It was at the Seminary the worthy prelate resided with his priests, to the number of eight, which, at that period, comprised all the secular clergy of Quebec. There, also, was the Church of Notre Dame, in the form of a Latin cross. [64]
Couillard Street calls up one of the most important personages of the era of Champlain, Guillaume Couillard, the ancestor of Madame Alexandre de Léry née Couillard. It would fill a volume to retrace the historical incidents which attach themselves to "La Grande Place du Fort," which in the early part of the century was known as the "Grand Parade" before the Castle, and is now called the Ring. We have pointed out a goodly number in the first pages (10-16) of the "Album du Touriste." To what we have already said we shall add the following details:
THE UNION HOTEL.
It would appear that the site upon which the Union Hotel was built [65] (1805), and where previously stood the dwelling of Dr. Longmore, Staff Medical Officer, now occupied by the offices of the Journal de Quebec, &c., was owned by Governor D'Ailleboust, about the year 1650. He had reserved to himself, on the 10th January, 1649, the strip of ground comprised between Fort and Treasury Streets on the one side, and the streets Buade and Ste. Anne on the other side. At the corner of Treasury and Buade Streets, on the west, Jean Côté possessed a piece of ground (emplacement) which he presented as a dowry in 1649, to his daughter Simonne, who married Pierre Soumandre.
The grounds of the Archbishop's Palace formed part of the field possessed by Couillard, whose house stood in the now existing garden of the Seminary, opposite the gate which faces the principal alley, the foundations of which were discovered and brought to light by the Abbé Laverdière in 1866. The Union Hotel was for years the meeting place of our festive ancestors, when the assembly balls brought together the Saxon and the Gaul; it also recalls warlike memories of 1812.
THE AMERICAN PRISONERS.
In looking over old fyles of our city journals, we find in the Quebec
Mercury of 15th September, 1812, the following item:
"On Friday, arrived here the detained prisoners taken with Gen. Hull, at Detroit. The non-commissioned officers and privates immediately embarked on board of transports in the harbour, which are to serve as their prison. The commissioned officers were liberated on their parole. They passed Saturday morning at the Union Hotel, where they were the gazing-stock of the multitude, whilst they, no way abashed, presented a bold front to the public stare, puffed the smoke of their cigars into the faces of such as approached too near. About two o'clock they set off in a stage, with four horses, for Charlesbourg, the destined place of their residence."
The Union Hotel here mentioned is the identical building erected for a hotel by a company in 1805, and now owned by the Journal de Quebec, facing the ring.
Were these prisoners located at Charlesbourg proper, or at that locality facing Quebec, in Beauport, called Le Canardière, in Judge de Bonne's former stately old mansion, on which the eastern and detached wing of the Beauport Lunatic Asylum now stands?