Picturesque Quebec by James MacPherson Le Moine

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Here then we have the origin of the Napoleon wharf and a very distinct
mention of St. Peter street. The building erected near this site was sold
on the 22nd October, 1763, to William Grant, Esquire, who, on the 19th
December, 1763, also purchased the remainder of the ground down to low-
water mark, from Thomas Mills, Esquire, Town Major, who had shortly before
obtained a grant or patent of it, the 7th December, 1763, from Governor
Murray, in recognition, as is stated in the preamble of the patent, of his
military services. This property which, at a later period, belonged to the
late William Burns, was by him conveyed, the 16th October, 1806, to the
late J. M. Woolsey. The Napoleon wharf, purchased in 1842 by the late
Julien Chouinard from the late Frs. Buteau, forms at present part of the
Estate Chouinard; in reality, it is composed of two wharves joined into
one; the western portion is named "The Queen's Wharf," and was Mr.
Woolsey's property.

The highway which leads from the Cape towards this wharf is named "Sous-
le-Fort" street, which sufficiently denotes its position; this street, the
oldest, probably dates from the year 1620, when the foundations of Fort
St. Louis were laid; we may presume that, in 1663, the street terminated
at "la Pointe des Roches." In the last century "Sous-le-Fort" street was
graced by the residences, among others, of Fleury de la Janniere, brother
of Fleury de la Gorgendiere, brother-in-law of the Governor de Vaudreuil.

In this street also stood the house of M. George Allsop, [101] the head of
the opposition in Governor Cramahe's Council. His neighbour was M.
d'Amours des Plaines, Councillor of the Superior Council; further on,
stood the residence of M. Cuvillier, the father of the Honorable Austin
Cuvillier, in 1844 Speaker of the House of Assembly. In this street also
existed the warehouse of M. Cugnet, the lessee of the Domaine of Labrador.

We must not confound the Napoleon wharf, sold by J. O. Brunet to Francois
Buteau, with the Queen's wharf, the property of the late J. W. Woolsey. On
the Queen's wharf, in a dwelling, since converted into a tavern, in 1846
one of the wittiest members of the Quebec Bar, Auguste Soulard, Esq.,
opened a law office for the especial convenience of his numerous country
clients. After office hours it was the rendezvous of many young
barristers, who have since made their mark: Messieurs T. Fournier, Justice
of the Supreme Court; A. Plamondon, Judge of the Superior Court; N.
Casault, Judge of the Superior Court; Jean Tache, Frederick Braun, L.
Fiset, J. M. Hudon and others. From the king's wharf to the king's forges
(the ruins of which were discovered at the beginning of the century, a
little further up than the king's store), there are but a few steps.

Francois Bellet, M.P. for the county of Buckingham from 1815 to 1820,
resided on the property of the late Julien Chouinard, at the corner of St.
Peter and Sous-le-Fort streets. He combined parliamentary duties, it
seems, with a sea-faring life, being styled "Capitaine de Batiment" in a
power of attorney before Martin A. Dumas, N.P., at Quebec, dated 9th
September, 1796, in which as attorney and agent for Revd. "Messire Louis
Payet, pretre, cure de la paroisse de St. Antoine, au Nord de la Riviere
Richelieu," he sells to Monsieur Thomas Lee, later on an M.P.P., his negro
slave, named Rose, for the sum of "500 livres et vingt sols,"--about $100
of our currency. The traffic in human flesh became extinct in Canada in
1803 by legislative enactment. The bluest blood of our Southern neighbours
was shed to keep it up in the model Republic sixty years subsequently.
[102] In the space between the Queen's wharf and the jetty on the west,
belonging to the Imperial authorities and called the king's wharf, there
existed a bay or landing place, much prized by our ancestors, which
afforded a harbour for the coasting vessels and small river crafts, called
the "_Cul-de-Sac_." There, also, the ships which were overtaken by an
early winter lingered until the sunny days of April released them from
their icy fetters. There the ships were put into winter quarters, and
securely bedded on a foundation or bed of clay; wrecked vessels also came
hither to undergo repairs. The _Cul-de-Sac_, with its uses and marine
traditions, had, in by-gone days, an important function in our
incomparable sea-port. In this vicinity, Vaudreuil, in 1759, planted a
battery.

The old Custom House (now the Department of Marine), was built on this
site in 1833. In 1815 the Custom House was on McCallum's wharf. The
_Cul-de-Sac_ recalls "the first chapel which served as a Parish
Church at Quebec," that which Champlain caused to be built in the Lower
Town in 1615, where the name of Champlain is identified with the street
which was bounded by this chapel. The Revd. Fathers Recollets there
performed their clerical functions up to the period of the taking of
Quebec by the brothers Kertk, that is from 1615 to 1629, (Laverdiere.)

Nothing less than the urgent necessity of providing the public with a
convenient market-place, and the small coasting steamers with suitable
wharves, could move the municipal authorities to construct the wharves now
existing, and there, in 1856, to erect out of the materials of the old
Parliament House, the spacious Champlain Hall, so conspicuous at present.
The king's wharf and the king's stores, two hundred and fifty feet in
length, with a guard house, built on the same site in 1821, possess also
their marine and military traditions. The "Queen's Own" volunteers, Capt.
Rayside, were quartered there during the stirring times of 1837-38, when
"Bob Symes" dreamed each night of a new conspiracy against the British
crown, and M. Aubin perpetuated, in his famous journal "_Le Fantasque_"
the memory of this loyal magistrate.

How many saucy frigates, how many proud English Admirals, have made fast
their boats at the steps of this wharf! Jacques Cartier, Champlain,
Nelson, Bourgainville, Cook, Vauclain, Montgomery, Boxer, Sir Rodney
Mundy, poor Captain Burgoyne, of the ill-fated iron-clad _Captain_,
Sir Leopold McClintock, [103] have, one after the other, trodden over this
picturesque landing place, commanded as it is by the guns of Cape Diamond.
Since about a century, the street which bears the venerated name of the
founder of Quebec, Champlain street, unmindful of its ancient Gallic
traditions, is almost exclusively the headquarters of our Hibernian
population. An ominous-looking black-board, affixed to one of the
projecting rocks of the Cape, indicates the spot below where one of their
countrymen, Brigadier-General Richard Montgomery, with his two _aides-
de-camp_, Cheeseman and McPherson, received their death wounds during a
violent snow storm about five o'clock in the morning, the 31st December,
1775. On this disastrous morning the post was guarded by Canadian
militiamen, Messieurs Chabot and Picard. Captain Barnesfare, an English
mariner, had pointed the cannon; Coffin and Sergeant Hugh McQuarters
applied the match. At the eastern extremity, under the stairs, now styled
"Breakneck Steps," according to Messrs. Casgrain and Laverdiere, was
discovered Champlain's tomb, though a rival antiquary, M. S. Drapeau, says
that he is not certain of this. [104]

A little to the west is Cap Blanc, inhabited by a small knot of French-
Canadians and some Irish; near by, was launched in October, 1750, the
_Orignal_, a King's ship, built at Quebec; at that period the lily flag of
France floated over the bastions of Cape Diamond; the _Orignal_, in being
launched, broke her back and sank. Among the notabilities of Cap Blanc,
one is bound to recall the athletic stevedore and pugilist, Jacques
Etienne Blais. Should the fearless man's record not reach remote
posterity, pointing him out as the Tom Sayers of Cap Blanc, it cannot fail
to be handed down as the benefactor of the handsome new church of Notre
Dame de la Garde, erected on the shore in 1878, the site of which was
munificently given by him on the 17th June, 1877. Jacques Blais, now
(1881) very aged, though still vigorous, in his best days by his prowess
re-called that prince of Quebec raftsmen so graphically delineated by Chas
Lanman.

Champlain street stretches nearly to Cap Rouge, a distance of six miles.
During the winter the fall of an avalanche from the brow of the Cape on
the houses beneath is a not unfrequent occurrence. In former years, in the
good time of ship-building, the laying the keel of a large vessel in the
ship-yards often brought joy to the hearts of the poor ship-carpenters;
many of whose white, snug cottages are grouped along the river near by.

Except during the summer months, when the crews of the ships, taking in
cargo alongside the booms, sing, fight and dance in the adjacent
"shebeens," the year glides on peacefully. On grand, on gala days, in
election times, some of the sons of St. Patrick used to perambulate the
historical street, flourishing treenails, or _shillaleghs_--in order
to _preserve the peace!!!_ of course. To sum up all, Champlain street
has an aspect altogether _sui generis_.

A QUEBEC PORTRAIT

(From the ATLANTIC MONTHLY.)

"Physical size and grand proportions are looked upon by the French-
Canadians with great respect. In all the cases of popular
_emeutes_ that have from time to time broken out in Lower Canada,
the fighting leaders of the people were exceptional men, standing head
and shoulders over their confiding followers. Where gangs of raftsmen
congregate, their 'captains' may be known by superior stature. The
doings of their 'big men' are treasured by the French-Canadians in
traditionary lore. One famous fellow of this governing class is known
by his deeds and words to every lumberer and stevedore and timber-
tower about Montreal and Quebec. This man, whose name was Joe
Monfaron, was the bully of the Ottawa raftsmen. He was about six feet
six inches high, and proportionally broad and deep; and I remember how
people would turn round to look after him, as he came pounding along
Notre Dame street, in Montreal, in his red shirt and tan-colored
_shupac_ boots, all dripping wet, after mooring an acre or two of
raft, and now bent for his ashore haunts in the Ste. Marie suburb, to
indemnify himself with bacchanalian and other consolations for long-
endured hardship. Among other feats of strength attributed to him, I
remember the following, which has an old, familiar taste, but was
related to me as a fact:

"There was a fighting stevedore or timber-tower, I forget which, at
Quebec, who had never seen Joe Monfaron, as the latter seldom came
farther down the river than Montreal. This fighting character,
however, made a custom of laughing to scorn all the rumors that came
down on rafts, every now and then, about terrible chastisements
inflicted by Joe upon several hostile persons at once. He, the
fighting timber-tower, hadn't found his match yet about the lumber
coves at Quebec, and he only wanted to see Joe Monfaron once, when he
would settle the question as to the championship of rafts, on sight.
One day a giant in a red shirt stood suddenly before him, saying--

"'You're Dick Dempsey, eh?'

"'That's me.' replied the timber-tower, 'and who are you?'

"'Joe Monfaron. I heard you wanted me--here I am,' was the Caesarean
answer of the great captain of rafts.

"'Ah! you're Joe Monfaron!" said the bully, a little staggered at the
sort of customer he saw before him. 'I said I'd like to see you, for
sure, but how am I to know you're the right man?'

"'Shake hands first,' replied Joe, 'and then you will find out, may
be.'

"They shook hands--rather warmly, perhaps, for the timber-tower, whose
features wore an uncertain expression during the operation, and who at
last broke out into a yell of pain, as Joe cast him off with a defiant
laugh. Nor did the bully wait for any further explanations, for,
whether the man who had just brought the blood spouting out at the
tops of his fingers was Joe Monfaron or not, he was clearly an ugly
customer, and had better be left alone.

The St. Lawrence, its rafts of timber, raftsmen, _voyageurs_ and
their songs, are pleasantly alluded to by a sympathetic French writer of
note, X. Marmier, [105] who visited Canada some thirty years ago:

"On the St. Lawrence, traversed by steamboats, by vessels heavily
laden, and by light bark canoes, we may see early in the season
immense rafts of timber that are brought down from the dense northern
forests, hewn where they are felled, drawn to the rivers upon the
snow, and made up into rafts. The Canadian crews erect masts and
spread their sails, and by the aid of wind and current, and sometimes
by rowing, they boldly guide these acres of fir down the rapids to
Quebec, while they animate their labours with the melody of their
popular songs. A part would intone the Canadian song

"A la Claire Fontaine,"

while the others, repeating the last two lines, would at the same time
let drop their oars as those of the former arose.

"There is probably no river on earth that has heard so many vows of
love as the St. Lawrence; for there is not a Canadian boatman that has
ever passed up or down the river without repeating, as the blade of
his oar dropped into the stream, and as it arose, the national
refrain.

"Il y a longtemps que je t'aime,
Jamais je ne t'oublierai!"

"Long time have I loved thee,
Never will I forget thee!"

"And I will here say that there is a harmonious sweetness in these
simple words, that well accords with the simple yet imposing character
of the scenery of this charming region.

"Upon our coquettish rivers in Europe they may whisper of loves along
their flowery banks and under the vine-clad terraces that overhang
them, like the curtains of a saloon; but here, in this grand severity
of nature, upon these immense, half desert plains, in the silence of
these gloomy forests, on the banks of this majestic river that is ever
speeding onward to the eternal ocean, we may feel emotions that are
truly sublime. If, in this quiet solitude, should we open the soul to
a dream of love, it takes the serious tone; it needs must be a pure
being that dares to breathe to the heavens and to the waves these
sacred words, 'I love thee,' and that can add the promise and the
pledge of the Canadian song:

"Jamais je ne t'oublierai."
"Ne'er will I forget thee!" [106]

Among the streets of Quebec, most celebrated in our annals by reason of
the incidents which attach thereto, one may name the frowsy and tortuous
highway which circulates from the foot of Mountain Hill, running for a
distance of two hundred feet below the Cape, up to the still narrower
pathway which commences west of St. James street and leads to the foot of
the hill "_de la canoterie_;" [107] all will understand we mean the
leading commercial thoroughfare of olden time, [108] Sault-au-Matelot
street. Is it because a sailor, no doubt only partially relieved from the
horrors of sobriety, there made a wild leap? or are we to attribute the
name to the circumstance of a dog named "Matelot" ("Sailor") there taking
a leap? [109] Consult _Du Creux_. Our friend, Joseph Marmette,
appropriated it for the reception of his hero, "Dent de Loup," who escaped
without broken bones after his leap. [110]

The western portion of the still narrower pathway of which we have just
spoken, rejoices in the name of "Ruelle des Chiens," (Dog Lane); [111] the
directories name it Sous-le-Cap street. It is so narrow that, at certain
angles, two carts passing in opposite directions, would be blocked. Just
picture to yourself that up to the period of 1816, our worthy ancestors
had no other outlet in this direction at high water to reach St. Roch,
(for St. Paul street was constructed subsequently to 1816, as M. de Gaspe
has informed us.) Is it not incredible? As, in certain passes of the Alps,
a watchman no doubt stood at either extremity of this lane, provided with
a speaking trumpet to give notice of any obstruction and thus prevent
collisions. This odoriferous locality, especially during the dog-days, is
rather densely populated. The babes of Green Erin, with a sprinkling of
young Jean Baptistes, here flourish like rabbits in a warren. Miss Kitty
Ellison and her friend. Mr. Arbuton, in their romantic wanderings, were
struck with the _mise en scene_ of Dog Lane:--

"Now that Prescott Gate, by which so many thousands of Americans have
entered Quebec since Arnold's excursionists failed to do so, is
demolished, there is nothing left so picturesque and characteristic as
Hope Gate (alas! since razed), and I doubt if anywhere in Europe there
is a more mediaeval-looking bit of military architecture. The heavy
stone gateway is black with age, and the gate, which has probably
never been closed in our century, is of massive frame, set thick with
mighty bolts and spikes. The wall here sweeps along the brow of the
crag on which the city is built, and a steep street drops down, by
stone-parapeted curves and angles, from the Upper to the Lower Town,
when, in 1775, nothing but a narrow lane bordered the St. Lawrence. A
considerable breadth of land has since been won from the river, and
several streets and many piers now stretch between this alley and the
water, but the old Sault-au-Matelot still crouches and creeps along
under the shelter of the city wall and the overhanging rock, which is
thickly bearded with weeds and grass, and trickles with abundant
moisture. It must be an ice pit in winter, and I should think it the
last spot on the continent for the summer to find; but when the summer
has at last found it, the old Sault-au-Matelot puts on a vagabond air
of southern leisure and abandon, not to be matched anywhere out of
Italy. Looking from that jutting rock near Hope Gate, behind which the
defeated Americans took refuge from the fire of their enemies, the
vista is almost unique for a certain scenic squalor and gypsy luxury
of colour--sag-roofed barns and stables, and weak-backed, sunken-
chested workshops of every sort, lounge along in tumble-down
succession, and lean up against the cliff in every imaginable posture
of worthlessness and decrepitude, light wooden galleries cross to them
from the second stories of the houses which back upon the alley, and
over these galleries flutters from a labyrinth of clothes-lines a
variety of bright-coloured garments of all ages, sexes and conditions,
while the footway underneath abounds in gossiping women, smoking men,
idle poultry, cats, children, and large, indolent Newfoundland dogs."
--(_A Chance Acquaintance_, p, 175.)

Adventurous tourists who have risked themselves there in the sultry days
of July, have found themselves dazed at the sight of the wonders of the
place. Among other indigenous curiosities, they have there noticed what
might be taken for any number of aerial tents, improvised no doubt as
protection from the scorching rays of a meridian sun. Attached to ropes
stretched from one side of the public way to the other, was the family
linen, hung out to dry. When shaken by the wind over the heads of the
passers-by, these articles of white under-clothing (_chemisettes_),
flanked by sundry masculine nether-garments, presented a _tableau_,
it is said, in the highest degree picturesque. As regards ourselves,
desirous from our earliest days to search into the most recondite
_arcana_ of the history of our city and to portray them in all their
suggestive reality, for the edification of distinguished tourists from
England, France and the United States, it has been to us a source of
infinite mortification to realize that the only visit which we ever made
to Dog Lane was subsequent to the publication of the _Album du Touriste_;
a circumstance which explains the omission of it from that repository of
Canadian lore. Our most illustrious tourists, [112] the eldest son of the
Queen, the Prince of Wales, his brothers, the Princes Alfred and Arthur,
the Dukes of Newcastle, of Athol, of Manchester, of Beaufort, of Argyle,
of Sutherland, Generals Grant and Sherman, and Prince Napoleon Bonaparte,
it is said, took their leave of Quebec without having visited that
interesting locality, "_la Ruelle des Chiens_," Sous-le-Cap street,
probably unconscious of its very existence! Nevertheless, this street
possesses great historical interest. It has re-echoed the trumpet sounds
of war, the thundering of cannon, the briskest musketry; there fell
Brigadier-General Arnold, wounded in the knee: carried off amid the
despairing cries of his soldiers, under the swords of Dambourges, of the
fierce and stalwart Charland, of the brave Caldwell, followed by his
friend Nairn and their chivalrous militiamen. Our friends, the
annexationists of that period, were so determined to annex Quebec, that
they threw themselves as if possessed by the evil one upon the barriers
(there were two of them) in Sous-le-Cap street and in Sault-au-Matelot
street; each man, says Sanguinet, wearing a slip of paper on his cap on
which was written "_Mors aut Victoria_," "Death or Victory!" One
hundred years and more have elapsed since this fierce struggle, and we are
not yet under Republican rule!

A number of dead bodies lay in the vicinity, on the 31st December, 1775;
they were carried to the Seminary. Ample details of the incidents of this
glorious day will be found in "QUEBEC PAST AND PRESENT." It is believed
that the first barrier was placed at the foot of the stone _demi-lune_,
where, at present, a cannon rests on the ramparts; the second was
constructed in rear of the present offices of Mr. W. D. Campbell, N.P., in
Sault-au-Matelot street.

Sault-au-Matelot street has lost the military renown which it then
possessed; besides the offices of M. Ledroit, of the _Morning Chronicle_,
and of the timber cullers, it now is a stand for the carters, and a
numerous tribe of pork merchants, salmon preservers and coopers, whose
casks on certain days encumber the sidewalks.

St. Paul street does not appear on the plan of the city of Quebec of 1660,
reproduced by the Abbe Faillon. This quarter of the Lower Town, so
populous under the French _regime, and where, according to Monseigneur de
Laval, there was, in 1661, "_magnus numerus civium_" continued, until
about 1832, to represent the hurry-scurry of affairs and the residences of
the principal merchants, one of the wealthiest portions of the city.
There, in 1793, the father of our Queen, Colonel of the 7th Fusiliers,
then in garrison at Quebec, partook of the hospitality of M. Lymburner,
one of the merchant princes of that period. Was the _chere amie_, the
elegant _Baronne de St. Laurent_, of the party? We found it impossible to
ascertain this from our old friend, Hon. William Sheppard, of Woodfield,
near Quebec (who died in 1867), from whom we obtained this incident. Mr.
Sheppard, who had frequently been a guest at the most select drawing-rooms
of the ancient capital, was himself a contemporary of the generous and
jovial Prince Edward.

The Sault-au-Matelot quarter, St. Peter street, and St. James street, down
to the year 1832, contained the habitations of a great number of persons
in easy circumstances; many of our families of note had their residences
there: John Wm. Woolsey, Esq., in 1808, and later on first President of
the Quebec Bank; the millionaire auctioneer, Wm. Burns, the god-father to
the late George Burns Symes, Esq.; Archbishop Signai--this worthy prelate
was born in this street, in a house opposite to La Banque Nationale.
Evidences of the luxuriousness of their dwelling rooms are visible to this
day, in the panelling of some doors and in decorated ceilings.

Drainage, according to the modern system, was, at that period, almost
unknown to our good city. The Asiatic cholera, in 1832, decimated the
population: 3,500 corpses, in the course of a few weeks, had gone to their
last resting place. This terrible epidemic was the occasion, so to speak,
of a social revolution at Quebec; the land on the St. Louis and Ste. Foye
roads became much enhanced in value; the wealthy quitted the Lower Town.
Commercial affairs, however, still continued to be transacted there, but
the residences of merchants were selected in the Upper Town or in the
country parts adjacent.

The _Fief Sault-au-Matelot_, which at present belongs to the Seminary, was
granted to Guillaume Hebert on the 4th February, 1623, the title of which
was ratified by the Due de Ventadour on the last day of February, 1632. On
the ground reclaimed from the river, about 1815, Messrs. Munro and Bell,
eminent merchants, built wharves and some large warehouses, to which lead
"Bell's lane," (so named after the Honorable Matthew Bell) [113] the
streets St. James, Arthur, Dalhousie and others. Mr. Bell, at a later
period, one of the lessees of the St. Maurice Forges, resided in the
house--now St. Lawrence Chambers--situate at the corner of St. James and
St. Peter streets, now belonging to Mr. John Greaves Clapham, N. P. Hon.
Matthew Bell commanded a troop of cavalry, which was much admired by those
warlike gentlemen of 1812--our respected fathers. He left a numerous
family, and was related by marriage to the families Montizambert, Bowen,
&c. Dalhousie street, in the Lower Town, probably dates from the time of
the Earl of Dalhousie (1827), when the "Quebec Exchange" was built by a
company of merchants. The extreme point of the Lower Town, towards the
northeast, constitutes "La Pointe a Carcy," named after Carcy Pages, who
succeeded to the office of "Guardian of the Harbor," held in 1713 by Louis
Pratt. In the offing is situated the wharf, alongside of which the stately
frigate _Aurora_, Captain De Horsey, passed the winter of 1866-7. The
wharves of the Quebec docks now mark the spot.