The Chronicle building, during nearly half a century, was a coffee house, much frequented by sea-faring men, known as the "Old Neptune" Inn. The effigy of the sea-god, armed with his formidable trident, placed over the main entrance, seemed to threaten the passers-by. We can remember, as yesterday, his colossal proportions. "Old Neptune" [90] has disappeared about thirty years back.
THE OLD NEPTUNE INN.
"Shall I not take mine ease in mine Inn." —Shakespeare.
"The Golden Fleece was the oldest tavern in Corinth. It had been the resort of sea-faring men from the remotest period."—(Travels of Herodotus in Greece, 460 B.C.)
When the brilliant Henry Ward Beecher pronounced Quebec an Old Curiosity Shop, we are induced to think that amidst its accumulated antiquarian relics, its church pictures and madonnas, its famous battle-fields, its historical monuments, massive fortifications and wondrous scenery,—more than one of the quaint French dwellings with their peaked gables, and walls four feet thick, must have caught his observant eye. However striking Ward Beecher's word-painting may be, it would I opine, have required the marvellous pencil of the author of "The House with the Seven Gables," Nathaniel Hawthorne, becomingly to portray all the arcana of such a building as the Chien d'Or (the old Post Office), with its ghastly memories of blood and revenge.
The legendary moss clustering round these hoary piles, is not, however, always dark and gloomy. Love, war, adventure, occasionally lend them their exciting or their soft glamour. Sometimes the annals of commerce entwine them with a green wreath—a sure talisman against the rust of oblivion. It is one of the land marks of commerce we purpose here briefly to describe.
At the foot of Mountain Hill, lies our chief emporium of news, labelled for more than a quarter of a century, Morning Chronicle Office. These premises stand on a very conspicuous site, viz., at the foot of Mountain Hill, the highway from the port to the Upper Town, direct to the old Château and Citadel—a few rods only from the spot where Champlain, in 1608, laid the foundations of his extensive warehouses and dwelling, and close to where, in 1615, he had his famous gardens. This business stand, for many years past, was owned by the late Hon. Henry Black; at present it belongs to Hon. Geo. Okill Stuart, Judge of the Court of Vice Admiralty. Its beginnings brings us back to the era of the Bourbon sovereigns of Canada, to the unregretted time (1758), when Intendant Bigot's shoddy entourage held high carnival in famine-stricken Quebec.
In those blighting days, in which Madame de Pompadour reigned in France, and Madame Pean in Quebec, rings and public robbery flourished in Canada; but among high officials, all were not corrupt. There were some memorable exceptions. One of these exceptions was the worthy, witty, and honest warden of the Quebec merchants, Jean Taché, "homme probe et d'esprit," say old memoirs. Mr. Taché, the "syndic des marchands," was not only an upright and wealthy merchant, he was also gifted with the poetical fire; he, it was, who wrote the first French poem issued in Canada, "Le Tableau de la Mer."
Jean Taché was also an extensive holder of real estate in and round Quebec, warehouses (des voûtes) on the Napoleon wharf; a country seat on the Ste. Foye road, subsequently the property of Surveyor- General Samuel Holland—Holland Farm; lastly, the well-known business stand, where, in 1847, Mr. St. Michel printed James Bell Forsyth's news sheet, the Morning Chronicle.
Commercial ruin overtook the worthy Lower Town magnate, Monsieur Taché; his ships and cargoes, during the war of the conquest, like the rest of poor, deserted Canada, fell into English hands, being captured at sea; out of the disaster Jean Taché saved naught but his honourable name.