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.
