Upon This Occasion An Unfortunate Woman And
Two Children Were Burned To Death In The Fuel Yard.
Great efforts were
made by Mr. Bailey, a commissariat officer, and Mr. Boswell, owner of
the brewery, to save the lives of the victims, but unfortunately
without success.
These gentlemen, after their coats had been burned
off their backs, and the hair from their heads and eyebrows, had to
fly at last to save their own lives.
"On the withdrawal of the Imperial troops in 1870-71, the whole of 'Le
Palais' property was handed over to the Dominion Government.
"CHARLES WALKEM, "(Late R. E. Civil Service Staff in Canada.)
"Ottawa, 24th July, 1876."
Doubtless to the eyes of the "free and independent electors" of La
Vacherie, in 1759, the Intendant's Palace seemed a species of "eighth
wonder" The eighth wonder lost much of its eclat, however, by the
inauguration of English rule, in 1759, but a total eclipse came over this
imposing and majestic luminary when Guy Carleton's guns from the ramparts
of Quebec began, in 1775, to thunder on its cupola and roof, which offered
a shelter to Arnold's soldiery: the rabble of "shoemakers, hatters,
blacksmiths and innkeepers," (says that savage old Tory, Colonel Henry
Caldwell), bent on providing Canada with the blessings of Republicanism. A
century and more has passed over the gorgeous Palace - now a dreary, moss-
covered ruin, surrounded in rear by coarse grass, fallen stones: Bigot -
his wassailers, - the fair but frail Madame de Pean, like her prototype of
Paris, Madame de Pompadour, have all fleeted to the land of shadows; and
tourists, high and low, still crowd to glance meditatively at those fast
fading traces of a guilty past.
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