But money and men and women were necessary for the work. Soon, four others were found who had wealth, and the six formed the germ of the "Society of Notre Dame de Montreal," and among them seventy-five thousand livres were raised, equal to about as many dollars. They purchased the island, and their grant was confirmed by the king, and then they got together a colony of forty men, and needing a soldier-governor, Providence provided such a man in Paul de Chomedey, Sieur de Maisonneuve, a devout and valiant gentleman who had kept his faith intact, notwithstanding long service among the heretics of Holland, and loving his profession of arms, wished to consecrate his sword to the Church. The interest of the women was awakened, and ultimately the Society was increased to about forty-five persons, chosen for their devotion and their wealth. Among the women who founded the new colony was Mademoiselle Jeanne Mance, who was about thirty-four years of age when the Society was organized, and to whom we are told that Christ had appeared in a vision at the early age of seven years, and at the same tender age her biographer says she had bound herself to God by a vow of perpetual chastity. Mlle. Mance, by the divine inspiration, was filled with a longing to go to Canada, and she went to the port of Rochelle seeking a vessel. She had never before heard of Dauversière, but by supernatural agencies she met him coming out of church, had a long conversation in which she learned his plan, declared she had found her destiny in "the ocean, the wilderness, the solitude, the Iroquois," and at once decided to go with Maisonneuve and his party.
In February, 1641, with the Abbé Olier at their head, all the associates of the Society assembled in the Cathedral of Notre Dame, in Paris, before the altar of the Virgin, and by a most solemn ceremonial consecrated Mont Real to the Holy Family. It was henceforth to be a sacred town, called "Ville Marie de Montreal," and consecrated respectively, the Seminary of priests to Christ, the Hotel-Dieu to St. Joseph, and the Nuns' College to the Virgin. Subsequently to the colonization there appeared, in 1653, as the head of the latter, a maiden of Troyes, Marguerite Bourgeoys, a woman of most excellent good sense and a warm heart, who is described as having known neither miracles, ecstasies nor trances, her religion being of the affections and manifested in an absorbing devotion to duty. Late in the year the colony under Maisonneuve set sail, arriving too late, however, to ascend the St. Lawrence above Quebec, where they wintered. Here the Governor of Quebec, Montmagny, tried his best to dissuade them from going farther, desiring them to settle at Quebec, but Maisonneuve said, "It is my duty and my honor to found a colony at Montreal, and I would go if every tree were an Iroquois!" Here they gained an unexpected recruit in Madame de la Peltrie, foundress of the Order of Ursulines at Quebec, who abandoned their convent and carried off all the furniture she had lent them. In May, 1642, the party left Quebec in a flotilla of boats, deep laden with men, arms and stores, and a few days later approached Montreal island, when all on board raised a hymn of praise. Montmagny, who was to deliver possession of the island, was with them, and also Father Vimont, Superior of the missions, for the Jesuits had been invited to take spiritual charge of the young colony. On May 18, 1642, they landed at Montreal, at a spot where a little creek then flowed into the St. Lawrence, making a good landing-place, protected from the influence of the swift current of the river. There was a bordering meadow, and beyond rose the forest with its vanguard of scattered trees. The triangular graystone building, which is now the Custom House, down by the river, marks this spot where the city was founded. The historian Parkman, who has so faithfully delved into the ancient Canadian archives, thus relates the story of the original settlement:
"Maisonneuve sprang ashore and fell on his knees. His followers imitated his example, and all joined their voices in enthusiastic songs of thanksgiving. Tents, baggage, arms and stores were landed. An altar was raised on a pleasant spot near at hand; and Mademoiselle Mance, with Madame de la Peltrie, aided by her servant Charlotte Barré, decorated it with a taste which was the admiration of the beholders. Now all the company gathered before the shrine. Here stood Vimont in the rich vestments of his office. Here were the two ladies with their servant; Montmagny, no very willing spectator; and Maisonneuve, a warlike figure, erect and tall, his men clustering around him,—soldiers, sailors, artisans and laborers,—all alike soldiers at need. They kneeled in reverent silence as the Host was raised aloft; and when the rite was over the priest turned and addressed them: 'You are a grain of mustard-seed, that shall rise and grow till its branches overshadow the earth. You are few, but your work is the work of God. His smile is on you, and your children shall fill the land.' The afternoon waned; the sun sank behind the western forest, and twilight came on. Fireflies were twinkling over the darkened meadow. They caught them, tied them with threads into shining festoons, and hung them before the altar where the Host remained exposed. Then they pitched their tents, lighted their bivouac fires, stationed their guards, and lay down to rest. Such was the birth-night of Montreal." Thus was piously planted the "grain of mustard-seed" of the devout and enthusiastic Vimont, which has expanded into a great city of probably three hundred thousand people, over half of them French and more than three-fourths Catholics, there being also a large Irish population.
MONTREAL INSTITUTIONS.
Montreal covers a surface five miles long by two miles wide, and its situation gives it great commercial importance. The people call it "the Queen of the St. Lawrence," standing at the head of ship navigation, where cargoes are exchanged with the internal canal and lake navigation system, the Grand Trunk Railway and the Canadian Pacific Railway crossing the continent, and both also having many connections with the United States. In 1809, the "Accommodation," the second steamboat in America, was built in Montreal, and began running to Quebec. The lion of Montreal is the Victoria Tubular Bridge, which was formally opened by the Prince of Wales on his American visit in 1860. It was designed by Robert Stephenson and built by James Hodges at a cost of over $6,000,000. It is nearly ninety-two hundred feet long and stands upon twenty-six piers and abutments, the centre being about sixty feet above the summer level of the river, which flows beneath at the rate of seven miles an hour. Elaborate ice-fenders are on the up-stream side of the piers, there being an enormous ice-pressure when the spring freshets are running. It is the greatest bridge in the Dominion, and near it stands a huge boulder, marking the burial-place of the army of Irish emigrants who came over in 1847, sixty-five hundred dying at Montreal of ship-fever.
The Sulpician Order has always been the great educator of priests in all French-speaking peoples, and it was founded by the Abbé Olier. Carrying out his intention, the "Seminary of St. Sulpice" was opened in Montreal in 1647. This is now an enormous and prosperous religious establishment, holding large possessions in and around the city. The "Gentlemen of the Seminary," as the members of the Order of Sulpicians are called in Montreal, are the successors of the first owners of the island, and they conduct a large secular business as landlords. Down in the heart of the old city, at the Place d'Armes, they have an antique quadrangle, surrounding a quiet garden, which is the official headquarters, and was the location of their ancient house. The curious French-looking towers fronting the Seminary were at one time loop-holed for musketry, and were garrisoned, when necessary, to beat off Indian raids upon the infant settlement. In the western suburbs there is a broad domain, known as the "Priests' Farm," where are an elaborate mass of buildings, making their present noted foundation, the "Great Seminary" and Montreal College, the former for the education of priests and the latter for the general education of youth, the delicious surrounding gardens being regarded as the finest on the fertile island.
The "Hospital of the Hotel-Dieu de Ville Marie" is on the northeastern edge of the city, almost under the shadow of the mountain, and is one of the largest buildings in Canada, its dome rising one hundred and fifty feet over the spacious chapel. It was in this hospital, when first founded in a small way in 1647, that Mademoiselle Mance took up her abode. There are now over five hundred persons in the building, and it is conducted by eighty cloistered nuns, who never go outside the grounds. They are of the Order of St. Joseph, caring for the sick, the orphan, and the old and infirm. The "Sisters of the Congregation of Notre Dame," the "Black Nuns," as they are called, have their Mother House in Montreal, this being the teaching order founded by Marguerite Bourgeoys in 1653, she having then come out to Canada with Maisonneuve on his second voyage. "To this day," writes Parkman, "in crowded schoolrooms of Montreal and Quebec, fit monuments of her unobtrusive virtue, her successors instruct the children of the poor and embalm the pleasant memory of Marguerite Bourgeoys. In the martial figure of Maisonneuve, and the fair form of this gentle nun, we find the true heroes of Montreal." These "Black Nuns" conduct seventeen schools in the city, with over five thousand pupils. Their most extensive establishment is just out of town, on what are known as the "Monk Lands," and is called "Ville Marie." There are no less than six hundred nuns and novices in this order, and their pupils number twenty thousand in Canada and the United States.
Another important Montreal institution is the "General Hospital of the Grey Sisters," popularly known as the "Grey Nunnery," occupying an extensive array of stone buildings in the southwestern part of the city. This order was first founded in 1692, but languished for nearly a half century, when a pious Canadian lady took it up. Originally it cared for the aged and infirm, but in 1755 this lady, Madame de Youville, discovered the body of a murdered infant, where is now Foundling Street, then a stream of water, into which the child had been thrown, and this led her to extend the objects of the institution so as to embrace orphans and foundlings. This is the great foundling hospital of Montreal. The order has the revenues of large estates, and there are about four hundred nuns and novices, over half being detailed in a large number of establishments throughout Canada. Several hundred foundlings are received every year, and over five hundred patients are cared for in Montreal, mostly the aged and infirm. The daughter of Ethan Allen, of Vermont, was a nun of this order, dying in 1819. This nunnery has many visitors, who attend worship with the Sisters in the beautiful chapel, and then go through the hospital, where the poor are cared for both in the morning and the evening of life. The crowds of little French children, dressed in the curious clothing of past centuries, sing for their visitors, and then comically scramble for the small coins tossed among them, which, after doing duty as playthings for a brief time, find their way into the charity box.
Montreal is the headquarters in America of the well-known teaching order of the Christian Brothers. The Jesuits have St. Mary's College; and the Convent of the Sacred Heart and Hochelaga Convent, the Asylum of the Sisters of Providence and the Convent of the Good Shepherd are also prominent. The chief Protestant educational institution is McGill University, with a thousand students and seventy-five instructors, originally founded in 1821, through a bequest of $150,000, by James McGill, a native of Glasgow, who was one of the early successful merchants of Montreal. It has since been richly endowed, its properties being valued at over $1,000,000, and it has fine buildings and grounds near the mountain. Closely affiliated is the Presbyterian College of Montreal, devoted to the training of missionaries and clergymen, also provided with noble buildings. There is also a Wesleyan Theological College affiliated with McGill University. The peculiar religious conditions of Quebec Province have vested the educational management of the public schools in two Boards, one Protestant and the other Roman Catholic, separately governing each class of schools, and working in harmony under the Provincial Superintendent of Education, each Board having an office in Montreal.
MONTREAL CHURCHES AND BUILDINGS.