Quebec is not merely historic: it suggests history. It has the grand manner. One feels in one's bones that it is a city of a splendid past. The first sight of Quebec piled up on its opposite bluff where the waters of the St. Charles swell the mighty volume of the St. Lawrence convinces one that this grave city is the cradle of civilization in the West, the overlord of the river road to the sea and the heart of history and romance for Canada.
One does not require prompting to recognize that history has to go back centuries to reach the day when Cartier first landed here; or that Champlain figured bravely in its story in a brave and romantic era of the world, and that it was he who saw its importance as a commanding point of the great waterway that struck deep into the heart of the rich dominion—though he did think that dominion was a fragment of the fabulous Indies with a door into the rich realms of China.
Instinct seems to tell one that on the lifting plain behind the bulldog Citadel, Montcalm lost and died, and Wolfe died and won.
One knows, too, that from this city thick with spires, streams of Christianity and civilization flowed west and north and south to quicken the whole barbaric continent; that it was the nucleus that concentrated all the energy of the vast New World.
II
From the decks of the three war vessels, the Renown and the escorting cruisers, Quebec must have seemed like a city of a dream hanging against the quiet sky of a glorious evening.
The piled-up mass of the city on its abrupt cape is romantic, and suggests the drama of a Rhine castle with a grace and a significance that is French. On that evening of August 21st, when the strings and blobs of colour from a multitude of flags picked out the clustering of houses that climbed Cape Diamond to the grey walls of the Citadel, the city from the St. Lawrence had an appearance glowing and fantastic.
From Quebec the three fine ships steaming in line up the blue waters of the river were a sight dramatic and beautiful, though from the heights and against the wall of cliffs on the Levis side, a mile across stream, the cruisers were strangely dwarfed, and even Renown appeared a small but desirable toy.
In keeping with the general atmosphere of the town and toy-like ships, Quebec herself put a touch of the fantastic into the charm of her greeting.
As the cruisers dressed ship, and joined with the guns of the Citadel in the salute, there soared from the city itself scores of maroons. From the flash and smoke of their bursts there fluttered down many coloured things. Caught by the wind, these things opened out into parachutes, from which were suspended large silk flags. Soon the sky was flecked with the bright, tricoloured bubbles of parachutes, bearing Jacks and Navy Ensigns, Tricolours and Royal Standards down the wind.