AN ANCIENT AMERICAN CITY.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume IV, Issue 187, 27 October 1876, Page 15

AN ANCIENT AMERICAN CITY.

Mrs. Dowses, o£ Andover, writes in the Boston ' Congregationalbt' as follows, concerning Quebec : If you cannot go to Europe, and want to know how its old cities loot, come to Quebec. What William Russell said of it, when he was here with the Prince of Wales in 1860, is true now : " Quebec is a fortified city of the middle ages, which, bas been preserved in amber, transported across the ocean, and set up on the shining heights of Cape Diamond." Indeed, to-day it is more European than Europe, as historic streets and buildings are being destroyed there as recklessly as if they were all under the charge of a wide-spread Old South Society. But here they have just begun to pull down ; and public sentiment, supported by the earnest efforts of Lord Dufferiii, is entirely against it. I have stood in the house to which Montcalm was carried after his mortal wound ; and looked up to the thick oaken beams, which heard him say : " I am glad to" die, since France has fallen ;" and although it is dreadfully inconvenient to have it in the place it now occupies, the whole city would shudder if its destruction were hinted. My windows look into the Crsuline Garden, where they buried the gallant Marquis in a trench made by the bursting of an English shell ; and a little to my leffc, in the chapel of these same Ursulines, is a small tabletjjto his memory. Their chaplain keeps his skull, white as ivory, in a glass case, and when he showed it to me, told with indignation how he lent it once to some English officers, and when they brought it back, he found they had stolen a tooth. My landladies remember when the old ash tree in the convent garden, under which Marie de l'lncarnation taught the Indian children, was hivered by lightning, how the nuns fell shrieking on their knees, and collected bits of it as of a broken shrine. Opposite is the " Residence" of the Jesuits, rebuilt in 1700 from the stone, and on the site, of the old one of 1637. Of the common limestone of the neighborhood, which has been stained yellow for so many generations that the color looks a part of the stone itself ; with its deep windows, across which are stretched iron bars, its vaulted cellars, and beautifully carved door-ways, it is strange and quaint beyond words. It covers twelve acres in the midst of the narrow streets and winding lanes of the Upper Town, and encloses a large open square. When in 1759 the Upper Town was almost annihilated by the English guns, the " Kesidence " remained comparatively unharmed, and the victorious general used it to shelter his troops. From that date until a couple of years ago it hsis been occupied by the English soldiers as a barracks, from whence it has acquired the name of " Josuit Barracks." At present it is inhabited by the poor people whom the late horrible fire made homeless. Women, children, horses, cows, pigs and fowl herd together in rooms where the very thought of family life was once shunned as a temptation of the devil ; and as I watch, enchanted, the ancient pile, through the long, weird twilight, Father Le Jeanne and Father Jainay keep vigil sadder than mine, for to their eyes their incredible toil and unquenching zeal seems to have been in vain. Numbers of the order still dwell in the city. The church of the congregation is regarded with especial reverence, because it is peculiarly their property. 1 cannot see why, but my informant seemed to think the reason lie gave sufficient : " They spend all their time hearing confessions, you know." A pilgrimage is now going on from Quebec to St. Anue's about twenty miles east of the city. St. Anne was the Virgin Mary's mother, and her relics, shrined in the chapel above-named, possess miraculous power, and thither all the sick and sorrowing resort. Many who are neither, go barefooted for loved ones who are both. One of our neighbors who had been a cripple for years, was taken there, knelt before the altar, touched with reverence the holy relic, and rose healed ! He left his crutches on the walls of the chapel, and now walks the town a sound man. Wo more picturesque sight was ever seen than that of these men, women and children, as they set out in all sorts of vehicles, in the saddle and on foot, to the unseen Bhrine on which all their hopes are staked. As we overtake them traversing wearily the dusty Beaufort Road, I sec uo reason why I

should not reverence their faith as much as I do that of the countless throngs who in earlier days haunted_the church of St. Anne in fertile Normandy. Then, we come home to look at the strangely-robed TJrsulines as they walk, meditate and chatter amid the tall white lilies of their garden, until their vesper bell disturbs the darkening silence, soon to be suddenly and sharply broken by the evening gun from the citadel ; and it is no longer Quebec, and to-day it is Dieppe and the sixteenth century, and %ye are setting out with Marie do l'lncarnation for the mysterious, far-distant country which seenn to have sprung into beiug solely for the glory of: Holy Church.