Picturesque Quebec, By James Macpherson Le Moine










































































































































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    As an interesting link between the present and the past, St. John's
    gate holds an equally prominent rank and claims - Page 175
Picturesque Quebec, By James Macpherson Le Moine - Page 175 of 451 - First - Home

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As An Interesting Link Between The Present And The Past, St. John's Gate Holds An Equally Prominent Rank And Claims An Equal Antiquity With St. Louis Gate.

Its erection as one of the original gates of the French fortress dates from the same year and its history is very much the same.

Through it another portion of Montcalm's defeated forces found their way behind the shelter of the defences after the fatal day of the Plains of Abraham. Like St. Louis gate, too, it was pulled down on account of its ruinous condition in 1791 and subsequently rebuilt by the British Government in the form in which it endured until 1865, when it was demolished and replaced, at an expense of some $40,000 to the city, by its present more ornate and convenient substitute, to meet the increased requirements of traffic over the great artery of the upper levels - St. John street. St. John's gate was one of the objective points included in the American plan of assault upon Quebec on the memorable 31st December, 1775; Col. Livingston, with a regiment of insurgent Canadians, and Major Brown, with part of a regiment from Boston, having been detailed to make a false attack upon the walls to the south of it and to set fire to the gate itself with combustibles prepared for that purpose - a scheme in which the assailants were foiled by the depth of snow and other obstacles. This gate, being of quite recent construction and of massive, as well as passably handsome, appearance, is not included in the general scheme of improvement. The erection of a life-size statue of Samuel Champlain, the founder of Quebec, upon its summit, is, however, talked of.

Palace or the Palais gate is the third and last of the old French portals of the city, and derives its title from the fact that the highway which passed through it led to the palace or residence of the Intendants of New France, which has also given its name to the present quarter of the city lying beneath the cliff on the northern face of the fortress, where its crumbling ruins are still visible in the immediate neighborhood of the passenger terminus of the North Shore Railway. Erected under French rule, during which it is believed to have been the most fashionable and the most used, it bade a final farewell to the last of its gallant, but unfortunate French defenders, and to that imperial power which, for more than one hundred and fifty years, had swayed the colonial destinies of the Canadas and contested inch by inch with England, the supremacy of the New World, when a portion of Montcalm's defeated troops passed out beneath its darkening shadows on the fatal 13th September, 1759. After the capitulation of Quebec, General Murray devoted himself at once to the work of strengthening the defences of the city, and the attention in this respect paid to Palace gate appears to have stood him in good stead during the following year's campaign, when the British invaders, defeated in the battle of St. Foye, were compelled to take shelter behind the walls of the town and sustain a short siege at the Hands of the victorious French under deLevis.

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