The good, the youthful,
the beautiful Madame de Champlain, about the year 1620, here catechised
and instructed, under the shade of the trees, the young Huron Indians, in
the principles of Christianity.
History has related their surprise and joy
on seeing their features reflected in the small mirror which their
benefactress wore suspended at her side, "close to her heart," as they
said, according to the then prevailing custom.
In 1682 a conflagration broke out in the Lower Town, which, besides the
numerous vaults and stores, reduced into ashes a considerable portion of
the buildings. Denonville, on the 20th August, 1685, wrote to Paris,
asking His Most Christian Majesty to contribute 200 crowns worth of
leather fire-buckets, and in 1691 the historical Dutch pump was imported
to throw water on fires. At a later period, 1688, "Notre Dame de la
Victoire" Church was begun on part of the ruins. Let us open the second
volume of the "Cours d'Histoire du Canada," by the Abbe Ferland, and let
us read: "Other ruins existed in 1684, in the commercial centre of the
Lower Town; these ruins consisted of blackened and dilapidated walls.
Champlain's old warehouse, which, from the hands of the Company
(Compagnie de la Nouvelle France), had passed into those of the
King (Louis XIV.), had remained in the same state as when left after the
great fire which, some years previously, had devastated the Lower Town."
In 1684 Monseigneur de Laval obtained this site or emplacement from
M. de la Barre for the purpose of erecting a supplementary chapel for the
use of the inhabitants in the Lower Town. This gift, however, was ratified
only later, in favor of M. de St. Valier, in the month of September, 1685.
Messieurs de Denonville and de Meules caused a clear and plain title or
patent of this locality to be issued for the purpose of erecting a church
which, in the course of time, was built by the worthy Bishop and named
"Notre Dame de la Victoire." The landing for small craft, in the vicinity
of the old market (now the Finlay [94] Market), was called "La Place du
Debarquement," or simply "La Place."
It is in this vicinity, a little to the west, under the silent shade of a
wood near the garden which Champlain had laid out, that the historical
interview, in 1608, which saved the colony, took place. The secret was of
the greatest importance; it is not to be wondered at if Champlain's trusty
pilot, Captain Testu, deemed it proper to draw the founder of Quebec aside
into the neighbouring wood and make known to him the villanous plot which
one of the accomplices, Antoine Natel, lock-smith, had first disclosed to
him under the greatest secrecy. The chief of the conspiracy was one Jean
du Val, who had come to the country with Champlain.
In rear of and parallel to St. Peter street, a new and wide street, called
after one of the Governors of Canada - Dalhousie street - was opened
recently, and promises to be before long the leading commercial artery.
Several extensive warehouses have been erected on Dalhousie street since
it was opened to the public, in 1877, by the city Corporation purchasing
from St. James street to St. Andrew's wharf a strip of land, of 60 feet in
breadth, from the landed proprietors of this neighbourhood.
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