THE FLOWER OF ST. ROCH’S.
HERE is a day in the year 1676 which must ever stand out from the murk of the early centuries as a Red Letter Day in Canadian history.
That is the day whose dawn broke on the first Canadian Public Market in full swing.
The scene is laid in La Place de Notre Dames des Victoires in the shadow of Chateau Saint Louis, in old Quebec.
It takes but little imagination to reconstruct the colourful scene upon which the first beams of the rising sun, touching with light the gray and frowning walls of the towering Chateau, lifted the curtain of night.
Here were the market-boats from far and near drawn up on the beach. Here were the rude stalls and booths laden with the vegetable products of the little clearings beyond the city walls and at Ile d’Orleans; here were Quebec’s first Market-women; and hither flowed throughout the morning a most colourful pageant of patrons.
Viewed from to-day this market-scene is not important on its own account. Its little turn-over is blotted out. Its significance lies rather in the fact that here were planted the beginnings of the market-carts, the stalls and booths, the long line of Market-women, the wealth of products, “and a’ that” from the finger-like farms of to-day.