Picturesque Quebec, By James Macpherson Le Moine










































































































































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    The date 1647 also agrees with the Jesuits Relation, which states
    that, in 1647, under Governor de Montmagny, one of - Page 64
Picturesque Quebec, By James Macpherson Le Moine - Page 64 of 451 - First - Home

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The Date 1647 Also Agrees With The Jesuits Relation, Which States That, In 1647, Under Governor De Montmagny, One Of

The bastions was lined with stone; additional light was thrown on this controversy, by the inspection of a deed of

Agreement, bearing date at Fort St. Louis, 19th October, 1646, exhumed from the Court House vaults, and signed by the stonemasons who undertook to revetir de murailles un bastion qui est au bas de l'allee du Mont Caluaire, descendant au Fort St. Louis, for which work they were to receive from Monsieur Bourdon, engineer and surveyor, 2,000 livres and a puncheon of wine.

This musty, dry-as-dust, old document gives rise to several enquiries. One not the least curious, is the luxurious mode of life, which the puncheon of wine supposes among stonemasons at such a remote period of Quebec history as 1646. Finally, it was decided that this stone and cross were intended to commemorate the year in which the Fort St. Louis Bastion, begun in 1646, was finished, viz., 1647.

This historic stone, which has nothing in common with the

"Stone of Blarney On the banks of Killarney,"

cropped up again more than a century later, in the days when Sergeant Jas. Thompson, one of Wolfe's veterans, was overseer of public works at Quebec - (he died in 1830, aged 98.) We read in his unpublished diary. "The cross in the wall, September 17th, 1784. The miners at the Chateau, in levelling the yard, dug up a large stone, from which I have described the annexed figure (identical with the present), I could wish it was discovered soon enough to lay conspicuously in the wall of the new building, (Haldimand Castle), in order to convey to posterity the antiquity of the Chateau St. Louis. However, I got the masons to lay the stone in the cheek of the gate of new building." Extract from James Thompson's Diary, 1759-1830.

Col. J. Hale, grandfather to our esteemed fellow townsman, E. J. Hale, Esq., and one of Wolfe's companions-at-arms, used to tell how he had succeeded in having this stone saved from the debris of the Chateau walls, and restored a short time before the Duke of Clarence, the sailor prince (William IV), visited Quebec in 1787.

Occasionally, the Castle opened its portals to rather unexpected but, nor the less welcome, visitors. On the 13th March, 1789, His Excellency Lord Dorchester had the satisfaction of entertaining a stalwart woodsman and expert hunter, Major Fitzgerald of the 54th Regiment, then stationed at St. John, New Brunswick, the son of a dear old friend, Lady Emilia Mary, daughter of the Duke of Richmond. This chivalrous Irishman was no less than the dauntless Lord Edward Fitzgerald, fifth son of the Duke of Leinster, the true but misguided patriot, who closed his promising career in such a melancholy manner in prison, during the Irish rebellion in 1798. Lord Edward had walked up on snowshoes through the trackless forest, from New Brunswick to Quebec, a distance of 175 miles, in twenty-six days, accompanied by a brother officer, Mr. Brisbane, a servant and two "woodsmen." This feat of endurance is pleasantly described by himself.

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