The student of the history of the ancient capital of Canada is embarrassed, not by the dearth but by the abundance of material at his disposal. The present volume, therefore, makes no claim to originality. It is but an assimilation of this generous data, and a simple comment upon the changing scenes which were recorded by such ancient authorities as the Jesuit priests and pioneers in their _Relations_, and by the monumental works of Francis Parkman, whose researches occupied more than forty years, and whose picturesque pen has done for Canada what Prescott's did for Mexico. Admiring tribute and gratitude must also be expressed for the years of careful study and the unfaltering energy by which the late Mr. Kingsford produced his valuable _History of Canada_. Nor can any one, writing of Quebec, proceed successfully without constant reference to the historical gleanings of Sir James Le Moine, who has spent a lifetime in the romantic atmosphere of old-time manuscripts, and who, with Monsieur l'Abbé Casgrain, represents, in its most attractive form, that composite citizenship which has the wit and grace of the old _régime_ with the useful ardour of the new. THE AUTHORS. PRELUDE About the walled city of Quebec cling more vivid and enduring memories than belong to any other city of the modern world. Her foundation marked a renaissance of religious zeal in France, and to the people from whom came the pioneers who suffered or were slain for her, she had the glamour of new-born empire, of a conquest renewing the glories of the days of Charlemagne. Visions of a hemisphere controlled from Versailles haunted the days of Francis the First, of the Grand Monarch, of Colbert and of Richelieu, and in the sky of national hope and over all was the Cross whose passion led the Church into the wilderness. The first emblem of sovereignty in the vast domain which Jacques Cartier claimed for Francis his royal master, was a cross whereon was inscribed-- _Franciscus Primus, Dei Gratiâ Francorum Rex, Regnat._ In spite of cruel neglect due to internal troubles and that European strife in which the motherland was engaged for so many generations, the eyes of Frenchmen turned to their over-sea dominions with imaginative hope, with conviction that the great continent of promise would renew in France the glories that were Greece and the grandeur that was Rome. How hard the patriotic colonists strove to retain those territories which Champlain, La Salle, Maisonneuve, Joliet, and so many others won through nameless toil and martyrdom, and how at last the broad lands passed to another race and another flag, not by fault or folly or lack of courage of the people, but by the criminal corruption of the ruling few, is the narrative which runs through these pages.