The
Churchwardens return thanks to His Lordship Jean 0.
Briand, Bishop, for
the present he made of the big bell, which, exclusive of its clapper,
weighs 3,255 lbs. Name, LOUISE, by Messieur Montgolfier, Grand Vicaire,
and Mdlle de Lery, representing its Matron. Blessed by Monsigneur Louis
Masriacheau D'Esgley, coadjutor."
"1778. 28th July. Christening of the bells by M. Noel Voyer, on the 22nd
July. Blessed by Sa Grandeur, Monseigneur Briand; the first weigh
1,625 lbs. - named OLIVIER GENEVIEVE - Godfather, Sa Grandeur, with
Madame Chanazard wife of M Berthelot 7 yards of white damask given as a
(christening) dress. The second, was called PIERRE MARIE, by M. Panet,
Judge of the Court, and his wife Marie Anne Rottot; said bell weighing
1,268 lbs."
A halo of poetry hovers over some of our bells. About 1829, Adam Kidd, a
son of song, hailing from Spencer Wood, - a friend of the Laird of the
Manor - Hon. H M Percival, wrote some graceful lines on the Church
Bells of the General Hospital Convent. This poem was published at the
Herald and New Gazette office, in Montreal. In 1830, with the Huron
Chief, and other poems by Kidd, and by him inscribed to Tom Moore, "the
most popular, most powerful and most patriotic poet of the nineteenth
century, whose magic numbers have vibrated to the heart of nations," says
the Dedication.
A delightful volume has recently been put forth by a Ursuline Nun,
entitled "GLIMPSES OF THE MONASTERY," in which the holy memories of the
cloister blend with exquisite bits of word painting; we find in it a
glowing sketch of the Convent Bells, and of the objects and scenery,
surrounding the "Little World" of the Ursulines. "Marriage Bells" are of
course left out.
The writer therein alludes to that short-lived bell of Madame de la
Peltrie, melted in the memorable fire of the 31st December, 1650, which
the pious lady used to toll, to call "the Neophytes to the waters of
baptism, or the newly made Christians to Holy Mass."
(See page 113.)
(From "Trifles from my Diary.")
"GENERAL WOLFE'S STATUE," CORNER PALACE STREET
BY THE AUTHOR OF "MAPLE LEAVES."
Olim truncus eram ficulnus, inutile lignum,
Cum faber, incertus scamnum faceretne Priapum
Maluit esse Deum.
Horace, Sat I. 8.
Henry Ward Beecher begins an amusing sketch of our city with the words,
"Queer old Quebec, - of all the cities on the Continent of America, the
quaintest." He concludes his humorous picture by expressing the wish that
it may remain so without being disturbed by the new-fangled notions of the
day. Some one has observed that its walls, streets, public places,
churches and old monasteries, with the legends of three centuries clinging
to them, give you, when you enter under its massive gates, hoary with age,
[344] the idea of an "old curiosity shop," or, as the name Henry Ward
Beecher well expresses it, "a picture book, turning over a new leaf at
each street." It is not then surprising that the inhabitants should have
resorted not only to the pen of the historian to preserve evergreen and
fragrant the historical ivy which clings to its battlements, but even to
that cheap process, in use in other countries, to immortalize heroes -
signboards and statues - a process recommended by high authority. We read
in that curiously interesting book, "History of Signboards - "
"The Greeks honored their great men and successful commanders by erecting
statues to them; the Romans rewarded their popular favorites with
triumphal entries and ovations; modern nations make the portraits of their
celebrities serve as signs for public-houses:
Vernon, the Butcher Cumberland, Wolfe, Hawke,
Prince Ferdinand, Granby, Burgoyne, Keppel, Howe,
Evil and good have had their tithe of talk,
And filled their signpost then, like Wellesley now."
If Wolfe served as a signboard recently in Britain, he has filled the same
office now close on a century in Canada, and still continues to do so. He
has defied wind and weather ever since the day when the Cholette Brothers
affixed to the house at the north-west corner of St. John and Palace
streets a rough statue of the gallant young soldier in the year 1771, with
one arm extended in the attitude of command, and pointing to the Falls of
Montmorency.
Nor has Mr. de Gaspe, the author of the "Canadians of Old," thought it
beneath his pen to indite an able disquisition on its origin, brimful of
wealth for our antiquaries and a great deal more practical in its bearings
than even Jonathan Oldbuck's great Essay on Castrametation. A Three Rivers
antiquarian had attempted to establish that it was Ives Cholette who had
been the sculptor of the statue in question, but our old friend (through
the church registers - and through ancient and irrefutable records) showed
it could neither be Ives Cholette, aged, in 1771, 10 years, nor his
younger brother Hyacinthe, aged then but 8 years, who had designed this
great work of art, but Cholette of another ilk. [345]
In these halycon days of old Quebec, free from municipal taxes, Fenian
scares and labor strikes, when the practical joker [346] and mauvais
sujets, bent on a lark, would occasionally take possession, after
night-fall, of some of the chief city thoroughfares, and organize a
masquerade, battering unmercifully with their heavy lanterns. Captain
Pinguet's hommes de guet, - the night patrol - long before Lord Durham's
blue-coated "peelers" were thought of, the historic statue would disappear
sometimes for days together; and after having headed a noisy procession,
decorated with bonnet rouge and one of those antique camloteen cloaks
which our forefathers used to rejoice in, it would be found in the morning
grotesquely propped up, either in the centre of the old Upper Town market,
or in the old Picote cemetery in Couillard street [347], in that fanciful
costume (a three-storied sombrero, with eye-glass and dudeen) which
rendered so piquant some of the former vignettes on the Union Bank
notes. I can yet recall as one of the most stirring memories of my
childhood, the concern, nay, vexation, of Quebecers generally when the
"General" was missing on the 16th July, 1838, from his sacred niche in
Palace street, and was subsequently triumphantly replaced by the grateful
citizens, - rejuvenated, repainted, revarnished, with the best materials
Halifax could furnish, the "General" having been brought there by the
youngsters of the "Inconstant" frigate, Captain Pring, from Quebec.
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