VIEW OF MURRAY BAY FROM POINTE-AU-PIC
The traveler who means to put up at a hotel has an ample range of choice. The Manoir Richelieu, a younger sister to the Château Frontenac of Quebec, gazes over a glorious expanse of river from the heights above the quay. It supplies its guests with confort moderne softened to the native simplicity of Murray Bay, but it can hardly count as a part of the village; it is too young, it is an interloper. There is also the Château Murray, on the main street, which looks over the bay, and presents a comfortable air of seeming to receive, as no doubt it does, the compliments of departing guests; and, though even younger than the Manoir Richelieu, it is much more in accord with Murray Bay habits and traditions. But beyond cavil the hotel of Murray Bay is the Lorne House, as it calls itself on its letter-paper, which is known to its familiars, and to all the world, as Chamard’s. Architects, builders, upholsterers, and tinsmiths can create Manoirs Richelieu ad libitum; so, with the addition of a French sense of proportion, they can also create Château Murray; nobody except the late Monsieur Chamard could have created Chamard’s. It is a personality expressed in the form of a hotel; it is a spirit embodied in dining-room, parlors, office, veranda, and partitions. The partitions remind the guest of Shakspere’s lines, like “cloud-capp’d towers” and “gorgeous palaces”: he expects them to dissolve, melt into thin air, and “leave not a rack behind.” Chamard’s is the one hotel, I should suppose, in all the world that rises triumphantly above material things. The table, no doubt, is wholesome and exhilarating, but nobody cares; for at Chamard’s, quite unlike other human abodes, the table is not the center of gravity. The place is a club, gathered about Monsieur Chamard’s interesting and attractive personality, and, now that he is gone, prospering upon his memory and Mademoiselle Chamard’s disposition and character. The physical structure used to stand about where the Manoir Richelieu now is; but it flitted away, or, like the phenix, was reborn, on a bold eminence above the golf-links, where half a dozen cottages, seedlings from the parent plant, have grown up about it. But Chamard’s is not a hotel for chance comers; it demands, so one of the guests assures me, an introduction from some one known to a guest, at least.
The first thing for a new-comer to do is to take a drive; and the first drive should be up the rive droite of the Murray River as far as the red bridge and down the rive gauche, or, for custom is liberal in this matter, up the rive gauche and back by the rive droite. This drive uncovers all that is typical in the scenery of Murray Bay.
Besides introducing the traveler at once to the scenery, the Murray River drive has another advantage—it takes him past the principal sights. The road skirts the golf-links, turns sharp at the Village Mailloux, and then cuts the links in two just before the path that leads to the famous sixth tee, the pons dufforum. Here the charretier, if he is a good cicerone, points his whip to a house that stands in a little garden radiant with bright flowers: “Voilà, monsieur, la maison de Mademoiselle Anger.” One may draw aside the veil that has been very transparent ever since the French Academy crowned “L’Oublié,” and say that Mademoiselle Anger is Laure Conan, the novelist. A few minutes further, to the left, on the edge of the bay, stands the manor-house of the seigniory.
Drawn by W. T. Benda. Half-tone plate engraved by G. M. Lewis
VIEW OF MALBAIE (MURRAY BAY) FROM THE BRIDGE
From the manor-house the road runs along the edge of the bay, where picturesque schooners float or lie on their sides, according to the tide, and then on to the village of Malbaie, or Murray Bay. Americans call it the Far Village, but the native resident of Pointe-au-Pic, who wishes Monsieur Anger, le notaire, brother to Laure Conan, to draw up a legal document, or Monsieur Perron to cut him a suit of homespun, or Monsieur Shea to sell him a clock or a banjo-string, says, “Je vais au village” (“I am going to the village”), just as a suburban resident says, “I am going to town.” At the end of the bay stands the Far Village church in all her kindly, simple seriousness. Her bells ring out the angelus over the waters of the bay, along the shores, and back into the uplands, proclaiming that she is ready, like a hen gathering her chickens under her wings, to receive and comfort all the faithful. On the façade, if three doorways and a barn-like front can count as a façade, there is a statue of the Madonna that has drawn to itself some of the beauty of the place. Hard by is the residence of Monsieur le Curé and his assistants. The younger priests officiate in the church and also teach school. It is pleasant, when driving by during recess, to see these serious-faced young men, dressed in their long black cassocks, playing with the children, or, when off duty, refreshing themselves with a pipe and animated conversation.
Drawn by W. T. Benda. Half-tone plate engraved by G. M. Lewis