FTER Champlain the story of Quebec takes a more sombre hue. Its pages tell of long-continued warfare with the savages; of a fierce though intermittent struggle with the “heretic” English, the papist-hating “Bostonnais.” The tale has no lack of heroes and of heroines, courageous, saintly, inspired by visions of the invisible, or driven to the supreme heights of self-sacrifice by the most awful sights ever shown to mortal eyes.
Ursuline Nun.
To this period belong the valiant Governor, Montmagny; brave Maisonneuve, founder of Montreal; gentle Jeanne Mance; the ecstatic Mother Marie de l’Incarnation; the Jesuit devotees, Jogues, Bréboeuf, and Lalemant; those other martyrs, Dollard and his sixteen defenders of the Long Sault; daring, ruthless D’Iberville; luckless, dauntless La Salle; and a host of others who in that dark period bravely played their parts on the blood-stained stage. But above them all, by force of circumstances and force of character, towers the stern military figure of Louis de Buade, Count de Frontenac.
Prescott Gate.
Arrogant, imperious, fearless, defiant of danger, from his “Chateau” on the height he lorded it over the straggling settlements along the river that then made up New France. He imposed his will on restless traders, on his savage “children” of the forest, and he made a brave fight to impose it also on the spiritual leaders of New France, and on the Intendant, sent out specially to check and thwart him. His very faults served New France well in that time of agony, when the savages were ever at her throat, sucking away her life-blood and mangling her all but to dissolution.
Canadian
Grenadier.
