Our Little Quebec CousinSaxe, Mary S. (Mary Sollace)
General
Our Little Quebec Cousin
Saxe, Mary S. (Mary Sollace)
Children -- Québec (Province) -- Juvenile literature
They did not drive up the steep hills in a calêche, nor did they take
the trolley, for Monsieur Tremblent knew of a short cut; he could
reach his mother's home more readily by walking one block in the lower
town and then taking an elevator, which runs right up the side of the
cliff and deposits its passengers on the Terrace, where the beautiful
Château Frontenac stands.
Already Oisette felt as though she were walking in the pages of
history: for she knew well the story of Samuel de Champlain, who had
founded this city so long ago. How he made friends with the Algonquins
and listened to their stories of rivers and lakes and boundless
forests, and how with them as allies he led the French in many wars
against the Iroquois, the most bloodthirsty of all Indian tribes; how
he bore the welfare of his colony upon his heart to the very end, dying
upon Christmas Day in 1635. He was buried close beside Fort St. Louis,
which is now the site of the beautiful hotel, the Château Frontenac.
This hostelry often shelters nowadays ten times the number of people
who made up the population of New France, as Canada was called in the
days when it was governed by the brave Champlain.
Think of it! At that date six white children represented young Canada,
and Madame de Champlain had scarcely any companions of her own sex,
save the three serving women who had come with her from France.
When the elevator deposited Monsieur Tremblent and Oisette Mary at the
top of the cliff, a short flight of steps brought them to the Champlain
monument, and here they paused to get the wonderful view of the St.
Lawrence as it widens to the sea. Here Monsieur Tremblent had a fine
opportunity to point out to his little girl many things of interest;
on the opposite shore was Levis, and from there one gets a trolley
along the river bank to the station where one can see the wonderful new
bridge, which has the largest span in the world, and which crosses the
river at such a height that the largest boats from over the ocean can
sail beneath it.
The tin roof and spire of a great church rises on that bank also. It
is the parish church of St. Romauld; this church contains very lovely
mural paintings done by an Old World artist some seventy-five years
ago. A wealthy priest spent all the money left by his mother's estate
in importing a young artist who had just won a grand prize in Paris,
and entertained him as his guest for three years, until the work was
done, and his paintings are growing more mellow and beautiful as the
years pass. Monsieur Tremblent had, as a small boy, been an acolyte in
that very church, and so little Oisette gazed with rapture at the roof
shining like a diamond in the morning sunshine.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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