FRENCH CANADA

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 57, 8 March 1932, Page 5

FRENCH CANADA

CHURCHES AND SHRINES

SOME HISTORIC SPOTS

UN-ENGLISH SCENES

(From "The Post's" Representative.) /■ VANCOUVER, 3rd February. ; In. the heart of the city of Quebec, on land adjacent to the first farm laid out by Louis Herbert in New Prance, stands the Basilica, serving the oldest parish in Canada. The first building •was erected in 1633, in redemption of a vow by Champlain thus to honour the Virgin if the French were allowed to return alter the capture of Quebec by the English, in 1629. The building was burned in 1640, and a more pretentious structure followed, begun in 1647 and opened ten years later. It was made a cathedral ]in 1674, .and, after fires and alterations,: became a basilica in 1874. - Part of the original walls remain, .but '"• the church of to-day, bears little fesem.-' . blance to the days of Louis XIV. and the coureurs' dv' b'ois.". . A note'of medievalism still persists in Quebec^ to contrast with the modern spirit. /When Maisonneuve, the founder of Montreal,'sprang ashore with his companions, they immediately gave expression to their spirit of devotion by : falling on their knees and rendering 'songs''of thanksgiving. There now gleams nightly on Mount Eoyal a huge cross, formed of' electric lights, standing in the same spot as the -cross erec--1 ted by Maisonneuve in 1642. All over French Canada are signs of the impress of the Church with customs and clerical costumes to which the re- . mainder of Canada is. unfamiliar. Along 1 the_ rural roads and bypaths, wayside shrine.s and calvaires confront the visi- ; tor,, just as: in Old France. Sisters of Charity, black-robed priests and nuns, brwon-froeked monks, and sandalled friars walk silently- and swiftly about the streets of Quebec, Montreal, and Ottawa. The simple, devout faith of the"' countryside is exemplified by the • piles of crutches in the corners of the - shrines, at Ste. Anne de Beaupre, Cap . de la Madelejne, or Brother Andre's Church, on the north slope of- Mount Eoyal. ........ ; . | MONTCAIM AND WOLFE. There was a chapel in the* ITrs'uline ' .Convent at Quebec City in 1642, and the present chapel reproduces the third one, r which dated from 1736 and was rebuilt in 1902. The .pulpit, . from which a .memorial sermon was preached, for Wolfe after his death on the Plains of Abraham in 17591, remains, a-.commodi-ous, ornate affair. And, completing tho , historic association, in the wall-nearby is the tomb of:Montcalm, Wolfe's great antagonist. Paintings "brought from France at the time still • decorate the ' walls. •:.'.. „■•'"'■ - ! Near the site of Champlain's "habita-.. tion" in 1608, half-hidden' by encroach? ing commerical buildings, is Notre: " Dame dcs Victoires. The corner stone. - was laid in 1688, and wheh;the chapel ; was finished, soon after 1-711, it was given the name it now bears in celebration of the two victories over the ■English, in 1690 and 1711.: Notre Dame was burned during Wolfe's bqmbard- , ment of the city in 1759 and rebuilt on its' original walls in 1765; 'X • A'"Crowning the shore-line of-MQitreal : -Harbour, with the figurje.of the.'Virgin 'leaning over from \the> spire, blessing the sailors of the St. Laurence, j stands the Church of Notre Dame ,d"c, Eonse- . cours. Repeated efforts to have it make .. • -way for commerical undertakings have jfailed. The corner stone- was .laid yin 1675, on a,site surrounded by meadows and woods. The statue of the Virgin. brought from France in 1672, was found in the ashes when the church' was burti- .- Ed in 1754; it was rebuilt in 1773. X 1 THREE RIVERS CHURCH. • - Three Rivers had an important place in- the history of New France, by reason j. of the adjacent St. Maurice Forges, site *■ of the 'first blast furnace, in 'America. ■Pierre Boucher, the Governor, -erected a , .'wooden oratory-in. 1659, whiph served the Indians for half a century. The #; modern church on tHe site.was made \ possible by the hauling of stone across the ice from the south shore, the "ice bridge" having followed months of •prayer. The Island of Orleans, in the, St. Lawrence, just below Quebec, h'as.'associa-.tions,-.with the, days-, of Jacques. Car-l-tier. Some of its churches.date from the French regime/ In Ste: Fauville, ( three belfries and five religious figures . in sculptured wood, relics of the Ms--1 torie wood carvers of Quebec, would . make the" building noticeable anywhere. An. outpost in the New World, Ta \ Doussac/ lies at the mouth of the Sa , Guenay, river of cliffs'and gloom. 3?ere . Le Caron, who, in 1615 conducted the L first ./religious, .service in what •is now Ontario, erected -a bark, cabin- there, -■ The settlement flourished as a fur-trad-y. ing post, until; oyershadowe"d;by Quebec r and other towns with, arable land around them. The tiny bell in the little ~ chapel was brought from, France in , 1647,- anot is rung to-day by curious tourists. ■■'.;■ . t ■' .