The last of Quebec’s great historic monuments is that to Jacques Cartier on the way to Lake Beauport, to the left of the Charlesbourg Road, and about a mile from the city. Here the St. Malo navigator wintered in the year 1535-6, built his first fort, and erected a large cross inscribed with the name of King Francis I. and bearing the royal arms of that ruler. Here was also erected a few years later the first Jesuit monastery of New France.
There yet remain to be seen four monuments of general interest. The first, that to Queen Victoria in the Victoria Park over the St. Charles River; the second, to Bishop de Laval near to the Post Office; the third, on the Grande Allée, to the memory of Short and Wallick, who lost their lives in the work of checking the great fire of 1889; and the Soldiers’ or South African Monument, which stands on the Esplanade, close by the St. Louis Gate.
This last monument was erected by the citizens of Quebec to the young heroes who lost their lives defending the British flag in the Boer War. On a tablet is inscribed:
“Not by the power of commerce, art or pen, shall
our great Empire stand; nor has it stood,
but by noble deeds of noble men—
heroes’ outpoured blood.”
A walk along the Grande Allée, and on St. John and St. Valier Streets will be rich in interest. Palace Hill, too, and the old streets of St. Paul and St. Peter are full of character; while in the cluster of old-town streets, alleys and passageways that extend from below the eastern ramparts to Little Champlain below Dufferin Terrace, the visitor will find the quaintest sights the new world has to show. Mountain Hill, Sous-le-Fort and Sous-le-Cap are streets the like of which may be seen nowhere out of Quebec. St. Louis Street, the Esplanade and St. Roch’s will repay close intimacy and examination.
Sous-le-Cap Street, Quebec