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Upon the Rock of Quebec, at one time or another in two centuries of struggle, there have stood the rulers and the ruled, the impetuous and picturesque French adventurers and the inscrutable, self-sacrificing, obedient priests, the gallant representatives of a line of French kings and the corrupt administrators of colonial wealth, the reckless and the wise, the chivalrous and the mean, the statesmen and the soldier—all the moving panorama of men who looked out over a wide continent upon the wild struggles of a scattered and proud race of savages, upon the rivalries and warfare of two great European powers in a world still fresh from centuries of solitude, upon the birth-pains of two new nations in process of creation. To the reader or traveler who thinks today of Dufferin Terrace only, who considers the scenery as very beautiful and then passes hurriedly on to see and share in the more attractive and bounding life of greater cities, there is nothing much to be said about Quebec. History is, in a certain real sense, what one makes it. Parkman and Green and Macaulay put the puppets of the past in their proper place and made the real influences of life, the actual, breathing people and controlling principles of the period move across their pages. It was the power of imagination which did it and, despite any errors in detail or in the minor facts of their records, it is this power and this only which enabled them to reconstruct history and make facts and events clear.

If a visitor to Quebec, or even a life-long resident of that cradle of history, should possess the faculty of imagination the facts of four centuries are easy to understand and the romance of his surroundings become clear; if he has not that faculty let him consult the pages of some writer who has. Near the Quebec of the future on the banks of the St. Charles, Jacques Cartier and his sailor comrades in 1535-36 passed a season of severe privations and were the only white men living upon the whole continent of North America. Here, on May 3, 1536, Cartier erected a cross thirty-five feet high bearing a shield with the fleur-de-lys and the inscription in Latin: “Francis I, By the Grace of God, King of France.” On the St. Lawrence and above the site of Quebec, Cartier passed another winter in 1541 and built at Cap Rouge a small fort which De Roberval occupied in the succeeding year.

At the foot of the Rock of Quebec Champlain planted on July 3, 1608, the white flag of France, built his “Abitation” and founded the city of the future. If Napoleon as he stood with folded arms and inscrutable face viewing the Sphinx of Egypt and conjuring up an eastern empire which might compensate him for European disappointments of the moment is an attractive figure of the world’s history, it should not be very difficult to surround with the widest and deepest interest the lonely figures of Cartier and Champlain as, in long-separated years, they faced the mystery of the ages, sought a water route to the Orient from Europe and in doing so paved the way in a new continent of the world for discoveries of vast inland seas and rivers, of untold areas of fertile soil, of mighty mountains and rolling prairies.

In founding this seat of future empire, in organizing a base for expeditions and explorations of whose results he could have no real conception, Champlain selected the site of Quebec as being also most defensible from a military point of view and best fitted as a port for purposes of the fur trade and shipping interests. At the foot of the cliff, amidst a forest of birch trees, he built himself a house—on the spot where the Church of Notre Dame des Victoires now stands. It was in reality three separate houses, joined together, with a courtyard, storehouse, watch-tower and an esplanade in front, guarded by five cannon with palisades and a ditch sixteen feet wide and six feet deep. From this “Abitation” Champlain directed the alliance with the Algonquins and Hurons and that first hostile movement against the Iroquois which seems to have controlled the history of New France for a century and a half and which may, indeed, have been a primary cause for the situation in which Wolfe encountered on the Heights of Abraham the small army of a 60,000 population instead of the armed settlers and soldiers of a strong young nation. It was his one mistake, though the motives no doubt were those of a statesman. To advance the commercial and trading interests of his country an alliance with strong Indian tribes could not but be useful; to draw some line of demarcation across the center of the continent and along the Atlantic settlements of the impetuous and pushing English pioneers must have seemed desirable; to have natives help in exploring the vast interior was obviously important. He could not in the brief time at his disposal understand the dominating qualities of the Iroquois or realize that before long they would sweep these other tribes before them like chaff before a wind.

Up to 1612 Champlain’s residence was the home of a limited local authority and the center for military expeditions and inland fur trade. In that year the free trading rights of the Basques and Malouins were restricted to the river below Quebec and Champlain was given large additional powers. Population came but slowly and was not greatly encouraged. Champlain described the number in 1622 as fifty, including women and children; and in 1629, when Admiral Kirke captured the place for England—and held it for three years—the population was about the same. Meantime the “Abitation” had seen some important changes. Though the Hundred Associates, or Le Compagnie de Canada, which Champlain represented after 1627 and in which was vested by Richelieu the Viceroyalty of New France, was supported mainly by Huguenots of Rouen and St. Malo, Champlain was himself an ardent Catholic. Récollets had already been brought out (four of them) in 1615 and they founded, five years later, the first convent chapel in Quebec, while six Jesuits came in 1625 and soon constructed quarters at Notre Dame des Anges. It was proposed to make the colony purely Catholic, and in the main this object was achieved.

In 1620 Champlain commenced the erection of the Fort or Castle of St. Louis on the brow of the cliff overlooking his “Abitation” (the corner of Dufferin Terrace near the present post-office), and this famous building, or its successor, remained the palace of the Governors of New France until the final cession of the country to Great Britain. From this new seat of authority Champlain, as representing in turn the company, the viceroy and the king, watched the rivalry of the Récollets and Jesuits in the missionary work of the time; from here he guided and modified the jealousies of the infant colony which at his death in 1635 still numbered only a hundred souls; from here he watched and assisted the fur traders in their dangerous but attractive and lucrative occupation; from here he planned and carried on expeditions which gave vast territories to the Crown of France and immense funds of geographical knowledge to the world; from here he departed on constant missions to Paris in the vain effort to hold in one stable policy of trade and settlement and acquisition, the conflicting interests of Court and Church and the selfish rivalries and intrigues of men and women working for evil ends; from here he led French soldiers to fight side by side with the Hurons against the Iroquois. Here, also, Champlain’s beautiful young wife supported him with her sympathy and helped the settlers with unselfish labors for their welfare.

This Fort and Chateau of St. Louis saw many a scene of interest in succeeding years. As the settlement grew in numbers and importance—Quebec was always more influential than the size of its population would have warranted in a European or Asiatic town—the Chateau became the center of a varied and changing history and the home of men with many-sided qualities and performances. De Montmagny was a successor worthy of Champlain, though perhaps only Frontenac and Montcalm in a long line of royal appointments could be said to reach his standard of ability and devotion. Deeply religious, Ferland (the French Canadian historian) describes him as kneeling upon his arrival at Quebec, with all his suite, at the foot of a Cross on the roadside and invoking the protection and guidance of the Almighty in his future work. He rebuilt Fort St. Louis in stone, drew plans of streets for the future city and welcomed the construction by the Jesuits of a College on the site of the present City Hall.

During this period the Chateau was not a very gay or bright place. The last days of De Champlain and the twelve years of De Montmagny covered a period of Church control in which society was dignified, austere and gracious, rather than vivacious or sparkling. Montreal, also, was founded at this time under influences pre-eminently religious, and life, both there and at the Chateau, moved along lines of high dignity and religious observance. Then ensued the heroic period in the history of French Canada and a prolonged death-grapple with the Iroquois. Following it came D’Ailleboust de Coulonge as Governor, Jean de Lauzon, Vicomte D’Argenson, Baron D’Avaugour, Chevalier de Saffrey-Mezy and Rémy de Courcelles. Society took on a more varied hue. There were quarrels between governors and bishops, between Church and State. D’Avaugour, for instance, was full of energy, hot-tempered and rather unwise, while Bishop de Laval was powerful in policy and determination, proud of his Church, its authority and its mission. Discord was inevitable. Then came a number of French nobles and their ladies, more settlers of varied classes, more and more officers clanked their sabers in the Governor’s halls, while soldiers paraded the streets of the little capital side by side with black-robed Jesuits or gaily attired habitants.

With De Courcelles, a just and fearless administrator, at the Chateau in 1665-72 and De Tracy as the King’s viceroy helping for two years to subdue the Iroquois; with the Jesuits moving freely amongst the Indians and passing up and down the continent and around the great lakes in continuous succession; with French influence felt from the Heights of Land to the Illinois, and accentuated by the presence and settlement of the regiment of Carignan-Sallières; with Talon as Intendant, wise, far-seeing and patient—acting the part of a statesman and bringing the colony into a period of production and prosperity—New France entered at this time upon its golden age, and was further aided and kept in this position by the services of Comte de Frontenac in 1672-82 and 1689-98.

If the walls of the old Chateau of St. Louis could live and speak their tales of council during this period the result would hold high place in the pages of romantic history. De Frontenac, in particular, and of all the French King’s representatives in Canada after Champlain, was essentially a picturesque figure. Noble by birth, dignified and yet vivacious, free in his mental poise to the point of autocracy, a brave soldier and excellent military leader, he made Fort St. Louis a brilliant center of an extended administration. During it he cowed the Iroquois with his military skill and placated them with his personal courtesy and bearing, while encouraging explorations which made New France a force from the far north to the southern seas. Incidentally he had the defects of his qualities and disagreed with the Intendant Duchesnay while his proud disposition ill brooked the equally proud and powerful attitude of the Church under Monsigneur de Laval. It was in 1690, under his rule, that Sir William Phips attacked Quebec and was repulsed along the lines of Beauport with such signal results as caused pæans of praise in all the churches of French Canada and the dedication of a new chapel in the city called Notre Dame de la Victoire.

There were two other picturesque characters during this period. The Marquis de Tracy came to New France in 1665 with wide powers as the King’s lieutenant-general in America and with a high military reputation. He was accompanied by a brilliant staff and by a crowd of young nobles anxious to share in the wonderful sport, to see the natural grandeur of the country, and to have a place in the adventurous life of the wilderness. He had, also, 200 soldiers and was joined by 1,000 additional regulars of the regiment Carignan-Sallières. Gorgeous in lace and ribbons, in colors and flowing wigs, he and his staff were greeted on June 30th by Bishop de Laval in his stately robes, surrounded by priests and officials, officers and gentlemen. Down upon his knees on the bare flooring of stone—discarding an offered cushion—knelt the brilliant representative of the King to receive the blessing of the Church from its highest representative in America. There were many such scenes in those days of rule by Church and State.

A greater and more permanent influence in the city and colony during these years than De Tracy was Jean Baptiste Talon, one of the most remarkable figures of the whole French period. Though not of noble birth or title, he was King’s Councillor of State and Privy Councillor, Intendant of Justice, Police and Finance of New France, of the Island of Newfoundland, Acadia and other countries in what the state documents quaintly describe as “North France.” He was an able lieutenant to Frontenac, the first to build ships in the colony, the first to open up trade with the West Indies, the first to build a brewery in North America, the first ruler who developed cod-fisheries along the St. Lawrence. He encouraged agriculture and manufactures, strove earnestly to keep the great West for the French flag, and worked to that end with Frontenac despite the commands of Louis XIV to concentrate the slim forces of France in America and to hold securely what they had in hand rather than expand loosely over a continent.

Rivière du Loup

Meanwhile, population had been growing and social conditions changing. This golden age of Quebec was naturally influenced by the ambitions of Louis XIV and his talented minister, Colbert, as well as affected by the brilliant group of Frenchmen in local control. The King spent money freely to colonize this great country and in doing so proved himself a statesman more truly than in some of his larger and more famous lines of European policy. From Normandy and Pictou in the main, and also from Brittany, Picardy and Paris itself, came shiploads of emigrants—1,200 girls being sent out between 1665-70 as wedding gifts to the settlers. This influx produced a change in social conditions and with the growth of seigneural wealth modified somewhat the half monastic, half military aspect of the Upper Town of Quebec as it grew steadily with its Ursuline convent, founded in 1639 by Mère Marie de l’Incarnation, its Hotel Dieu, its Chateau and fort, its Jesuit college and church, its Laval Seminary and Court House and private homes, its one tavern which stood on the Heights along the line of what is now St. Louis Street. Here in Upper Town lived the priests, officers, government officials and soldiers, nuns, and all the elements of local society; below the Promontory was the trading part of what was at once a fortress, a trading post and a pioneer settlement. In this Lower Town lived the workmen and settlers and traders of various kind, and from here the beaver and other skins were shipped to France; here collected the hunters and trappers and voyageurs, the men who followed in the wake of or accompanied priests and explorers over the vast expanses of a continent; here gathered along the shores, Indians in varied guise and with great variety of spoils for bargaining and trade or, perhaps, in meeting to consult with the white chiefs as to ways and means of defeating their foes; here, when the occasional ship came in, there gathered the whole settlement while the King’s representative, accompanied by Intendant and Bishop, went aboard to welcome the arrivals and hear news of sometimes great import to the welfare of the town and perchance to the future of a continent.

Between the first and second administration of De Frontenac the fort on the Rock of Quebec saw an unhappy period of Indian warfare under M. de La Barre and the Marquis de Denonville, when the colony was plunged from a high position of progress and hope to one of gloom, suffering and almost despair. De Frontenac was sent to the rescue and soon revived the spirit and restored much of the prestige of French Canada before death came to him in 1698 and ended a career which had won for him some enemies, created for him many devoted friends and placed the Fort of St. Louis, during his administration, as high above any other center of government upon the continent as it was in a natural sense above the splendid river and scenery which it overlooked. Following Frontenac came a succession of French nobles bringing with them something of the good and something of the evil of French court life—Chevalier de Callières, long commandant at Montreal; Philippe Marquis de Vandreuil, Charles Marquis de Beauharnois, the Marquis de la Jonquière, the Marquis de Duquesne de Mennenville, the Marquis de Vaudreuil-Cavagnal.

It was an age of brilliant uniforms, bright costumes, wigs of flowing and picturesque locks. Soldiers were on guard day and night, officers clanked their swords at dance and card-games and varied amusements, priests in somber black, or ecclesiastics in rich robes of state, came and went. With the wit and lightness of French conversation and the charm of the women who were now gracing the court of the King’s representatives, the old Chateau must in those days have been the home of many a striking scene—with a background vastly different from the beauty, grace and cultivated charm of Fontainebleau or Versailles. As to this, Charlevoix the historian said of social conditions in 1720 that Quebec with its current population of 7,000 had a very interesting society. It was composed of military officers and nobles, with a fur trade well suited to the adventurous tastes of the period, and occasional Indian struggles well fitted to the fighting characteristics of men born and bred in conditions of European warfare. As the chronicler put it: “The English know better how to accumulate wealth, but we alone are acquainted with the most agreeable way of spending it.”

As with Frontenac and M. de Callières, Philippe de Vaudreuil died at his post and was buried in the Récollet chapel. The Marquis de la Jonquière also died in Quebec and was buried in the same old church—the remains of all being afterwards transferred to the Basilica or Seminary Church. De Mésy also died in the city, as did its founder Champlain and its defender Montcalm. Acting at times during this period (1698-1760) as administrators or lieutenant-governors were other picturesque figures—Claude de Ramézay, Charles Le Moyne, Baron de Longueuil, and the Comte de la Gallissonnière. The last named endeavored, unsuccessfully, to plant 10,000 French colonists along the line of the Alleghanies in order to check the advance of the English, and in 1750 sent Céleron de Bienville to mark the boundaries of French and English possessions down through the heart of the United States of today. Metal plates bearing the arms of France were affixed to trees at certain intervals, and at the foot of each tree was buried another plate—inscribed with a proclamation of ownership. This line was drawn all around the valley of the Ohio up to the Alleghanies. With La Jonquière in control (1749-52) began the corruption which was to eat into the vitals of New France, defeat the ambition and genius of Montcalm and help to transfer the northern part of the continent to the dominance of the British Crown.

Of society and life in Quebec during the closing years of French rule, François Bigot, Intendant of the King, was a conspicuous and malevolent figure. Somewhat commonplace in appearance, brave enough, in a physical sense, skillful in the unscrupulous accumulation of money, fond of pleasure in its more degrading forms as well as of the lighter, brighter social life of the times, he came to New France (Louisbourg) in 1739 after a career of lucrative character in Paris. Six years afterwards he returned to France with charges of misappropriating public moneys hanging over his head. In 1748, however, he secured the post of Intendant at Quebec and there developed a system of speculation and what we would call “graft” which was monumental in character, picturesque in its lavish expenditure upon his “palace,” his entertainments, his pleasures; dreary and cruel in its squeezing of taxes out of the people; elaborate in its swindling of soldiers and the government; wicked beyond words in its profits made out of food withheld from the starving masses and in its crippling of Montcalm’s military efforts.

His final fate was peculiarly fitting to the crime. After the conquest he was tried in Paris (1763), found guilty and condemned to be taken to the principal gate of the Tuileries by the public executioner in a tumbril with a rope about his neck and bearing in his hand a lighted torch of yellow wax, two pounds in weight. On his chest and on his back were to be placed placards with this inscription: “The Public Administrator—Perfidious Thief.” And there, kneeling, bareheaded and with bare feet, clad only in his shirt, “he shall declare in a loud and intelligible voice that during his administration of New France, in peace and in war, he has been guilty of frauds, extortions and thefts.” But the irreparable harm was done. All the millions of francs which were restored to the French treasury by himself and his accomplices Cadet and Péan, could not give back to France its great territories, its loyal people, its vast American potentialities.

With the coming of Montcalm in 1756, had commenced the Seven Years’ War, in which England and Prussia stood against France and Austria and Russia, and various lesser states, while fierce battles were fought in America, in India and on the sea. At Louisbourg and Quebec, as on the plains of Hindustan, England was victorious. The weak character of Louis XVI and the growing abuses of government in France affected conditions at the European seat of French power as did the corruption and weakness of Bigot at the seat of authority in America. Failure was not the fault of the military leaders in New France. With Montcalm were the Marquis de Lévis, the Comte de Bougainville, General de Bourlamaque and others worthy of the great question of national power which was at issue. Corruption was the present cause with, back of that as a primary reason, the lack of population and financial resources. The result of the centuries-old duel between France and England in America was at last settled on the Plains of Abraham and in 1763 Quebec ceased to be the capital of a vague, vast, intangible New France and became for a time one of the outposts of British military power. Through all these years it had been a center of life and strife, of hope and fear, of religion and war. It had passed through the tremendous difficulties of pioneer settlement; it had survived the prolonged agony of Iroquois days; it had passed through the siege and capture by Admiral Kirke in 1629, through the siege by Sir William Phips in 1690; it had endured the attack of 1759 and that of De Lévis in the succeeding year; it faced the desperate effort of Montgomery and Arnold in 1775. From the days of tiny fortification and weak isolation it had grown to be a pivotal point in the world-wide struggles of two great nations and an object of determined effort by the Continental forces of Revolutionary days. As F. G. Scott has well said of this period:

Ah God! what thunders shook those crags of yore,

What smoke of battle rolled about this place,

What strife of worlds in pregnant agony:

Now all is hushed, yet here in dreams once more

We catch the echoes ringing back from space,

Of God’s strokes forging human history.

By another transformation under a new flag, and developed through the rapidly passing footprints of British governors and Canadian politicians, French Canadian agitators and “patriots,” popular and unpopular leaders, a part of the French Canada of the past became once more centered at Quebec as the provincial capital in a preliminary union with Upper Canada, 1841-67, and then in a wider and greater Dominion of Canada. Through all these later stages it remained a center of the storm-cloud of politics or insurrection, of legislation and administration. It was also the home of French thought in Canada, the pivot of literary activity, the seat for many years of a great lumbering industry with Cap Rouge as its central point, the home of ship-building for another period at the mouth of the St. Charles, the seat in St. Roch of immense tanneries which have largely passed away, the present home of a most important boot and shoe industry. Interesting sights of the modern city are Wolfe’s Monument, the Wolfe-Montcalm Memorial, the Champlain Monument and a Memorial of Queen Victoria. Outside of the city are Memorials of Jacques Cartier at the junction of the St. Charles and Lairet, of Murray and De Lévis on the Ste. Foy Road, of Father Massé at Sillery.

This modern Quebec, which curious and interested travelers from all parts of the continent delight to visit, still retains much of its old-time color and character, though much, alas, has passed away. The gates of the city have gone, though large stretches of the ancient walls remain, and in one or two cases adaptations of the gates have been built to convey an idea of their nature and significance. With what history and life, suffering and joy, traditions and memories, were those old gates—Prescott, Hope, St. John and the like—replete! What castigation will the unknown names of those responsible for their entire removal—changes were no doubt necessary—receive from the ever-growing number of those who love memorials of the past; who base their patriotism in some measure upon the visible tokens of that past; who feel a curious fascination in seeing things so different to the newness and swiftness and changes of modern construction and modern taste.

Chateau Frontenac and Citadel, Quebec

The commercial age has come upon the city. Street cars and trade dislike narrow gates and they had to go; modern buildings require space and in some cases they have replaced most ancient structures. But none of these things have or can affect fundamental conditions—the wonderful site of the city, the old-time twistings and turnings of its narrow streets, the steep grades of its Upper Town, the characteristics of its ancient and modern religious structures, or the exquisite view of nearby river and distant hills, of winding waters and beautiful valleys and picturesque villages. Dufferin Terrace, one of the finest promenades in the world, and the Chateau Frontenac, one of the world’s great hostelries, have, it is true, replaced the ancient chateaux and government edifices of the past; the post-office of today stands where an Indian fort was built in 1649 to house the flying Hurons from their ruthless Iroquois foes; the present Roman Catholic Seminary and Laval University stand where Louis Hébert cleared the ground and erected the first humble house upon the cliff in the shadow of the Chateau; the City Hall stands where the Jesuit College once sent out or received with open arms the missionaries and explorers who held the varied parts of a new continent within their purview, which trained others for similar work and then for a century echoed to the tread of British soldiers; the Quebec Bank stands where the Lymburners in British days had famous offices and in its vicinity a British barricade was erected in 1775 to oppose the advance of Arnold’s forces; Frontenac Park was the site of the Bishop’s Palace which once overlooked Prescott Gate and in latter days it was the home of the Parliament Buildings which preceded those of the present time; Boswell’s Brewery has replaced the walls of the Intendant’s Palace which was erected in 1655 by De Meules who succeeded Talon in that office—in Bégon’s days twenty buildings were grouped around the main structure.

Still, much remains in the most ancient historic sense. St. Louis Street, in its quaint buildings and narrow roadway, shows the house where H. R. H. the Duke of Kent lived in 1791-93, the old-time residence of Chief Justice Sewell and various lieutenant-governors under British rule, the house where the remains of General Montgomery were deposited. Down below the Citadel and the modern Chateau, at the foot of the cliff, there are myriad tokens of an olden day. The Church of Notre Dame des Victoires stands upon the site of Champlain’s “Abitation” and every foot of soil and street teems with memorials of the past. In front of the church—the plural style was assumed in 1811 after the projected siege by Admiral Hovenden Walker had been abandoned—stood in early days the pillory and, within the square, the scaffold for executions used to be erected. The church itself dates from 1648 and was partially destroyed by shot and shell in 1759. The first church in Quebec stood at the head of the curious little place called the Cul-de-Sac and was destroyed at the siege of 1629.

Champlain Street extends from the base of Cape Diamond, where it touches the market place, still noted for its Saturday sale of products by habitants, to the city limits and includes the one-time business center of the town, the old Guard House and the remains of the ancient inner harbor of Quebec. On the Charlesbourg Road, not far from Quebec, are to be seen the remains of what is popularly called Chateau Bigot. Tradition has woven round this old mansion various romantic tales of love and cruelty fitting to the life of Intendant Bigot, but the facts appear to be that it was built by Intendant Bégon (1712-26) who was quite a different man in both character and fame. Elsewhere in the city there are varied quaint and tortuous streets peeping out of modern thoroughfares and reminding the casual visitor that Europe once held a vivid place in the making of American history. Nooks and squares and roadways, houses and churches have, in a sudden and surprising way, tales to tell of the stirring past, lessons to teach for a greater if not so brilliant a future. Some of them were taught in that splendid demonstration of national unity and international friendship which marked, in 1908, the four-hundredth anniversary of Champlain’s memorable action in founding a settlement on the Rock of Quebec which would forward French power in the New World and advance Christianity amongst the ancient, strange and savage people then in possession.