Montcalm's Headquarters, Quebec
The most extensive collection of religious buildings is the Convent and Hospital of the Hotel Dieu, in the Upper Town. There are some sixty cloistered nuns of this Order, founded in 1639 by Cardinal Richelieu's niece, the Duchess d'Aguillon. They care for the sick and infirm poor, their hospital accommodating over six hundred. The oldest structure dates from 1654, and much of the collection is over two centuries old. The most precious relics in their convent are the remains of two of the Jesuit martyrs who went out from Sillery, Fathers Brébeuf and Lalemont. There is a silver bust of the former, and his skull is carefully preserved. Jean de Brébeuf was a Norman of noble birth, who came out with Champlain, and he and Lalemont were sent on a mission beyond Ontario to the Huron country, establishing the mission town of St. Ignace, near Niagara River. They lived sixteen years with these Indians, learning their language, and gaining great influence over them. The Iroquois from New York attacked and captured the town in 1649, taking the missionaries captive and putting them to death with frightful tortures. Brébeuf, who frequently had celestial visions, always announced his belief that he would die a martyr for Christ. The story of his torture is one of the most horrible in the colonial wars. He was bound to a stake and scorched from head to foot; his lower lip was cut away, and a red-hot iron thrust down his throat. They hung a necklace of glowing coals around his neck, which the indomitable priest stood heroically; they poured boiling water over his head and face in mockery of baptism; cut strips of flesh from his limbs, eating them before his eyes, scalped him, cut open his breast and drank his blood, then filled his eyes with live coals, and after four hours of torture, finally killed him by tearing out his heart, which the Indian chief at once devoured. The writer recording this terrible ordeal says, "Thus died Jean de Brébeuf, the founder of the Huron mission, its truest hero, and its greatest martyr. He came of a noble race,—the same, it is said, from which sprang the English Earls of Arundel, but never had the mailed barons of his line confronted a fate so appalling, with so prodigious a constancy. To the last he refused to flinch, and his death was the astonishment of his murderers." Gabriel Lalemont, his colleague, was a delicate young man, and was tortured seventeen hours, bearing the torments nobly, and though at times faltering, yet he would rally, and with uplifted hands offer his sufferings to heaven as a sacrifice. His bones are preserved in the Hotel Dieu. The burning of St. Ignace village dispersed the Hurons, but years afterwards a remnant was gathered by the Jesuit Fathers, and their descendants are at Lorette, up St. Charles River.
From the Ursuline Convent the Champlain Steps lead down the cliff to the Champlain Market, having alongside it the ancient little church of Notre Dame des Victoires. This is a plain stone church of moderate size, built in 1688 as the church of Notre Dame, on the site of Champlain's house. The interior, which has had modern renovation, displays rich gilding, and the church's interesting history is told by two angels hovering over the chancel, each bearing a banner, one inscribed "1690" and the other "1711." The fiery Count de Frontenac, who was Louis XIV.'s Governor of Quebec, had ravaged the New England colonies, and in 1690, shortly after the church was built, Sir William Phips, from Massachusetts, retaliated. The Iroquois, who were English allies, menaced Montreal, and all the French troops were sent thither. Suddenly, in October, Phips and his fleet appeared in the St. Lawrence below Quebec. Urgent messages were sent the troops to return, and the devout Ursuline nuns prayed for deliverance with such fervor in the little church, that Phips was struck with a phase of indecision, wasted his time, summoned the town to surrender, a message which the bold Frontenac spurned, and then, without making an attack, Phips wasted more time, until the French troops did return, so that when the demonstration was made it was successfully repulsed, and after repeated disasters Phips and his fleet sailed back to New England. Great was the rejoicing in Quebec, a thanksgiving procession singing Te Deums marched to the little church, and then the Bishop, with an elaborate ceremonial, changed its name to Notre Dame de la Victoire. Twenty-one years afterwards, in 1711, another British invading force came up the river under Sir Hovenden Walker, and again the intercession of Notre Dame was implored. The reassuring answer quickly came by fog and storm, producing dire disaster to the fleet, eight ships being wrecked and many hundreds drowned. Quebec again was saved; there was the wildest rejoicing, and in honor of the double triumph the church was re-named as Notre Dame des Victoires. An annual religious festival is held on the fourth Sunday in October to commemorate these miraculous deliverances. But the famous little church was not always to escape unscathed. One of the Ursuline nuns prophesied that it would ultimately be destroyed by the British, who would finally conquer, and when Wolfe's batteries bombarded Quebec in 1759 it severely suffered. It was repaired, and exists to-day as one of the most precious relics in the ancient city, in its oldest quarter, adjoining the market-place, and revered with all the unquestioning devotion of the habitan.
THE DUFFERIN TERRACE.
There is a fine outlook from the Dufferin Terrace, high up on the cliff above the river, the favorite gathering-place of the townsfolk on pleasant afternoons. The St. Lawrence flows placidly, with a narrow strip of town far down below at its edge, and a few vessels moored to the bank. At one's feet are the Champlain market and the famous little church, and a mass of the peaked tin-covered roofs of the diminutive French houses crowded in along the contracted street at the base of the cliff. High above rises the towering citadel with its rounded King's Bastion, the black guns thrusting their muzzles over the parapet and the Union Jack floating from a flagstaff at the top. Across the river is Point Levis, with piers and railroad terminals spread along the bank, and various villages with their imposing convents and churches crown the high bluff shore for a long distance up and down. Farther back upon the wooded slopes of the hills are the great modern built forts which command the river and are the military protection of Quebec, their lines of earthworks just discernible among the trees. The river sweeps grandly around the projecting point of Cape Diamond and the surmounting citadel, passing away to the northeast with broadening current, where it receives the St. Charles, and beyond is divided by the low projecting point of the green Isle of Orleans. The main channel flows to the right behind Point Levis, and the other far away to the left with the Falls of Montmorency in the distance, and the dark range of Laurentian Mountains for a background with the noble summit of Mount Sainte Anne, and the huge promontory of Cape Tourmente at the river's edge. Nearer, the Quebec Lower Town spreads to a flat point at St. Charles River, ending in the broad surface of Princess Louise Basin, containing the shipping. Beyond this, a long road extends along the northern river bank, through Beauport and down to Montmorency, bordered by little white French cottages strung along it like beads upon a thread. Such is the landscape of wondrous interest seen from the cliff of Quebec. Across the St. Lawrence, elevated one hundred and fifty feet above the river, between Quebec and Point Levis is about being constructed a great railway bridge with the largest cantilever span in the world.
A ride along the attractive road through Beauport gives an insight into the home life of the French Canadian habitan. The village stretches several miles, a single street bordered on either hand by rows of unique cottages, nearly all alike; one-story steep-roofed houses of wood or plaster, almost all painted white, and one reproducing the other. The first Frenchman who arrived built this sort of a house, and all his neighbors and descendants have done likewise. They, like him, do it, because their ancestors builded so. The house may be larger, or may be of stone, but there is no change in form or feature. The centre doorway has a room on either hand with windows, and a steep roof rises above the single story. The house, regardless of the front road, must face north or south. The long, narrow strips of farms, some only a few yards wide, and of enormous length, run mathematically north and south. It matters not that this highway, parallel with the river, runs northeast. That cannot change the inexorable rule, and hence all the houses are set at an angle with the road, and all the dividing-fence lines are diagonals. The sun-loving Gaul taboos shade-trees, and therefore the sun blazes down upon the unsheltered house in summer, while the careful housewife, to keep out the excessive light, closes all the windows with thick shades made of old-fashioned wall-papers. The little triangular space between the cottage and the road is usually a brilliant flower-garden. Crosses are set up frequently for the encouragement of the faithful, and there are imposing churches and ecclesiastical buildings at intervals. Along this road ride the French in their queer-looking two-wheeled caléches, appearing much like a deep-bowled spoon set on wheels, and in elongated buckboard wagons of ancient build, surmounted by the most homely and venerable gig-tops. These French cottages are more picturesque than their vehicles.
The French Canadian habitan, the cultivateur, and peasant of Quebec province, is about the same to-day as he was two or three centuries ago. The Lower Canada village reproduces the French hamlet of the time of Louis XIV., and the inhabitants show the same zealous and absorbing religious devotion as when the French first peopled the St. Lawrence shores. Within the cottage, hung above the habitan's modest bed, is the black wooden cross that is to be the first thing greeting the waking eyes in the morning, as it has been the last object seen at night. Below it is the sprig of palm in a vase, with the little bonitier of holy water, and alongside is placed the calendar of religious events in the parish. The palm sprig is annually renewed on Palm Sunday, the old sprig being then carefully burnt. Great is its power in warding off lightning strokes and exorcising the evil spirits. The central object around which every village clusters is always the church, with its high walls, sloping roof, and tall and shining tin-clad spire. The curé is the village autocrat; the legal and medical adviser, the family counsellor, and usually the political leader of his flock. He blesses all the houses when they are built, and as soon as the walls are up a bunch of palm is attached to the gable or the chimney, a gun being fired to mark the event. When the Angelus tolls all stop work, wherever they are, and say the short prayer in devout attitude. Before beginning or completing any task the reverent habitans always piously cross themselves. They do this also in passing churches, or the many crosses and statues set up along the roads and in the villages. They are temperate, industrious and thrifty, live simply, eat the plainest food, are abundantly content with their lot, and usually raise large families. In fact, there is a bounty given, by act of the Quebec Provincial Legislature, of one hundred acres of land to parents having more than twelve living children. It is not infrequent to find twenty-five or thirty or more children in a single family. In personal appearance the habitan is generally of small or medium size, with sparkling brown eyes, dark complexion, a placid face and well-knit frame. He has strong endurance and capacity for work, but usually not much education, the prayer-book furnishing most of the family reading. The Church encourages early marriages, and domestic fecundity is honored as a special gift from Heaven. The pious veneration, like the creed of this simple-minded people, is the same to-day as it was in the seventeenth century. Their faith is fervent and their belief complete. They typify the beautiful idea the late Cardinal Newman exemplified in his exquisite poem:
"Lead, kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom,