Chapter III: The "ancient Capital." (8)

As to the doings of the press gangs in the Lower Town and suburbs,
I can speak from what I saw more than once. Impressing seamen
lasted at Quebec from 1807, until after the battle of Waterloo.
The terror these sea-faring gentlemen created was great. I
remember a fine young fellow who refused to surrender, being shot
through the back with a holster pistol and dying of the wound,
this was in 1807. I can name the following as being seized by
press gangs * * * * * Soon ruses were resorted to by the gay
fellows who wandered after night fall in quest of amusement in the
highways and byways. Her Majesty's soldiers were, of course,
exempt of being impressed into the naval service; so, that our
roving city youths would either borrow coats, or get some made,
similar to the soldiers', to elude the press gang. These ruses
were, however, soon stopped, the press gang, having secured the
services of two city constables, Rosa and ------, who could spot
every city youth and point out the counterfeits.

R. URQUHART.

Quebec, 1st August, 1876.

Parallel with St. Peter street, runs Notre Dame street, which leads us to the little Church of the Lower Town, named Notre Dame de la Victoire, in remembrance of the victory achieved in 1690 over Sir William Phipps. This church was, at a later period, called "Notre Dame des Victoires," in commemoration of the dispersion by a storm of Admiral Walker's squadron, in 1711. Bishop Laval had projected the erection of this modest little church, but the building of it was performed in 1688, under the auspices of his successor, Bishop St. Vallier, out of funds provided by the Lower Town ladies. The corner of these streets (St. Peter and Sous-le-Fort streets) is probably the site of the "Abitation," close to the walks and garden plots where Champlain cultivated roses and carnations, about the year 1615.

Fronting the Church of "Notre Dame des Victoires," and on the site now occupied as Blanchard's Hotel, the ladies of the Ursulines, in 1639, found a refuge in a humble residence, a sort of shop or store, owned at that period by the Sieur Juchereau des Châtelets, at the foot of the path (_sentier_), leading up to the mountain (foot of Mountain street), and where the then Governor, M. de Montmagny, as is related, sent them their first Quebec meal.

The locality possesses other pleasant memories: the good, the youthful, the beautiful Madame de Champlain, about the year 1620, here catechised and instructed, under the shade of the trees, the young Huron Indians, in the principles of Christianity. History has related their surprise and joy on seeing their features reflected in the small mirror which their benefactress wore suspended at her side, "close to her heart," as they said, according to the then prevailing custom.

In 1682 a conflagration broke out in the Lower Town, which, besides the numerous vaults and stores, reduced into ashes a considerable portion of the buildings. Denonville, on the 20th August, 1685, wrote to Paris, asking His Most Christian Majesty to contribute 200 crowns worth of leather fire-buckets, and in 1691 the historical Dutch pump was imported to throw water on fires. At a later period, 1688, "Notre Dame de la Victoire" Church was begun on part of the ruins. Let us open the second volume of the "_Cours d'Histoire du Canada_," by the Abbé Ferland, and let us read: "Other ruins existed in 1684, in the commercial centre of the Lower Town; these ruins consisted of blackened and dilapidated walls. Champlain's old warehouse, which, from the hands of the Company (_Compagnie de la Nouvelle France_), had passed into those of the King (Louis XIV.), had remained in the same state as when left after the great fire which, some years previously, had devastated the Lower Town."

In 1684 Monseigneur de Laval obtained this site or _emplacement_ from M. de la Barre for the purpose of erecting a supplementary chapel for the use of the inhabitants in the Lower Town. This gift, however, was ratified only later, in favor of M. de St. Valier, in the month of September, 1685. Messieurs de Denonville and de Meules caused a clear and plain title or patent of this locality to be issued for the purpose of erecting a church which, in the course of time, was built by the worthy Bishop and named "Notre Dame de la Victoire." The landing for small craft, in the vicinity of the old market (now the Finlay [94] Market), was called "La Place du Débarquement," or simply "La Place."

It is in this vicinity, a little to the west, under the silent shade of a wood near the garden which Champlain had laid out, that the historical interview, in 1608, which saved the colony, took place. The secret was of the greatest importance; it is not to be wondered at if Champlain's trusty pilot, Captain Testu, deemed it proper to draw the founder of Quebec aside into the neighbouring wood and make known to him the villanous plot which one of the accomplices, Antoine Natel, lock-smith, had first disclosed to him under the greatest secrecy. The chief of the conspiracy was one Jean du Val, who had come to the country with Champlain.

In rear of and parallel to St. Peter street, a new and wide street, called after one of the Governors of Canada--Dalhousie street--was opened recently, and promises to be before long the leading commercial artery. Several extensive warehouses have been erected on Dalhousie street since it was opened to the public, in 1877, by the city Corporation purchasing from St. James street to St. Andrew's wharf a strip of land, of 60 feet in breadth, from the landed proprietors of this neighbourhood. At the south- western extremity a noble dry goods store has just been erected by Mr. George Alford; it is four stories high, 155 feet long and 72 feet wide, and faces on Dalhousie, Laporte, Union Lane and Finlay Market. It is occupied by a wealthy and ancient dry goods firm, founded in Montreal about 1810, with a branch in Quebec, in 1825. The original founders were Messrs. Robertson, Masson & Larocque; this firm was subsequently changed to Robertson, Masson, Strang & Co., to Masson, Bruyère, Thibaudeau & Co., to Langevin, Thibaudeau, Bruyère & Co., to Thibaudeau, Thomas & Co., to Thibaudeau, Généreux & Co., and finally to Thibaudeau Frères & Co., at Quebec; Thibaudeau Bros. & Co., Montreal; Thibaudeau Bros. & Co., London, Manchester and Manitoba.

In the early days of the colony, the diminutive market space, facing the front of Notre Dame Church, Lower Town, as well as the Upper Town Market, was used for the infliction of corporal punishment, or the pillory, or the execution of culprits.

On the area facing the Lower Town Church on Notre Dame street, the plan of the city, drawn by the engineer, Jean François or Jehan Bourdon, in 1641, shows a bust of Louis XIII., long since removed; this market, which dates from the earliest times of the colony, as well as the vacant area (until recently the Upper Town market, facing the Basilica), was used as a place for corporal punishment, and for the exhibition in the pillory of public malefactors.

"Among the incidents," says Mr. T. P. Bédard, "which claimed the privilege of exciting the curiosity of the good folks of Quebec (then 1680, inhabited by 1,345 souls,) was reckoned the case of Jean Rathier, charged with murdering a girl of eighteen--Jeanne Couc. The case had been tried at Three Rivers, and Rathier sentenced to have his legs broken [95] with an iron bar, and afterwards to be hung. Judgment had been confirmed. An unforseen hitch arose: the official hangman was dead; how then was Rathier to be hung? The officers of justice cut the Gordian knot, by tendering to Rathier, in lieu of the halter, the position, little envied, of hangman. He accepted. Some years after, the wife and the daughter of Rathier were accused and found guilty as accomplices in a robbery; the daughter, as the receiver of the stolen goods, was sentenced to be whipped, but in secret, at the General Hospital by the nun appointed Provost Marshal (_Maitress de Discipline_), and the mother was also adjudged to be whipped, but publicly in the streets of the city. This incident furnished the singular and ludicrous spectacle of a husband publicly whipping his wife with impunity to himself, as he was acting under the authority of justice."-- (_Première Administration de Frontenac_, _p._ 39.)

The whip and pillory did not go out with the old _régime_. The _Quebec Gazette_ of 19th June, 1766, mentions the whipping, on the Upper and Lower Town markets, of Catherine Berthrand and Jeanotte Blaize, by the hand of the executioneer, for having "borrowed" (a pretty way of describing petty larceny), a silver spoon from a gentleman of the town, without leave or without intention of returning it.

For male reprobates, such as Jean May and Louis Bruseau, whose punishment for petty larceny is noted in the Gazette of 11th August, 1766, the whipping was supplemented with a walk--tied at the cart's tail--from the Court House door to St. Roch and back to the Court House. May had to whip Bruseau and Bruseau had to whip May the day following, at ten in the morning.

Let us revert to Captain Testu's doings. The plot was to strangle Champlain, pillage the warehouse, and afterwards betake themselves to the Spanish and Basque vessels, laying at Tadousac. As, at that period, no Court of Appeals existed in "_la Nouvelle France_"--far less was a "Supreme Court" thought of--the trial of the chief of the conspiracy was soon dispatched says Champlain, and the Sieur Jean du Val was "_presto_ well and duly hanged and strangled at Quebec aforesaid, and his head affixed to the top of a pike-staff planted on the highest eminence of the Fort." The ghastly head of this traitor, on the end of a pike-staff, near Notre Dame street, must certainly have had a sinister effect at twilight.

But the brave Captain Testu, the saviour of Champlain and of Quebec--what became of him? Champlain has done him the honour of naming him; here the matter ended. Neither monument, nor poem, nor page of history in his honour; nothing was done in the way of commemorating his devotion. As in the instance of the illustrious man, whose life he had saved, his grave is unknown. According to the Abbé Tanguay, none of his posterity exist at this day.

During the siege of 1759, we notice in _Panet's Journal_, "that the Lower Town was a complete mass of smoking ruins; on the 8th August, it was a burning heap (_braisier_). Wolfe and Saunders' bombshells had found their way even to the under-ground vaults. This epoch became disastrous to many Quebecers." The English threw bombs (_pots à feu_) on the Lower Town, of which, says Mr. Panet, "one fell on my house, one on the houses in the Market place, and the last in Champlain street. The fire burst out simultaneously, in three different directions; it was in vain to attempt to cut off or extinguish the fire at my residence; a gale was blowing from the north-east, and the Lower Town was soon nothing less than a blazing mass. Beginning at my house, that of M. Desery, that of M. Maillou, Sault- au-Matelot street, the whole of the Lower Town and all the quarter _Cul- de-Sac_ up to the property of Sieur Voyer, which was spared, and in short up to the house of the said Voyer, the whole was devastated by fire. Seven vaults [96] had been rent to pieces or burned: that of M. Perrault the younger, that of M. Taché, of M. Benjamin de la Mordic, of Jehaune, of Maranda. You may judge of the consternation which reigned; 167 houses had been burnt."

One hundred and sixty-seven burnt houses would create many gaps. We know the locality on which stood the warehouse of M. Perrault, junior, also that of M. Taché (the _Chronicle Bureau_), but who can point out to us where stood the houses of Desery, Maillou, Voyer, de Voisy, and the vaults of Messieurs Benjamin de la Mordic, Jehaune, Maranda?

It is on record that Champlain, after his return to Quebec, in 1633, "had taken care to refit a battery which he had planted on a level with the river near the warehouse, the guns of which commanded the passage between Quebec and the opposite shore." [97] Now, in 1683, "this cannon battery, erected in the Lower Town, almost surrounded on all sides by houses, stood at some distance from the edge of the river, and caused some inconvenience to the public; the then Governor, Lefebvre de la Barre [98] having sought out a much more advantageous locality towards the Point of Rocks (_Pointe des Roches_) west of the _Cul-de-Sac_, [99] and on the margin of the said river at high-water mark, which would more efficiently command and sweep the harbour, and which would cause far less inconvenience to the houses in the said Lower Town," considered it fit to remove the said battery, and the Reverend Jesuit Fathers having proposed to contribute towards the expenses which would be incurred in so doing, he made them a grant "of a portion of the lot of ground (_emplacement_) situated in front of the site on which is now planted the said cannon battery, * * * * between the street or high road for wheeled vehicles coming from the harbour [100] and the so-called St. Peter street."

Here then we have the origin of the Napoleon wharf and a very distinct mention of St. Peter street. The building erected near this site was sold on the 22nd October, 1763, to William Grant, Esquire, who, on the 19th December, 1763, also purchased the remainder of the ground down to low- water mark, from Thomas Mills, Esquire, Town Major, who had shortly before obtained a grant or patent of it, the 7th December, 1763, from Governor Murray, in recognition, as is stated in the preamble of the patent, of his military services. This property which, at a later period, belonged to the late William Burns, was by him conveyed, the 16th October, 1806, to the late J. M. Woolsey. The Napoleon wharf, purchased in 1842 by the late Julien Chouinard from the late Frs. Buteau, forms at present part of the Estate Chouinard; in reality, it is composed of two wharves joined into one; the western portion is named "The Queen's Wharf," and was Mr. Woolsey's property.

The highway which leads from the Cape towards this wharf is named "Sous- le-Fort" street, which sufficiently denotes its position; this street, the oldest, probably dates from the year 1620, when the foundations of Fort St. Louis were laid; we may presume that, in 1663, the street terminated at "la Pointe des Roches." In the last century "Sous-le-Fort" street was graced by the residences, among others, of Fleury de la Jannière, brother of Fleury de la Gorgendière, brother-in-law of the Governor de Vaudreuil.

In this street also stood the house of M. George Allsop, [101] the head of the opposition in Governor Cramahé's Council. His neighbour was M. d'Amours des Plaines, Councillor of the Superior Council; further on, stood the residence of M. Cuvillier, the father of the Honorable Austin Cuvillier, in 1844 Speaker of the House of Assembly. In this street also existed the warehouse of M. Cugnet, the lessee of the Domaine of Labrador.

We must not confound the Napoleon wharf, sold by J. O. Brunet to Francois Buteau, with the Queen's wharf, the property of the late J. W. Woolsey. On the Queen's wharf, in a dwelling, since converted into a tavern, in 1846 one of the wittiest members of the Quebec Bar, Auguste Soulard, Esq., opened a law office for the especial convenience of his numerous country clients. After office hours it was the rendezvous of many young barristers, who have since made their mark: Messieurs T. Fournier, Justice of the Supreme Court; A. Plamondon, Judge of the Superior Court; N. Casault, Judge of the Superior Court; Jean Taché, Frederick Braun, L. Fiset, J. M. Hudon and others. From the king's wharf to the king's forges (the ruins of which were discovered at the beginning of the century, a little further up than the king's store), there are but a few steps.

François Bellet, M.P. for the county of Buckingham from 1815 to 1820, resided on the property of the late Julien Chouinard, at the corner of St. Peter and Sous-le-Fort streets. He combined parliamentary duties, it seems, with a sea-faring life, being styled "Capitaine de Bâtiment" in a power of attorney before Martin A. Dumas, N.P., at Quebec, dated 9th September, 1796, in which as attorney and agent for Revd. "Messire Louis Payet, prêtre, curé de la paroisse de St. Antoine, au Nord de la Rivière Richelieu," he sells to Monsieur Thomas Lee, later on an M.P.P., his negro slave, named Rose, for the sum of "500 livres et vingt sols,"--about $100 of our currency. The traffic in human flesh became extinct in Canada in 1803 by legislative enactment. The bluest blood of our Southern neighbours was shed to keep it up in the model Republic sixty years subsequently. [102] In the space between the Queen's wharf and the jetty on the west, belonging to the Imperial authorities and called the king's wharf, there existed a bay or landing place, much prized by our ancestors, which afforded a harbour for the coasting vessels and small river crafts, called the "_Cul-de-Sac_." There, also, the ships which were overtaken by an early winter lingered until the sunny days of April released them from their icy fetters. There the ships were put into winter quarters, and securely bedded on a foundation or bed of clay; wrecked vessels also came hither to undergo repairs. The _Cul-de-Sac_, with its uses and marine traditions, had, in by-gone days, an important function in our incomparable sea-port. In this vicinity, Vaudreuil, in 1759, planted a battery.

The old Custom House (now the Department of Marine), was built on this site in 1833. In 1815 the Custom House was on McCallum's wharf. The _Cul-de-Sac_ recalls "the first chapel which served as a Parish Church at Quebec," that which Champlain caused to be built in the Lower Town in 1615, where the name of Champlain is identified with the street which was bounded by this chapel. The Revd. Fathers Récollets there performed their clerical functions up to the period of the taking of Quebec by the brothers Kertk, that is from 1615 to 1629, (Laverdière.)

Nothing less than the urgent necessity of providing the public with a convenient market-place, and the small coasting steamers with suitable wharves, could move the municipal authorities to construct the wharves now existing, and there, in 1856, to erect out of the materials of the old Parliament House, the spacious Champlain Hall, so conspicuous at present. The king's wharf and the king's stores, two hundred and fifty feet in length, with a guard house, built on the same site in 1821, possess also their marine and military traditions. The "Queen's Own" volunteers, Capt. Rayside, were quartered there during the stirring times of 1837-38, when "Bob Symes" dreamed each night of a new conspiracy against the British crown, and M. Aubin perpetuated, in his famous journal "_Le Fantasque_" the memory of this loyal magistrate.

How many saucy frigates, how many proud English Admirals, have made fast their boats at the steps of this wharf! Jacques Cartier, Champlain, Nelson, Bourgainville, Cook, Vauclain, Montgomery, Boxer, Sir Rodney Mundy, poor Captain Burgoyne, of the ill-fated iron-clad _Captain_, Sir Leopold McClintock, [103] have, one after the other, trodden over this picturesque landing place, commanded as it is by the guns of Cape Diamond. Since about a century, the street which bears the venerated name of the founder of Quebec, Champlain street, unmindful of its ancient Gallic traditions, is almost exclusively the headquarters of our Hibernian population. An ominous-looking black-board, affixed to one of the projecting rocks of the Cape, indicates the spot below where one of their countrymen, Brigadier-General Richard Montgomery, with his two _aides- de-camp_, Cheeseman and McPherson, received their death wounds during a violent snow storm about five o'clock in the morning, the 31st December, 1775. On this disastrous morning the post was guarded by Canadian militiamen, Messieurs Chabot and Picard. Captain Barnesfare, an English mariner, had pointed the cannon; Coffin and Sergeant Hugh McQuarters applied the match. At the eastern extremity, under the stairs, now styled "Breakneck Steps," according to Messrs. Casgrain and Laverdière, was discovered Champlain's tomb, though a rival antiquary, M. S. Drapeau, says that he is not certain of this. [104]

A little to the west is Cap Blanc, inhabited by a small knot of French- Canadians and some Irish; near by, was launched in October, 1750, the _Orignal_, a King's ship, built at Quebec; at that period the lily flag of France floated over the bastions of Cape Diamond; the _Orignal_, in being launched, broke her back and sank. Among the notabilities of Cap Blanc, one is bound to recall the athletic stevedore and pugilist, Jacques Etienne Blais. Should the fearless man's record not reach remote posterity, pointing him out as the Tom Sayers of Cap Blanc, it cannot fail to be handed down as the benefactor of the handsome new church of Notre Dame de la Garde, erected on the shore in 1878, the site of which was munificently given by him on the 17th June, 1877. Jacques Blais, now (1881) very aged, though still vigorous, in his best days by his prowess re-called that prince of Quebec raftsmen so graphically delineated by Chas Lanman.

Champlain street stretches nearly to Cap Rouge, a distance of six miles. During the winter the fall of an avalanche from the brow of the Cape on the houses beneath is a not unfrequent occurrence. In former years, in the good time of ship-building, the laying the keel of a large vessel in the ship-yards often brought joy to the hearts of the poor ship-carpenters; many of whose white, snug cottages are grouped along the river near by.

Except during the summer months, when the crews of the ships, taking in cargo alongside the booms, sing, fight and dance in the adjacent "shebeens," the year glides on peacefully. On grand, on gala days, in election times, some of the sons of St. Patrick used to perambulate the historical street, flourishing treenails, or _shillaleghs_--in order to _preserve the peace!!!_ of course. To sum up all, Champlain street has an aspect altogether _sui generis_.

A QUEBEC PORTRAIT

(From the ATLANTIC MONTHLY.)

"Physical size and grand proportions are looked upon by the French-
Canadians with great respect. In all the cases of popular
_émeutes_ that have from time to time broken out in Lower Canada,
the fighting leaders of the people were exceptional men, standing head
and shoulders over their confiding followers. Where gangs of raftsmen
congregate, their 'captains' may be known by superior stature. The
doings of their 'big men' are treasured by the French-Canadians in
traditionary lore. One famous fellow of this governing class is known
by his deeds and words to every lumberer and stevedore and timber-
tower about Montreal and Quebec. This man, whose name was Joe
Monfaron, was the bully of the Ottawa raftsmen. He was about six feet
six inches high, and proportionally broad and deep; and I remember how
people would turn round to look after him, as he came pounding along
Notre Dame street, in Montreal, in his red shirt and tan-colored
_shupac_ boots, all dripping wet, after mooring an acre or two of
raft, and now bent for his ashore haunts in the Ste. Marie suburb, to
indemnify himself with bacchanalian and other consolations for long-
endured hardship. Among other feats of strength attributed to him, I
remember the following, which has an old, familiar taste, but was
related to me as a fact:

"There was a fighting stevedore or timber-tower, I forget which, at
Quebec, who had never seen Joe Monfaron, as the latter seldom came
farther down the river than Montreal. This fighting character,
however, made a custom of laughing to scorn all the rumors that came
down on rafts, every now and then, about terrible chastisements
inflicted by Joe upon several hostile persons at once. He, the
fighting timber-tower, hadn't found his match yet about the lumber
coves at Quebec, and he only wanted to see Joe Monfaron once, when he
would settle the question as to the championship of rafts, on sight.
One day a giant in a red shirt stood suddenly before him, saying--

"'You're Dick Dempsey, eh?'

"'That's me.' replied the timber-tower, 'and who are you?'

"'Joe Monfaron. I heard you wanted me--here I am,' was the Caesarean
answer of the great captain of rafts.

"'Ah! you're Joe Monfaron!" said the bully, a little staggered at the
sort of customer he saw before him. 'I said I'd like to see you, for
sure, but how am I to know you're the right man?'

"'Shake hands first,' replied Joe, 'and then you will find out, may
be.'

"They shook hands--rather warmly, perhaps, for the timber-tower, whose
features wore an uncertain expression during the operation, and who at
last broke out into a yell of pain, as Joe cast him off with a defiant
laugh. Nor did the bully wait for any further explanations, for,
whether the man who had just brought the blood spouting out at the
tops of his fingers was Joe Monfaron or not, he was clearly an ugly
customer, and had better be left alone.

The St. Lawrence, its rafts of timber, raftsmen, _voyageurs_ and their songs, are pleasantly alluded to by a sympathetic French writer of note, X. Marmier, [105] who visited Canada some thirty years ago:

"On the St. Lawrence, traversed by steamboats, by vessels heavily
laden, and by light bark canoes, we may see early in the season
immense rafts of timber that are brought down from the dense northern
forests, hewn where they are felled, drawn to the rivers upon the
snow, and made up into rafts. The Canadian crews erect masts and
spread their sails, and by the aid of wind and current, and sometimes
by rowing, they boldly guide these acres of fir down the rapids to
Quebec, while they animate their labours with the melody of their
popular songs. A part would intone the Canadian song

"A la Claire Fontaine,"

while the others, repeating the last two lines, would at the same time
let drop their oars as those of the former arose.

"There is probably no river on earth that has heard so many vows of
love as the St. Lawrence; for there is not a Canadian boatman that has
ever passed up or down the river without repeating, as the blade of
his oar dropped into the stream, and as it arose, the national
refrain.

"Il y a longtemps que je t'aime,
Jamais je ne t'oublierai!"

"Long time have I loved thee,
Never will I forget thee!"

"And I will here say that there is a harmonious sweetness in these
simple words, that well accords with the simple yet imposing character
of the scenery of this charming region.

"Upon our coquettish rivers in Europe they may whisper of loves along
their flowery banks and under the vine-clad terraces that overhang
them, like the curtains of a saloon; but here, in this grand severity
of nature, upon these immense, half desert plains, in the silence of
these gloomy forests, on the banks of this majestic river that is ever
speeding onward to the eternal ocean, we may feel emotions that are
truly sublime. If, in this quiet solitude, should we open the soul to
a dream of love, it takes the serious tone; it needs must be a pure
being that dares to breathe to the heavens and to the waves these
sacred words, 'I love thee,' and that can add the promise and the
pledge of the Canadian song:

"Jamais je ne t'oublierai."
"Ne'er will I forget thee!" [106]

Among the streets of Quebec, most celebrated in our annals by reason of the incidents which attach thereto, one may name the frowsy and tortuous highway which circulates from the foot of Mountain Hill, running for a distance of two hundred feet below the Cape, up to the still narrower pathway which commences west of St. James street and leads to the foot of the hill "_de la canoterie_;" [107] all will understand we mean the leading commercial thoroughfare of olden time, [108] Sault-au-Matelot street. Is it because a sailor, no doubt only partially relieved from the horrors of sobriety, there made a wild leap? or are we to attribute the name to the circumstance of a dog named "Matelot" ("Sailor") there taking a leap? [109] Consult _Du Creux_. Our friend, Joseph Marmette, appropriated it for the reception of his hero, "Dent de Loup," who escaped without broken bones after his leap. [110]

The western portion of the still narrower pathway of which we have just spoken, rejoices in the name of "Ruelle des Chiens," (Dog Lane); [111] the directories name it Sous-le-Cap street. It is so narrow that, at certain angles, two carts passing in opposite directions, would be blocked. Just picture to yourself that up to the period of 1816, our worthy ancestors had no other outlet in this direction at high water to reach St. Roch, (for St. Paul street was constructed subsequently to 1816, as M. de Gaspé has informed us.) Is it not incredible? As, in certain passes of the Alps, a watchman no doubt stood at either extremity of this lane, provided with a speaking trumpet to give notice of any obstruction and thus prevent collisions. This odoriferous locality, especially during the dog-days, is rather densely populated. The babes of Green Erin, with a sprinkling of young Jean Baptistes, here flourish like rabbits in a warren. Miss Kitty Ellison and her friend. Mr. Arbuton, in their romantic wanderings, were struck with the _mise en scène_ of Dog Lane:--

"Now that Prescott Gate, by which so many thousands of Americans have
entered Quebec since Arnold's excursionists failed to do so, is
demolished, there is nothing left so picturesque and characteristic as
Hope Gate (alas! since razed), and I doubt if anywhere in Europe there
is a more mediaeval-looking bit of military architecture. The heavy
stone gateway is black with age, and the gate, which has probably
never been closed in our century, is of massive frame, set thick with
mighty bolts and spikes. The wall here sweeps along the brow of the
crag on which the city is built, and a steep street drops down, by
stone-parapeted curves and angles, from the Upper to the Lower Town,
when, in 1775, nothing but a narrow lane bordered the St. Lawrence. A
considerable breadth of land has since been won from the river, and
several streets and many piers now stretch between this alley and the
water, but the old Sault-au-Matelot still crouches and creeps along
under the shelter of the city wall and the overhanging rock, which is
thickly bearded with weeds and grass, and trickles with abundant
moisture. It must be an ice pit in winter, and I should think it the
last spot on the continent for the summer to find; but when the summer
has at last found it, the old Sault-au-Matelot puts on a vagabond air
of southern leisure and abandon, not to be matched anywhere out of
Italy. Looking from that jutting rock near Hope Gate, behind which the
defeated Americans took refuge from the fire of their enemies, the
vista is almost unique for a certain scenic squalor and gypsy luxury
of colour--sag-roofed barns and stables, and weak-backed, sunken-
chested workshops of every sort, lounge along in tumble-down
succession, and lean up against the cliff in every imaginable posture
of worthlessness and decrepitude, light wooden galleries cross to them
from the second stories of the houses which back upon the alley, and
over these galleries flutters from a labyrinth of clothes-lines a
variety of bright-coloured garments of all ages, sexes and conditions,
while the footway underneath abounds in gossiping women, smoking men,
idle poultry, cats, children, and large, indolent Newfoundland dogs."
--(_A Chance Acquaintance_, p, 175.)

Adventurous tourists who have risked themselves there in the sultry days of July, have found themselves dazed at the sight of the wonders of the place. Among other indigenous curiosities, they have there noticed what might be taken for any number of aerial tents, improvised no doubt as protection from the scorching rays of a meridian sun. Attached to ropes stretched from one side of the public way to the other, was the family linen, hung out to dry. When shaken by the wind over the heads of the passers-by, these articles of white under-clothing (_chemisettes_), flanked by sundry masculine nether-garments, presented a _tableau_, it is said, in the highest degree picturesque. As regards ourselves, desirous from our earliest days to search into the most recondite _arcana_ of the history of our city and to portray them in all their suggestive reality, for the edification of distinguished tourists from England, France and the United States, it has been to us a source of infinite mortification to realize that the only visit which we ever made to Dog Lane was subsequent to the publication of the _Album du Touriste_; a circumstance which explains the omission of it from that repository of Canadian lore. Our most illustrious tourists, [112] the eldest son of the Queen, the Prince of Wales, his brothers, the Princes Alfred and Arthur, the Dukes of Newcastle, of Athol, of Manchester, of Beaufort, of Argyle, of Sutherland, Generals Grant and Sherman, and Prince Napoleon Bonaparte, it is said, took their leave of Quebec without having visited that interesting locality, "_la Ruelle des Chiens_," Sous-le-Cap street, probably unconscious of its very existence! Nevertheless, this street possesses great historical interest. It has re-echoed the trumpet sounds of war, the thundering of cannon, the briskest musketry; there fell Brigadier-General Arnold, wounded in the knee: carried off amid the despairing cries of his soldiers, under the swords of Dambourgès, of the fierce and stalwart Charland, of the brave Caldwell, followed by his friend Nairn and their chivalrous militiamen. Our friends, the annexationists of that period, were so determined to annex Quebec, that they threw themselves as if possessed by the evil one upon the barriers (there were two of them) in Sous-le-Cap street and in Sault-au-Matelot street; each man, says Sanguinet, wearing a slip of paper on his cap on which was written "_Mors aut Victoria_," "Death or Victory!" One hundred years and more have elapsed since this fierce struggle, and we are not yet under Republican rule!

A number of dead bodies lay in the vicinity, on the 31st December, 1775; they were carried to the Seminary. Ample details of the incidents of this glorious day will be found in "QUEBEC PAST AND PRESENT." It is believed that the first barrier was placed at the foot of the stone _demi-lune_, where, at present, a cannon rests on the ramparts; the second was constructed in rear of the present offices of Mr. W. D. Campbell, N.P., in Sault-au-Matelot street.

Sault-au-Matelot street has lost the military renown which it then possessed; besides the offices of M. Ledroit, of the _Morning Chronicle_, and of the timber cullers, it now is a stand for the carters, and a numerous tribe of pork merchants, salmon preservers and coopers, whose casks on certain days encumber the sidewalks.

St. Paul street does not appear on the plan of the city of Quebec of 1660, reproduced by the Abbé Faillon. This quarter of the Lower Town, so populous under the French _régime, and where, according to Monseigneur de Laval, there was, in 1661, "_magnus numerus civium_" continued, until about 1832, to represent the hurry-scurry of affairs and the residences of the principal merchants, one of the wealthiest portions of the city. There, in 1793, the father of our Queen, Colonel of the 7th Fusiliers, then in garrison at Quebec, partook of the hospitality of M. Lymburner, one of the merchant princes of that period. Was the _chère amie_, the elegant _Baronne de St. Laurent_, of the party? We found it impossible to ascertain this from our old friend, Hon. William Sheppard, of Woodfield, near Quebec (who died in 1867), from whom we obtained this incident. Mr. Sheppard, who had frequently been a guest at the most select drawing-rooms of the ancient capital, was himself a contemporary of the generous and jovial Prince Edward.

The Sault-au-Matelot quarter, St. Peter street, and St. James street, down to the year 1832, contained the habitations of a great number of persons in easy circumstances; many of our families of note had their residences there: John Wm. Woolsey, Esq., in 1808, and later on first President of the Quebec Bank; the millionaire auctioneer, Wm. Burns, the god-father to the late George Burns Symes, Esq.; Archbishop Signai--this worthy prelate was born in this street, in a house opposite to La Banque Nationale. Evidences of the luxuriousness of their dwelling rooms are visible to this day, in the panelling of some doors and in decorated ceilings.

Drainage, according to the modern system, was, at that period, almost unknown to our good city. The Asiatic cholera, in 1832, decimated the population: 3,500 corpses, in the course of a few weeks, had gone to their last resting place. This terrible epidemic was the occasion, so to speak, of a social revolution at Quebec; the land on the St. Louis and Ste. Foye roads became much enhanced in value; the wealthy quitted the Lower Town. Commercial affairs, however, still continued to be transacted there, but the residences of merchants were selected in the Upper Town or in the country parts adjacent.

The _Fief Sault-au-Matelot_, which at present belongs to the Seminary, was granted to Guillaume Hébert on the 4th February, 1623, the title of which was ratified by the Due de Ventadour on the last day of February, 1632. On the ground reclaimed from the river, about 1815, Messrs. Munro and Bell, eminent merchants, built wharves and some large warehouses, to which lead "Bell's lane," (so named after the Honorable Matthew Bell) [113] the streets St. James, Arthur, Dalhousie and others. Mr. Bell, at a later period, one of the lessees of the St. Maurice Forges, resided in the house--now St. Lawrence Chambers--situate at the corner of St. James and St. Peter streets, now belonging to Mr. John Greaves Clapham, N. P. Hon. Matthew Bell commanded a troop of cavalry, which was much admired by those warlike gentlemen of 1812--our respected fathers. He left a numerous family, and was related by marriage to the families Montizambert, Bowen, &c. Dalhousie street, in the Lower Town, probably dates from the time of the Earl of Dalhousie (1827), when the "Quebec Exchange" was built by a company of merchants. The extreme point of the Lower Town, towards the northeast, constitutes "La Pointe à Carcy," named after Carcy Pagès, who succeeded to the office of "Guardian of the Harbor," held in 1713 by Louis Pratt. In the offing is situated the wharf, alongside of which the stately frigate _Aurora_, Captain De Horsey, passed the winter of 1866-7. The wharves of the Quebec docks now mark the spot.

The expansion of commerce at the commencement of the present century and increase of population rendered it very desirable that means of communication should be established between the Lower Town and St. Roch, less rugged and inconvenient than the tunnel--Sous-le-Cap lane--and the sandy beach of the river St. Charles at low water. Towards 1816 the northern extremity of St. Peter street was finished, it was previously bounded by a red bridge, well remembered by our very old citizens. The Apostle St. Paul was honoured with a street, as was his colleague, St. Peter. Messrs. Benj. Tremaine, Budden, Morrisson, Parent, Allard and others acquired portions of ground on the north side of this (St. Paul) street, upon which they have erected wharves, offices and large warehouses. Renaud's new block now occupies a portion of the site.

The construction of the North Shore Railway will have the effect, at an early date, of augmenting, in a marked degree, the value of these properties, the greater portion of which now belong to our fellow citizen, M. J. Bte Renaud, who has adorned this portion of the Lower Town with first class buildings. Let us hope that this quarter may flourish, and that our enterprising fellow citizen may prosper in consequence.

Let us join a party of distinguished strangers wending their way through our muddy streets, following a titled tourist, His Highness the Duke of Saxe-Weimar. This noble visitor's rank seems to have been fully recognized, since he was escorted by a guard of honour furnished by the Lt.-Governor, and saluted on his departure by 21 guns. After fifty-five years, the Duke's utterances have yet interest for us, though he seems to have judged harshly the absent Governor-General, the Earl of Dalhousie. [114]

"About eight o'clock in the evening of the 3rd of September, 1825, we
embarked at Montreal on board the steamer _Lady Sherbrooke_ for
Quebec. The banks, which as far as Trois Rivières are pretty low,
become higher and more rocky, particularly on the left side. The
neighborhood is remarkably handsome and picturesque. The majestic
stream with its pleasant banks, and the view of the distant blue
mountains near Quebec, produce an indescribable effect. The weather
was favourable,--a clear, sunny sky and not very warm; in this
northern latitude you can perceive the approaching autumn by the
coolness of the nights and mornings. We reached Quebec at 10 o'clock
in the evening. This city consists of two parts, the Upper Town, which
is built on a rock, and the Lower, which is pressed in between the
river and the rock. The lights in the Lower Town and the
fortifications had an elegant appearance, when contrasted with the
dark rock. The first _coup d'oeil_, which was by night, reminded
me of Namur, as it is seen from the right bank of the Maas. In the
river were many vessels; mostly used for carrying wood. It was already
late, and we should have found difficulty in transporting our baggage
by night, besides other inconveniences in finding lodgings for the
ladies, so we spent the second night also on board the steamboat,
where we were very comfortable and found it cleanly.

"The next morning, after dismissing the guard which the Governor
appointed to escort us, we went to our lodgings in the upper part of
the town. The lower town is very narrow, and has a filthy appearance.
The streets are not paved, and badly provided with sidewalks. The road
which leads to the upper part of the town is very steep. It stands on
a rocky ground, and its fortifications are elevated 300 feet from the
level of the ocean. The upper is separated from the lower town by a
stone wall, which has the form of a horn-work. Through this wall is a
gate, [115] which has a guard; the guard-room is opposite the gate,
and by means of a portcullis defends the entrance. For the convenience
of foot-passengers there is a door [116] near the gate, with wooden
stairs, by ascending which you reach the upper town. On the right of
the gate is a building which resembles a chapel, [117] and serves for
the House of Commons of Canada. In order to get home we were obliged
to go round part of the walls of the town. Even here you have an
indescribably beautiful view of the Bay of Quebec and the right bank
of the river, which has the appearance of a cape, called Point Levi.

"Shortly after our arrival, I received a visit from Colonel Duchesnay,
First Adjutant of the Governor-General, and from [118] Colonel
Durnford, Director of Engineers. The first gentleman came to bid me
welcome in the name of the Governor, and the latter begged to show me
the fortifications. Lord Dalhousie, Governor General of all British
possessions in North America, was at that time in England, but was
expected daily. During his absence, the Government was under the
direction of the Lt.-Governor, Sir Francis Barton, brother of Lord
Conyngham. He is a civilian, but is said to fill his high post with
credit. The good spirit the inhabitants are in, and the harmony that
exists in the colony, are mostly owing to his good management and his
humane and friendly deportment towards them. It is said of Lord
Dalhousie that he has estranged the hearts of the people from himself
and the Government, through his haughty and absolute deportment, and
the Opposition party in the Canadian Parliament has thereby been
strengthened.

"The upper part of the town is very old and angular, the streets are
muddy, and many not paved. Both towns contain about 25,000
inhabitants. The Catholic Cathedral is quite a handsome building, it
has three altars, and paintings of but little value. It is near the
Seminary, an old French building, with massive walls, having four
corners like a bastion. In this Seminary resides the Bishop of Quebec.
We had already been introduced to Bishop Plessis, in the house of Sir
Francis Burton, and found him a very agreeable and well-informed man.
He is the son of a butcher of Montreal, and has elevated himself by
his own merit.

"On the second and last day of my sojourn in Quebec I went to the
parade, escorted by Colonels Durnford and Duchesnay. I was pleasantly
taken by surprise when I found the whole garrison under arms. The
commanding officers wished to show me their corps. On the right wing
stood two companies of artillery, then a company of sappers and
miners, after this, the Sixty-Eighth, and lastly, the Seventy-First
Regiment of Infantry. The last is a light regiment, and consists of
Scotch Highlanders; it appeared to be in particularly good condition.
This regiment is not dressed in the Highland uniform, which was only
worn by some of the buglemen. It has a very good band of buglemen, who
wear curious caps, made of blue woollen, bordered below with red and
white stripes. The troops defiled twice before me.

"On the 6th of September we set out in the steamboat for Montreal. Sir
Francis sent us his carriage, which was very useful to the ladies. On
the dock stood a company of the Sixty-Fifth Regiment, with their flags
displayed as a guard of honour, which I immediately dismissed. The
fortifications saluted us with 21 guns; this caused a very fine echo
from the mountains. Night soon set in, but we had sufficient light to
take leave of the magnificent vicinity of Quebec."

St. Vallier street is sacred to Monseigneur de St. Vallier; his name is identified with the street which he so often perambulated in his visits to the General Hospital, where he terminated his useful career in 1729. His Lordship seems to have entertained a particular attachment for the locality where he had founded this hospital, where he resided, in order to rent his Mountain Hill Palace to Intendant Talon, and thus save the expense of a chaplain. The General Hospital was the third asylum for the infirm which the Bishop had founded. Subsequently, came the Intendant de Meules, who, toward 1684, endowed the eastern portion of the quarter with an edifice (the Intendant's Palace) remarkable for its dimensions, its magnificence and its ornate gardens.

Where Talon (a former Intendant) had left a brewery in a state of ruin and about seventeen acres of land unoccupied, Louis XIV., by the advice of his Intendant de Meules, lavished vast sums of money in the erection of a sumptuous palace, in which French justice was administered, and in which, at a later period, under Bigot, it was _purchasable_. Our illustrious ancestors, for that matter, were not the kind of men to weep over such trifles, imbued as they were from infancy with the feudal system and all its irksome duties, without forgetting the forced labour (_corvées_) and those admirable "Royal secret warrants," (_lettres de cachet_). What did the institutions of a free people, or the text of Magna Charta signify to them?

On this spot stood the notorious warehouse, where Bigot, Cadet and their confederates retailed, at enormous profits, the provisions and supplies which King Louis XV. doled out in 1758 to the starving inhabitants of Quebec. The people christened the house "_La Friponne_," (_The Cheat_!!) Near the sight of Talon's old brewery which had been converted into a prison by Frontenac, and which held fast, until his trial in 1674, the Abbé de Fénélon [119] now stands the Anchor Brewery (Boswell's).

We clip the following from an able review in the Toronto _Mail_, Dec., 1880, of M. Marmette's most dramatic novel, "_l'Intendant Bigot_":

"In the year 1775 a grievous famine raged, sweeping off large numbers
of the poor, while the unscrupulous Bigot and his satellites were
revelling in shameless profligacy. It is midnight of Christmas, when
an old officer, M. de Rochebrune, pressed with cold and hunger to the
last point, resolved to pawn his St. Louis Cross of gold at the
Intendant's Palace stores. On the way thither the officer and his
young daughter, a young girl of fourteen, are startled at the blaze of
light illuminating the Palace windows, during one of the Intendant's
festivals. The pleasures of the evening are suddenly interrupted and
shaded by the entry of the aged, suffering M. de Rochebrune and his
wan-visaged but beautiful daughter. Words of galling truth are
addressed to Bigot before his painted courtezans and his other
depraved attendants, whose hearts are too hard and whose consciences
are too seared to be tortured by either misery or reproof, and the
ruffian varlets eject both father and daughter to the furies of the
midnight blast. The ball ended, Bigot leads Madame de Pean to her
vehicle, when she tumbles over an object which, when torches are
brought, was found to be the corpse of the suppliant rebuker of a few
hours previous, alongside of which lay the unconscious form of his
daughter, half buried in the drifting snow. '_Mon Dieu_,' exclaimed
Madame de Pean, '_Il ne dormira pas de la nuit, c'est bien sûr._' This
tragic event is narrated with thrilling effect, in the author's best
style." P. B.

In a paper read by us before the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec, 3rd December, 1879, we alluded in the following terms to the history of the "Friponne" and the infamous entourage of Intendant Bigot in the second part of our lecture: the first part related to Kalm's ramble round the city in 1749.

Prepare, now for other--dark--far less pleasant scenes. The bright sky
of old Stadacona will rapidly lower; leaden clouds, pregnant with
storms are hovering over head. The simplicity of early days is getting
obsolete. Vice, gilded vice, flaunts in the palace. Gaunt famine is
preying on the vitals of the people. 'Tis so at Versailles; 'tis so at
Quebec. Lust--selfishness--rapine--public plunder everywhere--except
among the small party of the _Honnêtes Gens_: [120] a carnival of
pleasure, to be followed by the voice of wailing and by the roll of
the muffled drum.

In 1748, the evil genius of New France, "La Pompadour's
_protégé_" François Bigot, thirteenth and last Intendant, had landed
at Quebec.

Born in Guienne, of a family distinguished at the bar, Bigot, prior to
coming to Canada had occupied the high post of Intendant in Louisiana.
In stature, he was small--but well formed;--active--full of pluck--
fond of display and pleasure--an inveterate gambler. Had he confined
his operations merely to trading, his commercial ventures would have
excited little blame, trading having been a practice indulged in by
several other high colonial officials. His salary was totally
inadequate to the importance of his office, and quite insufficient to
meet the expenditure his exalted position led him into. His
speculations, his venality, the extortions practised on the community
by his heartless minions: this is what has surrounded his memory with
eternal infamy and made his name a by-word for scorn.

There existed, at Quebec, a _ring_ composed of the Intendant's
secretary, Deschenaux, of the Commissary General of Supplies, Cadet,
of the Town-Major, Hugues Péan; of the Treasurer-General, Imbert. Péan
was the Chief and Bigot the Great Chief of this nefarious association.
Between Bigot and Péan, another link existed. Péan's favour at Court
lay in the charms of his wife. Madame Péan, _née_ Angélique De
Meloises, was young, pretty, witty and charming; a fluent and
agreeable speaker--in fact so captivating that François Bigot was
entirely ruled by her during all his stay at Quebec. At her house in
St. Louis street he spent his evenings; there, he was sought and found
in May, 1759, by Col. de Bougainville returning from Paris, the bearer
of the dispatches, announcing the coming struggle.

Would you like some of the pen-photographs which a clever French
contemporary [121] has left of the corrupt entourage of the
magnificent intendant, here are a few: