Sunshine reflected from the spires and towers of the town made a beacon of hope to the peasant as he laboured on the seigneuries leagues and leagues away. Far down the Côte de Beaupré, beyond the Mont Ste. Anne, from the rich farms of Orleans, and across on the Lévi shore, the glistening light on the city roofs by day, and at night the twinkling candles in the windows, were as guiding stars to these children in the wilderness. Twice in the early days, so their folklore told them, miraculous intervention had saved their city from the invader; and was she not impregnable still? And as he gazed happily across the uplands towards his Mecca, the _habitant_ could conceive of no power which might prevail against her stony ramparts. To this day the emblems of their faith abound, scattered along the wayside; and here and there a little wooden cross, set on with two or three rough steps, invites the wayfarer to pause and pray. Bareheaded, the pilgrim waits before the holy symbol to whisper an _Ave_ or to tell his beads. Rough bushmen cease from riot and laughter, and touch their caps as they pass. All down the côtes, these casual shrines exhort the simple peasant to his twofold duty--to God and to his neighbour. Throughout the river parishes the size and richness of the churches contrasts strangely with the poverty of the rough-cast cottages, revealing the devout spirit of the villagers, to whom the church stands before all else. [Illustration: BARONESS DE LONGUEIL (Of the sole remaining Barony of the old _régime_)] Seven leagues below the city of Quebec is the greatest of all these shrines, _L'Église de la bonne Ste. Anne._ In the foreground, the wide bosom of the St. Lawrence stretches across to the Isle of Orleans, while Mont Ste. Anne rises in graceful lines upon the flank, making a green background for the stone Basilica, which draws nearly two hundred thousand pilgrims every year to its healing altars. Perhaps, as you enter the village, the rich chimes of Ste. Anne are ringing a processional, and the cripples are thronging through the pillared vestibule. Some of these pious sufferers have come a thousand miles to wait, like those in days of old, for the moving of the waters. Inside the church, the pillars are covered with cast-off crutches, which faithful pilgrims leave behind when they go forth healed.