"As late as 1682, as appears by an authentic record (procès-verbal) of the conflagration, this steep road was but fourteen feet wide. It was built of branches, covered with earth. Having been rendered unserviceable by the fire, the inhabitants had it widened six feet, as they had to travel three miles, after the conflagration, to enter the upper town by another hill."—(T. B. Bédard.)
In the summer season, our forefathers journeyed by water, generally in birch-bark canoes. In winter they had recourse to snow-shoes.
To what year can we fix the advent of wheeled vehicles? We have been unable to discover.
The first horse presented by the inhabitants to the Governor of the colony arrived from France on the 25th June, 1647. [11] Did His Excellency use him as a saddle horse only? or, on the occasion of a New Year's day, when he went to pay his respects to the Jesuit Fathers, and to the good ladies of the Ursulines, to present, with the compliments of the season, the usual New Year's gifts, was he driven in a cariole, and in the summer season in a calèche? Here, again, is a nut to crack for commentators. [12]
Although there were horned cattle at Quebec in 1623, oxen for the purpose of ploughing the land were first used on the 27th April, 1628.
"Some animals—cows, sheep, swine, &c.—had been imported as early as 1608. In 1623, it is recorded that two thousand bundles of fodder were brought from the pasture grounds at Cap Tourmente to Quebec for winter use."—(Miles.)
On the 16th of July, 1665, [13] a French ship brought twelve horses. These were doubtless the "mounts" of the brilliant staff of the Marquis de Tracy, Viceroy. These dashing military followers of Colonel de Salières, this jeunesse dorée of the Marquis de Tracy, mounted on these twelve French chargers, which the aborigines named "the moose-deer (orignaux) of Europe," doubtless cut a great figure at Quebec. Did there exist Tandems, driving clubs, in 1665? Quien sabe? A garrison life in 1665-7 and its amusements must have been much what it was one century later, when the "divine" Emily Montague [14] was corresponding with her dear "Colonel Rivers," from her Sillery abode in 1766; she then, amongst the vehicles in use, mentions, calèches. [15]
They were not all saints such as Paul Dupuy, [16] the patriarchal seigneur of Ile-aux-Oies, these military swells of Colonel de Salières! Major Lafradière, for instance, might have vied with the most outrageous rake in the Guards of Queen Victoria who served in the colony two centuries later.
If there were at Quebec twelve horses for the use of gentlemen, they were doubtless not suffered to remain idle in their stables. The rugged paths of the upper town were levelled and widened; the public highway ceased to be reserved for pedestrians only. This is what we wanted to arrive at.
In reality, the streets of Quebec grew rapidly into importance in 1665. Improvements effected during the administration of the Chevalier de Montmagny had been highly appreciated. The early French had their Saint Louis (Grande Allée), Saint Anne, Richelieu, D'Aiguillon, Saint John, streets, to do honour to their Master, Louis XIII.; his Queen the beautiful Anne of Austria; his astute Premier the Cardinal of Richelieu; his pious niece la Duchesse D'Aiguillon; his land surveyor and engineer Jehan or Jean Bourdon. This last functionary had landed at Quebec on the 8th August, 1634, with a Norman priest, the Abbé Jean LeSueur de Saint- Sauveur, who left his surname (St. Sauveur) to the populous municipality adjoining St. Roch suburbs. [17]