C. Giffard, qui est désigné comme seigneur de Beauport, est le fils de Robert. Il était né en France et devait être encore assez jeune. C'est de lui que parle le Journal des Jésuites en disant que le fils de M. Giffard passa en France en 1646, avec d'autres jeunes gens 'tous fripons pour la plupart qui avait fait mille pièces à l'autre voyage et on donnait à tous de grands appointements.'
Ce 28 octobre il était parrain, et il s'embarquait le 31.
Il n'est plus question de lui après cette date, soit qu'il ait renoncé au Canada, soit qu'il ait péri prématurément. Le père repris sa seigneurie de Beauport qu'il fit agrandir le mieux put.
P. S.—En écrivant ce qui précède, j'étais un peu pressé; j'aurais dû remarquer cependant que sous la lettre C, les lecteurs ne pouvaient deviner le prénom du jeune seigneur de Beauport. Il s'appelait Charles, et devait être né en France comme sa soeur Marie, qui devint Madame de la Ferté.
Dans l'intérêt de vos lecteurs je ferai remarquer que le Dictionnaire Généalogique renferme, à l'article Giffard, certaines erreurs. Ainsi, Françoise qui commence l'article est la même que Marie Françoise qui le termine; elle se fit religieuse à l'Hôtel-Dieu. L'épouse de Jean Juchereau de la Ferté fut Marie née en France, puisque son contrat de mariage en 1645 la dite "âgée de 17 ans environ" ce qui reporte sa naissance vers 1628. Charles assiste et signe un contrat. Ce n'est pas Robert Giffard, mais son fils Joseph, dont le corps fut transporté à la cathédrale, le 31 décembre 1705.
MOUNT LILAC, BEAUPORT.
Some thirty years ago, I saw, for the first time, the picturesque old manor of the Rylands at Beauport, this was in its classic days. Later on, I viewed it, mossy and forlorn, in what some might style its "non age". Of this, hereafter.
The Château stood embowered amidst lilac groves and other ornamental shrubs, so far as I can recollect, with a background of elms, white birch, spruce, &c. Its vaulted, lofty and well-proportioned dining-room, with antique, morocco-covered chairs, and carved buffets to store massive plate, its spacious hall and graceful winding staircase, its commanding position on the crest of the Beauport ridge, affording a striking view of Quebec, its well-stocked orchard, umbrageous plantations, and ample stables, from which issued, among other choice bits of blood, in 1842, the celebrated racer "Emigrant": several circumstances, in fact, conspired to impress it favorably on my youthful mind. On that occasion, I found le milord anglais (as a waggish Canadian peasant called him) under his ancestral roof.
Recalling our parish annals of early times, I used then to think that should England ever (which God forbid) hand back to its ancient masters "these fifteen thousand acres of snow," satirized by Voltaire, ridiculed by Madame de Pompadour, cruelly and basely deserted by Louis XV, in their hour of trial, here existed a ready-made manor for the Giffards and Duchesnays of the future, where their descendants could becomingly receive fealty and homage. (foi et homage) from their feudal retainers. There was, however, nothing here to remind one of the lordly pageantry of other times—the days of absolutism—of the dark era, the age of lettres de cachet, corvées, lods et ventes, and other feudal burthens, when the flag of the Bourbons floated over the fortress of New France. In 1846, at the time of my visit, in vain would you have sought in the farm yard for a live seigniorial capon (un chapon vif et en plumes) though possibly in the larder, at Christmas, you might have discovered some fat, tender turkeys, or a juicy haunch of venison. Of vin ordinaire ne'er a trace, but judging from the samples on the table, perhaps much mellow Madeira, and "London Stout" might have been stored in the cellars. Everywhere, in fact, was apparent English comfort, English cheer. On the walls of the banqueting apartment, or within the antique red-leathered portfolios strewn round, you would have run a greater chance of meeting face to face with the portraits of Lord Dorchester, Genl. Prescott, Sir Robert Shore Milnes, Sir James Craig, the Duke of Richmond, and other English Governors, the cherished friends of the Rylands than with the powdered head of his most sacred Majesty, the Great Louis, or the ruffled bust and sensual countenance of the voluptuous Louis XV…. But let us see more of Mount Lilac and its present belongings.
Facing the glittering cupolas of Quebec, there is a fertile area of meadow and cornfield stretching from Dorchester bridge to the deep ravine and Falls over which the Montmorency, La Vache, hangs its milk-white curtain of spray. On the river shore, in 1759, stood Montcalm's earth and field works of defence. Parallel to them and distant about half a mile, the highway, over which H.R.H. Prince Edward's equipage pranced daily, during the summers of 1791-3, now a macadamized road, ascends by a gentle rise, through a double row of whitewashed cottages, about seven miles, to the brow of the roaring cataract spanned over by a substantial bridge, half way, looms out the Roman Catholic temple of worship—a stately edifice, filled to overflowing on Sundays, the parochial charge in 1841 of the Rev. Charles Chiniquy, under whose auspices was built the Temperance Monument on the main road, a little past the Beauport Asylum. This constitutes the parish of Beauport, one of the first settled in the Province. It was conceded by the Company of New France, on the 31st December, 1635, to a French surgeon of some note, "le sieur Robert Giffard." Surgeon Giffard had not only skill as a chirurgeon to recommend him, he could plead services, nay captivity undergone in the colonial cause. An important man in his day was this feudal magnate Giffard, to whom fealty and homage were rendered with becoming pomp, by his consitaires, the Bellangers—Guions—Langlois—Parents—Marcoux, of 1635, whose descendents, still bearing the old Perche or Norman name, occupy to this day the white cottages to be seen on all sides.