Tracy was a veteran of sixty-two, portly and tall, "one of the largest men I ever saw," writes Mother Mary (Marie de l'Incarnation), but he was sallow with disease, for fever had seized him, and it had fared ill with him on the long voyage. The Chevalier de Chaumont walked at his side, and young nobles surrounded him, gorgeous in lace and ribbons, and majestic in leonine wigs. Twenty-four guards in the King's livery led the way, followed by four pages and six valets; [82] and thus, while the Frenchmen shouted and the Indians stared, the august procession threaded the streets of the Lower Town, and climbed the steep pathway that scaled the cliffs above. Breathing hard, they reached the top, passed on the left the dilapidated walls of the Fort and the shed of mingled wood and masonry which then bore the name of the Castle de St. Louis; passed on the right the old house of Couillard and the site of Laval's new Seminary, and soon reached the square betwixt the Jesuit College and the Cathedral. The bells were ringing in a frenzy of welcome. Laval in pontificals, surrounded by priests and Jesuits, stood waiting to receive the Deputy of the King, and as he greeted Tracy and offered him the holy water, he looked with anxious curiosity to see what manner of man he was. The signs were auspicious. The deportment of the Lieutenant-General left nothing to desire. A _prie-dieu_ had been placed for him. He declined it. They offered him a cushion, but he would not have it, and fevered as he was, he knelt on the bare pavement with a devotion that edified every beholder. _Te Deum_ was sung and a day of rejoicing followed. [83] In our day, we can recall but one pageant at all equal: the roar of cannon, &c., attending the advent of the great Earl of Durham, [84] but there were noticeable fewer "priests," fewer "Jesuits," and less "kneeling" in the procession. There was something oriental in the vice- regal pageantry. Line-of-battle ships--stately frigates, twelve in number --the _Malabar_, _Hastings_, _Cornwallis_, _Inconstant_, _Hercules_, _Pique_, _Charybdis_, _Pearl_, _Vestal_, _Medea_, _Dee_ and _Andromache_ visited that summer our shores, a suitable escort to the able, proud, humane, [85] but unlucky Viceroy and High Commissioner, with his clever advisers--the Turtons, Bullers, Wakefields, Hansomes, Derbyshires, Dunkins, _cum multis aliis_. The Dictator was determined to "make a country or mar a career." He has left us a country. That warlike, though festive summer of 1838, with our port studded with three-deckers and spanking frigates, was long remembered in the annals of the _bon ton_. Some men-of-war were in especial favour. A poetical lament by the Quebec ladies was wafted to the departing officers of H. M. frigate _Inconstant_, the words by the Laureate of the period, George W. Wicksteed, of Ottawa. This effusion includes the names of every vessel in the fleet _in italics_, and of several of the officers.