But others also came to New France besides priests and martyrs; the adventurers and beggared noblemen--poor, uneducated, yet bold and courageous. The historian tells us of "the beggared noble of the early time" who came over, "never forgetting his quality of _gentilhomme_; scrupulously wearing its badge the sword, and copying, as well as he could, the fashions of the court which glowed on his vision across the sea with all the effulgence of Versailles and beamed with reflected ray from the Chateau of Quebec. He was at home among his tenants, at home among the Indians, and never more at home than when, a gun in his hand and a crucifix on his breast, he took the warpath with a crew of painted savages and Frenchmen almost as wild, and pounced like a lynx from the forest on some lonely farm or outlying hamlet of New England. How New England hated him, let her records tell. The reddest blood-streaks on her old annals mark the track of the Canadian _gentilhomme_." QUAINT OLD QUEBEC. Thus created a thoroughly French region, Lower Canada still maintains the religious character of the original colony. The geographical names are mostly those of the saints and fathers of the Church, and much of the land is owned by religious bodies. The population is four-fifths French, and nowhere does the Church to-day show more vitality or command more thorough devotion. The city of Quebec almost stands still in population, having about seventy thousand, of whom five-sixths are French. It is now just as Champlain made it, though larger, a fortress, trading-station and church combined, and quaintly attractive in all three phases. No finer location could have been selected for a town and seaport, and no more impregnable position found to guard the St. Lawrence passage than its junction with the river St. Charles. An elevated tongue of land stretches along the northwestern bank of the St. Lawrence for several miles, and from behind it comes out the St. Charles. Below their junction the broad Isle of Orleans blocks the way, dividing the St. Lawrence into two channels, while above, the noble river contracts to the "Narrows," less than a mile in width, making a strait guarded all along by bold shores. At the northern extremity of this tongue of land, and opposite the "Narrows" of the river, rises the lofty cliff of Cape Diamond, three hundred and fifty feet above the water, the citadel crowning the hill and overlooking the town nestling at its foot. The fortifications spread all around the cliff and its approaches, completely guarding the rivers and the means of access by land; but it is now all peaceful, being only a show-place for sight-seers. As may be imagined, this grand fortress is magnificent to look at from the water approach, while the outlook from the ramparts and terraces on top of the cliff is one of the finest sights over town and rivers, hills and woods, in the world.