The Gésu is the successor in order of time of the church built in 1692 on the site of the present courthouse and city hall. This was burned in 1803. The Jesuits had left the colony after the capitulation and their property was held by the government, but in 1842 they were invited to return by Mgr. Bourget and in consequence there arrived soon the Fathers Pierre Chazelle, Felix Martin, Remi Tellier, Paul Luiset, Joseph Hanipaux and Dominique Duranquet. Several undertook the charge of the curé of La Prairie and others were employed at the bishop’s house. In 1843 a novitiate for future members was opened on July 31st in a little house adjoining the church at La Prairie and on September 9th it was transferred for five years to a house loaned by Lieut.-Col. C.S. Rodier, who became mayor in 1858.
In 1845 a public meeting invited the Jesuits to build a residence and college in the city and in 1846 the present lands on Bleury Street were sold at a very liberal price by Mr. John Donegani. But owing to the typhus epidemic intervening in 1847-48 the building was delayed. In the meantime the Fathers worked in the fever sheds for the suffering Irish with six fathers who came from New York and afterwards founded with the Seminary the first residence of St. Patricks, then situated at Nos. 57-59 St. Alexander Street. In 1850 the first stone of their college of Ste. Marie was laid and on July 31, 1851, the college, with its public chapel attached, was blessed. In 1851 their noviceship was transferred hither and on August 5, 1853, it was again transplanted to its present position at Sault au Recollet, outside the city.
In 1863, on October 22, M. Olivier Berthelet made a gift of an arpent and a half (for which he had paid $20,000) for a church to be built after the model of the Gésu in Rome. The work was commenced in the following year.
The Gésu, as it became to be called, is one of the finest specimens of its kind. It is 194 feet long, 96 feet wide, the transept 144 feet, and the nave 95 feet high. The style of architecture, Renaissance and Florentine, is fascinating and gives the church an aspect of elegance and comfort. It is not unlike the Gesu at Rome in its appointments. Its collection of fine paintings and tableaux deserves a special mention. They imitate or complete the plastic work of the sacred edifice. They are, for the most part, copies of masterpieces of the modern German School and are the work of Mr. Miller. Among its many rich chapels, one in particular attracts the attention of the visitor, on account of an old statue it possesses. It is under the gallery to the right of the main altar and is known as the Chapel of Our Lady of Liesse. A reliquary over the tabernacle contains the ashes of the statue of Our Lady of Liesse, which was burned during the French Revolution. Two large tableaux which are on either side of the sanctuary represent St. Aloysius and St. Stanislaus Kostka in the attitude of receiving Holy Communion, the former from the hands of St. Charles Borromeo and the latter from an Angel. There are two smaller paintings over the altars of the Blessed Virgin and St. Joseph: “The Holy Family” and “The Flight into Egypt.” These remarkable paintings are from the studio of Cagliardi Bros., Rome.
ST. PETER’S
Montreal is the headquarters of several religious orders of men. Besides the Jesuits there are numerous others who are devoted either to the ministry or education, or to both. One of the first communities to be invited were the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, an order founded at Aix in Provence on January 25, 1816, by Mgr. de Mazenod, bishop of Marseilles. In 1841 four Oblates reached Montreal, Fathers Honorat (Superior), Telmont, Baudrand and Lagier. Their settlement was first at St. Hilaire de Rouville, then at Longueuil. In 1848 a provisory chapel in wood was built in the Faubourg de Quebec (Quebec Suburbs). In 1851 the first stone of the new church of St. Peter, on the same spot, on Visitation Street, was laid. From this first home there went forth the first missionaries of the modern Canadian Northwest. To this order the Rev. Albert Lacombe, the northwest missionary, became early attached.
St. Peter’s has three naves of equal height. The sanctuary is lighted by large arched, stained-glass windows, which produce a magnificent effect. The white marble altar is surmounted by a turreted reredos and is shown to advantage by numberless electric bulbs most ingeniously adapted. St. Peter’s is one of the best proportioned churches of the City. The stained-glass windows of the sanctuary and side aisles are most attractive. They are from the factory of Champigneulle of Bar-le-Duc, France. The Sacred Heart altar is a rare work of art with its handsome candlesticks and its tabernacle door of gilded bronze.
ENGLISH CATHOLIC CHURCHES
ST. PATRICK’S
Especial notice should be given to the origin of the English-speaking Catholics of the city. Although before 1800 a few Irish immigrants sought a home in the city, the history proper of the Irish population of Montreal starts in 1817, when a Sulpician, the Rev. Father Richards-Jackson, commonly known as Rev. M. Richards, discovered a little band of worshipers from the Emerald Isle, driven thence by poverty and privation, gathering at Bonsecours church. A directory of 1819 only reveals about thirty presumably Irish names.[2] In 1820 the number was still so small that a visitor to Bonsecours Church stated that “he could have covered with a good-sized parlour carpet all the Irish Catholics worshipping there on Sundays.” Yet the number of Irish orphans were so great that by 1823 the “Salle des Petites Irlandaises” was opened in the Grey Nuns’ hospital and supported by the Gentlemen of the Seminary. Soon the complement of forty was reached. But by 1831, with the increase of immigration, the old “Récollet” church on Notre Dame Street, being considerably enlarged, was reopened for the use of the Irish Catholics of the center and western portions of the city, those of the eastern section still remaining attached to Notre Dame de Bonsecours. The Rev. Patrick Phelan, afterwards bishop, was the first Irish pastor. The Irish soldiers of the garrison met principally at the new Notre Dame church opened in 1829. Soon the “Récollet” became inadequate. On Sundays it was so overcrowded with devout Irish that the overflow knelt in the rain or the sunshine on Notre Dame Street or Dollard Lane. This was to be remedied by the steps taken on May 20, 1843, to purchase land for a church to be named St. Patrick’s, the present area of St. Patrick’s Church and the St. Bridget’s Home being secured by the Fabrique of Notre Dame from the Rocheblave family for £5,000. On the 26th of September the cornerstones were blessed by Bishop Bourget. They were seven in number and were laid by the following: First, by Bishop Bourget; second, by the mayor; third, by the speaker of the assembly; fourth, by the chief justice; fifth, by the president of the Irish Temperance Association; sixth, by the president of St. Patrick’s Society; seventh, by the president of the Hibernian Benevolent Society.