[27] Ile Normandin.
[28] Registers of Notre Dame record that, on the 19th of August, 1664, two young men, Pierre Magnan and Jacques Dufresne, were slain here by Iroquois.
It was used sometimes by the French as a military station; for in June, 1687, the Chevalier de Vaudreuil posted both the regular troops and the militia there in readiness to march against the Iroquois. Thither it is alleged the Marquis de Lévis, commanding the last French army in 1760, withdrew, and here burnt his flags in the presence of his army the night previous to surrendering the colony to the English. Louis Honoré Frechette, the national French-Canadian poet, bases upon this his poem, entitled "All Lost but Honour."
In 1688 the island was acquired by Charles Le Moyne, Sieur de Longueuil, who gave the name of Ste. Hélène to one of his most distinguished sons. During the eighteenth century (from before 1723), his descendants, the Barons of Longueuil, whose territory lay just opposite, had a residence here, the ruins of which, once surrounded with gardens, are to be seen upon it on the east side. The Government acquired it from them by arrangement during the War of 1812, and later by purchase in 1818, for military purposes. It ceded the park portion to the city in 1874.
Almost adjoining it, at the lower extremity, is Ile Ronde, a small low island.
Both islands are interesting geologically from the occurrence there of a remarkable breccia containing inclusions of Devonian Limestone, and also from the existence of some rare types of dyke rock.
[29] The St. Lambert River.
[30] The Richelieu.
[31] Sault St. Louis Rapids, now known as the Lachine Rapids.
[32] The Lake of Two Mountains.