Might It Have Been That Vision Of Female Loveliness,
That Spotless And Beautiful Mrs. De Lery, Whose Presentation At Court,
With Her Handsome Husband, Shortly After The Conquest, Elicited From His
Majesty George III.
The expression which history has preserved, "If such
are all my new Canadian subjects, I have indeed made a
Conquest;" or must
we picture to ourselves as the Canadian belle that peerless beauty, that
witty and aspiring Madame Hughes Pean, Intendant Bigot's fair charmer,
mysteriously hinted at, in all the old Quebec guide books, as "Mrs.
P - - ." Madame Hughes Pean, [198] whose husband was Town Major of Quebec,
owned a seigniory in the vicinity of the city - some say at St. Vallier,
where Mons Pean used to load with corn the vessels he dispatched
elsewhere; she also was one of the gay revellers at the romantic
Hermitage, Bigot's shooting lodge at Charlesbourg. Old memoirs seem to
favour this version. Be this as it may the St. Foy road was a favorite
drive even a century before the present day; so says Hawkins' historical
work on Quebec - no mean authority, considering that the materials thereof
were furnished by that accomplished scholar and eminent barrister, the
late Andrew Stuart, father of the present Judge Stuart, and compiled by
the late Dr. John Charlton Fisher, one of the able joint editors of the
New York Albion, and father of Mrs. Ed. Burstall, late of Sillery. Who
was the reigning belle in 1759, we confess that all our antiquarian lore
has failed to satisfactorily unravel.
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