Is still an open
question. [304]
A VISIT TO THE INDIAN LORETTE.
Of the many attractive sites in the environs of the city, few contain in a
greater degree than the Huron village of Lorette during the leafy months
of June, July and September, picturesque scenery, combined with a wealth
of historical associations. The nine miles intervening between Quebec and
the rustic auberge of the village, thanks to an excellent turnpike,
can be spanned in little more than an hour. I shall now attempt to
recapitulate some of the sights and incidents of travel which recently
befell me, whilst escorting to Lorette an Old World tourist, of very high
literary estate.
With a mellow autumnal sun, just sufficient to bronze the sombre tints,
lingering at the close of the Indian summer, we left the St. Louis Hotel,
the headquarters of tourists, and rapidly drove through Fabrique and
Palace streets, towards the unsightly gap in our city walls, of yore
yclept Palace Gate, which all Lord Dufferin's prestige failed to protect
against vandalism, but which, thanks to his initiative, we expect yet to
see bridged over with, graceful turrets and Norman towers.
A turn to the west brought us opposite to the scarcely perceptible ruins
of the Palace [305] of the French Intendants, destroyed by the English
shells in 1775, to dislodge Arnold and Montgomery's New England soldiery.
The park which intervened formerly between it and the St. Charles was many
years back converted into a wood yard to store the fuel for the garrison,
a portion now is used as a cattle market, opposite, stands the station and
freight sheds of the Q. M. O. & O. Railway, the road skirts the park
towards the populous St. Roch suburbs, rebuilt and transformed since the
great fire of the 28th May, 1845, which destroyed 1,600 houses, occupying
the site of former spacious pasture grounds for the city cows, styled by
the early French La Vacherie. In a trice we reach Dorchester bridge, the
second one, built there in 1822, the first, opened with great pomp by His
Excellency Lord Dorchester in 1789, having been constructed a few acres to
the west, and called after him. The bridge, as a means of crossing from
one shore to the other, is an undoubted improvement on the scow used up to
1789.
One of the first objects on quitting the bridge and diverging westward to
the Charlesbourg road, on the river bank, is the stately, solid, antique
mansion of the late C. Smith, Esq, who at one time owned nearly all the
broad acres intervening between the house and Gros Pin. It took for
a time the name of Smithville and was inherited by several members of his
family, who built cosy houses round it. These green fields, fringed with
white birch and spruce plantations, are watered by the St. Charles, the
Kahir-Koubat [306] of ancient days.
