Looking From That Jutting Rock Near Hope Gate, Behind Which The
Defeated Americans Took Refuge From The Fire Of Their
Enemies, the
vista is almost unique for a certain scenic squalor and gypsy luxury
of colour - sag-roofed barns and
Stables, and weak-backed, sunken-
chested workshops of every sort, lounge along in tumble-down
succession, and lean up against the cliff in every imaginable posture
of worthlessness and decrepitude, light wooden galleries cross to them
from the second stories of the houses which back upon the alley, and
over these galleries flutters from a labyrinth of clothes-lines a
variety of bright-coloured garments of all ages, sexes and conditions,
while the footway underneath abounds in gossiping women, smoking men,
idle poultry, cats, children, and large, indolent Newfoundland dogs."
- (A Chance Acquaintance, p, 175.)
Adventurous tourists who have risked themselves there in the sultry days
of July, have found themselves dazed at the sight of the wonders of the
place. Among other indigenous curiosities, they have there noticed what
might be taken for any number of aerial tents, improvised no doubt as
protection from the scorching rays of a meridian sun. Attached to ropes
stretched from one side of the public way to the other, was the family
linen, hung out to dry. When shaken by the wind over the heads of the
passers-by, these articles of white under-clothing (chemisettes),
flanked by sundry masculine nether-garments, presented a tableau,
it is said, in the highest degree picturesque. As regards ourselves,
desirous from our earliest days to search into the most recondite
arcana of the history of our city and to portray them in all their
suggestive reality, for the edification of distinguished tourists from
England, France and the United States, it has been to us a source of
infinite mortification to realize that the only visit which we ever made
to Dog Lane was subsequent to the publication of the Album du Touriste;
a circumstance which explains the omission of it from that repository of
Canadian lore. Our most illustrious tourists, [112] the eldest son of the
Queen, the Prince of Wales, his brothers, the Princes Alfred and Arthur,
the Dukes of Newcastle, of Athol, of Manchester, of Beaufort, of Argyle,
of Sutherland, Generals Grant and Sherman, and Prince Napoleon Bonaparte,
it is said, took their leave of Quebec without having visited that
interesting locality, "la Ruelle des Chiens," Sous-le-Cap street,
probably unconscious of its very existence! Nevertheless, this street
possesses great historical interest. It has re-echoed the trumpet sounds
of war, the thundering of cannon, the briskest musketry; there fell
Brigadier-General Arnold, wounded in the knee: carried off amid the
despairing cries of his soldiers, under the swords of Dambourges, of the
fierce and stalwart Charland, of the brave Caldwell, followed by his
friend Nairn and their chivalrous militiamen. Our friends, the
annexationists of that period, were so determined to annex Quebec, that
they threw themselves as if possessed by the evil one upon the barriers
(there were two of them) in Sous-le-Cap street and in Sault-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. Was the chere amie, the
elegant Baronne de St. Laurent, of the party? We found it impossible to
ascertain this from our old friend, Hon. William Sheppard, of Woodfield,
near Quebec (who died in 1867), from whom we obtained this incident. Mr.
Sheppard, who had frequently been a guest at the most select drawing-rooms
of the ancient capital, was himself a contemporary of the generous and
jovial Prince Edward.
The Sault-au-Matelot quarter, St. Peter street, and St. James street, down
to the year 1832, contained the habitations of a great number of persons
in easy circumstances; many of our families of note had their residences
there: John Wm. Woolsey, Esq., in 1808, and later on first President of
the Quebec Bank; the millionaire auctioneer, Wm. Burns, the god-father to
the late George Burns Symes, Esq.; Archbishop Signai - this worthy prelate
was born in this street, in a house opposite to La Banque Nationale.
Evidences of the luxuriousness of their dwelling rooms are visible to this
day, in the panelling of some doors and in decorated ceilings.
Drainage, according to the modern system, was, at that period, almost
unknown to our good city.
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