Let us walk on, and view with the Professor's eyes the adjoining public
edifice in 1749, the Recollet Convent, "a spacious building," says Kalm,
"two story high, with a large orchard and kitchen garden." It stood
apparently on the south-eastern extremity of the area, on which the
Anglican Cathedral was built in 1804, across what is now the southern
prolongation of Treasury Street; it is said its eastern end occupied a
portion of the site now occupied by the old Place d'Armes - now the
Ring.
Its church or chapel was, on 6th September, 1796, destroyed by fire; two
eye-witnesses of the conflagration, Philippe Aubert DeGaspe and Deputy-
Commissary-General James Thompson, the first in his Memoires, the second
in his unpublished Diary, have vividly portrayed the accident.
"At the date of the conflagration of the Recollets Church, 6th
September, 1796, the bodies of those who had been interred there were
taken up. The remains of persons of note, those among others of Count
de Frontenac, were re-interred in the Cathedral (now the Basilica), it
is said, under the floor of the Chapel N. D. of Pity. The leaden
coffins, which, it appears, had been placed on iron bars in the
Recollets Church, had been partially melted by the fire. In Count de
Frontenac's coffin was found a small leaden box, which contained the
heart of that Governor. According to a tradition, handed down by Frere
Louis, the heart of Count de Frontenac was, after his death, sent to
his widow in France. But the haughty Countess refused to receive it,
saying that 'she did not want a dead heart, which when beating did not
belong to her.' The casket containing the heart was sent back to
Canada and replaced in the Count's coffin, where it was found after
the fire." (Abbe H. R. Casgrain.)
The Church faced the Ring and the old Chateau; it formed part of the
Recollet Convent, "a vast quadrangular building, with a court and well
stocked orchard" on Garden Street; it was occasionally used as a state
prison. The Huguenot and agitator, Pierre DuCalvet, [62] spent some dreary
days in its cells in 1781-84; and during the summer of 1776, a young
volunteer under Benedict Arnold, John Joseph Henry, (who lived to become a
distinguished Pennsylvania Judge), was immured in this monastery, after
his capture by the British, at the unsuccessful attack in Sault-au-Matelot
Street, on the 31st December, 1775, as he graphically relates in his
Memoirs. It was a monastery of the Order of Saint Francis. The
Provincial, in 1793, a well-known, witty, jovial and eccentric personage,
Father Felix DeBerey, had more than once dined and wined His Royal
Highness Prince Edward, the father of our gracious Sovereign, when
stationed in our garrison in 1791-4, with his regiment, the 7th Fusiliers.
The Recollet Church was also a sacred and last resting place for the
illustrious dead.
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