Vividly, indeed, can we recall the busy aspect of its former counter, studded with gilt madonnas, rosaries, some in brass mountings, variegated Job beads for the million; others set in ebony and silver for rich _dévotes_, flanked with wax tapers, sparkling church ornaments, bronze crucifixes--backed with shelves of books bearing, some, the _visa_ of Monseigneur de Tours--the latter for the faithful; others in an inner room, without the _visa_--these for city _littérateurs_; whilst in a shady corner-cupboard, imported to order--sometimes without order-- stood a row of short-necked but robust bottles, labelled "_Grande Chartreuse_" and "_Bénédictine_," for the especial delectation of a few Quebec Brillat-Savarins--the _gourmets_! Monsieur Hamel, a sly, courteous, devout old bachelor, had a honied word, a holy, upturned glance, a jaunty welcome for all and every one of his numerous "dévotes" or fashionable _pratiques_. A small fortune was the result of the attention to business, thrift and correct calculations of this pink of French politeness. Monsieur Chas. Hamel, honoured by his familiars with the sobriquet "Lily Hamel," possibly because his urbanity was more than masculine, in fact, quite lady-like--the _crème de la crème_ of commercial suavity. This stand, frequented by the Quebec gentry from 1840 to 1865, had gradually become a favourite stopping place, a kind of half-way house, where many aged valetudinarians tarried a few minutes to gossip with friends equally aged, homeward bound, on bright winter afternoons, direct from their daily "constitutional" walk, as far as the turnpike on St. John's road. Professor Hubert Larue [75] will introduce us to some of the _habitués_ of this little club, which he styles _Le Club des Anciens_, a venerable brotherhood uniting choice spirits among city _littérateurs_, antiquarians, superannuated Militia officers, retired merchants: Messrs. Henry Forsyth, Long John Fraser, Lieut.-Colonel Benjamin LeMoine, F. X. Garneau, G. B. Faribault, P. A. De Gaspé, Commissary-General Jas. Thompson, Major Lafleur, Chs. Pinguet, the valiant Captain of the City Watch in 1837. The junior members counted from fifty to sixty summers; their seniors had braved some sixty or seventy winters. After discussing the news of the day, local antiquities and improvements, there were certain topics, which possessed the secret of being to them eternally young, irresistibly attractive: the thrilling era of Colonel De Salaberry and General Sir Isaac Brock; the Canadian _Voltigeurs_, [76] the American War of 1812-14, where a few of these veterans had clanked their sabres and sported their epaulettes, &c. With the exception of an esteemed and aged Quebec merchant, Long John Fraser, all now sleep the long sleep, under the green sward and leafy shades of Mount Hermon or Belmont cemeteries, or in the moist vaults of some city monastery.