Old Quebec, the city of Champlain

by Emily P. Weaver

Frontenac was enraged by the effrontery of the demand. “I will answer your general only by the mouths of my cannon,” he replied, and the messenger, blindfolded again, was led off to make sport once more, on his roundabout way to his boat, for the shrill-voiced, laughing French women.

That same night there was another burst of merry-making in the city. The sound of drums, trumpets and joyous huzzas was loud enough to reach the ears of the English on the river. “You have lost the game,” declared a prisoner, with malicious delight. “It is the Governor of Montreal with the people from the country above. There is nothing for you now but to pack up and go home.” But Phips was not yet ready to take this advice.

Ruins of Notre Dame des Victoires.
From a drawing by R. Short 1759.

Landing a portion of his force at Beauport, he moved his ships into position to bombard the town. Then Frontenac from the rock sent him his promised answer, and for hours the cannon roared and the smoke and din were horrible. Phips ploughed up the gardens of the Ursulines, shot away a corner of a nun’s apron, and wasted his ammunition against the rock, but made no impression whatever on the strong stone walls of Quebec. His enemies, laughing to scorn his futile efforts, riddled his vessels with their balls and shot away from his masthead the proud banner of St. George, which was brought ashore in triumph in a birch-bark canoe. At last Phips drew off from the contest, and patching up his sorely misused ships as best he could, dropped down the river. He was still pursued by ill-luck and misfortune. The annual supply ships for New France escaped him by hiding in the fogs that overhung the mouth of the grim Saguenay, while fever and smallpox, hurricane and shipwreck seemed to mark out his own fleet as under the wrath of heaven.

Father Jogues.

Frontenac.

But in Quebec all was joy and thanksgiving. The captured flag was carried in triumph to the Cathedral. “The Bishop sang a Te Deum, and amid the firing of cannon the image of the Virgin was carried to each church and chapel in the place by a procession in which priests, people and troops all took part.” At night there was a great bonfire in honor of the redoubtable old Governor, but the defeat of the English was generally regarded as miraculous, and it was therefore ordained that the fête of “Notre Dame de la Victoires” should be celebrated annually in the little church of the Lower Town.