacob Mountain,
of whom it was said he happened to be in the presence of that king
when the king expressed doubt as to who should be appointed bishop of
the new See of Quebec, then just created. Said Dr. Mountain, "If your
Majesty had faith there would be no difficulty." "How so?" asked the
king; whereupon Mountain answered, "If you had faith you would say to
this Mountain, be thou removed into that See, and it would be done."
It was; Quebec getting a most excellent bishop, who labored over
thirty years there, dying in 1825. There are also the splendid
building of Laval University, one of the first educational
institutions of the Dominion; the Hotel Dieu, and Ursuline Convent
originally started by Madame de la Peltrie, in the Upper Town.
These establishments all had their origin in the religious enthusiasm
attending the settlement of Canada, in which France took great pride,
although Voltaire afterwards derided it as "Fifteen hundred leagues of
frozen country." From Sillery, where the first Jesuit Mission was
founded, went out the zealous missionaries and martyrs, who followed
the Hurons into the depths of the forest, and sought to reclaim the
Iroquois, as has been well said, "with toil too great to buy the
kingdoms of this world, but very small as a price for the Kingdom of
Heaven." From Sillery went the Jesuit Fathers, who explored all
America, and also Jogues, Brébeuf, Lalemont, and others, to martyrdom
in founding the primitive Canadian mission church. It was also the
religious French women as well as the devoted men, who laid so deep
and strong the pious foundation of Canada. Little do we really know of
the nun, who in her religious devotion practically buries herself
alive. Down in the Lower Town, near the Champlain Market, originally
lived the first colony of Ursuline nuns, who came out with Madame de
la Peltrie to teach and nurse the Indians. She afterwards left them,
as already stated, and went to help settle Montreal. Later their
establishment was removed to the Upper Town, where it now has an
impressive array of buildings, with about fifty nuns, who educate most
of the leading Quebec young ladies. The great success of this Order
was due to its Superioress, Marie Gruyart, known as Mother Marie de
l'Incarnation, a remarkable woman, who mastered the Huron and
Algonquin languages, and devoted herself and her nuns to the
special work of educating Indian girls, being called by Bossuet the
"St. Theresa of the New World." In the shrines of this convent are
relics of St. Clement Martyr, and other saints, brought from the Roman
Catacombs. Its most famous possession is the remains of Montcalm, who
was carried mortally wounded from the battlefield into the convent to
die. His skull is preserved in a casket covered with glass, and is
regarded with the greatest veneration. His body is buried in the
chapel, and his grave is said to have been dug by a shell which burst
there during the fierce bombardment preceding his death. This convent
has had a chequered history, being repeatedly bombarded, and twice
burnt during attacks on the city, and at times occupied as barracks by
the troops of both friend and foe. Of late, however, the lives of
these sisters of St. Ursula have been more tranquil.
[Illustration: _Montcalm's Headquarters, Quebec_]
The most extensive collection of religious buildings is the Convent
and Hospital of the Hotel Dieu, in the Upper Town. There are some
sixty cloistered nuns of this Order, founded in 1639 by Cardinal
Richelieu's niece, the Duchess d'Aguillon. They care for the sick and
infirm poor, their hospital accommodating over six hundred. The oldest
structure dates from 1654, and much of the collection is over two
centuries old. The most precious relics in their convent are the
remains of two of the Jesuit martyrs who went out from Sillery,
Fathers Brébeuf and Lalemont. There is a silver bust of the former,
and his skull is carefully preserved. Jean de Brébeuf was a Norman of
noble birth, who came out with Champlain, and he and Lalemont were
sent on a mission beyond Ontario to the Huron country, establishing
the mission town of St. Ignace, near Niagara River. They lived sixteen
years with these Indians, learning their language, and gaining great
influence over them. The Iroquois from New York attacked and captured
the town in 1649, taking the missionaries captive and putting them to
death with frightful tortures. Brébeuf, who frequently had celestial
visions, always announced his belief that he would die a martyr for
Christ. The story of his torture is one of the most horrible in the
colonial wars. He was bound to a stake and scorched from head to foot;
his lower lip was cut away, and a red-hot iron thrust down his throat.
They hung a necklace of glowing coals around his neck, which the
indomitable priest stood heroically; they poured boiling water over
his head and face in mockery of baptism; cut strips of flesh from his
limbs, eating them before his eyes, scalped him, cut open his breast
and drank his blood, then filled his eyes with live coals, and after
four hours of torture, finally killed him by tearing out his heart,
which the Indian chief at once devoured. The writer recording this
terrible ordeal says, "Thus died Jean de Brébeuf, the founder of the
Huron mission, its truest hero, and its greatest martyr. He came of a
noble race,--the same, it is said, from which sprang the English Earls
of Arundel, but never had the mailed barons of his line confronted a
fate so appalling, with so prodigious a constancy. To the last he
refused to flinch, and his death was the astonishment of his
murderers." Gabriel Lalemont, his colleague, was a delicate young man,
and was tortured seventeen hours, bearing the torments nobly, and
though at times faltering, yet he would rally, and with uplifted hands
offer his sufferings to heaven as a sacrifice. His bones are preserved
in the Hotel Dieu. The burning of St. Ignace village dispersed the
Hurons, but years afterwards a remnant was gathered by the Jesuit
Fathers, and their descendants are at Lorette, up St. Charles River.
From the Ursuline Convent the Champlain Steps lead down the cliff to
the Champlain Market, having alongside it the ancient little church of
Notre Dame des Victoires. This is a plain stone church of moderate
size, built in 1688 as the church of Notre Dame, on the site of
Champlain's house. The interior, which has had modern renovation,
displays rich gilding, and the church's interesting history is told by
two angels hovering over the chancel, each bearing a banner, one
inscribed "1690" and the other "1711." The fiery Count de Frontenac,
who was Louis XIV.'s Governor of Quebec, had ravaged the New England
colonies, and in 1690, shortly after the church was built, Sir William
Phips, from Massachusetts, retaliated. The Iroquois, who were English
allies, menaced Montreal, and all the French troops were sent thither.
Suddenly, in October, Phips and his fleet appeared in the St. Lawrence
below Quebec. Urgent messages were sent the troops to return, and the
devout Ursuline nuns prayed for deliverance with such fervor in the
little church, that Phips was struck with a phase of indecision,
wasted his time, summoned the town to surrender, a message which the
bold Frontenac spurned, and then, without making an attack, Phips
wasted more time, until the French troops did return, so that when the
demonstration was made it was successfully repulsed, and after
repeated disasters Phips and his fleet sailed back to New England.
Great was the rejoicing in Quebec, a thanksgiving procession singing
Te Deums marched to the little church, and then the Bishop, with an
elaborate ceremonial, changed its name to Notre Dame de la Victoire.
Twenty-one years afterwards, in 1711, another British invading force
came up the river under Sir Hovenden Walker, and again the
intercession of Notre Dame was implored. The reassuring answer quickly
came by fog and storm, producing dire disaster to the fleet, eight
ships being wrecked and many hundreds drowned. Quebec again was saved;
there was the wildest rejoicing, and in honor of the double triumph
the church was re-named as Notre Dame des Victoires. An annual
religious festival is held on the fourth Sunday in October to
commemorate these miraculous deliverances. But the famous little
church was not always to escape unscathed. One of the Ursuline nuns
prophesied that it would ultimately be destroyed by the British, who
would finally conquer, and when Wolfe's batteries bombarded Quebec in
1759 it severely suffered. It was repaired, and exists to-day as one
of the most precious relics in the ancient city, in its oldest
quarter, adjoining the market-place, and revered with all the
unquestioning devotion of the _habitan_.