There was a laugh at La Corne's allusion to the Marquise de Pompadour, whose original name of Jeanne Poisson, gave rise to infinite jests and sarcasms among the people of low and high degree.
Colonel Leboeuf, choleric as he was, refrained from pressing the quarrel with La Corne St. Luc. He sat sulkily smothering his wrath—longing to leave the hall and go to the relief of the Intendant, but kept against his will by the command of the Governor.
The drums of the main guard beat the assembly. The clash of arms and the tramp of many feet resounded from the court-yard of the Château. The members of the Council looked out of the windows as the troops formed in column, and headed by Colonel St. Remy, defiled out of the Castle gate, the thunder of their drums drowning every other sound and making the windows shake as they marched through the narrow streets to the scene of disturbance.
CHAPTER XIII. THE CHIEN D'OR.
On the Rue Buade, a street commemorative of the gallant Fontenac, stood the large, imposing edifice newly built by the Bourgeois Philibert, as the people of the Colony fondly called Nicholas Jaquin Philibert, the great and wealthy merchant of Quebec and their champion against the odious monopolies of the Grand Company favored by the Intendant.
The edifice was of stone, spacious and lofty, but in style solid, plain, and severe. It was a wonder of architecture in New France and the talk and admiration of the Colony from Tadousac to Ville Marie. It comprised the city residence of the Bourgeois, as well as suites of offices and ware-rooms connected with his immense business.
The house was bare of architectural adornments; but on its façade, blazing in the sun, was the gilded sculpture that so much piqued the curiosity of both citizens and strangers and was the talk of every seigniory in the land. The tablet of the Chien D'or,—the Golden Dog,—with its enigmatical inscription, looked down defiantly upon the busy street beneath, where it is still to be seen, perplexing the beholder to guess its meaning and exciting our deepest sympathies over the tragedy of which it remains the sole sad memorial.
Above and beneath the figure of a couchant dog gnawing the thigh bone of a man is graven the weird inscription, cut deeply in the stone, as if for all future generations to read and ponder over its meaning:
“Je suis un chien qui ronge l'os,
En le rongeant je prends mon repos.
Un temps viendra qui n'est pas venu
Que je mordrai qui m'aura mordu.”
1736.